Socialism

Posted: 20 Nov 2005 08:17 pm Post subject:

I did a search at dogpile.com and came up with a critique of sorts of the SIU proposal. Take a look and we can discuss it after a while:

http://www.worldsocialism.org/wsm-pages/siu.html

dave

Posted: 20 Nov 2005 09:53 pm Post subject:

From the critique of the SIU idea at

http://www.worldsocialism.org/wsm-pages/siu.html

What's wrong with the SIU approach?

* Propagates the belief that economic power is superior to political power.

* Separates "community" from "workers".

* SIUs cannot serve as proper unions under capitalism.

* Blueprints, today, for administering future socialist society are imprudent and undemocratic.

Posted: 20 Nov 2005 11:40 pm Post subject:

From the critique of the SIU idea at

http://www.worldsocialism.org/wsm-pages/siu.html

What's wrong with the SIU approach?

* Propagates the belief that economic power is superior to political power.

Opening paragrapgh:

"SIUs exist to capture the places of production from the capitalist class. The claim is that the economic power of the capitalist class would prevent the political decision of the vast majority of workers from being carried out, and that therefore there must be an organization to take control of the workplaces from the capitalist class."

Paragrapgh further on:

"When the vast majority of the working class is socialist, so will be the police and military whose members are working class. At that time, the socialist working class will use its political power to capture the state. When the state, in its last action as the state, transfers legal ownership of the means of production to the people of the world as a whole, the economic power of the capitalists will have been extinguished by the political power of the working class."

Dave responds -

The opening premise is off and so the following argument is off.

"SIUs exist to capture the places of production from the capitalist class."

The places of production are already in the hands of the working class. The captialist class has nicely over the years has more and more turned over the engines of planning, production and distribution to the workers. Capitalists merely own title issued by the state.

The term "power" can be misleading. Because the workrs are alreading in the industries and operating them they have potential but not power over them.

"The claim is that the economic power of the capitalist class would prevent the political decision of the vast majority of workers from being carried out, and that therefore there must be an organization to take control of the workplaces from the capitalist class."

The above statement uses the phrase: "the political decision of the vast majority of workers"

What political decision?

From the context - I can only gather that the writier is talking about some hypothetical situation where the workers at the election time of the politicl state swept into office a bunch of candidates espousing socialism. The writer then incorrectly posits that the need for SIU is only to counter the capitalists' probable attempt at resistance to that electoral victory.

The writer continues:

"The capitalists could do nothing, with their economic power, to prevent expropriation. The fear that they could keep the working class out of the factories etc. is completely unfounded. How could they? Remember that the working class outnumbers them 10 or 20 to one. Also remember that the military and police (all working class, and mostly socialist) will be responsible to the political power of the working class."

Dave responds - Let us even assume that the SIU is not needed to enforce the "politcal decision" which this writier implies includes the end of the political state and with it the end of ownership of the means of production by the capitalist class - what then?

This writer suggests that in its dying, the state has authority and por to transfer title of the means of production to something called "the people of the world as a whole" - that's a pleasant enough thought but what is its form of organization and how does this body now have industries operate that it now "owns"?

Oh - political power - that's how it'll be done. Political power utilized to control the industries! The workers are to throw off one owner by dissolving the state but then the workers will accept another owner that is now named "people of the world as a whole".

Why should the workers work? Are "the people of the world as a whole" going to induce workers to work by purchasing their labor power? Who owns the product of labor - the laborers or some body named "people of the world as a whole"? If its going to be the laborers, then they will need an organization to operate the industries – the SIU. If it’s going to be the body called "people of the world as a whole" then it would be no wonder the writer would be opposed to SIU.

IMHO

dave

Posted: 22 Nov 2005 04:26 am Post subject:

From the critique of the SIU idea at

http://www.worldsocialism.org/wsm-pages/siu.html

What's wrong with the SIU approach?

*Separates "community" from "workers".

"The workplace based model, developed about a hundred years ago, was designed to administer production. It took over half a century, but SIU supporters finally recognized that a purely workplace based administration does not explicitly include anything outside of the workplace. This has led some to suggest including a community side to the administration.

"This explicitly two-pronged approach creates an administrative split in society that needn't, and shouldn't exist. Of course those in the workplace know how to do their job better than the average person in the street, and the WSM is not suggesting that people shouldn't be allowed to do their jobs as they see fit. What the WSM does say, is that the administrative split only exists when you take the SIU route.

"Taking the WSM approach that production is a social activity, a part of society as a whole, and not something to be given to workers, by industry, as their own, then the problem does not exist. The SIU model would generate a "workers" versus the "community" antagonism that is ridiculous and unnecessary."

dave asks: Would SIU separate workers and community?

Posted: 22 Nov 2005 07:30 am Post subject:

The "worker versus community" issue has been explained to the World Socialists a bazillion times, and they still won't admit that they see the point. There is a real difference. It's one statement to say that the Chicago transportation workers should elect the director board for Chicago transportation. It's another statement to say that the human race should elect the director board for Chicago transportation. These two options would be two different constituencies for purposes of casting votes. Most De Leonists support worker's workplace-based self-management at both the regional level and the industry sector level. The World Socialists disagree. They have a right to disagree and to say so, but they shouldn't pretend that they don''t understand what the De Leonists are saying, and claim that De Leonists believe in an "antagonism between the workers and the community." Frankly, I think they must be playing dumb here. The concept isn't that complicated.

Posted: 22 Nov 2005 07:43 am Post subject:

"Propagates the belief that economic power is superior to political power"

Again, playing dumb. They know darn well that De Leonists have held that the political and economic organization have different purposes, the political organization to nullify capitalist control of the state, the economic organization to carry on industrial planning without any period of chaos immediatey after capitalist management is removed. They're saying "power" to create the inaccurate image that De Leonists (and the IWW) propose having a protracted civil war in the workshops.

Posted: 22 Nov 2005 07:50 am Post subject:

"Blueprints, today, for administering future socialist society are imprudent and undemocratic."

Wrong on at least two counts.

First, the World Socialists don't accept the notion that its necessary to do anything to prevent the chaos of a management vacuum. They think it's sufficient to begin thinking about what kind of new system we should have -- to first begin thinking about it and discussing it -- after the capitalist managers have been ousted. Do it their way and there would be total confusion, and that means severe interruptions in providing food, water, energy, etc.

Secondly, the word "undemocratic" exposes another misconception they hold. They want a democratic society, but they don't realize that a society is democratic to the extent that it has a democratic structure or constitution. If socialists don't propose at least a minimal degree of blueprinting, then there is no substantial goal to identify as a democratic goal.

Posted: 22 Nov 2005 08:30 am Post subject:

Posted: 22 Nov 2005 01:16 pm Post subject:

*Separates "community" from "workers".

The World Socialist writer posits a dichotomy of workplace (supposedly SIU) and non-workplace (supposedly "community").

From the American Heritage Diction online at www.dictionary.com

com·mu·ni·ty
n. pl. com·mu·ni·ties

1.
1. A group of people living in the same locality and under the same government.
2. The district or locality in which such a group lives.
2.
1. A group of people having common interests: the scientific community; the international business community.
2. A group viewed as forming a distinct segment of society: the gay community; the community of color.
3.
1. Similarity or identity: a community of interests.
2. Sharing, participation, and fellowship.
4. Society as a whole; the public.
5. Ecology.
1. A group of plants and animals living and interacting with one another in a specific region under relatively similar environmental conditions.
2. The region occupied by a group of interacting organisms.

We could equally say that SIU wil separte workers from the National Geograpgic Society or from the Roman Catholic Church.

SIU will be the community of workers as workers.

When people outside of work form voluntary associations SIU will certainly facilitate workers doing that, mainly by freeing up their time and allowing them there wherewithall to be able to think about things far removed from the day to day grind that exists under capitalism.

Even under capitalism people (mostly workers) volunteer in such things as fire departments and rescue squads and even church choirs. Why would these things not continue? Why would these things not flourish when the workers take ownership of the industries and operate them for themselves??

dave

Posted: 24 Nov 2005 03:53 am Post subject:

Posted: 24 Nov 2005 04:31 am Post subject:

I think they may be seeing a higher form of cooperation and motivation than our plain jane SIU. Is not SIU a necessary prior step toward that higher plane.

Thinking out loud

dave

Posted: 28 Nov 2005 01:07 pm Post subject:

Posted: 29 Nov 2005 04:06 pm Post subject:

* SIUs cannot serve as proper unions under capitalism.

Posted: 30 Nov 2005 05:27 am Post subject:

I think they're right that the SIU would not be able to function under capitalism as the kind of union that achieves anything with collective bargaining or direct economic actions (strikes, boycotts, etc.). That's because there are two cases: either the SIU is a minority or the SIU is the majority. If the SIU is the minority it as no power, and if it's majority then capitalism has been abolished. With those two cases, how could the occasion arise for the SIU to call a strike against the capitalist? That would only happen in a few cases where the SIU is the majority in a few shops but not yet the majority society-wide.

