In the late 1960s there was a movement in Latin America to create alternative anti-authoritarian communities as part of a broader project of social transformation. Experimental communities were created in Argentina, Bolivia and Uruguay, where the Comunidad del Sur group was based. In the following presentation from a 1969 conference in Buenos Aires on these alternative lifestyle projects, Comunidad del Sur sets forth some ““Economic Guidelines"" focusing on the processes of production. Translated by Paul Sharkey and reprinted in Comunidad del Sur: Una experiencia de vida cooperativa integral (Montevideo, 1985).
WE ARE LIVING IN AN ENTIRELY hierarchical society of continual growth where the increasing alienation of workers at work finds some compensation in “rising living standards” and where all initiative is the preserve of the “organizers.” In this way they can thwart the rebellion of the exploited by locking them into the pursuit ofliv-ing standards, breaking down their solidarity by introducing hierarchy and bureaucratization into every collective venture.
It seems clear that the “actual relations of production”—the relations established between individuals and/or groups in the process whereby needed goods are produced or made available to society—are the essential foundations ofevety society, the decision as to what to produce and how much should be made in the light of what we want to consume and how much; bearing in mind, conversely, that what we consume comes at a cost and requires a certain amount of work, which shapes our lives. Adopting this social approach, there can be no dichotomy between producer and consumer.
It seems plain that social relations (who I live with, when, the time I have available and the range of means available to me) are determined by the relations of work and production. It is for and by means of certain productive labours that we are to be moulded. If this work should rule out initiative, responsibility, association, voluntary collaboration and free exchanges between individuals, without their faculties and independence being encouraged to blossom, then the individual is not going to be able to identify with the social labour required of him. There can be no liberation of the individual during his free time until such time as liberation touches upon his productive social activity, his work. So we have to come up with fresh economic relationships:
Forms of collective ownership making these (relationships) possible, degrees of shared decision-making raising us up to a new level of living (as opposed to the one determined by capitalist society for the good of domination: a life that merely amasses consumer goods has nothing to offer in terms of comprehensive personal and social self-realization). We go to our graves without ever realizing our potential.
Creating production processes that permit expanding participation and creativity in the act of production.
Forms of payment that guarantee the chosen living standard and do not perpetuate the differences and the differentiated exploitation of capitalist society. (No wage scales—payment in accordance with needs analyzed and determined by everyone.)
As much satisfaction at work as can be achieved.
Optimum output and productivity.
Maximum leisure time.
Once remuneration can meet basic needs, the workers will have to ask themselves which is the more important: improving working conditions, a wider range of available consumer goods, or more time available for study, self-expression or recreation (playing, singing, painting, interacting with their children or youngsters in a recreational social setting).
That question is one that we will have to consider collectively rather than on an individual basis, creating real collective power over the living conditions for us all and thereby making a qualitative leap forwards.
The situation of the man-in-the-street is essentially no different under the various “private,” “bureaucratic” or “militarized” capitalist systems even when these are dressed up in such contradictory notions as “state socialism” or “national liberation”; the actual relations of production under them all are similar.
The purpose of change cannot simply be to do away with private property, to abolish monopolies and above all the bureaucracies... to gradually introduce more than one improvement in exploitation methods, although the distinction between leaders and operatives in production and in social life in general remains essentially fixed and stable. The problem of change translates as the problem of equipping the people to lead society. Moving on from challenging the power of capital in production to challenging power in society as a whole—reorganizing society on the basis of institutions that people can understand and control.
Our project, one ofthe key props ofwhich is alternative life groups, is a timid attempt to act out these ideas; it means to launch a range of tightly orchestrated cooperative activities that can make it feasible for them to be translated into hard and fast practice. In economic terms, it has to promote:
1. Shared and indivisible ownership. Whatever is brought into the project represents a social asset open to use by all would-be participants and is removed once and for all from the realm of private ownership and inheritance rights.
2. Production and consumption are to be planned together and coordinated one with the other, by means of mechanisms for collective decision-making.
3. Recompense shall be on the basis of needs determined by all (meaning a consciously determined standard of living).
4. Problems such as illness, incapacity, or arising from old age or infancy, that is to say, situations of economic dependency, shall be accommodated on the basis of solidarity, through the establishment of cooperatively administered solidarity funds.
5. Encouragement of the most fully extensive possible training for human beings in every field, through the facilitation of education and skills tasking (intellectual, manual and aesthetic skilling) by means of “grants,” an economic expenditure to be repaid by the beneficiary as he reinvests his new skills in the project.
6. Any asset coming to the members of the project through inheritance, gift or any other avenue is to be treated as a shared asset.
7. The greatest possible facilitation of personal initiative vis-a-vis anything having to do with raising the members' standards of education and information (libraries, outings, research).
8. Work, study and training are to be integrated into the expanding time allotted for learning, research and direct creativity in the workplace...
The quantitative imperative remains the dominant consideration. In which context, we, being in charge ofmanagement, must inevitably take on the frustrating demands ofac-cumulation. Many a time, in order to secure self-management, we find ourselves obliged to act on our own initiative and push our own needs into second place behind the demands of production and embrace a self-discipline that in our system is an imposition from without. In short, we find ourselves confronted with the stark reality that actual emancipation is still a long way off and we have to face up to that possibility and all that it entails. The aspiration, therefore, is toward a progressive and comprehensive change that requires an all out campaign if it is to encompass the whole of society.
World History
