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Author
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Message
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davesearles
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 Posted:
09 Sep 2008 09:05 am Post subject: Discussion with
the Communist League
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http://www.communistleague.us/
league@communistleague.us
comleague@gmail.com
Sept. 12, 2008 - This topic was split off
from the WIIU topic. -- M.L., admin
___________________________________________________
The whole Communist Leage is communicating with the
members of this list, or is it a single individual? Does that single individual
have a name?
I went to the Communist Leage website - just as an
observation offhand I didn't see anything that would indicate that CL
advocates worker control of the means of production or has a coherent
plan of how to achieve that goal. If I am wrong on this I would be most
happy to be corrected .
Thanks,
Dave Searles
An example of CL writing from its latest newletter.
There is only one way to make sure that we are not “passing the buck” to our
children or grandchildren: when we fight, we
fight to win and fight to the end. In our opinion, that means moving
beyond mere reform or the replacement of a few individuals at the top.
For us communists, it means fighting for real
democratic transformation and change — it means fighting for a social
revolution, carried out by working people themselves, that changes every
aspect of society.
We describe the outcome of this revolutionary act
as the establishment of the Third Republic in the U.S. The Second
Republic, formed after the Civil War, was wiped away by the corporatists
in power in order to make way for an imperialist Empire. This
reconstruction is not complete and can be stopped, but only if we as
workers take responsibility for the future of society and work together
to stop it.
Brothers and sisters, it is all up to us now. No
one is going to do it for us. It is time to ask ourselves what kind of a
future we want and how we can achieve it.
http://www.communistleague.us/wr/2008/spring/bulletin.html
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davesearles
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Posted:
09 Sep 2008 09:58 am Post subject:
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Quote:
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it means
fighting for a social revolution, carried out by working people
themselves, that changes every aspect of society.
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To me this is as amorphous as "change we can
believe in"
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davesearles
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Posted:
09 Sep 2008 10:18 am Post subject:
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From basic principle 14 of the
CL
http://www.communistleague.us/outlook/principles.html
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Quote:
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Thus, for
communists to carry out work among and alongside proletarian
socialists, it may be necessary to become a member of one or more of
these bourgeois and petty-bourgeois socialist organizations, with the
goal of winning as many of these proletarians to the project of
building a principled, revolutionary political party of the
proletariat, composed of communists and proletarian socialists.
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So are we of the deleonism.org discussion group
looked upon by the CL as a "bourgeois and petty-bourgeois socialist
organization" ??
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mikelepore
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Posted:
09 Sep 2008 06:03 pm Post subject:
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http://www.communistleague.us/about/whoweare.html
"By putting the economy into the hands of
working people, though the organization of direct workers’ control of every factory, shop and
workplace, we would not only be able to reorganize production to meet
your needs and those of everyone you know, we would
also be able to raise the living standards of everyone and make it
possible for us all to live decent lives."
In this proposal, how are political organization
and workers' control of workplaces to be connected? How should things be
implemented?
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davesearles
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Posted:
09 Sep 2008 06:20 pm Post subject:
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And perhaps I'm being over picky on the wording, and
perhaps not -
"By putting the economy into the hands of
working people"
Who other than workers - can do the putting?
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The Greenman
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Posted:
09 Sep 2008 06:44 pm Post subject:
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I believe CommunistLeague is a person named Miles. If
I am wrong then please over look this. I am at the library again so this
will be brief--stinkin hard drive is shot therefore all the PDF files died
with it. Why would production have to be re-organized? The only
difference that we advocate is that the means of production would be
under the control of workers but it would also be very under the control
of local communities (those who desire certain products) and not the
political government "we".
I am more and more convinced that
"communism" cannot exist or to say that the vague phrase
"To each to each" would become reality. I have to say no thanks
to any Leninist political party who believes they have the right to rule
over society.
Move in, move in, move in,
Though the streams are swollen,
Keep those doggies move in
Rawhide...
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
09 Sep 2008 09:53 pm Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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The whole
Communist League is communicating with the members of this list, or is
it a single individual? Does that single individual have a name?
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My name is Henry Miles, I'm a member of the Central
Committee of the League. When I say "we", I mean we as the
League. When I say "I", I mean my personal opinion.
As for the WIIU, as I said in my last post, it is
something that we as the League would help with building. At our last
convention, we discussed this issue at length, then in the context of our
work in the IWW and the criticisms we had of it. When I saw this
discussion about the WIIU, I had a quick discussion with other C.C.
members over the phone before posting. It was a no-brainer for us.
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davesearles wrote:
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I went to the
Communist League website - just as an observation offhand I didn't see
anything that would indicate that CL advocates worker control of the
means of production or has a coherent plan of how to achieve that goal.
If I am wrong on this I would be most happy to be corrected.
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Actually, we speak about the need for workers'
control of production -- and, for that matter, workers' control of all
aspects of society -- at every opportunity. It is in our Basic Principles
as well as our statements, editorials and articles. The
"Marxist-Leninists" attack us all the time because of our view
on this and, as a side note, our critique of their positions on the USSR.
As for a "coherent plan of how to achieve that
goal", I am inclined to say that it is not our job to "achieve
that goal". That belongs to working people themselves. Our position
is that it will take a revolution organized and led by workers, and the
overthrow of capitalist rule, to achieve that goal. The organization of
workplace committees at the point of production, working together with
committees across industries and throughout the economy, would be the
basis of achieving that goal. Personally, I'm very much supportive of the
Socialist Industrial Union structure, though I might use different language
to describe it. I cannot speak precisely to what other members of my
organization think, but my sense is that they believe the same.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
09 Sep 2008 09:56 pm Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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So are we of
the deleonism.org discussion group looked upon by the CL as a
"bourgeois and petty-bourgeois socialist organization"??
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As far as I understand it, this forum and website
are just that. If I am intruding on some private venture, tell me and I will
leave you alone. I'm not here to troll or disrupt. I came here because I
thought I could have some interesting discussions on political questions
with comrades who are similar in thinking.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
09 Sep 2008 09:59 pm Post subject:
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The Greenman wrote:
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Why would
production have to be re-organized? The only difference that we
advocate is that the means of production would be under the control of
workers but it would also be very under the control of local
communities (those who desire certain products) and not the political
government "we".
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Production would have to be re-organized in the
sense of moving away from the chaos and anarchy of production under
capitalism and moving toward production for human needs.
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The Greenman wrote:
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I have to say
no thanks to any Leninist political party who believes they have the
right to rule over society.
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Good. Then we can agree on that.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
09 Sep 2008 10:02 pm Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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And perhaps
I'm being over picky on the wording, and perhaps not -
"By putting the economy into the hands of working people"
Who other than workers - can do the putting?
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No one. You're welcome to suggest a better choice
of word for this. Perhaps it would be better if it read: "By taking
the economy into our hands, we as working people...", and then
taking out the "we" after "workplace".
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davesearles
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Posted:
09 Sep 2008 10:45 pm Post subject:
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ds:
Thanks Henry for introducing yourself.
hm:
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Quote:
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Actually, we speak about the need for workers' control of production --
and, for that matter, workers' control of all aspects of society -- at
every opportunity.
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ds:
I didn't see anything that would indicate that CL
advocates worker control of the means of production or has a coherent
plan of how to achieve that goal.
hm:
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Quote:
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I am inclined
to say that it is not our job to "achieve that goal". That
belongs to working people themselves. Our position is that it will take
a revolution organized and led by workers, and the overthrow of
capitalist rule, to achieve that goal.
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Glad to see that you recognize that it is the job
of the workers, but to repeat my point it did not seem that cl has a plan
for the workers to achieve worker control of the means of production - so
let's be real clear:
A. cl has a plan for the workers to achieve worker
control of the means of production?
or
B. cl does not have a plan for the workers to
achieve worker control of the means of production?
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Quote:
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In our opinion, that means moving beyond mere reform or the replacement
of a few individuals at the top.
For us communists, it means fighting for real democratic transformation
and change — it means fighting for a social revolution,
carried out by working people themselves, that changes every aspect of
society.
We describe the outcome of this revolutionary act as the establishment
of the Third Republic in the U.S.
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Quote:
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Our position
is that it will take a revolution organized and led by workers, and the
overthrow of capitalist rule, to achieve that goal. The organization of
workplace committees at the point of production, working together with
committees across industries and throughout the economy, would be the
basis of achieving that goal.
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ds:
I am assuming that the goal here is worker control
of the means of production, so I have to get symantical here:
A: Organization of workplace committees at the
point of production - a basis for achieving the goal?
true?
B: Organization of workplace committees at the
point of production in control of production - the goal?
true?
Thank you in advance for your clarifications.
And just for the record, my communications here are
with Henry in his capacity as a private individual - nothing in this or
future communications should be interpreted that I in anyway endorse or
support the "Communist League".
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mikelepore
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 03:53 am Post subject:
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'bourgeois and petty-bourgeois socialist
organization"
Why were the words "'bourgeois and
petty-bourgeois" applied? We are working class people without
income-generating property. Perhaps we have different definitions of
these words?
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mikelepore
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 04:13 am Post subject:
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CommunistLeague wrote:
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As for a
"coherent plan of how to achieve that goal", I am inclined to
say that it is not our job to "achieve that goal". That
belongs to working people themselves.
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Actually doing it will be all of the working
people's task, but preliminary discussion of what would constitute a
coherent plan can be the task of anyone who today writes an essay on the
subject.
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Quote:
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Our position
is that it will take a revolution organized and led by workers, and the
overthrow of capitalist rule, to achieve that goal. The organization of
workplace committees at the point of production, working together with
committees across industries and throughout the economy, would be the basis
of achieving that goal. Personally, I'm very much supportive of the
Socialist Industrial Union structure, though I might use different
language to describe it. I cannot speak precisely to what other members
of my organization think, but my sense is that they believe the same.
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Do you agree with the part in the SIU program where
is says to have the people use the political process to capture the state
and to express a mandate to adopt socialism, and then have workplace
organizations "back up" that mandate by "taking and
holding" the means of production?
I'm asking this question because I also hang out
frequently in the revleft.com forum, where many people seem to advocate
violent methods for their own sake, and they don't know how to
distinguish what I wrote above from a more simplistic generality that
"that crazy Lepore seems to think that socialism can be
voted-in", and they think that what I described is
"parliamentarian."
I believe that the methods I described above would
make the revolutionary change, not absolutely "peaceful", but,
rather, maximize the probability that it will be as peaceful as possible,
compared to other strategies.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 04:16 am Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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I didn't see
anything that would indicate that CL advocates worker control of the
means of production or has a coherent plan of how to achieve that goal.
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From Point 10 of our Basic Principles:
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Quote:
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In all, the
workers’ republic has four main tasks: 1) the ouster of
the bourgeoisie from political power; 2) the eradication of the old
organs of the bourgeois state; 3) the
institution of democratic workers’ control of
production through the abolition of private property; and 4) the raising of the productive forces to a level
where the material basis for class distinctions and class antagonism is
forever eliminated.
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From the League's "Who We Are, Where We
Stand" statement (as corrected per comments here -- pending formal
correction):
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Quote:
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By taking the
economy into our hands, we as working people, through the
organization of direct workers’ control of every factory, shop and workplace, would not only be able to reorganize production to
meet your needs and those of everyone you know, we would also be able
to raise the living standards of everyone and make it possible for us
all to live decent lives.
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From the League's leaflet, "Make it Your
Workplace":
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Quote:
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Through its
control of the workplace, the capitalist is trying to push all working
people deeper into poverty and wage-slavery in order to maximize their
profits.
In order to fight this, however, working people must organize to
secure control of the workplaces. The first step is to organize a
workplace committee where you work.
Bring together all your brothers and sisters who are ready to
participate
in the struggle to win control of the shop. Organize them into a
workplace
committee.
This committee can coordinate and carry on the work of agitation and
education among your co-workers. It can collect funds, and produce and
acquire papers and leaflets for distribution in your workplace.
The work of the committee should be to unite all of your brothers and
sisters where you work into a single organization. Machinists,
carpenters, shipping clerks, heavy equipment operators, workers of
every trade — they all must unite into one working people’s organization.
Brothers and sisters! You must build these organizations — these expressions of
your power — if you are to win your freedom. The workplace
committee is the basis for the organization of the power of all working people. Prepare to take control of your workplace, of
your work, of your lives and happiness.
Organize and make it your workplace!
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A bonus! From "Daniel De Leon and His Place in
Communist History", Workers' Republic, Spring 2007:
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Quote:
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The theory of “socialist industrial
unionism,” first expressed by De Leon and the SLP at the beginning
of the 20th century, was the concretizing of more than 50 years of
collective experience in the class struggle, from the 1848 revolutions,
to the Paris Commune of 1871 and
the St. Louis Commune of 1877, to the rise of the radical industrial
unionist movement at the turn of the century. Indeed, the concept of
socialist industrial unionism emerged and developed in parallel with
the growing movement that culminated in the formation of the IWW in
1905.
Today, the fundamental precepts of De Leon’s greatest
contribution to communist theory are spoken by self-described
[socialists and communists] around the world, albeit using different
terms and language. Whether one is talking
about “workers’ councils,” the “soviet
system” (“soviet” in lower-case, as opposed to the
so-called “Soviet” government of Russia in the 1920s), the
“commune state,” etc., it is found in such phrases the voice
and explanation — if not always the understanding — of De Leon....
For the Communist League, Daniel De Leon holds an honored place among
those who came before us, in spite of his contradictions and
shortcomings. The fact that he was able to contribute so much while
having such problems is a measure of his importance, relevance and
largesse in a movement often inundated with self-appointed “leaders” and
“theoreticians,” each claiming to be the next coming of Marx
(or Debs, or Lenin, or Trotsky, or Mao, or even De Leon!) and all
failing to contribute,
when it is all said and done, to offer even one-tenth of the
theoretical weaponry given to us from De Leon’s arsenal.
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davesearles wrote:
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Glad to see
that you recognize that it is the job of the workers, but to repeat my
point it did not seem that cl has a plan for the workers to achieve
worker control of the means of production - so let's be real clear:
A. cl has a plan for the workers to achieve worker control of the means
of production?
or
B. cl does not have a plan for the workers to achieve worker control of
the means of production?
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Nothing official ... yet. We have a convention next
year, and it is probably time we adopted something formal along the lines
of the SIU concept. So far, it has been unofficial general acceptance of
the SIU with the exception of the view toward the ballot (since we do not
run candidates and are not a political party per se).
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davesearles wrote:
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I am assuming
that the goal here is worker control of the means of production, so I
have to get semantical here:
A: Organization of workplace committees at the point of production - a
basis for achieving the goal?
true?
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True. Very true.
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davesearles wrote:
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B:
Organization of workplace committees at the point of production in
control of production - the goal?
true?
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Again, true. Very true.
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davesearles wrote:
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Thank you in
advance for your clarifications.
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Not a problem. If this is all you needed, then I'm
happy to oblige.
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davesearles wrote:
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And just for
the record, my communications here are with Henry in his capacity as a
private individual - nothing in this or future communications should be
interpreted that I in anyway endorse or support the "Communist
League".
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No problem with me. I'm here to participate as
myself, not as an "official representative", although there
will be times when I present the League's view vis-à-vis a specific
question raised here.
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Jacob Richter
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 04:22 am Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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Do you agree
with the part in the SIU program where is says to have the people use
the political process to capture the state and to express a mandate to
adopt socialism, and then have workplace organizations "back
up" that mandate by "taking and holding" the means of
production?
I'm asking this question because I also hang out frequently in the
revleft.com forum, where many people seem to advocate violent methods
for their own sake, and they don't know how to distinguish what I wrote
above from a more simplistic generality that "that crazy Lepore
seems to think that socialism can be voted-in", and they think
that what I described is "parliamentarian."
I believe that the methods I described above would make the
revolutionary change, not absolutely "peaceful", but, rather,
maximize the probability that it will be as peaceful as possible, compared
to other strategies.
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I know I'm not answering on behalf of CL
here, but there is a reason why I've got a "democracy" thread
in the Fundamentals of Marxism forum. ;)
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Quote:
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to capture the
state
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Unfortunately, the nation-state is NOT a neutral
entity (contrary to your Kautskyan view here); it is a bourgeois entity.
Marx made this explicitly clear in light of the Paris Commune tragedy.
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Quote:
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where many
people seem to advocate violent methods for their own sake
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Hey, considering all the union-busting activity in
the past (unionization not being revolutionary at all), why shouldn't
this be a standard position?
BTW, there's a huge difference between this mass
political revolution and hooliganism, conspiracist insurrectionism, etc.
done by small groups on the other.
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Quote:
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I believe that
the methods I described above would make the revolutionary change, not
absolutely "peaceful", but, rather, maximize the probability
that it will be as peaceful as possible, compared to other strategies.
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No, you don't do that through
parliamentary/"representative"/liberal "democracy";
you do that through participatory, class-strugglist democracy (per my
democracy thread).
From that thread:
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Quote:
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This could be
worthwhile to think about. Should we adopt a better political method so
that it will be easier for the people adopt addtional changes, and then
use that improved system to implement social ownership of the means of
production?
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B-I-N-G-O! Per my new WIP (which you have), much of
the far left, yourself included, is stuck in "broad economism."
:(
Sorry for being overly emotional here. :(
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 04:25 am Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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Why were the
words "bourgeois and petty-bourgeois" applied? We are working
class people without income-generating property. Perhaps we have
different definitions of these words?
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I think you're taking this personally, and I think
that's wrong. I have never said you or anyone here, or deleonism.org in
general, is either bourgeois or petty-bourgeois socialist (well, maybe
Jacob Richter :wink: ). The terms and root definitions themselves come
from Marx and Engels, in the Communist Manifesto, and we did a
little updating of them for our Basic Principles.
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Jacob Richter
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 04:26 am Post subject:
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CommunistLeague wrote:
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mikelepore wrote:
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Why were the
words "bourgeois and petty-bourgeois" applied? We are
working class people without income-generating property. Perhaps we
have different definitions of these words?
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I think you're taking this personally, and I
think that's wrong. I have never said you or anyone here, or
deleonism.org in general, is either bourgeois or petty-bourgeois
socialist (well, maybe Jacob Richter :wink: ). The terms and root
definitions themselves come from Marx and Engels, in the Communist
Manifesto, and we did a little updating of them for our Basic
Principles.
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Hi CL,
You may wish to consider my Basic Principles
material in my USL e-mail (now officially titled "Programming Class
Struggle and Social Revolution").
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davesearles
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 04:32 am Post subject:
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Question to henry miles:
As a political proposition what would you think of
the workers running candidates for congress for the express purpose of
amending the US Constitution to specifically recognize a right of the
workers to establish an industrial union to collectively operate the
industrial means of production?
