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Author
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Message
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Jacob
Richter
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 Posted:
05 Oct 2008 11:03 pm Post subject: Draft "Unity
Programmatic Combination"
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Although this "programmatic combination"
(combining the "class-strugglist social labour program," the
"class-strugglist democracy program," and the
"class-strugglist reform program") currently lacks an analysis
of the development of capitalism and does not address "miscellaneous
questions" (such as national demands and demands aimed at
anti-worker tred-iunionisty bureaucrats), I'll give this a shot.
Note also that, although the first nine "immediate demands" are
in the final order, more demands are pending.
This section and the next two unabashedly borrow
from, in order: the actual Gotha Programme, the Communist Manifesto, the actual Erfurt Programme of
the SPD,
Kautsky's The Class
Struggle (Erfurt Programme), Aristotle's Politics, Marx’s
The Civil War in France, the programme of the historic
French Workers’ Party, and Lenin's material for the preparation of
the programme of the RSDLP.
Basic Principles
Once more, human labour – be it manual or mental – and
its technological, labour-saving equivalent are the only non-natural
sources of value production. The written history of all
societies, up to and including the present, is primarily one of open and
hidden class struggles over the exploitation of these non-natural sources
of value production. The modern bourgeois-capitalist society has not
abolished the very non-conspiracist class antagonisms, but has instead
established in place of the old ones both new conditions of oppression – primarily the various forms of wage
labour – and new forms of class struggle, a very scientific concept
which can no longer be taken for granted.
Nevertheless, without the technological, economic,
political, and other developments associated with this society, the
realistic possibility of abolishing the exploitation and alienation of
human labour through, along with more emancipatory measures, the
institution of full worker ownership and control over the economy, could
not have come about.
This socially revolutionary transformation, along
with socially revolutionary transformations aimed at abolishing non-class
oppression and alienation, cannot be brought about by any of the
following: private philanthropists amongst the bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie;
social engineers amongst the coordinators; legislators and administrators
operating within the framework of the bourgeois-capitalist state,
especially those from the aforementioned classes; so-called “vanguardists” and other
conspirators who do not rely on a highly
class-conscious working class; and mere spontaneous development,
including social evolution and the accompanying class accommodation. This
necessarily transnational emancipation of labour, which has nothing to
lose but its chains, can only be brought about by a highly
class-conscious and organized working class independently, capturing the
full political power of a ruling class in accordance with the slogan “WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!”
Class-Strugglist Social Labour (“the Social-Labourists”) disdains to conceal its view and
its task regarding the above versus barbarism, the common ruin of the
contending classes: Its task is to educate, agitate, and organize the
various divisions of the working class and their struggles into a class-conscious,
unified whole, thereby making that open class struggle of the working
class aware of its historic aim and capable of choosing the best means to
attain this aim, ultimately in the form of the simultaneously
transnational, social-revolutionary, class-strugglist, and
working-class-only “party”
of at least the vast majority of the working class.
The Democracy Question
The more completely the various divisions of the
working class unite into a single working-class movement, the more the
struggles against bourgeois-capitalist exploitation of their labour must
necessarily take on a political character. Every open class struggle is a
political struggle. Even the bare requirements of the economic struggles
force the workers to make political demands. Without political rights and
especially real political enfranchisement, the working class cannot carry
on its economic struggles and develop its economic organization.
There can be no parliamentary,
pseudo-representative, liberal, or other non-class-strugglist roads to
the aforementioned emancipation of the working class. All
Social-Labourists seek to delegitimize further these dead ends which
have, time and again, compromised the political and ideological
independence of the working class and have been delegitimized by that
class itself through abstention, having been disenfranchised in all but
the formality of universal suffrage.
The only road to the aforementioned emancipation of
the working class by that class itself is necessarily class-strugglist,
but also necessarily participatory-democratic. The highest form of this
class-strugglist democracy comes into existence when these demands, among
others, are met:
1) The working-class supermajority is to have
the authority to rule, while under the current oligarchy this
authority is in the hands of the bourgeoisie, who along with other
non-worker classes are a minority;
2) All assemblies of the remaining representative
democracy and of an expanding participatory democracy are to become
working, not parliamentary bodies, legislative and executive at the
same time and not subject to judicial review;
3) All public offices are to be assigned by lot,
since the elections of such would be in fact oligarchic in the classical
sense;
4) All public offices are to be free of any
formal or de facto property qualifications;
5) All public offices are to be compensated at
the same level as an average worker; and
6) All public offices are to be subject to
immediate recall in cases of abuse of office.
Class-strugglist democracy, although not yet
functioning on the principles of social labour, transforms political
enfranchisement from a mere gauge of working-class maturity at best and
an instrument of deception at worst – through oligarchic selections held
once every few years to decide which
individuals, particularly non-workers, would misrepresent the
working-class supermajority in the various legislatures – into an instrument of emancipation
for the working-class supermajority.
Immediate Demands
In keeping the common, historic aim of manual,
clerical, and professional workers consciously in full view, pro-reform
Social-Labourists hereby proceed from the above to issue political and
economic demands for immediate but real, reform-enabling reform. Because
the fulfillment of these demands and more will not fall charitably or
spontaneously from heaven, all Social-Labourists are firmly convinced
that their complete, consistent, and lasting implementation can only be
achieved by transnational class struggle. These demands are, to begin
with:
1) The reduction of the normal workweek to a participatory-democratic
maximum of 32 hours or less without loss of pay or benefits, the
minimum provision of double-time pay or salary/contract equivalent for
all hours worked over the normal workweek and over 8 hours a day, the
prohibition of compulsory overtime, and the provision of one hour off
with pay for every two hours of overtime;
2) Full, lawsuit-enforced freedom of
class-strugglist assembly and association, even within the military,
free from anti-employment reprisals and police agents such as agents
provocateurs;
3) The expansion of the right to bear arms
and to self-defense in general towards enabling the formation of
citizens’
militias, especially in connection
with class-strugglist association, and also free from police agents such
as agents provocateurs;
4) The combating of degenerative personality
politics through the institution, in the various legislatures, of the closed-list,
proportional-representative form that allows mere parties to
arbitrarily appoint to and remove from legislatures the party-affiliated
legislators;
5) The institution of ever-progressive measures
against the still-existing aristocratic privilege of upper-class,
anti-meritocratic inheritance, including the abolition of all
remaining monarchies;
6) Socio-income democracy through direct
proposals and rejections, at the national level, regarding all tax rates
on all types of income –
such as employment income, individual property income such
as rent, both individual and corporate business income, both individual
and corporate dividend income, and both individual and corporate capital
gains –
annual votes which include the right to raise upper tax rates,
alternative minimum tax rates, and non-employment income gross-ups or
multipliers;
7) The abolition of all indirect taxation;
8) Annual, non-deflationary adjustments of the
minimum wage and of unemployment insurance benefits to match real
inflation (not notorious government underestimations due to faulty
measures like chain weighting) and, where possible, both the restoration
of the aforementioned to their original living-wage levels and the institution
of annual, non-deflationary adjustments on a cost-of-living basis for all
other non-executive remunerations and benefits;
9) The institution of income-based or
preferrably class-based affirmative action, especially in the sphere
of education;
10)
11) The encouragement of, and unconditional
economic support (both technical and financial) for, pre-cooperative
worker buyouts of existing enterprises and enterprise operations,
first as a counter to workplace closures.
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Jacob Richter
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Posted:
06 Oct 2008 12:35 am Post subject:
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Quote:
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Once more,
human labour – be it manual or mental – and its
technological, labour-saving equivalent are the only non-natural
sources of value production.
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"Labor is the source of wealth and all
culture." (Gotha Programme)
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Quote:
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The written
history of all societies, up to and including the present, is primarily
one of open and hidden class struggles over the exploitation of these
non-natural sources of value production. The modern
bourgeois-capitalist society has not abolished the very
non-conspiracist class antagonisms, but has instead established in
place of the old ones both new conditions of oppression – primarily the
various forms of wage labour – and new forms of class struggle, a
concept which can no longer be taken for granted.
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"The history of all hitherto existing society
is the history of class struggles."
"The modern bourgeois society that has
sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class
antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of
oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones."
(Communist Manifesto)
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Quote:
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This socially
revolutionary transformation, along with socially revolutionary
transformations aimed at abolishing non-class oppression, cannot be
brought about by any of the following: private philanthropists amongst
the bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie; social engineers amongst the
coordinators; legislators and administrators operating within the
framework of the bourgeois-capitalist state, especially those from the
aforementioned classes; so-called “vanguardists” and other conspirators who do
not rely on a highly class-conscious working class; and mere
spontaneous development, including social evolution. This necessarily
transnational emancipation of the
working class, which has nothing to lose but its chains, can only be
brought about by a highly class-conscious and organized working class
independently, capturing the full political power of a ruling class in
accordance with the slogan “WORKERS OF THE WORLD,
UNITE!”