Therefore, IMO (and this is not the opinion of all De Leonists) ... we have to support dual unionism. The majority of workers, although they believe in capitalism, need to be organized into the non-socialist union, which struggles for better job conditions, and the minority of workers who support socialism need to be organized into non-socialist union and the SIU, which would be a revolutionary educational organization. When the non-socialist union calls any direct economic action, the SIU needs to declare absolute solidarity with them. It is the socialists' intention that many more workers, through subsequent educational work, will later join the SIU, and it will become the majority later on. That's when the SIU will have its revolutionary role, administering the workers' actual taking and holding of the industries, and declaring collective ownership. After the socialist reconstruction of society, the word "union" may or may not still be used, but what was the revolutionary union will provide the initial conditions or "skeleton" for a new system of workers' assemblies and committees in every workplace, which will become the industrial management.

Posted: 30 Nov 2005 04:38 pm Post subject:

Well, the SIU needs to be created first and placed in the background, so to speak, and the members of the SIU would be the revolutionary educational organization within the non-socialist union(s) and hold dual membership while getting workers to join the SIU. It would seem more logical for the SIU to exist rather than having a political party speak of it coming into existance at a future time.

Posted: 30 Nov 2005 09:10 pm Post subject:

I agree completely. And that's an excellent way to express it, that the SIU must be "created first and placed in the background." On this particular point, I feel that the IWW is right and most De Leonists are wrong. The SIU needs to materialize sooner rather than later, no matter how small it may be.

A small SIU can get busy right away as an information exchange, which, in this age, means not only speeches and printed literature, but also documentary videos and internet broadcasts and all sorts of new channels.

I hope we can co-author some new statements to this effect, and then we can send it around to a lot of people who need some doses of Unity vitamins.

Posted: 02 Dec 2005 07:42 pm Post subject:

Mike Wrote:

Posted: 03 Dec 2005 02:08 am Post subject:

Personally, if the nonsoc union said i couldn't join the SIU, then I wouldn't join the nonsoc union. In some US states - NY is one of them - the law says the union contract with the employer can be such that union dues will be deducted from your pay whether you join the union or not, so it's not really that important (to me) to join the union. Either way, I will pay into it, and if the union negotiates a benefit then I will get that benefit just like everyone else. If co-workers complain that I didn't join, I would remind them that it was their choice and not mine.

The option to use a word other than "union" in available if it's believed that will help. I would prefer to make up a new word like "bleeem" and tell people that it's a new synonym for "union", but that I was forbidden by bureaucracy to use the word "union."

Posted: 03 Dec 2005 02:22 am Post subject:

Posted: 03 Dec 2005 03:46 pm Post subject:

Mike Wrote:

Posted: 03 Dec 2005 08:15 pm Post subject:

"Every time political parties have gained power in the name of the workers, the interests of the working class have been sacrificed to the particular political ambitions of the individuals concerned."

That sounds right until we consider the alternative. Yes, someone can run for office on slogans about supporting workers, and then turn out to be the workers' enemy. Now, let's consider the alternative. The alternative would be for workers to permit the public office to be occupied by someone who admits beforehand to being a lackey of the ruling class, promises to squash the workers, and is proud of it. What's better, something that might go wrong as it has in the past, or something that is known certainly to go wrong by initial intent? To me, it's a no-brainer.

See the exchange of letters in De Leon's pamphlet, "As To Politics." The IWW member and anarchist Arturo Giovannitti tells De Leon, "Fifty vacant seats in Congress will frighten capitalism more than fifty honorable socialists sitting there...." De Leon corrects him by pointing out, "Even if the whole working class abstained from voting, there would be not one single seat vacant seat. The capitalist candidates would then be elected unanimously by the capitalists themselves."

Posted: 03 Dec 2005 08:20 pm Post subject:

"As Kropotkin noted a century ago, production and exchange are so complicated that no government would be capable of organizing production unless the workers themselves took charge....."

Understandably, the anarcho-syndicalist needs to answer those people who want the government to nationalize the industries. It seems that this sentence isn't aimed at the De Leonists, who also point out the failures of the government nationalizing the industries. Here we have two sectors who agree of the method of workers' councils, however much they may disagree on other things.

Posted: 03 Dec 2005 08:38 pm Post subject:

Referring to the IWW, you wrote:

Posted: 03 Dec 2005 09:25 pm Post subject:

Posted: 03 Dec 2005 09:42 pm Post subject:

Posted: 03 Dec 2005 09:57 pm Post subject:

On the IWW and politics:

Posted: 03 Dec 2005 10:07 pm Post subject:

Re: The IWW,

Posted: 04 Dec 2005 01:05 am Post subject:

Mike Wrote:

Posted: 04 Dec 2005 06:53 am Post subject:

The IWW is very different from the trade unions in that they explicity call for replacement of capitalism by some form of worker ownership and control.

Like De Leonists, they also call for all workers in each industry to be the same IU department of "one big union" of the whole working class. This contrasts with craft unionism, which allows workers of different job types to be in separate unions in the same industry.

The document entitled "Preamble", which is technically the Preamble of the IWW constitution, is also their basic statement of principles. It has been amended only twice since 1905. It shows a significant degree of similarity between De Leonism and the IWW. I copy it here:

____________________________________________

Preamble

The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can
be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the
working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the
good things of life.

Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the
world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production,
abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth.

We find that the centering of the management of industries into fewer and
fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever-growing
power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs
which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers
in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars.
Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers
into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their
employers.

These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working class
upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in
any one industry, or in all industries if necessary, cease work whenever a
strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to
one an injury to all.

Instead of the conservative motto, "A fair day's wage for a fair day's
work," we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword,
"Abolition of the wage system."

It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism.
The army of production must be organized, not only for everyday struggle
with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall
have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the
structure of the new society within the shell of the old.

Knowing, therefore, that such an organization is absolutely necessary for
emancipation, we unite under the following constitution:

Posted: 04 Dec 2005 02:50 pm Post subject:

Mike Wrote:

Posted: 05 Dec 2005 03:15 am Post subject:

I might have been wrong in estimating membership size. But we can't go by the number of departments because the department numbers (IU 420 = furniture workers, etc.) were predefined early in the 20th century, even if there was no one yet in the department.

Posted: 05 Dec 2005 02:33 pm Post subject:

I noticed the empty departments but I also seen the ones that are active and that the IWW exist in both hemispheres. I was reading how Marx organized a workers educational society. For the most part, that is what this website does is educate about DeLeon and SIU. Well, it has for me.

Posted: 05 Dec 2005 09:11 pm Post subject:

Posted: 07 Dec 2005 01:37 am Post subject:

Dave and I are currently sharing our "pearls of wisdom" Smile

on this SIU topic, and other topics, in the World Socialists forum. Letting you know in case you want to join in the fun.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WSM_Forum/messages

Posted: 09 Dec 2005 02:43 pm Post subject:

I been away. The wfe has another infection which th e doctor is working on to get rid of.

Mike wrote:

Posted: 10 Dec 2005 02:53 am Post subject:

Democracy:

"It is the line that forms on the right. It is the don't in, don't shove. It is the hole in the stuffed shirt through which the sawdust slowly trickles; it is the dent in the high hat. Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. It is the feeling of, privacy in the voting booths, the feeling of communion in the libraries, the feeling' of vitality everywhere."

"Democracy is the letter to the editor. Democracy is the score at the beginning of the ninth. It is an idea which hasn't been disproved yet, a song the words of which have not gone bad. It's the mustard on the hot dog, and the cream in the rationed coffee. Democracy is a request from a War Board, in the middle of a morning, in the middle of a war, wanting to know what democracy is." E B. White

Posted: 10 Dec 2005 09:12 am Post subject:

S.G., I'm not knowledgable about Marx and that educational society.

I do recall that the group that asked Marx and Engels to write the Communist Manifesto was just a dozen guys who met in a living room on Sunday afternoons. One biographer said that it wasn't a political party -- it was a tea party.

If those pipe-smoking scholars truly found a way to reach out to typical working class folks, that's definitely the right idea.

I know that the International (born 1864, died 1876) had a significant worker base, but then again it included trade unions with modestly liberal goals. Membership didn't require the concept of socialism, although the mottos written all over the membership card were socialist. Unfortunately, loosening up the requirements for membership in the International still didn't save it from disintegration anyway. (In truth, Marx chose to kill the International because too many of its joiners agreed with Marx's ideological rival, Bakunin.)

Posted: 12 Dec 2005 05:12 pm Post subject:

Posted: 12 Dec 2005 05:35 pm Post subject:

Current Premable of the IWW:

Posted: 12 Dec 2005 11:19 pm Post subject:

Mikhail Bakunin and Pierre Joseph Proudhon argued that Marx's idea of workers using politics taking control of the state, to take the state away from its control by the ruling class, would lead to a new dictatorship. People who still say this will point to the Russian fiasco, but then I argue to them that the Russian movement did a number of things wrong, and that with some foresight and planning a new dictatorship wouldn't follow.

The followers of Bakunin and Proudhon never seem to have an answer to what the alternative might be. If workers don't take the state away from the ruling class, then the ruling class still controls it, and can use it to repress the workers. To have a socialist program that says to ignore the state would seem, to me, suicidal.

