(JAI: Comrades, Here are more notes for Saturday's (12 noon) discussion (at
the Anarchist Bookfare at "Art Share LA" 801 E 4th Place, LA 90016) which
includes a description of RAC-LA's circuits of production as examples of how
things might be done differently. Should the formatting be lost write to me
and will forward it as an attachment.)
RAC-LA's Circuits of Production
1st Circuit
Planning
(First Circulation Circuit)
/ \
4th Circuit
2nd Circuit
Consumption
Production
a. individual
b. productive
\
/
3rd Circuit
Allocation and Distribution
(Second Circulation Circuit)
The circuits of capitalist production, indeed those of any and all modes of
production (e.g. slavery, feudalism, socialism, communism, even
hunter-gathering) consist of 1.) Planning; 2.) Production; 3.) Allocation and
Distribution; and, 4.) Consumption.
In Planning, decisions are made as to what things are to be produced and
therefore what factors of production (materials, tools and labor), necessary to
produce them, have to be allocated (in capitalism this means purchased) and
arrayed before production can begin.
In the circuit of Production, these factors are combined so as to fabricate or
grow or mine, etc. the desired objects.
In distribution, the items are apportioned to their end-users (in capitalism
this means sold to the end-users).
And, in consumption the end-users make use of them either for direct
consumption as consumers or indirect consumption, that is productive
consumption, by making these goods available as factors for the allocation
decisions made in circuit 1 as means of production.
Though RAC-LA hardly represents the might, mass and complexity of the coming
socialist commonwealth, it does have, albeit in microcosm, similar economic
problems in each of its circuits that it too must solve.
The First Circulation Circuit-The Factors Market
In order to understand RAC-LA's participation in its own Circuit 1, the
planning of production, it is necessary to understand the product that is being
produced. That product is not this or that fruit nor these or those
vegetables, rather it is the bundles of food themselves which are composed of
the fruits and vegetables. Up until this time, as we have now acquired a small
garden space, RAC-LA has not itself manufactured nor farmed any item save
T-shirts. Instead, what is planned and what is done is the assembling of the
packages that for over 2 ½ years we have distributed to an average of more than
100 people every Sunday in MacArthur Park in Los Angeles. Items that, while
still healthy and nutritious, might bear some blemish that make them
un-saleable but not un-consumable. These items form the raw material for
RAC-LA workers' production, in our Circuit 2, of bundles that contain items
that we have salvaged from being tossed. The first phase of RAC-LA's planning
therefore consists therefore of allocation of its labor-powers to make the
pick-ups. Now, as there are no waged-workers who might do this, nor are there
bosses who might have ordered these last to do so, this is and has been
accomplished by the free and voluntary acceptance of these tasks by comrades
who take upon themselves particular assignments. Should, for any reason, the
comrade who is scheduled for a pick-up is unable to perform, her place is
immediately taken by another comrade. This voluntary association will
implicitly color much of what follows below.
The second phase of RAC-LA's planning comes with the preparations for the
assembly of the parcels. An assessment is made of 1.) the number of people who
will desire the parcels; and, 2.) the number of items of each kind that we can
allocate to each basket. The first is obtained by passing out numbers
("boletas") that, in addition, provides the sequence for an orderly
distribution, as those who have received their numbered tickets earliest will
also receive their parcels earlier. The second judgment comes about as the
result of consultation amongst the workers and a "best guess" assessment of how
many of x vegetable or y fruit to place in each box. This is hardly exact
economic calculation-as the oftimes at end existence of a surplus or deficit of
this or that foodstuff that makes itself known-but it is economic calculation.
It is a calculation decision arrived at as a result of a "Conspiracy of
Equals"[1] as to how best to allocate this and/or that so as to achieve a
simple economic goal: that every box ought contain an equal amount of
sustenance. However, the fact is that even with the achievement of this equal
allocation there is the certainty that all who receive these equal parcels will
not derive equal amounts of utility as one may have more dependants than
another, say, responsible only for herself. This cannot be helped as RAC-LA,
in this paradox, is caught in the vise of an ages-old quandary: the discussion
of exactly what "equality" is. Below it is asserted that this riddle can be
solved.
What is exceptional about what RAC-LA doing is the transformation of those who
have come to us seeking the assistance we provide, seeing what we are doing
and, while they wait, take it upon themselves to, say, help break down the
cardboard boxes (which are recycled), unload the truck or measure out and bag
the rice and beans, etc. Soon we find that we have been joined by another
companera(o) enamored by the self-empowerment of voluntary workers in action
without thoughts of private profits and without the boss who takes it.
The Second Circuit-Production
In RAC-LA's 2nd Circuit, the production of the bundles, the first order of
business is the unloading of the vehicles bringing the raw materials of
RAC-LA's production to our location on the west side of MacArthur Park near
Wilshire Bl. In this, regular RAC-LA members and sympathizers are almost
always joined by some of those waiting to receive the foodstuffs. No one is
required to do this and, yet, it almost always occurs.
