Anarchism and technocracy

[Wolf Larson]

If there is no point in talking to him don't fucking talk to him. Don't drag down another unfair restrictions thread with your bullshit.I completely agree with Pogue in this instance, your politics are abhorrent and I would sooner leave this site than see it taken over by people with your anti-worker politics.

Oh the irony is so thick today. Lay it on me Technoboi. And hey, don't you think it funny that the poster you're rightly criticizing was all over your technocracy crap in the opposing ideologies section? Technocracy is not a revolutionary ideology. You should be restricted. RevLeft is silly.

[Jazzratt]

Oh the irony is so thick today. Lay it on me Technoboi. And hey, don't you think it funny that the poster you're rightly criticizing was all over your technocracy crap in the opposing ideologies section? Technocracy is not a revolutionary ideology. You should be restricted. RevLeft is silly.

This is amazing. You've broken your self-imposed exile in order to aim your semi-coherent ranting at a post I made over half a year ago, presumably because you're too fucking thick to understand how forums work. Did you get fed up of the people on libcom not giving a toss about your inane crusade? Not only that but you cap your whinge with the comment "revleft is silly" even though you left this site but couldn't seem to keep yourself away.

You're an enormous loser and have a creepy fixation with this site, do everyone a favour and piss off again. You're a total wanker and it would come as a real surprise to me if you even had one friend.

[Wolf Larson]

This is amazing. You've broken your self-imposed exile in order to aim your semi-coherent ranting at a post I made over half a year ago, presumably because you're too fucking thick to understand how forums work. Did you get fed up of the people on libcom not giving a toss about your inane crusade? Not only that but you cap your whinge with the comment "revleft is silly" even though you left this site but couldn't seem to keep yourself away.

You're an enormous loser and have a creepy fixation with this site, do everyone a favour and piss off again. You're a total wanker and it would come as a real surprise to me if you even had one friend.

Address why it is ironic you are criticizing a reactionary who does not advocate revolution. Are you now saying you advocate revolution?

[Wolf Larson]

This is amazing. You've broken your self-imposed exile in order to aim your semi-coherent ranting at a post I made over half a year ago, presumably because you're too fucking thick to understand how forums work. Did you get fed up of the people on libcom not giving a toss about your inane crusade? Not only that but you cap your whinge with the comment "revleft is silly" even though you left this site but couldn't seem to keep yourself away.

You're an enormous loser and have a creepy fixation with this site, do everyone a favour and piss off again. You're a total wanker and it would come as a real surprise to me if you even had one friend.

So says the kid who posts online 24/7. Fuck me you're clueless and as if you technofucks aren't over there with other profiles. How did the technocracy thread go for you guys at libcom? Weren't you the one who tried to say he was an anarcho technocrat? Why don't we skip the insults and discuss what anarchism is and is not. You need to do some reading and a quick debate with me will point you in the right direction. If you're capable of being honest for an hour or two. Anarchism and Technocracy are oil and water.

[Dimentio]

I took the liberty to split this from Unfair Restrictions into a Theory thread. If Wolf Larson has any issues at all with Jazzratt, I suggest he don't clog other threads with OT material or semi-trolling.

[Wolf Larson]

I took the liberty to split this from Unfair Restrictions into a Theory thread. If Wolf Larson has any issues at all with Jazzratt, I suggest he don't clog other threads with OT material or semi-trolling.

Thanks for moving it but the first few words exchanged were rather unpleasant and will set the tone for the rest of the thread I'm afraid.

[Dimentio]

It is your responsibility, because you necroed an old discussion.

[Wolf Larson]

It is your responsibility, because you necroed an old discussion.

You're more than welcome to join the discussion concerning why anarchism and Technocracy are incompatible. I'll stay friendly until you Techno's try to frame me as a troll for opposing your silliness. That was lame.

[Dimentio]

Technocracy is compatible with anarchism because it does not meddle in people's lives. Under a technate, everyone would be free to form whatever kind of democratic associations they want. The only thing which the technate is existing to manage is the flow of resources, production, distribution and recycling. It doesn't decide what should be produced, only how things should be produced.

[Wolf Larson]

Technocracy is compatible with anarchism because it does not meddle in people's lives. Under a technate, everyone would be free to form whatever kind of democratic associations they want. The only thing which the technate is existing to manage is the flow of resources, production, distribution and recycling. It doesn't decide what should be produced, only how things should be produced.

Prove to me that the majority of Technocrats are advocates of non hierarchical direct democracy. Also, the hierarchical technocrats would in essence control the means of production yes? I'm not a Marxist but I can agree with much of what he said, especially the materialist critique of history which dictates he who controls the means of production also controls society at large. Wrap your head around that concept for a moment while thinking of the "engineers" who would be in control of the means of production and thus society itself.

Also, explain your understanding of how anarchism came to be. Explain Proudhon, Bakunin and his relationship with Marx and the subsequent years of anarchist theory in the 20/ 21'st century. I need to know where to start with you. I'm not sure what you know and what you don't. Obviously more don't than do if you think anarchism is compatible with Technocracy and it's hierarchical control of the means of production.

[Dimentio]

Prove to me that the majority of Technocrats are advocates of non hierarchical direct democracy.

http://www.eoslife.eu

For us, it is not about what the majority of other organisations think, but about the potential of our design and how it could serve to raise the human being.

[Wolf Larson]

http://www.eoslife.eu

For us, it is not about what the majority of other organisations think, but about the potential of our design and how it could serve to raise the human being.

For us? Who's us? How many of "us" are there and if you are "us" then who are "they" that you oppose? What would stop "them" from manifesting as the dominant form of technocracy as is the case and has been the case historically. You fail at proving the majority of technocrats advocate non hierarchical direct democratic control of the means of production. You cant prove it because none of you advocate it and hence have no fucking business even muttering the word anarchism in the same sentence with technocracy.

[Dimentio]

"Us" = EOS. I would probably believe that we are the largest technocratic organisation by now, and probably the most active (unless you see TZM as technocrats).

http://www.eoslife.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=167:confederalism-democracy-and-technocracy&catid=35:social&Itemid=95

Prove that we aren't supportive of confederalism and direct democracy. I have routinely shown evidence for it. You have just said "You are not that" and "you are that", as if you are attacking a caricature inside your head and not what we are argumenting for.

[Wolf Larson]

Here is where you failed: "The only thing which the technate is existing to manage is the flow of resources, production, distribution and recycling. It doesn't decide what should be produced, only how things should be produced."

So then they, being engineers, control the means of production. Not the workers. Here is where you try to claim the petty bourgeoisie are the proletariat. Pfft. Do you understand Marx's materialist critique of history? Do I need to explain it to you?

[Dimentio]

Here is where you failed: "The only thing which the technate is existing to manage is the flow of resources, production, distribution and recycling. It doesn't decide what should be produced, only how things should be produced." __________________

And what is wrong with that? In a society more advanced than a substinence society, organisation of production needs to be carried out by specialists. For example aero-plane engineers cannot do the work for hospital workers, nor decide by majority how hospital workers should conduct their work. In some cases, there are single persons on a work-place, like for example programmers, who are the only ones knowledgeable about their subject.

People would allocate energy credits to what products and services they would ask for, and the technate would produce what the people - as individuals - are asking for. It is the perfect combination of a mutualist free market with communism.

There wouldn't be any petty-bourgeoisie in a technate. Neither would there be any classes at all in a technate. Everyone would get the same access to the means of production through energy accounting.

[Wolf Larson]

And what is wrong with that? In a society more advanced than a substinence society, organisation of production needs to be carried out by specialists. For example aero-plane engineers cannot do the work for hospital workers, nor decide by majority how hospital workers should conduct their work. In some cases, there are single persons on a work-place, like for example programmers, who are the only ones knowledgeable about their subject.