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"But it can only be the work of the working
class, because all other classes, notwithstanding the conflicts of
interest between them, stand on the ground of the private ownership of
the means of production and have as their common goal the preservation of
the foundations of contemporary society. The struggle of the working
class against capitalist exploitation is necessarily a political
struggle. Without political rights, the working class cannot carry on its
economic struggles and develop its economic organization. It cannot bring
about the transfer of the means of production into the possession of the
community without first having obtained political power." (Erfurt
Programme)
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Quote:
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Class-Strugglist
Social Labour (“the Social-Labourists”) disdains to conceal
its view and its task regarding the above versus barbarism, the common
ruin of the contending classes
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"The Communists disdain to conceal their views
and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the
forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions."
"Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian,
lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and
oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an
uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended,
either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the
common ruin of the contending classes."
(Communist Manifesto)
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Quote:
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Its task is to
educate, agitate, and organize the various divisions of the working
class and their struggles into a class-conscious, unified whole,
thereby making that open class struggle of the working class aware of
its historic aim and capable of choosing the best means to attain this
aim, ultimately in the form of the simultaneously transnational,
social-revolutionary, class-strugglist, and working-class-only “party” of at
least the vast majority of the working class.
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"It is the task of the Social Democratic Party
to shape the struggle of the working class into a conscious and unified
one and to point out the inherent necessity of its goals." (Erfurt
Programme)
"The task of Social Democracy [as a party] is
to make the class struggle of the proletariat aware of its aim and
capable of choosing the best means to attain this aim." (The Class
Struggle)
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Quote:
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The more
completely the various divisions of the working class unite into a
single working-class movement, the more must the struggles against
bourgeois-capitalist exploitation of their labour necessarily take on a
political character. Every open class struggle is a political struggle.
Even the bare requirements of the economic struggles force the workers
to make political demands. Without political rights and especially real
political enfranchisement, the working class cannot carry on its
economic struggles and develop its economic organization.
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"The original organizations of the proletariat
were modeled after those of the medieval apprentices. In like manner the
first weapons of the modern labor movement were those inherited from a
previous age, the strike and the boycott. But these methods are
insufficient for the modern proletariat. The more completely the various
divisions of which it is made up unite into a single working-class
movement, the more must its struggles take on a political character. Every
class-struggle is a political struggle. Even the bare requirements of the
industrial struggle force the workers to make political demands. We have
seen that the modern state regards it as its principal function to make
the effective organization of labor impossible. Secret organizations are
inefficient substitutes for open ones. The more the proletariat develops,
the more it needs freedom to organize." (The Class Struggle)
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Quote:
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The
working-class supermajority is to have the authority to rule, while
under the current oligarchy this authority is in the hands of the
bourgeoisie, who along with other non-worker classes are a minority;
All public offices are to be assigned by lot, since the elections of
such would be in fact oligarchic in the classical sense
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"Democracy is when there is a majority of
free, poor men who have authority to rule, while oligarchy is when it is
in the hands of the wealthy and well-born, who are a minority."
“I mean, for
example, that it is thought to be democratic for the
offices to be assigned by lot, for them to be elected oligarchic, and
democratic for them not to have a property-qualification, oligarchic to
have one; therefore it is aristocratic and constitutional to take one
feature from one form and the other from the other, from oligarchy that
offices are to be elected, and from democracy that this is not to be on a
property-qualification.”
(Politics)
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Class-strugglist
democracy, although not yet functioning on the principles of social
labour, transforms political enfranchisement from a mere gauge of
working-class maturity at best and an instrument of deception at worst – through oligarchic
selections held once every
few years to decide which individuals, particularly non-workers, would
misrepresent the working-class supermajority in the various
legislatures – into an instrument of emancipation for the
working-class supermajority.
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"Universal suffrage is thus the gauge of the
maturity of the working class. It cannot and never will be anything more
in the modern state; but that is enough. On the day when the thermometer
of universal suffrage shows boiling-point among the workers, they as well
as the capitalists will know where they stand." (Origins of the
Family, Private Property, and the State)
"Instead of deciding once in three or six
years which member of the ruling class was to misrepresent the people in
Parliament, universal suffrage was to serve the people, constituted in
Communes..." (The Civil War in France)
"That this collective appropriation can arise
only from the revolutionary action of the productive class – or proletariat - organized in a
distinct political party; That a such an organization
must be pursued by all the means the proletariat has at its disposal
including universal suffrage which will thus be transformed from the
instrument of deception that it has been until now into an instrument of
emancipation [...]" (Programme of the French Workers' Party)
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Because the
fulfillment of these demands and more will not fall charitably or
spontaneously from heaven, all Social-Labourists are firmly convinced
that their complete, consistent, and lasting implementation can only be
achieved by class struggle.
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“Occasionally
someone has attempted to oppose the political struggle to the economic,
and declared that the proletariat should give its exclusive attention
either to the one or the other.
The fact is that the two cannot be separated. The economic struggle
demands political rights, and these will not fall from heaven. To secure
and maintain them, the most vigorous political action is necessary.” (The Class Struggle)
"For its part, the Russian Social-Democratic
Labour Party is firmly convinced that the complete, consistent, and
lasting implementation of the indicated political and social changes can
be achieved only by overthrowing the autocracy and convoking a
Constituent Assembly, freely elected by the whole people." (Draft
Programme of the RSDLP)
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These demands
are, to begin with [...]
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"Proceeding from these principles, the Social
Democratic Party of Germany demands, to begin with [...]" (Erfurt
Programme)
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direct
proposals and rejections, at the national level, regarding all tax
rates on all types of income [...] annual votes which include the right
to raise upper tax rates
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"Direct legislation through the people, by
means of the rights of proposal and rejection. Self-determination and
self-government of the people in realm, state, province and parish.
Election of magistrates by the people, with responsibility to the people.
Annual voting of taxes." (Erfurt Programme)
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mikelepore
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Posted:
06 Oct 2008 04:52 am Post subject: Re: Draft
"Unity Programmatic Combination"
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Jacob Richter wrote:
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"programmatic
combination" (combining the "class-strugglist social labour
program," the "class-strugglist democracy program," and
the "class-strugglist reform program")
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Suppose a radio announcer put a microphone in your
face and asked you to explain to all the people out there, who have never
heard of you before, what's on you mind, what your message to them is. Is
that the kind of language you'd use? No, you'd speak in everyday
language. Then why don't you use everyday language in these internet
forums?
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Jacob Richter
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Posted:
06 Oct 2008 04:57 am Post subject:
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^^^ You DeLeonist guys convinced me to rethink the
term "socialist program." On the other hand, Lenin talked about
a "national program" (pertaining to minority nationalities) and
an "agrarian program" within the overall "program" of
the RSDLP.
What term would you suggest for the above, or
should the various "programs" be called
"sub-programs"?
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davesearles
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Posted:
06 Oct 2008 10:21 am Post subject:
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#1 Exclusion of the workers from collective ownership
and control of the means of production and distribution shall not exist.
#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.
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davesearles
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Posted:
06 Oct 2008 02:46 pm Post subject:
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jr:
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Quote:
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There can be
no parliamentary, pseudo-representative, liberal, or other
non-class-strugglist roads to the aforementioned emancipation of the
working class.
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ds:
"parliamentary" road,
"pseudo-representative" road, "liberal" road,
"non-class-strugglist" road = metaphoric senselessness.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
06 Oct 2008 07:06 pm Post subject:
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Jacob Richter wrote:
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Lenin talked
about a "national program" (pertaining to minority
nationalities) and an "agrarian program" within the overall
"program" of the RSDLP. What term would you suggest for the
above, or should the various "programs" be called
"sub-programs"?
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The term I would suggest for Lenin's set of proposal
is: "dumb ideas". Some synonyms might be: "dopey
ideas", or perhaps "ludicrous" or
imbecilic" or "cockamamie" ideas.
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davesearles
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Posted:
06 Oct 2008 09:15 pm Post subject:
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jr:
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Quote:
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Lenin talked
about a "national program" (pertaining to minority
nationalities) and an "agrarian program" within the overall
"program" of the RSDLP. What term would you suggest for the
above, or should the various "programs" be called
"sub-programs"?
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ds:
A program to do what? Wouldn't that be the first
question?
ml:
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Quote:
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The term I
would suggest for Lenin's set of proposal is: "dumb ideas".
Some synonyms might be: "dopey ideas", or perhaps
"ludicrous" or imbecilic" or "cockamamie"
ideas.
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ds:
I always try to get people to be specific Mike.
Interesting book chapter: Toward a Revolutionary
Alliance
Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge and the
Making of the Soviet Union
By Francine Hirsch
Published by Cornell University Press, 2005
ISBN 0801442737, 9780801442735
392 pages
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Jacob Richter
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Posted:
07 Oct 2008 02:02 am Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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Jacob Richter wrote:
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Lenin talked
about a "national program" (pertaining to minority
nationalities) and an "agrarian program" within the overall
"program" of the RSDLP. What term would you suggest for the
above, or should the various "programs" be called "sub-programs"?
