Minority Rights under Communism or Anarchy

[Lumpen Bourgeois]

Judging from what I have observed here on revleft, most communists and left-anarchists seem to support some form of direct democracy or "community control" as the political system of choice. My question is, will there be any protections or rights for those who are in the minority or hold minority views? And if there would be, how would they be determined?

For example, say the majority in a post-capitalist community vote to banish all black folks from the area under their political will. Would there be any safeguards against something like this from happening? And please, don't regurgitate the old anti-capitalist canard that racism will not exist in an egalitarian society.

Perhaps I'm being too presumptuous thinking that all or most radical leftists support unfettered direct democracy. Please correct me if I'm amiss. Thank you.

[Ele'ill]

Judging from what I have observed here on revleft, most communists and left-anarchists seem to support some form of direct democracy or "community control" as the political system of choice. My question is, will there be any protections or rights for those who are in the minority or hold minority views? And if there would be, how would they be determined?

For example, say the majority in a post-capitalist community vote to banish all black folks from the area under their political will. Would there be any safeguards against something like this from happening? And please, don't regurgitate the old anti-capitalist canard that racism will not exist in an egalitarian society.

Perhaps I'm being too presumptuous thinking that all or most radical leftists support unfettered direct democracy. Please correct me if I'm amiss. Thank you.

This is a good question. I am positive that this would happen. Another important question is how small will the communities be? Even if a specific minority group out numbers a non minority group the minority group can still be excluded.
What's to stop people from breaking away and not participating or forming their own government, state, etc.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Well that's like asking Tom Paine about voting rules in a future Congress of the United States when he was still working on the first draft of "Common Sense".

In other words, I don't know what workers will democratically decide how to deal with the rights of minority opinions after they have taken control of society - I can not dictate what will be decided through democratic debates at some future stage.

That being said, since a working class revolution by necessity would have to be very democratic because of all the people involved, racism and sexism would be barriers to having a revolution at all. Imagine a workplace in the US and imagine radicals trying to organize a sit-down or general strike while holding racist views: "Everyone! We're going to strike, we're going to shut down the office/store/factory... except the black 15%, gay 10% and women - you guys keep working because you stink".

[Jimmie Higgins]

What's to stop people from breaking away and not participating or forming their own government, state, etc.

Why not as long as it doesn't threaten everyone else? I'd say after the revolution, why not let hippies have their communes if they want. I mean I think people would oppose tearing out crops that people need to hold a burningman festival, but there's plenty of empty hill land in California - which is more densely populated than most states (not to mention enough empty desert land for 100 buriningman festivals).

If someone were not participating, not working and so on, then they are basically only cutting themselves out of having any say in how things are run. It would be like forming a community basball team: if you never play and never go to meetings or participate in the bake sale to get money for uniforms, you can't complain if the rest of the team picks out green jersys when you wanted purple ones.

[RGacky3]

What brought about minority rights in, for example, the united states? It was'nt the enlightened political class, that stopped the unruly people from attacking minoirties. It was the PEOPLE who stopped the STATE from racisi attacks on minorities.

The State is no safeguard for minority rights, as should clearly be seen by American historty.

[Dimentio]

Judging from what I have observed here on revleft, most communists and left-anarchists seem to support some form of direct democracy or "community control" as the political system of choice. My question is, will there be any protections or rights for those who are in the minority or hold minority views? And if there would be, how would they be determined?

For example, say the majority in a post-capitalist community vote to banish all black folks from the area under their political will. Would there be any safeguards against something like this from happening? And please, don't regurgitate the old anti-capitalist canard that racism will not exist in an egalitarian society.

Perhaps I'm being too presumptuous thinking that all or most radical leftists support unfettered direct democracy. Please correct me if I'm amiss. Thank you.

Direct Democracy will be rather worthless if we say we have a political unit with 100 million people.

We need federalism, so minorities could have their own communities. We would also need some basic human rights so that communities could not arbitrarily repress their constituents.

[trivas7]

Speculating re how communist society will function is fruitless IMO. It's like asking someone in medieval Europe how she feels re the advantages of basing the capital of the European Union in Belgium. Apart from minimal economic security for all, nothing meaningful can be said.

