Abstract
This chapter focuses on libertarian social democracy in the economic realm. After clarifying some key terms, an argument for a libertarian mixed economy is presented, addressing both economically liberal (i.e., pro-market) and left-wing class struggle counterarguments. As a starting point for balancing public and private, I treat the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a primary source – specifically the right to property (Article 17) and positive rights to public goods and services (Articles 22–26). Next, I discuss the goal of applying libertarianism to the mixed economy, addressing collective action problems in the public sphere, and regulation in the private sphere.
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Notes
- 1.
It may be useful at this point to clarify this book’s distinction between the political realm (Chap. 2) and the economic realm (Chap. 3), and how that distinction relates to the public and private economic spheres. The political realm here refers to laws, regulations, and legal procedures of the demos (i.e., the populace of a particular polity). The economic realm refers to the production and allocation of goods and services, by actors in either the public or private economic spheres (defined below). The laws, regulations, and policymaking procedures of the political realm are applied to the public economic sphere by definition but can also be applied more or less to the private economic sphere. Property rights (recognized in Article 17 of the UDHR) demarcate the public from the private economic spheres and determine the extent to which the political realm can justly infringe on the private economic sphere. Except for Article 17, the UDHR’s “first generation” classic liberal rights (Articles 3–21) primarily concern civil rights and liberties in the political realm, rather than goods and services production of the economic realm. Meanwhile, the UDHR’s “second generation” socialist rights (Articles 22–26) recognize rights to a basic set of goods and services and thus potentially concern both the public and private economic spheres.
- 2.
According to Wetzel (2022, p. 159) under socialism, there is no private ownership of the (non-human) means of production. By contrast, rather than viewing the economic system as a whole as either socialist or capitalist, I describe each particular sector as either public or private in a broader context of a mixed economy.
- 3.
British Broadcasting Corporation. (2021, August 7). Cuba allows small and medium-sized private businesses. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-58132000
- 4.
In the previous chapter, the terms formal and informal were used to distinguish state from non-state institutions, respectively. By contrast, in the comparative welfare systems literature, the informal sector refers to welfare services provided by family, friends, or neighbors, while the formal sector includes the state, as well as market, and non-profit sectors (Powell, 2019b, p. 113).
- 5.
According to Schubert, Dye, and Zeigler (2014, p. 66), “The formal division of power in a corporation is between the board of directors, elected by the shareholders, and the company executives, hired and fired by the board. The board sets policy; management operates the company.”
- 6.
Robert Reich (2015, p. 201) describes co-determination in Germany as follows: “corporate laws require ‘co-determination,’ with a management board overseeing day-to-day operations and a supervisory board for more high-level decisions. Depending on the size of the company, up to half of the members of the supervisory board represent employees rather than share-holders. Workers on the shop floor are also represented by works councils, or Betriebsrate.”
- 7.
Some aspects of market societies are trust-based, such as trust that a loan will be paid back (i.e., credit), and trust in the value of money (i.e., currency strength). Caplan and Weinersmith (2019, p. 103) also suggest that, at the societal level, a moderate level of trust might be more conducive to economic prosperity than either an extreme lack of trust or being highly trusting.
- 8.
Alluding to the primacy of the profit motive driving private investment, David Ricardo (1962 [1821], p. 283) writes, “It is not the price at which corn can be produced that has any influence on the quantity produced, but the price at which it can be sold. It is in proportion to the degree of the difference of its price above or below the cost of production that capital is attracted to or repelled from the land.”
- 9.
Resembling this market anarchist view, Albertus and Menaldo (2018) argue that private enterprise itself is not problematic but rather the distortion of markets by political elites on behalf of insider economic elites. However, in contrast to market anarchism, they also argue that egalitarian (as opposed to elite-biased) democracies are less likely to engage in this type of market distorting behavior, implying that cronyism won’t necessarily be a major problem under a state.
- 10.
The notion of a public economic sphere as used here is distinct from Jurgen Habermas’ deliberative vision of a public sphere, in which “High-quality public opinion forms [and] where private citizens can discuss and scrutinize government actions in an open and critical manner” (paraphrased by Jacobs & Shapiro, 2000, p. 308). The deliberative process described by Habermas could, however, be a guiding principle for the management of organizations within the public economic sphere.