People would allocate energy credits to what products and services they would ask for, and the technate would produce what the people - as individuals - are asking for. It is the perfect combination of a mutualist free market with communism.

There wouldn't be any petty-bourgeoisie in a technate. Neither would there be any classes at all in a technate.

Not anarchism. There would be classes, the workers and engineers.

[Dimentio]

Not anarchism. There would be classes, the workers and engineers.

All workers would be engineers, since menial labour would be largely phased out. Everyone would be trained to apply engineering solutions to everything.

[Wolf Larson]

http://www.eoslife.eu

For us, it is not about what the majority of other organisations think, but about the potential of our design and how it could serve to raise the human being.

LOL. What are you doing to end capitalism? How is your IDEOLOGY revolutionary?

[Dimentio]

lol

Care to explain why that thought is so silly? I cannot understand this suspicion against the idea of increasing the productive creative capacity of all human beings and allow them the opportunity to acquire the mastery of production.

I would have half-understood your point if the technate was intended to be a planned economy. But it isn't supposed to be a planned economy, but an economy where you are deciding what should be produced for yourself by the technate, as well as all other people.

What is your alternative? In what way is it better? Why?

[Dimentio]

LOL. What are you doing to end capitalism?

Please stop spamming posts and wait for our replies.

Before we could end capitalism, we need to know if our alternative is working, and we need to build a mass movement and acquire control over resources. It is not likely that we could end it tomorrow, but neither is it that you could achieve it tomorrow - and unlike us you are not doing anything to acquire influence before that, apart from a little activism.

On the case of activism, EOS is actually planning a series of anti-particularism activities later this year.

By the way. Do you happen to be drunk?

I am going to bed now anyway.

Goodnight, auf widersehen und Ciao!

Elvis's leaving the building! Hakuna matata!

:D

[Wolf Larson]

Care to explain why that thought is so silly? I cannot understand this suspicion against the idea of increasing the productive creative capacity of all human beings and allow them the opportunity to acquire the mastery of production.

I would have half-understood your point if the technate was intended to be a planned economy. But it isn't supposed to be a planned economy, but an economy where you are deciding what should be produced for yourself by the technate, as well as all other people.

What is your alternative? In what way is it better? Why?

I've posted many times on this very forum explaining the capitalist education system while opposing the supporters of the bell curve. We all have the potential to be intelligent. Some a little more than others. The problem isn't with minimizing physical labor kid the problem is with the hierarchical institutions Technocracy sets up. You can use all the euphemisms and run around you want but it wont change the fact your system is hierarchical.

[Wolf Larson]

Please stop spamming posts and wait for our replies.

Before we could end capitalism, we need to know if our alternative is working, and we need to build a mass movement and acquire control over resources. It is not likely that we could end it tomorrow, but neither is it that you could achieve it tomorrow - and unlike us you are not doing anything to acquire influence before that, apart from a little activism.

On the case of activism, EOS is actually planning a series of anti-particularism activities later this year.

By the way. Do you happen to be drunk?

I am going to bed now anyway.

Goodnight, auf widersehen und Ciao!

Elvis's leaving the building! Hakuna matata!

:D

Me laughing at you is spam? Why don't you throw some negative rep points in and threaten to ban me while you're at it? That would fit right in with your anti democratic hierarchical world view. Here I am again...a troll? I think it's obvious I know what the fuck I'm talking about to anyone who doesn't have their 17 year old head jammed 15 feet up their ass.

[Wolf Larson]

This is what it looks like to loose a debate very quickly. Jazzrat? How about you? What's your silly world view?

[RED DAVE]

Technocracy is compatible with anarchism because it does not meddle in people's lives.Let's see what you call not meddling.


Under a technate, everyone would be free to form whatever kind of democratic associations they want.Notice that we are dealing with, presumably, a post-revolutionary society, but with no reference to the working class as the predominant class.


The only thing which the technate is existing to manage is the flow of resources, production, distribution and recycling.We can see immediately that management is separate from labor. This of course, is one more indication of the elitist nature of the bullshit system.


It doesn't decide what should be produced, only how things should be produced.And the supposition is, of course, that decision of how things should be produced are qualitatively different from decisions as to what should be produced.

It is painfully obvious, and has been demonstrated again and again, from numerous points of view, that this is a nonrevolutionary ideology.

RED DAVE

[Wolf Larson]

This is amazing. You've broken your self-imposed exile in order to aim your semi-coherent ranting at a post I made over half a year ago, presumably because you're too fucking thick to understand how forums work. Did you get fed up of the people on libcom not giving a toss about your inane crusade? Not only that but you cap your whinge with the comment "revleft is silly" even though you left this site but couldn't seem to keep yourself away.

You're an enormous loser and have a creepy fixation with this site, do everyone a favour and piss off again. You're a total wanker and it would come as a real surprise to me if you even had one friend.

Just as you would leave this site if it were infested with Austrian goons such as the one you were criticizing in the OP. I see you Technocracy people in the same light. Hence the irony of you saying you would leave this site if it were infested with counterrevolutionary idiots. Which, by the way, it is.

You being one of them.

[Wolf Larson]

A quote from your techno group from the other moderator idiot Sentinal:

"I think technophobia is a problem that divides the left, and primarily certain types of anarchists. It is linked to a generally biocentric pov. They think that technology is inherently negative and dangerous."

You honestly don't understand anything even remotly having anything to do with anarchism. Do you have a clue? What the fuck are you doing even being a moderator on here? Everyone knows the post left guys are hippie rejects.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=1227

[Invincible Summer]

A quote from your techno group from the other moderator idiot Sentinal:

"I think technophobia is a problem that divides the left, and primarily certain types of anarchists. It is linked to a generally biocentric pov. They think that technology is inherently negative and dangerous."

You honestly don't understand anything even remotly having anything to do with anarchism. Do you have a clue? What the fuck are you doing even being a moderator on here? Everyone knows the post left guys are hippie rejects.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=1227

You honestly don't understand how to read, O Grandmaster of Anarchism.

[syndicat]

All workers would be engineers, since menial labour would be largely phased out. Everyone would be trained to apply engineering solutions to everything.


if you propose that the bureaucratic class -- engineers, accountants, managers, lawyers, etc. -- take power, then you will have a class system in which workers will be subordinate and exploited. moreover, it will not be in the interest of the bureaucratic ruling class to train everyone to be engineers. that's because the basis of the power of the bureaucratic class is a relative concentration of expertise and decision-making authority in their hands. they'd lose power if they democratized possession of that expertise. hence there is no reason to believe they'd do that.

[RED DAVE]

if you propose that the bureaucratic class -- engineers, accountants, managers, lawyers, etc. -- take power, then you will have a class system in which workers will be subordinate and exploited. moreover, it will not be in the interest of the bureaucratic ruling class to train everyone to be engineers. that's because the basis of the power of the bureaucratic class is a relative concentration of expertise and decision-making authority in their hands. they'd lose power if they democratized possession of that expertise. hence there is no reason to believe they'd do that.No, you're wrong. The bureaucratic class is there because they're better than the workers at managing the production that workers run, or they are workers, but in any event they will be glad to make sure that the workers will be trained and if not, they can be replaced, but other experts control the army and the police, so how can they be replaced.

BUT DON'T WORRY!

RED DAVE

[syndicat]

No, you're wrong. The bureaucratic class is there because they're better than the workers at managing the production that workers run, or they are workers, but in any event they will be glad to make sure that the workers will be trained and if not, they can be replaced, but other experts control the army and the police, so how can they be replaced.

BUT DON'T WORRY!


lol. with tongue firmly planted in cheek...

