File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9705, message 87


Date: Mon, 26 May 97 18:32:23 EDT
From: boddhisatva <kbevans-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re: M-I: Re: new questions







		Mr. Bridenthal,



	Of course you are quite correct to wonder at the simplistic and
unworkable "state-takeover" model.  This has been the paltry excuse for a
"next step" that has been holding socialism back for years.  There is no
thought given to the legal distinctions among kinds of property or the
legal ramifications of such a precedent or any concept put forward as to
how one might embed state takeovers into a workable system of civil law.
Furthermore, (and Mr. Seattle should take note) there is no clear and
logical position taken on ownership.  How the people will own the
factories - and what rights that ownership includes - is left to the
vagaries of "workers councils"  which will somehow, one must suppose,
constitute their own legal authority. 
     


	Of course all of this is completely unsatisfactory which is why it
seems clear to me that the next stage of the revolution will have a
decidedly syndicalist character.  If worker ownership is a fact on the
ground, then there is something to defend, a model to put forward. 
Starting through co-ops, ESOP's, and a union movement which uses all its
weapons to secure the power of ownership rather than just contracts, we
begin to undermine the status quo.  The capitalists react by pulling out
of industry. This prompts the proclaiming of "eminent domain" by local
communities over their factories is a logical and more radical
progression.  Extremely militant unionism - to the point that it disrupts
trade - is the political arm of the approach.  The goal is to give the
worker at a factory ownership rights over that specific factory. Once that
is the practice, the theory will follow.  With the other approach, we aim
our guns at a theoretical target and wonder why we miss. 





	peace,


		boddhisatva




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