[danyboy27]

my sockpupet sense is tingling!

[Jack]

Judging from what I have observed here on revleft, most communists and left-anarchists seem to support some form of direct democracy or "community control" as the political system of choice.

All anarchists are "left" anarchists.

My question is, will there be any protections or rights for those who are in the minority or hold minority views? And if there would be, how would they be determined?

We beleive in the freedom of association, if you don't want to participate in something you don't have to, but most would out of respect.

For example, say the majority in a post-capitalist community vote to banish all black folks from the area under their political will. Would there be any safeguards against something like this from happening? And please, don't regurgitate the old anti-capitalist canard that racism will not exist in an egalitarian society.

Well racism does have economic roots, but... We beleive in what you could call a "decentralized democracy", we do not base the democracy off of territorial markings, but rather we beleive individuals should have a say in issues that affect them, not those that only affect others. A workplace or community association, both voluntary organizations, would be managed democratically. Now if a racist doesn't want to associate with blacks, they can choose to leave a job that puts them to work with blacks, risking nothing.
It would be idiotic for a workplace to ban its minority members because A) the workplace is owned by the community, when the current workers leave it the area is nobody's. And B) Nobody is going to want to ban other people because that means they are left with more work.


Perhaps I'm being too presumptuous thinking that all or most radical leftists support unfettered direct democracy. Please correct me if I'm amiss. Thank you.
mm

[synthesis]

Judging from what I have observed here on revleft, most communists and left-anarchists seem to support some form of direct democracy or "community control" as the political system of choice. My question is, will there be any protections or rights for those who are in the minority or hold minority views? And if there would be, how would they be determined?

For example, say the majority in a post-capitalist community vote to banish all black folks from the area under their political will. Would there be any safeguards against something like this from happening? And please, don't regurgitate the old anti-capitalist canard that racism will not exist in an egalitarian society.

Perhaps I'm being too presumptuous thinking that all or most radical leftists support unfettered direct democracy. Please correct me if I'm amiss. Thank you.

Well, the operative question here isn't "would there be" but "do you think there should be." I would venture to say that even in "the higher stage of communism" most people here would be preoccupied with fighting discrimination against minorities.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Judging from what I have observed here on revleft, most communists and left-anarchists seem to support some form of direct democracy or "community control" as the political system of choice. My question is, will there be any protections or rights for those who are in the minority or hold minority views? And if there would be, how would they be determined?

For example, say the majority in a post-capitalist community vote to banish all black folks from the area under their political will. Would there be any safeguards against something like this from happening? And please, don't regurgitate the old anti-capitalist canard that racism will not exist in an egalitarian society.

Perhaps I'm being too presumptuous thinking that all or most radical leftists support unfettered direct democracy. Please correct me if I'm amiss. Thank you.

Democracy would be participatory. If you disagreed with the decision of a commune, you can simply ignore it. The commune might cut off all economic ties with you, but you'd be independent.

[Dejavu]

Democracy would be participatory. If you disagreed with the decision of a commune, you can simply ignore it. The commune might cut off all economic ties with you, but you'd be independent.



Certainly this is one prevailing theory on how democracy would work in an anarcho-community but certainly not the only one. I happen to think that the participatory democracy theory is probably the best in terms of not externalizing costs but runs into its own hurdles with increased complexity of said society.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Direct Democracy will be rather worthless if we say we have a political unit with 100 million people.

We need federalism, so minorities could have their own communities. We would also need some basic human rights so that communities could not arbitrarily repress their constituents.

If we are to assume a stateless society simply can't exist, large-scale super-majoritarian (more than 50%+1 - something like 60%) direct democracy would be the safest system conceived. How many laws can your really pass that way? Not many - practically, only those that are common sense, like murder and rape and some vague notions of theft.

Republicanism (little r) naturally favors the capitalists; democracy naturally favors the workers.

[Demogorgon]

Republicanism (little r) naturally favors the capitalists; democracy naturally favors the workers.
[/FONT]
Complications regarding the American use of terminology here notwithstanding you are essentially correct about the different political systems, but you still have to consider that at the very large scale laws and so on cannot be formed on the basis of local discussion and voting on the details. Rather you need people working out what the laws should be before sending them to the people to be ratified.