Posted: 12 Dec 2005 11:27 pm Post subject:

Posted: 14 Dec 2005 03:45 pm Post subject:

With age comes wisdom Very Happy

Anyways, anarchism is pretty much popular in today's world. They reject the concept of the state due to the Soviet Union authoratitive rule from above that collapsed into capitalism. It will be really hard to convince these folks that the political state has to be taken from the ruling class before it can be abolished. However, I can understand why they would worry about those place in political authority. Get the wrong men and women in and BOOM there goes the country down dictatorship. Here is another tid bit from the IWW:

Posted: 15 Dec 2005 04:23 am Post subject:

Posted: 22 Feb 2006 01:44 am Post subject:

From Daniel De Leon's article in 1913: Industrial Unionism

Posted: 22 Feb 2006 07:33 am Post subject:

Where De Leon refers to the IU as a "government", he means government of industry, which we today would call "management." He used the word government to be in line with his other references about turning industry into a "republic", that is, democratic management. Instead of choosing another word, he added adjectives. Making laws is "political government", and deciding how to produce goods and services is "industrial government".

Posted: 22 Feb 2006 10:46 am Post subject:

DeLeon wrote:

"The Industrial Union grasps the principle of the political State -- central and local authorities disconnected from productive activity; and it grasps the requirement of the government of freedom ”the central and local administrative authorities of the productive capabilities of the people."

I think instead of "grasps" a better word to understand what he was saying would be "understands".

Therefore we have to understand that the central and local authorities of the political state are disconnebted from productive activity.

DeLeon wrote:

"on the political field, because on none other can be proclaimed the revolutionary purpose, without consciousness of which the Union is a rope of sand."

Again with his god damned analogies. The union without is a rope of sand - that makes everything perfectly clear doesn't it?

The concept - I think is that - if the political state says "I hold power over all because a majority of the voters said that I should have power." Then it behooves us to call the political state on that and get enough people to vote in a slate of candidates who openly say that all of the industries belong to the workers and that they will operate those industries through their own governement based upon industrial and not political constituencies.

The part about without consciouness of the revolutionary purpose I think has to do with the fact that the union without the revolutionary purpose will get mired down in the day to day compromises that unions always have to deal with - right up to the minute of the revolution they are going to be dealing with the capitalists - making agreements with them like it or not. Which would leave us with something like the IWW is now - that the political party is the uncompromising. The idea to avoid is this romantic concept that the bold party (vangard) is going to set the stage for the industriall dullards to finally act. It has got to be the same people organized both ways.

Analogy alert - something like when I do law work I am for all intents and purposes a part of that court urging its powers on people that I legally oppose. When I walk out of the court I am the same person with same interests but now I am trying to undo the political stae of which the court is an integral part.

There are other ways of looking at the industrial/political issue - and no doubt it will resolve itself in some fashion that no one can predict in the future. The industrial power except for the power of nature is absolute - however getting that power (analogy alert) into gear for the workers is the big issue. The power of the state, while it is not absolute compared to organized industry, must be dealt with (analogy alert) soberly. It seems if the state says that its authority rests upon the masses - we cannot cede that position - we of the masses must try to convince our brothers and sisters to use the industrial tool and the ballot for as long as we have it.

This was the problem with the SLP - it was not the political party of labor although it acted as it was. There cannot be a potical party of labor uness the workers are organized industrially. (This doesn't necesarrily mean they all or even a majority of workers have to be in a union as many unions are now.) The SLP and we outside of the SLP are nothing but (analogy alert) loose radicals trying to spread this idea. But we think that same idea will develop in and of itself among the working class - so although it just the three of us here, we expect that the idea will take hold.

dave

Posted: 22 Feb 2006 05:36 pm Post subject:

Dave wrote:

Posted: 23 Feb 2006 11:23 pm Post subject:

John wrote:

So, you are saying that the SIU, being industrial, is the structure that is carried out in every region. Though each region is independent and autonomous the infrastructure of SIU is the glue that keeps production and distribution from going chaotic.

What I was writing was about the relationship between the party of labor and the siu prerevolution.

After revolution SIU is it. Local regional world committees or councils is how the workers will run the industries. The industries are the infrastucture. Nothing independet and nothing autonomous about it - we're all in it together.

Posted: 24 Feb 2006 05:23 pm Post subject:

Dave wrote:

Posted: 24 Feb 2006 06:49 pm Post subject:

Dave: "After revolution SIU is it."
John : "But where do laws fit in?"

In my most-humble-as-always (not! :-) opinion, the post-revolutionary society will also need a political body to make laws. It will also need cops, courts and jails.

It can be relatively simple. No towns, counties or provinces, just one body of N number of representatives elected directly by the whole adult population, to make laws (without regard to the voter's place of residence.) This is the body that says something like: physical assault: fifty years behind bars; threat of assault: thirty years; etc. But I also believe that a petition (electronically) signed by the majority of the population should be the highest law, overriding anything else.

Marx and Engels would say that this is not a "state." In Marxian terminology, a state is something that may nominally belong to all of the people but is, in practice, the instrument of a ruling class over the people, with the nominal purpose of serving everyone, but, in practice, fulfilling the role of holding the people in subjugation by the ruling class.

Many if not most of the members of the World Socialist Movement (WSM) would call my suggestion above a kind of "state" because it has some coercive characteristics, but I reject the idea of eliminating all coercive characteristics. Common sense tells me that we couldn't even have a yield sign at a road intersection without some degree of coercion, and certainly the need to restrain murderers and assailants will make it impossible to eliminate all coercive aspects.

The SLP is also influenced by the anthropology of Lewis Henry Morgan, who associated the use of terms "state" and "political society" and "civil society" (in Latin, civitas) with anything made of geographical constituencies, and associated the terms "non-political" form of government and "social" form of government (in Latin, societas) with any direct relationships among people without going through geographical constituencies. This is an ideosyncratic use of terms found in some literature of the mid-20th-century SLP, but I think that, in this forum, Lepore and Searles may display some influence by this SLP tradition.

I suggest we all try to say precisely what we mean, instead of assuming that our readers know what we mean when we say "state." It is a very confusing part of socialist thought.

Posted: 24 Feb 2006 11:28 pm Post subject:

John wrote:

The regional are representatives from the local regions who communicate what the local regions wants are. Most likely the same idea on a planetary scale. The latter would be the most complicated. Of all three I understand the local council whe it comes to industry and services. But where do laws fit in?

Mike wrote:

In my most-humble-as-always (not! :-) opinion, the post-revolutionary society will also need a political body to make laws.

Dave asks:

define "laws"

define "political"

The three levels or how many levels all have the same role. (I would well imagine that there might be places on earth in certain industries which choose to not have a regional level - or have regional level but not a local level.) I would imagine that they would all do about the same thing, plan and co-ordinate production. And remember the local council is only for a particular industry. Of course all of the locals in a given area would communcate with each other. If the local breadmakers said that they needed more electricty, I suppose that they wouldn't have to make a case to the all industry council to get the electrical workers to turn up the juice a little bit.

A political governement without political boundaries? I guess it can be. But this is what I think of when I think about political government - a governement with constituencies defined by land boundaries.

I also can see the "all industry congress" as the SLP chart used to call it being capable of generating general rules - authorized sort of like the "elastic clause" in the current constitution.

But under no circumstances can I see any body except a workers' body to have any authority over the workers unless the worker's governemt specifcally authorizes it and gives that body or groups of bodies specific and very limited administrative tasks.

In Vermont we do something like this a lot. There are about a dozen actual town offices and the town clerk is usually designated by election or appointment by the town board to fill half of those offices - but each town can do it any way they want and put a dozen different people into those dozen different slots if they so choose -(but it is never done).

We even have one specific elected officer in each county called the Grand Sherriff or something like that. By law this person has exactly one function, and that is to take the regular sherriff into custody if ordered by the court to do so and only gets paid when this actually happens. (There isn't a whole lot of competition for this job.) We also have one or two town constables elected directly by the residents of the town.

Posted: 24 Feb 2006 11:58 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 25 Feb 2006 01:53 am Post subject:

One industrial rule - stay off of the railroad tracks. I think that the railroad industry ought to be competent to make that rule and have it applicable to everyone.

I know this is an overly simple example.

What the consequences of walking on the railroad track should be? dunno

Posted: 25 Feb 2006 02:27 am Post subject:

John wrote:

"Why not law enforcement, judges and jails as a department of the SIU?"

No.

Only officers empowered over one very specific administrative task:

Pull people over on roadway x between mile post A and mile post B who are driving faster than the limit determined by the highway industry.

Better yet create devices that can control how fast a vehicle can go down the highway.

Jails - for what? I think if we truly looked at behaviour modification with an eye toward getting peole to treat other people better we wouldn't need jails. Might we even think locking people up makes things worse?

"Drunk driving--X days in jail and two TLVs not paid to the worker but given to pay those in the medical or educational field. In other words, a combination of civil government and industrial government. "

Drunk driving - no days in jail just no driving for 5 years. No riding in a vehicle except public transportation for one year. Do damage? Maybe a work house to work equal hours to make restitution. Kill someone? Some number of hours of restitution and never drive again. Penalties along these lines but far more on prevention up front.

Posted: 25 Feb 2006 03:50 am Post subject:

Dave wrote:

Posted: 25 Feb 2006 12:33 pm Post subject:

S.G. says:
> Why not law enforcement, judges and jails as a department of the
> SIU? Have a social constitution that workers would agree to
> exist. Vote on laws to be passed. Something like: Drunk
> driving--X days in jail and two TLVs not paid to the worker but
> given to pay those in the medical or educational field. In other
> words, a combination of civil government and industrial
> government.

