Why do anarchists oppose production?

Question

How do you define production? Why do anarchists reject it? Does it translate into another form of oppression? In relation to the other question this is based on, how is production different from just growing food to eat (in a minimal-work and sustainable manner, I might add)?

Answer 1

production, productivity, and work are among the words that have a lot of baggage for anarchists--who are engaged in a slow-motion death struggle with communists as well as capitalists. both of these c-groups over-value production, productivity, and work (as defined by them, of course) to outrageous degrees. some anarchist arguments against this overvalue are that a) people are limited to being valuable to the extent that they are productive, b) what is seen as productive is extremely constrained, c) communists accept the value of work as it is presented to us every day in this capitalist system, rather than valuing other things like play, spontaneity, etc...
so yes, production and work as commonly understood do mean a slightly more subtle form of oppression.
production is different from growing food to eat because production implies a general term, that involves looking more at what is produced (in a material sense), then in the daily relationships and interactions and small gestures that are implied by more specific language (like growing food, sewing, washing dishes, training a dog, bandaging a wound, writing an article, etc).
and the generality of the words production and work also hides the meaninglessness of a lot of people's work in the current system (paper-pushing, number-crunching, trend-analyzing, etc).

edited for verb tense agreement, sigh.

Comments

"oopsition to production" does not make an essential part of the definition of anarchism and anarchy and as such one can find both "pro-production" and "anti-production anarchists". But there is clearly a problem here on how the question is formulated as far as there is a need here to hear what you mean by "production"

edited to make comment

---

Why don't you provide your own analysis of what "production" specifically refers to so that people can understand some of the distinctions that certain anarchists make compared to others? I feel the part of the question asking for someone to articulate the difference between "production" and "just growing food" is a fine place to focus on whether there is, in fact, any difference between the two in your perspective.

---

"production" is a vague word or it might be that i have been exposed recently to theories which go beyond an economicistic view of production.