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mikelepore
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 04:32 am Post subject:
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Jacob, if the state is "not neutral", all
the more reason to "capture" it, no? Because then it means
taking a weapon away from the enemy.
*****
Tae Kwon Do: Someone's coming at you with a stick.
You fracture some part of that person.
Aikido: Someone's coming at you with a stick. A
moment later, that person doesn't hold it anymore.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 04:46 am Post subject:
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CommunistLeague wrote:
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I have never
said you or anyone here, or deleonism.org in general, is either
bourgeois or petty-bourgeois socialist
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Huh? Your exact words were "As far as I
understand it, this forum and website are just that."
I'm not taking it personal, I'm just asking about
definitions.
Bourgeois means capitalist. Petty bourgeois
(French: petit bourgeois) is small-business self-employed capitalist.
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davesearles
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 04:48 am Post subject:
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jr quoted someone:
Quote:
to capture the state
and then jr wrote:
Unfortunately, the nation-state is NOT a neutral
entity (contrary to your Kautskyan view here); it is a bourgeois entity.
Marx made this explicitly clear in light of the Paris Commune tragedy.
ds:
Marx made that explicity clear? I beg to differ.
We won't need police under socialsm? I am
emboldened to think that we shall need police. The difference being that
there will not be a capitalist or bourgeois state becuase there will be
no capitalist or bourgeois class - no classes at all, therefore no class
corruption of the collective republican mission of all public servants.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 04:51 am Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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Actually doing
it will be all of the working people's task, but preliminary discussion
of what would constitute a coherent plan can be the task of anyone who
today writes an essay on the subject.
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I understand what you're saying here. As I said
above, I think it's time for the League to adopt something more official
on this question. Given how the League's unofficial view is quite close
to SIU, I suspect a formal League position, adopted at our next
convention, would be along those lines.
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mikelepore wrote:
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Do you agree
with the part in the SIU program where is says to have the people use
the political process to capture the state and to express a mandate to
adopt socialism, and then have workplace organizations "back
up" that mandate by "taking and holding" the means of
production?
I'm asking this question because I also hang out frequently in the
revleft.com forum, where many people seem to advocate violent methods
for their own sake, and they don't know how to distinguish what I wrote
above from a more simplistic generality that "that crazy Lepore
seems to think that socialism can be voted-in", and they think
that what I described is "parliamentarian."
I believe that the methods I described above would make the
revolutionary change, not absolutely "peaceful", but, rather,
maximize the probability that it will be as peaceful as possible,
compared to other strategies.
|
I guess the question here hinges on the definition
of "the state". I tend to hold to Marx's view that the state in
a specialized instrument of repression, created and "perfected"
by the ruling class to suppress all other classes and maintain its
version of "law and order", and is composed of the "bodies
of armed men" -- the police and intelligence services, the prison
system, the military and officer corps, etc. If we go by that definition,
then, no, I do not think the state can be "captured" in any way
other than how a unit of soldiers captures and holds enemy prisoners.
On the other hand, if you mean "the
state" as in the institutions of political power -- the Congress,
the presidency, and equivalent state and local entities -- then we are
talking more about "capture" for the sake of "banging the
gavel" on capitalist rule. On this point I, and I would say the
League as a whole, view the question as one of tactics. And it certainly
is an interesting tactic to consider!
I am all for finding the most peaceful and
non-violent means to achieve revolution, the overthrow of capitalist rule
and the victory of the working people's republic. If the material
conditions were right, I would not rule out this tactic as a means of
achieving the goal of initiating the transition from capitalism to
communism. Indeed, if it was possible to do this, I would be among the
first to suggest it, advocate it and build for it.
My problem is that, based on my own experiences
with running working-class candidates for local, state and federal
office, it seems you would need a revolution carried out through
extraparliamentary* means to get to the point where such tactics are
possible. With the way that the capitalist political system has been
organized today, if you are a working-class candidate, chances are you
cannot get on the ballot in most states except as a write-in (and often
times, those votes aren't even counted). And if you do get on the ballot,
you're effectively shut out of the media and most candidates' events. If
that fails to stop a workers' candidate, then there are active efforts by
both of the main capitalist parties to keep working people away from the
polls (the two parties use them on each other, too, as was the case in
Florida in 2000). And if that fails, then they resort to
good-ol'-fashioned ballot fraud. I saw this happen even at a local level,
when a working people's candidate running for Detroit Board of Education
in 2005 had the election stolen out from under her by the corporatist
candidate who was a darling of the local Democratic Party establishment.
* Note that I said "extraparliamentary",
which does not necessarily mean "violent" or "armed"
actions.
But I do accept that conditions can change
qualitatively. One only has to look at events in the last 20 years to see
that. So, yes, I keep my mind and my options open ... in both directions.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 04:52 am Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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Huh? Your
exact words were "As far as I understand it, this forum and
website are just that."
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OK. I see. There was a misunderstanding. It was my
fault. When I said "this forum and website are just that", I
meant they are just that -- that is, a forum and website, not a bourgeois
or petty-bourgeois socialist organization. My apologies for the
confusion.
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davesearles
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 04:53 am Post subject:
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ml quoting hm:
Huh? Your exact words were "As far as I
understand it, this forum and website are just that."
ds:
I took that to me that he did not thik that
deleonism.org or its forum was any kind of an organization at all - so if
deleonism.org and its forum are not organizations they cannot be
bourgeois or petty bourgeois organizations.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 04:54 am Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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Question to
henry miles:
As a political proposition what would you think of the workers running
candidates for congress for the express purpose of amending the US
Constitution to specifically recognize a right of the workers to
establish an industrial union to collectively operate the industrial
means of production?
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It would certainly be a meaningful reform, and I
tend to think we'd join in the movement to see that it happens.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 04:56 am Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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I took that to
me that he did not thik that deleonism.org or its forum was any kind of
an organization at all - so if deleonism.org and its forum are not
organizations they cannot be bourgeois or petty bourgeois
organizations.
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Is there a formal organization behind
deleonism.org? If there is, I didn't know about it.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 04:57 am Post subject:
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Thanks for the clarification. I misunderstood.
On another subject, what does bourgeois socialist
mean? Is it another way of saying liberalism or reformism or something?
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mikelepore
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 04:59 am Post subject:
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No organization. I just registered this domain name. I
was a member of the SLP from approximately 1973 to 1980 -- quit.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 05:01 am Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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On another
subject, what does bourgeois socialist mean? Is it another way of
saying liberalism or reformism or something?
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Basically, yes, it's another way of saying
reformism. Here's Marx and Engels' definition, from the Communist
Manifesto:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch03.htm
(It's section 2 of the above Part.)
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 05:05 am Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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No
organization. I just registered this domain name. I was a member of the
SLP from approximately 1973 to 1980 -- quit.
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Then I'm sure you're aware of the crisis they're
going through right now: lost their office; no money to print The
People; etc. I may not agree with every dot and comma that the SLP
puts out, but I think it's a damn shame that The People seems to
be down for the count. The League even published a little appeal in our
own paper about it, telling our readers how they could help get it going
again, if they were so inclined.
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davesearles
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 05:10 am Post subject:
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Question to henry miles from ds:
As a political proposition what would you think of
the workers running candidates for congress for the express purpose of
amending the US Constitution to specifically recognize a right of the
workers to establish an industrial union to collectively operate the
industrial means of production?
hm answer:
It would certainly be a meaningful reform, and I
tend to think we'd join in the movement to see that it happens.
ds:
Here is the text of a proposed amendment. After you
have read it, I would be interested to know if you would still consider
it a reform? A reform of what?
text of a proposed workers' amendment:
Section 1. Exclusion of the workers from collective
ownership and control of the means of production and distribution shall
not exist within the United States, or any place subject to their
jurisdiction.
Section 2. The workers have a right to organize
into industrial unions which shall control and operate the means of
production and distribution and allocate the products of labor as the
workers at all times democratically determine.
Section 3. Congress shall have power to enforce
this article by appropriate legislation.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 05:19 am Post subject:
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CommunistLeague wrote:
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I guess the
question here hinges on the definition of "the state". I tend
to hold to Marx's view that the state in a specialized instrument of
repression, created and "perfected" by the ruling class to
suppress all other classes and maintain its version of "law and
order", and is composed of the "bodies of armed men" --
the police and intelligence services, the prison system, the military
and officer corps, etc. If we go by that definition, then, no, I do not
think the state can be "captured" in any way other than how a
unit of soldiers captures and holds enemy prisoners.
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This way of looking at it may be my ideosyncracy,
not precisely the same as the terms that other De Leonists use, but:
I think the issue is that the U.S. has a very solid
tradition of civilian control of the violent agencies of the state, that
is, from the local police chief to the commander of the army and
everything in between, they are all either publicly elected offices or
the appointees of publicly elected offices.
So the question boils down to whether, on the day
the workers are grabbing control of the means of production for the first
time, do we want the orders that are delivered within the violent
agencies of the state to be: (1) "Troops, your orders are to
massacre the workers" [and then hope they will disobey it] -- or --
(b) "Troops, your orders are to NOT interfere with the workers in
any way; in fact, just go home."
So, elect socialists to be the officials of these
lethal agencies, and I think that it may save a million lives.
This reasoning is not necessarily applicable to all
political systems. I have been told that Chile at the time of Allende did
NOT have a strong tradition of civilian control over the military.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 05:21 am Post subject:
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I wasn't aware of the SLP losing their office.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 05:31 am Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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Here is the
text of a proposed amendment. After you have read it, I would be
interested to know if you would still consider it a reform? A reform of
what?
text of a proposed workers' amendment:
Section 1. Exclusion of the workers from collective ownership and
control of the means of production and distribution shall not exist
within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. The workers have a right to organize into industrial unions
which shall control and operate the means of production and
distribution and allocate the products of labor as the workers at all
times democratically determine.
Section 3. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation.
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The problem I see is with Section 1. I think it is
a formulation issue, because I believe I see what you're getting at. The
problem is that while you prohibit "exclusion of the workers from
collective ownership and control of the means of production and
distribution", you do not prohibit private ownership of the means of
production itself. That is, the way this would be interpreted by a
constitutional court is that collective ownership is not prohibited, but
neither is private ownership. Your intent might be to exclude private
ownership, but since it is not explicit, it would not be "the law of
the land".
I think the language can be corrected to make it
more of a revolutionizing amendment. But as it stands right now, it is
still only a partial advance (though, yes, a pretty big one).
Five years ago, some of us put together a
"Working People's Bill of Rights" for electoral work we were
doing, which had something of a similar approach -- amending the current
Constitution, I mean. If I can find a copy of it, I'll post it.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 05:38 am Post subject:
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I no longer agree with the view of the
"state" that I previously held for almost forty years! I now
believe that the coercive aspects of the state (legislature, police,
courts and jails) are to be reduced in magnitude considerably as they
cease to be devices of class oppression, and maybe even reduced to one
percent of their current magnitude, but whatever then remains of them
cannot be eliminated. To say that they can be entirely eliminated would
be to make an unprovable and therefore unscientific "human
nature" argument, a covert way of asserting that we can have certain
knowledge that a classless society would not have a single murderer or
rapist who needs to be dealt with; not merely to say that it would have
numerically few of them, but to say that it would have literally none.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 05:39 am Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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I think the
issue is that the U.S. has a very solid tradition of civilian control
of the violent agencies of the state, that is, from the local police
chief to the commander of the army and everything in between, they are
all either publicly elected offices or the appointees of publicly
elected offices.
So the question boils down to whether, on the day the workers are
grabbing control of the means of production for the first time, do we
want the orders that are delivered within the violent agencies of the
state to be: (1) "Troops, your orders are to massacre the
workers" [and then hope they will disobey it] -- or -- (b)
"Troops, your orders are to NOT interfere with the workers in any
way; in fact, just go home."
So, elect socialists to be the officials of these lethal agencies, and
I think that it may save a million lives.
|
We might be conflicting on language issues here,
and that's all. You're definitely talking here about capturing the
institutions of political power, which, yes, do have formal control of
the state bodies. Based on what I wrote above on this question, I would
expect that, if it were to become possible to "capture" those
positions, among the first executive or legislative orders would be to
tell them to go home, to begin breaking up and disbanding the old
"armed bodies".
But the problem, as stated above, is getting to the
point where that is possible -- if it's even possible at this point
without an extraparliamentary democratic revolution happening first.
(I might argue about the real extent of
civilian control of the state, given the recent movements demanding
civilian review and oversight boards for the police that have developed
in virtually every city and town where incidents of brutality have come
to light.)
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Jacob Richter
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 05:40 am Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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I think the
issue is that the U.S. has a very solid tradition of civilian control
of the violent agencies of the state, that is, from the local police
chief to the commander of the army and everything in between, they are
all either publicly elected offices or the appointees of publicly
elected offices.
So the question boils down to whether, on the day the workers are
grabbing control of the means of production for the first time, do we
want the orders that are delivered within the violent agencies of the
state to be: (1) "Troops, your orders are to massacre the
workers" [and then hope they will disobey it] -- or -- (b)
"Troops, your orders are to NOT interfere with the workers in any
way; in fact, just go home."
So, elect socialists to be the officials of these lethal agencies, and
I think that it may save a million lives.
This reasoning is not necessarily applicable to all political systems.
I have been told that Chile at the time of Allende did NOT have a
strong tradition of civilian control over the military.
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Participatory democracy could potentially be the
driver for this peaceful change, as I said. And yes, I did tell you about
Allende in Chile (Chapter 6). ;)
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Communist League wrote:
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The problem I
see is with Section 1. I think it is a formulation issue, because I
believe I see what you're getting at. The problem is that while you
prohibit "exclusion of the workers from collective ownership and
control of the means of production and distribution", you do not
prohibit private ownership of the means of production itself. That is,
the way this would be interpreted by a constitutional court is that
collective ownership is not prohibited, but neither is private
ownership. Your intent might be to exclude private ownership, but since
it is not explicit, it would not be "the law of the land".
|
I addressed this with Dave recently:
http://www.deleonism.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=336&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30
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Quote:
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HOWEVER, it
could be turned into a directional / transitional demand (if especially
Section 2 were modified). Section 1 says "exclusion" and
"collective," and I was thinking of a "Dual Power"
situation like in Russia (Provisional Government vs. soviets). The end
to this "exclusion" would not necessarily imply "full
worker ownership and control over the economy" (my draft
"programmatic combination"). Section 1 also does not talk
about "nationalization" vs. expropriation
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 05:45 am Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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I no longer
agree with the view of the "state" that I previously held for
almost forty years! I now believe that the coercive aspects of the
state (legislature, police, courts and jails) are to be reduced in
magnitude considerably as they cease to be devices of class oppression,
and maybe even reduced to one percent of their current magnitude, but
whatever then remains of them cannot be eliminated. To say that they
can be entirely eliminated would be to make an unprovable and therefore
unscientific "human nature" argument, a covert way of asserting
that we can have certain knowledge that a classless society would not
have a single murderer or rapist who needs to be dealt with; not mere
to say that it would have numerically few of them, but to say that it
would have literally none.
|
Well, the question is whether those kind of
investigative and civil-peace organs, at the point when we are in a
classless society, actually constitute a state. I don't think they do,
both because they are not organs of suppression used by one class against
another for the purposes of maintaining one class' definition of
"law and order", and because they would not be used for
collective policing, but rather for individual policing.
I tend to think that those kind of investigative
and civil-peace entities would look nothing like the police we know of
from capitalism, would be more like specialized laborers doing a job, and
would be wholly accountable to local associations of producers. They
would not constitute a state by any definition.
P.S.: I'm heading to bed for the night. I'll pick
this up tomorrow. This is why I came here!
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mikelepore
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 05:49 am Post subject:
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CommunistLeague wrote:
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(I might argue
about the real extent of civilian control of the state, given
the recent movements demanding civilian review and oversight boards for
the police that have developed in virtually every city and town where
incidents of brutality have come to light.)
|
True, in that sense of the word
"control", but the people who give them the orders get to
decide in what part of the town or nation those headbusters will be
located in. They can be sent on distracting or "wild goose
chase" assignments, or simply told to take a vacation.
Also, even where they are out of control, they are
out of control in terms of behavior, not in terms of which laws they are
enforcing. Amend the law so that the workers are now the formal owners,
and the dethroned capitalists are the trespassers, and now the rioting
capitalist may be on the receiving end of the overzealous billyclub.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 05:56 am Post subject:
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Now you made me miss "Best Sex Ever" which
was on Cinemax.
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davesearles
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 06:34 am Post subject:
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hm to ds re proposed amendment:
while you prohibit "exclusion of the workers
from collective ownership and control of the means of production and
distribution", you do not prohibit private ownership of the means of
production itself.
ds:
You are god dammed right about that, and I will
tell you why it was left out.
I do not envision the means of production as a
monolith. the steel mill and the coffee and pie shop next door. Both are
arguably pieces of the means of production. Are Tillie and Bert and their
daughter Jo, the three owner workers of the coffee and pie shop required
to join the industrial union of coffee and pie workers?
Is the SIU going to be required to incorporate
every coffe and pie shop in the country into the organized industrial
means of production?
If you want to ensure ultimate failure of the siu
function, that would be the way to do it.
To me it would seem far better to have a binary
economy probaby right along with a binary currency system, for a while
anyway.
The amendment proposal purposefully says :
Exclusion of the workers from collective ownership
and control of the means of production and distribution shall not exist
within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. The
workers have a right to organize into industrial unions ...
If Tillie Bert and Jo are not satisfied with what
they are being paid then they can join the union. However the union might
say if you want to join the union you can, but you can work in an
industrial bakery becuase we're simply not going to pick up a pie and
coffee shop to be a part of any industry.
The same goes for farms. Of course some farm
workers will choose to unionize. Some farms are family farms and will
chose not to. As long as some shop's workers are happy not being in the
industrial union and the shop is a good fit with the rest f the community
then socialism ought to encourage this kind of diversity as much as
possible. IWSTM
So the idea is to not outlaw private ownersip of
the means of production but to allow its free conversion to social
property as the particular workers see fit.
I know that this doesn't fit the anal expulsive
mentality of many on the left but they will have to just grow up.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 06:36 pm Post subject:
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CommunistLeague wrote:
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Well, the
question is whether those kind of investigative and civil-peace organs,
at the point when we are in a classless society, actually constitute a
state. I don't think they do, both because they are not organs of
suppression used by one class against another for the purposes of
maintaining one class' definition of "law and order",
|
I avoid calling it a state, for that reason, but
any future society must have laws, mandatory rules, formal authority. Use
of these latter words will repulse the anarchists but honesty requires
that I use these words.
|
Quote:
|
|
and because
they would not be used for collective policing, but rather for
individual policing.
|
What do you mean when you say that?
|
Quote:
|
|
I tend to
think that those kind of investigative and civil-peace entities would
look nothing like the police we know of from capitalism, would be more
like specialized laborers doing a job,
|
If you take something that has a nugget of
relevance, but then change several of its forms and functions, the new
thing may look very different.