Next comes the triaging of the food whereby the items are shorn of, perhaps,
wilted outer leaves, etc. Again, comrades (and sometimes bystanders) take up
these duties on their own volition. Separately, a group of 4-6 companera(o)s
measure and package quart size packets of rice and beans. And in a third
sector, comrades tend to both the disposal of trash as well as the
aforementioned breaking down of the cardboard containers that the fruits and
vegetables have arrived in. No one assigns anyone to any sector. Anyone can
do any job. Of course, someone joining us for the first or second or even a
third time might inquire as to where her services could best be used but after
this they know where to go: to where they are best used (i.e. most needed).
This voluntary work sans the incentive of payment (though, most workers also
opt to receive baskets at end) gives evidence that cooperative production (i.e.
where one works for the benefit of all and is, in turn, benefited by the work
of all) is no "pie-in-the-sky", is no mass hallucination brought on by fits of
ague borne of a system that demeans human beings into beasts of burden
activated only by the "carrot" (pay) or the "stick" (the threat of firing)
false dichotomy of capitalism.
The workers being the judge of who is, who remains and who ought not be a
fellow in this effort is a prime fundamental of our mode of production. The
"ill-fit" is a serious question and not taken lightly by members and expulsion
from the program has happened only once. Decisions necessitated by the
possible "ill-fit" of this or that person are made in a post-production
"circle" wherein also are analyses of how this day's work transpired and how
might things have been done better are discussed. Such "post-production"
worker-evaluations demonstrate how it is that "planning"-normally a 1st Circuit
activity-can take place after and in light of the 2nd Circuit, Production.
Indeed, because of the flexibility inherent in worker-controlled activities
such changes can occur at any time in any phase. Such ability to
"change-on-the-fly" initiated by those directly involved, one might think,
stamps this proto-cooperative production as superior to the inherent inertia of
"one-mind, one-brain" systems dominated by a "commanding wil".
The Third Circuit (2nd Circulation circuit)-Allocation and Distribution
RAC-LA's 3rd Circuit, Allocation and Distribution, is simple. The products
assembled by RAC-LA are distributed to those who have received their "boletas"
in the order in which the tickets were obtained. In capitalism, this "boleta"
would find its Hyde-to-its-Jekyll doppelganger in money. Though in this
micro-economy that is the RAC-LA Food Program this "boleta", this "money"-this
"wherewithal to buy-is in no way connected to the efforts required to obtain
it. Although one may work, one is not required to do so. By cutting this tie
between effort and reward, the 3rd Circuit of Distribution, in the Food
Program's circuits of production, is RAC-LA's microcosmic on-going experiment
in the realms and regions of pure anarchic-communism.
The "exchange" which occurs is that of the bundles for the return of the
"boleta" and, most-times a smile. There is a codicil to this in that there is
a syndicalist aspect to one feature of the program, the bags rice and beans.
Upon signing up for their "boleta" the patrons are asked for a $1 donation.
Inability or unwillingness to part with this sum is no grounds for denial of
aid. Those who do not donate receive exactly the same as the others save for
the rice and beans (which means that these are still "rationed" (i.e. to be
exchanged for a requisite chit, in this case the dollar.)) With these
contributions (averaging appx $60/week) RAC-LA purchases 50lb sacks of the
staples. What the donor receives back, if purchased separately by the
individuals, would be rice and beans that would have cost appx $2-2.50. And
when we find that the collections from our various points of "salvage" are
lacking, then all-even those who did not part with the donation-receive these
staples.
The Fourth Circuit-Consumption
In RAC-LA's 4th Circuit, consumption of the boxes of foodstuffs handed out to
the "Food Program's clients and workers not only aid in the reproduction of
these workers' labor-powers, it increases it beyond what it would have been
without such aid. By providing free of charge healthy, if not pretty,
vegetables and staples, the parcels' consumption injects needed nutrition into
these under-paid, and thereby ill-fed, members of the world-wide working class
and their dependents. It is as if an additional (ballpark figure) $10 had been
handed to each and that the money had been totally spent upon neither soda nor
chips but to obtain the vitamins richly inhabiting vegetables.
It ought also be remarked, at this point, that RAC-LA's circuits of production
though anarchist in form, are socialist/communist in their content.
JAI
RAC-LA
Notes are taken from
Marx' examination of the circular movements of capital and the economic
contradictions between anarchists, socialists and communists or
The ordering of production in the coming socialist commonwealth
Abstract:
http://www.transformativestudies.org/wp-content/uploads/10.3798tia.1937-0237.10033.pdf
Full document available, write to [email protected]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1]
http://www.marxists.org/history/france/revolution/conspiracy-equals/index.htm
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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