that actually brings up a good point, I'm really curious (honestly, not antagonistically), to hear how anarchists propose an anarchist space program would work from the ground up, assuming current or plausible near-future levels of industrial automation and mining technology
historically we've seen the most effective way to run a space program is with a centrally planned socialist economy, followed by a capitalist state running the space program in a centralized fashion but delegating some tasks to private firms. an anarchist space program would look dramatically different from those examples, presumably, and it's definitely not clear how it would work
@codeawayhaley that's... not really true, but that's a rabbit hole that's really not necessary to go down for this conversation either
@morganastra I find it pretty easy to imagine:
You would have a collective managing/coordinating the whole thing, other collectives working on particular areas (such as coordinating spacecraft production processes, training astronauts...) and various communities and production collectives around the world contributing resources and volunteers based on the needs and plans circulated by the central managing/coordinating organ.
@abgd you're actually describing something pretty similar or almost identical to soviet socialism
@morganastra Well, not backing central organs with military power makes a pretty massive difference. None of the collectives I described would in any way be forced to participate in this project, and could bail out at any stage. But yeah, I'm not sure the difference is so huge.
@abgd in order to work together effectively wouldn't they all have to make a commitment to each other to actually stick it out throughout the project? if your highly specialized avionics equipment shop drops out in the middle of building an interplanetary starship you can't exactly just drop in a replacement
@morganastra Which is why I said this would only work if everyone is convinced this is a vital interest (i.e. a matter of survival, for which we put other differences aside) OR if survival is entirely a non-issue and the whole thing is basically a lot of people's passion project (in which case there's no objective reason to prefer a system where it's guaranteed to reach completion)
@morganastra However, I'm being a bit utopian. There's no reason the various collectives involved wouldn't make serious agreements to stick together for X time. I just don't think that kind of agreement would have such a central role in a society in which contracts aren't backed by a massively violent state apparatus.
@abgd yeah, it is definitely utopian, as i find anarchism often tends to be. which isn't a problem necessarily, but it's a bit disappointing to me because i want to actually live in a socialist world and explore the stars, not just talk about it
@morganastra I do to, I just no longer believe communism can ever be brought about by centralized coercion. It has to be developed in many places in parallel and focus on people regaining control of their lives, or it will end up again being just another form of class society. If you create a ruling class, you're gonna have a ruling class, and a subservient working class as well - no matter how well the rulers know their Marx. :\
But really >>
@morganastra >> I don't think a space program is one of the first things we'll need. It's okay if it takes a while, with fits and starts and all.
@morganastra Probably the biggest difference would be that you couldn't garner this kind of massive volunteer grassroots support for the program if it weren't demonstrated to be a vital interest of humanity (which it is, though not quite an immediate one) unless it's started in a true post-scarcity world where work is marginal and this kind of thing is basically art/leisure/free-from exploration.
@morganastra Anarchism is socialist, Th USSR was social corporatism (kinda it was still a form of capitalism as the workers had very little control of their workplace)