I do NOT agree with the usual leftist proposal to
replace the police with a workers' militia or neighborhood militia. Such
a job needs to be done by someone with years of training in psychology
and sociology, in addition to the specialized skill of physically
restraining a crazy person with minimal force and without losing one's
compassion.
|
Quote:
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|
and would be
wholly accountable to local associations of producers.
|
Why local? A legal system that's as global as
possible can more easily adopt a universal definition and guarantee of
everyone's civil liberties. Locality allows the problem that society may
have little pockets in which people see discriminatory practices, diminished
privacy rights, etc.
Why should one say "producers" instead of
government by the voting adults or citizens?
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Quote:
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|
They would not
constitute a state by any definition.
|
The SLP's definition of the state is a rare
mixture, combining class oppression, government of people instead of an
administration of things, and it has nested territories such as counties
and provinces. We all agree that class rule has to go. As I said, I
believe that some amount of coercive government over people will be
necessary permanenty. I believe that government taking the form of nested
territories is grossly inefficient but that is an orthogonal issue, not
necessarily connected with the other parts of the definition of
"state."
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 11:43 pm Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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Also, even
where they are out of control, they are out of control in terms of
behavior, not in terms of which laws they are enforcing. Amend the law
so that the workers are now the formal owners, and the dethroned
capitalists are the trespassers, and now the rioting capitalist may be
on the receiving end of the overzealous billyclub.
|
Not always true. For example, the gang squad in
Detroit has become infamous for selecting which laws they want to enforce
at any given time. There are often times when the enforcers of "law
and order" determine among themselves what constitutes that
doctrine. It is something to watch out for; the bodies of the state will
often pass their own judgment on what constitutes "legal
authority".
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 11:44 pm Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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Now you made
me miss "Best Sex Ever" which was on Cinemax.
|
Well, I missed Robot Chicken and Aqua Teen Hunger
Force, so we're all sacrifing here. :wink:
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
10 Sep 2008 11:50 pm Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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|
You are god
dammed right about that, and I will tell you why it was left out.
I do not envision the means of production as a monolith. the steel mill
and the coffee and pie shop next door. Both are arguably pieces of the
means of production. Are Tillie and Bert and their daughter Jo, the
three owner workers of the coffee and pie shop required to join the
industrial union of coffee and pie workers?
Is the SIU going to be required to incorporate every coffee and pie
shop in the country into the organized industrial means of production?
If you want to ensure ultimate failure of the siu function, that would
be the way to do it.
To me it would seem far better to have a binary economy probably right
along with a binary currency system, for a while anyway.
The amendment proposal purposefully says:
Exclusion of the workers from collective ownership and control of the
means of production and distribution shall not exist within the United
States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. The workers have a
right to organize into industrial unions ...
If Tillie Bert and Jo are not satisfied with what they are being paid
then they can join the union. However the union might say if you want
to join the union you can, but you can work in an industrial bakery
because we're simply not going to pick up a pie and coffee shop to be a
part of any industry.
The same goes for farms. Of course some farm workers will choose to
unionize. Some farms are family farms and will chose not to. As long as
some shop's workers are happy not being in the industrial union and the
shop is a good fit with the rest f the community then socialism ought
to encourage this kind of diversity as much as possible. IWSTM
So the idea is to not outlaw private ownership of the means of
production but to allow its free conversion to social property as the
particular workers see fit.
I know that this doesn't fit the anal expulsive mentality of many on
the left but they will have to just grow up.
|
OK, I see your argument, but it does not invalidate
what I said before. The problem you're going to run into is that, unless
it is a constitutional court under a working people's republic that is
passing judgment on the interpretation of this amendment, it's not just
going to be Tillie, Bert and Jo's little coffee shop left in private
hands, but General Motors, Boeing and Microsoft. Remember that bourgeois
right under capitalism applies across all classes, and allowance of
private ownership for one is allowance of private ownership for all. You
may be looking out for the small, independent producer, but unless you
build in some more specific language, you'll be allowing the capitalists
that own the large corporations off the hook, too.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
11 Sep 2008 12:07 am Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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|
I avoid
calling it a state, for that reason, but any future society must have
laws, mandatory rules, formal authority. Use of these latter words will
repulse the anarchists but honesty requires that I use these words.
|
Well, some anarchists, yes. But those who are more
theoretical will be more understanding of your argument, once you start
talking about specifics.
|
mikelepore wrote:
|
|
Quote:
|
|
and because
they would not be used for collective policing, but rather for
individual policing.
|
What do you mean when you say that?
|
Well, such bodies would not be used to suppress a
strike at a factory, or to carry out "crowd control" at a
demonstration. They would exist more to investigate and carry out
civil-peace activity against individual breaches of civil order.
|
mikelepore wrote:
|
|
I do NOT agree
with the usual leftist proposal to replace the police with a workers'
militia or neighborhood militia. Such a job needs to be done by someone
with years of training in psychology and sociology, in addition to the
specialized skill of physically restraining a crazy person with minimal
force and without losing one's compassion.
|
I don't see where these have to be necessarily
exclusive. I would think that there would be centers of education to
handle training and development for such self-defense militia, but they
would be based on the principles and methods of a post-capitalist society.
|
mikelepore wrote:
|
|
Why local? A
legal system that's as global as possible can more easily adopt a
universal definition and guarantee of everyone's civil liberties.
Locality allows the problem that society may have little pockets in
which people see discriminatory practices, diminished privacy rights,
etc.
|
At the same time, locality can also insure
accountability, since there would be physical and geographical proximity
to where incidents occur. Again, I don't see why there should be exclusivity
here; global laws and standards can enforced and overseen at a local
level.
|
mikelepore wrote:
|
|
Why should one
say "producers" instead of government by the voting adults or
citizens?
|
I guess I'm using language akin to that used by
Marx, when he referred to a classless communist society as a "free
association of producers". "Citizen" can be an arbitrary
or subjective definition (i.e., a "citizen" of where? the
world? a particular region?), and "adult" is certainly
arbitrary and subjective (i.e., what constitutes "adulthood"?
is it an arbitrary age? is it ability to work and contribute to society?)
|
mikelepore wrote:
|
|
The SLP's
definition of the state is a rare mixture, combining class oppression,
government of people instead of an administration of things, and it has
nested territories such as counties and provinces. We all agree that
class rule has to go. As I said, I believe that some amount of coercive
government over people will be necessary permanently. I believe that
government taking the form of nested territories is grossly inefficient
but that is an orthogonal issue, not necessarily connected with the
other parts of the definition of "state."
|
Personally, I don't think there will be a need for
coercive organs that resemble the current state. As I said above, there
might be a need for bodies that deal with individual issues as they
arise, but they would not fulfill the role of a state, as outlined by
Marx and Engels in their writings. Those kinds of bodies would not
constitute a "state", in my opinion, but I do think they will
be more or less permanent bodies. There's no telling when someone with a
chemical imbalance or genetic defect will go off and massacre a bunch of
people, and there will need to be people to deal with the investigative,
civil-peace and corrections tasks.
I look at the issue very much like the difference
between a permanent officer corps under capitalism and trained elements
that are elected to command at various levels in a communist military.
The two might look similar in form, but the content behind each is
qualitatively different.
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davesearles
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Posted:
11 Sep 2008 02:11 am Post subject:
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hm:
|
Quote:
|
|
The problem
you're going to run into is that, unless it is a constitutional court
under a working people's republic that is passing judgment on the
interpretation of this amendment, it's not just going to be Tillie,
Bert and Jo's little coffee shop left in private hands, but General
Motors, Boeing and Microsoft.
|
ds:
|
Quote:
|
|
Exclusion of
the workers from collective ownership and control of the means of
production and distribution shall not exist within the United States,
or any place subject to their jurisdiction. The workers have a right to
organize into industrial unions which shall control and operate the
means of production and distribution and allocate the products of labor
as the workers at all times democratically determine. Congress shall
have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
|
ds to hm:
Tell me what you think would have to happen before
this proposed amendment proposal could become the law of the land?
Wouldn't have to be a political revolution that you
had talked about before?
|
Quote:
|
|
You're
definitely talking here about capturing the institutions of political
power .... But the problem ... is getting to the point where that is
possible -- if it's even possible at this point without an extra
parliamentary democratic revolution happening first.
|
"Parliamentary" means a lot of different
things - Parliamentarism usually refers to the idea of possibly
legislating our way through the revolution, a notion pretty universally
rejected on this list anyway.
We have two ways of amending the present
constitution, one is for the US Congress to initiate an amendment
proposal, the second is for state constitutional conventions under state
law to propose same.
As a practical matter - starting from a position of
essentially absolute zero (we admit this if we are honest with ourselves)
- a single person or a small group would start agitating for the workers'
amendment by running a candidate for US Congress, who if elected his or
her main job would be to rail for the amendment.
In order to get even one candidate elected would
take something of a political revolution. I don't want to insinuate my
ideas upon yours but getting even one candidate elected who openly
espoused the amendment proposal might fall into the category of an
"extra parliamentary democratic revolution."
To me there is little ambiguity in the wording of
the proposal that workers at each workplace may socialize that workplace
by organizing an industrial union there.
If you have an idea for a better wording I would be
very happy to see it. BUT I think that the idea is very important to
preserve that workers at each work place have to choose whether to join
the industrial union. It cannot be imposed even by the constitution of
the United States.
If workers indeed have a choice then has to mean
that some work places will choose not to join. We can embrace that
reality with confidence or with trepidation. I suggest confidence. If the
workers at some major corporation decide that they would rather have the
corporation maintain ownership - why should that cause us any
consternation whatsoever? If the workers were politically astute enough
to elect sufficient members of congress and state legislatures to get the
amendment proposal adopted as the organic law of the land I have littler
doubt that state and federal legislation ought to be sufficient to curb
any excesses that might be engendered because of some or even many
workplaces choosing to allow private ownership to continue there.
What do you think?
|
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CommunistLeague
|
|
Posted:
11 Sep 2008 04:25 am Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
|
|
Tell me what
you think would have to happen before this proposed amendment proposal
could become the law of the land?
|
Well, you tell me! My initial impression was that
this proposed amendment would be fought beginning under current
conditions and that the movement for it would also seek to improve those
conditions as they grow. If you're proposing this for a different
situation, such as after a working people's political party were
to "capture" the institutions of power and use the amendment to
"bang the gavel" on capitalism, then, yes, the situation would
be fundamentally different.
Nevertheless, being the trained editor that I am, I
would still suggest tightening up the language, if only to make it more
clear.
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davesearles
|
|
Posted:
11 Sep 2008 04:39 am Post subject:
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|
hm:
Quote:
The problem you're going to run into is that,
unless it is a constitutional court under a working people's republic
that is passing judgment on the interpretation of this amendment, it's
not just going to be Tillie, Bert and Jo's little coffee shop left in
private hands, but General Motors, Boeing and Microsoft.
ds:
Exclusion of the workers from collective ownership
and control of the means of production and distribution shall not exist
within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. The
workers have a right to organize into industrial unions which shall
control and operate the means of production and distribution and allocate
the products of labor as the workers at all times democratically
determine. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation.
ds to hm:
In order for such an amendment to have been adopted
wouldn't there have to be a political revolution, such as the one that
you talked about ?
|
Quote:
|
|
You're definitely talking here about capturing the institutions of
political power .... But the problem ... is getting to the point where
that is possible -- if it's even possible at this point without an
extra parliamentary democratic revolution happening first.
|
"Parliamentary" means a lot of different
things - Parliamentarism usually refers to the idea of possibly
legislating revolution, a notion pretty universally rejected on this list
anyway.
We have two ways of amending the present
constitution, one is for the US Congress to initiate an amendment
proposal, the second is for state constitutional conventions under state
law to propose same.
As a practical matter - starting from a position of
essentially absolute zero (we admit this if we are honest with ourselves)
- a single person or a small group would start agitating for the workers'
amendment by running a candidate for US Congress, who if elected his or
her main job would be to rail for the amendment.
In order to get even one candidate elected would
take something of a political revolution. I don't want to insinuate my
ideas upon yours but getting even one candidate elected who openly espoused
the amendment proposal might fall into the category of an "extra
parliamentary democratic revolution."
To me there is little ambiguity in the wording of
the proposal that workers at each workplace may socialize the ownership
of that workplace by organizing an industrial union there.
If you have an idea for a better wording I would be
very happy to see it. BUT I think that the idea is very important to
preserve that workers at each work place have to choose whether to join
the industrial union. It cannot be imposed even by the constitution of
the United States.
If workers indeed have a choice then has to mean
that some work places will choose not to join. We can embrace that
reality with confidence or with trepidation. I suggest confidence. If the
workers at some major corporation decide that they would rather have the
corporation maintain ownership - why should that cause us any
consternation whatsoever? If the workers were politically astute enough
to elect sufficient members of congress and state legislatures to get the
amendment proposal adopted as the organic law of the land there would be
little doubt that state and federal legislation ought to be sufficient to
curb any excesses that might be engendered because of some or even many
workplaces choosing to allow private ownership to continue there.
What do you think?
|
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mikelepore
|
|
Posted:
11 Sep 2008 08:58 am Post subject:
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|
|
davesearles wrote:
|
|
If the workers
at some major corporation decide that they would rather have the
corporation maintain ownership - why should that cause us any
consternation whatsoever?
|
I'd agree if you added some conditions. If what you
said applies to cases that don't have large social effects. Maybe they're
one of many places that make gift sets or program videogames. But I think
there should be no private ownership of mines because the resources must
belong to the people. No private ownership of a pharmaceutical lab that
protects "trade secrets" in the formulas for medically
important drugs. No one should be permitted to turn the endangered
rainforests into paper pulp so they can print junk mail with it, or waste
limited petrocarbon fuels on advertising, even if they can
"buy" and therefore "own" the resources that they are
wasting.
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davesearles
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Posted:
11 Sep 2008 12:19 pm Post subject:
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Sure but assuming there is enough political support
for the amendment to pass it, i.e. super majorities in both houses of
congress and majorities in three fourths of the state legislatures, there
would be ample political clout to #1 simply abrogate all "intellectual"
property protection #2 also come up with an appropriate rent or tax on
mineral extraction. (but you'd want to do the same thing for the
socilized industries as well. Just because they are socialized wouldn't
mean that there going to get free reign over resources.
That doesn't have to be spelled out in the
amendment, congress and the states already have the authority to do that.
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The Greenman
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Posted:
11 Sep 2008 06:54 pm Post subject:
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|
Hi Henry, Mike, Carl, and Dave:
Very interesting thread indeed. I do agree with
Dave that there will be workers who would rather not be part of the SIU
system. The Amish and Mennonites comes to mind and there will be those
who would rather have small business ventures. And why not? The organization
of labor would mostly be concerned with large and heavy industry such as
mining, agriculture, building large cargo ships, tractors, air
conditioning units, computers, pharmaceutical, etc.
The small businesses would still have to do
business with the organization of labor when Aunt Tillie has to buy
flour, surgar, vanilla, apples, lemon, cherries, rhubarb, custard, etc.
to make her county famous home made pies. Same with the local plumbers
who has to buy tools and pipes to either install plumbing, fix leaks or
clean out the sewer. Then we have air conditioning and heating, which are
mostly very small business ventures, as the plumbers and Aunt Tillie, who
have to obtain air conditioning and or heating units along with copper
pipe, electrical wiring and sheet metal to make vents for installation.
All the pipe, plastic, electric wire, tools, etc., are manufactured today
by large corporations. The idea, I believe, is to bring the idea of the
Amendment Proposal to the American people as a whole so that they can
either own, not through stocks or bonds, the means of production and
distribution rather than privately by corporations. I like the idea of
choice which is a strong American belief.
To go "gun ho" communist style would be a
major turn off to the American people who thinks very differently from
the rest of the world. Communism still scares the heck out of people and
it does me as well. I think this is often ignored by the Left. The
American people would not tolerate the government running every aspect of
the economy or telling people how to live and what they can or cannot
say. The American people believe that socialism is government in full
control over everything therefore the concepts of socialism is
continually rejected by them.
Socialism is the workers themselves running the
means of production apart from government and that message is not being
told. I don't believe it will have an idelogial base either. I may have
wrote this before but I do believe that making after the ownership of production/distribution
becomes reality it should be left alone just to see how it would grow and
mature rather than trying to mandate what Marx or some other idealoge has
written.
Another thing to say that "material
conditions" have to be right for socialism better think again.
Capitalism has gotten very good at adapting in every crisis situation.
Workers adapt to those changes as well and continue to believe the
capitalists has the right to "own" the means of production and
be the boss.
Henry...please get rid of the "Soviet"
symbolisms and the word Communist. That is a very great turn off with a
lot of people.
My prayers are with you Carl :D
John T.
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davesearles
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Posted:
11 Sep 2008 08:37 pm Post subject:
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|
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Quote:
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|
Henry...please
get rid of the "Soviet" symbolisms and the word Communist.
That is a very great turn off with a lot of people
|
John that commie stuff is the same as kids walking
down the street with pink orange and green dayglow hair and various
pieces of hardware and shrapnel sticking out of their bodies. Sorry Henry
that CP stuff is all for attention, that's what I see anyway.
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CommunistLeague
|
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Posted:
11 Sep 2008 09:04 pm Post subject:
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|
davesearles wrote:
|
|
In order to
get even one candidate elected would take something of a political
revolution. I don't want to insinuate my ideas upon yours but getting
even one candidate elected who openly espoused the amendment proposal
might fall into the category of an "extra parliamentary democratic
revolution."
|
Yes and no. I think that such an event could be a
culmination in one phase of such a revolution, but, as I think you would
agree, that electoral campaign would need a mass movement behind it to
see that it happens. I tend to think of the movement as the revolution,
and the candidate-elect as a product of it.
|
davesearles wrote:
|
|
To me there is
little ambiguity in the wording of the proposal that workers at each
workplace may socialize the ownership of that workplace by organizing
an industrial union there.
If you have an idea for a better wording I would be very happy to see
it. BUT I think that the idea is very important to preserve that
workers at each work place have to choose whether to join the industrial
union. It cannot be imposed even by the constitution of the United
States.
|
OK, here's some ideas. I added a couple of points
that I think would need to be included if you're going to accomplish
something like this.
Here's your original:
|
Quote:
|
|
Section 1.
Exclusion of the workers from collective ownership and control of the
means of production and distribution shall not exist within the United
States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. The workers have a right to organize into industrial unions
which shall control and operate the means of production and
distribution and allocate the products of labor as the workers at all
times democratically determine.
