File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9711, message 460


Date: Sat, 29 Nov 1997 03:07:59 +0000
From: "Joćo Paulo Monteiro" <jpmonteiro-AT-mail.telepac.pt>
Subject: M-I: Communist society: a dialogue (2 of 3)



--------------CF753F5D932F0A19994DFB43

Ken:
>This brings up the question of what social planning and planned
production is, how it differs
>from the bourgeois conception that a tyrant tells everyone what to do,
and why--in a classless
>society--an overall administration of things is not the same thing as a

government. These are
>among the central issues of both the classless society and the
transitional period.


Planning is an indispensable tool during the transitional period. Market

mechanisms will function in it
too, in the progressively shrinking interstices left to it. But I have
problems accepting a separate body
of planners in a full communist society. For as much democratic control
is exercised over it, a
tendency will always be present for it to constitute itself into a new
oligarchy. And the danger exists
that this body of planners will build pressure for de facto
appropriation of the means of production.

I know you mean to say that ALL OF SOCIETY will do this planning, so
there is no separate body
of planners at all. But I see no way this can be done, unless through
(electronic) instant democracy
mechanisms. Since we are talking of the allocation of resources (or the
mere "administration of
things") can I assume that your view is not that distant from mine after

all?


Ken:
>With respect to the theory of the transition, you are correct that I
didn't fully understand the
>image of communist society that you were putting forward. I appreciate
the fact that you
>don't get offended by my misunderstanding, but instead take the time to

explain your vision.
>Actually, I still have a number of questions of clarification to ask
about your views.

>The question of planning in the future, fully communist society seems
to be of these issues in
>which we are trying to figure out what each other means. You have
certain questions about
>what I mean by planning by all of society, while I don't understand how

planning can be done
>simply through instant electronic communication.

>It's true we're still trying to figure out what the other one thinks
about communism. But then this has
>been true ever since there is a communist movement, and that goes a
long way back from Marx >and Engels. People have been fighting for
communism for millennia, and nobody ever has had a >clear idea of how it

>would work.


Communism is such a compelling idea, that everybody just assumes that it

must be feasible. Or is it a
recollection from another - perfect - world, before the fall?... I'm not

a religious man. If communism
is not a religious illusion (and that is still an hypothesis), then it
must be a powerful collective intuition.

On scientific work, when you can imagine a mathematical equation of
great beauty and symmetry,
people will say: This is so devastating, IT MUST BE TRUE. And it
generally is.

Marx was not a religious man either. But when he wrote the "Critique of
the Gotha Program", he
was clearly on the borderline of science and visionary prophecy.

My whole idea is that, we are now entering a stage in capitalist
civilization where we can not only
imagine communism (and the picture gets clearer and clearer), we can
actually begin to see little bits
of it popping up spontaneously. Our duty is to study these matters in
detail and start filling the gaps.
At the end, we will no longer have just a vision, but a very concrete
and detailed political programme
for transition. We can show - with facts, figures and graphics - that
there's a way to go from here
and communism is just around the corner. Only then, probably, will the
proletariat rise for a definite
account settling with the bourgeoisie.


Ken:
>You say "I know you mean to say that ALL OF SOCIETY will do this
planning, so there is no
>separate body of planners at all. But I see no way this can be done,
unless through (electronic)
>instant democracy mechanisms."

>Actually, I think there will be some type of administrative apparatus.
Will they be "separate
>bodies"? Yes and no. They will NOT be separate bodies in the sense that

they are not
>alienated from society as a whole; they are not separate from and above

society; there will
>not be a separate class of people that serves on them and rules over
the excluded people; and
>they will be linked to actual practice. But they ARE separate bodies in

the sense that they
>actually exist as an administrative apparatus, as actual bodies.


I have many problems with this. It breaks the perfect symmetry of our
vision, and so far this is the
best guaranty we have. It also runs against some of the most established

features of communist
society: the abolition of social division of labor and of the
distinction between mental and manual
labor. A separate administrative body will create its own "separate"
science and methods of
direction. There will be "separate" academies for it. This means common
people will be alienated
from important aspects of the decision of their lives. It's a matter of
time and we will end up falling
back into a class society.