True, the process to enforce the law would have to be one of the industries, in the sense that it requires labor and materials. However, it could not set its own policies in the same way that the electronics industry decides autonomously what kind of transistors to use. The law has to be handed to it.

Posted: 25 Feb 2006 12:38 pm Post subject:

Dave says:

> define "laws"

Limitations placed on human behavior because certain actions are generally considered to be undesirable, regardless of any benefits that some people may claim for these behaviors.

> define "political"

Any subjects that go beyond economic capabilities and processes. Laws governing individual behavior, are one type. Determining the ethics of social and economic policy is another type.

Aristotle's definition of "politics" was "the manner in which people arrange their life together."

It's an economic consideration to acquire the plans and resources to build a bridge across the lake, but it's politics when some people think the bridge would be beautiful while others oppose it because it would be ugly.

It's purely technical if biotechnology can tinker with DNA to create a monster, but it's politics if society bans such an activity based on value-laden principles.

Posted: 25 Feb 2006 12:42 pm Post subject:

> But under no circumstances can I see any body except a workers'
> body to have any authority over the workers unless the worker's
> governemt specifcally authorizes it and gives that body or groups
> of bodies specific and very limited administrative tasks.

If you can be prosecuted under the law for murdering me, by hitting me over the head with a baseball bat, who's supposed to make such a law? -- the committee of lumber workers, because the baseball bat is made of wood? To connect law-making with industry would be ridiculous. It's a completely separate area.

A crossover between the two areas usually appears when we consider general policy, such as the ban on the pesticide DDT. The law banned it years ago, because it was uncertain whether it was dangerous, but it was known with certainty that it builds up in the food chain, and something that accumulates in living tissue, which may or may not later be found to be dangerous, isn't worth the risk. That's an ethical policy issue which affects everyone. It has nothing to do with the purely economic considerations, like how much many more vegetables we would have after the pesticide inhibits the beetles. This is larger than economics. It merges with moral values. I would say that the industrial representatives should report their findings, for overall consideration, but the government that makes the decision should NOT be the industrial representatives. Industry isn't synonymous with society. Industry is a vital part of society.

Posted: 25 Feb 2006 12:55 pm Post subject:

Posted: 25 Feb 2006 03:44 pm Post subject:

No? I am a bit confused with that answer. What's the difference between rules and laws? Basically both say that if you do something against both you answer to the consequence.

The difference is the "authority" issuing it.

E.g. the State Park Commission now in the State of New York is not a legislative body it is an adminstrative body. It can issue rules that must be followed to use the park - that's it.

Of course we can dwell on but what if someone comes into the park and murders someone. I don't know. I do know that we as usasians are currently emersed in a culture of death. Sky high incarcertion rates, death penalty, cops and more cops and we still have a murder rate that other countries would equate to a state of civil war.

USA murder rate is almost 25 times higher than in Luxemboug. With less tha 5% of the world population US has almost 25% of all of the world's prisoners.

The USA experience has shown us that plotical government is powerless to even get a handle on the problem of crime. One industrial solution - no more hand guns would slash the murder and suicide rates dramatically. Industrial solution - create highways with zero fixed possible collision points within 100 (better yet 200) feet of a road's edge - no utility poles rocks trees without impact attenuators. Limit speed to 50 mph. Set up sensors that detect and identy fast drivers. Suspend or Revoke their privledge to use the highway.

A whole lot of things could be done on a strictly adminstrative level to stop violence.

"Of course, but whatever the response, whether it's a jail or a psychological treatment or something else, any one of these is just an example of general policy that has nothing to do with the expertise of an all-industry congress composed of representatives elected from manufacturing, agriculture, etc."

disagree. All of society would now be on a behavioral analysis model. What specifically is effective, what is not. Right now, do the people in charge of the highways give a fuck that almost a thousand people PER WEEK die on them? Response: Clean up the crash site as quickly as possible make it look like nothing every happened. Someone gets murdered. Find the person who did it. Lock him up possiblly kill him. What get's changed? A political model can't and won't deal with that. The political model thrives on disaster. Is made more secure by disaster. E.G. GWB.

"If you can be prosecuted under the law for murdering me, by hitting me over the head with a baseball bat, who's supposed to make such a law? -- the committee of lumber workers, because the baseball bat is made of wood? To connect law-making with industry would be ridiculous. It's a completely separate area. "

Suppose that one person hits another person with a baseball bat. Tell me what happens under the laws/cops/courts/jail model that reduces the level of violence?

"The law banned it years ago, because it was uncertain whether it was dangerous, but it was known with certainty that it builds up in the food chain, and something that accumulates in living tissue, which may or may not later be found to be dangerous, isn't worth the risk. That's an ethical policy issue which affects everyone. It has nothing to do with the purely economic considerations, like how much many more vegetables we would have after the pesticide inhibits the beetles"

Burning coal in Ohio that contains murcury speads this poison throughout the Northeast building up in the aquatic food chain via bio magnification. Under socialsm the workers in Ohio would have no interest in spreading this poison, knowing this do we think that the Ohio workers would simply look at the labor hours per kilowatt hours ratio and say screw the Northeast?

Ditto for the chemical workers. They of all people are aware of the necessity of using safe products, safe for everyone. If they had no economic incentive would we expect that they would just continue making a ddt or a pcb product. Wouldn't they have every incentive to make sure that these products were safe?

There is nothing here that would lead me to say that we need a political structure to monitor the worker's industrial government.

" > define "political"

Any subjects that go beyond economic capabilities and processes. Laws governing individual behavior, are one type. Determining the ethics of social and economic policy is another type.

Aristotle's definition of "politics" was "the manner in which people arrange their life together."

Our vocabulary has progressed from Aristotle's time. We don't call tribal based societies such as described by LH Morgan as political.

Here you are saying that if it isn't economic it's political? splain yerself

" > define "laws"

Limitations placed on human behavior because certain actions are generally considered to be undesirable, regardless of any benefits that some people may claim for these behaviors."

The workers say that they have the sole right to parcel out the product of their labor. Is there a body other than a workers' body that can contermand that?

"It's purely technical if biotechnology can tinker with DNA to create a monster, but it's politics if society bans such an activity based on value-laden principles."

And the workers are incompetent in that area? Because they have the technology to blow us up - we need a political body to say no don't do that. We will find that if these bombs are made they will be made BECAUSE we have political governement having direction over the workers.

"True, the process to enforce the law would have to be one of the industries, in the sense that it requires labor and materials. However, it could not set its own policies in the same way that the electronics industry decides autonomously what kind of transistors to use. The law has to be handed to it."

Outside practical consideration always come to bare. The transitor issue is differnt than the highway issue for a big part - but suppose the electrocics industry realizes that it has made a product that is generating a radio frequency that is fucking up heart pace makers. We would expect that the electroics industral workers wouold take whatever steps to recall the product. The highway industru is a little different becuase after it is built the highway still has almost complete responsibity for the road including responsibity to prevent its misuse. I would expect that the highway industry could promulage use rules and stringently enforce those rules - the extent of enforcement procedures of course would have to be closely monitored. That still doesn't mean that there has to be an overarching political governement as opposed to adminstrative bodies with very limited powers of decision (usually these are called ministerial duties) And again the main goal is prevention. When is the last time you saw an article in the paper such as: Highway death rate up from last year - State Police Commander and Highway Commissioner fired. That is the nature of political governemt. For all the bullshit individual deaths do not matter AT ALL. If individual deaths are reacted to at all, they are merely excuses for the political goverment to grab more power.

Posted: 25 Feb 2006 05:22 pm Post subject:

Dave wrote:

Posted: 25 Feb 2006 06:55 pm Post subject:

still there will be people not being on the same page, people who refuses to agree with the new society, and there is the riff raff and actual violent criminals. All of these together just may constitute fifty percent of the population roughly. This condition may continue for a long time after the revolution.

John - this is a perception that you have regarding the rest of society, even capitalist society in its current decadent form.

Even if you are anywhere near accurate - there would be nothing in plotical governement that is going to protect us from that. (And who's to say that the worse elements won't congregate in the political government as they do now?)

When I used to work in a prison I used to say - "Lok at this palce - the three worse elements of society - the crooks, the cops and the politicians all locked in together. The inmates used to get a kick out of it.

Intersting statistic concerning recidivism: (I haven't revisted this subject in years so I don't know if it still is true) but there is one group of inmates that has showed a remarkably low recidivism rate - and it had nothing to do with the crimes that they had comeitted or whther they had "atoned" for their alleged crimes. Back in the 60s there was a whole bunch of inmates released simply becuase they hadn't been given their Miranda warning when taken into custody. It was probably hundreds if not not more inmates involved. They simply had to be set free. For some strange reason (perhaps becuase of the shock of lady luck litterally plucking them out of their prison cell) this group had a very low recidivism rate.