Section 3. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation.
|
Here is what I would have it say:
|
Quote:
|
|
Section 1. No
Chartered Corporation, Company or Incorporated Enterprise with a
combined employment exceeding Fifty (50) persons that produces or
distributes commodities for trade or sale within the United States or
any State, or between the United States and other nations, hereinafter
referred to as the Means of Production and Distribution, shall be
considered a Person by law.
Section 2. Ownership of the Means of Production and Distribution shall
be decided by democratic vote of its non-managing employees,
hereinafter referred to as Workers. If the Workers at each Corporation,
Company or Enterprise shall choose it, those Means of Production and/or
Distribution shall be considered the collective Property of the People
of the United States and of the State in which they live, and shall be
collectively controlled by the Workers.
Section 3. Exclusion of Workers from collective control of the Means of
Production and Distribution shall not exist within the United States or
any State, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 4. All Workers have the right to organize themselves into
Industrial Unions or other similar Bodies, which shall control, manage
and operate the Means of Production and Distribution on a daily basis,
and shall coordinate with other Industrial Unions and other similar
Bodies across Industries and throughout the United States and the State
in which they exist, and allocate the Products of their collective
labor as they at all times determine.
Section 5. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation.
|
I added sections 1 and 2 to clear up the language,
to define in constitutional terms (which are, admittedly, arbitrary, but
I think they get the job done) what the means of production and
distribution are, and to clarify the process by which we achieve
collective ownership and workers' control of production and distribution.
I think that Section 1 is especially important,
since the law currently defines corporations and such as persons (as per
one of the worst interpretations of the XIV Amendment ever!). This strips
corporations and capitalist enterprises of their "citizenship status"
and opens the door for collective ownership and control to be exercised.
I also beefed up Section 4 a bit, to add
industry-wide and cross-industrial workers' control -- otherwise you run
the risk of Congress legislating state management on a macroeconomic
level.
What do you think?
(Note: I've had some experience with writing
constitutional amendments for ballot initiatives and electoral campaigns,
which is why I was such a prig about the language.)
|
davesearles wrote:
|
|
If workers
indeed have a choice then has to mean that some work places will choose
not to join. We can embrace that reality with confidence or with
trepidation. I suggest confidence. If the workers at some major
corporation decide that they would rather have the corporation maintain
ownership - why should that cause us any consternation whatsoever? If
the workers were politically astute enough to elect sufficient members
of congress and state legislatures to get the amendment proposal
adopted as the organic law of the land there would be little doubt that
state and federal legislation ought to be sufficient to curb any
excesses that might be engendered because of some or even many
workplaces choosing to allow private ownership to continue there.
What do you think?
|
I think that if such an amendment was to reach the
point of passage, most, if not all, workers would want to control their
own workplaces, and the need for the loophole would be pointless.
Nevertheless, you never know, so I put the loophole in Section 2.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
11 Sep 2008 09:19 pm Post subject:
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|
|
davesearles wrote:
|
|
Quote:
|
|
Henry...please
get rid of the "Soviet" symbolisms and the word Communist.
That is a very great turn off with a lot of people
|
John that commie stuff is the same as kids
walking down the street with pink orange and green dayglow hair and
various pieces of hardware and shrapnel sticking out of their bodies.
Sorry Henry that CP stuff is all for attention, that's what I see
anyway.
|
Well, I can tell you from my experience that it's
not as bad as it used to be. Most people (workers) we talk with ask more
questions than assume answers. We've been able to redefine their
understanding of communism, and they are much more positive about it as a
result.
And, for the record, the hammer and sickle
pre-dates the "Soviet" period. In fact, it was used by European
and North American socialists as early as the last decade of the 19th
century. Even De Leon's SLP used it once or twice in their literature,
IIRC. Yes, a lot of people associate it with the "official
Communists" and what-not, but a lot of others don't even know what
it means.
I remember talking a couple years ago to a woman
worker in her 40s at a 7-11 in Frederick, Maryland. I was wearing a
hammer-and-sickle pin and she asked me about it. At first, I was a little
gun-shy, expecting to get the typical anti-communist response. I moved a
little closer and she got a good look at it. "It's a hammer and
sickle," I said. "What does that stand for?" she asked.
After I picked my jaw up off the floor (proverbially), I explained that
it was a symbol of the unity of workers in the urban and rural areas and
of the communist movement. "Communism? I've heard that before. What
does it mean?" A comrade who was with me and I stood there and
talked about workers' control of production, a working people's republic
and a classless communist society, about the role and power that workers
like her actually had. Today, she has the pin I was wearing and is a Friend
of the League.
I hate to say it, but it seems that only
"seasoned leftists" and their fellow-travelers give the kind of
responses you two have given. My experiences have been different.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
12 Sep 2008 04:57 am Post subject:
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|
davesearles wrote:
|
|
That doesn't
have to be spelled out in the amendment, congress and the states
already have the authority to do that.
|
The Constitution says, if private property is taken
away from anyone for public use, compensation must be paid. So where is
the authority you cite?
The amendment says workers can control industry but
it doesn't say the capitalist is deprived of ownership. This may be
construed to mean that the capitalist and profiteering shall rule but
subject to a more liberal degree of regulations than before.
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mikelepore
|
|
Posted:
12 Sep 2008 05:29 am Post subject:
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|
Based on my experiences in this rural section of New
York State and my advanced :o) age of 54, I agree with John about the bad
connotations of the hammer'n'sickle and the word communist. In fact, most
people around here believe that the word and the symbol, and the red flag
also, _mean_ by definition "that's where there is no freedom",
"it means the whole country is one big prison camp", "at
night people make a run for it, they dash through machine gun fire and
try to climb over the Berlin Wall", "people diving into
shark-infested water to escape from Cuba."
The word socialism doesn't have that connotations
(except in the Libertarian Party where socialism and slavery are
synonyms). Most people mainly associate the word socialism with
inefficiency, bureaucracy and high taxes -- or, in a more pure form,
"pure socialism", the popular connotation is "a beautiful
dream that will never happen and it would never work" -- a
troublesome set of connotations, but not quite as bad as the machine guns
and extermination camps of "communism."
Your choice to pick your own name. It's your time
to dedicate, to decide which stumbling blocks you want to work on
overcoming. Maybe for myself I like a path of least resistance.
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davesearles
|
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Posted:
12 Sep 2008 12:05 pm Post subject:
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|
ds:
|
Quote:
|
|
In order to
get even one candidate elected would take something of a political
revolution. I don't want to insinuate my ideas upon yours but getting
even one candidate elected who openly espoused the amendment proposal
might fall into the category of an "extra parliamentary democratic
revolution."
|
hm:
|
Quote:
|
|
Yes and no. I
think that such an event could be a culmination in one phase of such a
revolution, but, as I think you would agree, that electoral campaign
would need a mass movement behind it to see that it happens. I tend to
think of the movement as the revolution, and the candidate-elect as a
product of it.
|
ds:
Do you see some important difference between what I
wrote:
"getting even one candidate elected who openly
espoused the amendment proposal might fall into the category of an 'extra
parliamentary democratic revolution.'"
and what you wrote?:
I tend to think of the movement as the revolution,
and the candidate-elect as a product of it.
[/quote]
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davesearles
|
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Posted:
12 Sep 2008 12:47 pm Post subject:
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|
hm proposal:
|
Quote:
|
|
Section 1. No
Chartered Corporation, Company or Incorporated Enterprise with a
combined employment exceeding Fifty (50) persons that produces or
distributes commodities for trade or sale within the United States or
any State, or between the United States and other nations, hereinafter
referred to as the Means of Production and Distribution, shall be
considered a Person by law.
Section 2. Ownership of the Means of Production and Distribution shall
be decided by democratic vote of its non-managing employees,
hereinafter referred to as Workers....
|
and hm commented:
I think that Section 1 is especially important,
since the law currently defines corporations and such as persons (as per
one of the worst interpretations of the XIV Amendment ever!). This strips
corporations and capitalist enterprises of their "citizenship
status" and opens the door for collective ownership and control to
be exercised.
ds writes:
On the one hand you acknowledge that it would take
a revoluiton to get candidates elected openly espousing the amendment
(the original amendment proposal anyway) but then you come up with text
that does not assume that revolution has occurred.
hm's Section 1 - corporations as persons??
hm's Section 2 - "ownership" implies the
ability to alienate that propeorty through sale.
The existing proposal says in part:
"Exclusion of the workers from collective
ownership and control of the means of production and distribution shall
not exist within the United States, or any place subject to their
jurisdiction. The workers have a right to organize into industrial unions
which shall control and operate the means of production and distribution
and allocate the products of labor as the workers at all times
democratically determine."
You will notice that the current proposal does not
give current workers an unfettered ability to "determine
ownership" (an ability to alienate) - under the original proposal
where the workers have exercized their right to organize into industrial
unions which shall control and operate the means of production and
distribution and allocate the products of labor as the workers at all
times democratically determine, law will not recognize any other form
other than the workers' collective ownership and control of the means of
production and distribution - so they will not in principle be able to
sell it (an attribute of determining ownership)
If the original is suffient to accomplish what we
want then any additions to the original actually take away from it.
And just as an aside - the concept of a corporation
as a person itself is hardly offensive to the idea of collective
ownership of the means of production by the workers when the law
invalidates all ownship except collective ownershio and control of the
means of production where the workers organize into industrial unions.
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davesearles
|
|
Posted:
12 Sep 2008 01:26 pm Post subject:
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|
ds originally wrote:
|
Quote:
|
|
#1 simply
abrogate all "intellectual" property protection #2 also come
up with an appropriate rent or tax on mineral extraction. (but you'd
want to do the same thing for the socilized industries as well. Just
because they are socialized wouldn't mean that there going to get free
reign over resources.
That doesn't have to be spelled out in the amendment, congress and the
states already have the authority to do that.
|
and ml commented:
|
Quote:
|
|
The Constitution says, if private property is taken away from anyone
for public use, compensation must be paid. So where is the authority
you cite?
The amendment says workers can control industry but it doesn't say the
capitalist is deprived of ownership. This may be construed to mean that
the capitalist and profiteering shall rule but subject to a more
liberal degree of regulations than before.
|
ds writes:
I am pretty sure that this is correct that
"intellectual property" is psudo-property. It exists only where
positive law provides for it. The U.S. Comgress could without
constitutional violation end all intellectual property simply by
repealing all intellectual property laws.
Under the current constitution congress also has
the power to tax mineral extraction to any degree it wishes.
|
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CommunistLeague
|
|
Posted:
12 Sep 2008 08:48 pm Post subject:
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|
mikelepore wrote:
|
|
Your choice to
pick your own name. It's your time to dedicate, to decide which
stumbling blocks you want to work on overcoming. Maybe for myself I
like a path of least resistance.
|
I guess I'm not a big fan of
"shortcutting" or "shorthanding" things. Even when I
talk about politics, I concentrate more on the specifics -- workplace
committees, workers' control of production, working people's republic,
etc. -- than attempting to encapsulate it all in a single term, like
"socialism" or "communism". This may be why I don't
run into such resistance to calling myself or my politics
"communist"; I get it to a point where I define what I/we stand
for and then say something, "This is what we see as communism/being
a communist", which does get them to acknowledge (at least to
themselves) that there is more than one definition of the term. This
method works really well, too.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
12 Sep 2008 08:55 pm Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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The
Constitution says, if private property is taken away from anyone for
public use, compensation must be paid. So where is the authority you
cite?
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The V Amendment says, "... nor shall private property
be taken for public use, without just compensation." The term
"just compensation" is the key term here. It's a subjective
category, determined by the government, not the individual or group of
individuals deprived of the private property. The government can decide
that no amount of remuneration or compensation is really
"just", and therefore take control of the property without
paying anything out. As well, they can do what occurred with the
nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and decide that "just
compensation" is paying the owners and top managers the balance of
their contract.
Personally, I've always thought that a
"buyout" of the individual capitalists would be more preferable
to other methods of removing them from the scene. Offer to set them up on
the Caymans or some other islands with everything they'd need for the
rest of their lives, and in exchange they don't contest the seizure and
socialization of the means of production.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
12 Sep 2008 08:56 pm Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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Do you see
some important difference between what I wrote:
"getting even one candidate elected who openly espoused the
amendment proposal might fall into the category of an 'extra
parliamentary democratic revolution.'"
and what you wrote?:
I tend to think of the movement as the revolution, and the
candidate-elect as a product of it.
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Not really. Just pointing out differences in
emphasis. I'm not trying to start an argument about it.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
12 Sep 2008 09:10 pm Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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On the one
hand you acknowledge that it would take a revoluiton to get candidates
elected openly espousing the amendment (the original amendment proposal
anyway) but then you come up with text that does not assume that
revolution has occurred.
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My understanding was that this amendment was to be
proposed as an addition to the existing Constitution. If you are choosing
to go that route, then, yes, you have to come up with text that fits it
as it is today. If I am wrong, and you're proposing a new Constitution
that is along different lines, then please let me know.
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davesearles wrote:
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The existing
proposal says in part:
"Exclusion of the workers from collective ownership and control of
the means of production and distribution shall not exist within the
United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. The workers
have a right to organize into industrial unions which shall control and
operate the means of production and distribution and allocate the
products of labor as the workers at all times democratically
determine."
You will notice that the current proposal does not give current workers
an unfettered ability to "determine ownership" (an ability to
alienate) - under the original proposal where the workers have
exercised their right to organize into industrial unions which shall
control and operate the means of production and distribution and
allocate the products of labor as the workers at all times
democratically determine, law will not recognize any other form other
than the workers' collective ownership and control of the means of
production and distribution - so they will not in principle be able to
sell it (an attribute of determining ownership)
If the original is sufficient to accomplish what we want then any
additions to the original actually take away from it.
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The problem is that it is insufficient. There are
too many loopholes and contradictions with existing law that it would
take years and years of court litigation and new legislation to
straighten it out. OK, yeah, there will already be some of that going on,
but the lack of a clear and comprehensive constitutional mandate will
present added problems.
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davesearles wrote:
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And just as an
aside - the concept of a corporation as a person itself is hardly
offensive to the idea of collective ownership of the means of
production by the workers when the law invalidates all ownership except
collective ownership and control of the means of production where the
workers organize into industrial unions.
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Actually, it is, and Mike had sort of begun to
bring it up in his last post. The V Amendment says, "nor shall any
person ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process
of law". If a corporation is recognized as a person, as per
constitutional interpretation, then they cannot, constitutionally
speaking, be deprived of their property without due process.
Look, I'm not trying to be impossible with you, but
I do have an understanding of how this will be argued out. I think it's
better to cover all the bases than it is to leave anything to chance. To
use another baseball analogy, it's still better to hit a home run than a
stand-up triple.
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davesearles
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Posted:
12 Sep 2008 10:31 pm Post subject:
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hm:
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Quote:
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The government
can decide that no amount of remuneration or compensation is really
"just", and therefore take control of the property without
paying anything out. As well, they can do what occurred with the
nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and decide that
"just compensation" is paying the owners and top managers the
balance of their contract.
Personally, I've always thought that a "buyout" of the
individual capitalists would be more preferable to other methods of
removing them from the scene. Offer to set them up on the Caymans or
some other islands with everything they'd need for the rest of their
lives, and in exchange they don't contest the seizure and socialization
of the means of production.
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ds:
Buy them out so they don't contest the seizure and
socialization of the mop??
We bought out King George or we adopted a
Declaration of Independence?
We paid the slave holders for their property in
slaves or we dispossed them as a wartime measure by the Emancipation
Proclamation and generalized it and made it permanent through the 13th
Amendment.
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davesearles
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Posted:
12 Sep 2008 10:37 pm Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
And just as an aside - the concept of a corporation
as a person itself is hardly offensive to the idea of collective
ownership of the means of production by the workers when the law
invalidates all ownership except collective ownership and control of the
means of production where the workers organize into industrial unions.
hm ansered:
Actually, it is, and Mike had sort of begun to
bring it up in his last post. The V Amendment says, "nor shall any
person ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process
of law". If a corporation is recognized as a person, as per
constitutional interpretation, then they cannot, constitutionally
speaking, be deprived of their property without due process.
ds replies:
Henry, the 5th amedment was in place when the
slaveholders were dispossed under the Emancipation Proclamation and the
13th Amendment - you didn't read that article on the 13th amendment did
you?
The amendment changes the entire law including the
prior portions of the constitution. The amendment proposal, if you will
read the thirteenth amendment was structured as much as possible word for
word with the 13th amendment. It ought to be able to hold some water
therefore, I would think anyway.
And in any event nothing of this has one bit to do
with corporations as persons. Whether or not they are considered to be
persons (a minor distiction relevant in only a limited number of
instances under the law) a corporation can still own property whether or
not it is considered a person, by reason of the charters granted to them
by the various states and government entities to do just that.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
12 Sep 2008 11:11 pm Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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Henry, the 5th
amendment was in place when the slaveholders were dispossessed under
the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment - you didn't read
that article on the 13th amendment did you?
The amendment changes the entire law including the prior portions of
the constitution. The amendment proposal, if you will read the
thirteenth amendment was structured as much as possible word for word
with the 13th amendment. It ought to be able to hold some water
therefore, I would think anyway.
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Believe me, I've read the XIII Amendment often
enough to know what it says. That amendment redefined those held as
slaves and indentured servants as non-property, not a different
kind of property. If we were to define the MOP as non-property, then
your argument would hold water. However, we are talking about redefining
the property relations, not whether the MOP are property.
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davesearles wrote:
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Whether or not
they are considered to be persons (a minor distinction relevant in only
a limited number of instances under the law) a corporation can still
own property..., by reason of the charters granted to them by the
various states and government entities to do just that.
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But if you are seeking to deprive these
corporations of their private ownership of the MOP, then the question of
whether the corporation has rights is immediately raised. Current
interpretation of the V and XIV amendments says yes; so unless you
address that concretely, you will run into problems.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
12 Sep 2008 11:14 pm Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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Buy them out
so they don't contest the seizure and socialization of the mop??
We bought out King George or we adopted a Declaration of Independence?
We paid the slave holders for their property in slaves or we
dispossessed them as a wartime measure by the Emancipation Proclamation
and generalized it and made it permanent through the 13th Amendment.
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Well, did you want the Third Revolution to be as
peaceful as possible or violent and bloody like the First ("We
bought out King George or we adopted a Declaration of
Independence?") and Second ("We paid the slave holders for
their property in slaves or we dispossessed them as a wartime measure by
the Emancipation Proclamation and generalized it and made it permanent
through the 13th Amendment?")?
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davesearles
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Posted:
13 Sep 2008 01:32 am Post subject:
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hm:
That (the 13th) amendment redefined those held as
slaves and indentured servants as non-property, not a different kind of
property. If we were to define the MOP as non-property, then your
argument would hold water. However, we are talking about redefining the
property relations, not whether the MOP are property.
the amendment proposal:
Exclusion of the workers from collective ownership
and control of the means of production and distribution shall not exist
within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. The
workers have a right to organize into industrial unions which shall
control and operate the means of production and distribution and allocate
the products of labor as the workers at all times democratically
determine.
ds continues:
An attribute of the mop as non-property would be
that it cannot be alienated through sale?