Ken:
>Marx and Engels held that large-scale production requires a certain
labor of supervision; and
>it also requires a certain direct authority. They weren't shy to point
out that whether it is
>factory production or sailing a ship, there has to be such an
authority. They distinguished in
>principle between the repressive nature of such authority in today's
society, and the
>supervision necessitated by large-scale production. Only large-scale
production creates the
>possibility that workers can be freed from such slavery; but
large-scale production is
>inevitably coordinated production, coordinated effort.

>The key question of communism, on which it rises or falls, is whether
such coordination can
>be achieved without oppression. The capitalists say no, and thus
communism is unrealistic
>and utopian. Marx and Engels said yes--if the means of production are
social property, if the
>class division in society is eliminated, the coordination and
administration of production can
>lose their political character and become an administration "of things"

and not an oppression
>of people. Marxism says that it isn't the existence of the
administrative apparatus itself that
>creates oppression, but the division of society into classes. The
anarchists say no--anything
>but direct democracy is oppressive, and they don't realize that they
are thereby enchaining the
>masses to the marketplace.


After reading this, I have the impression that your anti-revisionism
hasn't gone quite deep enough yet.
With this, we could easily find ourselves in the same old revisionist
shit-hole again. You go from the
social "property" of the means of production to the elimination of class

division. This is exactly the
Stalinist approach.

But the class division of society is not a function of the property of
the means of production. It's
rather the other way around. A certain class division in society
(product of certain RELATIONS OF
PRODUCTION) creates this form of appropriation of the means of
production. Propriety is a mere
juridical (bourgeois) concept. If we are to move away from capitalism,
we cannot just proceed by
expropriating the bourgeoisie and keep an eye on the enemy within (two
line struggle). We must
transform the relations of production. And this can only come about when

the forces of production
are mature enough for it.

Sure enough, large-scale production is coordinated effort. But how will
this effort be coordinated? If
we coordinated it by traditional bossing methods (through a separate
body of planners), we haven't
moved away an inch from the capitalist relations of production. The
correspondent appropriation
patterns will follow soon enough. You can scream and shout and make a
thousand and one "cultural
revolutions". This will come about inevitably.

And how will this "administrative apparatus" restrict itself to the
"administration of things"? What do
you (or rather Engels) mean by that? Will "things" just start moving
around upon hearing the voice of
the administrative apparatus? Doesn't it need to command people to do
this and that work, after all?
It's decisions (however democratic and participatory), aren't they
enforceable? Doesn't it need a
repressive apparatus to ensure obedience then? Isn't this a State? So
there you have it: a State in
your "classless" society. This paradox stems from a flawed approach to
the transition, that is, we are
still stuck on the revisionist marshes.


Ken:
>Your conception is that coordination can be accomplished instead by
instant democracy
>through electronic mechanisms. I don't understand how this can be done,

or how you picture
>this.

>For example, you had talked of "offer and demand" being placed into
contact. I can
>understand how this takes place in a marketplace between buyers and
sellers. This method is
>suitable to establishing a marketplace connection between a multitude
of small producers. But
>I don't understand how "offer and demand" can actually run the entire
production of a
>classless society or provide conscious planning.


The general idea (don't ask me for too many details) is: available at
home, on your monitor
(integrated TV, net, video-phone, etc.) you'll have a detailed report of

all of societies needs and
demands, as expressed by all comrade citizens. You can input your own
demands on the system
through your own home terminal. The system will then analyze the
available resources and tell people
where does society have excess capacity for the demands registered, and
where it is running short of
them. As people are nurtured with cooperative values, they will tend to
shift their occupations away
from where they are not wanted anymore to where they are most needed. As

people are highly
educated and productive activity is simple (it constitutes mostly on
supervising and improving
automated chains of production), changing occupation is free, simple and

easy to do. There are no
material rewards for it. People will just tend to act that way out of
desire to be useful. A new
equilibrium is thus reached. It's the invisible hand, communist style.
"Conscious planning" is the result
of all this.