- 11.
For example, during the COVID-19 crisis in 2020–21, the City of Cortland, New York cancelled bus fare for riders. Way 2 Go Cortland. (2021, June 29). Fare collection to resume. https://www.way2gocortland.org/post/fare-collection-to-resume
- 12.
Other regulatory mechanisms in the public sphere can also be identified. For instance, in public colleges and universities, student course evaluations (and the consideration of such evaluations by tenure-approving committees) may also have a regulatory affect by providing course instructors with a strong incentive to perform well.
- 13.
Philosophy Workout 2. (2018, March 15). Practical Anarchy: The Freedom of the Future [Video; 05:16:45]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlwOtHab44U
- 14.
Condit (2019, p. 81) also uses these terms, writing, “The municipality is an instrument of the statist system, but it is also a possible resource for prefiguring non- or post-statist alternatives.”
- 15.
For example, the American Public Power Association, a pro-municipalization group, notes that public electricity utilities are “usually a division of local government.” American Public Power Association. (n.d.). Municipalization. Retrieved January 20, 2023, from https://www.publicpower.org/municipalization. Sam Gindin highlights the possibility of municipalizing ownership of hospitals, schools, utilities, energy distribution, transportation, housing, and communications, along with the creation of local community planning councils to manage them. Gindin, S. (2019, March 6). We Need to Say What Socialism Will Look Like. Jacobin. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/03/sam-gindin-socialist-planning-models
- 16.
Burley, S. (2020, March 27). Amid the coronavirus crisis, mutual aid networks erupt across the country. Waging Nonviolence. https://wagingnonviolence.org/2020/03/coronavirus-mutual-aid-networks-erupt-across-country/
- 17.
Kropotkin, P. (1902). Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution. The Anarchist Library. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-mutual-aid-a-factor-of-evolution
- 18.
Edwards, J. (2021, April 27). Inside the Brooklyn Fridge that Started a Mutual Aid movement. BK Reader. https://www.bkreader.com/2021/04/27/inside-the-brooklyn-fridge-that-started-a-mutual-aid-movement/
- 19.
Sam Gindin calls for “layers of planning” including workplace collectives, sectoral councils, regional councils, markets (“as an indirect form of planning”), and a central planning board, as well as “political mechanisms to establish national goals.” Gindin also identifies various “mechanisms of planning: direct administrative, consultative, iterative negotiations, decisions through delegated bodies, direct cooperation, markets with widely different degrees of freedom.” Gindin, S. (2019, March 6). We Need to Say What Socialism Will Look Like. Jacobin. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/03/sam-gindin-socialist-planning-models
- 20.
Michael Reagan (2021, p. 73) mentions that the labor theory of value was eventually adopted by opponents of capitalism as well who argued that, according to the theory, the workers rather than the employers should own what they produce.
- 21.
Such an observation is, of course, not limited to economic liberals. For instance, comparative politics researchers Albertus and Menaldo (2018) refer to “insider economic elites” who benefit from cozy relationships with political elites.
- 22.
For an insightful discussion of this topic, see: Gindin, S. (2019, March 6). We Need to Say What Socialism Will Look Like. Jacobin. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/03/sam-gindin-socialist-planning-models
- 23.
Contrary to this assertion, some plausible ideas for socialist planning have been developed (e.g., see Wetzel, 2022, pp. 357–66).
- 24.
Some advocates of freed markets refer to their ideas as a type of market socialism (i.e., based on worker-owned cooperatives). However, in this chapter, I will use the term “socialism” in reference to a model, which can be applied to the public (rather than private) economic sphere.
- 25.
Kropotkin, P. (1902). Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution. The Anarchist Library. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-mutual-aid-a-factor-of-evolution
- 26.
For instance, archeologists recently discovered evidence of non-hierarchical communal living in Kenya. Burke, J. (2018, August 20). Kenya burial site shows community spirit of herders 5000 years ago. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/aug/20/kenya-burial-site-shows-community-spirit-of-herders-5000-years-ago. Another recent study found that indigenous peoples sustainably managed much of Earth’s land for thousands of years prior to colonialism. Rosane, O. (2021, April 21). Humans Sustainably Managed Much of Earth’s Lands for Thousands of Years, Study Affirms. EcoWatch. https://www.ecowatch.com/indigenous-land-conservation-earth-history-2652676314.html
- 27.