[Dimentio]

if you propose that the bureaucratic class -- engineers, accountants, managers, lawyers, etc. -- take power, then you will have a class system in which workers will be subordinate and exploited. moreover, it will not be in the interest of the bureaucratic ruling class to train everyone to be engineers. that's because the basis of the power of the bureaucratic class is a relative concentration of expertise and decision-making authority in their hands. they'd lose power if they democratized possession of that expertise. hence there is no reason to believe they'd do that.

Where have I proposed that engineers should take power? Nowhere is EOS supporting that a particular group of people should take power over the resources. Under a technate, access to resources would be equal between all people through the system of energy accounting. Nowhere is it to be found that EOS is valuing engineers and bureaucrats(!) above others. Our design is participatory and de-centralised. Any member could form a project group and start an autonomous project, as long as it isn't in direct violation against our goals and values. Open source is essential for us, and hence we are fervently against the idea of a minority monopolising access to information.

Not even management is a dominion of the engineers, but of everyone who is working. It is not possible though, to for example allow rocket scientists to meddle in with how hospitals should be taken care of, since they don't have the right qualifications.

Wolf and Red Dave are continuously building up statues of strawmen and tearing them down, while saying that I and other technocrats support values which are to the contrary of what we support. When one of us is countering their claims, they just repeat the accusations. That is not a civil debate, it is an attempt by users to hijack the forums and decide who is acceptable or not.

It is true that Technocracy Incorporated was somewhat authoritarian during Scott's leadership, but Scott has been dead since 1970. Modern North American technocrats like Mark Ciotola are firmly anti-authoritarian.

EOS does not have any authoritarianism in its history.

How is it authoritarian to want to not govern people, but to set up a system which could govern the resources in a manner which is both sustainable and giving each human being equal access to the means of production.

The reason why we usually don't mention the working class - nor any classes at all - is because classes won't exist in an area which resources are administrated by the technate. All people are receiving an equal share of the resources.

The only things which Red Dave and Wolf Larson are offering is red herrings, strawmen and occasional ad hominems. I find their "rightful indignation" somewhat amusing.

No one has said anything about a bureaucratic class controlling anything. In fact, there is no bureaucracy inside our design (apart from the sequences, which only exist to supervise the work conducted by the holons to see that they do not do anything which is in contradiction with the goals).

[Jazzratt]

Oh for god's sake. This fucking argument again.Arguing with the willfully ignorant is not my cup of tea, honestly.

[Dimentio]

Oh for god's sake. This fucking argument again.Arguing with the willfully ignorant is not my cup of tea, honestly.

I could have trashed it, it was OT in another thread.

[RED DAVE]

Oh for god's sake. This fucking argument again.Arguing with the willfully ignorant is not my cup of tea, honestly.Then go home, fool, and drink your tea. And, by the way, when you learn some history or you're involved in a genuine struggle, let us know.

RED DAVE

[Wolf Larson]

I could have trashed it, it was OT in another thread.

I'm sorry I made you look bad so quickly. And thanks for the negative rep. Fucking idiots.

[Wolf Larson]

You honestly don't understand how to read, O Grandmaster of Anarchism.

You honestly believe your own bullshit yes? Anarcho technocracy? I shouldn't even have to bother. The disinterested passer by in this thread will think "what do they have against technology?" but "technocrats" don't have a monopoly on technology nor under anarchism would it be possible for your technocrats to control the means of production as your silly fantasy dictates. Dictates, Dictates. Can you say dictatorship of engineers and the perpetuation of class society? Can you read that?

[RED DAVE]

The reason why we usually don't mention the working class - nor any classes at all - is because classes won't exist in an area which resources are administrated by the technate. All people are receiving an equal share of the resources.So let's start with the basics:

How are you going to accomplish the abolition of classes? Answer that one first.

RED DAVE

[Wolf Larson]

Where have I proposed that engineers should take power?

When you said this: "The only thing which the technate is existing to manage is the flow of resources, production, distribution and recycling. It doesn't decide what should be produced, only how things should be produced" and thus technocrats control the means of production and thus society itself and replace the capitalist class.

[Dimentio]

So let's start with the basics:

How are you going to accomplish the abolition of classes? Answer that one first.

RED DAVE

By establishing a technate of course.

[Dimentio]

When you said this: "The only thing which the technate is existing to manage is the flow of resources, production, distribution and recycling. It doesn't decide what should be produced, only how things should be produced" and thus technocrats control the means of production and thus society itself and replace the capitalist class.

Yes, but the definition of technate is not engineers, but administrative area. All people would work - if you could call five hours a week "work" - inside the technate.

[Wolf Larson]

Yes, but the definition of technate is not engineers, but administrative area. All people would work - if you could call five hours a week "work" - inside the technate.

You're not an anarchist. Obvious. Nor a socialist. Obvious. Nor a Marxist. Obvious. Nor a revolutionary. Obvious.What else do I need to say? You perpetuate hierarchy and class society all on the naive assumption that given the opportunity those with more control over the means of production will not use that leverage to control society. Will you please read and understand Marx's materialist critique of history? Give me some negative rep while you're at it.

Also, it would just be anarchism if your lame ass hierarchical plan did not exist. You idiots act as if under anarchism technology would not be utilized to provide abundance. Obvious.

[RED DAVE]

So let's start with the basics:

How are you going to accomplish the abolition of classes? Answer that one first.
By establishing a technate of course.Cute but no Cuban cigar.

Now, since you've been here for awhile, you must know that the various tendencies around here, Trotskyist, Maoist, Anarchist, Stalinist, etc., argue mainly about how to accomplish the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. in fact, it is close to the essence of the differences between us, and there is hardly a week when we aren't duking it out about this.

So, how do you envision your technate being "established"?

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

Cute but no Cuban cigar.

Now, since you've been here for awhile, you must know that the various tendencies around here, Trotskyist, Maoist, Anarchist, Stalinist, etc., argue mainly about how to accomplish the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. in fact, it is close to the essence of the differences between us, and there is hardly a week when we aren't duking it out about this.

So, how do you envision your technate being "established"?

RED DAVE

If I told you the little secret, it wouldn't be a secret any more. Besides, its just stupid to claim to want to take power with violence. The ideal should be to be open for all suggestions but publicly claim to want to take over the world with hugs ;)

[Wolf Larson]

If I told you the little secret, it wouldn't be a secret any more. Besides, its just stupid to claim to want to take power with violence. The ideal should be to be open for all suggestions but publicly claim to want to take over the world with hugs ;)

Lame duck response.

[Dimentio]

You're not an anarchist. Obvious. Nor a socialist. Obvious. Nor a Marxist. Obvious. Nor a revolutionary. Obvious.What else do I need to say? You perpetuate hierarchy and class society all on the naive assumption that given the opportunity those with more control over the means of production will not use that leverage to control society. Will you please read and understand Marx's materialist critique of history? Give me some negative rep while you're at it.

Also, it would just be anarchism if your lame ass hierarchical plan did not exist. You idiots act as if under anarchism technology would not be utilized to provide abundance. Obvious.

I haven't given you any negative rep, since I prefer to not use that power. You have come with a lot of claims, but no evidence to back it up. What is the evidence that the design of the technate is perpetuating a class society? Where is it? Everyone would be given equal access to the means of production through the use of energy accounting.

One, the total production capacity is divided equally between the inhabitants of the area.

Two, they allocate their energy credits to what they want to see be produced for themselves.

Three, the technate is producing what the consumers ask for.

[Dimentio]

Lame duck response.

I know. It was pretty obvious, and well-deserved on your part.

As for the real reply. By agitate for a revolution, we won't recruit anyone except FBI informers. It is better to try to change the productive relations directly, by buying up land, technology and infrastructure.