So in other words you need to have a ventral legislature (whether it be elected, chosen by sortition, formed through workplace delegates or a combination thereof) to form such legislation as needs to be made centrally, working out the details and going through such processes as are necessary for doing so before having the finished legislation submitted to the people as a whole to be decided upon.

In other words, at present in the United States, Congress goes through its process of drafting and voting on legislation and when done submits it to the President who can approve it or veto it. Under a socialist system it will be the people doing the approval or vetoing (to say nothing of having a rather more democratic legislature). Also of course there needs to be a way for the people to by-pass the legislature altogether and initiate laws themselves. But that cannot be the norm because it makes the process of investigating and altering laws before voting on approving them or not all but impossible.

As I see it, this is the only practical way of doing things.

[Dejavu]

Complications regarding the American use of terminology here notwithstanding you are essentially correct about the different political systems, but you still have to consider that at the very large scale laws and so on cannot be formed on the basis of local discussion and voting on the details. Rather you need people working out what the laws should be before sending them to the people to be ratified.

Why do laws have to be large scale? What's wrong with laws or rules being formed from locality to locality? This is not unworkable. Even in today's society we see that in the U.S. different states have different laws and we see from country to country different laws are more pronounced.

If I live where I live now, I don't see why the laws set somewhere else other than where I live should really have an effect on me. I would figure the rules set in other places are up to the discretion of those communities and don't see any particular reason for my input.

[Dejavu]

Demo, I guess large scale laws would be necessary if your goal was to create a 'community' on the scale of a nation-state. I am uninterested in that though.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

This is a good question. I am positive that this would happen. Another important question is how small will the communities be? Even if a specific minority group out numbers a non minority group the minority group can still be excluded.
What's to stop people from breaking away and not participating or forming their own government, state, etc.

I good analogy would be cultural issues in modern democracies. If your religion says you don't have to wear a helmet, and we have a helmet law, you wear a helmet

Communist society would attempt to minimize unnecessary restrictions on persons. However, it's conceivable that cases will emerge where conflicting interests occur. Assume individuals long for historical times. Some people have a passion for history that, for some reasons, seems to always translate into a desire for "the good old days."

People in communist society won't have a perfect life. It's not the end of history. We can't predict that. If someone decided to establish a capitalist system, we have a value of "equality." We let them establish their system because we value voluntary agreement.

When the capitalist system results in individuals being unfavorably treated, because of the contract they signed to become a capitalist citizen, we don't say "you got yourself into it, it's your problem." Well, my conception of communism wouldn't. In that case, the values of the "strongest" society overwhelm those of the weaker societies.

Sometimes things just come down to who wields the most power. We'd give people the ability to do things we don't like, in many cases, because we need to do so to pursue our own "unpopular" interests. However, people often have a threshold where acceptance of behavior has gone "too far."

That threshold is usually decided entirely based on harm to individuals. Harm that most people would consider "reasonable." Someone might say bringing Pork to a synagogue is harmful if you "know" the person dislikes it and you "intend" to do it for that purpose. However, if someone hates homosexuals, and you simply go about your activities, there isn't cause to stop you from those activities.

However, physical harm is considered unacceptable in degrees. You can drive a car enough though someone on the sidewalk might get hurt. You can gently shove a friend, presumably, without being brought into court for assault charges. What the majority decides is "too far" will ultimately decide where such lines are drawn.

If the majority decided a "value" was a physical harm, things get trickier. Communism introduces a value of equality, but this is considered an example of a physical harm. If someone actively presents you from pursuing your interests, by having more money, it's harmful.

Having "more" than someone disadvantages one person and advantages another. Communism states that, although the advantaged person does suffer (perhaps) from redistribution, they had no right to their advantage to begin with so, then, harm is acceptable.

This acceptable harm is consistent with the idea of harming wrongdoers because they've violated the principle of avoiding harm. Can I have two computers in my house, in a communist society, when other people have one? What if computers are somehow a rare resource? It's ridiculous to assume "all" resources will be unlimited.

