This is a very good topic but the article does a poor job at explaining it.
The issue with insulin is not really the technical feasibility but the required economical organisation to produce it. How can an anarchist community produce insulin, or anything complex without leaders or economical motivation? This is the question the article fails to answer. I have no doubt it would be feasible but a long argumentation on the subject would be nice to read, instead of this “I’m tired of the tropes, so I must be right” nonsense.
An anarchist community cannot produce insulin - for the very same reason a capitalist or fascist community cannot. When we’re talking about industrialized production, we are talking about things a whole lot bigger than merely communities. Simply focusing on community is myopic - a more relevant question would be, “How can an anarchist factory produce insulin (and other medicines)?” It’s already a question far more grounded in what already exists.
Also, there is no such thing as “leaderless” organization, and there is no such thing as “leaderless” anarchism.
a more relevant question would be, “How can an anarchist factory produce insulin (and other medicines)?”
Yes, and it seems the actual point of confusion is simply how an anarchist society may achieve objectives that require larger scale than the level of local community.
The article does give an answer though. An “anarchist community” would not suddenly appear out of a vacuum and have to re-create everything from scratch. Arguing like that is indeed a tired trope and lazy strawman.
So any real “anarchist community” would have existing tools to make insulin (like the article says) and thus sufficient time to adapt them or come up with other means to produce insulin that are better suited for a non-hierarchical society.
It is a bit moot to speculate what these adaptations or alternatives might be, as we don’t know what this specific “anarchist community” will look like. But if you have experience with process engineering you might realize that existing production methods are rarely the best or most efficient, but rather a result of the pre-existing equipment and capabilities at the time of developing the process. Furthermore existing production processes are rarely further optimized unless there is a strong outside pressure to do so, and in today’s society it is usually easier for companies to rely on patents and monopolies to extract the maximum profit.
Pharmaceutical manufacture and process engineering aren’t subsistence farming. You can’t just have people pitching in when it suits them. You need tightly controlled supply chains, tightly controlled processes, strict change control, verification and validation. Good luck maintaining all that in an anarchist community.
Please don’t project your strawman view of an “anarchist community” here. None of these things you mention can not exist in an “anarchist community” nor is there even such a thing as a single “anarchist community”.
If anything, anarchist production principles are probably more suitable for all the things you mention, than the current ones that are at the wims of external investors with competing interests.
nor is there even such a thing as a single “anarchist community”.
How large can an anarchist community be so the decision process maintains the libertarian proposal of social organization (direct involvement/participation, no representation, decision mostly by concensus unless critical in time and blocked by an insignificant minority).
I’d say pretty small.
I feel certain comments are creeping in the direction of violating rule #4, but I will nevertheless echo the observation previously given, that an “anarchist community” is less a concrete entity than it is an abstraction used to facilitate discussion, the same as other social structures, such as family, town, or firm.
Most people agree trivially that a society that produces insulin is vastly superior to one that produces no insulin. Given that the necessity of insulin production is not a locus of controversy, the only further points needing to be agreed are the ones relating to the organization and methods of production, and to the delegation of responsibility, just as is required in any society.
and to the delegation of responsibility, just as is required in any society.
you are making all that fuss about community, family, town, … only to pass this authoritarian construct labeled “society” under the table. Massive “social groups” require central authority and organization, communities don’t or in reverse the size of community is determined by the ability to decentralize decision and avoid hierarchy.
insulin from microorganisms and bananas off of palmtrees.