[Wolf Larson]

I haven't given you any negative rep, since I prefer to not use that power. You have come with a lot of claims, but no evidence to back it up. What is the evidence that the design of the technate is perpetuating a class society? Where is it? Everyone would be given equal access to the means of production through the use of energy accounting.

One, the total production capacity is divided equally between the inhabitants of the area.

Two, they allocate their energy credits to what they want to see be produced for themselves.

Three, the technate is producing what the consumers ask for.

You mean the consumers are producing what the consumers ask for? LOL. Who controls the technate? Get your head in the game kid. Fucking energy accounting. Pseudo science.

[Dimentio]

You mean the consumers are producing what the consumers ask for? LOL. Who controls the technate? Get your head in the game kid. Fucking energy accounting. Pseudo science.

The technate is producing it through mostly automatised production. Those who administrate the technate are of course the people, though the guiding principle is that education and expertise should determine how the things the people want should be produced.

[Wolf Larson]

The technate is producing it through mostly automatised production. Those who administrate the technate are of course the people, though the guiding principle is that education and expertise should determine how the things the people want should be produced.

And in lieu of this "educated expert" class working with the workers they work above them with more control over the means of production. I don't even know why I'm going on at this point.

Will you please take the time to read Das Kapital/Manifesto so you can understand Marxism because unless you understand Marxism you cannot understand anarchism. Obviously you understand neither but you need to understand Marxism before you go claiming to be an anarchist. Pfft.

Your "educated experts" would be the new ruling class. In an advanced anarchist society abundance would be facilitated with the application of technology and there would be no need for your silly hierarchical technates. No one needs the pseudo science of "energy accounting" either.

[Dimentio]

And in lieu of this "educated expert" class working with the workers they work above them with more control over the means of production. I don't even know why I'm going on at this point.

Will you please take the time to read Das Kapital/Manifesto so you can understand Marxism because unless you understand Marxism you cannot understand anarchism. Obviously you understand neither but you need to understand Marxism before you go claiming to be an anarchist. Pfft.

Your "educated experts" would be the new ruling class. In an advanced anarchist society abundance would be facilitated with the application of technology and there would be no need for your silly hierarchical technates. No one needs the pseudo science of "energy accounting" either.

The technate is not hierarchical, at least not the European design which is relying heavily on non-hierarchical project groups. Energy accounting exist so we should be able to track the production capacity so we don't overexploit the natural base of the society. Similar schemes, for example carbon credits, are already being implemented in Germany and California (obviously with a more limited scope given the fact that the capitalist system is continuing to exist).

Is it only me, or is your debate strategy to 1) attack your opponents directly and 2) ignore what they say and repeat your earlier posts?

[RED DAVE]

So let's start with the basics:

How are you going to accomplish the abolition of classes? Answer that one first.
By establishing a technate of course.Cute but no Cuban cigar.

Now, since you've been here for awhile, you must know that the various tendencies around here, Trotskyist, Maoist, Anarchist, Stalinist, etc., argue mainly about how to accomplish the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. in fact, it is close to the essence of the differences between us, and there is hardly a week when we aren't duking it out about this.

So, how do you envision your technate being "established"?


By agitate [sic] for a revolution, we won't recruit anyone except FBI informers.So what you're saying is that the membership of revolutionary organizations consists of "FBI informers."


It is better to try to change the productive relations directly, by buying up land, technology and infrastructure.So you have no plan at all. This is some vague utopian scheme.

But two things are sure: You are not a revolutionary, and your belief system, your ideology, is not revolutionary.

RED DAVE

[Wolf Larson]

The technate is not hierarchical, at least not the European design which is relying heavily on non-hierarchical project groups. Energy accounting exist so we should be able to track the production capacity so we don't overexploit the natural base of the society. Similar schemes, for example carbon credits, are already being implemented in Germany and California (obviously with a more limited scope given the fact that the capitalist system is continuing to exist).

Is it only me, or is your debate strategy to 1) attack your opponents directly and 2) ignore what they say and repeat your earlier posts?

I told you I would not be civil if you try to frame me as a troll again which you did on page one.

And yes, your Technocratic plan is in fact hierarchical. It puts a minority in disproportionate control of the means of production. I need to repeat my earlier posts because you cannot address them.

[Wolf Larson]

No, you're wrong. The bureaucratic class is there because they're better than the workers at managing the production that workers run, or they are workers, but in any event they will be glad to make sure that the workers will be trained and if not, they can be replaced, but other experts control the army and the police, so how can they be replaced.

BUT DON'T WORRY!

RED DAVE

This seems to be escaping them.

[Dimentio]

I told you I would not be civil if you try to frame me as a troll again which you did on page one.

And yes, your Technocratic plan is in fact hierarchical. It puts a minority in disproportionate control of the means of production. I need to repeat my earlier posts because you cannot address them.

What minority? Those who are working on the project groups of the technate? I believe that would be very much a majority, though labour time would be short.

[Dimentio]

No one with a very small organisation could call for an armed revolution and appear as sane. As long as there isn't a situation where it would be legitimate to call for an uprising, we should focus on recruiting people and building up a movement with institutions able to replace those we see around us today.

[Wolf Larson]

What minority? Those who are working on the project groups of the technate? I believe that would be very much a majority, though labour time would be short.

The "educated and skilled" in an anarchist society would be no more important than a man turning a wrench. I understand your Utopian vision [automation lol] and I also understand your naive view on "human nature". What you seem to be ignoring over and over is the fact the social construct depends on the peoples relation to the means of production.

Also you act as if resources are infinite. It is impossible to create the type of abundance the west has now for every man woman and child on earth. We would need 4 earths to destroy and rebuild all of the cities to build "technates" or a eugenics program on a massive scale. To build your silly technates around the globe [ with equality] would require deep space exploration to gather resources or the extermination of hundreds of millions of human beings.

Now, if you're going to disregard all of Howard Scotts work [as you claim to do] and then try to adopt anarchism to make technocracy "nicer" only to mix anarchism with "energy accounting" why don't you simply drop all of the technocracy bunkum and simply advocate anarchism? It almost seems like you're trying to say the only difference between anarchism and "technocracy" is energy accounting and we both know that's bullshit. No one is acting as if modern anarchism is stuck in the 20'th century so the idiotic assumption that the word "technocracy" means anarchists who are for technology is just that, an idiotic assumption. Unless the means of production are equally controlled through and through class society will be perpetuated.

Can you please demonstrate that you understand the materialist conception of history then explain, in great detail, how your "educated engineer" class will not have a hierarchical position over those who they would see as "less" important to production in so giving them greater control of the means of production and society itself.

[RED DAVE]

I presume that this is a continuation of the discussion which was was last encountered in post 53 of this thread.


No one with a very small organisation could call for an armed revolution and appear as sane.Red, white and blue herrings. All revolutionary organizations advocate revolution. (Otherwise they wouldn't be revolutionary.) However, when you use the word "armed," you are raising a noneistent issue. No one is calling for the taking up of arms right now. However, there has never been a revolution that did not involve a violent encounter between the revolutionary and counter-revolutionary forces.


As long as there isn't a situation where it would be legitimate to call for an uprising, we should focus on recruiting people and building up a movement with institutions able to replace those we see around us today.What you are concealing in this is your actual strategy, which you stated above is: "try to change the productive relations directly, by buying up land, technology and infrastructure." This is not a revolutionary program. It is a utopian, reformist program.

Now, if what you are stating is that you are [I]really a revolutionary, and you advocate revolution at some point, but you don't want to say this publicly, you are concealing your true beliefs. This is being politically dishonest.

Virtually every organized group that has members who post on this website recognizes the necessity for an overthrow of the existing system by force. This is being politically honest.

So, which is it? A you a genuine revolutionary who is too chicken-shit to admit it. Or are you actually the vague utopian and reformist your public statements indicate your are?

