Congress & the Senate

[The Vegan Marxist]

You know, this has been on my mind a lot of the time when I'm thinking about how we'd go about if we'd finally become a communist system, & I'm talking about America of course, & that is, what would we do with congress & the senate? Would they remain & be used for the benefit of the working class, if so how? If not, then how would we go about in eliminating such a part of the system that has remained to be of one of the most importance within the U.S. system? Any logical answers would suffice, comrades. I'm just trying to find solutions out of all this, & so any answers would be greatly appreciated. :)

[dar8888]

what would we do with congress & the senate? Would they remain & be used for the benefit of the working class, if so how? If not, then how would we go about in eliminating such a part of the system that has remained to be of one of the most importance within the U.S. system? :)

The structure could remain, but the practices would have to change. How many congressmen or senators do you suppose are working class?
"Financial disclosure forms released Friday by the nation's 100 senators show there are at least 40 millionaires among them -- 22 Republicans and 18 Democrats. All but six of them are men"
&
"Not all senators are millionaires. At least 10 senators reported net worths of less than $100,000." (from CNN.com)

Clearly this is out of line with Marxist-Leninist theory - especially when you consider that the oligarchs have made it all but impossible for working class people to be elected!

How to phase it out? It would, undoubtedly, remain active(but fundamentally re-structured)during the transitional phase between the Capitalist state and the Socialist state. Our society has progressed far enough that we no longer need millionaires to be our "shepherds", and a simple popular vote could easily take the place of the endlees bickering that our government now subjects us to.

[The Vegan Marxist]

The structure could remain, but the practices would have to change. How many congressmen or senators do you suppose are working class?
"Financial disclosure forms released Friday by the nation's 100 senators show there are at least 40 millionaires among them -- 22 Republicans and 18 Democrats. All but six of them are men"
&
"Not all senators are millionaires. At least 10 senators reported net worths of less than $100,000." (from CNN.com)

Clearly this is out of line with Marxist-Leninist theory - especially when you consider that the oligarchs have made it all but impossible for working class people to be elected!

How to phase it out? It would, undoubtedly, remain active(but fundamentally re-structured)during the transitional phase between the Capitalist state and the Socialist state. Our society has progressed far enough that we no longer need millionaires to be our "shepherds", and a simple popular vote could easily take the place of the endlees bickering that our government now subjects us to.

how do you feel we could 're-structure' the congress, senate, house of representatives, etc.?

[Robocommie]

Frankly, I think finance reform, and new socialist elections could be sufficient to clean up Congress and the Senate. Kick everyone out, and hold new elections without candidates funded by corporations and private interests.

[cb9's_unity]

I'm generally a supporter of using the electoral system as much as possible. However if a communist movement were to come to power I doubt the country would have an identical political structure.

The acceptance of communism will come unevenly in different regions of america. Communist party's are going to have to take power at a state and local level before at a federal level. Whether communists then participate on a national level will depend on two questions. First will be whether communist states will even send senators or congressmen to D.C. If communist states decide to participate on the national level its likely that the rest of congress won't accept the senators that come from that state.

It all really depends on how central the established electoral system is to the strategy of the worker movement. If power is taken purely through electoral means its much more likely we'll see communist congressmen. However if workers gain power through direct action by taking over the work place and forming communes totally outside of the current state then its unlikely that the congressmen in D.C will consider any of their representatives legitimate.

[The Vegan Marxist]

I'm generally a supporter of using the electoral system as much as possible. However if a communist movement were to come to power I doubt the country would have an identical political structure.

The acceptance of communism will come unevenly in different regions of america. Communist party's are going to have to take power at a state and local level before at a federal level. Whether communists then participate on a national level will depend on two questions. First will be whether communist states will even send senators or congressmen to D.C. If communist states decide to participate on the national level its likely that the rest of congress won't accept the senators that come from that state.

It all really depends on how central the established electoral system is to the strategy of the worker movement. If power is taken purely through electoral means its much more likely we'll see communist congressmen. However if workers gain power through direct action by taking over the work place and forming communes totally outside of the current state then its unlikely that the congressmen in D.C will consider any of their representatives legitimate.

Well, at the rate we're in right now, I don't see electoral representation of a communist party being taken place without it being blacklisted & suppressed by the U.S. government & media. The only way we have right now is through direct action. That or just wait 'til the system falls on its own feet, though who knows what damage will be done by the time that happens.

[Robocommie]

Well, at the rate we're in right now, I don't see electoral representation of a communist party being taken place without it being blacklisted & suppressed by the U.S. government & media. The only way we have right now is through direct action. That or just wait 'til the system falls on its own feet, though who knows what damage will be done by the time that happens.

I don't know about blacklisting, but I definitely think we have an uphill battle because of the stuff that gets said about Socialism in the US right now, everytime Glenn Beck opens his fat mouth he reinforces in the minds of conservatives that we as Socialists just want to send them all to Gulags in Alaska and burn down churches and the like. 50+ years of the Cold War at work, you know?

But more than just that, I think the problem is that to get into office, in this current system, you have to have a shitload of campaign contributors, and a pure grassroots support base can't do that. I almost think we have to wait till things have gotten worse, so that people become more disillusioned with the realities of capitalism, and then we can try and strike out with direct action.

[The Vegan Marxist]

People should've woken up drastically when the stocks had fallen, again. That was the wake up call, & I'll admit that it did wake up a lot of people & many protests formed up because of it, but as you can see, two things came about it as well:

1) We're still suffering from it to this day, despite what mainstream media have been claiming.

&

2) The conservatives have taken advantage of the crisis to form up power their own way through the 'tea baggers' & the '9/12ers' led by Glenn Beck, himself.

I fear that, when another crisis happens, we either might not come out of it the way we want it to, or it'll just bring more power to the capitalist exploiters.

[Robocommie]

Oh yeah, no doubt, we're seeing a lot of right wing populism come up from this too. I mean, the same thing tends to happen nowadays whenever things get rough. Just look at 1920's Germany. Unfortunately the Fascists won there. But just as the Klan and the teabaggers and all those types get more recruits when people start realizing they're being had, so too will the left get recruits.

[(A)narcho-Matt]

You know, this has been on my mind a lot of the time when I'm thinking about how we'd go about if we'd finally become a communist system, & I'm talking about America of course, & that is, what would we do with congress & the senate? Would they remain & be used for the benefit of the working class, if so how? If not, then how would we go about in eliminating such a part of the system that has remained to be of one of the most importance within the U.S. system? Any logical answers would suffice, comrades. I'm just trying to find solutions out of all this, & so any answers would be greatly appreciated. :)


No. We want to destroy the state not simply take control of it. Revolution doesnt mean the working class taking control of bourgeois institutions of the state, but creating a new society. A post Revolutionary society would have no need for congress or the senate as there would be no need for bourgeois legislative bodies.

[The Vegan Marxist]

No. We want to destroy the state not simply take control of it. Revolution doesnt mean the working class taking control of bourgeois institutions of the state, but creating a new society. A post Revolutionary society would have no need for congress or the senate as there would be no need for bourgeois legislative bodies.

You do realize that in the beginning of taking control, as in communist control, we wouldn't be able to implement the end goal yet, right? In fact, we'd be far from it. By eliminating everything, we'd be leaving ourselves naked to other higher capitalist powers, so the idea that once we take power then we'd abolish all state powers is illogical & detrimental to our movement.

[(A)narcho-Matt]

You do realize that in the beginning of taking control, as in communist control, we wouldn't be able to implement the end goal yet, right? In fact, we'd be far from it. By eliminating everything, we'd be leaving ourselves naked to other higher capitalist powers, so the idea that once we take power then we'd abolish all state powers is illogical & detrimental to our movement.

theres no blueprint to how revolution would play out. But the most important objective would be building the social revolution, people taking control of our own lives. We cant do that if we took control of the bourgeois state. Defending the revolution from reactionary forces wouldnt be by an army of the state but by the workers organised democratically.

[cb9's_unity]

Well, at the rate we're in right now, I don't see electoral representation of a communist party being taken place without it being blacklisted & suppressed by the U.S. government & media. The only way we have right now is through direct action. That or just wait 'til the system falls on its own feet, though who knows what damage will be done by the time that happens.

Direct action and electoral action will both be needed to be successful in America. It may be unfortunate but for most American democracy=voting in the established elections. Most people don't have a concept of democracy outside of the polls. Because of that no political movement can be seen as legitimate by Americans without success at the polls. Essentially communists have to recognize and espouse that the system is corrupt while using elections as a tool for our own means. People can argue that by participating in elections we are 'legitimizing' them, but for the vast majority of the U.S populace elections are perfectly legitimate. Thus the only way for a movement to show its legitimacy is to become a force at the polls. Its not ideal, but it's practical and doesn't totally abandon our principles as a whole.

If we can muster even a few percentage points at the polls and become a spoiler to the democrats the media won't be able to control itself from covering what will be considered a 'sensational' story. By no means will we get positive media coverage, but yet again it will give us a little bit more credibility. The government is also going to have a harder time blacklisting us. Today communists are the 'main enemy' in the eyes of the U.S government. By focusing on the 'war on terror' the government simply won't have the same resources to fight the communists as it did back during the cold war. Not all oppression will go away but I can't imagine it will be anything like it was when a quarter of the CPUSA were undercover CIA agents.

Direct action must still be supported by communists but by itself and without a mass base of support things like strikes and sit-ins will be nothing more than isolated incidents. We have to disillusion people with the current system and they will feel more comfortable voting against the system. It takes the majority in a factory to organize any sort of meaningful direct action. However if we could organize even 1-2% of the workers to vote for a single candidate it would make some serious news and really start people thinking about alternatives to our current capitalist political system.

[dar8888]

First of all, I should say that Socialism is not at odds with the U.S. Constitution. However, many of our political traditions are.

The Two-Party system would have to go. We are given a choice between two people that are more alike than different - it's like being asked if you want to die fast, or die slow. To have a truly representational democracy - everyone should be eligible to become a public servant, and not just the wealthy.

So, to restructure Congress, I would, first of all, eliminate the excessively expensive campaign costs. John Q. Public has virtually no chance of being elected to office because of financial constraints(except in the smallest towns or districts), and this creates an Oligarchic system whereby the elite are the only ones capable of running. Eliminate the cost involved in running for office, and far more people would be ready to serve.

Once the Oligarchs are gone, the people would move in to fill the void. In a Socialist state, it would be a simple matter to run political ads for free - the candidates from each state(chosen by voters similar to the way it is done now)would be weeded out, as usual, by debate, etc... and the top candidates would be sent to office. This sounds like our current system, but with no financial requirements to consider the voters would have a much healthier group of candidates to choose from. Also, the difficulty in removing a sitting representative would have to be changed - to make it easier to remove someone who can't, or won't do the job they were elected to do.

The first step to any sort of restructuring, however, is to convince the American people that Communism/Socialism is a valid path. As of now, we are a relatively small, fragmented group. This is what really needs to be addressed - our unity.

[The Vegan Marxist]

First of all, I should say that Socialism is not at odds with the U.S. Constitution. However, many of our political traditions are.

The Two-Party system would have to go. We are given a choice between two people that are more alike than different - it's like being asked if you want to die fast, or die slow. To have a truly representational democracy - everyone should be eligible to become a public servant, and not just the wealthy.