People are a lot better than they are made out to be. Anthother intersting fact that in prision, as a class, the best behaved prisioners are usually the out right murderers. There are tough codes out on the streets. Disrespect me, I have to slash you or I am not a man. I think it's fair to say that when all people are respected and they don't have to fight for it, and they are not hemmed down as to where they live or work or what they have to do in order to survive - it will be a far far better world. Not perfect for sure, but not imperfect enought to think that we are going to be protected by any law/cops/court/jail model.

Posted: 26 Feb 2006 07:40 am Post subject:

Posted: 26 Feb 2006 07:51 am Post subject:

Posted: 26 Feb 2006 08:00 am Post subject:

Posted: 26 Feb 2006 08:12 am Post subject:

Posted: 26 Feb 2006 05:13 pm Post subject:

Boy, all I wanted to know if there would be legislative laws put into effect through the SIU and if a judicial type department would exist. I am going over to the SLP website to read, read and read. I'll be back at a later date. Very Happy

Posted: 27 Feb 2006 12:27 am Post subject:

"Further motion is restrained. For example, in October of 2002, two men shot thirteen random people in Virginia and DC, but, as soon as they were apprehended, they stopped doing it. Why did they stop shooting people? Because now they are restrained."

They did this despite all of the cops in the world tht they know would be after them - some of the killing were even in states known to have the death penalty.

"Boy, all I wanted to know if there would be legislative laws put into effect through the SIU and if a judicial type department would exist. I am going over to the SLP website to read, read and read. I'll be back at a later date."

Crime is simply an aberation that we have no idea of how it will be dealt with in the furture society.

Just for further thought - most laws regarding personal offenses derive not from legislative law but from the common law. Most likely a common law will derive under socialism but I will leave it to the grandchildren of our generation to worry about it.

Posted: 27 Feb 2006 05:22 am Post subject:

Dave - You're bringing up a lot of points that are useful when discussing the whole issue of law and lawlessness, but I don't see how your responses are related to what I'm trying to say. I'm expressing that I don't agree with the old SLP statements that all governmental functions should be done by the SIU. I'm not saying that crime should be dealt with vindictively. I'm not denying that creative measures besides punishment would be a good idea. I'm not here making any claims about the effectiveness of deterrence or prevention, or about recidivism, or class rule's causations, or the degree of injustice, or any of those issues. I'm just asserting one point -- that a socialist society will, once in a while, find someone being violent, and society will certainly have some kind of policy about it, and I think the best source for making that policy would be the general population and their representatives, rather than the old SLP idea of representatives who are elected from branches of industry.

Posted: 27 Feb 2006 10:35 pm Post subject:

"and I think the best source for making that policy would be the general population and their representatives, rather than the old SLP idea of representatives who are elected from branches of industry."

yes and I am doing everything that I can to dissuade you of the idea.

We do a poll of world-pop, should abortion be illegal? Then what? Who is it going to get enforced against?

I don't see world-pop as having any legitimacy to do anything. If a majority of world-pop believes something and votes for it - you can be sure that it's going to be wrong.

The people along the sand
All turn and look one way.
They turn their back on the land.
They look at the sea all day.

As long as it takes to pass
A ship keeps raising its hull;
The wetter ground like glass
Reflects a standing gull.

The land may vary more;
But wherever the truth may be---
The water comes ashore,
And the people look at the sea.

They cannot look out far.
They cannot look in deep.
But when was that ever a bar
To any watch they keep?

(Robt. Frost)

Posted: 27 Feb 2006 11:21 pm Post subject:

Well, I understand the future society as Dave was descibing. However, people would want to know what society will be like "the day after." Will the Leninist take charge. If they do you better believe they will have cops and military pointing guns at everyone. Commies want to weed people out. I was trying to ask is what sort of social policy will people live by. You know, moral codes of ethics that everyone can agree on before the revolution to reduce chaos.

John

Posted: 28 Feb 2006 04:40 am Post subject:

John you must drive a car. When you drive down a two lane highway with cars coming at you at over a hundred miles per hour (combined speed) I doubt if you ask yourself much about the oncoming driver's ethics or moral code. You just don't have time to. It's self survival on both sides. Crazy part about it - it works practically all of the time. Statistically you'd have to drive about a hundred million miles before catching it in the face from an oncoming driver.

Posted: 28 Feb 2006 08:48 pm Post subject:

I give up because I am not getting it. If revolution occurs then everyone will be in the right frame of mind. That means that free access will be a reality. There is no need for SIU and the robots are coming too.

Posted: 02 Mar 2006 03:25 pm Post subject:

Frame of mind (consciousness) will break down after about the first 20 minutes as a bais for world productive cooperation.

(And by productive, I don't mean that the world should go on a production frenzy much of the benefit of scoialism will come from the security of not having to produce to the last possible degree of our capaity - - smarter not harder not more.)

You are not getting it, because there is not an "it" to get.

We know a couple of things beyond that we can't project.

We know that there is a class struggle which the workers must resolve. It must be resolved not only in the abolition of capitalism, more importantly than day one of the revolution is week one and year one and decade one of the revolution - not a people power revolution but a workers' revolution.

Socialism is a response to the class struggle.

What's going to happen on day two of the revolution if someone delibertely kills someone else? Damned if I know.

It was proposed that there be a world-pop decision making body. From this side of the revolution I would not agree in advance that the workers be second to anything but nature itself - if the SIU appoints administrative officers with absolutley limited authority to do certain tasks - that is a question for the time.

Robots - we have them now - mechanization - industrialization - automazation - cyberization each of these has held promise of facilitating democratization but has only heated up the class struggle.

There even putting patents on seeds. Making them hybrids so you can't plant without buying new seeds. Do we think that robots are going to be anything different?

Posted: 02 Mar 2006 05:19 pm Post subject:

Posted: 02 Mar 2006 05:39 pm Post subject:

Posted: 02 Mar 2006 05:58 pm Post subject:

Both you and Dave should have realised I am frustrated because I am not understanding how or why things will function after the revolution. I went on a tangent with my last post. Confused

Mike wrote:

Posted: 02 Mar 2006 09:35 pm Post subject:

Posted: 02 Mar 2006 09:53 pm Post subject:

Social,

Ken Ellis could confuse anybody. His big thing is his prediction of nano-robots that will do all the work, including making more nano-robots, and they will get their materials and energy entirely from (to use Ken's phrase) "sunlight and dirt." He says this is coming so soon that, very shortly, immanently, labor itself will be unnecessary - so why even bother to deal with the fact that we are now forced to sell our labor power on the labor market, an oppressive situation? Why not just wait a short moment, when it will all go away by itself? Now,I tell Ken that I think he's talking about something that may arrive in three hundred years, but not immanently. This is where my conversations with him have stalled.

Ken isn't representative of a typical socialist, nor is he representative of a typical anti-socialist. He's just "himself."

Posted: 02 Mar 2006 10:04 pm Post subject:

Social,

Say some more about "social constructs", so I can picture what you mean by that.

Posted: 02 Mar 2006 11:13 pm Post subject:

I know that Ken was confusing but what I wrote was nonsensical. In other words, what I was conveying is that when the revolution comes every thing else should fall in place. No one would have to worry about TLVs because Free Access would work or just wait until the robots come. I was saying that out of frustration because I wanted to know what social and ethical behaviors will be carried over into the new society. The social norms (constructs) that make human interactons possible which also defines us as individuals. The constructs that exist outside the work place. Will laws have to be made and who will make them since some people will get violent when money is abolished seeing their wealth and power fly out the window? Then you have violent people who enjoy hurting other people and I have seen this first hand.

Posted: 03 Mar 2006 12:46 am Post subject:

S.G. -- Did I previously express myself clearly enough, when I said I'd support passage of laws by a representative body elected by the whole adult population, or are you asking me to elaborate?

As for the part about

Posted: 03 Mar 2006 01:01 am Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 03 Mar 2006 01:44 pm Post subject:

Instead of saying the "U.S. Congress", I'm in favor of starting from scratch, and a new Constitution being written.

I feel that sending representatives according to district is silly, because there's no inherent thing called "the Virginia viewpoint about whether murder should be a crime", "the Illinois viewpoint about whether murder should be a crime", etc. Location has nothing to do with it, so I don't see the point in the legislative body having regional composition. This structure is a carryover from the days when: (1) Self-identification was with the colonies, as in people saying "I''m a citizen of Virginia, and patriotic to Virginia" -- an attitude which has largely disappeared -- and, (2) the agricultural area, the days when it took days by horseback to get any message to and from the nation's capital.

It makes sense to have an integral composition of an all-industry congress, because it's duties would involve industrial matters. For example, we're debating the launch of another communications satellite. What input does metallurgy have to report? What input does health care have to report? Let's hear from education. Let's hear from electronics. Each branch of industry might have useful input. The composition should be based on productive function, not place of residence.

But how about a law-making legislature? Other than saying that I don't like territorial constituency, I don't have any real good ideas.

Would it be unwieldy to have direct election of each member of a congress of 100 representatives? Maybe it wouldn't be unwieldy, since we can use computers to sweep-in selections as a group, for example, automatically highlight all the candidates who agree with me on this or that ethical issue. Another option is for each person to get, say, ten votes, and the 100 candidates who get the most votes get elected. There are many kinds of systems that have been suggested at one time or another. At this time, I'm not insistent on any one suggestion. As I said before, your outlook is as good as mine, so you can develop what you think, regardless of what I think.