Ken:
>But how it can plan what type of water conservation programs to use?
Whether certain
>methods of production are relatively harmful and should be replaced?
What the patterns of
>land use should be? What global action should be taken to prevent
global warming or the
>destruction of the ozone layer or the overfishing of the world's
oceans? These are tasks that
>are not only necessary but also excite many people and arouse their
enthusiasm. Can you give
>me a more concrete picture of how these things might be accomplished by

the methods you
>envision? I know I am asking you to do a lot of work, even if thinking
about future society is
>a labor of love. But could you imagine such a typical economic problem
in the future society
>and describe to me how it might be settled in your conception?


The system will tell you, where and why we are beginning to have
problems and how to solve them.
This "system" is, of course, not just a communication medium like
today's internet. It is a highly
complex and powerful information treatment device. The data from all
observation posts (on earth,
submarine, satellite, etc.) is feeded to the system, like in today's
"intelligent houses". It will be
instantly available to everyone. The experts, or any informed people,
will read this data and make
their analysis. The arguments will be fought over and over again.
Conclusions will be easier to reach
than today, not only because the instruments will be more precise but
(above all) because the experts
won't be corrupted by capitalist interests. When we have a fairly clear
picture of the alternatives at
play, the subject is posed to a universal vote. So if you are a
agronomic engineer, or someone who
can express an articulated view on these subjects, you can alert the
system (and all comrade citizens)
for what is, in your opinion, an inadequate use of the land. Your
opinion is immediately available to
everybody. The subject is discussed. The conclusion reached is that your

opinion is a little
exaggerated. There is a certain amount of depletion of land but the
alternative use won't give us quite
enough food supply. The alternatives are put as clearly as possible
(with graphics and stuff). People
will vote. Of course, this doesn't guarantee a good decision. We (or our

children) may still regret it
later. But it has been fairly decide upon, and all the participants had
exclusively the public good in
view.


Ken:
>One could of course vote on such issues. And electronic communications
allows the rapid
>counting of votes. But voting on an issue is not the same as balancing
offer and demand; they
>are two very different things. Voting presupposes that the result of
the vote will be regarded
>as authoritative by the people, whereas the idea of balancing offer and

demand seems to
>imply that there will be no need for any type of authority. Voting
assumes that society can
>implement the vote. It requires that, if there is a vote for a rail
network, that the required
>steel production and construction work and research into improvements
and so forth will be
>carried out, and carried out over a protracted period of time. The
balance of offer and
>demand, on the other hand, varies from moment to moment. And, if it is
to be informed
>voting, voting even requires that everyone think about the issue and
have available to them
>good information. The balance of offer and demand does not require that

people have any
>viewpoint other than their immediate needs.


This is a very important point. Once a decision is reached on an
important social investment, this
decision needs to be implemented of course. Is this to be done without
coercion? Yes. Plans,
locations, technical solutions will be offered, debated and voted upon.
After which, people will
simply volunteer to do the work. By the mechanisms of the invisible hand

depicted above, people
will come from where they aren't needed to implement this project. If
they don't show up in sufficient
number and qualification, then something is wrong. The people has
decided something that it is not
really interested in implementing. Another solution must be reached.


Ken:
>It seems to me that the issue of separate bodies is related to the
issue of direct democracy vs.
>representative democracy. Once the number of people involved becomes
big enough, direct
>democracy becomes all but impossible.


I think you're wrong here. We will have soon enough the technical means
to make direct democracy
an everyday habit for all. Of course, to put them to use, we will first
have to chase the bourgeoisie
from power. After that, the problem I see is another one. Will everybody

have the time and the
patience to study and vote in conscience all the problems that are
constantly requiring decision? This
is the real problem. Even with very limited and free work schedules,
people's attention span and
capacity for treating information are limited. I can imagine a kind of
democratic stress. People are
interested and motivated, but there is simply no way they can
participate in all the important
decisions. They'll want to have some fun too.

Many of the smaller problems will probably have to be decided by the
minority of those who took
interest on it at the time. The problem is then to find a way of
filtering the information and the
problems that are indeed essential for people's lives. This will, of
course, be done by the individuals
themselves. I may choose to be aware of all local problems, or of all
global environmental questions,
and so on. A good level of education will ensure that people WILL BE
INTERESTED in the really
essential problems. There will be nothing like present day mass
alienation. Everybody will have a fair
chance to participate in every decisions who may have some impact on
their lives. However, since
they cannot possibly participate in absolutely all of them, their lives
are likely to be somehow affected
by decisions made without their participation. This is not a perfect
world after all.


