Sometimes in depictions of anarchist / socialist societies, people frame a large part of how pro-social labor is done by saying that people devote a certain number of hours per week to it, or a certain percentage of their overall working hours.
I think the problem with this framing is that it imagines a world where “private” labor, which benefits only one, and “public” labor, which benefits the whole, are separate and definable.
I think this is logic that comes from our current understanding of labor relations, and is often tied to historical state-communists movements. In our current systems around the globe, there are two main forces that demand labor and organize systems of labor management and infrastructure; capitalism, and the state. These we call private and public. The private labor is that for capital, the public labor is that for the state. The role of state-communist movements is to transition as much labor as possible into the realm of the state. However, this is fairly antithetical to anarchism. Certainly, these state communists claim their forced labor is prosocial, and so many unquestionably accept this. But I think it is worth exploring what it might look like to explore labor conceptions outside of this dichotomy.
In an ideal world, people do labor because they value that labor, not because they are forced. Force is the unifying factor between the current “public and private sectors”.
People might value labor for many different reasons. The most common being the intrinsic value of joy. Many people enjoy many tasks that are highly socially beneficial. Growing, digging, harvesting, operating heavy machinery, painting, building, factory work, all of these strike joy for many people, especially when those people know the work they are doing is directly beneficial to them and to other people in the world.
The question that often comes from this understanding of labor is as follows: “But how would we get people to do less joyful tasks? And how would we ensure people are doing labor in proportion to need?” I think this is answered very simply. Education. With adequate opt-in tracking of needs, and public facing education around needs and deficits, a non coerced public with plenty of free time will spring into action to fill those needs. They will form collectives, syndicates, and organizations focused on ensuring that those needs are met. Even when doing labor that they find frustrating, the very act of that labor being in line with their values and keeping their society operational will encourage them to not only do the work, but take pride in it. We see this already in the activists communities of today, or in old retirees putting their last ounce of effort towards helping their communities, or in working people using their one day off a month to volunteer to clean up after a hurricane. People will do even hard and grueling work if they value that work. The will do so without being forced, often without leaders, and often simply because they know it would be helpful to do and they know they can do it.
This is ultimately the greatest draw towards anarchism, and its largest promise; that we can live in a world where people cannot force you to labor, they have to convince you of the value of that labor.
Many worry that certain things will not be done that are done now, and this is certainly true. The ceo and congressmen will not exist, and the threat behind their employment will not either. The silly systems by which we make decisions on human labor will not exist as they do now. For a time, we may have less movies and tv shows, because those making them cannot convince others that the projects are worth the effort. Then, after a time, we may have a great increase in production of these, as those who are very interested in making meaningful projects come together to see them done.
There will be a sense of urgency to the labor of the people. We know what our lives require. We know that we want food, shelter, love, entertainment, medicine, and so much more. If no one else is being forced to shoulder this labor for us, we know that that If we do not grow it, we will not eat it. If we do not build it, we cannot live inside it. This alone will drive the production of most things that truly need to be produced. Ensuring people produce pro-socially really comes down to having the society value that which needs produced. If I care about housing, I will help build houses, or at least cheer on those who do while I do other helpful work. If I care about public transportation, I will help build those projects, and write proposals for new ones, and I will go to people and ask that they build them with me.
What is private labor or public labor in this system is endlessly blurry and not something that can be tallied. Even if we somehow chose to categorize labor so rigidly as to only count that which someone had defined as “for the public good”, the act of choosing what kinds of labor count, and providing sanctions against those who do not meet that number, would require state formation to enforce. The desire to *control* is the issue here.
In reality, an anarchist society must be a gift economy - one where everyone takes from the whole, and gives to the whole. The understanding of labor in such a society cannot be split. All labor done is part of the whole, all needs are part of that whole. Social responsibility is the ultimate driver of whether or not all needs get met. People can specialize, they need not ever grow food themselves to be fed, but only if other in the system also choose to do their labor. It is ultimately responsibility and trust that an anarchist society is built upon, and a culture which encourages that responsibility, enables us for it, and teaches us that it is possible to trust.
This is why so much of the work of anarchy is care work. Taking care of people and providing for them in ways that enable them to make their own decisions and choose. Helping them work through traumas and gain the education required to see the earth clearly, to see the many roles they could play in its functioning, and to create a role unique and fulfilling for them.
The biggest true concern that even anarchists seem to harbor deep in our fears when we discuss this topic is whether or not the logistical apparatuses to facilitate this mass of labor can exist without hierarchy and control, and whether or not we are capable of building that infrastructure.
For this, I look towards communications infrastructure for answers. The construction of social media communication systems built upon mutual aid as their foundation has every possibility to bridge so many of these gaps.
Also, moreso, I think we are incredibly lucky. We are not building this system after the collapse of all infrastructure, in some post apocalyptic world. We are building it in a time where a great many needs are already met, and a large apparatus of infrastructure already exists. Our role, then, is not to build something from scratch and feed everyone tomorrow. It is to build systems of mutual aid labor logistics that can, over time, remove people’s reliance of capital and the state. The process is the goal. Building a system by which we can take care of each other is what we seek to do. We also seek to destroy capital and the state, but these processes are one and the same. The building of the new world within the shell of the old, requisitioning pieces of it, reusing its waste; these are our first steps. In this process, we will become the sort of people who can live in the world we want to see, and we will see the early models of its later large scale operation. You will go there; simply begin the journey now.