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Jacob Richter
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Posted:
13 Sep 2008 05:05 am Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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I do NOT agree
with the usual leftist proposal to replace the police with a workers'
militia or neighborhood militia. Such a job needs to be done by someone
with years of training in psychology and sociology, in addition to the
specialized skill of physically restraining a crazy person with minimal
force and without losing one's compassion.
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Maybe the latter (restraint), but the former can be
done by non-police folks with the related professional skills
(investigation stuff, for example).
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mikelepore
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Posted:
13 Sep 2008 05:34 am Post subject:
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Jacob, that's true, just as some of what is today
called industrial management today can be done by workers using
statistics. Job boundaries will change all over.
But when most anarcho-leftist writers object to the
mere existence of "police" in a classless society, they are
usually objecting to one of two things, either objecting to the existence
of "authority", "rules", "mandatory", or
else they are objecting having someone make a full time career of it. I
find both of their objections unconvincing.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
13 Sep 2008 05:42 am Post subject:
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davesearles and CommunistLeague, if you guys want to
make socialism possible by means of making it constitutional, why didn't
you mention the power of government (16th amendment) to tax income "from
whatever source derived" and without being bound by any kind of
"enumeration." In other words, a socialist majority in Congress
would have the power to put a 99.999 percent income tax on dividends,
which would make the market price of the stock collapse toward zero, so
the workers can then buy all of the company's stock for pennies. Then the
workers can adopt a nonprofit and worker-managed charter. A step in the
right direction, or not?
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davesearles
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davesearles
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Posted:
13 Sep 2008 09:31 am Post subject:
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And on the way to the adoption of the amendment
proposal wouldn't this be a good thing for the U.S. Congress to
entertain? (After once both houses of congress have passed the proposal
on to the states there is nothing for it to do with the proposal. Even
more perilous, how about when there is but a simply majority in both
houses (sufficient to pass such tax legislation) but not yet great enough
for the two thirds required to pass the amendment proposal.
look out for the shenanegans!
Also there is a political problem with the taxing
proposal -
There is an across the board. across the classes
bias in the US against taxes.
I had talked about that Congress could insure a
reasoned mineral extraction policy through taxes on extraction.
There probably are more ways to get around a
dividend taxing scheme than there are tax attornies in this country, but
even if dividends and corporate skimmings that you and I would think of
as dividends could be taxed at a 99.99% rate - that doesn't do very much
to advance the idea that the workers need to operate the means of
production as an organic collective as opposed to a collection of profit
seeking enterprises.
And assuming that you could get a congress to do
that why not go for the whole thing and write into the constitution that
the workers have a right upon organizing to collectively own and operate
the means of production and distribution?
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mikelepore
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Posted:
13 Sep 2008 05:39 pm Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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How would you
restrict the purchase of the stocks to workers?
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What I meant to say was eminent domain.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
13 Sep 2008 05:58 pm Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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as dividends
could be taxed at a 99.99% rate - that doesn't do very much to advance
the idea that the workers need to operate the means of production as an
organic collective as opposed to a collection of profit seeking
enterprises.
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That's right, it doesn't. I meant it only to
satisfy the constitutional clause that anyone is entitled to compensation
if their property is taken. You tell the capitalists that they will be
compensated at the market rate for their shares of stock. But having said
this, so as not to be liars, this will actually be done.
First advantage: There can be no question about
constitutionality, therefore, prior to a socialist majority being
established, socialists will be immune from legal prosecution under
"criminal syndicalism" laws.
Second advantage: Previously the religious half of
the working class was worried that adopting socialism would be
"stealing" the capitalists' property. This would cause the
souls of anyone who votes socialist to go to hell according to the
"Thou shalt not steal" commandment. Announcing the intention to
compensate the capitlaists under eminent domain, adopting socialism is no
longer stealing. Therefore, more voters will vote socialist. A socialist
majority is congress is gradually established.
Then you do something political that makes the
stock exchange orders become almost all orders to sell and almost no
orders to buy. One way would be to that tax away dividends. Another way
would be to change SEC provisions such that shareholders are personally
responsible for the crimes of the corporation ("You own shares in
General Electric, which dumped PCB, a known carcinogen, into the Hudson
River. Therefore, pursuant to the RICO statute, you're under arrest for
attempted murder.") Any kind of political change that has the effect
that, at least for one day, almost all of the orders on the floor of the
stock exchange are orders to sell rather than to buy. That overwhelming
ratio of sell orders to buy orders would make the stock price drop to
practically zero. (Why would it? If others here aren't familiar with how
stock prices are set, I will be happy to explain it later.) Now the
socialist majority in Congress takes a snapshot of those new stock prices
at that instant, and uses that table as the basis for compensation under
eminent domain. Then the new owner of the industries, the Congress,
legally transfers ownership of the real estate and equipment to the
workers' network of industrial unions and distribution outlets.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
13 Sep 2008 06:07 pm Post subject:
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Here's another method. The socialist majority in
Congress establishes alternative industries, not because they think it's
socialism, but because of the effect that will happen next. You sell a
high quality $500 car, a fairly priced 25 cent gallon of gasoline, etc.
Due to the price differential, no one in their right mind buys the
products sold by the capitalist industries, plus you have an educational
campaign that encourages everyone that it's our moral duty to buy goods
from nonprofit sources whenever possible. This puts the capitalist
industries into bankruptcy. Now that Exxon and General Motors are nothing
but vacant lots collecting cobwebs, they can be obtained cheaply through
eminent domain.
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davesearles
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Posted:
13 Sep 2008 06:20 pm Post subject:
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ml:
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Quote:
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That's right,
it doesn't. I meant it only to satisfy the constitutional clause that
anyone is entitled to compensation if their property is taken. You tell
the capitalists that they will be compensated at the market rate for
their shares.
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ds:
Compensation? First hm and now you? I don't get
this at all.
To me they'll get just as much compensation as the
purchasers of loosing lottery tickets.
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davesearles
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Posted:
13 Sep 2008 06:23 pm Post subject:
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What constitutional clause entitled the slave holders
to compensation?
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The Greenman
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Posted:
13 Sep 2008 06:30 pm Post subject:
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H. Miles wrote:
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Quote:
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Believe me,
I've read the XIII Amendment often enough to know what it says. That
amendment redefined those held as slaves and indentured servants as
non-property, not a different kind of property. If we were to define
the MOP as non-property, then your argument would hold water. However,
we are talking about redefining the property relations, not whether the
MOP are property.
|
That is a good point Henry. The workers owning the
means of production is just redefining the property realtions that would
be challenged in a court of law. However, as Mike pointed out in his
post, the challenge could be won legally. In other words there is more
than one way to skin a cat. I still consider the Amendment Proposal an
excellent starting point to rally around--a true political rally rather
than demanding government health insurance for all. Not that it a bad
idea so don't get me wrong. I would ask how that would work Mike but I am
restricted in time by the library. Perhaps in a month or so I will have a
new hard drive. Money is tight right now since I have to pay for the new
water line installed at the house. Not only that, car inspection time is
coming up so I have to make sure the car is passable and that involves
money--what a racket. One would think that organized crime is the
political rule these days.
Oh, one more thing, herein western New York,
Western PA and Northeast Ohio, a person wearing a hammer and sickle
emblem or pin would get their ass kicked by a number of people. There is
very strong anti-communist sediments and I should know. I even have to be
careful using the word socialism with some people around here.
John T.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
13 Sep 2008 06:35 pm Post subject:
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I edited my recent post 12 inches above this. Please
reread where I spoke of two "advantages".
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davesearles
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Posted:
13 Sep 2008 06:41 pm Post subject:
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Quote:
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another
method. The socialist majority in Congress establishes alternative
industries, not because they think it's socialism, but because of the
effect that will happen next. You sell a high quality $500 car, a
fairly priced 25 cent gallon of gasoline, etc. Due to the price
differential, no one in their right mind buys the products sold by the
capitalist industries, plus you have an educational campaign that
encourages everyone that it's our moral duty to buy goods from
nonprofit sources whenever possible. This puts the capitalist
industries into bankruptcy. Now that Exxon and General Motors are
nothing but vacant lots collecting cobwebs, they can be obtained
cheaply through eminent domain.
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ds:
That could be done - but it would have to go across
the board for every industry and then all you would have left would be a
you'd be left totally state managed economy. Many people, myself
included, would just as soon stay with what we have now than to go to a
state managed economy.
To me - worker control of the means of production
in the deleonist model is completey different that a totoal state contol
model. I can sell the deleonist model to others. I can't sell total state
control even to myself.
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davesearles
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Posted:
13 Sep 2008 06:43 pm Post subject:
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ml:
I edited my recent post 12 inches above this.
Please reread where I spoke of two "advantages".
ds:
Can you just repost the piece as edited becuase I
have no idea what you are referring to. Thanks.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
13 Sep 2008 07:06 pm Post subject:
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The Greenman wrote:
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That is a good
point Henry. The workers owning the means of production is just
redefining the property realtions that would be challenged in a court
of law.
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Which tells me that Dave's references to the
abolition of slavery and the 13th amendment probably aren't too relevant
here. To abolish slavery people didn't merely have to arrive at the
conclusion that society should reapportion property -- people had to come
to conclusion that people who are victims of kidnapping aren't a
logically fathomable form of property in the first place. On top of all
that, then you had to kill 600,000 soldiers, which is what really
emancipated the slaves, the 1865 amendment being merely an after-the-fact
legal justification of what was already done. Socialism is different. Everyone
knows we are talking about material property. The ethical debates are are
on another level compared to rescuing kidnapping victims.
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mikelepore
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mikelepore
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Posted:
13 Sep 2008 07:16 pm Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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then all you
would have left would be a you'd be left totally state managed economy.
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If the state owns it, it would be a kind of budget
expenditure for the state to transfer ownership of the whole coboodle to
the workers' organization.
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davesearles
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Posted:
13 Sep 2008 08:26 pm Post subject:
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jt:
That is a good point Henry. The workers owning the
means of production is just redefining the property realtions that would
be challenged in a court of law.+
ml:
Which tells me that Dave's references to the abolition
of slavery and the 13th amendment probably aren't too relevant here. To
abolish slavery people didn't merely have to arrive at the conclusion
that society should reapportion property -- people had to come to
conclusion that people who are victims of kidnapping aren't a logically
fathomable form of property in the first place.
ds:
One more time here is the amendment proposal:
"Exclusion of the workers from collective
ownership and control of the means of production and distribution shall
not exist within the United States, or any place subject to their
jurisdiction. The workers have a right to organize into industrial unions
which shall control and operate the means of production and distribution
and allocate the products of labor as the workers at all times
democratically determine. Congress shall have power to enforce this
article by appropriate legislation."
The amendment would DOES NOT tranfer ownership of
the mop to the workers in the present form of ownership. Private
ownership of the mop under capitalism is not the same form of ownership
as collective ownership and control of the means of production and
distribution by the workers contingent upon theit forming into industrail
unions to control and operate the means of production and distribution
and allocate the products of labor as the workers at all times
democratically determine.
ex.: As above set of workers at a plant which
consists of a building, and certain machinery, organize into an
industrail union. In general those workers do not own the building and
machinery in such a manner that they can sell it (alienate it). In that
case the building and machinery once were a certain typr of property
(alienable) but with the takeover by the union it is no longer alienable.
In other words the first set of workers can't sell it back to the
capitalists and alienate it from themselves or next set of workers.
With the slaves - they truly were property. The
thirteenth amendment did not transfer ownership to the slave that was
taken from the slave holder. The slave holder could alienate his or her
property (the person of the slave) through sale. That form of ownership
of human beings was simply disolved and the persons of the slave was
restored to a "state of nature", the same as everyone else, with
certain inalienable rights. The propsed amendment does not leave the mop
in a state of nature (which was suffient for the slave and everyone else)
but recognizes in the industrail unions an entirely different form of
ownership of the mop than existed under capitalism, an inalieanble
collective ownership by the organized workers to control and operate the
means of production and distribution and allocate the products of labor
as the workers at all times democratically determine.
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davesearles
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Posted:
13 Sep 2008 09:52 pm Post subject:
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ml:
|
Quote:
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You sell a
high quality $500 car, a fairly priced 25 cent gallon of gasoline, etc.
Due to the price differential, no one in their right mind buys the
products sold by the capitalist industries, plus you have an
educational campaign that encourages everyone that it's our moral duty
to buy goods from nonprofit sources whenever possible. This puts the
capitalist industries into bankruptcy. Now that Exxon and General Motors
are nothing but vacant lots collecting cobwebs, they can be obtained
cheaply through eminent domain.
|
ds:
The state pays the workers to build a mirror (but a
non-market) economy for the purpose of totally bankrupting the original
market economy and then turning the non-market economy over to the
workers.
Or more efficiently we coud simply pay workers not
to work in the market economy until the market system collapses
completely and then tuen the original over to the workers' collective.
or we could simply pass an amanedment which says
that the workers upon organizing at their workpaces shall collectively
control and operate the mop.
The latter method doesn't depend on the govt.
turning anything over to the workers (which would be looked upon as entirely
suspect by the workers) and doesn't purposefully encourge a collaped
economy entirely detrimental to civilization.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
13 Sep 2008 10:31 pm Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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an amanedment
which says that the workers upon organizing at their workpaces shall
collectively control and operate the mop.
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When you say that, have you considered: The workers
may do it in some places but not others. The problems is that socialism
can't even begin to function unless the socialist adminstration has at
least one of every kind of industry. It must have at least one factory
that makes frying pans, at least one factory that makes clock gears, at
least one factory that makes violin strings, etc.. You can have socialism
and capitalism existing at the same time, and even in the same place, as
long as the socialist system has at least one of every kind of industry
and service. You need that all that immediately, during the first five
minutes of the first day, or socialism has to fail and collapse.
Therefore socialism has to be instituted abruptly.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
13 Sep 2008 10:36 pm Post subject:
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Your "One more time here is ..." post is a
set of statements that I believe everyone here already knows well and
agrees fully with.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
13 Sep 2008 10:43 pm Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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The latter
method doesn't depend on the govt. turning anything over to the workers
(which would be looked upon as entirely suspect by the workers)
|
For the past six months your suggestions have been
injecting the political state more and more into the workings of
socialism. All I did was, during the last 24 hours, and for the sake of
argument, something that should be considered, mention a few alternative
methods which also inject the state into it, and not into the workings of
socialism, but into a transition period that might be needed before we
can establish socialism.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
13 Sep 2008 10:45 pm Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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a collaped
economy entirely detrimental to civilization.
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Bad fortune for the capitalist is also bad fortune
for civilization??
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mikelepore
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Posted:
13 Sep 2008 10:52 pm Post subject:
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Here's another way to compensate the capitalists, if
socialists have already taken control of the state. You print up some
fiat money, purely inflationary if it were ever to be used, and give each
corporate stockholder a piece of paper money that says "$1
trillion" on it, and say keep the change. Now they are all paid off,
the whole capitalist class is dispossessed by means of eminent domain.
All in one hour of one day, now the workers' organization has full
control of all industries and services. The stores won't honor any
currency except for the labor time credits that the workers' organization
issues. Someone could have an unlimited amount of green president
portrait money but it doesn't do them any good. The former capitalists
may go to work if they like eating.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
13 Sep 2008 11:34 pm Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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Here's another
way to compensate the capitalists, if socialists have already taken
control of the state. You print up some fiat money, purely inflationary
if it were ever to be used, and give each corporate stockholder a piece
of paper money that says "$1 trillion" on it, and say keep
the change. Now they are all paid off, the whole capitalist class is
dispossessed by means of eminent domain. All in one hour of one day,
now the workers' organization has full control of all industries and
services. The stores won't honor any currency except for the labor time
credits that the workers' organization issues. Someone could have an
unlimited amount of green president portrait money but it doesn't do
them any good. The former capitalists may go to work if they like
eating.
|
Ooooh! I like this! :twisted:
Oh! Another thing we could do is, after abolishing
money as a whole, collect all those scraps of paper and give them to the
capitalists to play with. In their eyes, it's "just
compensation". For us, it's recycling. :wink:
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mikelepore
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Posted:
14 Sep 2008 08:14 am Post subject:
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So anyway, Henry, you are welcome to discuss anything
here. Go ahead and tell the rest of us where we're wrong or right or
irrelevant. No rules about being agreeable. Plenty of gigabytes of empty
space to fill up. Rambling off-topic is fine too. I would also enjoy
hearing about your personal biography.
************************************
"A bartender is just a pharmacist with a
limited inventory."
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davesearles
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Posted:
14 Sep 2008 11:05 am Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
The latter method (constitutionally recognizing
workers' rights to the mop) doesn't depend on the govt. turning anything
over to the workers (which would be looked upon as entirely suspect by
the workers)
ml wrote:
For the past six months your suggestions have been
injecting the political state more and more into the workings of
socialism. All I did was, during the last 24 hours, and for the sake of
argument, something that should be considered, mention a few alternative
methods which also inject the state into it, and not into the workings of
socialism, but into a transition period that might be needed before we
can establish socialism.
ds:
Which I appreciate. These certainly need to be
looked at from all angles and every alternative and permutation needs to
be put under the microscope.
However under no circumstances would I agree that
the state should be used to in anyway destabilize the economy, deflate or
inflate the currency or in any way appear to be wasting state finances.
Absolutely not.
An admitted negative of the amendment proposal
process is that in the run-up to the amendment there will be a short but
perilous period when the amendment advocates will have a simple majority
in each house of congress (and possibly a president) prior to having a
super majority in each house to adopt the amendment proposal. At that
point if it would be possible to add just enough ether to the atmosphere
of the capitol building to put everything into a state of suspended
animation I would suggest that be done. Other than that we'll have to
hold our own breaths and hope that congress doesn't try to do anything in
advance of the amendment adoption that creates a reaction.
Why should congress be made to look like that it is
encouraging the collapse of capitalism prior to industrial unionization
when capitalism itself is unalterably doing that very thing?
ml:
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Quote:
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You print up
some fiat money, purely inflationary if it were ever to be used, and
give each corporate stockholder a piece of paper money that says
"$1 trillion" on it, and say keep the change. Now they are
all paid off, the whole capitalist class is dispossessed by means of
eminent domain.
|
hm:
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Quote:
|
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Ooooh! I like
this! (using the "twisted evil" emoticon)
|
ds continues:
Who do you think is going to be hurt most by such
collapse - the capitalists or the workers? And why would we want to in
anyway possibly take credit away from capitalism for such collapse? I
don't know how the workers could in anyway benefit from any scheme to
totally deflate the value of the currency for the perverse pleasure of
"compensating" capitalists for the industries.