Ken:
>However, when I talk about planning being done by society as a whole, I

don't just mean that
>planning bodies are selected by society. And I don't agree that central

planning means a single
>planning body decides every detail, which is then enforced by appointed

agents that go to
>every enterprise and say "do it exactly this way". At every level, the
people involved must
>have their own consciousness and initiative (as well as having their
share in contributing to
>the overall decisions); they will take a myriad of decisions on their
own; but the local
>decisions will be within the overall plans.


Look Ken, you're just stating a big mountain of your best intentions
here. But this road has been
tried before and it never worked. There's nothing new here. We have had
some of the best and most
gifted communists leaders of this century pursuing this path, followed
by a wave of tremendous
popular enthusiasm and emulation. And they all failed. What makes you
think it will work now?
Because now we have studied revisionism and we are prepared to face it
when it comes? Because
we're going to try harder?

The fact, however, is that when you embark on this road, you are already

defeated. You're assuming
that there will always be directors and directed. The first will decide
the allocation of productive
resources (including human labor), and the seconds will obey and
cooperate all the way, filling the
little details (like the today’s workers on toyotist "quality circles").

But this is the essence of class
society, on its nucleus. This is the essence of the capitalist relations

of production. As long as we
follow this road, THE CAPITALIST PRIVATE APPROPRIATION OF THE MEANS OF
PRODUCTION WILL ALWAYS STRIVE TO REAPPEAR AT THE SURFACE. The capitalist

relations of production will be enveloped in a institutional overcoat
that doesn't suits them. That's
why state-capitalism is unstable. It works, somehow, but it doesn't work

as good as plain capitalism.
When they realize it, all "communist" leaders (however heroic and
honest) become revisionists pure
and simple. They will typically start taking measures such as: freedom
of action for enterprises, then a little market, then privatization pure

and simple.


--------------CF753F5D932F0A19994DFB43

HTML VERSION:

Ken:
>This brings up the question of what social planning and planned
production is, how it differs
>from the bourgeois conception that a tyrant tells everyone what to do,
and why--in a classless
>society--an overall administration of things is not the same thing as a
government. These are
>among the central issues of both the classless society and the
transitional period.
 

Planning is an indispensable tool during the transitional period. Market
mechanisms will function in it
too, in the progressively shrinking interstices left to it. But I have
problems accepting a separate body
of planners in a full communist society. For as much democratic control
is exercised over it, a
tendency will always be present for it to constitute itself into a new
oligarchy. And the danger exists
that this body of planners will build pressure for de facto
appropriation of the means of production.

I know you mean to say that ALL OF SOCIETY will do this planning, so
there is no separate body
of planners at all. But I see no way this can be done, unless through
(electronic) instant democracy
mechanisms. Since we are talking of the allocation of resources (or the
mere "administration of
things") can I assume that your view is not that distant from mine after
all?
 

Ken:
>With respect to the theory of the transition, you are correct that I
didn't fully understand the
>image of communist society that you were putting forward. I appreciate
the fact that you
>don't get offended by my misunderstanding, but instead take the time to
explain your vision.
>Actually, I still have a number of questions of clarification to ask
about your views.

>The question of planning in the future, fully communist society seems
to be of these issues in
>which we are trying to figure out what each other means. You have
certain questions about
>what I mean by planning by all of society, while I don't understand how
planning can be done
>simply through instant electronic communication.

>It's true we're still trying to figure out what the other one thinks
about communism. But then this has
>been true ever since there is a communist movement, and that goes a
long way back from Marx >and Engels. People have been fighting for
communism for millennia, and nobody ever has had a >clear idea of how it
>would work.
 

Communism is such a compelling idea, that everybody just assumes that it
must be feasible. Or is it a
recollection from another - perfect - world, before the fall?... I'm not
a religious man. If communism
is not a religious illusion (and that is still an hypothesis), then it
must be a powerful collective intuition.