So, to restructure Congress, I would, first of all, eliminate the excessively expensive campaign costs. John Q. Public has virtually no chance of being elected to office because of financial constraints(except in the smallest towns or districts), and this creates an Oligarchic system whereby the elite are the only ones capable of running. Eliminate the cost involved in running for office, and far more people would be ready to serve.

Once the Oligarchs are gone, the people would move in to fill the void. In a Socialist state, it would be a simple matter to run political ads for free - the candidates from each state(chosen by voters similar to the way it is done now)would be weeded out, as usual, by debate, etc... and the top candidates would be sent to office. This sounds like our current system, but with no financial requirements to consider the voters would have a much healthier group of candidates to choose from. Also, the difficulty in removing a sitting representative would have to be changed - to make it easier to remove someone who can't, or won't do the job they were elected to do.

The first step to any sort of restructuring, however, is to convince the American people that Communism/Socialism is a valid path. As of now, we are a relatively small, fragmented group. This is what really needs to be addressed - our unity.

I definitely agree, & I also agree that direct action must be taken. But how do you feel we can start addressing our unity? Small social programs from community to community, & just build ourselves from there?

[dar8888]

I definitely agree, & I also agree that direct action must be taken. But how do you feel we can start addressing our unity? Small social programs from community to community, & just build ourselves from there?

That would probably be the best way to go. It's a bit of a cliche, but the old saying: "Slow and steady wins the race.", would be our best way to build a power base. If we can build a base of power, and force the issue - not through violent confrontation but through sheer numbers - we could move from a two party system to a three party system, and then plan our next steps when we get to that point.

[cb9's_unity]

To dar8888,

The redistribution of wealth itself under socialism will fix a huge portion of the current electoral systems problems.

However I think the U.S constitution needs to be done away with. Some principles of the document weren't terrible but we need to build our political system from the bottom up. There is no place in a communist political system for a document written largely by slave owners who feared rule of the people.

Also any sort of representative body needs to be elected through proportional representation.

[The Vegan Marxist]

To dar8888,

The redistribution of wealth itself under socialism will fix a huge portion of the current electoral systems problems.

However I think the U.S constitution needs to be done away with. Some principles of the document weren't terrible but we need to build our political system from the bottom up. There is no place in a communist political system for a document written largely by slave owners who feared rule of the people.

Also any sort of representative body needs to be elected through proportional representation.

Yes, we must eliminate the U.S. constitution & implement a new document that states a new solution to the free-will of the american people. Communism will not be able to be implemented within a large enough mass as long as the constitution is within place. But we must also protect it as we start forming up our own document.

[dar8888]

To dar8888,

The redistribution of wealth itself under socialism will fix a huge portion of the current electoral systems problems.

However I think the U.S constitution needs to be done away with. Some principles of the document weren't terrible but we need to build our political system from the bottom up. There is no place in a communist political system for a document written largely by slave owners who feared rule of the people.

Also any sort of representative body needs to be elected through proportional representation.

I do agree with you, but in the present context - a Communist system will never arise(short of an uprising). The constitution is not my favourite document, but for the time being we have to act within its constraints.

American Communists are so busy arguing over who is revisionist and who isn't, so how are we to destroy the old system, and create a new system from the ground up, unless we can bring a bit more credibility to Communist ideology?

[The Vegan Marxist]

I do agree with you, but in the present context - a Communist system will never arise(short of an uprising). The constitution is not my favourite document, but for the time being we have to act within its constraints.

American Communists are so busy arguing over who is revisionist and who isn't, so how are we to destroy the old system, and create a new system from the ground up, unless we can bring a bit more credibility to Communist ideology?

Why not the RevLeft party? :lol: We all seem to be within the same spectrum of what must happen, & we're all practically friends & family in this forum, so why not? lol

[cb9's_unity]

The communist movement doesn't have to act within the restraints of any bourgeois document. We should use any apparatus that will serve our interests (the electoral system) but there is no reason to obey the constitution when it restricts us. I don't care for private property rights that are afforded by the constitution and I don't think workers should be forced to respect their contracts with company's when they are being oppressed.

Any revolution will be purely about loyalty to class interests instead of loyalty or respect for any document. And as I've said communists will gain control at a local and state level far before they have an impact on the national level, communes will already have laws in place at a local level that will be at odds with the constitution. It will simply be a matter of how these communes work together and what powers they want to vest in a national body.

[Robocommie]

The US Constitution as written is pretty much a work of Lockean political philosophy. It's not horrible, but it's got some flaws.

However, I don't think it's a good idea to just throw it out, I think an extreme amount of improvements could be made with Amendments. This is, after all, one of the strengths of the Constitution, that it can be and is expected to be Amended. After the revolution has seized power, a sort of provisional, revolutionary Congress can institute Amendments that dictate the redistribution of wealth and the management of industry on democratic lines.

And once we've done that, then we can begin the work of really creating a socialist economy, and the mechanisms of state which once served Capital will now serve the working class.

[dar8888]

I don't care for private property rights that are afforded by the constitution and I don't think workers should be forced to respect their contracts with company's when they are being oppressed.

Any revolution will be purely about loyalty to class interests instead of loyalty or respect for any document. And as I've said communists will gain control at a local and state level far before they have an impact on the national level, communes will already have laws in place at a local level that will be at odds with the constitution. It will simply be a matter of how these communes work together and what powers they want to vest in a national body.

Where will this control come from? Laws that are at odds with the constitution will be struck down by the feds. Homeland Security will take care of the rest.

We need to build a solid base first - then worry about how to discard the constitution. The American public will not accept Communism until we rehabilitate its image in their eyes. Communism is considered a failure or a joke by most Americans. Are they going to live in communes?

[AK]

American Congress and its Senate are failed institutions. We need to replace the system of representitve democracy with direct democracy as soon as possible.

[APathToTake]

Please, excuse my ignorance, I'm still learning.
But I wanted to ask this.
If we finally progressed through the socialist phase and made our way to a pure communist state, how would the changes that have been decided, by the public, through a democratic vote, be implemented?
As a society, we'd come up against problems that would need resolving. I know the decide would decide, but who would actually implement it and make sure that rules were abided by?

Sometimes I struggle to formulate my questions properly, please forgive me. I hope this made sense.

[Robocommie]

American Congress and its Senate are failed institutions. We need to replace the system of representitve democracy with direct democracy as soon as possible.

Failed, I think, more because of the institutions many corruptions, such as lobbyists, unending incumbencies, and campaign finance laws which makes the upper echelons of power very much an elite position that everyone has to completely sell out in order to even get a chance at.

I think direct democracy is ideal in principal, but there are certain logistical difficulties which makes representative democracy necessary.

[cb9's_unity]

Where will this control come from? Laws that are at odds with the constitution will be struck down by the feds. Homeland Security will take care of the rest.

We need to build a solid base first - then worry about how to discard the constitution. The American public will not accept Communism until we rehabilitate its image in their eyes. Communism is considered a failure or a joke by most Americans. Are they going to live in communes?

At some point communist demands and capitalist laws are going to clash. As i've argued, acceptance of communism will come unevenly. Once an area has become predominantly communist they have every right to cease the means of production. It is likely that the more liberal states of today will embrace communism before states in the bible belt. At that point the workers of the revolutionary state have the right organize society in their own interests. The federal courts will certainly complain but the workers have no mandate to obey them.

I'm not sure why you keep bringing up that communism is not popular, everyone here understands that and there are places to discuss strategy. What we are talking about now is how much a revolutionary movement already in power will interact will capitalist laws and capitalist institutions.

The control will come from the majority of workers becoming class conscious and taking control of the means of production. They may try to do this purely through established state institutions. However once communism is in favor with the workers they can began to create socialism whether it breaks bourgeois laws or not.

[Floyce White]

When DC, the Maryland and Virginia suburbs, and Baltimore are alive with worker takeovers, when tenants are marching to the landlords' houses to tell them they won't pay rent ever again, when neighborhood residents take over stores, the politicians and their ilk will run away out of fear for their lives.

Worker organization is not the US Congress, it's not the DC police force, and it's not the AFL-CIO headquarters. Worker organization doesn't depend upon those enemy institutions. So they have nothing to do with communism--except to oppose it.

After the revolution, I suspect that angry poor people will destroy the Capitol, the White House, and so forth. The buildings will serve no purpose after the revolt, except perhaps as some sort of icon of the counterrevolution. Better to tear them down.

[dar8888]

I'm not sure why you keep bringing up that communism is not popular, everyone here understands that and there are places to discuss strategy. What we are talking about now is how much a revolutionary movement already in power will interact will capitalist laws and capitalist institutions

It seems simple to me...

I keep bringing it up, not as strategy, but because some people seem to overlook the fact. We will never be in power unless we change our image.

[cb9's_unity]

It seems simple to me...

I keep bringing it up, not as strategy, but because some people seem to overlook the fact. We will never be in power unless we change our image.

There is a difference between what our image is and what we need to do to gain power.

We need to start emphasizing our ideals more than our label (communist, socialist, marxist etc...). People in general don't know what actual communist principles are and they don't understand what has actually happened in history. People have a negative image of us because capitalists have slandered us, not because of what we actually believe.

[Robocommie]

When DC, the Maryland and Virginia suburbs, and Baltimore are alive with worker takeovers, when tenants are marching to the landlords' houses to tell them they won't pay rent ever again, when neighborhood residents take over stores, the politicians and their ilk will run away out of fear for their lives.

Worker organization is not the US Congress, it's not the DC police force, and it's not the AFL-CIO headquarters. Worker organization doesn't depend upon those enemy institutions. So they have nothing to do with communism--except to oppose it.

After the revolution, I suspect that angry poor people will destroy the Capitol, the White House, and so forth. The buildings will serve no purpose after the revolt, except perhaps as some sort of icon of the counterrevolution. Better to tear them down.

Assuming that the revolution will instantly create a utopia where money, planning and law enforcement are no longer necessary, sure, I guess.

[Comrade Anarchist]

A senate and congress means that there is a representative government which is useless, broken, and pretty much an oligarchy. The only type of legislative body that should exist is one that is in each commune and should work by direct democracy without infringing upon the minority. Now you probably would need a congress if you like oppression and think that people need to be run like cattle, which all leninists, stalinists, trotskyists, marxists, pretty much every leftist form originating from marx, like to cum to every night.

[Misanthrope]

I do agree with you, but in the present context - a Communist system will never arise(short of an uprising). The constitution is not my favourite document, but for the time being we have to act within its constraints.

American Communists are so busy arguing over who is revisionist and who isn't, so how are we to destroy the old system, and create a new system from the ground up, unless we can bring a bit more credibility to Communist ideology?

You've got to be kidding. I have to follow a contract that was written three-hundred years ago.. did I agree to this contract? No, I was born into it, it is a set of coercive rules backed by the threat of death. Communism isn't a pretty cute ideology, revolution isn't child's play.

[Robocommie]

A senate and congress means that there is a representative government which is useless, broken, and pretty much an oligarchy. The only type of legislative body that should exist is one that is in each commune and should work by direct democracy without infringing upon the minority. Now you probably would need a congress if you like oppression and think that people need to be run like cattle, which all leninists, stalinists, trotskyists, marxists, pretty much every leftist form originating from marx, like to cum to every night.

