People are not equal

[Guest]

This seems to be one of the main problems for left anarchism. It is all very nice being without currency and having the means of production, but surely those that give more should get more?

[Guest]

You're so right...look at little children and the elderly, they can't produce things and yet we give them food and shelter, often for free!

And how about that Hawkings bloke. What a useless bag of flesh, going around in a wheelchair, can't even talk!

Clearly, anyone who can figure out how to coerce labor and materials to provide him with excess value deserves to have the best things, while those that merely trade their labor deserve less. Anything less is authoritarian communism!

[vaguelyhumanoid]

Not even ancoms think everyone is actually, meritocratically equal. Note that "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" speaks of people as having different abilities and needs. As for mutualists and collectivists (I assume that "left-anarchists" are classical anarchists as opposed to propertarian free-marketers and primitivists), that's not even an issue, since neither of those groups oppose money or banks and mutualists believe in the market.

[ethical_anarhist]

It's a common error in english language to confuse words "equal" and "same". The fact that everybody is different doesn't imply that they are unequal. Anarchism actually strives exactly because people are different. If everybody would be the same it would simply collapse (like 10 scientists with 10 forks experiment).

[Anthony]

"Equality for anarchists means social equality, or, to use Murray Bookchin's term, the "equality of unequals" (some like Malatesta used the term "equality of conditions" to express the same idea). By this he means that an anarchist society recognises the differences in ability and need of individuals but does not allow these differences to be turned into power. Individual differences, in other words, "would be of no consequence, because inequality in fact is lost in the collectivity when it cannot cling to some legal fiction or institution." [Michael Bakunin, God and the State, p. 53]" (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secA2.html#seca25).

A society that gives members resources based on amount of "work" done will result in the rebirth of capitalism. Saying that one person does more work than another will again create a hierarchy (which we don't like) because that is how capitalism works; people assume that they are entitled to more because they see themselves as more important and and have contributed more. The fact that the elderly, the young and the disabled cannot do as much "work" as those who are more capable must be accepted by all members in the society. In turn when those who were doing the most "work" eventually get to a less-productive point in their lives, that same acceptance would be reciprocated.

"From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs."

[Noa o `Anakia]

Anarchy pretty much recognises people are not equal... but unlike most economic stances, it allows people to break free from their economic position.

[Wally]

As already pointed out that is a bit of a myth.

The idea that anarchism, socialism etc., meant everyone was rigidly kept equal was created by those who were apposed to the idea, in order to claim it couldn't work.

It does make people more equal, as in no one class of people can monopolise the means to produce, and exploit those that don't creating mass inequality.

It's just equal access to the means of production. That is really what it's all about. The free association of producers (workers). Which can be done in many different ways, from mass collective/cooperative industry, to an individual working a small plot of land. It's all about removing the monopoly of private economic property, and the mass inequality it creates.