How could anarchy be applied to nowadays society (ECONOMICALLY SPEAKING)?

Question

I mean, what would the economy be like in a today's hypotetical anarchist society?
Would there be any taxes? Would there be any small and medium enterprises?


edited to fix tags

Answer 1

Any society with any legitimate claim to the title 'anarchist' would necessarily be so different to what exists now that the terms we use to describe our current socio-economic arrangements (like 'enterprise' and 'economics') would be useless.  As for an exact description of how production, distribution and consumption of commodities would work,  that varies from anarchist to anarchist, but the ones that care about what an 'anarchist society' would look like will usually reference the principles of free association and mutual aid when describing the economic frameworks they advocate.

With regards to taxes, anarchists catagorically oppose the state, so there would of course be no taxes, but tax isn't something anarchists care that much about.

Answer 2

again, tagging anarchy on an anarchist site is a waste.

as for your question: there are various people who have focused on this question - probably most notably and obviously michael albert and the parecon people (parecon stands for "participatory economy"). and there are a couple anti-state libertarians like shawn wilber who pay a lot of attention to this question in a way that i don't consider hostile to anarchists.
there are also anthropologists who have talked about non-monetary societies (The Gift, is a common reference) in ways that seem appropriate to the kind of world we are talking about.

but in general anarchists don't try to provide blueprints for how society will run after such a major change, partly because we don't think we know, and partly because we think that people will solve their own problems.
at least, that is the tendency on this site.
when we talk about capitalism (and being against it), we're not just talking about how the u.s. operates, but the idea of using money (as a state-controlled exchange form) to reward people for alienated labor (ie that people are forced/encouraged to make things they don't care about for people they don't care about/will never meet). so if your "small or medium enterprises" have anything to do with that model, then no, they would not exist in an anarchist society.

Comments

"The idea of using money (as a state-controlled exchange form) to reward people for alienated labor (ie that people are forced/encouraged to make things they don't care about for people they don't care about/will never meet)."

- I need to write this down somewhere for the next time I have to explain wage slavery to someone; I usually end up sounding like a pompous Marxist xD

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upvoted to second yosemite's comment, your explanation of alienated labor is bang on.
And the entire globalization economy is based on alienated labor ... hmm.

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thanks you two. i'm pretty pleased with it myself. not sure if "state-controlled" covers enough territory, but it's sufficient for this post, i think.

also, do whatever you must to never sound like a pompous marxist: a fwtd!