Everyday Communism
It's normal
When we talk about economics we are usually talking about a web of exchanges. Exchanges supposedly occur between equals without coercion and when done are done - the participants can just walk away from each other. Even gifting has an aspect of exchange because there is an expectation of reciprocity in a suitably disguised way. Gifting is a very subtle social dance that still involves a system of exchange transactions. Our whole economic narrative focuses almost exclusively on that web of exchange transactions. A lot of our political narrative about self respect and freedom is informed by that web of exchanges. We are supposed to be honest and give fair value for what we get. And once the transaction is done each is free to get on with their lives without worrying about the other. So the economic narrative ends up driving society to become more and more individualistic to the extent that economists can use the same mathematical tools to model economies as physicists use to understand gasses.
It's the statistics of non-connected particles bouncing around in a box where the energy exchange on each transaction perfectly balances. But do we really need to be so obsessed with equal exchange transactions?
I've looked at the idea of a very generous economic stipend that provides people the base income they need to participate in the exchange economy.
It drives some people crazy - it would mean giving people money for nothing - it completely subverts the dominant economic narrative.
Even though people would still be using money and there would still be a market the whole idea of fair value would go out the window. And once people had a stipend like that the stories we tell ourselves about freedom and self respect would have to change. We'd be the same people but we'd be into a time where we'd need a new narrative to account for freedom and self respect.
It's pretty hard to imagine what such a society would be like - but maybe we don't have to imagine it - we live it every day without realizing it. That is we are immersed in an everyday communist society without realizing it - it's sort of like the air we breathe and we take it for granted.
For example - any company's internal economy is basically communist. At my workplace a co-worker and I have a running joke. When I ask her for something, a pen, a document, some advise, whatever; she says "That will cost $100". I tell her to charge the Boss.
When I'm doing my work then I'm entitled to whatever resources the company has to help me get the job done. This is so normal that we don't even think of it as economic activity - but without that kind of communism all economic activity would cease. It's hard for us to think everyday communism as economic because it is completely outside of the narrative about the web of equal exchange transactions that we use to think about economics.
Everyday communism pervades every other aspect of our lives too.
At home we say things like "pass the salt" all the time without ever imagining it to be a transaction because we'd never think of exchanging pepper for the salt. Or you're out driving in a storm and get stuck and people just help pull you out. People would get insulted if you tried to pay.
Boy Scouts help old women across the street (durned commie kids).
Notice the sorts of situations where we find Everyday Communism - situations where the necessity of equal exchange just wouldn't be very efficient or effective. Why would it make any sense for a company to make it's workers go to the extra trouble of having equal exchanges to get what they need to do their work? And would it really be sane even for people to engage in equal exchange transactions for everything with the people they love? Would it make sense to make babies pay for mother's milk?
What do you think?
I present regular philosophy discussions in a virtual reality called Second Life.
I set a topic and people come as avatars and sit around a virtual table to discuss it.
Each week I write a short essay to set the topic.
I show a selection of them here.