Taylor, S. (2020, August 20). Humans aren’t inherently selfish – we’re actually hardwired to work together. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/humans-arent-inherently-selfish-were-actually-hardwired-to-work-together-144145
- 28.
Some democratic socialists such as Thomas Piketty and Sam Gindin seem to accept something like a mixed economy. For instance, Gindin writes that “Markets will be necessary under socialism.” However, Gindin also rejects the idea of commodified labor markets on the grounds that it “robs workers of that human capacity” to create based on their own plans. Gindin, S. (2019, March 6). We Need to Say What Socialism Will Look Like. Jacobin. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/03/sam-gindin-socialist-planning-models. Meanwhile, Ben Burgis also promotes a sort of mixed economy consisting of nationalized “commanding heights” (big finance, health care, and education) while the remaining private sector is converted to cooperative worker-controlled firms. Burgis, B. (2020, May 21). Capitalism Isn’t Working. But What Would a Viable Socialist System Look Like? Jacobin. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/05/capitalism-socialism-cooperatives-market-nhs-democracy
- 29.
Market anarchists – part of the individualist camp of anarchism – sometimes describe their position as being located on the libertarian left of the ideological space (e.g., the Center for a Stateless Society). However, I use the more conventional (and arguably conceptually valid) description of the left-right dimension with advocates of collectivism and communism located on the left and advocates of markets on the right. By that convention, left-right position is determined by one’s view regarding the extent to which a society’s goods and services should be commodified.
- 30.
Mutualism occupies a sort of middle ground in that it advocates worker-owned and managed cooperatives functioning in a market environment.
- 31.
Wittorff, D. (2017, June 4). Democracy: Self-Government or Systemic Powerlessness? Center 4 Stateless Society. https://c4ss.org/content/49249
- 32.
Echoing this point from a more moderate perspective, Robert Reich (2015) emphasizes that before the fields of economics and politics were separated in the twentieth century, the field of political economy was premised on the assumption that economic and political power were closely interrelated.
- 33.
According to Piketty (2020, ch. 11), the twentieth century social democracies failed to fully achieve and sustain egalitarian societies due to an insufficiently ambitious and systematic use of social ownership (power sharing within firms) and temporary ownership (wealth redistribution), as well as a failure to update social democratic ideas for the age of neoliberal globalization. Similarly, I would argue that the post-war mixed economies were ultimately not sustained because the other major prerequisites for libertarian social democracy (political institutions conducive to anarchism, the abolition of class, and an anarchistic culture) were still more-or-less lacking.
- 34.
According to Reich (2015, p. 40): “Unlike the old monopolists, who controlled production, the new monopolists control networks [e.g., Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon]. Antitrust laws often busted up the old monopolists. But the new monopolists have enough influence to keep antitrust at bay.” Another contemporary monopoly/oligopoly in the USA is the “big four” commercial airlines: Delta, American, United, and Southwest. Stewart, E. (2021, July 15). America’s monopoly problem stretches far beyond big tech. Vox. https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2021/7/15/22578388/biden-hearing-aids-executive-order-lina-khan. Also, the production of most US baby formula by three large companies – Abbott, Gerber, and Reckitt – was cited as a reason for the formula shortage in 2022. Leonhardt, D. (2022, May 13). The Baby Formula Crisis. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/13/briefing/baby-formula-shortage-us-economy.html
- 35.
Democracy Now. (2020, July 30). Noam Chomsky: Decades of “the Neoliberal Plague” Left U.S. Unprepared for COVID-19 Outbreak. https://www.democracynow.org/2020/7/30/noam_chomsky_coronavirus_trump_response
- 36.
Illing, S. (2020, December 10). How a New Hampshire libertarian utopia was foiled by bears. Vox. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-project-new-hampshire-libertarians-matthew-hongoltz-hetling
- 37.
A similar “middle-ground” view of human nature might be found in peoples’ tendency to seek reciprocity with others (Pinker, 2002, p. 303). Reciprocity is neither purely selfish (as it implies mutual gain), nor is it as altruistic as, say, anonymously giving to the poor (the second highest of Maimonides Eight Levels of Charity). Bookchin (2005, p. 117) also views reciprocity as somewhat more self-interested than usufruct practiced in many pre-state societies.