I don't really see what makes the existence of a governing body inherently oppressive. But you seem to hate nearly everyone who isn't a full on anarchist anyway, so.

[APathToTake]

A senate and congress means that there is a representative government which is useless, broken, and pretty much an oligarchy. The only type of legislative body that should exist is one that is in each commune and should work by direct democracy without infringing upon the minority. Now you probably would need a congress if you like oppression and think that people need to be run like cattle, which all leninists, stalinists, trotskyists, marxists, pretty much every leftist form originating from marx, like to cum to every night.

Whether or not you meant to answer my question, you somewhat did. So thank you

[cb9's_unity]

A senate and congress means that there is a representative government which is useless, broken, and pretty much an oligarchy. The only type of legislative body that should exist is one that is in each commune and should work by direct democracy without infringing upon the minority. Now you probably would need a congress if you like oppression and think that people need to be run like cattle, which all leninists, stalinists, trotskyists, marxists, pretty much every leftist form originating from marx, like to cum to every night.

Crawl back to your paranoid sectarian cave.

How the fuck are workers supposed to take power without 'infringing' on the bourgeois minority? Or did you not think that through. Marxists have always been at the forefront of demanding worker power and democracy. Your probably the person that fears the Dictatorship of the Proletariat because you have no concept of marxist theory.

[Robocommie]

Crawl back to your paranoid sectarian cave.

How the fuck are workers supposed to take power without 'infringing' on the bourgeois minority? Or did you not think that through. Marxists have always been at the forefront of demanding worker power and democracy. Your probably the person that fears the Dictatorship of the Proletariat because you have no concept of marxist theory.

I think the thing is, we can take power without "infringing" if it's assumed that the rightful representation of the people in government, and the redistribution of wealth, doesn't actually count as infringement. But there are things we can consider to more or less be the rights of everyone regardless of their economic origin, a right not to have their personal body violated, a right to due process before the law, a right to free speech.

This, to my mind, is a requirement to establish a proper socialist order, once we feel we can disregard the lives and liberties of class enemies, outside of the practicalities of the restructuring of the economy, then we've paved the way for doing the same to anyone and everyone who we disagree with.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Crawl back to your paranoid sectarian cave.

How the fuck are workers supposed to take power without 'infringing' on the bourgeois minority? Or did you not think that through. Marxists have always been at the forefront of demanding worker power and democracy. Your probably the person that fears the Dictatorship of the Proletariat because you have no concept of marxist theory.

Well, I can't blame a lot of people in fearing what the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' can bring since the majority of marxists don't necessarily understand how to implement it effectively, except with maybe an understanding of how it might work, which is by analyzing how the Parris Commune went about, at least that's how Marx & Engels perceived it.

[mikelepore]

The classless society of the future will need an elected legislature, but it doesn't have to have the present form. Instead of the present congress which is composed of almost 700 members, it could be, for example, twenty members. Instead of using geographical representation, each member of the legislature could be elected by the whole population.

The present kind of congress _could_ be used for an indefinite period of time, if it makes a difference in obtaining success. If most workers can be persuaded to join the cause of collective ownership of the means of production, but most are not persuaded to change the form of government, then society can enact collective ownership of the means of production while leaving the form of government alone. Additional social changes can be deferred to the next generation of people.

[cb9's_unity]

I think the thing is, we can take power without "infringing" if it's assumed that the rightful representation of the people in government, and the redistribution of wealth, doesn't actually count as infringement. But there are things we can consider to more or less be the rights of everyone regardless of their economic origin, a right not to have their personal body violated, a right to due process before the law, a right to free speech.

This, to my mind, is a requirement to establish a proper socialist order, once we feel we can disregard the lives and liberties of class enemies, outside of the practicalities of the restructuring of the economy, then we've paved the way for doing the same to anyone and everyone who we disagree with.

How does redistribution of wealth not count as infringement? We are tearing down the previous laws that protected their wealth and taking their private property, we are essentially encroaching on their entire lifestyle. The idea that we are using authority against a minority might make you uncomfortable but that's what we are doing. You can infringe on one's life without killing them or doing anything unnecessary to your ultimate goals, and once there private property rights are removed they are no longer my class enemy and thus not the minority. After that all 'minorities' are still part of the working class and deserve every right and all the respect of any other working class person.


Well, I can't blame a lot of people in fearing what the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' can bring since the majority of marxists don't necessarily understand how to implement it effectively, except with maybe an understanding of how it might work, which is by analyzing how the Parris Commune went about, at least that's how Marx & Engels perceived it.

I don't think most true Marxists don't understand the democratic nature of the dictatorship of the proletariat. We may have disagreements over just how democratic certain historical country's were, but we all believe in workers democracy. The problem is people who aren't marxists (capitalists and misinformed sectarians) who don't understand Marx's use of the word dictatorship.

[Robocommie]

How does redistribution of wealth not count as infringement? We are tearing down the previous laws that protected their wealth and taking their private property, we are essentially encroaching on their entire lifestyle. The idea that we are using authority against a minority might make you uncomfortable but that's what we are doing. You can infringe on one's life without killing them or doing anything unnecessary to your ultimate goals, and once there private property rights are removed they are no longer my class enemy and thus not the minority. After that all 'minorities' are still part of the working class and deserve every right and all the respect of any other working class person.

Well, I guess it's a matter of perspective. I still believe in the concept of inalienable rights endowed by virtue of being human, but since I don't consider the right of private property (as opposed to private possessions) to be a true right, I just don't see the dispossession of the wealthy elite to be true infringement. Of course they'll disagree, but it's the old axiom, "Property is theft."

Mind you, I'm not sure if it's entirely honest to say that because I'm not opposed to the ownership of small scale farms, or individual shops.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Well, I guess it's a matter of perspective. I still believe in the concept of inalienable rights endowed by virtue of being human, but since I don't consider the right of private property (as opposed to private possessions) to be a true right, I just don't see the dispossession of the wealthy elite to be true infringement. Of course they'll disagree, but it's the old axiom, "Property is theft."

Mind you, I'm not sure if it's entirely honest to say that because I'm not opposed to the ownership of small scale farms, or individual shops.

If anything is to be privatized, it should remain within workers control, & not through bosses control. If this one simple rule is failed to be within cooperation, then it must be nationalized & then put into workers control with the help of the state.

[cb9's_unity]

Well, I guess it's a matter of perspective. I still believe in the concept of inalienable rights endowed by virtue of being human, but since I don't consider the right of private property (as opposed to private possessions) to be a true right, I just don't see the dispossession of the wealthy elite to be true infringement. Of course they'll disagree, but it's the old axiom, "Property is theft."

Mind you, I'm not sure if it's entirely honest to say that because I'm not opposed to the ownership of small scale farms, or individual shops.

I think your giving infringement connotations it doesn't traditionally have but all were doing is arguing over a term. I'm not saying we should be removing human rights or doing anything besides talking away their private property rights. Besides disagreeing on some definitions I think we generally agree.

My larger point was that Comrade Anarchist is a blind sectarian who believes he has greater democratic ideals because he ignores actual marxist theory.

[blake 3:17]

Why not the RevLeft party? :lol: We all seem to be within the same spectrum of what must happen, & we're all practically friends & family in this forum, so why not? lol

I'd vote for it. Would votes be recognized internationally?

I do have a nepotistic interest in the election of the President of Canada. I'll let you guys vote on that.

[Robocommie]

If anything is to be privatized, it should remain within workers control, & not through bosses control. If this one simple rule is failed to be within cooperation, then it must be nationalized & then put into workers control with the help of the state.

Well, let me be clear, I'm not really thinking these farms and shops would be owned or managed by bosses. Shops can pretty effectively run by one person or his friends and family, if not then his workers should recieve a fair cut. Farms, likewise, can be managed with very few people. I recently asked my brother about this, as he works in pork production and has many friends who are farmers, and a pair of farmers or so can effectively plow, plant and harvest up to 1000 acres, with the assistance of mechanization.

Because of this, smaller scale agriculture, and individual shops like corner groceries or delis, or hardware stores or what have you, can all be run without labor exploitation. And even if a plot of farmland SHOULD require large scale labor, that can be handled rather effectively with cooperation.

One fact that has always interested me is that in medieval England, during certain periods of manorialism, the plots of land that were given over to the serfs as their own were usually organized into strips, and these strips were seldom adjacent to one another. It made it hard to work in the fields. So instead the serfs would pool their land collectively, and altogether work on the fields, and share the harvest in accordance with how much land each person had put in. I think similar principles can work with large scale farming and voluntary cooperatives.

[Robocommie]

I think your giving infringement connotations it doesn't traditionally have but all were doing is arguing over a term. I'm not saying we should be removing human rights or doing anything besides talking away their private property rights. Besides disagreeing on some definitions I think we generally agree.

Yeah, I think so. And I can see what you mean about infringement when I think about it another way.



My larger point was that Comrade Anarchist is a blind sectarian who believes he has greater democratic ideals because he ignores actual marxist theory.He does certainly seem to be angry.

[Martin Blank]

You know, this has been on my mind a lot of the time when I'm thinking about how we'd go about if we'd finally become a communist system, & I'm talking about America of course, & that is, what would we do with congress & the senate? Would they remain & be used for the benefit of the working class, if so how? If not, then how would we go about in eliminating such a part of the system that has remained to be of one of the most importance within the U.S. system? Any logical answers would suffice, comrades. I'm just trying to find solutions out of all this, & so any answers would be greatly appreciated. :)

Historically, talk of changing the structure of the Congress is done in the context of a revolutionary-democratic upheaval, not the social (workers') revolution. Our Party's Platform, for example, states:


Abolition of the two-chamber federal legislature and bicameral state legislatures. In their place, we call for an expanded, single-chamber federal Congress and single-chamber state legislatures, with half of the body elected on the basis of one federal Representative for every 100,000 people, and one state Representative for every 20,000 people, and the other half elected on the basis of closed-list, party-recallable proportional representation.But this provision is in the context of that democratic upheaval, which we see as clearing the way for the workers' revolution and workers' republic.

For the workers' republic, which would go well beyond the confines of the existing Constitution, legislative governance would be handled through the congresses of workers' councils, organized by revolutionary industrial unions, on a local, regional/state and national (and, eventually, international) level. The revolutionary industrial unions would also convene their own congresses of industries and services, and of the whole economy, to coordinate production and the transition from the capitalist to communist mode.

In terms of a transition from either the current system to a workers' republic, or from the more democratic system outlined in our Platform, there is a value to running candidates, but under specific conditions.

Historically, self-described socialist and communist candidates run "cold" electoral campaigns. That is, they are more or less disconnected from any kind of active, ongoing non-electoral campaign, and are exercises in "party-building". (Sometimes, the electoral campaign is connected to a single-issue non-electoral campaign, but that's not fundamentally better than a purely "cold" outing.) These runs are viewed from the beginning as failures; that is, the candidates do not expect to win, and act accordingly.

This failing strategy is the first thing that needs to be scrapped. It has not worked for over 100 years, and it is insanity to think that the outcome will be any different in the future.

Workers' candidates, if they are to exist, need to: 1) be the product of a campaign or ongoing struggle that is able to draw working people into political life through avenues other than the election (i.e., the electoral campaign is a by-product of the non-electoral political struggle, not the other way around); 2) have a clear Platform that is anchored in principle (e.g., a working people's republic, revolutionary industrial unionism, etc.) but that addresses the immediate objective needs of those workers they're asking to vote for them; and, 3) be serious and professional in demeanor, and conduct their campaign in a "run-to-win" manner, even if it is unlikely they'll actually win.

