We should begin the organization of production around the needs of the people, rather than beginning with production
Looking at society and its political organization from a different standpoint than that of all the authoritarian schools—for we start from a free individual to reach a free society, instead of beginning by the state to come down to the individual—we should follow the same method in economic questions. We should study the needs of the individuals, and the means by which to satisfy them, before discussing production, exchange, taxation, government, and so on.
At first sight the difference may appear trifling, but in reality it contrasts with much of official political economy. If you open the works of any economist you will find that they usually begin with production, i.e., by the analysis of the means employed nowadays for the creation of wealth: division of labor, the factory, its machinery, the accumulation of capital. From Adam Smith to Karl Marx, all have proceeded along these lines. Only in the latter parts of their books do they address consumption, that is to say, of the means resorted to in our present society to satisfy the needs of the individuals; and even there they confine themselves to explaining how riches are divided among those who vie with one another for their possession.
- In response to this one might say that before satisfying needs, you must create the wherewithal to satisfy them. But, before producing anything, shouldn’t you already feel the need of it? Was it not necessity that first drove man to hunt, to raise cattle, to cultivate land, to make implements, and later on to invent machinery? Is it not the study of the needs that should govern production? To say the least, it would therefore be quite as logical to begin by considering the needs, and afterwards to discuss how production is, and ought to be, organized, in order to satisfy these needs.
- In this case, we can use our stress as a navigational tool to help guide our lives. That is to say, the stress of being without can be used to guide what it is we choose to produce. There is no need for systems of extrinsic reward or punishment in order to motivate people to work. Such means are illogical consequences, and natural consequences allow people to make associations between actions and their inherent consequences. The value of the labor itself should be the motivator. Thus,
For example, all people feel the need of living in healthy houses. But then the question arises: taking the present capacity of production, couldn’t every person have a house of their own? and what is hindering them from having it? As soon as we ask this question, we see that every family could perfectly well have a comfortable house, and just a few days of work would suffice to build it. But many people have never lived in a healthy house, because at all times, common people have had to work day after day to satisfy the needs of their rulers, and have never had the necessary leisure or money to build, or to buy, a comfortable home.
References
- Kropotkin, Peter. (1892). The Conquest of Bread Chapter 14. Consumption and production (p. 236).