- 38.
Kropotkin, P. (1902). Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution. The Anarchist Library. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-mutual-aid-a-factor-of-evolution
- 39.
Chartier (2020, pp. 99–100) describes regulatory capture as occurring where “Regulators who are expected to ride hard on a given industry are often people drawn from that industry.” In many cases of regulatory capture, “members [of the regulatory bodies] are appointed by politicians who are funded by the corporations” (Wetzel, 2022, p. 109).
- 40.
A universal basic income could also reduce peoples’ reliance on private sector work (Reich, 2015, p. 215). However, without a properly balanced mixed economy, I expect most workers would still be channeled toward the private sector for employment opportunities, raising the risk of excessive wealth accumulation.
- 41.
Consistent with this argument, some studies have found a negative relationship between public sector employment and inequality. For instance, in his study of the UK from 1986 to 1995, Grimshaw (2000) concludes that “the relatively centralised pay arrangements in the public sector [helped slow] the increase in wage inequality.” Other studies have found a positive relationship between privatization and inequality across European countries (Peña-Miguel & Cuadrado-Ballesteros, 2021), and in Western China (Bakkeli, 2017).
- 42.
Amadej, G. (2017, June 13). The Regime of Liberty. Center 4 Stateless Society. https://c4ss.org/content/49334
- 43.
In Capital, Volume I, Marx (1961a [1887], p. 299) underscored the disadvantages facing non-unionized laborers: “The history of the regulation of the working-day in certain branches of production, and the struggle still going on in others in regard to this regulation, prove conclusively that the isolated labourer, the labourer as ‘free’ vendor of his labour-power, when capitalist production has once attained a certain stage, succumbs without any power of resistance.”
- 44.
Consistent with the idea that full employment empowers workers (even without strong unions), Reich (2015, p. 124) recalls that, during the Clinton administration, “the rate of unemployment became so low that hourly workers gained enough bargaining power to get higher wages.” More recently, a labor shortage developed in May of 2021 in the USA, and large employers began to offer higher wages. Leonhardt, D. (2021, May 20). The myth of labor shortages. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/20/briefing/labor-shortages-covid-wages.html
- 45.
In this sense, I agree with Chartier (2020, p. 116) that “Participatory management and the protection of workers’ interests are quite possible without union.” However, where they are formed, “Good-faith negotiation with a union can be an appropriate means of respecting and empowering workers” (p. 117).
- 46.
Even in egalitarian democracies such as Sweden, “The crown jewel of income leveling was an informal institution pioneered in the late 1930s: centralized wage bargaining” (Albertus & Menaldo, 2018, p. 117).
- 47.
In the current context, small businesses are too numerous, diverse in size, and lacking in financial assets to challenge corporate political dominance (Domhoff, 2006, p. 42). In a post-revolution setting, we might similarly expect small and medium sized enterprises to be unable to challenge the public sphere, ensuring the robustness of the latter.
- 48.
Street, P. (2017, April 29). The Many-Sided, Overlapping Meanings of May Day. Truthdig. http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_many-sided_overlapping_meanings_of_may_day_20170429
- 49.
Consistent with the idea that public sector job opportunities deprive capitalists of workers, in a cross-national study, Behar and Mok (2019) find that higher levels of public sector employment are negatively correlated with private sector employment. (A potential downside to this pattern, they argue, is a net increase in unemployment rates if private sector jobs are “crowded out”).
- 50.
The UDHR adoption in 1948 was arguably an example of John Rawls’ (1971) idea of objectively just institutions being created from behind a veil of ignorance. That event might also be viewed as an example of a Rousseauian General Will (guided by the general interest) (Rousseau, 1987 [1762], Bk. II, Ch. 3). After all, the framers of the UDHR “believed they had found a core of principles so basic that no nation would wish openly to disavow them” (Glendon, 2001, p. xviii). On the other hand, the UDHR adoption could also be viewed as a Will of All (the sum of private interests), as the great powers launched the human rights project as a concession to small countries and in response to humanitarian civil society groups (ibid, p. xv).
- 51.