It would certainly take a cataclysmic shift in the political dynamics of American capitalism to move a large section of the majority of workers who traditionally do not vote (and some of those who currently do) into the camp of a workers' electoral campaign. Stranger things have happened in history, so it is something to think about.

For us, electoral work goes hand in hand with revolutionary industrial unionism. Workers' candidates would work alongside the economic organizations, helping to organize our brothers and sisters into the industrial movement ... and, oh yeah, vote for us. If the capitalists want to claim that their electoral system is the "civilized" and "peaceful" way to go, then we'll put that to the test by using their own election cycles to openly build for a workers' republic.

And if we win? Well, that's where it gets interesting. This country already has a history of denying elected "Socialists" (self-described socialists) a seat unless they are considered housebroken (e.g., Victor Berger at the beginning of the 20th century; Bernie Sanders at the end). If our candidates were to be elected and denied their seats, we would turn to our brothers and sisters in the revolutionary industrial union and declare that the capitalists have staged a coup against their democratic rights, and therefore it is well within their right of self-defense to seize the means of production, and begin to directly control and administer them, and call a congress of their own to democratically elect their own political government. And the old government? Since it would be inherently illegitimate and anti-democratic, it would be a matter for the new workers' republic and its self-defense forces to sweep away.

On the other hand, if our candidates were elected and we were allowed to take our seats (which is something that could only really happen in a period of great instability among the exploiting and oppressing classes), we would use that as a bully pulpit to: a) promote and build revolutionary industrial unions, workers' councils and workplace committees to prepare for the workers' revolution, and b) present exemplary legislation that would foreshadow the kind of society we seek to build. We would not parlay with the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties, or caucus with them, or take positions in their executive cabinets. Our elected members would be political operatives behind enemy lines, and would act accordingly.

Should we somehow achieve a majority in such a body, we would use that position for one reason and one reason only: to symbolically "bang the gavel" on the capitalist political system. On that first day of being a majority, we would adopt three pieces of legislation: 1) one that would transfer all power to a congress of workers' councils and designate that body as the "caretaker" of the republic; 2) one that would formally dissolve and disband the armed bodies of the old capitalist state; and, 3) one that would embargo the archives of the old capitalist political structure and open up all secret treaties, agreements and legislation to public scrutiny.

Of course, the capitalist state will fight back against this, attempt to organize a counterrevolutionary coup, etc. And we would defend ourselves from these attacks; if they would not comply with the formal dissolution order, then they are taking up arms against the legitimate republic and will be put down with the same thoroughness and tenacity that the capitalist state puts down such insurrectionary actions these days.

OK, sorry. Moved a long way from your initial question, but I kinda felt I needed to. The question is a lot bigger than just the Senate, IMO.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Historically, talk of changing the structure of the Congress is done in the context of a revolutionary-democratic upheaval, not the social (workers') revolution. Our Party's Platform, for example, states:

But this provision is in the context of that democratic upheaval, which we see as clearing the way for the workers' revolution and workers' republic.

For the workers' republic, which would go well beyond the confines of the existing Constitution, legislative governance would be handled through the congresses of workers' councils, organized by revolutionary industrial unions, on a local, regional/state and national (and, eventually, international) level. The revolutionary industrial unions would also convene their own congresses of industries and services, and of the whole economy, to coordinate production and the transition from the capitalist to communist mode.

In terms of a transition from either the current system to a workers' republic, or from the more democratic system outlined in our Platform, there is a value to running candidates, but under specific conditions.

Historically, self-described socialist and communist candidates run "cold" electoral campaigns. That is, they are more or less disconnected from any kind of active, ongoing non-electoral campaign, and are exercises in "party-building". (Sometimes, the electoral campaign is connected to a single-issue non-electoral campaign, but that's not fundamentally better than a purely "cold" outing.) These runs are viewed from the beginning as failures; that is, the candidates do not expect to win, and act accordingly.

This failing strategy is the first thing that needs to be scrapped. It has not worked for over 100 years, and it is insanity to think that the outcome will be any different in the future.

Workers' candidates, if they are to exist, need to: 1) be the product of a campaign or ongoing struggle that is able to draw working people into political life through avenues other than the election (i.e., the electoral campaign is a by-product of the non-electoral political struggle, not the other way around); 2) have a clear Platform that is anchored in principle (e.g., a working people's republic, revolutionary industrial unionism, etc.) but that addresses the immediate objective needs of those workers they're asking to vote for them; and, 3) be serious and professional in demeanor, and conduct their campaign in a "run-to-win" manner, even if it is unlikely they'll actually win.

It would certainly take a cataclysmic shift in the political dynamics of American capitalism to move a large section of the majority of workers who traditionally do not vote (and some of those who currently do) into the camp of a workers' electoral campaign. Stranger things have happened in history, so it is something to think about.

For us, electoral work goes hand in hand with revolutionary industrial unionism. Workers' candidates would work alongside the economic organizations, helping to organize our brothers and sisters into the industrial movement ... and, oh yeah, vote for us. If the capitalists want to claim that their electoral system is the "civilized" and "peaceful" way to go, then we'll put that to the test by using their own election cycles to openly build for a workers' republic.

And if we win? Well, that's where it gets interesting. This country already has a history of denying elected "Socialists" (self-described socialists) a seat unless they are considered housebroken (e.g., Victor Berger at the beginning of the 20th century; Bernie Sanders at the end). If our candidates were to be elected and denied their seats, we would turn to our brothers and sisters in the revolutionary industrial union and declare that the capitalists have staged a coup against their democratic rights, and therefore it is well within their right of self-defense to seize the means of production, and begin to directly control and administer them, and call a congress of their own to democratically elect their own political government. And the old government? Since it would be inherently illegitimate and anti-democratic, it would be a matter for the new workers' republic and its self-defense forces to sweep away.

On the other hand, if our candidates were elected and we were allowed to take our seats (which is something that could only really happen in a period of great instability among the exploiting and oppressing classes), we would use that as a bully pulpit to: a) promote and build revolutionary industrial unions, workers' councils and workplace committees to prepare for the workers' revolution, and b) present exemplary legislation that would foreshadow the kind of society we seek to build. We would not parlay with the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties, or caucus with them, or take positions in their executive cabinets. Our elected members would be political operatives behind enemy lines, and would act accordingly.

Should we somehow achieve a majority in such a body, we would use that position for one reason and one reason only: to symbolically "bang the gavel" on the capitalist political system. On that first day of being a majority, we would adopt three pieces of legislation: 1) one that would transfer all power to a congress of workers' councils and designate that body as the "caretaker" of the republic; 2) one that would formally dissolve and disband the armed bodies of the old capitalist state; and, 3) one that would embargo the archives of the old capitalist political structure and open up all secret treaties, agreements and legislation to public scrutiny.

Of course, the capitalist state will fight back against this, attempt to organize a counterrevolutionary coup, etc. And we would defend ourselves from these attacks; if they would not comply with the formal dissolution order, then they are taking up arms against the legitimate republic and will be put down with the same thoroughness and tenacity that the capitalist state puts down such insurrectionary actions these days.

OK, sorry. Moved a long way from your initial question, but I kinda felt I needed to. The question is a lot bigger than just the Senate, IMO.

I believe you helped me understand what can be done a lot better than I was expecting. Thanks Comrade!

[RED DAVE]

You know, this has been on my mind a lot of the time when I'm thinking about how we'd go about if we'd finally become a communist system, & I'm talking about America of course, & that is, what would we do with congress & the senate? Would they remain & be used for the benefit of the working class, if so how? If not, then how would we go about in eliminating such a part of the system that has remained to be of one of the most importance within the U.S. system? Any logical answers would suffice, comrades. I'm just trying to find solutions out of all this, & so any answers would be greatly appreciated. :)I think that the simplest solution involves cannibalism, but who would want to eat all those old farts, even with barbecue sauce? :D

Seriously, part of the process of the establishment of socialism is the elimination of the bourgeois state, of which these two clubs for the overly privileged and underly intelligent, are part. Think of the abolition of the Constituent Assembly by the Bolshevik Government. Read Lenin's State and Revolution (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/) for a discussion of this issue.

RED DAVE

[The Vegan Marxist]

I think that the simplest solution involves cannibalism, but who would want to eat all those old farts, even with barbecue sauce? :D

Seriously, part of the process of the establishment of socialism is the elimination of the bourgeois state, of which these two clubs for the overly privileged and underly intelligent, are part. Think of the abolition of the Constituent Assembly by the Bolshevik Government. Read Lenin's State and Revolution (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/) for a discussion of this issue.

RED DAVE

Oh, I understand the transition, & what is to be done through the transition, at least in certain elements. I was merely asking on whether if the senate & congress were to remain during such transition, if so then why?, or if the senate & congress were needing to be abolished, & if so then how would we go about this.

[Floyce White]

Robocommie: "Assuming that the revolution will instantly create a utopia where money, planning and law enforcement are no longer necessary, sure, I guess."

More's Utopia had money, planning, and law enforcement. Funny how the word "Utopia" today is used to belittle whatever is said by a debate opponent--rather than to make a useful comparison.

Robocommie: "I'm not opposed to the ownership of small scale farms, or individual shops."

Yes, we all gathered that.

Comrade Anarchist: "Now you probably would need a congress if you like oppression and think that people need to be run like cattle, which all leninists, stalinists, trotskyists, marxists, pretty much every leftist form originating from marx, like"

Which explains its popularity on a message board named "Rev Left."

NeonJackRabbit: "These runs are viewed from the beginning as failures; that is, the candidates do not expect to win, and act accordingly. [To the contrary, our] elected members would be political operatives behind enemy lines, and would act accordingly."

Electioneering always "works" even when the candidates lose. Any type of perpetual campaigning burns out a small number of comrades of very high consciousness in order to recruit a larger number of comrades of very low consciousness. There is no question whether election campaigning works. The question is whether it would save any time getting to the revolution compared to a strictly nonelectoral party that retained its most-energetic members by not abusing their selflessness.

One could imagine an entire generation of revolutionary youth being steered toward law school as the first step in grooming the party's budding cadre of government employees and career politicians. Well, how else are they supposed to be "seriously" qualified to beat run-of-the-mill bourgeois candidates for water board and tax assessor? US Senators don't just magically appear from nowhere--they are carefully crafted over entire lifetimes and even over several generations. Angry poor youth are all wrong for this; besides, those "lumpen" don't have the "proletarian discipline" to get high grade point averages. Much better to recruit "pro'ized" petty bourgeois youth whose parents prepped them to be professionals. In this way, the "workers' party" will have the correct political operatives who will help the party reach the proper level of consciousness.

The worst consequences are those that could be easily foretold but aren't.

[Robocommie]

Yes, we all gathered that.


Oh, I'm sorry, was my conversation with another poster annoying you? You have some gall.

[Martin Blank]

Electioneering always "works" even when the candidates lose. Any type of perpetual campaigning burns out a small number of comrades of very high consciousness in order to recruit a larger number of comrades of very low consciousness. There is no question whether election campaigning works. The question is whether it would save any time getting to the revolution compared to a strictly nonelectoral party that retained its most-energetic members by not abusing their selflessness.