On scientific work, when you can imagine a mathematical equation of
great beauty and symmetry,
people will say: This is so devastating, IT MUST BE TRUE. And it
generally is.

Marx was not a religious man either. But when he wrote the "Critique of
the Gotha Program", he
was clearly on the borderline of science and visionary prophecy.

My whole idea is that, we are now entering a stage in capitalist
civilization where we can not only
imagine communism (and the picture gets clearer and clearer), we can
actually begin to see little bits
of it popping up spontaneously. Our duty is to study these matters in
detail and start filling the gaps.
At the end, we will no longer have just a vision, but a very concrete
and detailed political programme
for transition. We can show - with facts, figures and graphics - that
there's a way to go from here
and communism is just around the corner. Only then, probably, will the
proletariat rise for a definite
account settling with the bourgeoisie.
 

Ken:
>You say "I know you mean to say that ALL OF SOCIETY will do this
planning, so there is no
>separate body of planners at all. But I see no way this can be done,
unless through (electronic)
>instant democracy mechanisms."

>Actually, I think there will be some type of administrative apparatus.
Will they be "separate
>bodies"? Yes and no. They will NOT be separate bodies in the sense that
they are not
>alienated from society as a whole; they are not separate from and above
society; there will
>not be a separate class of people that serves on them and rules over
the excluded people; and
>they will be linked to actual practice. But they ARE separate bodies in
the sense that they
>actually exist as an administrative apparatus, as actual bodies.
 

I have many problems with this. It breaks the perfect symmetry of our
vision, and so far this is the
best guaranty we have. It also runs against some of the most established
features of communist
society: the abolition of social division of labor and of the
distinction between mental and manual
labor. A separate administrative body will create its own "separate"
science and methods of
direction. There will be "separate" academies for it. This means common
people will be alienated
from important aspects of the decision of their lives. It's a matter of
time and we will end up falling
back into a class society.
 

Ken:
>Marx and Engels held that large-scale production requires a certain
labor of supervision; and
>it also requires a certain direct authority. They weren't shy to point
out that whether it is
>factory production or sailing a ship, there has to be such an
authority. They distinguished in
>principle between the repressive nature of such authority in today's
society, and the
>supervision necessitated by large-scale production. Only large-scale
production creates the
>possibility that workers can be freed from such slavery; but
large-scale production is
>inevitably coordinated production, coordinated effort.

>The key question of communism, on which it rises or falls, is whether
such coordination can
>be achieved without oppression. The capitalists say no, and thus
communism is unrealistic
>and utopian. Marx and Engels said yes--if the means of production are
social property, if the
>class division in society is eliminated, the coordination and
administration of production can
>lose their political character and become an administration "of things"
and not an oppression
>of people. Marxism says that it isn't the existence of the
administrative apparatus itself that
>creates oppression, but the division of society into classes. The
anarchists say no--anything
>but direct democracy is oppressive, and they don't realize that they
are thereby enchaining the
>masses to the marketplace.
 
 
After reading this, I have the impression that your anti-revisionism
hasn't gone quite deep enough yet.
With this, we could easily find ourselves in the same old revisionist
shit-hole again. You go from the
social "property" of the means of production to the elimination of class
division. This is exactly the
Stalinist approach.

But the class division of society is not a function of the property of
the means of production. It's
rather the other way around. A certain class division in society
(product of certain RELATIONS OF
PRODUCTION) creates this form of appropriation of the means of
production. Propriety is a mere
juridical (bourgeois) concept. If we are to move away from capitalism,
we cannot just proceed by
expropriating the bourgeoisie and keep an eye on the enemy within (two
line struggle). We must
transform the relations of production. And this can only come about when
the forces of production
are mature enough for it.

Sure enough, large-scale production is coordinated effort. But how will
this effort be coordinated? If
we coordinated it by traditional bossing methods (through a separate
body of planners), we haven't
moved away an inch from the capitalist relations of production. The
correspondent appropriation
patterns will follow soon enough. You can scream and shout and make a
thousand and one "cultural
revolutions". This will come about inevitably.