Some anarchists argue against the use of human rights as a standard for socially just institutions. For example, Bob Black refers to “the hoopla about universal and objectively existing human rights” warning that “Anarchists are at risk of being drawn into reformism by taking up this particular cause.” Black, B. (2015). Notes on “Post-Left Anarchism.” The Anarchist Library. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/bob-black-notes-on-post-left-anarchism
- 52.
The question of property rights “occasioned much debate” among the UDHR’s framers. For instance, it was opposed by the UK’s Labour Government on the grounds that property was so extensively regulated that it made no sense to speak of a right to ownership (Glendon, 2001, p. 182).
- 53.
By contrast, in The Holy Family, Marx and Engels observed (from a dialectical-scientific, rather than a rational choice perspective) that, in his 1840 book What is Property?, “Proudhon subjects private property […] to a critical examination […and thus presents] for the first time, the possibility of making political economy a true science” (quoted in Price, 2013, p. 8).
- 54.
According to the negative liberty view, “markets are free when buyer and seller, or parties to a contract, make an informed decision that isn’t coerced” (Wetzel, 2022, p. 27).
- 55.
Overlapping with the UDHR’s “equality pillar,” University of California, Riverside professor Matthew Snyder calls for universal access to “The Golden Square”: food, shelter, healthcare, and education. The Future is a Mixtape. (2020, August 27). 031: The No-Bullshit Blueprint for Socialism. https://www.thefutureisamixtape.com/episodes/2020/8/27/031-the-no-bullshit-blueprint-for-socialism
- 56.
One could justifiably extend the rights minimum from the UDHR to the wider body of international human rights law built upon it. As Glendon (2001, p. xvi) explains, the UDHR “is the parent document, the primary inspiration, for most rights instruments in the world today.” For example, the right to clean drinking water is not explicitly recognized in the equality pillar of the UDHR or the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). However, this right has been recognized in the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (Article 14) as well as the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (Article 24).
- 57.
In contrast to Reich (2015, p. 215), Inglehart (2018, p. 207) argues that a universal basic income would be an inadequate solution for the USA today, as it doesn’t provide a sense of purpose to the masses. For instance, referring to the high death rates of the unemployed from opioids, Inglehart notes that “They are dying, not from starvation but from leading pointless lives.”
- 58.
These baseline property rules are adopted from Chartier (2020, p. 51). I do not analyze here in-depth the different arguments regarding what counts as a just initial property acquisition (and subsequent exclusion from that property). Spafford (2020, p. 337) suggests a potentially just guideline, according to which “each person should limit her holdings to just the resources assigned to her by the relevant egalitarian principle of distributive justice (e.g., the resources that will allow her to live as good of a life as everyone else).”
- 59.
Krugman and Wells mention an “80–20 rule”: 80% of health care costs are borne by 20% of consumers in the USA. “Think coronary bypass operations, dialysis, and chemotherapy, not a visit to the family physician about a sore throat.” Krugman P., & Wells, R. (2010, September 30). The Slump Goes On: Why? New York Review. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2010/09/30/slump-goes-why/
- 60.
While a review of intellectual property legal theory would be useful here, my comments will focus primarily on the general guideposts suggested above.
- 61.
Currently, intellectual property patents can be obtained only if the Patent and Trademark Office deems the idea “new and useful” (Reich, 2015). Pointing to a key normative tradeoff regarding patents and copyrights, Reich (2015, p. 20) asks, “What’s the proper balance between giving would-be inventors enough ownership that they’re motivated to invent and giving the public affordable access to their discoveries?”
- 62.
In a similar vein, Wetzel (2022, p. 35) argues that “self-management is about control over decisions ‘to the extent you are affected by them’.” Also relevant, Ansell and Torfing (2021, p. 243), in their argument for co-creation of public services, emphasize the importance of participation among those most directly affected.
- 63.
That is, if there was an objectively correct, or “certainly just” balance between public and private (from behind a Rawlsian veil of ignorance), then a less democratic top-down imposition of that standard onto the community might itself be procedurally justified. However, since such matters are often essentially contested, democratic procedure is equal liberty maximizing.
- 64.