Did you read every fifth word of what I wrote, or did you just use the Force to generate your reply? I never suggested "perpetual campaigning"; in fact, I was commenting on the foolishness of "perennial candidacies" like those run by the Greens, SP, SWP, PSL, WWP, SEP, etc. (I'll leave the utter reformism of those efforts aside for now.)


One could imagine an entire generation of revolutionary youth being steered toward law school as the first step in grooming the party's budding cadre of government employees and career politicians. Well, how else are they supposed to be "seriously" qualified to beat run-of-the-mill bourgeois candidates for water board and tax assessor? US Senators don't just magically appear from nowhere--they are carefully crafted over entire lifetimes and even over several generations. Angry poor youth are all wrong for this; besides, those "lumpen" don't have the "proletarian discipline" to get high grade point averages. Much better to recruit "pro'ized" petty bourgeois youth whose parents prepped them to be professionals. In this way, the "workers' party" will have the correct political operatives who will help the party reach the proper level of consciousness.

Floyce, you sometimes amaze me. You really do. You crawl out from under your rock, skim over a post and then post an epic reply that is either: a) completely pointless to the discussion, or b) nothing more than flamebait and trolling. The above qualifies as the latter. I'd like to give in to the "Oh, no, you didn't!" moment you just started, but I have better things to do.

If you decide to join the conversation, instead of just flinging poo from the next yard (or next universe), let me know. And I mean that sincerely, one worker to another.

[Floyce White]

NeonJackRabbit: "I never suggested 'perpetual campaigning'; in fact, I was commenting on the foolishness of 'perennial candidacies' like those run by the Greens, SP, SWP, PSL, WWP, SEP, etc. (I'll leave the utter reformism of those efforts aside for now.)"

Yes, of course I understood that. I was not comparing your plan to various types of insincere efforts. I was referring to the fact that elections happen every year for various positions. Additionally, there are special elections and petitioning for ballot propositions. Add in fund raisers before and after campaigns, lawsuits and lawsuit-support activity around these efforts, and we're talking one after another labor-intensive campaign. That's why I suggest that electoral parties, by their very nature, have perpetual campaigning. So do other types of activity, such as interventionism falsely raised from a tactic to a strategy--but that's beside the point.

I added that perpetual campaigning is so fatiguing that the most-dedicated comrades feel abused and quit. These experienced comrades may or may not have any one major strength or weakness, but the newbies who replace them certainly come with an entrenched illusion about elected government that is reinforced in any electoral party.

NeonJackRabbit: "...pointless to the discussion..."

No serious electoral movement would try to run ordinary worker-activists as candidates for California Governor, US Congress, or even for school board. A serious electoral movement would develop these workers' credibility. For sure, the working class had a century and more of experience with leftism and didn't like what it saw. The working class will be highly skeptical that the party is serious about running the country.

To duly administer according to law, the candidates would have to understand the law. (Serious officials wouldn't get sued for incompetence.) At first, the candidates for low offices would need at least some experience working as paralegals, office staff for officials, or the like. As the party grows and goes after more and more elected positions, young comrades would have to be prepared for high offices with graduate degrees in law and with experience in minor offices.

Is this pointless or easily predictable?

Well then, how many positions are we talking about? Over a thousand high posts and tens of thousands of low posts in the USA alone. Comrades would have to get paralegal jobs, internships, and government staff jobs when they finished college. How many legal jobs are we talking about? Unless you think that the party will have a 100% rate of recruitment, retention, and advancement, we're talking about hundreds of thousands, perhaps over a million young supporters who must start along the legal path in order to feed those tens of thousands of low elected and appointed positions.

How will the party recruit and motivate youth to do this? Certainly, angry poor youth rebel against the institution of school. Their poverty also interferes with their ability to get high grades. Public high schools, community colleges, and indifferent state universities don't prepare them for highly competitive admission to law schools.

I must stress that we're not talking about a hard cadre of long-time activists with high morale and proven dedication. We're talking about teenagers and early-to-mid-twenties youth who would be mostly around the periphery of the organized workers' movement. To succeed at getting as many supporters as possible to get into the legal field, the party would have to make a major point of advising youth to concentrate on college and professional studies as their best contribution to the struggle.

Is this pointless or easily predictable?

All right then. Among the youth who hear this message, which ones will most readily follow it? Which youth will most easily adapt to professional studies? Which ones will most successfully launch their legal careers? Of course, the petty-bourgeois youth from professional families.

With the consciousness of the party ever lowering, ever more favoring its weakness of illusions about elected government, and facing an awful shortage of youth who could be sent along legal careers, could opening party membership to "proletarianized" persons of petty-bourgeois family origin be far behind? As they win more and more elected positions, how could they be left out of party central/executive committees? They couldn't be.

Easily, easily predictable.

Again I ask, how does this party bring the revolution one day closer than building a strictly nonelectoral party?

[FSL]

No serious electoral movement would try to run ordinary worker-activists as candidates for California Governor, US Congress, or even for school board. A serious electoral movement would develop these workers' credibility. For sure, the working class had a century and more of experience with leftism and didn't like what it saw. The working class will be highly skeptical that the party is serious about running the country.

To duly administer according to law, the candidates would have to understand the law. (Serious officials wouldn't get sued for incompetence.) At first, the candidates for low offices would need at least some experience working as paralegals, office staff for officials, or the like. As the party grows and goes after more and more elected positions, young comrades would have to be prepared for high offices with graduate degrees in law and with experience in minor offices.


Again I ask, how does this party bring the revolution one day closer than building a strictly nonelectoral party?


Your argument would be great if it wasn't completely wrong.

What you think any serious electoral movement would do is your thoughts on the subject and not much more. For example, the communist party here has MPs who are construction workers or others employed in the steel industry. Of course, there are accountants etc, generally people reflecting the composition of today's working class. And it would be hard for anything different to happen when 80% of the party's congress delegates are wage laborers.

Your idea that it is somehow imperative to only have educated lawyers run for office is untrue. You're giving the official's job a bit too much credit if you think that years of preparation are needed to attempt to promote working class interests.

[Floyce White]

What you think any serious electoral movement would do is your thoughts on the subject and not much more.

All posts are the posters' "thoughts on the subject." Knocking any post on that basis is nihilism.


For example, the communist party here has MPs who are construction workers or others employed in the steel industry.

First, the CP is a petty-bourgeois party--not the workers' party. I have serious doubts about the revolution-mindedness of any candidate on its slate. The bourgeoisie has nothing to fear from a CP-vetted candidate.

Second, the CP's ability to get some apparent worker-activist types elected to some fairly high posts in Italy does not necessary translate into what it would take to get a candidate elected to a similar office in the US. Here, a candidate must get an absolute majority in a local race to get into Congress. There is no national vote pool with proportional division of parliament. Also, the local districts are gerrymandered to favor the party that had more seats in Congress during the last census. Incumbents are very difficult to defeat. Very few districts fail to include some well-off areas with higher voter participation.


Of course, there are accountants etc, generally people reflecting the composition of today's working class. And it would be hard for anything different to happen when 80% of the party's congress delegates are wage laborers.

Occupation doesn't determine class. Merely having a job, being an employee, doesn't determine class. There are plenty of petty bourgeois who have day jobs--especially the better-paying, more-benefits jobs--and that's not even considering those who work in their own businesses.

Another view would be to say that the lower-income census tracts (neighborhoods) have proportionally lower voter turnout. A polarization due to political crisis would mobilize the bourgeois vote--not the vote of the poor. The election of the elder Bush on racist criminalization rhetoric, followed by antiracist, anti-police-brutality rioting in Los Angeles, is the reality of the US. The winner-take-all process here could not stand significant worker participation. Worker participation here must be diluted into a "classless" mass of "voters" ("consumers," etc.).


Your idea that it is somehow imperative to only have educated lawyers run for office is untrue. You're giving the official's job a bit too much credit if you think that years of preparation are needed to attempt to promote working class interests.

I never said that government officials could promote working-class interests. In fact, I say the opposite. Police, courts, jails, and other organs of government are institutions of terrorism by the propertied against the dispossessed. These institutions cannot be reformed, revolutionized, or in any other way changed into being workers' self-organization and self-mobilization.

The people who are best able to administer offices are those who have a working knowledge of law and the legal process. If the occasional clown gets elected with some rhetoric of being "against the system," such as Schwarzenegger, that does not define the typical minimum credentials for electible candidates in NONREVOLUTIONARY situations. The decades of steady work in electioneering to build up a voter following is not a "prolonged revolutionary situation."

By the way, I would not have selected this point for discussion if I did not both believe it to be very instructive, and believe that I had the point beaten ten ways to Sunday.

[Martin Blank]

I distilled this into its most salient points:


No serious electoral movement would try to run ordinary worker-activists as candidates for California Governor, US Congress, or even for school board.... To duly administer according to law, the candidates would have to understand the law.... Comrades would have to get paralegal jobs, internships, and government staff jobs when they finished college.... Certainly, angry poor youth rebel against the institution of school. Their poverty also interferes with their ability to get high grades.

Translation: Workers and working-class youth are too poor, too wild and too stupid to either learn the law on their own or be serious candidates against the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties, and still be working class. So, screw it.


Among the youth who hear this message, which ones will most readily follow it? Which youth will most easily adapt to professional studies? Which ones will most successfully launch their legal careers? Of course, the petty-bourgeois youth from professional families.

Such elements are not allowed through the door of our organization, so it's not going to happen. Working people are intelligent enough to be able to understand what you need to know and what it takes to be a serious candidate. Sorry you don't see it that way -- that you still think workers need bourgeois and petty-bourgeois "handlers" and "managers" to secure their liberation, or even carry out specific tactical actions like electoral campaigns.

I can see how the School of Petty-Bourgeois Leftism has shaped your viewpoint, even now.

[Guerrilla22]

we would restructure the government adn scrap the federal system for a centralized one.

[The Vegan Marxist]

How does everyone feel we can get by through the transition from socialism to communism (dictatorship of the proletariat)? Do you feel we must make sure there is 100% democracy before or during the achievement of socialism before we are to start the 'dictatorship', for to make things easier for the workers & to make sure they cooperate through this transition, they would need as many rights as they can, & democracy grants that for them. And how do you feel we would be able to control the state to the point where it'll allow itself to wither away instead of harnessing it's power over the workers & lose all that we fought for?

[Martin Blank]

How does everyone feel we can get by through the transition from socialism to communism (dictatorship of the proletariat)? Do you feel we must make sure there is 100% democracy before or during the achievement of socialism before we are to start the 'dictatorship', for to make things easier for the workers & to make sure they cooperate through this transition, they would need as many rights as they can, & democracy grants that for them. And how do you feel we would be able to control the state to the point where it'll allow itself to wither away instead of harnessing it's power over the workers & lose all that we fought for?

The use of the term "dictatorship" by Marx was in the Roman sense: unchallenged rule. Having a "proletarian dictatorship" and full democratic rights for working people are not mutually exclusive. But it's a matter of how those rights are concretized -- i.e., how their exercise is translated into the real world.

