How would anything new get created in Anarchy?

Question

It has long struck me that the real problem with Anarchism is this.  Under Capitalism we have wealthy men who can invest money in sufficant quantity to build things/create things.  Under Socialism we would mantain the State, so the State as it were is able to invest the millions neccesery to build railways, bridges, sewage systems.  Thus the Socialist society is creative, it can build, it can progress as it were as the Capitalist one can.

While most arguments against Anarchy are pretty weak, it is doubtful to what extent the State which disarms and disorginises the population to secure itself really fights crime effectively anyway this problem is in my view of a deathblow to the whole concept.  It's not that it doesn't work as such, as long as everyone productive goes on doing their old jobs Anarchy could work.  But because nobody has command of sufficiant wealth or authority, no large projects can be created.  So Anarchy would be stagnation incarnate with no choice but to give rise to Capitalism OR Statist Socialism in order to progress.

Comments

It might be hard to imagine, but it doesn't take a taskmaster for fairly large groups of people to come together to work on something. It is quite rare in contemporary society, at least for the reason that state and capital actively combat non-authoritarian alternatives. Freed from a money economy, people would be able to do things that they find to be important or worthwhile, not what those with power dictate. I would much rather live in a world where people can choose to spend time with people they love or nap by a stream than be forced to participate in some productive activity they don't enjoy. But productive activity in human societies began long before state and capital and all the other loathesome hierarchies, so there is no evidence that they would not continue in some form after they end. We simply cannot say what unrestrained humanity might accomplish.

Answer 1

you are on a forum that tends toward anti-civ & green anarchy, tendencies that want to deconstruct society much more than to continue in the same vein only without bosses. this means that you''re going to get answers to this that question the premise of "progress" and stagnation.
but any anarchist would reject your association of profit with creativity and imagination. people are imaginative and creative in spite of profit, because we have the tendency to be problem-solving (and to enjoy puzzles and games) more than because we get paid. i would argue that anarchists' issue with this society could be stated as it being directed toward solving the wrong problems.

Answer 2

if the workers, oppressed, excluded own all the wealth and self-organize how to recreate our world then i see a major fault in your argument.

in a capitalist free-market economy the bourgies own and run shit...

in a socialist bureaucratic state-capitalist economy the bureaucrats own and run shit...

in an anarchist society the whole of humanity now classless own and run shit...

Answer 3

Most inventions and innovations are created by those interested in contribution not money. investors and manufacturers receive the profits from their work.   Doctors who want to find a cure in order to health people may be paid well, it is the pharmaceuticals companies that are motivated by money.  Money may inspire car salespeople, but even the best sales person is motivated by the product or service they offer.

The only real value of money is that it has created an entire network of humanity.  But as long as there is money in some form or fashion profit/debt is what determines everything.   

What if that part could change so that there is a network based on products and services not determined on whether they make a profit or not, but based upon the presence of overall need and desired application.  This is actually what most businesses are already based upon; profit is the part that uses poorer quality materials, workmanship, and designs.  Profit does not determine what is needed.  It determines who gets it and can overrides any need no matter its importance or how dire the situation.  

In our mind this network is sustained by money, yet money is just the problematic imaginary enabler of this network.   Profit will never put humanity or this planet first.  Profit is what the root of all pollution, poverty, and abuse of this planet and the life within it.  Profit is even the reason we are a race of consumers.  We think more is better than a comfortable amount of what is enough.  Just as with our bodies that can use only a certain amount of biological fuel we want more than that because we do not think as biological beings but as consumers of sweets and flavors.  Certainly we should enjoy our food, but enjoyment is not the real design of food.  Food is fuel, not the recreation profit has turned it into.

So what could motivate us in a sustainable network.  All motivation is a matter of mind and thought.  In fact one thought could change the world forever.  Or rather the realization that the network is what sustains itself.  Money actually is foreign to the processes within that network and only obstruct performance and limitation of concepts and applications.  The network could work so much better and with less oppression than being slaves to concepts of profit.  

Possible benefits:  
- 3 to 4 days of "work"
- all houses, buildings, machines, and structures maintained by need and schedule
- high quality production
- self determined manner of lifestyle, structure, (non-abusive?) recreation, and comforts
- unlimited creativity and problem solving
- bilateral cooperation and communication, also research and development
- any products and services available to anyone
- probable end of hunger, poverty, wars, and most "crime"
- drugs are legal but users carefully watched for overdose episodes, clinic offered to addicts if desired
- cost no longer refer to profit but loss of life, abuse of environment, and human and animal suffering caused by profit or the limitations placed by profit.

Comments

You touch on a good point here:  money, in our modern system, is completely imaginary, fictional, a shared delusion.  It represents nothing but a shared delusion, it is created out of thin air by the State and by the commercial banks.
Railways and bridges and sewers and apartments are created of many things, steel and concrete and the sweat of honest women and men, but never has a single greenback or farthing been bolted in place.