Another form of worker remuneration is the voucher, which might not rely on revenues generated via state taxation. For instance, in the Parecon model, workers earn “effort rating credits” (similar to a voucher) rather than a monetary paycheck. Karl Marx (1961b [1893], p. 358) distinguishes money from vouchers in Capital, Volume II as follows: “In the case of socialized production the money-capital is eliminated. Society distributes labour-power and means of production to the different branches of production. The producers may, for all it matters, receive paper vouchers entitling them to withdraw from the social supplies of consumer goods a quantity corresponding to their labour-time. These vouchers are not money. They do not circulate.”
- 65.
Sam Gindin states plausibly that “Scarcity – the need to make choices between alternative uses of labor time and resources – is unlikely to end outside of utopian fantasies because popular demands, even when transformed into collective/socialist demands, are remarkably elastic: they can continue to grow.” Gindin, S. (2019, March 6). We Need to Say What Socialism Will Look Like. Jacobin. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/03/sam-gindin-socialist-planning-models
- 66.
Discussing the enclosure movement in England, Frieden, Lake, and Schultz (2019, p. 546) observe that “Once the commons was divided up among villagers and each person’s share was fenced in – with the aristocracy getting a disproportionate share in most cases – landowners had incentives to manage their holdings more efficiently.”
- 67.
Exemplifying such an appreciation for the environment, Condit (2019, p. 126), recalling a moment from Savonlinna, Finland, writes, “Some years ago, the technical department, without prior notification, began to fell some trees in a woods near my house. By lucky chance, I was at home. I intervened in time to save some trees until the workmen checked with their superiors. They never returned and the woods still stand, home to birds, insects, small mammals and foxes, with the occasional lynx passing through in winter. They too are residents of the city, and anarchist praxis must represent them.”
- 68.
Game theory analyzes strategic interactions between two or more rational (i.e., utility maximizing) actors. The prisoners’ dilemma is a particular game theory scenario in which each actor (the two prisoners) has a choice between cooperating (not snitching on their co-defendant) or defecting (snitching). The ideal outcome (that yielding the shortest sentence) for both actors is to defect while the co-defendant cooperates. The worst outcome is to cooperate while the co-defendant defects. Because both actors prefer to defect regardless of what the other actor does, they end up with a sub-optimal outcome (receiving a longer sentence than they would have received had they been able to cooperate). The prisoners’ dilemma is sometimes used as an analogy for a Hobbesian state of nature in which people tend to free ride by stealing from each other rather than making a productive contribution to the economy (Clark et al., 2013, pp. 100–8).
- 69.
Remote Area Medical (RAM) was a US-based non-profit organization established in 1992 to provide medical relief in Latin America. RAM, which relied totally on small individual donations and voluntary workers, had at one point provided health care to 920 patients in Knoxville, Tennessee, over a single weekend! In 2007, RAM treated approximately 17,000 patients overall. After 60 minutes ran a story on RAM operations in 2008, the organization saw a sharp increase in donations, generating $2.5 million in about 7 months. Pelley, S. (2008, February 28). US Health Care gets boost from charity. CBS News. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-health-care-gets-boost-from-charity/
- 70.
Pacifica Radio describes itself as public radio and, unlike the state sector which relies on compulsory tax-based financing, depends entirely on voluntary contributions from listeners during the various fund drives held by Pacifica Radio’s local affiliates throughout the year. Despite the challenges of sustaining Pacifica’s “fiercely independent” listener sponsored radio, the Pacifica Broadcasting network has remained on the air for decades and has maintained its journalistic independence.
- 71.
Also see: Burley, S. (2020, March 27). Amid the coronavirus crisis, mutual aid networks erupt across the country. Waging Nonviolence. https://wagingnonviolence.org/2020/03/coronavirus-mutual-aid-networks-erupt-across-country/
- 72.
Making a similar observation in African Politics in Comparative Perspective, Hyden (2013, p. 88) observes that “as the state becomes stronger and more important in allocating resources in society, the relative importance of kinship networks diminishes.”
- 73.
Justin B. Gifford, a Physician Assistant and former Army Combat Medic, provides a useful overview of how a libertarian communalist health care system might be organized, although the potential issue of insufficient health care volunteers is not addressed. Gifford, J. B. (2020, July 20). Reclaiming public health: the communalist healthcare model. Roar Magazine. https://roarmag.org/essays/social-ecology-communalist-healthcare/
- 74.