I would say, though, that those rights -- and democracy in general -- should be directly connected to being working class. For example, voting would be conducted at workplaces among the workforce, so if you choose to not work, you don't get to vote. (Allowances for unemployed [as long as they continue to exist, which probably wouldn't be long after the actual revolution], disabled and retired workers will be made, of course.) Access to meeting halls, printing equipment, etc., would be freely available to workers via workplace committees that are a part of revolutionary industrial unions, and exchanges would be naturally worked out between workplaces and friendly organizations to make sure that full and unfettered access for all workers is available.

For those in the dispossessed classes -- the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie -- they can gain their full democratic rights by integrating themselves into the working class. They can get jobs, work for a while, give up the last trappings of an exploiters' existence and eventually gain all the rights of a citizen by becoming working class.

As for the "state", whatever there is of such a thing after the revolution and establishment of a workers' republic -- the collection of military, paramilitary and self-defense organizations used to defeat the bourgeois/petty-bourgeois counterrevolution(s), and collection of public safety and investigative organizations that keep the peace and investigate crimes -- would be phased out as they are no longer needed by the workplace committees and workers' councils that have jurisdiction over them. With revolutionary industrial unionism as the foundation for the workers' republic, the working class as a whole has control over these bodies and can disband them when they are no longer necessary -- which would ultimately be when classes and class antagonisms have themselves been abolished, and we've entered the first phase of classless, communist society.

Admittedly, though, certain investigative elements might remain in place, in case some psycho decided to hack someone up into little bits and wear their skin as clothing or something. One of those elements can then go to a local workplace committee or workers' council (or similar successor administrative body) and ask for an ad hoc arresting team, composed of individuals trained in the correct arresting techniques, to be sent to apprehend the offender.

[Lynx]

American Congress and its Senate are failed institutions. We need to replace the system of representitve democracy with direct democracy as soon as possible.
This. Politicians and political parties serve no purpose within a direct democratic model.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Hold your breath there! Define "representative" and "party."

Proper parties play a key role in participatory democracy, which also incorporates a more accurate rendition of representation.

[Lynx]

The OP refers to the "demo"cratic system we have now, which is neither representative or participatory, by design.

[Floyce White]

NeonJackRabbit: "Should we somehow achieve a majority in such a body, we would use that position for one reason and one reason only: to symbolically 'bang the gavel' on the capitalist political system. On that first day of being a majority, we would adopt three pieces of legislation..."

As soon as any legislation is enacted, Congress pretty much loses control over it. For example, the consumer protection statutes in 15 USC 1666 are administered by the Federal Trade Commission, which is part of the Executive Branch. The FTC recommends guiding language over its enforcement that becomes part of a shadow body of pseudo-law called the Code of Federal Regulations. Meanwhile, any person (including a fictitious entity such as a corporation) is free to sue the US or any other person in United States District Courts. Those courts and the US Courts of Appeal are part of the Legislative Branch. Appeal court rulings themselves may be appealed to the Supreme Court, which is the Judicial Branch. If one of the States is sued that State must be sued in that same State's courts. State courts are not under the jurisdiction of the US Government, so Federal laws are interpreted differently--and State courts routinely take up Federal issues even when that State isn't a litigant. Verdicts may be issued by juries, but only rulings by judges become common law that influences other rulings.

In other words, the plan to "bang the gavel" most likely would be tripped up by affected officials dragging their feet, by enforcement officials refusing to take action without first having CFR guidelines, and by a flurry of lawsuits in which some judges order a stay of execution of those new laws.

The Chief Executive, the President of the United States, has the special emergency powers to recall the armed forces and such. Merely winning a presidential election and issuing executive orders would not prevent foot-dragging by bureaucrats, would not command enforcement, and would not prevent lawsuits. An isolated President could accomplish nothing. However, if the Presidency and a majority of both Houses was garnered, I could imagine some procedural expediency that would reduce the need to issue executive orders. To do this would require thousands of comrades ready to be appointed to high offices--same as if a new administration were throwing spoils to its friends. Any electoral party with that much support could and should take as many state and local positions as possible--to assist with the nationwide effort. What's the point of Federal action if the States rule the new laws null and void?

So that's the "tens of thousands" I referred to. Those comrades would need the help of many tens or hundreds of thousands of government-worker comrades. In other words, a well-rounded effort involving the participation of masses both in and out of government, and not a superficial coup d'etat fantasy.

Any electoral party that could sweep the nation in, say 2024, could likely win many seats in the midterms of 2022, and could make a respectable showing in several elections before then. Participating in elections before 2024 would give the party valuable experience in campaigning, prevent costly mistakes, and make propaganda. Any party that is serious about winning elections would not pass up opportunities to gain practical experience.

The needed number of activists is staggering. Your group's plan pretty much requires that a whole generation of comrades would need to learn everything learnable, and would need to do everything doable, on the way to building a mass movement in a government-oriented sense (such as the Civil Rights Movement became).

NeonJackRabbit: "Working people are intelligent enough to be able to understand what you need to know and what it takes to be a serious candidate."

Intelligence is not knowledge. Intelligence is not experience. Comrades who are thoroughly knowledgeable and experienced in grassroots activism, but who are ignorant and inexperienced in law and government, lack what it takes to be a serious candidate.

NeonJackRabbit: [Yet further distilled] "working-class youth are too poor, too wild and too stupid to...learn the law on their own"

I don't see why you think I'm being uncomradely or intractable. Now, some of my facts could be in error, and some of my conclusions could be mistaken. If so, please point them out. But as far as my experience tells me, everything about law is counterintuitive. Logic doesn't apply. Common sense doesn't apply. There is no substitute to learning it by rote memorization and though legal practice. Where can ordinary worker-activists practice law? Nowhere. The only place to learn law is in law school and in professional practice.

It's not a matter of stupidity. It's a matter of holy ground reserved only for clerics.

Regarding school, college courses are exercises in using the model or shell provided as a means to explore a topic. The poorer the family, the more rebellious the young comrade, the more likely that he or she will focus on criticizing the model and the topic rather than having a disinterested relation. The very organization of school is so designed to utterly distract anyone who isn't completely cynical, hypocritical, and apathetic. That is, anyone who isn't bourgeois.

[Martin Blank]

In other words, the plan to "bang the gavel" most likely would be tripped up by affected officials dragging their feet, by enforcement officials refusing to take action without first having CFR guidelines, and by a flurry of lawsuits in which some judges order a stay of execution of those new laws.

Given that one of the three pieces is handing power to the revolutionary industrial unions, by way of the workers' councils and workplace committees, all those layers of local, state and federal officials no longer matter. Power rests in the hands of the working class and its organs, which was the whole point of what we were doing anyway. The judges can adjudicate, the bureaucrats can whinge, the lawyers can fill out meaningless paperwork until their hands cramp up. None of it matters the moment the gavel falls.


Intelligence is not knowledge. Intelligence is not experience. Comrades who are thoroughly knowledgeable and experienced in grassroots activism, but who are ignorant and inexperienced in law and government, lack what it takes to be a serious candidate.

And what prevents working people from reading a law book on their own? What prevents them from engaging in rehearsals, exercises and training among themselves? You act as if the only options are to go through "official" institutions and channels to learn these things.


I don't see why you think I'm being uncomradely or intractable. Now, some of my facts could be in error, and some of my conclusions could be mistaken. If so, please point them out.

Please see above.


Where can ordinary worker-activists practice law? Nowhere. The only place to learn law is in law school and in professional practice.

It's not a matter of stupidity. It's a matter of holy ground reserved only for clerics.

I disagree. I think you're accepting the line of the petty bourgeoisie when it comes to learning this material -- that they're the "experts" and they are needed.


The very organization of school is so designed to utterly distract anyone who isn't completely cynical, hypocritical, and apathetic. That is, anyone who isn't bourgeois.

And that's why there are other avenues for learning.

[Floyce White]

NeonJackRabbit: "Given that one of the three pieces is handing power to the revolutionary industrial unions, by way of the workers' councils and workplace committees, all those layers of local, state and federal officials no longer matter. Power rests in the hands of the working class and its organs, which was the whole point of what we were doing anyway. The judges can adjudicate, the bureaucrats can whinge, the lawyers can fill out meaningless paperwork until their hands cramp up. None of it matters the moment the gavel falls."

But you said that a serious movement would do things seriously. With apparent control of government in their hands, experienced comrades might not agree with getting elected just to make a symbolic vote and walk out. State election officials will just declare that the Democratic or Republican election losers become the Representatives, and they'll go on with business as usual. Remember, the communist Representatives merely VOTED those things. Nobody on the government side ever went along with it. The military won't be disbanded--and if some return from overseas, it will be to attack the uprising. The revolutionary industrial unions will have no mandate according to bourgeois law--and no workers will believe that the symbolic vote was ever intended to be anything but a signal to start an uprising.

Since surprise is needed for a successful initiation of armed struggle, why rob the workers of surprise? All these paroxysms about elections and symbolic votes are not necessary for workers to decide that an overthrow of the government might be the best thing to do.

To tell the bourgeoisie the plan so far in advance means that your group never actually intends to carry out this plan. It's just your group telling yourselves that you found some clever technicality to avoid being called seditious or to avoid the anti-CP laws. Isn't that right?

NeonJackRabbit: "And what prevents working people from reading a law book on their own? What prevents them from engaging in rehearsals, exercises and training among themselves? You act as if the only options are to go through 'official' institutions and channels to learn these things."

You seem to be proposing that a few hundred comrades will learn only enough about government to not look like fools when they're campaigning for their one-and-only-one run for offices. Sure, that's easy. Actually learning law, learning to practice law, and learning the practice of government, that takes years of effort. Please remember that I did say that the first comrades in the long-term electioneering effort would most likely be paralegals and government employees.

NeonJackRabbit: "I think you're accepting the line of the petty bourgeoisie when it comes to learning this material--that they're the 'experts' and they are needed."

If someone told you that you'd need to know what is a Cleco clamp before you could build an airplane, you could go to the Internet and find out what the word means. Same if someone told you that you'd need an Acco to file a lawsuit. But knowing what the word means hardly prepares you to build an airplane or file a lawsuit. Abstract book learning without hands-on practice is just as useless to running electoral campaigns as it is for armchair revolutionaries to discuss theory (or moderate discussions of theory).

NeonJackRabbit: "And that's why there are other avenues for learning."

To become a lawyer, all you have to do is pass the state bar exam. There are self-taught lawyers. But holding some party educationals is not really the same as preparing masses of teenage and early 20s non-members, supporters, and periphery to get into the legal field. I'm not going to read a couple of books and then think I know all the dos and don'ts of being the treasurer of a campaign for US Senate.

Again, a few hundred comrades trying to get elected once to only the highest positions is pie in the sky. Many comrades are going to ignore the part about just running once, and are going to demand a serious, long-term committment to electioneering as the way to eventually accomplish that one critical win.

Many comrades will see it as I do. If your group is so serious about denying the bourgeoisie their cloak that "everybody" goes along with capitalism, why do it halfway? The elected representatives could go ahead and pass constutional amendments, rescind whole titles of code, reorganize the executive branch, put the courts entirely under the judiciary, and so forth. With the standing army disbanded, the police alone are not numerous enough to stage a coup. Comrades in state and local government could take similar efforts to disband the National Guard and to cripple the police.

What would prevent the party from doing it? Or rather, what characteristic of election-oriented activism prevented this from ever happening before?