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The term I would suggest for Lenin's set of
proposal is: "dumb ideas". Some synonyms might be:
"dopey ideas", or perhaps "ludicrous" or
imbecilic" or "cockamamie" ideas.
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If you even bothered to read the program of the
RSDLP, you wouldn't be saying such:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/reviprog/ch04.htm
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davesearles
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Posted:
07 Oct 2008 02:13 am Post subject:
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Perhaps you could bother to tell us how the RSDLP's
"national program" or "agrarian program" pertain to
why it is that you cannot advocate collective worker control of the
industrial mop?
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Jacob Richter
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Posted:
07 Oct 2008 02:15 am Post subject:
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^^^
"Nevertheless, without the technological,
economic, political, and other developments associated with this society,
the realistic possibility of abolishing the exploitation and alienation
of human labour through, among other measures, the institution of full
worker ownership and control over the economy, could not have come
about."
"Class-Strugglist Social Labour (“the Social-Labourists”)
disdains to conceal its view and its task regarding the above versus
barbarism, the common ruin of the contending classes: Its task is to
shape the struggles of the working class into a class-conscious, unified
whole, thereby making that class struggle of the working class aware of
its historic aim and capable of choosing the best means to attain this
aim [...]"
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Quote:
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"parliamentary"
road, "pseudo-representative" road, "liberal" road,
"non-class-strugglist" road = metaphoric senselessness.
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Using the word "road" is NOT
"metaphoric senselessness."
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davesearles
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Posted:
07 Oct 2008 10:03 am Post subject:
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Tell us specifically what the word road would mean in
the phrase liberal road?
Tell us specifically what the word road would mean
in the phrase parliamentary road?
Tell us specifically what the word road would mean
in the phrase pseudo-representative road?
Tell us specifically what the word road would mean
in the phrase non-class-strugglist road?
Perhaps you are a non-native user of Enlish and are
cofusing the word road with its partial synonym "way", as in
"Liberals do thngs in a certain way"?
That would be a bit more sensical but then there
would still be the question of the truth of such statments - Are there in
fact liberal, or non-class-strugglist, or pseudo-representative, or
parliamentary ways of doing things? If there are then the onus would
still be upon you to show that your broad pronouncements are founded in
fact - as opposed to mere empty assertions (unless that is what you
intended)
And again, perhaps you could bother to tell us how
the RSDLP's "national program" or "agrarian program"
pertain to why it is that you cannot advocate collective worker control
of the industrial mop?
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davesearles
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Posted:
07 Oct 2008 11:16 am Post subject:
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jr:
also free from police agents such as agents
provocateurs
ds:
If that means to be free from people who write all
sorts of "class strugglist" hokem but just can't seem to bring
themselves to regularly and publicly advocate collective worker contol of
the industrial mop - I'm for it.
If that means to be free from people who advocate
people be killed for psychological effect - I'm for it.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
07 Oct 2008 05:27 pm Post subject:
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Perhaps I spoke too recklessly in calling Mr. Lenin's
choice of topics stupid. What I meant to say was, if you are planning to
discuss the Russian national identities and the agrarian developments
before the use of machinery, the age before the people had electricity,
etc. that situation is too unlike the present to convey any lessons.
However, some of Lenin's draft ideas, like election of the judges, etc.,
may be discussed fruitfully one at a time. The particular situation of
the agrarian society at war with Germany in 1917, trying to survive
famine as well as imperialism, trying to survive while figuring out how
to build a farm tractor, is unimportant to the present time.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
07 Oct 2008 05:37 pm Post subject:
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Unlike Dave, I have no difficulty with a metaphor such
as "road". It's those adjectives that have no meaning for me,
such as "pseudo-representative" and
"class-strugglist."
There's a lot of language tinkering going on, where
it's not necessary, where traditional words are just as good.
"Parliamentary" is an old word, but
apparently your connotation of the word is a new one.
Also, if we must make up new words, a list of
definitions should come first.
But I must go now because I have to frogum a blat
of morglep, where I define morglep to be another name for coffee, a blat
is a cup, and to frogum something means to warm it up.
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davesearles
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Posted:
07 Oct 2008 10:24 pm Post subject:
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by putting the morglep of blat in the frogumator above
the stove?
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Jacob Richter
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Posted:
08 Oct 2008 12:31 am Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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Perhaps I
spoke too recklessly in calling Mr. Lenin's choice of topics stupid.
What I meant to say was, if you are planning to discuss the Russian
national identities and the agrarian developments before the use of
machinery, the age before the people had electricity, etc. that
situation is too unlike the present to convey any lessons.
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My point was that the "national program"
and the "agrarian program" were merely specific minimum
programs. Of course those programs didn't call for worker ownership and
control. That was left to the maximum program:
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Quote:
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By introducing
social in place of private ownership of the means of production and
exchange, by introducing planned organisation of social production to
ensure the well-being and many-sided development of all the members of
society, the proletarian social revolution will do away with the
division of society into classes and thereby emancipate the whole of
oppressed humanity, for it will put an end to all forms of exploitation
of one section of society by another.
A necessary condition for this social revolution is the dictatorship of
the proletariat, i.e., the conquest by the proletariat of such
political power as will enable it to suppress all resistance on-the
part of the exploiters. Aiming at making the proletariat capable of
fulfilling its great historic mission, international Social-Democracy
organises the proletariat in an independent political party opposed to
all the bourgeois parties, guides all the manifestations of its class
struggle, reveals to it the irreconcilable antagonism between the interests
of the exploiters and those of the exploited, and explains to the
proletariat the historical significance of and the necessary conditions
for the impending social revolution. At the same time it reveals to all
the other toiling and exploited masses the hopelessness of their
position in capitalist society and the need for a social revolution if
they are to free themselves from the yoke of capital. The
Social-Democratic Party, the party of the working class, calls upon all
section of the toiling and exploited population to join its ranks
insofar as they adopt the standpoint of the proletariat.
|
|
Quote:
|
|
However, some
of Lenin's draft ideas, like election of the judges, etc., may be
discussed fruitfully one at a time.
|
Indeed - that was based on one of the demands in
the Erfurt Program regarding "magistrates." As to how this
demand pertains to my suggested program, I wrote "All public offices
are to be assigned by lot" and also "All public offices are to
be subject to immediate recall in cases of abuse of office."
Election of all judges would increase the risk of "voter
fatigue."
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davesearles
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Posted:
08 Oct 2008 04:22 am Post subject:
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We workers are wage slaves and could emancipate
ourselves by combining politically to control the industrial means of
production.
How is anythying less than that any kind of a
program at all?
Perhaps a program to distract workers from the
above, but that's it. This is why I am so critical of anything that does
not keep that idea at the fore.
Worrying about "voter fatigue" isn't that
so paternalistic?
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davesearles
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Posted:
08 Oct 2008 04:31 am Post subject:
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jr quotes Lenin apparently:
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Quote:
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Aiming at
making the proletariat capable of fulfilling its great historic
mission, international Social-Democracy organises the proletariat in an
independent political party opposed to all the bourgeois parties
|
ds:
Are you suggesting Jacob that a 21 st century
proletariet is not capable of fulfilling it's great historic mission
outside of the structure of a politcal party?
It all seems very self serving and formulaic.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
08 Oct 2008 04:35 am Post subject:
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DS, what do you mean "outside of the structure of
a political party"? You want amendment, amendment requires election
of legislators who will pass amendment, that's political party.
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Jacob Richter
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Posted:
08 Oct 2008 04:40 am Post subject:
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|
davesearles wrote:
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Are you
suggesting Jacob that a 21st century proletariat is not capable of
fulfilling it's great historic mission outside of the structure of a
political party?
|
Yes - and an "ultra-mass" party (hundreds
of millions of members worldwide, not just voters or foot
soldiers) at that:
http://www.revleft.com/vb/road-power-and-t83963/index.html (quoting Kautsky)
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Quote:
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|
How much
further from the truth could the real founder of “Marxism” have
ever gotten (at least before his turn to renegacy)? Did he not conclude
in Sects or Class Parties that “the ideal organisation is the unification of all
proletarian parties, the political societies, the trade unions, the
co-operatives, as equal members, not of a Labour Party without a
programme, as is at the present the case in England, but of a
class-conscious, all-embracing Social-Democracy”? If, out of sheer
dynamic-materialist necessity, such a
maximalist (not in programmatic terms) mass organization were to encompass
the vast majority of the proletariat in very literal terms, thereby
going beyond the false dilemma presented by mass movements and typical
traditional “parties” (the cadres-only party wrongfully put forward as an
international model by the Bolsheviks only well into the civil war, the
mass-but-reformist party, and even mass revolutionary parties not
encompassing the vast majority of the proletariat in very literal terms),
would it not be entitled to initiate the political revolution?
