Direct Democracy and delegation

[ContrarianLemming]

i've been arguing with someone about direct democracy and "Delegation" ie: Delegation (also called deputation) is the assignment of authority and responsibility to another person (normally from a manager to a subordinate) to carry out specific activities. However the person who delegated the work remains accountable for the outcome of the delegated work
i am confused about answering to of his counters to direct demoracy and delegation

my statement (from an anarchist site):
"The delegate acts according to a specific mandate from the local assembly; that is to say, if that person is delegated to be the secretary of the local, they might collect and answer correspondence and enquiries, collect and divvy up dues, and whatever other activities that local assembly requires them to do, afterwards reporting back at every assembly every aspect of their actions as a member with delegated responsibilities for the previous period of time, the period since the last assembly.
his reply: "Incredibly inefficient micromanagement."

i don't think so, but i'm not sure how to reply to this and actually convince him

and another point he makes..

my statement:
"For that reason delegates within the anarcho-syndicalist union are regularly rotated, meaning that they may be hold a position of official responsibility for a short period of time -- six months, one year or at the outside two"

his reply: "Again maximizes inefficiency. By the time anyone gets good at what they do, learns the forms, the systems, the players and the structure and how to actually be productive, they've been rotated out and competence is decidedly not one of the criteria your system promotes or recommends. If I need assistance on a complicated and urgent matter dealing with my medicare coverage. Do I want a delegate with one 6 months to one year's experience hot on the trail with Mom's nursing access on the balance and everyone else in the office with not a day over two helping write the budgets and reccomending policy? You have the blind leading the blind in every aspect of creating policy and the execution of policy. Experience is not just a danger for power accumulation. It is also the basis of wisdom and knowledge."

he makes a better argument here, not sure where to go on this one, anyone care to assist a comrade?

[FSL]

12 year old kids today know more math than Archimedes ever did. Wisdom and knowledge don't appear simply in a person, independently of his environment. Instead they accumulate so that every generation surpasses its previous one. It is perfectly possible -in fact it is the only thing reasonable- that by extending access to education and improving its quality, the general cultural level will rise allowing even the cook to take care of administrational matters when he's asked.

It has been done in the past, in Athens, when the members of government were chosen at random. The slave-owners had all the day to themselves to practice "thinking" so they were prefectly able for such a task. Generals, upon whom power was "concentrated", only had a one-year term. Cases do exist where one, Pericles for example, managed to get elected many times but only because he was an excellent servant to the interests of his electors (he also was an inspiring orator and an intelligent person, but there were many other orators and people of intellect in Athens at that time, none of which had his political career).

Regarding efficiency, he's partly right in that experience also raises knowledge and productivity. However, communism is exactly that point in history where the productive forces have reached such a level that "efficiency" isn't the major concern. Once the rulling classes had to whip their slaves into shape. Now, this isn't needed. Now, many people change many jobs in their lifetime without it seriously hampering their productivity.

These things for communists are the final results of a gradual process but I have little knowledge on what anarchists think about them.
If you wanted to immediately organize society on the basis of voluntary labor and have every administrator chosen at random or elected for a short term, you could be driving the economy into the ground. Or maybe not. I'm in favour of a transitional society, but if you think one's not needed, go ahead and make the argument that we are ready for it.

[syndicat]

whenever someone talks about efficiency, you can ask "Efficient at doing what?" If we set up a bureaucracy that is not directly accountable, it will not be so good at doing what the rank and file want -- it will be inefficient at gaining that result, and will tend to look to accumulate more power. this is not efficient at activating and involving the rank and file, as it leads to a passive membership if they aren't involved in the making of the decisions.

Efficiency has to be judged by the actual human benefits that result. There is no other real measure of efficiency. And bureaucratized unions have shown themselves today to not be effective at mobilizing and fighting the employers and their system.

I think there is a distinction between, say, a delegate elected to a shop stewards council or a convention, versus someone elected to be treasurer or convenor (president). In the latter case we can closely define exactly what their duties are. This is essential to keeping them accountable. If they are not accountable, it is less likely they will do a good job for the members...and that is inefficient, that is, not productive of maximum member benefit.