Of course, it is possible that state-based health care services will fail to achieve universal coverage just as mutual aid organizations may succeed in doing so. For example, Colin Ward (2011, p. 275) refers to the “Tredegar Medical Aid Society, founded in 1870 [Britain], which provided medical and hospital care for everyone in the district.”
- 75.
Kropotkin, P. (1902). Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution. The Anarchist Library. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-mutual-aid-a-factor-of-evolution
- 76.
Millett, S. (1997). Neither State Nor Market: An Anarchist Perspective on Social Welfare. The Anarchist Library. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/steve-millett-neither-state-nor-market
- 77.
Kropotkin provided a description of such a prefigurative mosaic in a 1905 article written for The Encyclopedia Britannica. There, Kropotkin envisioned that, after a revolution, voluntary associations would “substitute themselves for the state in all its functions. They would represent an interwoven network, composed of an infinite variety of groups and federations of all sizes and degrees, local, regional, national, and international – temporary or more or less permanent – for all possible purposes: production, consumption and exchange, communications, sanitary arrangements, education, mutual protection, defense of the territory, and so on” (Kropotkin, 2002 [1909], p. 284).
- 78.
For example, in July of 2021, the State of Texas began incarcerating immigrants by charging them with state crimes such as trespassing. Democracy Now. (2021, July 22). Texas Starts Jailing Immigrants on State Charges After Crossing U.S. Border. https://www.democracynow.org/2021/7/22/headlines/texas_starts_jailing_immigrants_on_state_charges_after_crossing_us_border
- 79.
The economic liberal argument would seem to predict that firm entry (a measure of competition) should have increased as regulations declined overall during the neoliberal era. However, since 1978 firm entry rates have actually declined in the USA (Reich, 2015, p. 30). This could be interpreted as evidence that neoliberal deregulation has increased capital accumulation more than it has promoted market competition. On the other hand, outsourcing and technological change (themselves conferring certain benefits from a comparative advantage perspective) might explain some of this decline in firm entry.
- 80.
Similar to Wetzel’s view, “Bakunin predicted that a completely state-run economy would develop a new ruling class from better-paid workers and socialist intellectuals” (Price, 2013, p. 107).
- 81.
An important exception is the voucher, which can be allocated without state coercion (Wetzel, 2022). Highlighting the distinction between voucher-based and monetary incomes, the Parecon website explains that “[Voucher-based] Income, and therefore currency in a Participatory Economy is non-transferrable […] currency is simply an accounting unit used to keep track of consumption rights.” Participatory Economy Project. (n.d.). Is there money in a Participatory Economy? Retrieved August 25, 2022, from https://participatoryeconomy.org/faqs/is-there-money-in-a-participatory-economy/
- 82.
Kropotkin, P. (1902). Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution. The Anarchist Library. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-mutual-aid-a-factor-of-evolution
- 83.
- 84.
For example, in the UK, the NHS enjoys a “sacred status” among the public (Miller, 2019, p. 78). Even within the USA, “By the early 1900s, there was also a major growth in the movement for public ownership of the streetcar companies […] and utilities such as water, electric power, and telephone grids” (Wetzel, 2022, p. 108). Also, the progressive tax systems used in the USA and UK in the mid-twentieth century “is part of our common heritage” (Piketty, 2020, p. 454). Moreover, in Sweden after World War II, the major parties “came to accept the basic tenets of social democracy” (Acemoglu & Robinson, 2019, p. 471; Albertus & Menaldo, 2018, p. 174).
- 85.
For example, university tuition fees in the USA have increased from insignificant after World War II to a comparatively high level today. In the area of health care, Acemoglu and Robinson (2019, p. 332) note that, in the USA, “When Obamacare attempted to introduce a public option to give people access to low-cost insurance, this was shot down for being too reliant on the public sector.”
- 86.
In his book Saving Capitalism, Robert Reich (2015, pp. 83–84), describes these cycles as follows: “The [market] mechanism creates and perpetuates a vicious cycle: Economic dominance feeds political power, and political power further enlarges economic dominance.” Meanwhile, there can also be “a virtuous cycle in which widely shared prosperity generates more inclusive political institutions, which in turn organize the market in ways that further broaden the gains from growth and expand opportunity.”
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Williams, B. (2023). Anarchism in the Economic Realm. In: Anarchism and Social Revolution . Contributions to Political Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39462-1_3
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