Message from a "Free-Market Communist"

[Guest]

Advocates of the "free market" may be shocked to learn that i, as a communist/anarchist, agree with them that the "free market" is a necessary component of a peaceful future. The difference is at what stage i believe the "free market" can occur in any meaningful sense.

In case the "free marketeers" haven't noticed, they've failed to implement their "free market" utopia, which has been their primary agenda since the time of Adam Smith in the late 1700s. The truth is that their "free market" utopia is a subset of the communist/anarchist utopia: it simply isn't possible without first meeting the communist/anarchist preconditions, because capitalism is incompatible with the conditions of the "free market". Small businesses seek to become large ones, and to form organizations that are at least tantamount to the State, if not formally States. It hardly matters whether you have a formal "public" town government that hires police, or a company town that hires Pinkertons. Company towns and "public" towns that operate on the same fundamental principles will form the same fundamental organizations.

For the foreseeable future there is going to be large scale organization, whether it's run by a corporation or a State; and bureaucratically-speaking it doesn't matter which. We have no choice but to learn how to organize on a large-scale, internationally, but consistent with freedom. Private property is utterly inconsistent with freedom. The "free marketeers" are wrong in their religious adherence to private property as the wellspring of freedom -- private property is a detriment to freedom. It is self-evident that economic harmony precedes the elimination of State coercion. Until We have economic harmony, those at the top of the disharmony will wield the State in their own interests. That's why the U$ is involved in imperialism around the world: it's a business decision. Armies don't invade foreign soil for their own sake. The motivation is an economic one.

Further, the "free marketeers" are weak on the main sources of coercion in the world. Far more people lose their freedom to starvation and illness that would be prevented by basic health care than to any of the relatively trifling ills that concern "free marketeers". It goes without saying that if people are starving, then the owners of the means of production are going to seek to form a State to protect their interests. The State arises from economic disharmony; harmonize economic conditions and the "free marketeers" can have your "free market", and the phrase can have true meaning.