Posted: 03 Mar 2006 03:42 pm Post subject:

Sorry to have been out of the loop. I will comment in a day or so.

dave

Posted: 03 Mar 2006 10:48 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 04 Mar 2006 02:23 am Post subject:

Posted: 04 Mar 2006 05:39 pm Post subject:

Dave wrote:

Posted: 05 Mar 2006 09:45 pm Post subject:

John wrote:

So, pretty much we know what to do in regards to economics but futuristic on how society would function. In other words, no one knows.

Dave wrote:

Bingo.

Congratulations John, you are now a scientist.

John wrote:

In other words, as material conditions present themselves the developement of "what to do" emerges. We build on what we do know but we have to go beyond just developing consciousness. We must reach for the spirit.

Dave writes:

I don't know how much futher we can go with material conditions, The material conditions have been favorable for a revlution for over a hunderd years.

"We build on what we do know but we have to go beyond just developing consciousness" - no - developing consciousness is just fine.

What I was talking about being a scientist is when you wrote:

In other words, no one knows.

Recognizing what is not known is the basis of all science.

Posted: 06 Mar 2006 03:56 am Post subject:

There aren't that many people out there who will challenge a socialist to "predict" anything. It should be enough to outline some of the the pros and cons of various ideas, and, if someone is so inclined, to personally take a stand on what seems to be a good idea and what seems to be a bad idea.

Posted: 06 Mar 2006 04:18 pm Post subject:

Dave wrote:

Posted: 09 Mar 2006 11:03 pm Post subject:

Yes, raising consciousness to that purpose is what we have to do. Others, such as in the WSM believe that "consciousness" in and of itself will dicatate that once they take over the industries they will necesarily work together in an organized fashion - that right from the get go there will be so much wealth flaoting around and work so pleasant that there will be no need to even keep track of individual input and output. Analogy alert. Two people can get married and have a conscouosness that they bith need to contribute and take cooperatively from the union. Over half of the time, even with the best of intentions marriages fail. Is it from lack of consciousness that this happens. That's with two people who presumably have some kind of a sexual interest in making things work. How are 2.5 billion adults spread round the globe of all faiths, languages, cultures etc. going to manage on consciousness? Answer, they ain't. There has to be an organization with authority over the entire spectrum of the industriall means of production - not just we'll get along somehow on consensus.

Posted: 10 Mar 2006 12:55 am Post subject:

I know that there has to be a moral and ethical aspect of socialism otherwise the whole concept will fall on deaf ears. Yes, I do agree that organizing a plan of action that anyone would understand along the lines of organizing production and distribution of all industries. This is what drew me to this website. A coherent plan (SIU) was preaented along with a new economic model (LTVs) to replace money. I know you hate anologies Dave but De Leon was a man of his time. He knew how to talk to the working class. I often see Biblical references he made which I understood clearly. If alive today, he would have given Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell a run for their exploited monies. He appealed to their learned moral and ethical mindset. We need people who can talk to large crowds and relate to who they are and present a clear picture of what SIU would be. Don't look at me though...I am just a percussionist.

Posted: 10 Mar 2006 05:19 am Post subject:

I just became an IWW member.

Posted: 10 Mar 2006 09:23 am Post subject:

Posted: 10 Mar 2006 09:24 am Post subject:

Posted: 10 Mar 2006 05:44 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 11 Mar 2006 07:39 pm Post subject:

I know that song. I have the IWW music CD, "Rebel Voices." It's awesome.

Click Me

Posted: 11 Mar 2006 09:30 pm Post subject:

I joined the IWW because they are actually existing industrial union. They have a 100 year history and they are as they were 100 years ago I believe. Even if they don't ever accept the "political aspect" they could, out of common sense and reason, accept the TLVs on economic grounds. In other words, all would recieve their full labor value at the social store. Remeber Robert Owen came up with the LTV concept as well as being the father of the cooperative movement. I read somewher that Proudhon advocated the use of labor vouchers. Very Happy

Posted: 12 Mar 2006 12:01 pm Post subject:

Nor is the people’s judgment always true:
the most may err as grossly as the few.

John Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel (1681) in JOHN BARTLETT, FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS 304
(15th ed. 1980)

Posted: 12 Mar 2006 12:15 pm Post subject:

Well, I think De Leon and the SLP judged the IWW way too harshly and unfairly. The SLP claimed that the IWW had become formally against the use of a political party, which simply isn't true. All the IWW said is that the decision whether or not to go with a political party was going to be left up to each individual. The SLP should have then tried to promote the party as an ever-increasing "individual choice" for the people in the IWW, but, instead, the SLP severed its relations with the IWW, and falsely claimed that it had to be either one or the other. That was the biggest stupid mistake in De Leonist history. I hope that the future offers chances for solidarity, instead of stubborn Hatfield-McCoy feuds.

The SLP response has always confused me, because the phrase "without affiliation with any politial party" appeared BOTH in the 1905 IWW constitution, which the SLP endorsed, and in the 1908 amended version, which the SLP opposed!

Posted: 12 Mar 2006 09:29 pm Post subject:

This is on the IWW website:

Posted: 14 Mar 2006 10:11 am Post subject:

Two nit-pickies about what you quoted from the iww site:

The last paragraph begin "rejection of electoral politics...." The didn't proofread carefully, because they really meant "rejection of official union endorsement of electoral politics." This is clear from the elaboration "... does not mean that individual members are not free to vote for candidates of their choice...."

The other thing is: I don't remember the SLP saying that the 1908 event "purged socialists." The SLP is clear that they all walked out and quit.

> So the SLP did make a false claim against the IWW.

On this point, yes.

The SLP also makes osme good points.

At various times in the past, whereas the IWW now says "direct economic action", they used to say just "direct action." Under that catch-all, there were some members who leaned toward a violent notion of what the revolution has to means. There probably still are some. But, to me, the biggie is that it's not the official position of the IWW.

Another thing is the IWW collaboration with Earth First!, starting about ten or fifteen years ago or so. EF, the SLP has noted, describes itself a "not a membership organization," meaning that people are in EF come together as they wish, without formally "joining" anything. Some EF people who did use destructive methods couldn't get kicked out, because there was no actual organization to kick them out of. One of these controversial methods was "tree spiking", where EF people hammered metal rods into trees to protest logging, and if a chainsaw were to hit the metal it makes the chainsaw chain jam or break, slowing down the logging, along with the danger that it could snap back and maim the lumber workers. The SLP criticized the IWW for getting so close to the anything-goes "not a membership organizaiton" EF, because the SLP is deeply into the idea that revolutionaries are supposed to vote on what to do and then all unanimously support whatever was voted. So, who's right? I think all sides here are partially right and partially wrong.

The IWW has also been in the contradictory position of taking stands on political issues without taking stands on elections. For example, they have been very active in abortion pro-choice, but then, when someone asks whether it's recommended to vote for a pro-choice candidate or an anti-choice candidate, they say they have no position at all on that, it's up to the individual. To me, that makes no sense.

But here's the thing that ties it all together. Unlike the SLP, where newspaper articles are entirely the party's oficial position, articles in the IWW newspaper are entirely the personal viewpoints of the individual authors who submitted them. (In fact, one of my articles was in the IWW newspaper; I had posted it all over the internet and the IWW copied it from there -- I only found out later by seeing it in print.) I don't think the SLP gets this point. Even if the entire IWW newspaper for numerous month is filled with anarchist articles, that still doesn't mena that the IWW is anarchist. All it means is that anarhcists happen to be the people who submitted articles. The editor didn't pass any judgment on them, and simply forwarded them to the printer.

These are some of the ways in which the SLP and IWW have different "cultures." I think I'm a person with the unusual ability to recognize when everyone's half-right and everyone's half-wrong.

Like the SLP, I insist that political action is absolutely necessary, otherwise the revolution will be a total massacre of the workers. People can't just confiscate the means of production, when the government has a million police officers and soldiers, armed to the teeth, sworn to uphold the law. This is something important that many in the IWW lacks clarity on. They think a general strike would stop the repression. No, a general strike would only induce starvation, _on top of_ the violent repression. The violent repression of the workers itself would continue unimpeded, since the government has ample supplies in storage of fuel and bullets and anything else they might need. There is only one chance for hte revolution to be peaceful, or, as peaceful _as possible_, and that is to go through the political process that most IWW's find so distasteful.

This what De Leon meant when he said that, in 1908, the IWW was "captured by physical forcists." It wasn't, but I can see why he felt that it was. Again, many sides to these things, everybody half-right and everybody half-wrong, in my _most humble_ :-) opinion!

Posted: 14 Mar 2006 10:32 am Post subject:

Posted: 14 Mar 2006 11:51 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 15 Mar 2006 02:50 am Post subject:

I see at the IWW's preamble that they mention the workers taking ovr th meands of production - but in scanning 3 or 4 pages of thre web site I don'tr see any articles thast deal with this or mention it.

Posted: 15 Mar 2006 03:35 am Post subject:

Posted: 15 Mar 2006 03:43 am Post subject:

Social, is it an easy process to join? Is it just a short application form and pay the first month's dues and you're in? Does the applicant have to affirm a belief in anything specific?

Simplicity in the joining process sometimes goes along with a membership being diverse in the number of belief systems that can be found among them.

