Genuinely transitional/"directional" demands

[Die Neue Zeit]

Genuinely transitional/"directional" demands





So instead of a resolution declaring state ownership or the intention thereof, why not just pass a resolution saying, "This government does not respect private property beyond personal possessions. All workers are now free to unionize, and all workplaces will be considered de facto unionized. Workers who would like to take over production at their workplace should draw up a specific plan and, with or without some changes, their plan will be accepted. Capitalists who resist this will be treated just as workers who infringed upon private property, or merely withheld their labor in a strike, have been treated in the past--i.e., with escalating force. Workers who see an essential need of society that is not being addressed by currently existing capitalist enterprises may form cooperatives to solve that problem, and can get help in drafting a start up plan if they need it. The government itself will also make plans for how to begin transferring national productive forces from frivolous-yet-profitable industries (trinkets, designer clothes, construction of mansions, etc.) to essential-yet-neglected ones (healthcare, food, entertainment and culture that is accessible to all working people, shelters for the homeless), and will incentivize workers to move around in accordance with these plans (instead of ordering them around, as a capitalist state might do). Workers will have complete occupational freedom, freedom to move about the country, and freedom to reside where they would like, and the government will not dictate anything to them; but it will come to the working class with proposals and referanda about allocating the nation's productive forces from frivolous industries to necessary ones, which will only turn into action if approved by a majority."

I like this elaboration, although I made similar remarks on the bolded part. It's much more meaningful than "transitional" sloganeering of "workers' control" or even CPGB comrade Mike Macnair's minimum program musings of "abolition of constitutional guarantees of the rights of private property and freedom of trade (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/625/macnair.htm)." I think professor Paul Cockshott made similar remarks on transitions to socialism.



So, beyond mere "transitional" sloganeering (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/index.htm#contents) (primarily economic demands (http://www.revleft.com/vb/transitional-program-updated-t99491/index.html) that are realizable under a most "social, democratic" capitalism free of speculators, "greedy bankers," landlordism, those living off of royalties and what not, perhaps other rentiers, and so on), comrade Jimmy Jazz has suggested a well-articulated and genuinely transitional demand, or, in the words of some post-modernists (http://turbulence.org.uk/turbulence-1/walking-in-the-right-direction/), a "directional" demand (http://www.revleft.com/vb/transitional-demands-t93441/index.html).



In light of this, I think it's necessary to start a discussion on "directional" demands. For my part, I've got these starters:

1) Eliminating information asymmetry by first means of establishing full, comprehensible, and participatory transparency in all governmental, commercial, and other related affairs;

2) Matching the globalized mobility of labour with the unconditional establishment of equal rights for everyone and real freedom of movement through instant legalization and open borders, thereby precluding the extreme exploitation of immigrants;

3) Legally considering all workplaces as being unionized for the purposes of collective bargaining and strikes, regardless of the presence or absence of formal unionization in each workplace;

4) Abolishing all public debts outright, suppressing excessive capital mobility associated with capital flights, ending the viability of imperialist conflicts and not just wars as vehicles for capital accumulation, and precluding all predatory financial practices towards the working class – all by first means of monopolizing all central, commercial, and consumer credit in the hands of a single transnational bank under absolute public ownership;

5) Applying not some but all economic rent beyond that of land towards exclusively public purposes (http://www.revleft.com/vb/classical-economic-rent-t103273/index.html);

6) Establishing an equal obligation on all able-bodied individuals to perform socially necessary labour, be it manual or mental; and

7) Extending litigation rights to include class-action lawsuits and speedy judgements against all non-workers who appropriate surplus value atop any economic rent applied towards exclusively public purposes (http://21stcenturysocialism.blogspot.com/2007/09/venezuela-and-new-socialism.html).

[robbo203]

Genuinely transitional/"directional" demands







So, beyond mere "transitional" sloganeering (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/index.htm#contents) (primarily economic demands (http://www.revleft.com/vb/transitional-program-updated-t99491/index.html) that are realizable under a most "social, democratic" capitalism free of speculators, "greedy bankers," landlordism, perhaps other rentiers, and what not), comrade Jimmy Jazz has suggested a well-articulated and genuinely transitional demand, or, in the words of some post-modernists (http://turbulence.org.uk/turbulence-1/walking-in-the-right-direction/), a "directional" demand (http://www.revleft.com/vb/transitional-demands-t93441/index.html).