And how will this "administrative apparatus" restrict itself to the
"administration of things"? What do
you (or rather Engels) mean by that? Will "things" just start moving
around upon hearing the voice of
the administrative apparatus? Doesn't it need to command people to do
this and that work, after all?
It's decisions (however democratic and participatory), aren't they
enforceable? Doesn't it need a
repressive apparatus to ensure obedience then? Isn't this a State? So
there you have it: a State in
your "classless" society. This paradox stems from a flawed approach to
the transition, that is, we are
still stuck on the revisionist marshes.
 

Ken:
>Your conception is that coordination can be accomplished instead by
instant democracy
>through electronic mechanisms. I don't understand how this can be done,
or how you picture
>this.

>For example, you had talked of "offer and demand" being placed into
contact. I can
>understand how this takes place in a marketplace between buyers and
sellers. This method is
>suitable to establishing a marketplace connection between a multitude
of small producers. But
>I don't understand how "offer and demand" can actually run the entire
production of a
>classless society or provide conscious planning.
 

The general idea (don't ask me for too many details) is: available at
home, on your monitor
(integrated TV, net, video-phone, etc.) you'll have a detailed report of
all of societies needs and
demands, as expressed by all comrade citizens. You can input your own
demands on the system
through your own home terminal. The system will then analyze the
available resources and tell people
where does society have excess capacity for the demands registered, and
where it is running short of
them. As people are nurtured with cooperative values, they will tend to
shift their occupations away
from where they are not wanted anymore to where they are most needed. As
people are highly
educated and productive activity is simple (it constitutes mostly on
supervising and improving
automated chains of production), changing occupation is free, simple and
easy to do. There are no
material rewards for it. People will just tend to act that way out of
desire to be useful. A new
equilibrium is thus reached. It's the invisible hand, communist style.
"Conscious planning" is the result
of all this.
 

Ken:
>But how it can plan what type of water conservation programs to use?
Whether certain
>methods of production are relatively harmful and should be replaced?
What the patterns of
>land use should be? What global action should be taken to prevent
global warming or the
>destruction of the ozone layer or the overfishing of the world's
oceans? These are tasks that
>are not only necessary but also excite many people and arouse their
enthusiasm. Can you give
>me a more concrete picture of how these things might be accomplished by
the methods you
>envision? I know I am asking you to do a lot of work, even if thinking
about future society is
>a labor of love. But could you imagine such a typical economic problem
in the future society
>and describe to me how it might be settled in your conception?
 

The system will tell you, where and why we are beginning to have
problems and how to solve them.
This "system" is, of course, not just a communication medium like
today's internet. It is a highly
complex and powerful information treatment device. The data from all
observation posts (on earth,
submarine, satellite, etc.) is feeded to the system, like in today's
"intelligent houses". It will be
instantly available to everyone. The experts, or any informed people,
will read this data and make
their analysis. The arguments will be fought over and over again.
Conclusions will be easier to reach
than today, not only because the instruments will be more precise but
(above all) because the experts
won't be corrupted by capitalist interests. When we have a fairly clear
picture of the alternatives at
play, the subject is posed to a universal vote. So if you are a
agronomic engineer, or someone who
can express an articulated view on these subjects, you can alert the
system (and all comrade citizens)
for what is, in your opinion, an inadequate use of the land. Your
opinion is immediately available to
everybody. The subject is discussed. The conclusion reached is that your
opinion is a little
exaggerated. There is a certain amount of depletion of land but the
alternative use won't give us quite
enough food supply. The alternatives are put as clearly as possible
(with graphics and stuff). People
will vote. Of course, this doesn't guarantee a good decision. We (or our
children) may still regret it
later. But it has been fairly decide upon, and all the participants had
exclusively the public good in
view.
 

Ken:
>One could of course vote on such issues. And electronic communications
allows the rapid
>counting of votes. But voting on an issue is not the same as balancing
offer and demand; they
>are two very different things. Voting presupposes that the result of
the vote will be regarded
>as authoritative by the people, whereas the idea of balancing offer and
demand seems to
>imply that there will be no need for any type of authority. Voting
assumes that society can
>implement the vote. It requires that, if there is a vote for a rail
network, that the required
>steel production and construction work and research into improvements
and so forth will be
>carried out, and carried out over a protracted period of time. The
balance of offer and
>demand, on the other hand, varies from moment to moment. And, if it is
to be informed
>voting, voting even requires that everyone think about the issue and
have available to them
>good information. The balance of offer and demand does not require that
people have any
>viewpoint other than their immediate needs.
 