The deep-seated illusion in democracy as the supposedly preferable method of social conduct is instilled in the lower class through years of education and propaganda. If that illusion cannot be destroyed through the party's educational and propaganda work, the revolution is without hope. If the only way to bring the working class to communism is to sugar coat it with constitutional democracy, then anyone could win the working class to reaction by sugar coating that with constitutional democracy.

I shouldn't have to paraphrase Luxembourg to make my point.

You today, in a tiny group, can build that group of workers only, and I agree. However, a near-mass party in a period of apparently easy advances, a party with mostly new members who hold much deeper illusions than those who learned their politics in difficult, nonelectoral struggles, those new comrades might "majority vote" to allow "proletarianized" petty bourgeois professionals into the party. (No doubt, along with sympathizers and careerists and others who shouldn't yet or ever be members.) And this is really the issue, isn't it. The purported need to achieve showpiece "majorities" is itself a symptom of parliamentarism. That shortcoming can only corrupt the party from within and without. Creating phony issues or phony solutions, bringing them to a vote, and then using the "majority decision" as a foothold to eventually achieve some goal that itself will never be voted upon--this is the real purpose of parliamentarism.

In its essence and in its function, democracy is the most-dishonest system of social interaction, because it denies the always-coexisting undemocratic conditions in those issues that are not voted upon, not discussed, repressed, or taboo. Rather than pandering to it, we should openly state our opposition to both democracy and undemocracy, and raise the level of discussion and consciousness above the bourgeoisie's false dilemma of "democracy or dictatorship."

If the majority of comrades will want to develop electioneering in the long term, a salient fault of the plan is that it says that it's not good enough for workers to build their own organizations, to prepare to take over workplaces, housing, stores, and military bases. No. Workers must also dominate the organization of the bourgeoisie. The plan might as well be that workers need to become military officers so that they can stage a coup, that workers must join the Masons, civic, philanthropic, and artistic organizations, so that they can dominate culture, that workers must become business executives so that they can be "operatives behind enemy lines" for strikes, and so on. Such an argument is specious on its face: proletarians aren't capitalists. Which is exactly why workers are ill-equipped to become lawyers and practice law, and go on to be government careerists. The methods, goals, practices, and organizations of the capitalists are totally alien to working-class existence. Workers cannot succeed at being some sort of capitalists-without-capital.

If the centerpiece of your group's plan is workers' self-organization and self-mobilization, why spoil it with a last-minute worry about workers with low consciousness who aren't yet involved? Win them over with success not hesitation.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I distilled this into its most salient points:


No serious electoral movement would try to run ordinary worker-activists as candidates for California Governor, US Congress, or even for school board.... To duly administer according to law, the candidates would have to understand the law.... Comrades would have to get paralegal jobs, internships, and government staff jobs when they finished college.... Certainly, angry poor youth rebel against the institution of school. Their poverty also interferes with their ability to get high grades.

Translation: Workers and working-class youth are too poor, too wild and too stupid to either learn the law on their own or be serious candidates against the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties, and still be working class. So, screw it.

Perhaps this is off-topic, but does his mention of paralegal jobs and internships raise the question of productive vs. unproductive work? :confused:

I agree with you, though: laws like the Income Tax Act can be learned without entering the law profession.

[Martin Blank]

But you said that a serious movement would do things seriously. With apparent control of government in their hands, experienced comrades might not agree with getting elected just to make a symbolic vote and walk out. State election officials will just declare that the Democratic or Republican election losers become the Representatives, and they'll go on with business as usual. Remember, the communist Representatives merely VOTED those things. Nobody on the government side ever went along with it. The military won't be disbanded--and if some return from overseas, it will be to attack the uprising. The revolutionary industrial unions will have no mandate according to bourgeois law--and no workers will believe that the symbolic vote was ever intended to be anything but a signal to start an uprising.

The "experienced comrades" would have been elected on a platform of "banging the gavel" on capitalism. They would understand in advance that the working class has demanded the unconditional surrender of the ruling classes, both through the organization of revolutionary industrial unions (including workplace committees and workers' councils) and, just to put the exclamation mark on the end of it, through the class enemies' own "civilized" and "peaceful" electoral system. And there's no doubt that there would be campaigns on all levels designed to transmit the message that capitalist rule is being replaced by workers' rule through the revolutionary industrial unions, workplace committees and workers' councils. However, such a victory on a national scale -- which can only be the product of severely weakened, disorganized and disoriented ruling classes -- would be enough to make the will of the working-class majority clear.

The will of the majority is the paramount issue here, and the working class will override local and state regimes that attempt to subvert the majority -- through their control of the means of production and distribution; through their organization into workers' councils; through their exercise of the right to self-defense (including armed self-defense).


Since surprise is needed for a successful initiation of armed struggle, why rob the workers of surprise? All these paroxysms about elections and symbolic votes are not necessary for workers to decide that an overthrow of the government might be the best thing to do.

Surprise is most useful for tactical movement, not strategic development. But more important to a workers' strategy is organization, preparation and a balance of forces advantageous to the working class. In the end, all of those things are developed in the open. By the time a successful electoral campaign can be held, the revolutionary workers' movement would already number in the millions, be organized in every city and town of significant size, and it would have already fought several successful battles against the exploiting and oppressing classes. At this point, to talk of surprise is almost laughable. The thought of a secret "conspiracy" to set the time of a revolution virtually counterrevolutionary.

And it is worth pointing out here that, for us, participation in elections is a tactic, a potential tool to be used to advance the overall strategy of organizing revolutionary industrial unions, worker-controlled social and municipal services, and a "culture of liberation" within the workers' movement -- in other words, building the new world within the shell of the old.


To tell the bourgeoisie the plan so far in advance means that your group never actually intends to carry out this plan. It's just your group telling yourselves that you found some clever technicality to avoid being called seditious or to avoid the anti-CP laws. Isn't that right?

Silly rabbit, tricks are for kids.

As I pointed out above, the moment you start engaging in serious mass organizing, you're telegraphing your moves. The only way to truly keep everything a secret and have complete surprise when you initiate an armed struggle is to organize a coup d'etat among a small society of close adherents. Now, pulling that off successfully in a country the size of the United States, that's some trick!


You seem to be proposing that a few hundred comrades will learn only enough about government to not look like fools when they're campaigning for their one-and-only-one run for offices. Sure, that's easy. Actually learning law, learning to practice law, and learning the practice of government, that takes years of effort. Please remember that I did say that the first comrades in the long-term electioneering effort would most likely be paralegals and government employees.

...

If someone told you that you'd need to know what is a Cleco clamp before you could build an airplane, you could go to the Internet and find out what the word means. Same if someone told you that you'd need an Acco to file a lawsuit. But knowing what the word means hardly prepares you to build an airplane or file a lawsuit. Abstract book learning without hands-on practice is just as useless to running electoral campaigns as it is for armchair revolutionaries to discuss theory (or moderate discussions of theory).

And if we were looking at running later this year or in 2012, you might have a point. But we're not, so you don't.


To become a lawyer, all you have to do is pass the state bar exam. There are self-taught lawyers. But holding some party educationals is not really the same as preparing masses of teenage and early 20s non-members, supporters, and periphery to get into the legal field.

Well, that's one for the "Duh!" file. (Here's a general rule, Floyce: Try being less condescending, and you'll get less of an ascerbic response.)


I'm not going to read a couple of books and then think I know all the dos and don'ts of being the treasurer of a campaign for US Senate.

Why? That's all I had to read when I did that job. The FEC's manuals on campaign financing and reporting are pretty easy to read, and they explain the processes you have to follow fairly well. And if you have questions, you can actually call them and ask (did that once or twice, just to be safe -- and didn't have to say who I was representing).

Oh, and for the record, it's not a full-time gig; you can do it while working a regular full-time job ... like I did.


Again, a few hundred comrades trying to get elected once to only the highest positions is pie in the sky. Many comrades are going to ignore the part about just running once, and are going to demand a serious, long-term committment to electioneering as the way to eventually accomplish that one critical win.

And if running in elections was more of a strategy than a tactic for us, you might be right. But it's not, so you're not.


Many comrades will see it as I do. If your group is so serious about denying the bourgeoisie their cloak that "everybody" goes along with capitalism, why do it halfway? The elected representatives could go ahead and pass constutional amendments, rescind whole titles of code, reorganize the executive branch, put the courts entirely under the judiciary, and so forth. With the standing army disbanded, the police alone are not numerous enough to stage a coup. Comrades in state and local government could take similar efforts to disband the National Guard and to cripple the police.

You're confusing goals. What you're describing above is a democratic revolution, not a workers' revolution. We can discuss tactics and strategies in a democratic revolution, if you'd like. But that's not what we're discussing here.


What would prevent the party from doing it? Or rather, what characteristic of election-oriented activism prevented this from ever happening before?

For the party, it's its principles and program. For the characteristic,... well, I'm not talking about "election-oriented activism", since I think that's a failed method (as evidenced by the bodies of leftist candidates littering the last century). I'm advocating something that could more accurately be called "organizing-oriented campaigning" -- i.e., electoral campaigns that are a component of larger non-electoral organizing efforts.

We're not mindless "activists", running from event to event and watering down our politics to match what we think "the masses" will accept (which leads to doing nothing more than begging the bosses for crumbs). We are conscious organizers, seeking to build a revolutionary workers' movement through the organizing of revolutionary industrial unions (and not afraid to use a diverse array of tactics as part of that organizing to defeat capitalist rule).


The deep-seated illusion in democracy as the supposedly preferable method of social conduct is instilled in the lower class through years of education and propaganda. If that illusion cannot be destroyed through the party's educational and propaganda work, the revolution is without hope. If the only way to bring the working class to communism is to sugar coat it with constitutional democracy, then anyone could win the working class to reaction by sugar coating that with constitutional democracy.

And again, if that was what we were advocating or doing, you might have a point. But since that is not what we are advocating or doing, you don't.

There is this incredibly ridiculous notion that continues to persist in elements of the left that by participating in activities like elections or in organizations like business unions one is automatically either lending it legitimacy or sowing illusions in it, regardless of what one does in those activities or organizations. I honestly think I've lost count of how many times I've heard this argument, and how many times I've found myself laughing at it.

If there was one thing that Trotsky can be credited for -- something that overshadows his more idiotic writings and his more criminal actions -- it is his astute and insightful observation that sectarianism is opportunism afraid of itself. Here we see that methodological gem in a palpable form. Floyce argues that participating in electoral politics requires both petty-bourgeois "experts" knowledgeable in the ways of the bourgeoisie and propping up illusions in the exploiters' views of "democracy", so it's best to just avoid the whole thing. Why is this? Is it really history proving his point? Or is it more a case of history exposing his method?

History shows that not all those elected through a bourgeois system turn out to be parliamentary cretins or prop up illusions in capitalism's "democracy". Only those who begin from that standpoint (such as total and "practical" reformists) fulfill that prophecy. So what does it say about someone who sees such an outcome as inevitable? Are they ignoring history? Or, are they seeing something of themselves in those parliamentary cretins, and recoil in horror at the image of their doppelganger?

Communists can use the bourgeois electoral system to expose it for what it is: an anti-democratic institution designed to maintain the rule of the exploiting and oppressing classes. But as Floyce points out, book-learning alone doesn't accomplish the task. Experience is the best teacher. Thus, by utilizing the tactic of running in elections, we can expose the lie that elections are inherently "democratic", that they allow for "peaceful transition of power", that they are "civilized". And on the off-chance that the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie are so weak, so discredited, so disorganized and so disoriented that a workers' party can sweep into power, we know what we're going to do when we get there.


