In this case, they are free to work alone, by their own labour. Anarchists have no desire to force people to join a syndicate. As Kropotkin argued:
"Communist organisations . . . must be the work of all, a natural growth, a product of the constructive genius of the great mass. Communism cannot be imposed from above; it could not live even for a few months if the constant and daily co-operation of all did not uphold it. It must be free." [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 140]
Therefore, the decision to join a commune will be a free one, with the potential for living outside it guaranteed for non-exploitative and non-oppressive individuals and groups. Malatesta stressed this when he argued that in an anarchist revolution "what has to be destroyed at once . . . is capitalistic property, that is, the fact that a few control the natural wealth and the instruments of production and can thus oblige others to work for them . . . [but one must have a] right and the possibility to live in a different regime, collectivist, mutualist, individualist — as one wishes, always on the condition that there is no oppression or exploitation of others." [Malatesta: Life and Ideas, p. 102]
In other words, different forms of social life will be experimented with, depending on what people desire. Of course some people (particularly right-wing "libertarians") ask how anarchists can reconcile individual freedom with expropriation of capital. All we can say is that these critics subscribe to the idea that one should not interfere with the "individual freedom" of those in positions of authority to oppress others, and that this premise turns the concept of individual freedom on its head, making oppression a "right" and the denial of freedom a form of it!
However, right-wing "libertarians" do raise a valid question when they ask if anarchism would result in self-employed people being forced into co-operatives, syndicates or collectives as the result of a popular movement. The answer is no. This is because the destruction of title deeds would not harm the independent worker, whose real title is possession and the work done. What anarchists want to eliminate is not possessions but capitalist property.
As Peter Kropotkin made clear:
"when we see a peasant, who is in possession of just amount of land he can cultivate, we do not think it reasonable to turn him off his little farm. He exploits nobody, and nobody would have the right to interfere with his work. . . [W]hen we see a family inhabiting a house which affords them just as much space as . . . are considered necessary for that number of people, why should we interfere with that family and turn them out their house? . . . And finally, when we see a . . . cutler, or a . . . clothier working with their own tools or handloom, we see no use in taking the tools or handloom to give to another workers. The clothier or cutler exploit nobody." [Act for Yourselves, pp. 104-5]
This means that independent producers will still exist within an anarchist society, and some workplaces — perhaps whole areas — will not be part of a confederation. This is natural in a free society, for different people have different ideas and ideals. Nor does such independent producers imply a contradiction with libertarian socialism, for "[w]hat we concerned with is the destruction of the titles of proprietors who exploit the labour of others and, above all, of expropriating them in fact in order to put . . . all the means of production at the disposal of those who do the work." [Malatesta, Op. Cit., p. 103]
Of course, some people may desire to become capitalists, and they may offer to employ people and pay them wages. However, such a situation would be unlikely. Simply put, why would anyone desire to work for the would-be employer? Malatesta makes this point as follows:
"It remains to be seen whether not being able to obtain assistance or people to exploit — and he [the would-be capitalist] would find none because nobody, having a right to the means of production and being free to work on his own or as an equal with others in the large organisations of production would want to be exploited by a small employer — . . . it remains to be seen whether these isolated workers would not find it more convenient to combine with others and voluntarily join one of the existing communities." [Op. Cit., pp. 102-103]
So where would the capitalist wannabe find people to work for him? As Kropotkin argued:
"Everywhere you will find that the wealth of the wealthy springs from the poverty of the poor. That is why an anarchist society need not fear the advent of a Rothschild [or any other millionaire] who would settle in its midst. If every member of the community knows that after a few hours of productive toil he [or she] will have a right to all the pleasures that civilisation procures, and to those deeper sources of enjoyment which art and science offer to all who seek them, he [or she] will not sell his strength . . . No one will volunteer to work for the enrichment of your Rothschild." [Op. Cit., p. 61]
And, assuming that he did find someone willing to work for him (and so be governed by him), the would-be capitalist would have to provide such excellent conditions and pay such good wages as to reduce his profits to near zero. Moreover, he would have to face workers whose neighbours would be encouraging them to form a union and strike for even better conditions and pay, including workers' control and so on. Such a militant workforce would be the last thing a capitalist would desire.
However, let us suppose there is a self-employed inventor, Ferguson, who comes up with a new innovation without the help of the co-operative sector. Would anarchists steal his idea? Not at all. The co-operatives, which by hypothesis have been organised by people who believe in giving producers the full value of their product, would pay Ferguson an equitable amount for his idea, which would then become common across society. However, if he refused to sell his invention and instead tried to claim a patent monopoly on it in order to gather a group of wage slaves to exploit, no one would agree to work for him unless they got the full control over both the product of their labour and the labour process itself.
In addition, we would imagine they would also refuse to work for someone unless they also got the capital they used at the end of their contract (i.e. a system of "hire-purchase" on the means of production used). In other words, by removing the statist supports of capitalism, would-be capitalists would find it hard to "compete" with the co-operative sector and would not be in a position to exploit others' labour.
With a system of communal production (in social anarchism) and mutual banks (in individualist anarchism), "usury" — i.e. charging a use-fee for a monopolised item, of which patents are an instance — would no longer be possible and the inventor would be like any other worker, exchanging the product of his or her labour. As Ben Tucker argued, "the patent monopoly . . . consists in protecting inventors and authors against competition for a period of time long enough for them to extort from the people a reward enormously in excess of the labour measure of their services — in other words, in giving certain people a right of property for a term of years in laws and facts of nature, and the power to extract tribute from others for the use of this natural wealth, which should be open to all. The abolition of this monopoly would fill its beneficiaries with a wholesome fear of competition which should cause them to be satisfied with pay for their services equal to that which other labourers get for theirs, and secure it by placing their products and works on the market at the outset at prices so low that their lines of business would be no more tempting to competitors than any other lines." [The Anarchist Reader, pp. 150-1]
So, if someone has labour to sell then they deserve a free society to do it in — as Tucker once pointed out. Such an environment would make the numbers seeking employment so low as to ensure that the rate of exploitation would be zero. Little wonder that, when faced with a self-employed, artisan workforce, capitalists have continually turned to the state to create the "correct" market forces (see section F.8).
Thus while the idea that people will happily become wage slaves may be somewhat common place (particularly with supporters of capitalism) the evidence of history is that people, given a choice, will prefer self-employment and resist wage labour (often to the death). As E. P. Thompson notes, for workers at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, the "gap in status between a 'servant,' a hired wage-labourer subject to the orders and discipline of the master, and an artisan, who might 'come and go' as he pleased, was wide enough for men to shed blood rather than allow themselves to be pushed from one side to the other. And, in the value system of the community, those who resisted degradation were in the right." [The Making of the English Working Class, p. 599] Over one hundred years later, the rural working class of Aragon showed the same dislike of wage slavery. After Communist troops destroyed their self-managed collectives, the "[d]ispossessed peasants, intransigent collectivists, refused to work in a system of private property, and were even less willing to rent out their labour." [Jose Peirats, Anarchists in the Spanish Revolution, p. 258] The rural economy collapsed (see section I.8.7 for more details).
Therefore, any perception that people will become wage-labourers through choice in a free society is based on the assumption what people accept through necessity under capitalism will pass over, without change, into a free one. This assumption is unfounded and anarchists expect that once people struggle for freedom and taste the pleasures of freedom they will not freely accept a degradation back to having a master — and as history shows, we have some evidence to support our argument.
In other words, with the end of capitalism and statism, a free society has no fear of capitalist firms being created or growing again because it rejects the idea that everyone must be in a syndicate. Few, if any, people would desire to have bosses when they have the choice of being free (to use an analogy, few people prefer dictatorship to democracy once the former has been overthrown). Also, without statism to back up various class-based monopolies of capitalist privilege, capitalism could not become dominant. In addition, the advantages of co-operation between syndicates would exceed whatever temporary advantages existed for syndicates to practice commodity exchange in a mutualist market.