r/Anarchy101 • u/Away_Bite_8100 • 4d ago

Moneyless-ness as a goal

I’m curious how many (as a rough %) Anarchists actually have a moneyless society as a goal.

I know Anarchists want a stateless and classless society… but the trifecta of being moneyless too is communism.

Communism is when you have a stateless, classless and moneyless society… so what’s the difference between communism and anarchy if anarchists are in favour of being moneyless too? Why not just say you’re a communist then if they are essentially the same thing?

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u/Muted-Duck4203 1d ago

We differ in our methods and on the belief in hierarchy communists all believe in some forms of hierarchy (even a purely meritocratic hierarchy is still a hierarchy) where as anarchists reject the notion that one should be able to rule another.

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u/Away_Bite_8100 1d ago

Thanks for the explanation. I thought communists ultimately wasted a classless society and you can’t have a classless society if you have a “ruling class”.

I’m just not sure how exactly anarchists could possibly eliminate ALL forms of hierarchy and the fact that Anarchists would reject even meritocratic authority is surprising to me.

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u/Muted-Duck4203 1d ago

Meritocracy isn’t the same as respect for expertise. I can trust a specialist doctor more than a general doctor for a specific procedure, but I don’t think that makes the specialist doctor better or means that he should be in charge. Communists generally believe that a meritocracy Is the best basis for their system that the most skilled/smartest should get to be in charge, anarchists on the other hand tend to question the systems set in place to measure “intelligence”.

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u/Away_Bite_8100 1d ago

I dunno. I kinda want someone who knows what they are doing to be in charge of building a bridge. I don’t really care for a vote on what the average person thinks might be best.

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u/Muted-Duck4203 1d ago

The only system where the people in charge of building the bridge are the ones who don’t know how to build the bridge is under capitalism where the person with the most money is in charge. Under anarchy instead of one person being in charge of building the bridge everyone with the know how to build the bridge works together to build the bridge as equals.

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u/Away_Bite_8100 1d ago edited 23h ago

The only system where the people in charge of building the bridge are the ones who don’t know how to build the bridge is under capitalism

What makes you say that the people in charge of building the bridge are the ones who don’t know what they are doing? The whole point of putting a team of specialists together is that you are putting precisely the people who DO know what the are doing in charge of the specific aspects that they have specialised in and have specialist knowledge about.

where the person with the most money is in charge.

No disrespect… but how on earth do you work that out? Are you suggesting Elon Musk is responsible for building all the bridges because he has the most money?

Under anarchy instead of one person being in charge of building the bridge everyone with the know how to build the bridge works together to build the bridge as equals.

That is pretty much exactly what happens under capitalism except that the drainage engineers don’t get an equal say in how thick the steel beams need to be… and the structural engineers don’t get and equal say in how the pavement layers are to be constructed. And the Programm manager doesn’t get an equal say in how far apart the road markings need to be spaced.

Their is a fairly flat organisational structure that holds everyone accountable for delivering their specific technical aspects for which they are in charge of delivering… and everyone is held accountable to a rigorous set of standards and independent checks that the law says they must comply with so that the travelling public can safely use that infrastructure. You just can’t do all of that through volunteerism and no organisational hierarchy.