RED DAVE

[Wolf Larson]

No one with a very small organisation could call for an armed revolution and appear as sane. As long as there isn't a situation where it would be legitimate to call for an uprising, we should focus on recruiting people and building up a movement with institutions able to replace those we see around us today.

Replace small with vanguard. The Bolsheviks were the 20'th century technocrats or "experts". How did that turn out? Never mind- Your vanguard parliamentary elite who don't believe in revolution sounds more Fabian to me. Technocracy wreaks of Fabian chum. Your brand is Fabian and Technocrats is Stalinist. Elitism is elitism.

[Wolf Larson]

Does Technocracy believe in the use of democratic methods?


No, if you mean by this the selection of administrativpersonnel by use of the ballot.
It is too hazardous in today's highly integrated, technological
society to depend on this random method for selecting the
specialized type of personnel required. We need instead a
selective technique that will have some better chance of
ensuring that people with firsthand knowledge of the functions
they are expected to administer will be selected. Such a
technique exists in the vertical alignment procedure of
promotion used by industry for selecting its supervisory staff in
the technical departments. It is a technique that has proved
remarkably successful despite Price System interference.
A modified application of the vertical alignment promotional
procedure will be employed by the Technate for selecting
administrators from bottom to top in all functional sequences.
The Sequence Directors, heads of their respective sequences,
would constitute the Continental Board; and this body would
use the only ballot employed at any stage for selecting a
chairman or Continental Director from their midst. This would
be by virtue of the fact that there would be no one above him
or her to appoint the Continental Director to that function.

On the question of divorce-

Will there be divorce in a Technate?
That will be a matter for the citizens to determine after the
Technate has been established. Decisions of this type, which
are unrelated to the operation of the Continent's physical
equipment, are a matter of public option, the determination of
which will be decided by referendum votes.

Editor comment.Just previously it was explained that this is not ademocratic system of
voting.This means then contradictory information. There is no voting on morality... ethics...
contracts... or aesthetic choice in a Technate. That would be a form of Democratic slavery to
belief system issues and people control.. something that is precluded in the Technate design
for North America. Referendum voting defeats the purpose of scientific government.
Opinions are not facts. A Price System stylecivil control through contracts of behavior

(Democracy = referendum voting)is not a part of the Technate design for North America.
The only referendum vote ever endorsed by the original group.. was the possibility of a
referendum vote concerning one issue. That issue is votingin a Technate from a Price
System political control.



"Scientific Government" where have I heard that before? Could you imagine any scenario which may effect people in negative ways if decisions are made "scientifically" with no human emotion [political system under direct democracy]? How is this "scientific government" democratic?

[Dimentio]

The "educated and skilled" in an anarchist society would be no more important than a man turning a wrench. I understand your Utopian vision [automation lol] and I also understand your naive view on "human nature". What you seem to be ignoring over and over is the fact the social construct depends on the peoples relation to the means of production.

Also you act as if resources are infinite. It is impossible to create the type of abundance the west has now for every man woman and child on earth. We would need 4 earths to destroy and rebuild all of the cities to build "technates" or a eugenics program on a massive scale. To build your silly technates around the globe [ with equality] would require deep space exploration to gather resources or the extermination of hundreds of millions of human beings.

Now, if you're going to disregard all of Howard Scotts work [as you claim to do] and then try to adopt anarchism to make technocracy "nicer" only to mix anarchism with "energy accounting" why don't you simply drop all of the technocracy bunkum and simply advocate anarchism? It almost seems like you're trying to say the only difference between anarchism and "technocracy" is energy accounting and we both know that's bullshit. No one is acting as if modern anarchism is stuck in the 20'th century so the idiotic assumption that the word "technocracy" means anarchists who are for technology is just that, an idiotic assumption. Unless the means of production are equally controlled through and through class society will be perpetuated.

Can you please demonstrate that you understand the materialist conception of history then explain, in great detail, how your "educated engineer" class will not have a hierarchical position over those who they would see as "less" important to production in so giving them greater control of the means of production and society itself.

A technate is not a city. A technate is an entire continental area or an entire planet for that matter which resources are administrated by a single source. Therefore, we are not going to tear down the cities, but slowly replace them as time goes by. Also, if resources were truly infinite, we wouldn't need energy accounting or any other system to account the production capacity. We are well aware that resources are finite in EOS which accidentally is why we are advocating the transformation of this planet into a technate.

There will not be any educated engineer class, I have repeated several times now. A social class is characterised by more than its profession, namely by its access to the means of production. Since everyone would have an equal share of the resources through the energy. No one is going to be privilegied.

Why we do not drop it? Because we happen to hold the conviction that energy accounting and the idea of a technate are needed pursuits in a post-capitalist society in order to make it work.

It is impossible to see into the future and see how the political, economic or social situation will look like. Hence, we need to be open for all opportunities and focus on our own movement to give it a maximum of options during every given situation. If that is cowardice, then cowardice is a virtue.

[Dimentio]

Does Technocracy believe in the use of democratic methods?


No, if you mean by this the selection of administrativpersonnel by use of the ballot.
It is too hazardous in today's highly integrated, technological
society to depend on this random method for selecting the
specialized type of personnel required. We need instead a
selective technique that will have some better chance of
ensuring that people with firsthand knowledge of the functions
they are expected to administer will be selected. Such a
technique exists in the vertical alignment procedure of
promotion used by industry for selecting its supervisory staff in
the technical departments. It is a technique that has proved
remarkably successful despite Price System interference.
A modified application of the vertical alignment promotional
procedure will be employed by the Technate for selecting
administrators from bottom to top in all functional sequences.
The Sequence Directors, heads of their respective sequences,
would constitute the Continental Board; and this body would
use the only ballot employed at any stage for selecting a
chairman or Continental Director from their midst. This would
be by virtue of the fact that there would be no one above him
or her to appoint the Continental Director to that function.

This is from Technocracy Incorporated which is an entirely different organisation from EOS and you know it very well. EOS doesn't even link to Tech Inc. We have taken some of their theories and tweaked them together with more modern administrative theories to form an alternative for the 21st century.

For marxist-leninists, theoretical puritanism is the most important thing. For technocrats, empirical functionalism should be the most important thing.

[Livid]

Replace small with vanguard. The Bolsheviks were the 20'th century technocrats or "experts". How did that turn out? Never mind- Your vanguard parliamentary elite who don't believe in revolution sounds more Fabian to me. Technocracy wreaks of Fabian chum. Your brand is Fabian and Technocrats is Stalinist. Elitism is elitism.


Times have changed the Bolsheviks didn't have to worry about night vision and heat detecting technology. Also the Political/Historical factors that caused the rise of Marxist-Leninism don't exist today. The system is way too stable to collapse, its a lot easier and less costly to life, to exploit the capitalisat system and grow inside it, then collapse it.

[Wolf Larson]

Editor comment.Just previously it was explained that this is not ademocratic system of
voting.This means then contradictory information. There is no voting on morality... ethics...
contracts... or aesthetic choice in a Technate. That would be a form of Democratic slavery to
belief system issues and people control.. something that is precluded in the Technate design
for North America. Referendum voting defeats the purpose of scientific government.
Opinions are not facts. A Price System stylecivil control through contracts of behavior

(Democracy = referendum voting)is not a part of the Technate design for North America.

[Dimentio]

Editor comment.Just previously it was explained that this is not ademocratic system of
voting.This means then contradictory information. There is no voting on morality... ethics...
contracts... or aesthetic choice in a Technate. That would be a form of Democratic slavery to
belief system issues and people control.. something that is precluded in the Technate design
for North America. Referendum voting defeats the purpose of scientific government.
Opinions are not facts. A Price System stylecivil control through contracts of behavior

(Democracy = referendum voting)is not a part of the Technate design for North America.