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Quote:
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Its task is to
shape the struggles of the working class into a class-conscious,
unified whole, thereby making that class struggle of the working class
aware of its historic aim and capable of choosing the best means to
attain this aim, ultimately in the form of the simultaneously
transnational, social-revolutionary, class-strugglist, and
working-class-only “party” of at least the vast majority of the
entire working class.
|
This isn't our grandparents' party model.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
08 Oct 2008 04:52 am Post subject:
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Voter fatigue is an interesting subject, and maybe a
good system would keep voters too busy all the time. But technical
solutions are possible.
Perhaps I can tell a computer: by default, always
set my vote for a candidate endorsed by a certain affiliation or
organization. Then I only have to act on exceptions.
Another possibility, let reelection-forever be the
default vote, and people have to act to replace someday. Then every day
can be election day, the totals tabulated and reported daily by a computer.
The power of instantaneous recall discussed in Marx's notes on the Paris
Commune may see it happen in this form.
Voting systems today are too primitive. There's no
good reason why we can do everything else on the computer or pushbutton
telephone, but to vote requires going downtown and standing in line.
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Jacob Richter
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Posted:
08 Oct 2008 05:17 am Post subject:
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^^^ That has drawbacks. For example, the redneck can
set his to "Republican" and mind his business, legitimizing the
aristocratic principle of selection through his ignorance. Also, "re-election
forever" could mistakenly elect candidates up against term limits.
I prefer to vote on the issues (and participate in
the initial discussions), and let random sortition take care of the
"who's gonna deal with the issues the way I want them to be dealt
with."
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davesearles
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Posted:
08 Oct 2008 05:32 am Post subject:
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ml:
DS, what do you mean "outside of the structure
of a political party"? You want amendment, amendment requires
election of legislators who will pass amendment, that's political party.
ds:
I want an amendment. I push for an amendment
individually. Circulate petitions for such, write artucles, even run for
office and yet there is no structure of a political party.
jr:
Yes - and an "ultra-mass" party (21st
century proletariet incapable of fulfilling its historic mission
outside of the structure of a political party)
ds:
Incapable - political thought by pronouncment.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
08 Oct 2008 05:41 am Post subject:
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Jacob Richter wrote:
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That has
drawbacks. For example, the redneck can set his to
"Republican" and
|
I meant post-revolution, in the newly structured
society. Hopefully then the "political parties" that we choose
from will be something like solar energy, genetic engineering, and space
exploration, and not a choice between "miserable capitalism"
and "even more miserable capitalism."
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mikelepore
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Posted:
08 Oct 2008 05:43 am Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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yet there is
no structure of a political party
|
If the amendment is finally enacted, it will be a
political party, or a coalition of parties, or a coalition of caucuses of
parties.
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Jacob Richter
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mikelepore
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Posted:
08 Oct 2008 06:09 am Post subject:
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Jacob Richter wrote:
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I prefer to
vote on the issues, and let random sortition take care of the
"who's gonna deal with the issues the way I want them to be dealt
with."
|
Conceivably, suppose the big issue of the day is
cloning, you could have a million people who have the same opinion of
cloning that I have all register themselves, then instead of voting for a
person I vote for the position, that position wins the majority vote, x
number of people from that list are randomly selected and put into the
legislature. However, they may lack skills. Some don't know how to read a
graph, or they don't know what mean and variance are. Some are science
illiterate. Some are superstitious. Some are emotionally unstable. Some
hate to read and listen, and sleep during meetings. Sortition neglects
the fact that managing things requires skills.
That's also why the jury system often fails. When
the Rubin Carter and John Artis were accused of murder based solely on
the report "the crime was committed by two black men who left the
scene in a white car", the jury was so damned stupid that they
actually voted to convict the two men and recommend the electric chair.
The jurors had such defective brains that they thought that this very
superficial similarity, any two black men in a white car, met the legal
criterion "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." Due to random
selection, necessary skills were absent.
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davesearles
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Posted:
08 Oct 2008 06:19 am Post subject:
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ml:
If the amendment is finally enacted, it will be a
political party, or a coalition of parties, or a coalition of caucuses of
parties.
ds:
I assume that you mean that it will be becuase of
political parties, etc?
I suspect that may be the case but only to a small
degree - sure it will have some formal political party support - that
would be inevitable I suppose. My personal view is that an idea like the
amendment can grow with each individual, and eventually individual
polititions will catch on.
I know that this is heresy for those who dream of
the state power implied by an "ultra-massive" political party,
but I have faith, even a certain naievte that a simple correct idea is
more powerful on its own than anything an organized political party could
add to it (unless possibly small organizations here and there formed
solely to promote the idea.)
A simple idea cannot sustain a massive, and
especially an ultra massive organization - as Jacob shows it must have
ultimate programs, minor programs, subprograms, up down and sideways
demands, yada yada to justify its own existence - these in quick time
subsume all sense of importance of any idea of worker control.
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mikelepore
|
|
Posted:
08 Oct 2008 06:34 am Post subject:
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But one way or another, elections must change the
content of the legislature, so that candidates who oppose the amendment
are replaced by candidates who support the amendment. Perhaps it will be
several parties, not just one.
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mikelepore
|
|
Posted:
08 Oct 2008 06:37 am Post subject:
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|
davesearles wrote:
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|
A simple idea
cannot sustain a massive, and especially an ultra massive organization
- as Jacob shows it must have ultimate programs, minor programs,
subprograms, up down and sideways demands, yada yada to justify its own
existence - these in quick time subsume all sense of importance of any
idea of worker control.
|
Okay by me, if the minor programs meet De Leon's
test that they are consistent with collective ownership; for example,
regulation of the corporations fails the test, funding the Hubble
telescope passes the test.
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mikelepore
|
|
Posted:
08 Oct 2008 06:50 am Post subject:
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Someone in revleft mentioned this, the SP's web site,
following the links spusa.org > program > labor > #6, says:
"We support militant, united labor action including hot cargo
agreements, and boycotts, factory committees, secondary and sympathy
strikes, sit-down strikes, general strikes, and ultimately the expropriation
of workplaces."
That "ultimately the expropriation of
workplaces" caught my eye.
As usual, my question to them would be: what
exactly is the "ultimately" waiting for? They can't implement
cosmetic reforms #1, #2, #3, #4 or #5 either until they get majority
support and get elected, so if they do get majority support and get
elected, then why would they postpone #6 until "ultimately"?
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davesearles
|
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Posted:
08 Oct 2008 07:25 am Post subject:
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ml:
That's also why the jury system often fails. When
the Rubin Carter and John Artis were accused of murder based solely on
the report "the crime was committed by two black men who left the
scene in a white car", the jury was so damned stupid that they
actually voted to convict the two men and recommend the electric chair.
The jurors had such defective brains that they thought that this very
superficial similarity, any two black men in a white car, met the legal
criterion "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." Due to random
selection, necessary skills were absent.
ds:
I wouldn't be quite so dismissive of random selection
for juries - for instance in courts martial in the US military - where a
jury is handpicked by the presiding officer – would that system be discernibly
better?
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davesearles
|
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Posted:
08 Oct 2008 07:32 am Post subject:
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hot cargo agreements, and boycotts, factory
committees, secondary and sympathy strikes, sit-down strikes, general
strikes
These do exist and where they exist SP supports
them. Nothing wrong with that. But as to the "ultimately" how
do they support that? They do not. Mere tacked on words - such as support
for collective worker control being a "basic part" of an
"ultimate program".
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mikelepore
|
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Posted:
08 Oct 2008 07:41 am Post subject:
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The idea of a jury is nothing but a check on
systematic abuse. They figured if the system got corrupted then a jury of
"regular folks" could say no to it. Similarly, "A well
regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State"
is a check on abuse. But as far as evalulating evidence on an everyday
basis, the general population doesn't even know what "evidence"
is, as indicated by the majority believing in horoscopes and ghosts and
and flying saucers. I would rather be judged by a majority vote of any
three nonpartisan individuals with some education in any discipline that
requires the analysis of evidence.
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davesearles
|
|
Posted:
08 Oct 2008 07:49 am Post subject:
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|
ml:
De Leon's test that they are consistent with
collective ownership
ds:
I would have a hard time thinking a political party
serious if it had a program consisting of collective worker control of
the industrail mop and increased congressional funding for the Hubble
Space Telescope. The telescope is not inconsistent with worker control of
the industrial mop but I don't see it being complementary to the
promotion of the idea of worker control.
Did big Dan give us any examples of the application
of his test?
One of the hot topics of his day Women's suffrage,
he essentially said that the SLP literature was sypathetic to it it but
that SLP could not have w.s. as a party plank. (again with the metaphors)
The SLP can be sympathetic to w.s. but w.s. won't be a piece of wood on
the floor of a structure that one can stand on - isn't that clear?
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davesearles
|
|
Posted:
08 Oct 2008 07:57 am Post subject:
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ml:
The idea of a jury is nothing but a check on
systematic abuse.
ds:
It's an alternative to judges being a trier of
fact. Sometimes you have a better shake with a bench trial and sometimes
with a jury trial. Happily in these last few months I was acquitted in a
misdeamnor case by a judge and in a felony case by a jury, but had I not
a whole lot experience with the system I can see that I could have made
some real mistakes in either a judge or a jury case. I'm sure that being
a middle age white male didn't hurt my cases much either. got to go to
work.