Another form of control on delegates to conventions is if there is a mechanism for referral of important measures or changes (such as bylaws changes or a basic plan of action) back to the local assemblies for ratification.

[Die Neue Zeit]

It has been done in the past, in Athens, when the members of government were chosen at random. The slave-owners had all the day to themselves to practice "thinking" so they were prefectly able for such a task. Generals, upon whom power was "concentrated", only had a one-year term. Cases do exist where one, Pericles for example, managed to get elected many times

That's an interesting point you raise. Was Pericles really elected many times, or was he randomly selected many times only because no other candidates stood?

[FSL]

That's an interesting point you raise. Was Pericles really elected many times, or was he randomly selected many times only because no other candidates stood?


The equivalent to government in ancient Athens was "Vouli". All its members (500) were chosen at random and served short terms. 50 each time for thirty days. There was a limit on how many times one could be picked.

The parliament was the people's council (ekklisia tou dimou). Every citizen could participate.

The generals were the "commanders in chief" to bring it to today's terms. A lot of Athens' strength was depended on maintaining strict control over its "allies", so military was the one area were people were chosen based on merits. There were 10 of them serving one-year terms. Pericles was one and as he did have political opponents I'm guessing he didn't run by himself. In any case, there was nothing holding others back from running against him (other than his fame).
The generals were highly accountable to the citizenry. After a naval battle and due to a bad storm, they decided against gathering the bodies of the dead. When this was heard of in Athens, they were sentenced to death.

Generally, people often consider the athenian democracy imperfect because Pericles was thought to be able to "sway" the masses. In all honesty, this never happened. The rulling class in Athen kept owning slaves, reassured its dominance over most of the greek cities it was allied to and reached higher-than-ever-before levels of wealth. In short, they did everything they wanted to.
We learn about Pericles from Thoukididis who, despite all his pros, was no marxist. To him, it would seem right that it was one man that made the wheels of history turn when it really wasn't.

So, in terms of getting people to administrate while keeping them effective and accountable, yes, this was shown to be possible. Just one must remember that we're talking about a class-divided society, where only the rulers had any say in the government. Some of whom had never spent a day of their life working. It was much easier for them to be up to date with all current issues and in position to make correct decisions than some worker who spends the better part of his day in a job. So, getting everyone there is something that I think would take time.

[robbo203]

.
If you wanted to immediately organize society on the basis of voluntary labor and have every administrator chosen at random or elected for a short term, you could be driving the economy into the ground. Or maybe not. I'm in favour of a transitional society, but if you think one's not needed, go ahead and make the argument that we are ready for it.

The choice is not between having a transitional society and going ahead with immediately organising society on the basis of voluntary labour. Of course we cannot do the latter right now since we do not have the mass communist consciousness yet that would make communism feasible. That however is not an argument in favour of a transitional society since the very notion of a transitional society between capitalism and communism is a complete and utter logical absurdity. As Ive argued elsewhere there is nothing in between a class-based society and classless society.

Another way of putting it is that we are already in a transition period now but it is a transition period within capitalism. It will end when we have acquired the necessary mass communist consciousness to immediately implement communism

[Die Neue Zeit]

The equivalent to government in ancient Athens was "Vouli". All its members (500) were chosen at random and served short terms. 50 each time for thirty days. There was a limit on how many times one could be picked.

The parliament was the people's council (ekklisia tou dimou). Every citizen could participate.

The generals were the "commanders in chief" to bring it to today's terms. A lot of Athens' strength was depended on maintaining strict control over its "allies", so military was the one area were people were chosen based on merits.

Please note that I already wrote about Athenian demarchy in my blog against elections (so no need for such a long intro). ;)


There were 10 of them serving one-year terms. Pericles was one and as he did have political opponents I'm guessing he didn't run by himself. In any case, there was nothing holding others back from running against him (other than his fame).