If there is a lack of a specific resource in a communist society, the distribution of that resource could, theoretically, be done in the way that "best" facilitates community good. This "might" involve providing incentives to those with more skills. I'd consider an argument here, but I think it violates the principles of communist theory.

Prioritarianism is probably my suggestion for addressing such situations. I'd suggest that is "better for society" than the "encouragement of skilled workers." This is partly related to a belief in the skills of individuals. Genius coerced into pursuits is motivated by the wrong interests and its results risk contamination.

[Demogorgon]

Why do laws have to be large scale? What's wrong with laws or rules being formed from locality to locality? This is not unworkable. Even in today's society we see that in the U.S. different states have different laws and we see from country to country different laws are more pronounced.

If I live where I live now, I don't see why the laws set somewhere else other than where I live should really have an effect on me. I would figure the rules set in other places are up to the discretion of those communities and don't see any particular reason for my input.
There are all sorts of things that need to be agreed upon at a large level. Things involving long distance transport systems and communication are an example. And there are others too.

More pertinently I think though, it is not always possible to distill communities into identifiable political units that can function independently. Take a large city. Such an entity will have several million people=a larger population than many countries-in a few cases the city may actually be a country. How do you divide that into smaller entities?

You are entitled to say that you don't see why laws set elsewhere should affect you. But what counts as "elsewhere"? Different house? Different Street? Different City? Different State? Different Country? As a matter of general principal decisions should be made as close to the people as possible which normally means as locally as possible, but you have to be practical. The most important thing is when decisions are made at the larger level is that everyone affected has a direct say in them.

Also the reality is that these days the world is increasingly inter-connected and people travel about much more-even on a daily basis, sometimes living and working many miles apart. Exactly what level of jurisdiction best covers them?

[Dejavu]

There are all sorts of things that need to be agreed upon at a large level. Things involving long distance transport systems and communication are an example. And there are others too.

But an agreement like this does not necessarily necessitate a law , at least not in the legislative sense which would require a larger governing body. Merchant's 'Law' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_Merchant) I think is an imperfect but noteworthy example of how regulations regarding large scale commerce can be instituted without having to appeal to state-like legislative bodies. It has a nice anarchist flavor as well. :D


Take a large city. Such an entity will have several million people=a larger population than many countries-in a few cases the city may actually be a country. How do you divide that into smaller entities?

Neighborhoods, quadrants, etc. A city like Los Angeles has a lot of inner localities that still differentiate to the best of their ability. I lived in LA most of my life and what happens in East LA does not directly impact me in my locality in South LA. Its a smaller scale than a full blown country with a lot more land territory but the same principles apply.


But what counts as "elsewhere"? Different house? Different Street? Different City? Different State? Different Country? As a matter of general principal decisions should be made as close to the people as possible which normally means as locally as possible, but you have to be practical. The most important thing is when decisions are made at the larger level is that everyone affected has a direct say in them.

My locality. What effects me socially likely effects my neighbor and the shopping area in my locality. Why? well , the interactions I make with society here on a normal basis is repetative. The grocery store for example , I will frequent the one here on a regular basis and thus its financial well-being and grade of social service has a direct impact on me and my locality. A store in another side of the city I might visit on occasion but not nearly as frequently as the one in my locality.

I'm not against large level decision making that umbrella various localities but only if they are necessary and I don't see why such issues on a large scale ought not be as limited as possible. The more layers of complexitiy you add to an ever larger cental agency runs the risk of authoritarianism and for us anarchists , statism.



Also the reality is that these days the world is increasingly inter-connected and people travel about much more-even on a daily basis, sometimes living and working many miles apart. Exactly what level of jurisdiction best covers them?

One example I would point to is e-commerce. The internet is only as regulated as it needs to be in terms of moving around stuff from place to place and the regulation is rather decentralized.

Undoubtably there are people that would work in another locality and I would say if those people produce for that locality they ought to have some say in its politics. I would hope with the elimination of capitalism that industry would become more locally focused anyway and most people that do work would work also within their same locality.

[trivas7]

Democracy would be participatory. If you disagreed with the decision of a commune, you can simply ignore it. The commune might cut off all economic ties with you, but you'd be independent.

This is called shunning among religious communities.