The workers amendment cannot pass without a
recognition from just about everyone that it will personally benefit
them, their families and their progeny. We need to keep an eye on that.
If we needlessly stir up resistence and even reaction we will only forestall
the day of collective worker control of the industries.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
14 Sep 2008 05:00 pm Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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Who do you
think is going to be hurt most by such collapse - the capitalists or
the workers? And why would we want to in anyway possibly take credit
away from capitalism for such collapse? I don't know how the workers
could in anyway benefit from any scheme to totally deflate the value of
the currency for the perverse pleasure of "compensating"
capitalists for the industries.
|
Well, in the case cited, the capitalists, since the
workers will be receiving labor-time credits in place of money, and those
credits will be the basis for exchange. The cute pictures of dead
presidents will be remnants of and old, replaced system that have no
redeeming value (literally).
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
14 Sep 2008 05:16 pm Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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So anyway,
Henry, you are welcome to discuss anything here. Go ahead and tell the
rest of us where we're wrong or right or irrelevant. No rules about
being agreeable. Plenty of gigabytes of empty space to fill up.
Rambling off-topic is fine too. I would also enjoy hearing about your
personal biography.
|
Well, thanks, Mike. Much appreciated. I can give a
little bio information here to mull over, just to see where I'm coming
from.
I'm 35 currently, and will be 36 in a couple of
months. I reside in Detroit (the city, not a suburb), but am currently up
north recuperating from heart surgery last August. Before my current crop
of medical problems, I worked on the railroads as a midnight clerk and
general helper. I've had a long history of organizing and political work,
beginning when I was 16. I've either been the lead person for, or have
helped with, organizing political groups, public events (educationals,
conferences, meetings, etc.), mass demonstrations, workplace committees
and unions.
As I said before, I'm currently on the Central
Committee of the Communist League, as well as editor of the League's main
publications, Working People's Advocate and Workers' Republic.
I'm a writer by training (a year's worth of community college as an
English major), so I do a lot of it for the League and in other
capacities. I'm currently working on two books for publication (most
likely by larger publishing houses, not the League's imprimatur), one on
the history of the U.S. from 1960 to 2010, and another on the first
generation of American communists (from 1848 to 1878). The latter one,
titled More than Visionaries, will likely be out sometime next
year.
I started out my organized political life in the
Communist Party, back in the early 1990s, but left a couple years later
for all the right reasons. I spent the rest of the decade looking around
the Trotskyist movement and ultimately not finding any of them worthwhile
... and ultimately wrong, wrong, wrong on so much. I tried my hand at the
Socialist Party for a couple of years, but ran afoul of the Trots who
were more or less in control of the state party and ended up quitting.
After that, I helped to found and build the League, and the rest is ...
well, you know.
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Jacob Richter
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Posted:
14 Sep 2008 07:02 pm Post subject:
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CommunistLeague wrote:
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mikelepore wrote:
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Here's
another way to compensate the capitalists, if socialists have already
taken control of the state. You print up some fiat money, purely
inflationary if it were ever to be used, and give each corporate
stockholder a piece of paper money that says "$1 trillion"
on it, and say keep the change. Now they are all paid off, the whole
capitalist class is dispossessed by means of eminent domain. All in
one hour of one day, now the workers' organization has full control
of all industries and services. The stores won't honor any currency
except for the labor time credits that the workers' organization
issues. Someone could have an unlimited amount of green president
portrait money but it doesn't do them any good. The former
capitalists may go to work if they like eating.
|
Ooooh! I like this! :twisted:
Oh! Another thing we could do is, after
abolishing money as a whole, collect all those scraps of paper and give
them to the capitalists to play with. In their eyes, it's "just
compensation". For us, it's recycling. :wink:
|
If it were possible to transition immediately into
a labour-credit based economy at the same time as socializing the MOP...
:(
At least that would put a humorous spin on the
post-revolution "aggravation of the class struggle."
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davesearles
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Posted:
14 Sep 2008 07:05 pm Post subject:
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Quote:
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Why should
congress be made to look like that it is encouraging the collapse of
capitalism prior to industrial unionization when capitalism itself is
unalterably doing that very thing?
ml:Quote:
You print up some fiat money, purely inflationary if it were ever to be
used, and give each corporate stockholder a piece of paper money that
says "$1 trillion" on it, and say keep the change. Now they
are all paid off, the whole capitalist class is dispossessed by means
of eminent domain.
hm:Quote:
Ooooh! I like this! (using the "twisted evil" emoticon)
ds continues:
Who do you think is going to be hurt most by such collapse - the
capitalists or the workers? And why would we want to in anyway possibly
take credit away from capitalism for such collapse? I don't know how
the workers could in anyway benefit from any scheme to totally deflate
the value of the currency for the perverse pleasure of
"compensating" capitalists for the industries.
|
hm:
Well, in the case cited, the capitalists, since the
workers will be receiving labor-time credits in place of money, and those
credits will be the basis for exchange.
ds:
And who has decided that?
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davesearles
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Posted:
14 Sep 2008 07:12 pm Post subject:
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hm:
Ooooh! I like this!
Oh! Another thing we could do is, after abolishing
money as a whole, collect all those scraps of paper and give them to the
capitalists to play with. In their eyes, it's "just
compensation". For us, it's recycling.
jr:
If it were possible to transition immediately into
a labour-credit based economy at the same time as socializing the MOP...
At least that would put a humorous spin on the
post-revolution "aggravation of the class struggle."
ds:
And that's what it's all about isn't it - showing
that you're always willing to lick Stalin's boots!
(And again - a "class-struggle post-revolution".
What's that all about?)
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Jacob Richter
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Posted:
14 Sep 2008 07:37 pm Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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Quote:
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At least
that would put a humorous spin on the post-revolution "aggravation
of the class struggle."
|
And that's what it's all about isn't it - showing
that you're always willing to lick Stalin's boots!
(And again - a "class-struggle
post-revolution". What's that all about?)
|
[I realize that "aggravation of the class
struggle" was something coined by Stalin, but I wanted to make the
most impact.]
Well, after past social revolutions, there have
always been aggravations of the class struggle beyond normal class
struggle (merely a question of who rules whom or who wants what from
whom) "designed" to either assimilate the former ruling classes
into the new ruling classes or "liquidate" them.
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davesearles
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Posted:
14 Sep 2008 09:22 pm Post subject:
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jr:
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Quote:
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If it were
possible to transition immediately into a labour-credit based economy
at the same time as socializing the MOP... At least that would put a
humorous spin on the post-revolution "aggravation of the class
struggle."
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ds:
|
Quote:
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And that's
what it's all about isn't it - showing that you're always willing to
lick Stalin's boots!
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jr:
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Quote:
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I realize that
"aggravation of the class struggle" was something coined by
Stalin, but I wanted to make the most impact.
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ds:
impact without thought.
jr:
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Quote:
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Well, after
past social revolutions, there have always been aggravations of the
class struggle beyond normal class struggle (merely a question of who
rules whom or who wants what from whom) "designed" to either
assimilate the former ruling classes into the new ruling classes or
"liquidate" them.
|
ds:
Perversity for the sake of "that's the way
it's always been" - pretty juvenile to me.
"With malice toward none, with charity for
all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us
strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds,
to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his
orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace
among ourselves and with all nations."
Abraham Lincoln, from 2nd Inaugural Address.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/presiden/inaug/lincoln2.htm
Maybe you could write this out a couple dozen times
and you might aborb something from it.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
15 Sep 2008 01:10 am Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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And who has
decided that?
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It was a mutual agreement between Mike and I when
we started that particular element of this conversation about a
hypothetical post-revolutionary society.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
15 Sep 2008 01:14 am Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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And that's
what it's all about isn't it - showing that you're always willing to
lick Stalin's boots!
(And again - a "class-struggle post-revolution". What's that
all about?)
|
I have a question for you, Dave. If the U.S. was to
have a workers' revolution, do you think classes will disappear
immediately after the MOP are taken over by the working class?
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mikelepore
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Posted:
15 Sep 2008 02:39 am Post subject:
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I'm one of those who argues that classes WILL
disappear in an instant when the workers take over the means of
production. I believe that some of the former capitalists and their
gangster allies will be rioting for a while, using deadly weapons and
setting fires, etc.. Regardeless of the degree of mayhem, the
dispossessed capitalists will no longer be a class, as defined in terms
of a relationship to the means of production. Those rioters will also be
numbered in the thousands, compared to the workers who are numbered in
the tens of millions. The revolutionary administration will also have
control of the police departments. As soon as the former capitalists and
their allies are rounded up and put into shackles and chains, which I
believe should take from three days to a week, the revolution will be
completed. Classes, abolished in the first minute; and the secure
completion of the revolution, accomplished in the first week. Then
society will have to make a policy decision about the disposition of the
former capitalists who resisted the revolution, identifying which among
them can safely be released from captivity, deciding whether some of them
should be retained permanently for prison chain gang labor, etc.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
15 Sep 2008 03:00 am Post subject:
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As to a system of labor time
credits to replace green paper money:
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CommunistLeague wrote:
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davesearles wrote:
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And who has
decided that?
|
It was a mutual agreement between Mike and I when
we started that particular element of this conversation about a
hypothetical post-revolutionary society.
|
Or, more precisely, De Leon endorsed the idea in a pamphlet in 1914, so to find people on
deleonism.org referring to the proposal might be expected.
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Jacob Richter
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Posted:
15 Sep 2008 04:33 am Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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Then society
will have to make a policy decision about the disposition of the former
capitalists who resisted the revolution, identifying which among them
can safely be released from captivity, deciding whether some of them
should be retained permanently for prison chain gang labor, etc.
|
That is indeed one way to approach the
post-revolution aggravation of the class struggle, comrade: putting the
resistant cappies in gulags somewhere in a Third World country that would
operate under "state-capitalist monopoly" (Lenin), with an
NKVD-style security-administrative apparatus to subdue the
prisoner-labourers. :)
Another way to approach this is to simply execute
them en masse, and probably in a publicized manner for maximum
psychological effect (like during the French Revolution).
Either way, the former ruling class will disappear
without pulling off any Cultural Revolution charades
("self-criticisms" like Deng's).
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
15 Sep 2008 05:25 am Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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I'm one of
those who argues that classes WILL disappear in an instant when the
workers take over the means of production. I believe that some of the
former capitalists and their gangster allies will be rioting for a
while, using deadly weapons and setting fires, etc.. Regardless of the
degree of mayhem, the dispossessed capitalists will no longer be a
class, as defined in terms of a relationship to the means of
production. Those rioters will also be numbered in the thousands,
compared to the workers who are numbered in the tens of millions. The
revolutionary administration will also have control of the police
departments. As soon as the former capitalists and their allies are
rounded up and put into shackles and chains, which I believe should
take from three days to a week, the revolution will be completed.
Classes, abolished in the first minute; and the secure completion of
the revolution, accomplished in the first week. Then society will have
to make a policy decision about the disposition of the former capitalists
who resisted the revolution, identifying which among them can safely be
released from captivity, deciding whether some of them should be
retained permanently for prison chain gang labor, etc.
|
I wish you were right -- that it were so simple.
Regardless of what you might think of the 1917 Russian Revolution, I
think it did show that when world capitalism feels sufficiently
threatened, they will combine and not only seek to undermine the
attempted workers' overthrow, but will also do everything they can to
maintain the exploiting classes as classes.
In a situation like we were talking about, yes, we
may indeed dispossess the capitalists here of whatever capital they have
here in the U.S., but they will still have the capital they maintain
worldwide, and the capitalists of other countries will not abide by any
attempts of a victorious workers' republic in the U.S. to seize that
capital.
And given the role of the U.S. in the world
economy, I would also expect that the capitalists of the other Great Power
states -- especially the other G8 countries, NATO and most likely the
OAS, and possibly also drawing in Russia and China -- would combine for a
counterrevolutionary military adventure.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
15 Sep 2008 05:42 am Post subject:
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Quote:
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|
but they will
still have the capital they maintain worldwide, and the capitalists of
other countries will not abide by any attempts of a victorious workers'
republic in the U.S. to seize that capital.
|
So what difference would it make to a socialist
administration in North America if there still exists a capitalist who
lives in Switzerland who owns a factory in Spain, or who lives in Germany
and owns a refinery in Belgium, if that's the kind of thing you mean? We
can still get the new system going smoothly and prosperously. The
worldwide transformation will follow soon enough.
|
Quote:
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|
for a
counterrevolutionary military adventure
|
I don't think peace on earth will ever be possible
until all national boundaries are abolished. A socialist administration
might have to defend itself. But that's another story. All I asserted
here is that the the socialist administration will be classless. I don't
believe in Lenin's concept of phases or stages or whatever people call
'em, on the way to attaining a classless society.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
15 Sep 2008 08:02 pm Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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So what
difference would it make to a socialist administration in North America
if there still exists a capitalist who lives in Switzerland who owns a
factory in Spain, or who lives in Germany and owns a refinery in
Belgium, if that's the kind of thing you mean? We can still get the new
system going smoothly and prosperously. The worldwide transformation
will follow soon enough.
|
Actually, what I'm thinking of are two things:
First, U.S. capitalists with capital in other countries, such as the
owners of GM or Microsoft or Bank of America, who will still be
recognized by world capitalism (and, in turn, world capitalism will prop
them up as much as possible). Second, non-U.S. capitalists with capital
in the U.S., such as Daimler-Benz or Deutsche Bank or Thyssen-Krupp, who
will not sit idly by while workers in the U.S. seize their capital and begin
to control it.
|
mikelepore wrote:
|
|
I don't think
peace on earth will ever be possible until all national boundaries are
abolished. A socialist administration might have to defend itself. But
that's another story. All I asserted here is that the the socialist
administration will be classless. I don't believe in Lenin's concept of
phases or stages or whatever people call 'em, on the way to attaining a
classless society.
|
I'd like to think that the transition would only be
a minute detail in the development of a classless society, but unless a
revolution in the U.S. is able to spark a worldwide revolution involving
the Great Power states and a large share of the Global South, it won't be
so easy. I mean, what if that does not happen? What if the unevenness of
the class struggle worldwide prevents that from happening, and the U.S.
is more or less forced to "go it alone" for a while?
I know it sucks to think about it, but it is
something to think about ... and have a contingency plan for.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
15 Sep 2008 09:10 pm Post subject:
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That seems to me like a case for a socialist region to
keep up a military defense for a while. And a case for beginning the
revolutions in the "superpower" countries, to weaken the global
ruling class. But do we agree that it's a separate issue from how to make
a revolution, choosing the strategy to dispossess one's "own"
ruling class? Do we agree that it's a separate issue from the transition
to classless society? You seem to hesitate to call the society
"classless" during the defensive period; if so, why?
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The Greenman
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Posted:
15 Sep 2008 09:31 pm Post subject:
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Quote:
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|
"Exclusion
of the workers from collective ownership and control of the means of
production and distribution shall not exist within the United States,
or any place subject to their jurisdiction. The workers have a right to
organize into industrial unions which shall control and operate the
means of production and distribution and allocate the products of labor
as the workers at all times democratically determine. Congress shall
have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."
|
I like seeing the collective control and ownership
in the sentence above. Aside from what problems and troubles that would
come about I read that in no country has there been a fundamental
challenge to the property relation of the MOP which this Amendment
Proposal does.
We have seen "nationalization" of certain
industries, health insurance, social programs by governements but in no
way shape or form has the nationalization come under the control of
workers but in a lesser sense under politial control in which the government
contracts out (wish I had a better term) to capitalist corporations. The
government program called Job Corp in the U.S. is actually run by the Owl
corporation.
I can see why Dave included both
"control" and "ownership" of production/
distribution. :D Unfortunately my time is limited right now to actually
take part in the discussion. I am reading Micheal Harrington's Socialism:
Past and Future. I am impressed with what I have read so far.
John Trimbath
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mikelepore
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Posted:
15 Sep 2008 09:44 pm Post subject:
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Interesting article, Socialist Party of Great Britain
(SPGB) replying to the International Communist Current (ICC). About 60
percent of the way down, interesting comments about the political
process.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/WSM_Forum/message/36444
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
16 Sep 2008 01:07 am Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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|
That seems to
me like a case for a socialist region to keep up a military defense for
a while. And a case for beginning the revolutions in the
"superpower" countries, to weaken the global ruling class.
But do we agree that it's a separate issue from how to make a
revolution, choosing the strategy to dispossess one's "own"
ruling class? Do we agree that it's a separate issue from the
transition to classless society? You seem to hesitate to call the
society "classless" during the defensive period; if so, why?
|
I can agree that it is an issue more or less separate
from "choosing the strategy to dispossess one's 'own' ruling
class". But I have a hard time seeing as an issue separate from the
transition to a classless society. I guess I'm hung up on the issue of
whether it is really possible to eliminate classes, and thus the class
struggle, within a single country.
No, I don't think every country in the world has to
have had a successful proletarian revolution in order for the first of
these transitional regions to reach the classless society, but I do think
there is a question of the balance of class forces on an international
level that has to be considered, and that it will take having an
international union of working people's republics before classes can
really be said to be abolished in those areas.
It seems to me that as long as the world capitalist
market and capitalist production relations dominate on a worldwide scale,
it will not be possible to complete the transition to the classless
society beyond juridical or legislative declarations. That is, we can
declare that classes are abolished, that we are ending the use of money,
that we are dissolving the repressive organs of the state, but unless
that can be done in an environment where we are no longer at the mercy of
world capitalism, it is almost meaningless ... because it will certainly
be meaningless to the capitalists in other countries.
If you can convince me that this is wrong, go for
it. I'd like to be convinced I'm wrong on things like this.
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Jacob Richter
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Posted:
16 Sep 2008 01:59 am Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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So what
difference would it make to a socialist administration in North America
if there still exists a capitalist who lives in Switzerland who owns a
factory in Spain, or who lives in Germany and owns a refinery in
Belgium, if that's the kind of thing you mean? We can still get the new
system going smoothly and prosperously. The worldwide transformation
will follow soon enough.
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Ever heard of the Vollmar-Stalin notion of
"socialism in one country"? [Vollmar was some dude in the SPD
who advocated this in the late 19th century, while Stalin took this guy's
crap in his maneuverings against Trotsky. There are tons of debates on
RevLeft regarding this "SIOC."]
I'd rather have this solution:
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1198024&postcount=14
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mikelepore
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Posted:
16 Sep 2008 04:16 am Post subject:
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I agree so much with the objective of planetwide
socialism that it's with a bit of a I cringe that I use the word
"socialism" within national boundaries. However, the workers of
one country at a time must abolish classes, and the political and
cultural reflexes of classes. When there is no longer the need for one
population group to obtain employment by another poplation group, when
economic life is a public institution that the people participate in, I
call that situation being classless. Certainly the fight isn't over yet.