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Jacob Richter
|
|
Posted:
08 Oct 2008 02:33 pm Post subject:
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|
|
mikelepore wrote:
|
|
Someone in
revleft mentioned this, the SP's web site, following the links
spusa.org > program > labor > #6, says: "We support
militant, united labor action including hot cargo agreements, and
boycotts, factory committees, secondary and sympathy strikes, sit-down
strikes, general strikes, and ultimately the expropriation of
workplaces."
That "ultimately the expropriation of workplaces" caught my
eye.
As usual, my question to them would be: what exactly is the
"ultimately" waiting for? They can't implement cosmetic
reforms #1, #2, #3, #4 or #5 either until they get majority support and
get elected, so if they do get majority support and get elected, then
why would they postpone #6 until "ultimately"?
|
I noticed this, too, which is even more radical in
tone than what I have AT THE MOMENT (because it doesn't yet address
"miscellaneous questions"). They share the same viewpoint as I
do:
1) There can be no parliamentary road to
"socialism";
2) The only road to "socialism" is
participatory-democratic (that means delegitimizing worker perceptions of
parliamentarism and encouraging the development of something like
Venezuela's communal councils).
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mikelepore
|
|
Posted:
08 Oct 2008 04:03 pm Post subject:
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|
What do you mean by "parliamentary".
Because to me it means: participants make motions,
discuss them, delegate tasks to committees, read the correspondences
received, vote on motions, the chairperson announces who received the
most votes, the recording secretary writes it down, etc.
You seem to be using the concept of "not being
entirely parliamentary" as a euphemism for saying that sometimes the
law is unjust and an uprising population will violate it, for example,
there's an injunction against a strike but the workers go on strike
anyway, or sometimes the people break into the palace and drag the king
to the guillotine.
These connotations being unlike, can you define
what you mean?
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davesearles
|
|
Posted:
08 Oct 2008 04:26 pm Post subject:
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|
jr #1:
There can be no parliamentary road to
"socialism.
jr #2
The only road to "socialism" is
participatory-democratic (that means delegitimizing worker perceptions of
parliamentarism.
ds:
A perfectly circular road.
ml to jr:
can you define what you mean?
ds:
He hasn't. He won't. He can't.
About all he can say is:
"I don't know what I want but I'm pretty sure
it's something like what Hugo Chavez has or says he has!!"
jr:
"something like Venezuela's communal
councils"
ds:
Can it get any clearer?
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mikelepore
|
|
Posted:
08 Oct 2008 06:28 pm Post subject:
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|
All I know about Venezuela is the 800 meter vertical
drop of Angel Falls makes it the highest waterfall in the world. Learned
that in geology 101. And they have a pretty bird called the trupial.
Learned that in biology 101. What else they do, I have no idea.
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davesearles
|
|
|
Jacob Richter
|
|
Posted:
09 Oct 2008 01:52 am Post subject:
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|
|
mikelepore wrote:
|
|
What do you
mean by "parliamentary".
Because to me it means: participants make motions, discuss them,
delegate tasks to committees, read the correspondences received, vote
on motions, the chairperson announces who received the most votes, the
recording secretary writes it down, etc.
|
The problem is that parliamentary
"participants" seldom represent working-class interests:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_democracy
|
Quote:
|
|
Participatory
democracy is a process emphasizing the broad participation (decision
making) of constituents in the direction and operation of political
systems. While etymological roots imply that any democracy would rely
on the participation of its citizens (the Greek demos and kratos
combine to suggest that "the people rule"), traditional
representative democracies tend to limit citizen participation to
voting, leaving actual governance to politicians.
[...]
Representative democracy is not generally considered participatory.
|
http://www.envisioningdemocracy.net/
|
Quote:
|
|
For the
moment, it is sufficient to note that participatory democracy
attempts to move beyond the most significant debate in the history of
the left—the debate between advocates of “reform”
(social democrats favoring the parliamentary path to power) and
proponents of “revolution” (communists favoring the seizure
of the state apparatus).
Notwithstanding profound differences in organization and doctrine,
these two approaches—often termed “evolutionary” and
“revolutionary” socialism respectively—share an emphasis
on party politics and a vision of the state as the primary agent of
social transformation.
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|
|
|
Jacob Richter
|
|
Posted:
09 Oct 2008 03:35 am Post subject:
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|
|
mikelepore wrote:
|
|
Okay by me, if
the minor programs meet De Leon's test that they are consistent with
collective ownership; for example, regulation of the corporations fails
the test, funding the Hubble telescope passes the test.
|
Amongst comrades, funding the Hubble telescope is a
no-no. How does that relate to worker struggles? That demand need not be
met by class struggle:
http://www.revleft.com/vb/brits-welcome-economist-t91352/index.html
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davesearles
|
|
Posted:
09 Oct 2008 04:44 am Post subject:
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|
ml to jr:
What do you mean by "parliamentary".
Because to me it means: participants make motions, discuss them, delegate
tasks to committees, read the correspondences received, vote on motions,
the chairperson announces who received the most votes, the recording
secretary writes it down, etc.
jr answers:
The problem is that parliamentary
"participants" seldom represent working-class interests
ds writes:
By the same token we shouldn't have residential
housing construction because under capitalism the poor cannot afford to
buy new houses?
Instead of twisting and turning in this Jacob, has
it ever occurred to you to just write - "you know comrade - I do not
have an answer thought out for just what I mean when I write the word
parliamentarism" (or words to that effect)?
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davesearles
|
|
Posted:
09 Oct 2008 04:50 am Post subject:
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|
now here's an interesting thought:
jr wrote:
"That demand need not be met by class
struggle"
ds writes:
So any demand - minor major directional yada yada -
is bogus if class struggle is not required to implement it?
I still don't know what a "demand" is?
Aren't we an infuriating bunch on this list?
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mikelepore
|
|
Posted:
09 Oct 2008 04:50 am Post subject:
|
|
|
Quote:
|
|
the debate
between advocates of “reform” (social democrats favoring the parliamentary path to power) and proponents of “revolution”
(communists favoring the seizure of the state apparatus).
|
That's kind of phrasing is just plain wrong. It's
wrong on numerous levels.
The difference between reform and revolution is that
reform refers to less fundamental socioeconomic changes and revolution
refers to more fundamental socioeconomic changes. Either one can be
"parliamentary" or alternatively not be. Either one can involve
"seizure of the state apparatus" or alternatively not involve
it.
It's also wrong because "parliamentary"
and "seizure of the state apparatus" are not opposites. An
action can be both of these. An action can be neither of these.
It's also wrong because that the approach of
"communists," if by that word we mean everything that Marx and
Engels ever said, is entirely parliamentary, once humanity has left the
age of monarchy and has passed into the age of elected governments.
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davesearles
|
|
Posted:
09 Oct 2008 05:00 am Post subject:
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|
Mike, I'm afraid that you're just choosing to be a
bourgeois liberal here going down the wrong road.
I’m
blowin’ down this old dusty road,
I’m
a-blowin’ down this old dusty road,
I’m
a-blowin’ down this old dusty road, Lord, Lord,
An’
I ain’t a-gonna be treated this a-way.
Woodie Guthrie
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|
mikelepore
|
|
Posted:
09 Oct 2008 05:14 am Post subject:
|
|
|
Jacob Richter wrote:
|
|
Amongst
comrades, funding the Hubble telescope is a no-no. How does that relate
to worker struggles?
|
First of all, There's little or no correlation
between the demands presented by the political left and my personal
opinions. A few of their ideas I could support, most I would oppose. With
about the same distribution, conservative Republicans have a few ideas
that I could support, most I would oppose.
Secondly, it's Congress that allocates funding to
the space agency, as well as passing laws. What I would like Congress to
do, and what I would like to see happen with the class struggle, are
largely independent and orthogonal subjects. The only thing the Congress
can do that can be of any assistance in the class struggle is declare
that the workers own the industries. Anything else the Congress does is
either irrelevant or harmful. So I'll go with the irrelevant as opposed
to the harmful, and enjoy the pictures taken by the Hubble telescope.
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|
|
mikelepore
|
|
Posted:
09 Oct 2008 05:23 am Post subject:
|
|
|
davesearles wrote:
|
|
I still don't
know what a "demand" is?
|
As I said on an earlier, the almost universal usage
of this word in the English language is about giving someone a choice
between granting your desire and suffering an unpleasant consequence. I
demand that you give me a cookie or else I will break the window. To
speak of a demand without indicating the associated consequence for
noncompliance is meaningless. The reformist left uses this word to imply
that the demand-consequence pair is, for example, we demand that you
enact/repeal X or else we "have a revolution." But for those of
us say plainly that we plan to carry out revolutionary change in any
event, and we can't be bought off, the either/or proposition is absent.