I shouldn't have to paraphrase Luxembourg to make my point.

It wouldn't mean shit to me if you did ... or didn't. Your powers of regurgitation won't work on me because I don't live or die by quotations ripped from their historical context.


You today, in a tiny group, can build that group of workers only, and I agree. However, a near-mass party in a period of apparently easy advances, a party with mostly new members who hold much deeper illusions than those who learned their politics in difficult, nonelectoral struggles, those new comrades might "majority vote" to allow "proletarianized" petty bourgeois professionals into the party. (No doubt, along with sympathizers and careerists and others who shouldn't yet or ever be members.) And this is really the issue, isn't it. The purported need to achieve showpiece "majorities" is itself a symptom of parliamentarism. That shortcoming can only corrupt the party from within and without. Creating phony issues or phony solutions, bringing them to a vote, and then using the "majority decision" as a foothold to eventually achieve some goal that itself will never be voted upon--this is the real purpose of parliamentarism.

See above ... then recoil in fear at how you look in the mirror.


In its essence and in its function, democracy is the most-dishonest system of social interaction, because it denies the always-coexisting undemocratic conditions in those issues that are not voted upon, not discussed, repressed, or taboo. Rather than pandering to it, we should openly state our opposition to both democracy and undemocracy, and raise the level of discussion and consciousness above the bourgeoisie's false dilemma of "democracy or dictatorship."

Rule 1: See above.

Rule 2: If still confused, see Rule 1.


If the majority of comrades will want to develop electioneering in the long term, a salient fault of the plan is that it says that it's not good enough for workers to build their own organizations, to prepare to take over workplaces, housing, stores, and military bases. No. Workers must also dominate the organization of the bourgeoisie. The plan might as well be that workers need to become military officers so that they can stage a coup, that workers must join the Masons, civic, philanthropic, and artistic organizations, so that they can dominate culture, that workers must become business executives so that they can be "operatives behind enemy lines" for strikes, and so on. Such an argument is specious on its face: proletarians aren't capitalists. Which is exactly why workers are ill-equipped to become lawyers and practice law, and go on to be government careerists. The methods, goals, practices, and organizations of the capitalists are totally alien to working-class existence. Workers cannot succeed at being some sort of capitalists-without-capital.

Wow. That image of your opportunist self gets uglier and uglier with every paragraph. I'm amazed,... and a little frightened myself at what you could become.


If the centerpiece of your group's plan is workers' self-organization and self-mobilization, why spoil it with a last-minute worry about workers with low consciousness who aren't yet involved? Win them over with success not hesitation.

Wait! What?! I've heard of making two mutually-contradictory arguments before breakfast, but in the same sentence?

It is precisely because our plan is workers' self-organization and self-mobilization that we are concerned with the woefully-infinitesimal state of what can be called the "vanguard of the working class" -- by which we mean that section of the working class that agrees with Marx's three criteria from the Communist Manifesto: "formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat".

Our goal is to win the majority of the working class -- preferably the overwhelming majority of the working class -- to at least these three points, and that, in the process, win a majority of them to the perspective of the communist workers' party (perhaps not as members, but at least as supporters). Our strategy of revolutionary industrial unionism, of organizing an all-encompassing revolutionary workers' movement based on its own organizations, of building a "culture of liberation" -- these are designed to fulfill these three criteria ... and more, based on our understanding of the objective needs of the class as a whole.

And it's not a "last-minute worry", but an at-all-times concern, since our tasks are in line with those three criteria.

It's clear from your statements above that you fail right away on the first of those three criteria: the formation of the proletariat into a class. You seem to prefer a putschist approach to revolution, where a small minority "storms heaven" without the support of the working class, without any kind of mass organization, and, in the end, with only élan and some stolen rifles to get you through. That might look good in a novel or poem, or some movie, but it won't lead to anything but defeat and destruction, and greater repression of the very class you claim to want to "win over with success".

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some things I have to do for the next couple of days, so I might not respond until Tuesday or Wednesday.

[Martin Blank]

Perhaps this is off-topic, but does his mention of paralegal jobs and internships raise the question of productive vs. unproductive work? :confused:

No, I think he was just being snide and condescending, as usual. Paralegals may technically be unproductive labor, but those jobs are often done by people from the working class. That should be recognized.

[Floyce White]

I am not the one who advocates election campaigning. I explicitly opposed worker participation in lawsuits, petitioning, and election campaigns, in writing, on January 1, 2002. Here's the Internet Archive link:

http://web.archive.org/web/20071005064847/http://www.geocities.com/antiproperty/index.html#A14

In this thread, I repeatedly argued that the workers' movement has no need for a one-time, symbolic participation in government.

You, on the other hand, repeatedly argued that such an election campaign is necessary as part of thorough preparation for worker revolt. You repeatedly argued that electioneering must be done seriously, and you counterposed your serious plan to petty-bourgeois-leftist insincere plans.

In that context, and only in that context, I responded that the one-time, highest-position campaign you advocate is extremely improbable. I said that if you thought that winning a majority in Federal elections was so necessary, you'd advocate a long-term committment to electioneering. I pointed out several reasons why. I also pointed out the enormous harm that would inevitably result.

Ad hominems are not response. They are evasion of response. That you resorted to fallacies indicates that you are aware of the enormous gaps in your argument. Anyone who reads my old posts can see that there is no support for the cariacatures you paint of me.

A plan to run candidates for Congress just once, in one possible scenario, in the distant future, has no effect on the actions of comrades in the distant future. They will decide for themselves what to do. They will completely ignore it the same way we ignore schemes from the past. Instead, the plan is meant to have effect on comrades today. It is promotion of electioneering today. You say that you don't support electioneering as a long-term strategy, but that you have done and will continue to do repetition of "tactical," "short-term" election campaigns. I don't see any difference.

You cannot pursue the line of argumention that "democracy" in the relevant sense must mean "advancement of working-class goals," because that would annihilate the term. So what's the point of implying that argument when you cannot express it? No purpose at all.

Your argument is inadequate.

[Martin Blank]

I am not the one who advocates election campaigning. I explicitly opposed worker participation in lawsuits, petitioning, and election campaigns, in writing, on January 1, 2002. Here's the Internet Archive link:

http://web.archive.org/web/20071005064847/http://www.geocities.com/antiproperty/index.html#A14

In this thread, I repeatedly argued that the workers' movement has no need for a one-time, symbolic participation in government.

I know. And I can appreciate your position, even if I disagree with it.


You, on the other hand, repeatedly argued that such an election campaign is necessary as part of thorough preparation for worker revolt. You repeatedly argued that electioneering must be done seriously, and you counterposed your serious plan to petty-bourgeois-leftist insincere plans.

I counterposed how we would tactically employ the use of running in elections to how others do it ... and how you reject doing it. You seemed to have missed the multiple occasions where I pointed out that this is a tactic, not a strategy.


In that context, and only in that context, I responded that the one-time, highest-position campaign you advocate is extremely improbable. I said that if you thought that winning a majority in Federal elections was so necessary, you'd advocate a long-term committment to electioneering. I pointed out several reasons why. I also pointed out the enormous harm that would inevitably result.

And I pointed out where I thought that your reasoning was flawed and your methods problematic. I also pointed out that the basis of your reasoning, which gets to the question of class, was shaped more by the petty bourgeoisie than the working class.


Ad hominems are not response. They are evasion of response. That you resorted to fallacies indicates that you are aware of the enormous gaps in your argument. Anyone who reads my old posts can see that there is no support for the cariacatures you paint of me.

I drew out your method and exposed it to the light. That seems to bother you. Rightly so. It's a bothersome method to have, especially today. As for ad hominems, I think that's a false accusation. I will admit readily that my critique of your positions was rather ... brutal (as someone has recently described my method of political debate), but I never once took those political criticisms and applied them to you as a person. That's the difference between political characterization and character assassination -- or, put another way, it's the difference between the political and the personal.

I'll be honest, Floyce, I think you're an honest person -- a worker just trying to figure things out in the best way you can and for all the right reasons. But I think that when you get into a political argument, you get condescending and snide with those who don't agree with you. It's not ad hominem to point that out any more than it is ad hominem for someone to say that I am disrespectful, arrogant and hard-hearted when I argue politically. It is a characterization of how we act, not who we are.

I strongly disagree with the concept that the personal is political; there is a division, and rightly so. You can talk about my organization, my politics and how I argue them until you're blue in the face. It's when you get personal and start talking about me as a person that the game changes.


A plan to run candidates for Congress just once, in one possible scenario, in the distant future, has no effect on the actions of comrades in the distant future. They will decide for themselves what to do. They will completely ignore it the same way we ignore schemes from the past. Instead, the plan is meant to have effect on comrades today. It is promotion of electioneering today. You say that you don't support electioneering as a long-term strategy, but that you have done and will continue to do repetition of "tactical," "short-term" election campaigns. I don't see any difference.

And that's the problem with the way you're looking at things. It's either all or nothing -- you do it all the time or not at all -- that is the problem with your point of view, IMO. It's static and devoid of any consideration about developments in material conditions. It is like a rock along the shore, with the waves lapping about it. It looks solid and eternal at first glance, but in the framework of history, it is steadily eroding to nothingness. It is also lifeless and cold, unable to deal with change, and disappearing from the face of the earth. Take it as you will.


You cannot pursue the line of argumention that "democracy" in the relevant sense must mean "advancement of working-class goals," because that would annihilate the term. So what's the point of implying that argument when you cannot express it? No purpose at all.

Set up straw man. Knock it down. Declare yourself the winner. Great job! :thumbup1:


Your argument is inadequate.

Inadequate for whom? For you? Is there an argument "adequate" enough for you, other than your own? This kind of dismissive approach is endemic to those afflicted with the Great Leader complex: none are worthy but himself and the honored dead. To borrow a phrase: That is sooooooo 20th century.

[Floyce White]

Floyce White: "You cannot pursue the line of argumention that 'democracy' in the relevant sense must mean 'advancement of working-class goals,' because that would annihilate the term. So what's the point of implying that argument when you cannot express it? No purpose at all."

NeonJackRabbit: "Set up straw man."

The argument is implied in your position. In a nutshell, democracy is majority rule (or effective majority participation or some such equivalent). The working class is the majority. The interests of the working class are irreconcilable from those of the capitalist class. Therefore, meaningful democracy is not mere majority vote counts, but is advancement of working-class goals. The lack of such advancement proves the falsity of the claim that bourgeois electoral institutions are democratic. If this isn't your position, please correct me.

NeonJackRabbit: "Is there an argument 'adequate' enough for you, other than your own?"

Can any idea be meaningful if one does not make it one's own? It's not like worker participation in electioneering is so rare that I wouldn't be interested in the various arguments pro and con.

NeonJackRabbit: "And that's the problem with the way you're looking at things. It's either all or nothing -- you do it all the time or not at all"

What if the party ran a candidate for mayor of Shreveport--and won? If the candidate took the seat, he or she would certainly run for re-election. What if the party had enough supporters to successfully petition to be on the California ballot, and won enough votes to be on the next ballot without petitioning? Would you advise squandering so much hard work? You did relate "seriousness" with effort to win.