Posted: 15 Mar 2006 09:28 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 15 Mar 2006 09:43 pm Post subject:

You know I realise that no organization is perfet or do what we think they should be doing. I found this on the website on labor law. At least the IWW knows how to have their membership become aware and learn of labor laws. In this link there is an introduction to Labor Law and the Rank and File by Staughton Lynd. He was (he just may have passed on by now) a famous lawyer in Youngstown, Ohio. I have known of him for many years and he is considered the best.

http://www.iww.org/organize/laborlaw/Lynd/

Posted: 16 Mar 2006 05:08 am Post subject:

Yes, it's important for workers to learn about labor laws. Workers only have a few rights, so they should at least be aware of which ones they are.

***

One of my pet peeves is how hiring/firing criteria are so arbitrary.

For one thing, the boss can't get away with hiring/firing based on race, religion, etc., but _can_ get away with admitting to having a totally stupid reason: "You're fired because the expression on your face seemed to me to be rather disrespectful" - "You're fired because one day last year your shirt appeared to be wrinkled" - "You're fired because I think you don't smile enough" - "You're fired because once, I think it was four years ago, you made a mistake of some sort in your paperwork". That's all allowed. But, "You're fired because you're a white Hindu who uses a wheelchair" -- what's not allowed. And most people, both liberals and conservatives, fail to realize what's going on. All a bigot boss has to do is make up any silly reason instead of expressing the real reason!

Another peeve of mine is how they can cite "job performance evaluations" as reasons to fire or postpone raises, while they write these"evaluations" in completely arbitrary and capricious and non-measurable ways -- "Charlie hasn't shown the desirable rate of growth in overall creativity and leadership characteristics" and total crap like that.

These things make labor law very weak. All the more reason to educate ourselves about the limited protections that the law does include.

***

Funny scene in the old Mary Tyler Moore show, where she applies for a job in TV news, and Lou Grant (played by Ed Asner) is the boss. Conversation during the job interview...

Lou: What religion are you?
Mary: Mr. Grant, you're not allowed to ask me that! It's against the law!
Lou: You wanna call a cop?
[...uncomfortable pause ... she squirms in her chair ...]
Lou: Okay, I'll move on to my next question... How come a good looking dame like you isn't married?
Mary: Presbyterian.
Lou: Huh?
Mary: After hearing your most recent question, I decided to answer your previous question.

Posted: 18 Mar 2006 01:02 pm Post subject:

I remember the show but don't recall any episodes. Is not Ed Ashner a member of the Democratic Socialist of America? That was the first org I signed on to years ago. Kinda figured out thery were for reforms in capitalism.

Posted: 19 Mar 2006 02:07 pm Post subject:

Like the capitalists, a real union writes its own laws.

We are certainlty little progressed in 206 years.

In today's Rutland Herald/Times Argus

Published March 19, 2006

She wasn't a slave, so the town paid

When Windsor voters gathered for town meeting in 1800, they debated one of the stranger articles ever placed on a Vermont warning. After dispensing with the usual election of a moderator, a town clerk, selectmen and other town officers, they launched into the controversial subject.

Article No. 3 asked them to decide "what measures the Town will take respecting a certain Negro woman by the name of Dinah…" In case there was any ambiguity about who Dinah was, the article explained that she had been "purchased and brought into this State about Seventeen years past by Stephen Jacob, Esq."

Dinah was a slave, or at least she had been. That raised a question. Whose responsibility was she? You see, Dinah was now sick and poor, and someone had to pay for her care. In those days, towns were responsible for caring for the indigent who had no other place to turn. But Dinah did have a place to go, the selectmen argued. Jacob, as a prominent member of the community and Dinah's keeper, had a legal and moral responsibility to take care of her, they figured. Besides, he could afford to.

Jacob, a trained lawyer, saw the case differently. He had no intention of footing the bill alone. He believed that Dinah was the town's responsibility. As a Windsor taxpayer, he owed only his fair share of the burden.

Nothing got resolved that late winter day in 1800. The dispute would continue another two and a half years before reaching the Vermont Supreme Court.

When the court gathered in August 1802, only two justices agreed to hear the case of Selectmen of Windsor against Stephen Jacob, Esquire. The third judge recused himself, citing conflict of interest. If ever there was a case for recusal, this was it. Stephen Jacob was not only the defendant, but he also was a justice on the Supreme Court. In fact, until the previous year he had been chief justice.

Despite Jacob's high position, and the judge's familiarity with him, the lawyer for Windsor refused to soften his view of Jacob's responsibility. Jacob had purchased Dinah in 1783 and brought her to Windsor. "(S)he continued to live with and serve him as a slave until some time in the year 1800," the lawyer said, "when she became infirm, sick, and blind, and in this condition was discarded by the defendant, and became a public charge. …"

To bolster the town's case, Windsor's lawyer presented a bill of sale to the court to prove that Jacob had indeed purchased Dinah.

The action brought a quick objection from one of Jacob's lawyers – perhaps fearing the admonition that lawyers representing themselves have "a fool for a client," Jacob had hired two. The lawyer, Charles Marsh, made what was the main argument in Jacob's defense. Dinah was not Jacob's responsibility because he did not own her. How could he have? Marsh asked. Hadn't the state banned slavery in its constitution in 1777?

"The bill of sale is void by our constitution," Marsh said. Dinah had been a free woman since she had moved to Vermont in 1783, he contended.

Jonathan Hatch Hubbard, one of Windsor's lawyers, responded that even if Dinah could not have legally been Jacob's slave, she had been so in everything but name. In her years working for him, "(s)he may be presumed to have earned for the master sufficient to maintain her in the decrepitude of old age," Hubbard said. Furthermore, "there is a moral obligation upon the master to support her when incapable of labor."

Hubbard then attacked the argument that Dinah had been made free simply by moving to Vermont. Weren't escaping slaves who reached Vermont still subject to the national runaway slave laws, he asked.

Marsh then switched from arguing principles to arguing facts. It is true, he said, that Dinah had worked for several years for the Jacob family. "(T)here can be but little doubt, from the excellent character and disposition of her master," said Marsh, trying to bolster Jacob's character, "(that) she would have so continued until this time in sickness and in health."

That is, had it not been for some other Windsor residents. "(D)iscovering that she was an excellent servant, and wishing to profit themselves of her labours," Marsh said, "(they) inveigled her from her master's family and service by the siren songs of liberty and equality."

Now Marsh deflected the criticism of Jacob and said it was these unnamed Windsor residents, and by extension the selectmen, who were acting callously. "She spent the vigour of her life with these people, and wasted her strength in their service; and now (that) she is blind, paralytic, and incapable of labour, they aim by this suit to compel the defendant solely to maintain her."

Jacob, "as an inhabitant of the State, in obedience to the constitution," renounced any right to own her as a slave. Now that he had been "deprived of her labours," Marsh asked, was it fair to ask Jacob to pay for Dinah's care?

Evidently, it was not. In writing for the court, Assistant Judge Royall Tyler – from whom we get the details of the case – sided with Jacob.

Tyler ruled that the federal fugitive slave laws, upon which much of Windsor's argument was based, were irrelevant to the case. The Vermont Constitution's ban on slavery was the relevant issue here, because Jacob had become a resident of the state. The moment that her master had moved to Vermont, Dinah had become free. And since Dinah was no longer a slave, Jacob was no more liable to support her than was any other resident of Windsor, the court ruled.

Even after the case was resolved, however, Windsor's selectmen still bristled at the need to pay for Dinah's care. Records show that at least in 1806 and '07, the selectmen tried to warn her out of town, a legal procedure at the time for informing a poor person that the town would not pay for their care.

As hard-hearted to Dinah's plight as the town may have seemed, Windsor continued to pay the bills. Records show the town playing $4 to one resident for briefly boarding her and $20 to another for a longer stay.

The documents note her decline. One entry reads: "Paid Nahum Trask for attending Judge Jacob's Dinah in her last sickness – $14.00."

The last notation says, "Paid Barnard Norton – making coffin and tolling bell for Judge Jacob's Dinah – $3.00. Pd. Josiah Hawley, digging grave, $1.50."

The court might have ruled otherwise, but in Windsor at least, the former slave remained "Judge Jacob's Dinah."

end

Mark Bushnell's column on Vermont history is a regular feature of Vermont Sunday Magazine. This column was first published in February 2004.
© 2006 Herald Association
Rutland Herald and Times Argus Newspapers
http://vermonttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060319/FEATURES/603190306/1002/FEATURES02

Posted: 20 Mar 2006 09:06 pm Post subject:

I don't think it's accurate to say there hasn't been any progress. In the past, Rosa Parks was arrested for sitting on a bus, Margaret Sanger was arrested for distributing literature about birth control, and comedian Lenny Bruce was arrested on stage for telling jokes that made fun of religion. Also in the area of labor law -- in the decade of the 1910's, a court injunction against a strike was interpreted to mean that the sheriff should stand behind workers and force them at gunpoint to keep working. Some things have changed for the better. Conditions are still intolerable, and never should be considered tolerable as long as classes exist. As capitalism reforms itself, many situations tend to get better in incremental ways -- too little and too late.