Therefore, we don't have any "demands."
|
|
|
Jacob Richter
|
|
Posted:
09 Oct 2008 05:39 am Post subject:
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|
|
davesearles wrote:
|
|
now here's an
interesting thought:
jr wrote:
"That demand need not be met by class struggle"
ds writes:
So any demand - minor major directional yada yada - is bogus if class
struggle is not required to implement it?
|
That is correct ("reform-enabling reform"
and keeping the basic principles "consciously in full view").
As for parliamentarism, contrast that with
"the barrel of a gun" (Mao).
[Really, you should consider that third option that
I've laid out, the participatory option.]
|
Quote:
|
|
To speak of a
demand without indicating the associated consequence for noncompliance
is meaningless.
|
Not really - noncompliance would heighten class
struggle (think: mass strike). Notice my section on "The Democracy
Question," which talks about disenfranchisement and the
delegitimization of bourgeois/liberal/parliamentary democracy.
|
|
|
mikelepore
|
|
Posted:
09 Oct 2008 05:51 am Post subject:
|
|
|
Jacob Richter wrote:
|
|
As for
parliamentarism, contrast that with "the barrel of a gun."
|
Then you seem to be saying
"parliamentary" to mean the same thing that De Leon meant when
he used the word "civilized." -- "the jewel of peaceful or
civilized method of settling disputes", which he contrasted with
"physical force" (the pamphlet 'As To Politics')
|
Quote:
|
|
[Really, you
should consider that third option that I've laid out, the participatory
option.]
|
That's a separate subject. Participatory democracy
is about how a new system may be structured. The discussion about
peaceful versus violent revolution is about how to make a transition from
the present system to a new system.
|
|
|
mikelepore
|
|
Posted:
09 Oct 2008 05:53 am Post subject:
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|
"How are the masses to be recruited and organized
into capacity to take and hold if the agitation is to be conducted upon
lines that wholly reject the peaceful theory of 'counting noses'? It is
time wasted to point out the thorns on the political stalk. They are all
admitted beforehand. The question is, Is that stalk all thorns and no
rose?" -- De Leon, from 'As To Politics'
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davesearles
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Posted:
09 Oct 2008 06:09 am Post subject:
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Jacob Richter wrote:
As for parliamentarism, contrast that with "the
barrel of a gun."
ds:
If a national legislature of a state in contol of a
significant armed force declares war - is that parliamentary? the barrell
of a gun? or both?
You (Jacob) are saying that workers shouldn't go
down the "parliamentary road" but they should go down the
"barrell of a gun" road?
Have you gone down the agent provocatuer road?
I bet that you have.
And I note tht you STILL haven't defined what youu
mean by parliamentarism - you've implied that it contrasts with Mao's
"barrel of a gun" you've noted that under a parliametary system
that workers most likely will not be represented - but to paraphrase
Sarah Palin - Dog Gone it! You still haven't defined parliamentarism!
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mikelepore
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Posted:
09 Oct 2008 03:13 pm Post subject:
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Perhaps someone isn't free to come right out and say
what he's thinking.
Here's a test that can be used with anyone to
determine whether such restraint is in effect.
To anyone who proposes revolutionary change by
means of "the barrel of a gun", please compose a list of the
names of the people who you suggest should be shot, and sign it with name
and mailing address, and publish it. (Don't put that list on my web
domain; put it on your own.)
The same challenge goes out to the Libertarian
Party and Christian Right gun-loonies, who think that the Second
Amendments says "The opportunity for a conspiracy to violently
overthrow the government being necessary to the security of a free state,
the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be
infringed."
I ask them all: let's see your published list of
whom you propose should be assassinated, and please indicate the times
and places when you plan to carry out those assassinations. Is there
going to be such a list for everyone's consideration?
The incapacity to do that shows that the use of
illegal methods is nothing but a liability.
The conspiratorial approach provides no strengths;
it imposes many weaknesses.
As De Leon wrote, those who don't advocate the
political-industrial dual progam, and want to add elements of conspiracy
to it, are "compelled to move about in disguise, creeping
stealthily...." (from 'As To Politics')
It is necessary to operate entirely in the
"daylight."
De Leon continued:
"... conspiracy can be conducted in
circumscribed localities only, such localities exclude the masses -- and
the wheels of time are turned back. The bringing together of the physical
force organization becomes impossible.... Political agitation enables the
revolution to be preached in the open, and thereby enables the revolution
to be brought before the million-masses.... political agitation, coupled
with the industrial organization able to 'take and hold,' or 'back up'
the political movement ... places the revolution abreast of civilized and
intelligent methods -- civilized, because they offer a chance to a
peaceful solution; intelligent, because they are not planted upon the
visionary plane of imagining that right can ever prevail without the
might to enforce it."
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Jacob Richter
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Posted:
10 Oct 2008 04:50 am Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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That's a
separate subject. Participatory democracy is about how a new system may
be structured. The discussion about peaceful versus violent revolution
is about how to make a transition from the present system to a new
system.
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Let me clarify once more (since methinks Marx was
too simplistic in terms of peaceful means vs. violence):
1) The emancipation of the working class can only
come about through class struggle (necessarily participatory-democratic).
2) Worker class struggle should be conducted through
legal means where possible, and through extra-legal means
when necessary.
3) Whether such means turn out to be
peaceful or violent is up to the class enemy.
For example (unless I pointed this out to you
earlier), read Lenin's On Compromises. He proposed the Bolshevik
renunciation of violence if the Mensheviks and SRs stopped supporting the
Provisional Government and took over power from their then-majority in
the soviets. If the Mensheviks and SRs did so, that would have
constituted an extra-legal act against the Provisional Government, but
would've been legal from a soviet point of view (since the post-czarist
dual power period was unstable).
When the turned-Bolshevik majority in the soviets
finally took power (PEACEFULLY), they, even after enacting the peasant
reforms (by stealing the left-SR platform on land), still gave the
Constituent Assembly a chance to be elected and to form a soviet-based
constitution. When there were irreversible machinations within the SRs,
the Bolsheviks had to close down the anti-soviet Constituent Assembly
(again PEACEFULLY).
The characteristics of modern parliamentarism,
bourgeois electoralism, "liberal democracy," etc. are
inherently anti-working class. They neuter the worker class struggle. Of
course, back in the late 1890s and early 1900s the RSDLP wanted to
overthrow the czar and establish a Constituent Assembly (when
parliamentarism was still lively and meaningful). Going a bit further
bank, had the SPD in Germany called for a democratic republic in
the Erfurt Program (the main criticism posed by Engels, if you remember),
that would led to the continuation or intensification of the
Anti-Socialist Laws.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
10 Oct 2008 05:59 am Post subject:
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Jacob Richter wrote:
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1) The
emancipation of the working class can only come about through class
struggle (necessarily participatory-democratic).
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I don't see any connection between the class
struggle and emancipation of the working class. The class struggle is a
major feature of everyday life is under capitalism. It's the ordinary
routine. We're always dividing a pie, the capitalist wants the
capitalist's share to be larger and the worker's share to be smaller, and
the worker wants the worker's share to be larger and the capitalist's
share to be smaller -- this economic incompatability, along with its
variety of political, legal and cultural manifestations, is the class
struggle. What has that got to do with the emancipation of the working
class? I think this old drawing http://deleonism.org/images/fcs3-467x490.jpg is the emancipation of the
working class.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
10 Oct 2008 06:12 am Post subject:
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Jacob Richter wrote:
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The
characteristics of modern parliamentarism, bourgeois electoralism,
"liberal democracy," etc. are inherently anti-working class.
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How can you discern between being "inherently
anti-working class" and "as it's practiced today, it takes on
an antiworking class form"?
"Inherently" is not an easy quality to
prove.
In answering such challenges to the old Marxian
principles, quoting from a classical author is okay if one need to borrow
that author's choice of words, but the fact that a classical author said
something does not constitute a proof. I explicitly charge Marx and
Engels with having a very confused concept of the state.
As for "bourgeois electoralism", what
elections really are is taking a very old idea that goes back to Pericles
of Athens and getting some of the bugs out of it. In Athens the citizens
could vote, but most people were not citizens. Some democracy, huh? So
there's a kernel of a good idea but the way it's implemented is buggy. So
that kernel of a good idea sprouted again when the rising bourgeoisie
found itself incompatable with the existence of monarchy and aristocracy.
That does NOT make the procedure of holding elections
"bourgeois", any more than the development of electricity in
bourgeois society makes electrical wiring into a capitalist plot to stomp
on the workers.
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davesearles
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Posted:
10 Oct 2008 12:43 pm Post subject:
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jr wrote:
"That demand need not be met by class
struggle"
ds writes:
So any demand - minor major directional yada yada -
is bogus if class struggle is not required to implement it?
jr:
That is correct ("reform-enabling reform"
and keeping the basic principles "consciously in full view").
ds:
This is how you get tangled up in your own
tautologies.
There may be something that workers want (a
demand), but if non workers also want it - then it might be possible to
obtain it through means that may not be considered part of the
"class struggle" - then according to what you write it couldn't
be a demand for the workers??