Nine-tenths of the human race may still be in bondage. For one limited
region of soil and its people, there is no division into the rulers and
the ruled -- as I use the term, that's being classless. They will think
of creative ways to assist the workers around the world. In my opinion,
when the people of any two or more countries adopt socialism, whether
adjacent or remote geographically, they should merge their economic
administrations. Perform that merger 200 times and there will be a world
government. One building block at a time.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
16 Sep 2008 04:32 am Post subject:
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The Greenman wrote:
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I can see why
Dave included both "control" and "ownership" of
production/ distribution.
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What's got me concerned is Dave's idea that the
workers in some industries may take over if they choose to, and not in
others, if they choose not to. They amendment merely authorizes it -- if
some of them, any of them, want to, here and there. When our whole
discussion of an amendment began some years ago, Dave asked us what do
you guys think an amendment should say. I originally replied somehting
like, how about private property rights in industry are declared void,
and ownership of all of the industries is hereby transferred to the
workers' organizations. But Dave took in in a direction that merely gives
the workers authorization. Maybe the workers in Albuquerque, New Mexico
and Walla Walla, Washington will want to take over the means of
production. This direction that Dave took it has me concerned. As I
envision what socialism means, and requires to function, it can't work
that way. I believe socialism can only work if there is a public mandate
that tomorrow at 9:00 AM all of the industries and services are
transferred to the workers' associations.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
16 Sep 2008 05:28 am Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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I agree so
much with the objective of planetwide socialism that it's with a bit of
a I cringe that I use the word "socialism" within national
boundaries. However, the workers of one country at a time must abolish
classes, and the political and cultural reflexes of classes. When there
is no longer the need for one population group to obtain employment by
another population group, when economic life is a public institution
that the people participate in, I call that situation being classless.
Certainly the fight isn't over yet. Nine-tenths of the human race may
still be in bondage. For one limited region of soil and its people,
there is no division into the rulers and the ruled -- as I use the
term, that's being classless. They will think of creative ways to
assist the workers around the world. In my opinion, when the people of
any two or more countries adopt socialism, whether adjacent or remote
geographically, they should merge their economic administrations.
Perform that merger 200 times and there will be a world government. One
building block at a time.
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I see what you're saying, but it looks to me like
you're blurring the difference between a juridical or legislative
abolition of classes and the real abolition of classes. As long as world
capitalism is able to prop up the dispossessed exploiting classes (not
just the bourgeoisie, but the petty bourgeoisie as well), complete
abolition of the division between rulers and ruled is not possible -- the
riots and sabotage, mobilization of loyal police and military
detachments, and use of thugs, scabs and fascists will continue, funded
and egged on by world capitalism.
As far as your statement goes, I don't really have
a problem with it. But it doesn't really go beyond a juridical and
legislative declaration. And I don't trust the exploiters to take a hint
and go home. I expect them and their colleagues worldwide to put up one
hell of a fight. But who knows? Maybe by the time working people in the
U.S. reach the point where they can overthrow capitalist rule, so many
capitalists and their "middle class" appendages will have
already decided it is not worth continuing that they do end up just
taking the hint and going home. I can hold out the possibility, but I am
not willing to wager that it will happen this way.
I guess it's the Eagle Scout in me: Be Prepared.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
16 Sep 2008 06:08 am Post subject:
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I think what's causing us to have different
perspectives is, I believe the ruling class only has power due to the
working class giving its consent, the working class actively sustaining
the practices. A capitalist is usually an absentee owner who has never
even seen the workplace, and has only this degree of involvement in
industry: receiving in the mailbox two main types of items -- quarterly,
a dividend check, and, annually, a card and envelope packet to send in one's
votes for the CEO and board of directors. I see very little problem with
the ruling class "refusing to give up", "refusing to go
along." The workers just stop printing those two types of documents
and sending them to the mailbox of the capitalist, and, by stopping that
mailing, the capitalist ceases to be a capitalist. Now the *former*
capitalist can have a tantrum, and go out into the street and throw
rocks, but that's not going to make those procedures resume. No matter
how bad the temper tantrum, no one says: okay, if you insist, here is
your card to check off your votes for the board or directors. The power
is never returned. I don't how severe a crime spree they will perpetrate,
but it will be only a crime spree, not a class struggle.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
16 Sep 2008 06:30 am Post subject:
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Viewpoint about your organization published by
libcom.org :
http://libcom.org/node/8825
Okay, how unfair were they?
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davesearles
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Posted:
16 Sep 2008 12:45 pm Post subject:
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hm wrote:
As to a system of labor time credits to replace
green paper money:
davesearles wrote:
And who has decided that?
hm:
It was a mutual agreement between Mike and I when
we started that particular element of this conversation about a
hypothetical post-revolutionary society.
ml:
Or, more precisely, De Leon endorsed the idea in a
pamphlet in 1914, so to find people on deleonism.org referring to the
proposal might be expected
ds: I didn't see any hypotherthical supposition
that labor credits would totally replace traditional money in some
defined instant. (As if collective ownership and control of the MOP must
occur in an hour, a day, a month or even a year.)
Oh yes Daniel Deleon wrote something about labor
credits and so did Marx. Great, and I agree that there should be a system
of labor credits. The staus quo however is traditional money for wages,
money for personal services, money for non-industrial products, money to
pay property taxes, rent, mortgages, etc.
Was it ever decided that the transition from
private ownership of the MOP to the unionized workers must be total and
immediate?
Most revolutionary socialsts that I know of can
think of no other way. But there is late breaking news - not being able
to think of another way does not mean that another way would be a heck of
a lot better way to do it.
If you guys are using Marx, Engels, DeLeon, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Chavez, etc. alone or in any combination of them as
a substitute for thought, do yourself and the workers a big favor. Burn
all of their books, delete all texts attributed to them.
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davesearles
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Posted:
16 Sep 2008 01:03 pm Post subject:
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AND this whole thread begun as a discussion of
compensating the capitalists for the MOP? Wow.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
16 Sep 2008 07:35 pm Post subject:
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I'm not sure what "has to be" means there? I
don't think the transition to collective ownership "has to be"
immediate. It's would be better if it's immediate, since capaitalism
kills and maims people by the hundreds of thousands every year. If the
people want that to continue for a while, then it shall continue. But I'm
not going to recommend it, or bend over backwards to make sure that my
vision of socialism provides for that option.
It doesn't have to be immediate. But, when it does
happen, it has to occur abruptly and simultaneously. Not necessarily
worldwide, but, within a given country, it has to occur simultaneously on
every block in every town.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
16 Sep 2008 08:33 pm Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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AND this whole
thread begun as a discussion of compensating the capitalists for the
MOP? Wow.
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What do you mean? The thread began when Henry
posted in the WIIU topic that he wanted to volunteer with WIIU work, then
you asked Henry some questions about documents that you found on his web
site, then I split those posts to a separate topic.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
16 Sep 2008 08:36 pm Post subject:
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I'd say some of the comment are quite unfair (e.g.,
seeing us as Sparts or CIA). Others were taking personal opinions of
individual members (who were, if I am remembering who they were
correctly, expelled from the League last year) and amplifying them.
Beyond that, the comment about seeming "post-DeLeonist" is
probably more accurate now than it was then, since the League has evolved
more in the direction of DeLeon on the question of workers' control and
what it looks like. OliverTwister's comments are probably the fairest of
them all.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
16 Sep 2008 08:41 pm Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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If you guys
are using Marx, Engels, DeLeon, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Chavez,
etc. alone or in any combination of them as a substitute for thought,
do yourself and the workers a big favor. Burn all of their books,
delete all texts attributed to them.
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True, writings shouldn't be used as a substitute
for thought. But when someone does have a detailed theory that they found
in a book, not having any detailed theory at all, shrugging one's
shoulders, isn't a substitute for the theory that came from the book.
Only another theory can be a substitute for a previous theory.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
16 Sep 2008 08:42 pm Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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I think what's
causing us to have different perspectives is, I believe the ruling
class only has power due to the working class giving its consent, the
working class actively sustaining the practices. A capitalist is
usually an absentee owner who has never even seen the workplace, and
has only this degree of involvement in industry: receiving in the
mailbox two main types of items -- quarterly, a dividend check, and,
annually, a card and envelope packet to send in one's votes for the CEO
and board of directors. I see very little problem with the ruling class
"refusing to give up", "refusing to go along." The
workers just stop printing those two types of documents and sending
them to the mailbox of the capitalist, and, by stopping that mailing,
the capitalist ceases to be a capitalist. Now the *former* capitalist
can have a tantrum, and go out into the street and throw rocks, but
that's not going to make those procedures resume. No matter how bad the
temper tantrum, no one says: okay, if you insist, here is your card to
check off your votes for the board or directors. The power is never
returned. I don't how severe a crime spree they will perpetrate, but it
will be only a crime spree, not a class struggle.
|
Again, I think this overlooks the relations between
U.S. capital and world capital, and how they depend on each other. If we
were in the age of national capitalist production and not global
capitalist production, I'd have no problem with what you're saying. But
we're not in that age.
Regardless, I'd have no problem trying it your way
to start with, and seeing what happens. I tend to think it would be a lot
more messy than you envision it, but who knows?
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mikelepore
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Posted:
16 Sep 2008 08:46 pm Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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ds: I didn't
see any hypotherthical supposition that labor credits would totally
replace traditional money in some defined instant. (As if collective
ownership and control of the MOP must occur in an hour, a day, a month
or even a year.)
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If you try to mix them, labor credits and paper
money, then everyone would be forced to have two jobs, one to acquire the
kind of units you have to spend for some goods, and the other to acquire
the kind of units that you have to spend for the other goods.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
16 Sep 2008 08:47 pm Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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If you try to
mix them, labor credits and paper money, then everyone would be forced
to have two jobs, one to acquire the kind of units you have to spend
for some goods, and the other to acquire the kind of units that you
have to spend for the other goods.
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... unless you have an exchange rate between them,
but then labor credits just become another form of money.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
16 Sep 2008 09:28 pm Post subject:
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[quote="CommunistLeague]Again, I think this
overlooks the relations between U.S. capital and world capital, and how
they depend on each other. If we were in the age of national capitalist
production and not global capitalist production, I'd have no problem with
what you're saying. But we're not in that age.[/quote]
I'm trying to visualize what events you're thinking
of. Take an example. It's a fact that Mitsubishi owns a truck plant in
Logan, New Jersey. Suppose Americans have a revolution and take that
plant. Is the government of capitalist Japan expected to invade socialist
North America on behalf of the stockholders of Mitsubishi? A problem
there is that the American revolution isn't the Japanese government's
problem. That revolution is the Mitsubishi stockholders' problem. The
same globalization also decreases the extent to which Mitsubishi
stockholders are residents of Japan. Instead, the stockholders of
Mitsubishi are now found in 200 countries. The motivation for the
Japanese government to perform such an invasion has been diluted.
Besides, the revolution has taken control of all of
the state powers. If the capitalist U.S.can defend itself before the
revolution, would it be too difficult for socialist America to defend
itself?
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mikelepore
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Posted:
16 Sep 2008 10:04 pm Post subject:
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How could an exchange rate be determined when the
chief characteristic of money is that purchising power is determined by
the money supply, with no reference to how the possessors of money
acquired it, and the purchasing power of labor credits is based on how
people acquire it, with no reference to the outstanding supply? In the way
they function they are very opposite. Any exchange rate would be
someone's arbitrary decision. Alex Rodrigues of the New York Yankees gets
paid $28 million per year -- can this be the standard for determining how
many dollars are equivalent to an hour of labor credit? This would be no
more or less arbitrary than any other conversion rate, because there is
no natural correspondence that anyone is trying to approximate with a
good guess. Then, what institution would sponsor the conversion process?
There would have to be someone who has a continuous supply of both units,
and a continuous opportunity to liquidate both of them. That is, we would
need a banking and brokerage business. So now a socialist society has to
bend over backwards to sponsor institutions that become
"necessary" only to the extent that some people refuse to adopt
socialism, which sounds to me like a health clinic selling tobacco
products.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
16 Sep 2008 10:19 pm Post subject:
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Interesting story in the Bible about what Jesus
reportedly did after he overturned the tables of the money changers. He
told everyone there was going to be a new rule that would prevent the
centrally-located religious temple from being used merely as a shortcut
for people to pass through when they wanted to sell merchandise. His new
rule was that no one could carry anything through the temple, but in this
"anything" he mainly meant objects used for carrying other
things, such as baskets or vessels. Mark 11:16.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
17 Sep 2008 12:14 am Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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How could an
exchange rate be determined when the chief characteristic of money is
that purchising power is determined by the money supply, with no
reference to how the possessors of money acquired it, and the
purchasing power of labor credits is based on how people acquire it,
with no reference to the outstanding supply? In the way they function
they are very opposite. Any exchange rate would be someone's arbitrary
decision. Alex Rodrigues of the New York Yankees gets paid $28 million
per year -- can this be the standard for determining how many dollars
are equivalent to an hour of labor credit? This would be no more or
less arbitrary than any other conversion rate, because there is no
natural correspondence that anyone is trying to approximate with a good
guess. Then, what institution would sponsor the conversion process?
There would have to be someone who has a continuous supply of both
units, and a continuous opportunity to liquidate both of them. That is,
we would need a banking and brokerage business. So now a socialist
society has to bend over backwards to sponsor institutions that become
"necessary" only to the extent that some people refuse to
adopt socialism, which sounds to me like a health clinic selling
tobacco products.
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That's exactly my point. Establishing an exchange
rate would defeat the purpose of labor credits in the first place. It
would make them no different than dollars and cents.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
17 Sep 2008 12:23 am Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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I'm trying to
visualize what events you're thinking of. Take an example. It's a fact
that Mitsubishi owns a truck plant in Logan, New Jersey. Suppose
Americans have a revolution and take that plant. Is the government of
capitalist Japan expected to invade socialist North America on behalf
of the stockholders of Mitsubishi? A problem there is that the American
revolution isn't the Japanese government's problem. That revolution is
the Mitsubishi stockholders' problem. The same globalization also
decreases the extent to which Mitsubishi stockholders are residents of
Japan. Instead, the stockholders of Mitsubishi are now found in 200
countries. The motivation for the Japanese government to perform such
an invasion has been diluted.
|
OK, good. We're getting to the meat of the matter.
Yes, Mitsubishi has a truck plant in New Jersey, but the Japanese
capitalists are the third-largest investor in the U.S., behind Canada
(No. 1) and Britain. They have hundreds of billions of dollars invested
in capital in the U.S., and when we take it, they are going to want it
back. And, yes, the government of capitalist Japan will seriously
consider mounting a military adventure against an American workers'
republic ... if enough of the Japanese ruling class favors getting their
investments back. The same with Canada and Britain and China, all of whom
are heavily invested in American capitalism. Unless it is your intention
to advocate fairly compensating them, it will turn ugly ... and they will
support those who will restore their investments to them.
|
mikelepore wrote:
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|
Besides, the
revolution has taken control of all of the state powers. If the
capitalist U.S. can defend itself before the revolution, would it be
too difficult for socialist America to defend itself?
|
In the end, probably not. I tend to think that an
American workers' republic would be more capable of defending itself than
capitalist America can, since the masses of working people will have a
direct stake in its survival.
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Jacob Richter
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davesearles
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Posted:
17 Sep 2008 04:18 pm Post subject:
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ml:
I don't think the transition to collective
ownership "has to be" immediate. It's would be better if it's
immediate, since capitalism kills and maims people by the hundreds of
thousands every year. If the people want that to continue for a while,
then it shall continue. But I'm not going to recommend it, or bend over
backwards to make sure that my vision of socialism provides for that
option.
ds:
Capitalism happens to be the social system under
which I myself go and get practically all of the food that my family and
I eat, get electricity, fuel to heat and for transportation etc. It
happens to be the social system through which we get our medications and
health care, the social system which I get shingles to put on the roof,
etc. etc.
The people who will make the actual decision to
have the revolution - I think, I am not sure- are going to have a strong
idea that the continuity of the availability of receiving these goods and
services is more important than whether the conversion of these
industries, when they occur, occur in under a week. (About as long as
anyone will put up with not having them, I would guess.)
If you have any family member whose health would be
severely affected by any interruption of these goods and services
(however poor they are) you will bend over backwards, and if you don't
have such a family member you would do well to consider that failure to
maintain continuity will without a doubt be a deal breaker in their
support for the revolution.
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davesearles
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Posted:
17 Sep 2008 04:27 pm Post subject:
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ml:
Only another theory can be a substitute for a
previous theory.
ds:
Someone has a theory that a system of labor credits
cannot exist, for however long, co-existent with a system of fiat money?
I've never seen it.
Scientifically it does not seem that a therory has
to be replaced by another theory before the validity of the first theory
can be placed into doubt.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
17 Sep 2008 05:17 pm Post subject:
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Dave
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Quote:
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that the
continuity of the availability of receiving these goods and services is
more important
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Quote:
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If you have any family member whose health would be severely affected
by any interruption of these goods and services
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My position is based on continuity. What would
cause such an interruption would be if the social administration operates
some types of industries but not all types.
Suppose socialism operates a lot of industries but
it doesn't yet produce plavix, the heart attack drug. I work in a social
industry and my income is all in the form of labor units that I redeem at
social stores on a consistent basis. But as of yesterday afternoon I now
need a drug that's produced only by Bristol-Myers-Squibb, and they will
only give me the drug if I pay for it with green money, which I don't
have.
Not only life-savers are examples of my argument.
Anything one-of a-kind can be an example. If I need a bus to
Pleasantville, and the only bus with that route doesn't accept socialist
labor credits, or I need to buy a pair of needlenose pliars and the only
place that sells them doesn't accept socialist labor credits, we will
have a general social breakdown.
To prevent that, the law has to say that when
society gets some of the industries it gets all of them, or, more
correctly, at least one of every kind. This is my Noah's Ark theory of
socialism -- it can only work if has reproduction of every species of
product.
Redundancies may be privately owned. We earlier
discussed the family that wants to operate a breakfast shop. That's
doable because it's a redundancy. There are numerous of ways to have
breakfast. As long as society owns some plants that makes the pans and
the plates, and the bacon and eggs, society doesn't have to own every
breakfast shop.
Our aunt's breakfast shop is outside the system. It
doesn't matter to society if she asks people to pay for the breakfast
with green pictures of George Washington or pink pictures of Engelbert
Humperdinck. It's a private deal between consenting adults.
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The Greenman
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Posted:
17 Sep 2008 06:25 pm Post subject:
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I get it. The redundencies take would have to
continually do business with the industrial unions to obtain pots, pans,
electricity, water, flour, eggs, sugar, etc., to operate therefore they
would have to use labor credits. The use of money is just a smaller form
of currency to keep local economies going. Remember the Ithaca "Hours?"
