Anarchocommunism, also known as libertarian communism, is a branch of anarchism that adopts communist principles to build the idea of an ideal society.
For anarcho-communists, the Social classes it's the state should be abolished and there must be no private ownership of the means of production. People have free initiative and production is organized by a federation of workers.
In communist anarchism, the fruits of labor should be divided according to the needs of the individual and not according to the work performed.
Anarcho-communist ideals
Anarcho-communism is an amalgamation of ideals of the communism It's from anarchism. Anarchic communists believed that communism was authoritarian and maintained the relationship of exploited class and exploiting class by giving the state a monopoly on the means of production.
However, they also disagreed with early anarchists - called collectivists. You collectivists they argued that the fruits of labor should be distributed according to the work performed.
For this new strand of anarchism, this would generate a difference in pay and, consequently, social inequality.
For anarcho-communists, men are equal by nature, but inequalities are produced by the form of organization of society, especially due to the existence of private property.
They defended a just society, based on cooperation and on the distribution of the fruits of labor aimed at collective welfare.
For anarcho-communists, all the knowledge and progress achieved by human beings were result of collective constructions and, therefore, the benefits of these advances should be enjoyed by all.
Anarchocommunism intended to make a social revolution and had among his goals:
- Abolish government, laws and all political privileges.
- Ending private property and social classes.
- The production would be organized according to professional interests and with free agreement between the federations.
- Work would be limited to the productive forces and consumption limited to the needs of each individual.
- Free access to culture, school, art and science.
- Abolition of class dominance.
Origin of anarcho-communism
Anarchists were against the conception of communism proposed by Karl Marx, as they believed it was a model statist and authoritarian, which would take ownership of the means of production into the hands of the State.
Anarchists defended the end of the state, but some of these militants were dissatisfied with the model anarchist collectivist, who advocated the division of the fruits of labor according to the effort made by the worker.
For them, it was not possible to establish criteria to measure the productivity of each job and the difference in pay among workers would cause social inequalities.
In 1876, anarcho-communism was presented in International Workers Association, by Carlo Cafiero and Errico Malatesta. This new current of anarchism had as its main difference from collectivist anarchists the idea of distributing the fruits of labor.
From the 1880s onwards, most European anarchists adopted communist anarchism and one of the most important proponents of this idea was the Russian Piotr Kropotkin.
Kroptkin argued that cooperation was more beneficial than competition and that relationships should be based on mutual aid. The thinker was against the liberal idea of individualism, which, according to him, would make society a war of all against all
See too: anarchism, communism and characteristics of communism.