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davesearles
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Posted:
10 Oct 2008 12:53 pm Post subject:
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ml to jr:
but the fact that a classical author said something
does not constitute a proof.
ds:
It does constitute proof if the classical author's
writing is considered holy writ.
Jacob's penchant for doing just that as proof
indicates that the whole subject of socialism resides in his brain as
religion.
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davesearles
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Posted:
10 Oct 2008 01:12 pm Post subject:
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One common method for manufacturing a lefty tautology
is to take anything or idea that might exist under capitalism, use its
adjective form - put the suffix "ism" on it and put place the
word "bourgeois" in front of it as in:
"bourgeois electoralism"
this is something like the processes called for in
the song "The Name Game:
Come on everybody!
I say now let's play a game
I betcha I can make a rhyme out of anybody's name
The first letter of the name, I treat it like it
wasn't there
But a B or an F or an M will appear
And then I say bo add a B then I say the name and
Bonana fanna and a
fo
And then I say the name again with an F very plain
and a fee fy and a mo
And then I say the name again with an M this time
and there isn't any name that I can't rhyme
Arnold!
Arnold, Arnold bo Barnold Bonana fanna fo Farnold
Fee fy mo Marnold Arnold!
But if the first two letters are ever the same,
I drop them both and say the name like
Bob, Bob drop the B's Bo ob
For Fred, Fred drop the F's Fo red
For Mary, Mary drop the M's Mo ary
That's the only rule that is contrary.
Okay? Now say Bo: Bo
Now Tony with a B: Bony
Then Bonana fanna fo: bonana fanna fo
Then you say the name again with an F very plain:
Fony
Then a fee fy and a mo: fee fy mo
Then you say the name again with an M this time:
Mony
And there isn't any name that you can't rhyme
http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/shirley_ellis/the_name_game.html
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Jacob Richter
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Posted:
10 Oct 2008 01:44 pm Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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Jacob Richter wrote:
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1) The
emancipation of the working class can only come about through class
struggle (necessarily participatory-democratic).
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I don't see any connection between the class
struggle and emancipation of the working class. The class struggle is a
major feature of everyday life is under capitalism. It's the ordinary
routine.
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"Every class struggle is a political
struggle." (Kautsky)
Mike, you are confusing disparate and fragmented
worker struggles with class[-conscious] struggles. That first paragraph
of "The Democracy Question" is a direct quotation of Kautsky
(and an incomplete one due to the sentence above being absent), so please
re-read it.
1) This emancipation can only come about through
class[-conscious] struggle.
2) The class[-conscious] struggle should be carried
out through legal means where possible, and through extralegal means when
necessary.
3) Whether such means turn out to be peaceful or
violent is up to the class enemy.
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davesearles
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Posted:
10 Oct 2008 02:16 pm Post subject:
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emanciation of the working class only through a class
conscious act - that seems pretty certain. But even that - we only have
to be "class conscious to the extent that we realize that unless
workers are in collective control of the industrial mop that civilization
as we know it and the lives of those who work or could work if there were
jobs (and their families) as they say are "not sustainable"
under the current set up.
The "class consciousness" required, to me
need not be anything more than that despite who might be quoted to the
contrary.
We seem to be at the point now that emancipation
(workers coming into collective control of the industrail mop) wouldn't
be a struggle. (but I know that "struggle" must be one of those
worrds that you Jacob and others have fallen in love with)
The remaining thoughts:
"extralegal means when necessary"
"peaceful or violent is up to the class
enemy."
are nothing but adolecent bravado significant of
nothing.
That's my opinion, what's yours?
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mikelepore
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Posted:
10 Oct 2008 05:10 pm Post subject:
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Quote:
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1) This
emancipation can only come about through class[-conscious] struggle.
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I reiterate my opinion: the revolution doesn't
involve class struggle. It's *not* having a revolution, and living under
capitalism, business as usual, that's where we have a class struggle.
The revolution involves the working class making
the conscious decision to go to work one day and recognize the
authenticity of new worker-constituted management, ceasing to recognize
the old capitalist-constituted management as being valid.
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Quote:
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2) The
class[-conscious] struggle should be carried out through legal means
where possible, and through extralegal means when necessary.2.
"extralegal means where necessary".
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To add "where necessary" is a grammatical
construction that artificially makes it impossible for any sentence to be
untrue. Anything that's necessary must be necessary, x=x. I don't think I
should tear down my house unless it's necessary. I don't think someone
should cut my leg off unless it's necessary. So we haven't made it any easier
to determine _what_ is necessary, but have instead added a layer of
frosting to cover the central issue and postpone answering it.
Society cannot be changed fundamentally without the
conscious understanding and agreement of the majority of the people.
I should amend that: society cannot be changed *for
the better* without the understanding and agreement of the majority. It's
certainly possible to make changes for the worse, such as the appearance
of a bureaucratic and totalitarian society, without the undertstanding
and agreement of the majority.
Now that we know the full awareness and agreement
of the majority is a prerequisite to emancipation, *when* would it be
necessary to perform illegal acts?
As ironic as it may seem to some, the *smaller* the
personal acts, the more necessary illegal acts become. We don't need to
break any laws to have a socioeconomic revolution -- the amendment clause
of the Constitution takes care of that -- but we may need to break the
law to distribute pamphlets in a train station or to make speeches in the
park.
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Quote:
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3) Whether
such means turn out to be peaceful or violent is up to the class enemy.
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I agree with that sentence when I insert my own
parameters.
If the people are in the process of restructuring
society, and a gang of right-wing thugs are assauting others people with
fists or deadly weapons, it will be justified for the socialist police
department to remove the thugs by any means, including deadly force. The
standard police regulation about using the minimum degree of force should
be obeyed. A suspect who can be apprehended is entitled to a trial.
There's no need to harm anyone who is guilty of a minimal kind of
disturbance, such as blocking a street. There should be no such crime as
"being counter-revolutionary", which is an Orwellian
thought-crime, but, instead, individuals should be accountable for actual
observable behaviors, e.g., assault or vandalism. There should be no
group blame, and each individual should be held accountable for his or
her own behavior.
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Jacob Richter
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Posted:
11 Oct 2008 05:13 am Post subject:
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mikelepore wrote:
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Quote:
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1) This
emancipation can only come about through class[-conscious] struggle.
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I reiterate my opinion: the revolution doesn't
involve class struggle. It's *not* having a revolution, and living
under capitalism, business as usual, that's where we have a class
struggle.
The revolution involves the working class making
the conscious decision to go to work one day and recognize the
authenticity of new worker-constituted management, ceasing to recognize
the old capitalist-constituted management as being valid.
|
We'll agree to disagree on that for the time being
(but at least I know where you're coming from in terms of the abolition
of the proletariat as a class).
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Quote:
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Quote:
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2) The
class[-conscious] struggle should be carried out through legal means
where possible, and through extralegal means when necessary.2.
"extralegal means where necessary".
|
To add "where necessary" is a
grammatical construction that artificially makes it impossible for any
sentence to be untrue. Anything that's necessary must be necessary,
x=x. I don't think I should tear down my house unless it's necessary. I
don't think someone should cut my leg off unless it's necessary. So we
haven't made it any easier to determine _what_ is necessary, but have
instead added a layer of frosting to cover the central issue and
postpone answering it.
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Now look who's being linguistically technical here!
;)
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Quote:
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Society cannot
be changed fundamentally without the conscious understanding and
agreement of the majority of the people.
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Where did I say I disagreed with that premise. That
was the third paragraph in the Basic Principles ("class-conscious,
highly organized act of the working class itself").
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Quote:
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Now that we
know the full awareness and agreement of the majority is a prerequisite
to emancipation, *when* would it be necessary to perform illegal acts?
As ironic as it may seem to some, the *smaller* the personal acts, the
more necessary illegal acts become. We don't need to break any laws to
have a socioeconomic revolution -- the amendment clause of the
Constitution takes care of that -- but we may need to break the law to
distribute pamphlets in a train station or to make speeches in the park.
|
At least you know that extra-legal activity
(including "illegal strikes") isn't something to be dismissed.
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Quote:
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I agree with
that sentence when I insert my own parameters.
If the people are in the process of restructuring society, and a gang
of right-wing thugs are assauting others people with fists or deadly
weapons, it will be justified for the socialist police department to
remove the thugs by any means, including deadly force.
|
Case in point: the Russian civil war that resulted
after the peaceful takeover of power by the turned-Bolshevik majority in
the Soviets. :)
However, you're addressing a post-revolution
scenario, not the revolutionary scenario itself (I mean, just look at
historical protests that have turned violent).
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mikelepore
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Posted:
11 Oct 2008 05:55 am Post subject:
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I find it interesting that U.S. people speaking about
times in the PAST consider it self-evident that it's justified to break
unjust laws. Every reference to the underground movement to help slaves
escape in the 19th century U.S., or the underground resistance in the
Third Reich, etc., describes those activities as noble and courageous.