You could quote Technocracy Incorporated all that you want, but Technocracy Incorporated is far away from EOS and you cannot change that, no matter if you put that in your sig.

[Wolf Larson]

Times have changed the Bolsheviks didn't have to worry about night vision and heat detecting technology. Also the Political/Historical factors that caused the rise of Marxist-Leninism don't exist today. The system is way too stable to collapse, its a lot easier and less costly to life, to exploit the capitalisat system and grow inside it, then reform it.
Another parliamentary revisionist. I don't have the time for this
And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions of endless varying positions.

In short. Kick rocks.

[Dimentio]

Capitalism is not going to die next year. Or the year afterwards. The important thing is to be well-prepared for an eventual future confrontation, but at as a cheap price as possible.

An old Russian proverb is saying: "If you could choose between a schack matt and a pawn, take the pawn. It is not certain it is a schack matt."

Reformism should be denounced, since it is bringing the power of arbitration into the hands of the state. The main goal should be a weakened/weak state.

[Wolf Larson]

Ok then, your words it is:

"The only thing which the technate is existing to manage is the flow of resources, production, distribution and recycling. It doesn't decide what should be produced, only how things should be produced."

So then they, being engineers, disproportionately control the means of production. Not the workers. Here is where you try to claim the petty bourgeoisie are the proletariat. Pfft. Do you understand Marx's materialist critique of history? Do I need to explain it to you? Whoever controls the flow of recources controls society. Who then SPECIFICALLY controls the flow of resources? All of society?

Another thing I'm noticing is the futuristic nature of your arguments. If anarchism is to take hold why do you think "Technocracy" would be necessary in order for [just] anarchism to facilitate equal abundance? What then are anarchism's short comings and what does your version of technocracy bring to the table?

Also, I've been in your Techno forums and you do not oppose the views in the American "technnate". I live in America, which would effect me if your fantasy ever came true.

[Dimentio]

Ok then, your words it is:

"The only thing which the technate is existing to manage is the flow of resources, production, distribution and recycling. It doesn't decide what should be produced, only how things should be produced."

So then they, being engineers, disproportionately control the means of production. Not the workers. Here is where you try to claim the petty bourgeoisie are the proletariat. Pfft. Do you understand Marx's materialist critique of history? Do I need to explain it to you? Whoever controls the flow of recources controls society. Who then SPECIFICALLY controls the flow of resources? All of society?

Another thing I'm noticing is the futuristic nature of your arguments. If anarchism is to take hold why do you think "Technocracy" would be necessary in order for [just] anarchism to facilitate equal abundance? What then are anarchism's short comings and what does your version of technocracy bring to the table?

Also, I've been in your Techno forums and you do not oppose the views in the American "technnate". I live in America, which would effect me if your fantasy ever came true.

1. Those who will run the European technate would be the people working in the local project groups.

2. Do you think if we would be successful that we would try to enstrengthen Technocracy Incorporated? We mostly are trying to ignore them. We are working together with forward-looking American technocrats like dr Ciotola. The reason why we don't denounce them is that we do not care about theoretical puritanism, but about empirical functionality. Movements which simply cannot give us anything are met by silence and not by lengthy analyses condemning them.

[RED DAVE]

Times have changed the Bolsheviks didn't have to worry about night vision and heat detecting technology. Also the Political/Historical factors that caused the rise of Marxist-Leninism don't exist today. The system is way too stable to collapse, its a lot easier and less costly to life, to exploit the capitalisat system and grow inside it, then collapse it.And where are you coming from, junior?

What makes you think that you/we can "exploit the capitalisat system and grow inside it, then collapse it"? This is the fantasy of every utopian.

RED DAVE

[RED DAVE]

Capitalism is not going to die next year. Or the year afterwards. The important thing is to be well-prepared for an eventual future confrontation, but at as a cheap price as possible.And tell us how your bizarre fantasy of buying up capitalism will make us "well-prepared."


An old Russian proverb is saying: "If you could choose between a schack matt and a pawn, take the pawn. It is not certain it is a schack matt."I assume by "schack matt" you mean "check mate." There's an American proverb (that I just made up) that provides a good attitude towards Technocracy: "You can't put ketchup on shit and call it a hamburger."



Reformism should be denounced, since it is bringing the power of arbitration into the hands of the state. The main goal should be a weakened/weak state.The main goal, jtm, is the overthrow of the state. Your concept of weakening the state is the essence of reformism. Any tea bagger would agree with you.

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

And tell us how your bizarre fantasy of buying up capitalism will make us "well-prepared."

I assume by "schack matt" you mean "check mate." There's an American proverb (that I just made up) that provides a good attitude towards Technocracy: "You can't put ketchup on shit and call it a hamburger."


The main goal, jtm, is the overthrow of the state. Your concept of weakening the state is the essence of reformism. Any tea bagger would agree with you.

RED DAVE

Reformists aim to strengthen the state in order for it to act as an arbitrator between labour and capital.

Strength is measured by followers, resources, territory. In order to achieve our long-term goals, we need all three of those.

[RED DAVE]

Reformists aim to strengthen the state in order for it to act as an arbitrator between labour and capital.True. And considering that you have stated elsewhere that your technate fantasy is compatible with a bourgeois state (republican or monarchial), that would certainly put you in the reformist camp.


Strength is measured by followers, resources, territory.Yeah. The unions in the US that have some power have lots of territory.


In order to achieve our long-term goals, we need all three of those.And how, pray tell, do you intend to accumulate these (especially territory)?

And, by the way, how does all this shit make you any kind of revolutionary?

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

1. It would be a weakened shadow state which would only exist because people in generak like their traditional rituals, aesthetics and procedures. All its functions would really be taken care of by direct democratic councils.

2. What a silly question. By buying it of course.

3. This "shit" will ensure our survival and gradually increased influence. When we could establish our own institutions...

[RED DAVE]

And considering that you have stated elsewhere that your technate fantasy is compatible with a bourgeois state (republican or monarchial), that would certainly put you in the reformist camp.
1. It would be a weakened shadow state which would only exist because people in generak like their traditional rituals, aesthetics and procedures. All its functions would really be taken care of by direct democratic councils.Then it isn't a bourgeois state. And this is the first time I have ever seen you refer to councils. I guess you're finally learning something about socialism.

However, you fail to understand the nature of the state. Or, you're waffling. In my opinion, the original position of your flavor of Technocracy was that it was fully compatible with a bourgeois state, but you got frightened off that position.


In order to achieve our long-term goals, we need all three of those [followers, resources and territory].
And how, pray tell, do you intend to accumulate these (especially territory)?
2. What a silly question. By buying it of course.Right! The working class, which is slowly sinking under the weight of capitalist economic and political oppression, under the banner of Technocracy is going recruit enough follower and resources to buy up enough territory, to compete economically with capitalism itself. I take it back. You don't know shit about socialism, the state, revolution, any of it.


3. This "shit" will ensure our survival and gradually increased influence. When we could establish our own institutions...Like I said before: petit-bourgeois utopian. You're going to buy your own little chunk of the Earth, compete with capitalism on its terms ... and win!


And, by the way, how does all this shit make you any kind of revolutionary?It doesn't.

RED DAVE

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Right! The working class, which is slowly sinking under the weight of capitalist economic and political oppression...

Like your quasi-religious politico-economic apocalypticism is any more effective.

[RED DAVE]

Like your quasi-religious politico-economic apocalypticism is any more effective.It's call Marxism, Comrade, and it's the theoretical basis for this board, in case you hadn't noticed.

You know, NoXion, I'm really bored with you. Here and on the thread about racism, you show a personal aggressiveness, which is back up with nothing. You don't seem to know much about history, theory, etc. You never mention anything you're doing. So, why don't you do us a favor and learn some shit, do some shit, and, until then, shut the fuck up.