They can be traded for fiat money. The same practice can be applied in
the new society.
http://www.ithacahours.org/
Perhaps the adoption of "Hours" would
help create a industrial union economy before the economic reconstruction
of society and worker control of the industries takes place.
Computer is still down but I learned that I have to
get a controller card for the system to accept a new hard drive. Hard
drives are getting bigger every year but they still eventually die taking
all the information with em.
John T
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davesearles
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Posted:
17 Sep 2008 07:52 pm Post subject:
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Of course it would be most conveneint if when one
industry went to labor credits all of them did, or at least had something
available for labor credits.
I would imagine if the credits are allowed to
transferable that some industries will take both currencies at the same
time.
And even though the workers have opted for union
control of their own shop, each shop really is going to have to make up
it's own mind as to the if and when of currency conversion, or then again
maybe they too will decide upon some split system half labor notes and
half $$$.
Pragmatics as opposed to ideologically driven lock
step determinations will better win the hearts and minds of those who
must make the revolution I think.
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davesearles
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Posted:
18 Sep 2008 03:49 am Post subject:
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jr:
Another way to approach this is to simply execute
them en masse, and probably in a publicized manner for maximum
psychological effect (like during the French Revolution).
ds:
Jacob when you were a child were you one of those
who were purposefully cruel to animals?
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mikelepore
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Posted:
18 Sep 2008 04:06 am Post subject:
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I don't think we need agreement among ourselves here.
All I'm interested in is: among all people who define the classless
society as direct control by workers' associations and not bossism by
political appointees, and who also have a dual program for transition
(both political and industrial organization) *, how many subspecies do we
find? Some envision continuance of of small businesses and some don't.
Some envision platforms that contain demands for reforms, and some don't.
There's a scale from envision peaceful change to envisioning
confrontational change. This is our taxonomy. It seems that we are all
under the umbrella of direct workers' democracy and the dual program.
Under that, many species that have to find new and creative ways to
cooperate.
Footnote:
* In the way I define ourselves, the dual program
is essential, it's backbone. Sorry about alienating the World Socialists,
who share with me the concept of capturing the state and the rejection of
reformism, but who, unlike me, consider workplace organization to be
useless and labor credit compensation to be harmful. And sorry about
disrespecting the memory of my late friend Frank Girard, who worked so
hard for better communication and cooperation among us, but who believed
that we part of the same movement as the anti-ballot anarchists.
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davesearles
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Posted:
18 Sep 2008 05:41 am Post subject:
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Mike I appreciate the sentiment - but some folks even
though we may agree on the above very common sense points - personally I
would distain associating with them, amoung those would be people who
seem to not be able to wait to get hold of state power in order to lock
people up or shoot them. Also in that category would be peole who seem to
have no real grasp of reality other than quoting from classic Socialist
or Socialist seeming writers as if they were holy text - truth in and of
the texts themselves.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
18 Sep 2008 08:23 am Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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I don't think
we need agreement among ourselves here. All I'm interested in is: among
all people who define the classless society as direct control by
workers' associations and not bossism by political appointees, and who
also have a dual program for transition (both political and industrial
organization) *, how many subspecies do we find? Some envision
continuance of of small businesses and some don't. Some envision
platforms that contain demands for reforms, and some don't. There's a
scale from envision peaceful change to envisioning confrontational
change. This is our taxonomy. It seems that we are all under the
umbrella of direct workers' democracy and the dual program. Under that,
many species that have to find new and creative ways to cooperate.
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There should be ways above and beyond these kinds
of discussions where we can come together and organize on their basis. To
bring this discussion full circle, I think that perhaps the WIIU is the
best means by which we can do this. There may be too many differences at
this time to unite in a single political organization (though it is worth
exploring this to see), but we can definitely work together on organizing
an economic movement for workers' control of production.
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davesearles
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Posted:
18 Sep 2008 01:57 pm Post subject:
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My take on creating organizations, and as I recall I
adopted this from what Mike wrote sometime - is that an organization is
fine if it actually boosts what the individuals are able to do
individually.
To me, other than ad hoc committees organizations
are a waste of time, money and emotional energy, but I certainly won't
criticize anyone who has to learn this on his or her own.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
18 Sep 2008 02:42 pm Post subject:
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Are there some things that an organization of 1000
members can do that the individuals can't do?
One issue is the psychological effect on other
people who come in contact with it. Which of these sounds better to the
novice?
(1) We hope you will read and consider our program.
We have an organization of 1000 members.
(2) We hope you will read and consider our program.
We are split on theoretical grounds into forty factions, each of which
has 25 members.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
18 Sep 2008 02:57 pm Post subject:
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Factions which have mixtures of agreements and
disagreements should make the debate itself the basis for
jointly-published books, pamphlets and videos. They should produce works
that list what points they agree on and which points they disagree on,
each giving reasons for and against, and jointly publish it.
I can think of two ways to proceed.
Method 1 is to allow each party an agreed-upon
maximum number of pages, minutes, words or bytes. This is the form of a
traditional debate.
Method 2 is to issue a common statement and to
require agreement by the parties on the wording to describe both parties'
viewpoints.
I like method 2 the best. This would force us to
reach a point where, although we continue to disagree, and no one has
compromised even a millimeter, I learn how to paraphrase your viewpoint
in a way that you think is fair, and you learn know how to paraphrase my
viewpoint in a way that I think is fair.
For example, X and Y jointly adopt a statement that
says:
Individuals or organizations X and Y issue this
joint declaration that the working class should adopt goals or strategies
B and C. They give the following reasons for this position. However, the
parties also have several matters of debate among themselves. X believes
that we should do A,B,C, and Y believes that we should do B,C,D. X
believes that A is necessary for the following reasons. X believes that D
is unwise for the following reasons. Y believes that D is necessary for
the following reasons. Y believes that A is unwise for the following
reasons.
The parties come to an agreement that the statement
is worded objectively, sign it with both parties' mailing addresses,
print and distribute a million copies, and share the cost.
What does the working class learn from it? Exactly
what we here know today. That we agree on some bunch of goals and
strategies, but not others, and such and such are the reasons cited. But
many members of the working class learn the subject more fully and
accurately, not being limited to the misleading crap that we were told in
high school history class or hear from the news media.
Why couldn't the SLP and the IWW have done that?
Why couldn't the SLP and the SP have done that? The only reasons are
pride and turf and the unpleasantness of having to talk to someone that
one may have earlier exchanged insults with.
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davesearles
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Posted:
18 Sep 2008 06:08 pm Post subject:
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ml:
One issue is the psychological effect on other
people who come in contact with it. Which of these sounds better to the
novice?
(1) We hope you will read and consider our program.
We have an organization of 1000 members.
(2) We hope you will read and consider our program.
We are split on theoretical grounds into forty factions, each of which
has 25 members.
ds:
The hypotheticals presented can support either
side. For myself and I highly suspect for you as well, the size of an
organization has very little to do with whether we will agree with the
ideas and aplication of those ideas by the organization.
I looked at it this way - and if I had time I think
I can correctly cite you for presenting the idea to me - I didn't look at
how impressed someone outside of the organization would be with the
number of people who were members - but - how and if an organizational
structure increases the effectiveness of the work - as opposed to having
that many individuals do work on their own including cooperating with
each other on a catch as catch can basis.
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davesearles
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Posted:
18 Sep 2008 06:14 pm Post subject:
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ml:
not being limited to the misleading crap that we
were told in high school history class or hear from the news media
ds:
I don't recall ever being mislead in high school
history class. For that matter I don't recall ever being lead either.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
18 Sep 2008 06:30 pm Post subject:
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As for size of an organization, most members of the
working class believe that the observation "that group's too small
to have a chance of being successful in the foreseeable future" is a
reason not to consider what the group says or to express agreement with
what the group says! There are a few thousand people in the whole country
who don't do that. All of the rest do.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
18 Sep 2008 06:40 pm Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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I don't recall
ever being mislead in high school history class. For that matter I
don't recall ever being lead either.
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Everything that I ever heard in school about
capitalism or socialism or Marx was all lies.
Last week my daughter had to study a lesson that
said all productions of goods is always based on these four fundamental
resources, the same four inputs that all always inherently necessary:
"land, labor, capital, and entrepeneurship."
A package of conscious lies. It fills exactly the
same role as the priesthood of ancient Egypt who taught the slaves that
the pharaoh was a god.
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davesearles
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Posted:
18 Sep 2008 11:33 pm Post subject:
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ds wrote:
I don't recall ever being mislead in high school
history class. For that matter I don't recall ever being lead either.
ml:
Everything that I ever heard in school about
capitalism or socialism or Marx was all lies.
Last week my daughter had to study a lesson that
said all productions of goods is always based on these four fundamental
resources, the same four inputs that all always inherently necessary:
"land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship."
A package of conscious lies. It fills exactly the
same role as the priesthood of ancient Egypt who taught the slaves that
the pharaoh was a god.
ds:
It can only be expected.
At some point in each of our lives we realize that
there are whole categories especially under certain situations that
people always lie about.
Give me a beer and a half dozen people and I can
and will spin a yarn containing just enough truth to hold it together
until the next yarn starts.
When I was a child I pretty much figured out that
adults were a most unreliable source of truth that they spent most of
their days absorbed in self deception.
("History is a lie about yesterday told by
someone who wasn't even there.")
The story of the King's new clothes to me was a
parable.
So instead of lies I see mostly self deceptions.
(And then of course too often I'm so busy seeing other people's
self-deceptions that I don't see my own.)
But if someone like a teacher tells your daughter
something about the capitalist system - no doubt the teller of the tale
actually believes it or at least thinks he or she believes it.
And in school there are opportunities if students
avail themselves of them to set forth a different version of the truth -
such as the war is being fought for economic reasons so that the masters
can exploit us further.
So I looked at their stories as mere error and
reacted accordingly.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
19 Sep 2008 01:58 am Post subject:
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I'm sure many of them believe it themselves. Okay, so
it's not a lie; it's an error. Anyway, the youngsters are misled.
My daughter (12th grade) said they "learned
all about socialism" in school. I asked her if they covered the fact
that there is argument among people who use the name socialist for
themselves, with some people charging others with "hey, that system
which you call socialism isn't really socialism, because the workers
aren't democratically controlling the means of production." She said
no. At first she misheard me and said yes, but changed her response when
she understood what I had really said. At first she thought I was
refering to an argument about the best proportion between "the
private sector" and "the public sector." But what I was really
asking about, she never heard it mentioned. Could anything be more
fundamental than that omitted topic -- that socialists bash regimes like
Stalin's for using the word "socialism" but not really allowing
control by the workers? Imagine this most critical fact not being
mentioned in a history class's unit on socialism!
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davesearles
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Posted:
19 Sep 2008 04:43 am Post subject:
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Imagine a document being written by a slaveholder and
adopted by the representatives of slave holding colonies that says all
men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain inalienable
rights, amoung these being life liberty and the pursuit of happiness -
and slavery existing in each of the colonies at the time, except perhaps
Massachusetts.
It happens. We deal with it.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
19 Sep 2008 06:34 pm Post subject:
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Right, we deal with it. That the reason for my
suggestion. Socialists divided into many factions should reach out to
each ther and clarify for themselves what their issues are, because if we
leave it up to hostile elements (schools, textbooks, encyclopedias, etc.)
to explain it to everyone then they will package falsehoods together and
call it education.
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Jacob Richter
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Posted:
21 Sep 2008 04:48 am Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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jr:
Another way to approach this is to simply execute them en masse, and
probably in a publicized manner for maximum psychological effect (like
during the French Revolution).
ds:
Jacob when you were a child were you one of those who were purposefully
cruel to animals?
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No (and I am a long-time pet owner). :roll:
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davesearles
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Posted:
21 Sep 2008 12:18 pm Post subject:
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My question was based upon a hypothesis that when
adults espouse killing people for maximum psychological effect, that
somewhere in their childhoods there were certain foreshadowings.
Intentional cruelty to animals by a child is a common one.
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CommunistLeague
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Posted:
01 Oct 2008 06:33 am Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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Right, we deal
with it. That the reason for my suggestion. Socialists divided into
many factions should reach out to each other and clarify for themselves
what their issues are, because if we leave it up to hostile elements
(schools, textbooks, encyclopedias, etc.) to explain it to everyone
then they will package falsehoods together and call it education.
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In general, I think you're right with this
approach. This "open polemic" method has worked very well at
not only clarifying differences, but also clarifying when those
differences are a matter of terminology, tactics, strategy or principle --
i.e., when they are genuine differences and when they are
misunderstandings.
Three years ago, we proposed to several groups we
were talking to the idea of creating an arena in which we could debate
political differences in order to clarify them. Unfortunately, two of the
groups pulled out of the project when it came time to debate the
differences they had with us and other members of the alliance (mostly
because they didn't want to have to justify some of their dumber
positions).
Perhaps this kind of arena and alliance (we called
it the "International Working People's Association") would be
something to look at for dealing with the kind of necessary discussions
you're talking about.
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allhailtuna
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Posted:
01 Oct 2008 08:29 am Post subject:
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Our History class? Well, all we've done so far these
two years (two-year continuous course) is the Russian Revolution(s), and
the Cold War. Naturally, we have been told that the USSR was communist,
and that the political left-right line goes something like this:
Communism/Socialism/Conservative/Fascist.
Also that Castro started off a 'socialist', then
moved to being a 'communist' due to needing help from the USSR. I
actually brought this up, and our teacher dismissed it with 'socialism is
impossible', and the 'socialism in practice' argument, then just went on
with the lesson on Cuba. Crud, we're even doing a book on Mao's Cultural
Revolution in school. Apparently, his policies were based on
"Marx's" Theory of productive forces. And again, communism is a
'great idea in theory', but 'doesn't work in practice'. Really, it's
probably worse in the US.
The irony here is that Junior schoolers are singing
'Imagine' for our 'UN Day'.
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Jacob Richter
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mikelepore
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Posted:
17 Oct 2008 09:31 am Post subject:
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It seems to me, the more you include in a platform,
the more people are unsuitable to join a movement.
http://www.communistleague.us/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=47&Itemid=61
"6. Free, universal sex education classes that
are non-moralistic"
Now those people who are against sex education in
school, or who think those classes should teach morals, can't join.
"8. Abolition of all private educational
institutions, including 'charter' and parochial schools."
Now the people who like the idea of parochial
schools can't join.
"11. Abolition of existing police forces in
favor of volunteer units organized by neighborhood or workplace."
That was an efficient filter. Of the readers who
were still eligible to join after getting past all of the previous items,
this sentence alone just made 99.9 percent of them ineligible also.
What's wrong with the principle that we want a
society in which the people will democratically decide on the rules and
policies?
Do we have to also indicate, after the people do
get that democratic power, what exactly they will choose to do with it?
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mikelepore
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Posted:
17 Oct 2008 09:54 am Post subject:
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http://www.communistleague.us/ as of 19 September
"1. The seizure and takeover of all banking
and financial institutions"
With all such ideas, there's that recurrent logical
problem again.
A movement could never enact any such suggestions
unless it first gets majority support; however, if it does acquire
majority support, then the movement would have the power to install an
entirely new economic system, so there can never be any occasion to have
capitalism for a while but also to modify it in the way that these
suggestions indicate.
This is a huge self-contradiction that is committed
by almost all leftist organizations in the world.
The only way it's free of self contradiction is if
a group doesn't believe that majority support is necessary, if they
believe that a minority should use physical force against a working class
majority that hasn't yet been persuaded to support it.
Sorry, no matter how lofty the class conscious
loyalty and humanistic desires, this logical self-contradiction can't be
made to go away.
Socialist Party, Socialist Equality Party, etc.,
etc. -- exactly in the same situation.
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The Greenman
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Posted:
17 Oct 2008 01:04 pm Post subject:
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Why bother with"the seizure and takeover of all
banking and financial institutions" when the majority, whom both
Marx and De Leon had faith in, could and would establish a new economic
system? The whole idea of the collective ownership of the means of
production IS the establishment of a new economic system. De Leon did not
emphasize to "organize" but establish an organization of labor
to establish unity with the workers which the SIU is about. I personally
believe that the political aspect would be to establish worker ownership
of the MOP through every legal means available. Also, the SIU is not
nationalized by the government nor controlled politically by the
government. It can be regulated, for example, so that toxic waste is not
dumped in some creek or lake, etc., etc. I say keep the economic system
out of the hands of the politicians and government.
John T.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
17 Oct 2008 06:22 pm Post subject:
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Yeah, JT, you and I are "on the same page"
with those ideas. Awaiting Henry's explanation!
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The Greenman
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Posted:
18 Oct 2008 12:02 pm Post subject:
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De Leon wrote:
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Quote:
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State
ownership of industries under capitalist ownership of the State would
be State Socialism—a system of slavery more intolerable than any the
world has yet experienced.
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He never lived long enough to see the Russian
experiment but yet these words hold true
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Quote:
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But there is a
good deal of floating, crude, vaporous{,} unorganized Socialistic
thought in the air, and those who are seized with such microbes are
prone to imagine that, since all collective ownership presupposes some
central directing authority, State ownership, ownership by the State,
as at present constituted, of the land and machinery of production, is
Socialism. This is a grave confusion of thought, but the worst of it is
the false tactics it is apt to lead to.
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Jacob Richter
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Posted:
18 Oct 2008 04:10 pm Post subject:
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^^^ While I'm a Leninist on organizational and
programmatic issues, I'm surprised why so many on the left are unaware of
the implications raised by employee share purchase plans and pension fund
holdings.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
18 Oct 2008 04:24 pm Post subject:
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Where is that quoted from?
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The Greenman
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mikelepore
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Posted:
19 Oct 2008 06:39 am Post subject:
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Hmm, 1893, pretty early in his SLP career. De Leon's
use of phrases like "state ownership", when describing his own
brand of socialism, became much less frequent as time went on, but he
said it occasionally.
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davesearles
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Posted:
19 Oct 2008 11:59 am Post subject:
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From the Agent Richter reform-a-day diary:
While I'm a Leninist on organizational and
programmatic issues, I'm surprised why so many on the left are unaware of
the implications raised by employee share purchase plans and pension fund
holdings.
ds:
"401(k)"s a bridge to class consciosness
?
Can you cite any evidence say from the New York
Times or the Wall Street Journal which identifies any trend or an
inclination above the norm of such shareholders identifing such ownership
with working class interests as opposed to the bottom line of "what
is my stock worth today"? In my admittedly limited experience just
the opposite is true.
Will you next be hustling the benefits to the
working class of multi-tier marketing programs such as Am-Way?
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davesearles
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Posted:
19 Oct 2008 02:31 pm Post subject:
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jt:
Just say no to Leninisim.
ds:
I have to disagree with you on this one John.
Everyone is entitled their religious views.
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