That explains it, then. He was a military commander and not a civilian executive.

[Raúl Duke]

I really cannot say whether in the future when the anarchist society is set if it would be "efficient" or not in comparison to the capitalist society (I would say yes, but in different factors outside of work place management; either way it's hard to predict however I think there's sources that talk about industrial output in CNT-FAI areas and some claim that workers were producing munitions/goods at a much faster rate than previously and that this rate dropped when CNT-FAI was suppressed by the Republic/Stalinists) but that was never the core issue about anarchism or socialism. The core issue is the emancipation/freedom of workers from class society and giving them the means of production and on this point is where our arguments stem from (i.e. a free classless society...yay!) not one of "efficiency" (unless arguing against capitalist inefficiency, more on that later). That's [efficiency issue] more an issue that technocrats deal with.

Sometimes when I get into a discussion and one brings up inefficiency I just point out the gross inefficiencies of capitalism and state "I never claim that what I advocate is perfect, but it surely would not have these problems." One notorious problem is how, from what I heard, food is burned/destroyed so to maintain supply at a profitable level. This, mind you, occurring while people are starving in some areas of the world. This is an example of fundamental (since it's cause by the profit motive) capitalist inefficiency.

[Lynx]

How do we get a better handle on how much policy making will be required in a direct democracy?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Actually, comrade, I was thinking about that myself and almost started my own thread. As you know, Marx wrote about the Paris Commune's organs combining legislative and executive-administrative power, but nowhere in the Marxist tradition is there any significant commentary on policy-making, which is still quite different from legislation: a "policy" or part of it becomes a "bill(s)" which becomes "law(s)."

[Lynx]

Your 'latest blog entry' contains the framework for legislative/executive aspects. As I understand it, policy is more general in scope and supposedly requires the widest possible input. But how much would reasonably be needed? Politicians like to pretend they are busy. Legislation does get passed and laws become byzantine, but policy change is mostly talk.

Edit: In a recent thread with Paul, the concept of council or 'group wisdom' was brought up. ie. that a panel of non-experts can analyze and provide advice comparable to that of a single expert.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Hopefully he'll reply to this question, in the more elaborate form that I sent him, you, and others. :)

[Wolf Larson]

I really cannot say whether in the future when the anarchist society is set if it would be "efficient" or not in comparison to the capitalist society (I would say yes, but in different factors outside of work place management; either way it's hard to predict however I think there's sources that talk about industrial output in CNT-FAI areas and some claim that workers were producing munitions/goods at a much faster rate than previously and that this rate dropped when CNT-FAI was suppressed by the Republic/Stalinists) but that was never the core issue about anarchism or socialism. The core issue is the emancipation/freedom of workers from class society and giving them the means of production and on this point is where our arguments stem from (i.e. a free classless society...yay!) not one of "efficiency" (unless arguing against capitalist inefficiency, more on that later). That's [efficiency issue] more an issue that technocrats deal with.

Sometimes when I get into a discussion and one brings up inefficiency I just point out the gross inefficiencies of capitalism and state "I never claim that what I advocate is perfect, but it surely would not have these problems." One notorious problem is how, from what I heard, food is burned/destroyed so to maintain supply at a profitable level. This, mind you, occurring while people are starving in some areas of the world. This is an example of fundamental (since it's cause by the profit motive) capitalist inefficiency.

Efficiency is based in the profit motive. In anarchist economy many capitalist jobs wouldn't exist and the work force would be concentrated on less jobs. The jobs of actually providing sustenance. Most people would probably only work 3 hour days. Berkmen talked a lot about this and in his time technology wasnt the same so technology can also lighten our work loads. Right now, once again, the profit motive keeps technology from freeing us.

Basically, a society free of the profit motive and property [capitalism] could employ more people in less work fields while using technology to lighten the work load. Technological post scarcity anarchism. The future. localized and decentralized economies. the melding of government and worker controlled work places under direct democracy free of property and the profit motive with technology boosting production. What fun.