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

Then it isn't a bourgeois state. And this is the first time I have ever seen you refer to councils. I guess you're finally learning something about socialism.

However, you fail to understand the nature of the state. Or, you're waffling. In my opinion, the original position of your flavor of Technocracy was that it was fully compatible with a bourgeois state, but you got frightened off that position.

Right! The working class, which is slowly sinking under the weight of capitalist economic and political oppression, under the banner of Technocracy is going recruit enough follower and resources to buy up enough territory, to compete economically with capitalism itself. I take it back. You don't know shit about socialism, the state, revolution, any of it.

Like I said before: petit-bourgeois utopian. You're going to buy your own little chunk of the Earth, compete with capitalism on its terms ... and win!

It doesn't.

RED DAVE

We have continuously referred to councils as a way for people to administrate their own social matters.

http://www.eoslife.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=167:confederalism-democracy-and-technocracy&catid=35:social&Itemid=95

A formal republic or a formal monarchy is not incompatible with a direct democratic confederacy. If the people want to keep their formalised institutions and procedures, then let them keep it. It doesn't really mean life or death of an economic system that the political procedural system is somewhat anachronistic. Feudal institutions like monarchies have survived as constitutional monarchies stripped of any formal political powers into our day without meaning so much a problem. So we don't see any problems with their continuation.

So no, I have not wobbled. The one who is desperate is you.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

It's call Marxism, Comrade, and it's the theoretical basis for this board, in case you hadn't noticed.

I think you're confusing the board with its members.


You know, NoXion, I'm really bored with you. Here and on the thread about racism, you show a personal aggressiveness, which is back up with nothing...

So, why don't you do us a favor and learn some shit,

It's hard to "learn" when all one gets is screeching that one is wrong.


do some shit,

As soon as something pops up where I live, I'll let you know. Travel in the UK is expensive enough when one is in employment.


and, until then, shut the fuck up.

I think I will pass on this piece of "advice".

[Fullmetal Anarchist]

Dave as useful as your posts can be attacking Technocracy is pointless as its more an idea for living (at least in my opinion) than a political opinion and I think that your uncomfortable with it because it dosen't really fit anywhere here. I think a lot of Leftists (including myself) are a little uncomfortable but in all honesty it's a great idea and to be honest it would work. Just do some reading on it.

[syndicat]

"The only thing which the technate is existing to manage is the flow of resources, production, distribution and recycling. It doesn't decide what should be produced, only how things should be produced"

You can't manage production and distribution and flow of resources without managing labor. So, you're proposing right there a class system. Class is the power that some have over others in production. The working class consists of those who are subordinate to management and do not manage others. In addition to the wealthy plutocrats who control large scale investment strategy, you have the corporate and state bureaucratic class, which consists of managers and the various high-end professionals who work with them -- industrial engineers, architects, finance officers & accountants, top engineers, lawyers, judges, military officers, etc.

You may propose to expropriate the plutocratic parasites, but there is still the power of the bureaucratic class. Just removing the plutocracy actually makes the position of the bureaucratic class stronger.

The bureaucratic class is also an exploiting class. Their prestige, power and high salaries and other perks are based on their participation in the exploitation of the working class.

[RED DAVE]

It's call Marxism, Comrade, and it's the theoretical basis for this board, in case you hadn't noticed.
I think you're confusing the board with its members.Whatever. In any event, my definition of class is the Marxist one.


You know, NoXion, I'm really bored with you. Here and on the thread about racism, you show a personal aggressiveness, which is back up with nothing...

So, why don't you do us a favor and learn some shit,
It's hard to "learn" when all one gets is screeching that one is wrong.Tell you what: choose about ten good books on racism, curl up with then, and we'll see you in a couple of months.


do some shit,
As soon as something pops up where I live, I'll let you know. Travel in the UK is expensive enough when one is in employment.See above.


and, until then, shut the fuck up.
I think I will pass on this piece of "advice".Somehow this doesn't surprise me.

RED DAVE

[RED DAVE]

Dave as useful as your posts can be attacking Technocracy is pointless as its more an idea for living (at least in my opinion) than a political opinion and I think that your uncomfortable with it because it doesn't really fit anywhere here.It doesn't fit here because its a petit-bourgeois utopia, not a revolutionary ideology.


I think a lot of Leftists (including myself) are a little uncomfortable but in all honesty it's a great idea and to be honest it would work. Just do some reading on it.What makes you think that it would work? And how do you think that such a discusting system would ever come into existence? I've read a lot about it; including the entire course. It's bullshit (and that's being polite).

RED DAVE

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Whatever. In any event, my definition of class is the Marxist one.

Implicit in this statement is the idea that anything "Marxist" is automatically correct (at least if they agree with you) and above criticism. I beg to differ.

Of course this is ignoring the fact that there is more than one "kind" of Marxism, with differences enough for ideological splits a-plenty.


Tell you what: choose about ten good books on racism, curl up with then, and we'll see you in a couple of months.

Tell you what, why don't you stick to the subject and make your recommendations concerning "ten good books on racism" in the appropriate thread, and in this thread concentrate on the matter of technocracy.


See above.

"Read a book!!11!!1!" Doesn't seem relevant to the issue of activity, especially if that pretty much all you say.


Somehow this doesn't surprise me.

Then why did you bother telling me to shut up? The only reason I can think of is so you can accentuate your "hardcore revolutionary" e-persona. I have no way of knowing whether you really claim to do what you claim to have done. If it's true, then great; but either way your macho chest-beating about it not only changes the subject, but leaves me distinctly underwhelmed.

[RED DAVE]

Just in case any has any illusions as to whether or not Technocracy of the European flavor has anything to do with the working class as the agent of revolutionary change, here's a quote from an article on their website.



Introduction to the ideology of neo-industrial society

We, integrating these achievements, take our own step to Marxism development. As a revolutionary class we allocate the youth, intellectuals-technocrats: inventors, engineers and scientists-innovators following principles of morals and meritocracy.http://www.eoslife.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=171:introduction-to-the-ideology-of-neo-industrial-society&catid=35:social&Itemid=95

Oh yeah! I can see these dudes on the barricades now.

RED DAVE

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Oh yeah! I can see these dudes on the barricades now.

Do you have anything to offer aside from your obvious snobbery?

[RED DAVE]

Oh yeah! I can see these dudes on the barricades now.
Do you have anything to offer aside from your obvious snobbery?Yes, the explicit evidence of the website posted above that European Technocracy is not a revolutionary ideology.

What have you got to say that it is revolutionary and doesn't belong in Opposing Ideologies like liberalism and social democracy?

RED DAVE

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Yes, the explicit evidence of the website posted above that European Technocracy is not a revolutionary ideology.

Only according to your own narrowly doctrinaire interpretation of Marxism.


What have you got to say that it is revolutionary and doesn't belong in Opposing Ideologies like liberalism and social democracy?

Myself and others have been making that argument in pretty much all of the anti-technocracy threads that have popped up. Either you haven't paid attention or you're simply being obtuse.

[RED DAVE]

Yes, the explicit evidence of the website posted above [shows] that European Technocracy is not a revolutionary ideology.
Only according to your own narrowly doctrinaire interpretation of Marxism.My "interpretation is neither narrow nor doctriaire. However, to the extent that you and you Technocratic ilk understand Marxism at all, you are the worst bunch of revisionists I've seen in years. You basically have revised Marxism out of existence by eliminating the necessity for a revolutionary overthrow of capitalism by the working class.

What have you got to say that it is revolutionary and doesn't belong in Opposing Ideologies like liberalism and social democracy?
Myself and others have been making that argument in pretty much all of the anti-technocracy threads that have popped up. Either you haven't paid attention or you're simply being obtuse.Neither you nor any of your ilk, Dimentio, Technocrat, etc., have ever demonstrated that Technocracy is a revolutionary ideology.