In light of this, I think it's necessary to start a discussion on "directional" demands. For my part, I've got these starters:

1) Eliminating information asymmetry by first means of establishing full, comprehensible, and participatory transparency in all governmental, commercial, and other related affairs;

2) Matching the globalized mobility of labour with the unconditional establishment of equal rights for everyone and real freedom of movement through instant legalization and open borders, thereby precluding the extreme exploitation of immigrants;

3) Legally considering all workplaces as being unionized for the purposes of collective bargaining and strikes, regardless of the presence or absence of formal unionization in each workplace;

4) Abolishing all public debts outright, suppressing excessive capital mobility associated with capital flights, ending the viability of imperialist conflicts and not just wars as vehicles for capital accumulation, and precluding all predatory financial practices towards the working class – all by first means of monopolizing all central, commercial, and consumer credit in the hands of a single transnational bank under absolute public ownership;

5) Applying not some but all economic rent beyond that of land towards exclusively public purposes (http://www.revleft.com/vb/classical-economic-rent-t103273/index.html);

6) Establishing an equal obligation on all able-bodied individuals to perform socially necessary labour, be it manual or mental; and

7) Extending litigation rights to include class-action lawsuits and speedy judgements against all non-workers who appropriate surplus value atop any economic rent applied towards exclusively public purposes (http://21stcenturysocialism.blogspot.com/2007/09/venezuela-and-new-socialism.html).


The problem with so called "directional demands is that they are rooted in the very paradigm of capitalism itself and hence go to reinforce that paradigm. This is the "direction" of these demands. That much is obvious from some of the examples you give. You presuppose surplus value, class division and the right of workers to strike, commercial activity and he rest. In other words, you presuppose capitalism. The "demands" that you you have formulated here are demands that you want placed on capitalism itself. This is what is called reformism. It is a dead end and is not going to get you anywhere. As for post-modernists isnt it high time we moved on from this absurd and self contradictory perspective. We need to move on to a ...ahem...Post-postmodernism.

As workers we should stop thinking in terms of the crumbs that fall from the master´s table and start thinking more in terms of taking over the bakery

[davidasearles]

genuinely garbled messages as to advocating for collective worker control of the industrial means of production and distribution.

Instead of coming out and saying just that and using the powers of persuasion to utilize the political process to directly put workers into collective control the faux richter instead suggests what as the first order of business?

"Eliminating information asymmetry
by first means of establishing full,
comprehensible, and participatory
transparency in all governmental,
commercial, and other related affairs"

That's it - our number one problem is eliminating "information asymmetry"

Absolute gibberish.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The problem with so called "directional" demands is that they are rooted in the very paradigm of capitalism itself and hence go to reinforce that paradigm. This is the "direction" of these demands. That much is obvious from some of the examples you give. You presuppose surplus value

Do I? Please read my comments on economic rent in the link provided.


class division and the right of workers to strike, commercial activity and the rest

In your opinion, how long would the political and economic DOTP last?


genuinely garbled messages as to advocating for collective worker control of the industrial means of production and distribution.

Instead of coming out and saying just that and using the powers of persuasion to utilize the political process to directly put workers into collective control the faux richter instead suggests what as the first order of business?

"Eliminating information asymmetry by first means of establishing full, comprehensible, and participatory transparency in all governmental, commercial, and other related affairs"

That's it - our number one problem is eliminating "information asymmetry"

Absolute gibberish.

A key component of what you're saying ("collective worker control") is the elimination of information asymmetry. Even Trotsky suggested this, albeit in a much more limited form:

“Business Secrets” and Workers’ Control of Industry (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/tp-text.htm#bs)


The actual relationship existing between the exploiters and the democratic “controllers” is best characterized by the fact that the gentlemen “reformers” stop short in pious trepidation before the threshold of the trusts and their business “secrets.” Here the principle of “non-interference” with business dominates. The accounts kept between the individual capitalist and society remain the secret of the capitalist: they are not the concern of society. The motivation offered for the principle of business “secrets” is ostensibly, as in the epoch of liberal capitalism, that of free competition.” In reality, the trusts keep no secrets from one another. The business secrets of the present epoch are part of a persistent plot of monopoly capitalism against the interests of society. Projects for limiting the autocracy of “economic royalists” will continue to be pathetic farces as long as private owners of the social means of production can hide from producers and consumers the machinations of exploitation, robbery and fraud. The abolition of “business secrets” is the first step toward actual control of industry.

Workers no less than capitalists have the right to know the “secrets” of the factory, of the trust, of the whole branch of industry, of the national economy as a whole. First and foremost, banks, heavy industry and centralized transport should be placed under an observation glass.

The immediate tasks of workers’ control should be to explain the debits and credits of society, beginning with individual business undertakings; to determine the actual share of the national income appropriated by individual capitalists and by the exploiters as a whole; to expose the behind-the-scenes deals and swindles of banks and trusts; finally, to reveal to all members of society that unconscionable squandering of human labor which is the result of capitalist anarchy and the naked pursuit of profits.

No office holder of the bourgeois state is in a position to carry out this work, no matter with how great authority one would wish to endow him. All the world was witness to the impotence of President Roosevelt and Premier Blum against the plottings of the “60” or “200 Families” of their respective nations. To break the resistance of the exploiters, the mass pressure of the proletariat is necessary. Only factory committees can bring about real control of production, calling in – as consultants but not as “technocrats” – specialists sincerely devoted to the people: accountants, statisticians, engineers, scientists, etc.