Posted: 20 Mar 2006 11:18 pm Post subject:

And of course I am cantankterous enough to say that I do not believe a word of it. Organized theft. Organized genocide. Organized ecocide. I refuse to believe a word of it. Relatively speaking we are far worse off than Judge Jacob's Dinah.

Posted: 21 Mar 2006 08:12 pm Post subject:

The first thing is always to identify the economic fact, and then to branch out to other social effects.

Marx wrote of the increasing "immiseration" (movement in the direction of misery) of the working class, but he pointed out that it's relative to growth. The material standard of living is higher than it was a hundred years ago, but the share in the hands of the propertied class has grown much faster. Real wages (what wages will buy) are lower today than they were during 1950-1970, but higher than they were during 1800-1900.

Also, most of the betterment in our standard of living was accomplished by science, not by capitalism. Although conservatives want to give capitalism credit for the invention of the self-defrosting refrigerator or the microwave oven, we know that workers, not capitalaists, developed that technology, and they did it with science, not with capitalism. Capitalism happened to be the environment in which they did it. Workers did this in spite of capitalism, not because of it.

Beyond the economic, the social effects are more complex. Technology permits overpowering factors like nuclear weapons, the danger of doomsday scenarios. Environmental catastrophe is one of these, but it is also linked to population growth. If we didn't have to factor in population growth, we would see that many cities around 1900, with their dark gray skies, had worse air pollution than they do today. Much of the problem is waste rather than a doomsday outcome. For the example, the growth of militarism has taken us to the point that the cost of just one stealth bomber is on the order of magnitude in the same as the costs to give every person a lifetime of education -- and this is best understood as colossal waste. Production under capitalism goes mostly to waste in various forms.

With such complex factors, how can I say that the modern generation is "better off", in some way, than my grandfather, who worked six 14-hour days per week in a brickyard? Maybe I'm not justified to make a comparison at all. Maybe the two are too different to be compared in a meaningful way. My grandfather had a slice of bread for dinner; on the other hand, he didn't worry about carbon dioxide emissions making the earth go though a devastating ice age. So maybe it's meaningless to say whether modern times are better or worse. Maybe it can only be said that the world is different now.

Different, but also the same. Everything basic in the case for socialism remains the same as it was in 1850. The capitalist class is still a hoard of vampires who grab all of the best for themselves and leave everyone in fear and insecurity. It's still true that the workers are the only segment of the population who have an irresistable power to revolutionize the world, if only they would recognize the potential. The popular press go out of their way to keep telling us that "socialism is dead", and yet the opposite is true: socialism is wholly new, and the only future for a highly developed civilization.

Posted: 23 Mar 2006 12:23 am Post subject:

Interesting post Mike. The one thing I really don't understand is the promotion of the body politic rather than the organization of the working class. I read it all the time. The SLP is basically worthless since they don't do nothing as in taking action with the working class on the shop floor. I have been reading Capital and it pretty much sums it all up that it is the labor of the worker that makes the capitalist rich. Yet workers don't understand the relationship of their labor power to the products made or the profits extracted by the capitalist class.

You wrote: "It's still true that the workers are the only segment of the population who have an irresistable power to revolutionize the world, if only they would recognize the potential." That is why it is important to organize at the workplace rather than try to woo workers to a political party.

Posted: 23 Mar 2006 04:24 am Post subject:

John wrote:

That is why it is important to organize at the workplace rather than try to woo workers to a political party.

dave writes.

It's a bit of a conundrum becuase the workers are already organized, it's just that the organ hasn't recognized what the capitalsts already know - that labor is the source of all wealth.

You don't have to be on the factory floor to (analogy alert) beat that drum.

The SLP was not the party of labor. On one level they knew that and stated that. But then again the SLP as a political party was able to maintain an ideological (for want of a better term) purity, where the IWW pays lip service to the revolution, if that.

dave

Posted: 23 Mar 2006 10:43 pm Post subject:

When we're talking about the educational task -- promoting some recognition of what capitalism versus socialism is all about, it seems to me that any auspices can do some of that -- political party, industrial union, literature or cinema or any work of art, carrying banners in the street, calling talk-radio, writing a letter to the editor. Maybe it should be done everywhere and anywhere, and a "choose one" or "choose two" isn't necessary.

But the revolution can only be accomplished by workers' assemblies on the industrial terrain. For lack of a better term, a labor union -- although, with all the mud that the English language phrase "labor union" has been dragged through, I sometimes wonder whether the current meaning of that phrase conveys the intended point. It organizes at the workplace like a union, but it's goals and strategies are something that most people who already know the word "union" wouldn't recognize.

Agitation and education -- everywhere. The effective organization to build the foundations of socialism -- a new kind of workplace-based assemblies which, if we can get past the mass prejudices about the term, we can call an industrial union.

Popular culture is making it hard to communicate. Thought has been so narrowed that the average person can go an entire lifetime without running across a debate "already in progress" about the question, "Is there some kind of political or economic system that might be better than the one that we have now?" Nope, I never switched the TV channel and encountered such a debate in progress. I have to give this much credit to people like the Libertarian Party - at least they enjoy debates of this kind -- I may not agree with their answers, but at least they recognize that these fundamentals issues of social theory are to be investigated and debated -- while the conventional broadcast and print media never permit even a single word on the topic, but merely narrow the range of permissible thoughts, like something out of Orwell's '1984'.

Maybe that's what "agitation" (a technical term in the socialist movement) is all about.

The IWW has an old tradition of using the symbol of three stars:

***

The three stars stand for: Agitation, Education, Organization.

And the effects occur in that order! We have to agitate to knock people out of their Orwellian narrowness of possible thoughts, then educate each other about the basic ideas that we need to learn, and then organize all of us into a movement.

Posted: 24 Mar 2006 01:21 am Post subject:

Dave wrote:

Posted: 26 Mar 2006 12:00 pm Post subject:

When the unions were first founded in the 1800s and early 1900s, most of them, inlcuding the A. F. of L., had founding charters that paid lip-service to the goal of socialism. These written statements were dropped one by one, as the union "leaders" (misleaders) became high salaried careerists. The role of the unions changed to one of managing the wholesale side of the sale of labor power to the capitalist, just as a wholesale distributor of any merchandise is interested, not in ending the system of selling the commodity, but, rather, setting the conditions for the wholesale distributor to take a cut of the profits during the auction process.

Posted: 31 Mar 2006 04:02 am Post subject:

I have to run this accross you. Miles, Communist League, wrote this to me.

Posted: 31 Mar 2006 01:37 pm Post subject:

An article on the st. louis "commune":
http://www.communistleague.org/wr/stories/wr2005q1-stlouis.html

"DeLeonist conception of the Socialist Industrial Union is based on the 'Executive Committee'"

dave responds:

First, in order for someone to be qualified to make such a statement, he or she would have to demonstrate a knowledge of the DeLeonist conception of the SIU.

Has the person making the above statement demonstrated this?

Posted: 01 Apr 2006 02:00 am Post subject:

Let me state this first. This was a paragraph from a letter he wrote. The rest is confidential. I needed more information and no, he did not demonstrate any since the union would be the new government. Well, Miles did say to correct him if he is wrong. However, It is hard for the odinary worker to sift through misconceptions. The quote did throw me for a loop. On the other hand, Miles is frienly and very personable.

From the SLP website:

Posted: 01 Apr 2006 12:10 pm Post subject:

John wrote:

I needed more information and no, he did not demonstrate any since the union would be the new government. Well, Miles did say to correct him if he is wrong.

dave writes:

you've hit the nail on the head. The SIU is the union as the new government (and the new form of government). There isn't any "executive body" as the workers up and down the line are the executors of their own estate.

If you had read the article on the st. louis commune as it was referred to - it was a strike - not a takeover of the entire means of production. And even if the political party referred to have some coordinating function in the actions described - this is an executive model? And this model was picked up by DeLeon 25 years later in articulating the SIU idea? Any documented connection at all here? That the party would coordinate the unions? Does ANY description or statement by DeLeon, or even of the party for the last 100 years support the idea that this is the function DeLeon had in mind for the party in the revolution?

john wrote:

However, It is hard for the odinary worker to sift through misconceptions.

dave writes:

well it is and it isn't. Stick with what you know and build upon it with things that you find. Question those basics every day. If someone makes a statement put it to the same test that you have adopted for yourself as to what you know.

Posted: 01 Apr 2006 12:38 pm Post subject:

Thanks again Dave. I tried to read the article late last night but the words would move towards each other. That's why I prefer books, newspapers and magazines. I have to go back and read it again. Perhaps one day they will make a monitor that is easy to read as print. That felt good to know I hit the nail on the head instead of my thumb.

John T.

Posted: 02 Apr 2006 01:56 am Post subject:

Is there an article on SIU somewhere? An article that goes into detail that explains the nuts and bolts of the political and industrial aspects?

Posted: 02 Apr 2006 07:57 pm Post subject:

It's funny, It doesn't look like the SLP has much of anythng specifically on that topic. There is one SLP pamphlet in the catolog: After the Revolution, Who rules?

Posted: 04 Apr 2006 06:03 am Post subject:

Unionism -- Fraudulent and Genuine by Nathan Karp. Isn't this still in the catalog?

Posted: 04 Apr 2006 12:57 pm Post subject: