Very interesting post. Great quality !
However, I do not think that the essence of anarchism is directly related to who owns the mean of productions. As a matter of fact, the question of the mean of productions truly became central in the political philosophy with the quick development of the capitalistic society. Numerous anarchist societies were not concerned by who owns the mean of productions. One example is hunter-gatherer societies. They only use their body to hunt, and the forest belongs to everyone. So for some of them it would make no sense to argue who should own the mean of productions.*
To be clear, I am not saying that your argument is invalid. It is valid. My point is, you made a very important choice by picking a specific lens with which you consider this situation. This lens being : "the central question is : who own the mean of productions ?" To me it's not. I would say that anarchism is first and foremost answering the question of : "Who should take decisions for society ?" by "society itself". I feel like it is important, because who owns the mean of production is the direct consequence rather than the cause of the answer to this question.
To me - and I may be wrong - anarchism is by essence a way to bring democracy, which is a bigger picture than just the control of the mean of productions. You're absolutely right to focus on it because authors of this period do speak a lot about it. In my opinion, it's because it was the main issue of their time rather than because it was the essence of their philosophy. In the future, automatisation and the sharing economy (among other things) will replace this issue by others. However, it does not disqualify the essence of their philosophy.
Sorry my message is very long ahah, I'll write more on this later. To sum it up, all socialism share the same goal, which is more or less : "make a better society by improving the life of the majority and diminushing inequality". The timeless debate being how to achieve this goal ? For anarchist, we just organize ourself, but it did not work because everytime they were crushed by the government -> enter communism, that solve this issue by saying we have to seize the power. It fails mainly because "absolute power bring absolute corruption", an argument that was already present in anarchist philosophy -> after that, only the weakest of the three brothers, social-democracy, stays afloat mainly because it is not as threatening for the elite. The question of who owns the mean of production was only one episode, at a specific period, of this battle. With that being said, your post was very good !
*I am aware of a few book that deal with this issue. One of them that I would recommend is "Fragments of an anarchist anthropology" by LSE professor David Graeber.
I'm familiar with Graeber, and I have a copy of that book. Graeber has heavily influenced my views in multiple ways.
This post was concerned with socialism, not anarchism in particular. I rejected anarchism for different reasons. Socialism is defined in terms of the system of property. I reject socialism because I don't think it really matters, so long as government policy brings about distributive justice. I reject anarchism because I think government is necessary for solving certain major problems. Cap & trade and Pigouvian taxes are needed to deal with the ecological crisis. Plus, I think land value tax (annual ground rent) and a citizen's dividend large enough to constitute a universal basic income is the best way to achieve distributive justice. And I want universal healthcare. It's hard to reconcile some or these taxation and redistribution policies with anarchism.
I think social democracy can actually be a much stronger position than the others. Social democracy started as a form of libertarian marxism. (Cf. Eduard Bernstein, Fabian Socialism, etc.) Early social democrats had studied both marxism and anarchism, so Eduard Bernstein and George Bernard Shaw were both familiar with Proudhon and Kropotkin. In fact, Annie Besant—a notable Fabian—started a news paper with Peter Kropotkin. And the Fabian Society even held a series of debates to determine whether they would advocate democratic socialism or anarchism. Check out Shaw's "The Impossibilities of Anarchism." It shows a clear understanding of anarchism and a valid critique. William Morris' "Socialism and Anarchism" has a similar theme...both worth reading. Ultimately, social democracy forged its own independent identity as a third way. And Eduard Bernstein had already begun that process of reform while Marx and Engels were still alive.
I think the ideas of Yanis Varoufakis, Guy Standing, Scott Santens, and Martin Farley are better than socialism/anarchism, and their positions seem to be a variety of social democracy, harking back to Thomas Paine rather than Anthony Giddens. Incorporating land value tax and basic income into social democracy makes it much stronger.
Also worth checking out is the market socialism of Oskar Lange, Abba Lerner, and Fred M. Taylor...and the "RICH economy" proposal of Robert Anton Wilson. I think a more social democratic approach to solving the problem of automation can be achieved through land value tax and emissions taxes and such being used to fund a universal basic income. There's no need to nationalize industry then. You'd have social democracy rather than socialism.
For a more detailed account of the history of social democracy and its relation to/departure from socialism, see my articles:
(1) The History and Future of Social Democracy
(2) The Brilliance and Tragedy of George Bernard Shaw
(3) Third Ways
(4) Distinctions and Similarities... This last one discusses how third way philosophies and socialism can overlap and blur together.
Thanks for your numerous sources. It will take time to digest properly which it desserves to. I have some work to finish before tomorrow night so I'll come back a little bit later when this will be done. I am not sure how in your mind social democracy can work in our flawed representative democracy, but I'll definitely check your sources before making my point in case it answers my concern - plus because they look very intersting by themselves. I appreciate that you took the time to give a clear and complete answer ! Cheers to you !
For democracy to work, it must be participatory. Our system does need to change. I think we need something like Occupy Wall Street on a large scale, plus more libertarian municipalist style tactics...create grassroots democratic assemblies of the people and use them as a sort of citizens' union to go between the people and the State, and give people more leverage to control government democratically. I like Murray Bookchin and Abdullah Öcalan. Also, I like the idea of digital democracy to make participation easier, and I like ranked-choice voting to eliminate the "lesser of two evils" dilemma. Those are things that would help. Also, maybe government should offer $500 to everyone that votes, to encourage maximum participation in the democratic process. Anyways, grassroots direct action in order to move society in the direction of participatory democracy is probably necessary.