This is a very important point. Once a decision is reached on an
important social investment, this
decision needs to be implemented of course. Is this to be done without
coercion? Yes. Plans,
locations, technical solutions will be offered, debated and voted upon.
After which, people will
simply volunteer to do the work. By the mechanisms of the invisible hand
depicted above, people
will come from where they aren't needed to implement this project. If
they don't show up in sufficient
number and qualification, then something is wrong. The people has
decided something that it is not
really interested in implementing. Another solution must be reached.
 

Ken:
>It seems to me that the issue of separate bodies is related to the
issue of direct democracy vs.
>representative democracy. Once the number of people involved becomes
big enough, direct
>democracy becomes all but impossible.
 

I think you're wrong here. We will have soon enough the technical means
to make direct democracy
an everyday habit for all. Of course, to put them to use, we will first
have to chase the bourgeoisie
from power. After that, the problem I see is another one. Will everybody
have the time and the
patience to study and vote in conscience all the problems that are
constantly requiring decision? This
is the real problem. Even with very limited and free work schedules,
people's attention span and
capacity for treating information are limited. I can imagine a kind of
democratic stress. People are
interested and motivated, but there is simply no way they can
participate in all the important
decisions. They'll want to have some fun too.

Many of the smaller problems will probably have to be decided by the
minority of those who took
interest on it at the time. The problem is then to find a way of
filtering the information and the
problems that are indeed essential for people's lives. This will, of
course, be done by the individuals
themselves. I may choose to be aware of all local problems, or of all
global environmental questions,
and so on. A good level of education will ensure that people WILL BE
INTERESTED in the really
essential problems. There will be nothing like present day mass
alienation. Everybody will have a fair
chance to participate in every decisions who may have some impact on
their lives. However, since
they cannot possibly participate in absolutely all of them, their lives
are likely to be somehow affected
by decisions made without their participation. This is not a perfect
world after all.
 

Ken:
>However, when I talk about planning being done by society as a whole, I
don't just mean that
>planning bodies are selected by society. And I don't agree that central
planning means a single
>planning body decides every detail, which is then enforced by appointed
agents that go to
>every enterprise and say "do it exactly this way". At every level, the
people involved must
>have their own consciousness and initiative (as well as having their
share in contributing to
>the overall decisions); they will take a myriad of decisions on their
own; but the local
>decisions will be within the overall plans.
 

Look Ken, you're just stating a big mountain of your best intentions
here. But this road has been
tried before and it never worked. There's nothing new here. We have had
some of the best and most
gifted communists leaders of this century pursuing this path, followed
by a wave of tremendous
popular enthusiasm and emulation. And they all failed. What makes you
think it will work now?
Because now we have studied revisionism and we are prepared to face it
when it comes? Because
we're going to try harder?

The fact, however, is that when you embark on this road, you are already
defeated. You're assuming
that there will always be directors and directed. The first will decide
the allocation of productive
resources (including human labor), and the seconds will obey and
cooperate all the way, filling the
little details (like the today’s workers on toyotist "quality circles").
But this is the essence of class
society, on its nucleus. This is the essence of the capitalist relations
of production. As long as we
follow this road, THE CAPITALIST PRIVATE APPROPRIATION OF THE MEANS OF
PRODUCTION WILL ALWAYS STRIVE TO REAPPEAR AT THE SURFACE. The capitalist

relations of production will be enveloped in a institutional overcoat
that doesn't suits them. That's
why state-capitalism is unstable. It works, somehow, but it doesn't work
as good as plain capitalism.
When they realize it, all "communist" leaders (however heroic and
honest) become revisionists pure
and simple. They will typically start taking measures such as: freedom
of action for enterprises, then a little market, then privatization pure
and simple.
  --------------CF753F5D932F0A19994DFB43-- --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---


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