But then ask someone, "How about today? Which of the laws today are
unjust, so that the righteous course is to violate them, and the real
evil is in obeying them?" People will just stare with blank faces
and have no frame of reference to understand what the hell you're talking
about. I find that so interesting.
Of course illegal strikes are justified. They may
not be pragmatic, the government's revenge may make those strikes cease
to be worthwhile in a practical sense, but they are justified.
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mikelepore
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Posted:
11 Oct 2008 05:59 am Post subject:
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Jacob Richter wrote:
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Where did I
say I disagreed with that premise
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No reflection on you intended. I was leading up
drawing a conclusion of my own, so I had to state a premise that I was
using.
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davesearles
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Posted:
11 Oct 2008 11:40 am Post subject:
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ml:
How about today? Which of the laws today are
unjust, so that the righteous course is to violate them, and the real
evil is in obeyng them?"
ds:
many people do it all of the time although most are
discreet enough to not openly brag about it.
speed limit laws
anti-discrimination laws
federal special education laws
income tax laws
the federal right to abortion
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davesearles
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Posted:
11 Oct 2008 11:46 am Post subject:
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ml:
If the people are in the process of restructuring
society, and a gang of right-wing thugs are assauting others people with
fists or deadly weapons, it will be justified for the socialist police
department to remove the thugs by any means, including deadly force.
jr:
Case in point: the Russian civil war that resulted
after the peaceful takeover of power by the turned-Bolshevik majority in
the Soviets.
ds to jr:
can you identify more specifically what you are
referring to?
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davesearles
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Posted:
11 Oct 2008 01:25 pm Post subject:
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Quote:
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Whether such
means turn out to be peaceful or violent is up to the class enemy.
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of course the operative application of this
statement would be to BY DEFINITION identify all violence as being caused
by "the class enemy", thereby providing rhetorical cover for
acts of terrorism and other violence instigated by or carried out by
those purporting to act on behalf of the left.
Especially because it's supported by someone who
advocates killing people for psychological effect I would tend to steer
clear of it.
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davesearles
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Posted:
11 Oct 2008 05:21 pm Post subject:
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jr:
The class[-conscious] struggle should be carried
out through legal means where possible, and through extralegal means when
necessary.2. "extralegal means where necessary".
ml:
To add "where necessary" is a grammatical
construction that artificially makes it impossible for any sentence to be
untrue.
jr:
Now look who's being linguistically technical here
ds:
That's because he is distracted by and perhaps his
thoughts are totlly consumed by petit bourgeois
hyper-techno-linquisticism. Looks like it may be a very bad case. If
necessary we shall have to ______________. (Fill in the blank.)
Now Mike, you stop raining on his make-believe
parade.
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Jacob Richter
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Posted:
11 Oct 2008 09:54 pm Post subject:
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davesearles wrote:
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Quote:
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Whether such
means turn out to be peaceful or violent is up to the class enemy.
|
of course the operative application of this
statement would be to BY DEFINITION identify all violence as being
caused by "the class enemy", thereby providing rhetorical
cover for acts of terrorism and other violence instigated by or carried
out by those purporting to act on behalf of the left.
Especially because it's supported by someone who
advocates killing people for psychological effect I would tend to steer
clear of it.
|
Read again, Dave. You're spinning my words to imply
that I support "propaganda of the deed," an anarchist
conception. The extra-legal action is caused by the working class, but
what about the riot police? The paramilitary units? Actual military units
in the cities (recent news on this, actually)? The bourgeois reaction to
working-class extra-legal action has always been one of violence.
You're right about revolutionary violence: once the
class enemy initiates the violence, all bets are off, both during the
revolution and during the post-revolution aggravation of dem
Klassenkampf. :)
[Insert your Bernsteinian-pacifist objections to
"executing them en masse, and probably in a publicized manner
for maximum psychological effect (like during the French
Revolution)" or to "licking Stalin's boots" or to the
GULAG.]
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mikelepore
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Posted:
12 Oct 2008 02:28 am Post subject:
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Jacob Richter wrote:
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once the class
enemy initiates the violence, all bets are off
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That's precisely the kind of group blame that must
be avoided -- to say: your "class" got violent, so your
"class" is now to be suppressed. I repeat: there must be no
group blame. Individuals should be held responsible for their own
behavior. If John Q. Smith commits an assault, John Q. Smith should be
convicted of assault and sentenced by a court. But the sixteen other
individuals who were standing who were next to John Q. Smith at the time,
and his family, and and his "class" -- no indictment.
In the preceding, I use the word "class"
in quotation marks because, if that event took place more than a minute
after the workers took possession of the means of production, no classes
would be in existence anymore, so you could only refer to someone's class
if you were saying: the class that you used to be a member of, until a
minute ago.
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davesearles
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Posted:
12 Oct 2008 11:37 am Post subject:
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jr:
The bourgeois reaction to working-class extra-legal
action has always been one of violence.
ds:
Not necessarily. A friend of mine was a state
employee. His state-wide union went out on strike for about a month,
which in New York is "extra-legal".
There was no violence.
That one exception shows your statement to be a
bourgeois hyper-generalisationist tautology.
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davesearles
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Posted:
12 Oct 2008 11:52 am Post subject:
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jr wrote:
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Quote:
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once the class
enemy initiates the violence, all bets are off, both during the
revolution and during the post-revolution aggravation of dem
Klassenkampf.
|
ds:
And just what are you going to do about it,
increase your font size?
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davesearles
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Posted:
12 Oct 2008 01:32 pm Post subject:
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jr:
Whether such means turn out to be peaceful or
violent is up to the class enemy.
ds:
of course the operative application of this
statement would be to BY DEFINITION identify all violence as being caused
by "the class enemy", thereby providing rhetorical cover for
acts of terrorism and other violence instigated by or carried out by
those purporting to act on behalf of the left.
Especially because it's supported by someone who
advocates killing people for psychological effect I would tend to steer
clear of it.
jr to ds:
You're spinning my words to imply that I support
"propaganda of the deed," an anarchist conception.
ds:
I implied what I wrote. If you take some inference
from it, that's up to you.
Whther or not you intended it (which would not be
surprising) I stand by my statement regarding " Whether such means
turn out to be peaceful or violent is up to the class enemy.": that
operative application of this statement would be to BY DEFINITION
identify all violence as being caused by "the class enemy",
thereby providing rhetorical cover for acts of terrorism and other
violence instigated by or carried out by those purporting to act on
behalf of the left.
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davesearles
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Posted:
12 Oct 2008 01:53 pm Post subject:
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jr wrote:
once the class enemy initiates the violence ....
and then jr wrote to ds:
"Insert your Bernsteinian-pacifist objections
to "executing them en masse, and probably in a publicized manner for
maximum psychological effect (like during the French Revolution)"
ds to jr:
You now back-pedal from your previos stance that
mere resistence should trigger mass executions?
Any objection whatsoever to mass executions,
especially mass ezecutions for pychological effect, must be an
application Bernsteinian-pacifism?
Do you mean the Edward Bernstein, head of the
German Social Democrats who in 1920 called for Germany to join the League
of Nations , for one reason, so as to have the ex-Kaiser tried for war
crimes before an international court?
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9504E0D81F3EEF33A25753C3A9679C946195D6CF&oref=slogin
(You may have to set up a free account with the NYT
to access this article. It's a photocopy of an article that is too rough
for me to OCR.)
And shouldn't that have been "bourgeois
Bersteinian pacifism"?
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Jacob Richter
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Posted:
12 Oct 2008 04:24 pm Post subject:
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^^^ Bernstein was the main theoretician of the
revisionist trend that took over the SPD (and hailed by many bourgeois
academics as "the first social-democrat," although that
distinction belonged to Lassalle). He said that evolutionary roads to
socialism were possible, and that class struggle isn't necessary. This
line of thinking has led to the birth of fascism (considering that Jewish
quote about pacifism leading to fascism).
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mikelepore
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Posted:
12 Oct 2008 04:46 pm Post subject:
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Interesting, June 2008 discussion in revleft about the
WSM's proposed moneyless society. At issue, would some people consume too
much?
user name Jacob Richter:
(quoting from the a WSM article: 'People will make
rational consumption choices.') "See, these ultra-leftists really
need haven't considered greedy psychopaths."
source: http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1177886&postcount=1
user name Hyacinth:
"I’m
not sure how relevant that is in the context of abundance, after all,
presumably enough would be created to satisfy even the psychopathic
consumer. Not to mention, I think there might be
other ways to deal with psychopaths." [smiley-face icon]
source: http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1178191&postcount=6
Jacob Richter:
'Such as?" [smiley-face icon]
source: http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1178232&postcount=8
Hyacinth:
"Well, the guillotine might be one such
way." [smiley-face icon]
source: http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1178238&postcount=9
Jacob Richter:
"I only reserve executions (among other, more
utilitarian measures, of course) for outright class enemies, class
traitors, and serial non-political criminals (like serial killers). I
have no problems with genetically psychopathic consumers (unless their
'consumption' threatens the socioeconomic system as a whole)."
source: http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1178245&postcount=10
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mikelepore
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