I challenge you, in your next post in this thread, to demonstrate, by your ideology and your actions, in other words, by your praxis, that Technocracy is a revolutionary ideology.

RED DAVE

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

My "interpretation is neither narrow nor doctriaire. However, to the extent that you and you Technocratic ilk understand Marxism at all, you are the worst bunch of revisionists I've seen in years. You basically have revised Marxism out of existence by eliminating the necessity for a revolutionary overthrow of capitalism by the working class.

I don't agree with your characterisation at all. Reformism doesn't work, that's been proven for over a century. So what else is left? Certainly I can't think of anything other than some sort of revolution.


Neither you nor any of your ilk, Dimentio, Technocrat, etc., have ever demonstrated that Technocracy is a revolutionary ideology.

I challenge you, in your next post in this thread, to demonstrate, by your ideology and your actions, in other words, by your praxis, that Technocracy is a revolutionary ideology.

Technocracy requires a wholesale re-organisation of the means of production in line with the goal of providing the largest amount of people with the highest standards of living, as opposed to profit-motivated production for those that can afford it. A technocratic society has no economic classes as each citizen has equal access to the products of society. There is no divide between producers and consumers, thus in a technocratic society workers will not be alienated from their products on a societal level.

If that's not revolutionary enough for you, well, tough shit! Your hectoring, bloviating attitude tells me that nothing short of wholesale conversion to RED DAVE's First Church of Marx will convince you of anything.

[RED DAVE]

Technocracy requires a wholesale re-organisation of the means of production in line with the goal of providing the largest amount of people with the highest standards of living, as opposed to profit-motivated production for those that can afford it. A technocratic society has no economic classes as each citizen has equal access to the products of society. There is no divide between producers and consumers, thus in a technocratic society workers will not be alienated from their products on a societal level.There is nothing in this statement that has anything to do with revolution, socialism, communism, etc. There is no indication as to how this petit-bourgeois utopia will come about. Any idealistic liberal, radical or social democrat could subscribe to this. There is no mention of the working class as the revolutionary class, the seizure of power and the destruction of the bourgeois state, etc.

Technocracy, by your own words, and by the words of the European Technocracy website is, explicity, not a revolutionary ideology.


If that's not revolutionary enough for you, well, tough shit! Your hectoring, bloviating attitude tells me that nothing short of wholesale conversion to RED DAVE's First Church of Marx will convince you of anything.Unlike yourself and your ilk, I'm a revolutionary, and unlike yourself and your ilk, I follow a revolutionary ideology. It's not my "church," it's the belief that, more or less, is followed by a majority of people on this revolutionary, left-wing website.

By the words on its website, by deeds (none at all) and by your ranting and raving, it's obvious that Technocracy has nothing to do with revolution.

RED DAVE

[Ravachol]

There is nothing in this statement that has anything to do with revolution, socialism, communism, etc. There is no indication as to how this petit-bourgeois utopia will come about. Any idealistic liberal, radical or social democrat could subscribe to this.


Nonsense, utter and blatant nonsense. Regardless of my criticisms concerning technocracy (mainly directed at the utopian nature of the project, prefiguring the future in the present to a great degree, which isn't all too uncommon in revolutionary leftist circles) it isn't 'petit-bourgeois' at all. Please tell me how technocracy will allocate the means of production to a class that lives of both it's labor and of the wage labor of others?



There is no mention of the working class as the revolutionary class


Whilst I subscribe to this notion, not all revolutionary communists do. Are some Maoists any less revolutionary because they consider peasants and some segments of the petit-bourgeoisie to be revolutionary? Personally i'm convinced any cross-class alliance will not bring about communism at all, but that doesn't mean revolutionary leftists advocating them are any less revolutionary.



, the seizure of power


Am I not a revolutionary for not advocating the seizure of 'power' and bourgeois institutions?

I'm rather sceptic that Technocracy is the way forward towards Communism but I'm sceptic about a lot of tendencies. That doesn't mean they aren't 'revolutionary'.

[Invincible Summer]

There is nothing in this statement that has anything to do with revolution, socialism, communism, etc. There is no indication as to how this petit-bourgeois utopia will come about. Any idealistic liberal, radical or social democrat could subscribe to this. There is no mention of the working class as the revolutionary class, the seizure of power and the destruction of the bourgeois state, etc.

Technocracy, by your own words, and by the words of the European Technocracy website is, explicity, not a revolutionary ideology.

Unlike yourself and your ilk, I'm a revolutionary, and unlike yourself and your ilk, I follow a revolutionary ideology. It's not my "church," it's the belief that, more or less, is followed by a majority of people on this revolutionary, left-wing website.

By the words on its website, by deeds (none at all) and by your ranting and raving, it's obvious that Technocracy has nothing to do with revolution.

RED DAVE

So it's not revolutionary in a classical Marxist sense... so what?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

There is nothing in this statement that has anything to do with revolution, socialism, communism, etc.

As I mentioned in my previous post, reformism doesn't work, therefore revolution is the solution, at least as far as I can tell.

I didn't mention socialism or communism because I was talking about something else; technocracy.


There is no indication as to how this petit-bourgeois utopia will come about. Any idealistic liberal, radical or social democrat could subscribe to this.

They could, but so what? The same could be said for Marxism.


There is no mention of the working class as the revolutionary class, the seizure of power and the destruction of the bourgeois state, etc.

It's more or less implicit in what I said. Allow me to join the dots for you, since you're too obtuse to do so yourself;

1. Technocracy cannot be brought about by reformism.

2. Barring some other method we have yet to concieve, a popular revolution would be required to establish a technocratic society.

3. Most people are of the working class which is a revolutionary class.

4. The structures of a technocratic society are radically, fundamentally different to those of a capitalist society.

5. Therefore, in order for a Technate (a technocratic society) to be established, there would need to be some form of popular uprising (revolution) on the part of the classes capable of such, including but not limited to the working class. This revolution, if successful, would smash current state and corporate structures and replace them with technocratic organisation.


Technocracy, by your own words, and by the words of the European Technocracy website is, explicity, not a revolutionary ideology.

Wrong, as I have just demonstrated.


Unlike yourself and your ilk, I'm a revolutionary, and unlike yourself and your ilk, I follow a revolutionary ideology.

Unlike you, I don't doubt the sincerity of those who disagree with me.


It's not my "church," it's the belief that, more or less, is followed by a majority of people on this revolutionary, left-wing website.

Your appeals to popularity and your "my way or fuck you" attitude is disturbingly similar to that of religious fundamentalists.


By the words on its website, by deeds (none at all) and by your ranting and raving, it's obvious that Technocracy has nothing to do with revolution.

Faith without works is dead, right? :lol:

[Dimentio]

Just in case any has any illusions as to whether or not Technocracy of the European flavor has anything to do with the working class as the agent of revolutionary change, here's a quote from an article on their website.

http://www.eoslife.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=171:introduction-to-the-ideology-of-neo-industrial-society&catid=35:social&Itemid=95

Oh yeah! I can see these dudes on the barricades now.

RED DAVE

Nina Pestriakova's article is strange, and I'm quite dumbfounded why it appeared on our website since we've never heard of the person before. I've tried to discuss with her, and she seems to have some pretty strong differences with us.

[RED DAVE]

1. Technocracy cannot be brought about by reformism.

2. Barring some other method we have yet to concieve, a popular revolution would be required to establish a technocratic society.

3. Most people are of the working class which is a revolutionary class.

4. The structures of a technocratic society are radically, fundamentally different to those of a capitalist society.

5. Therefore, in order for a Technate (a technocratic society) to be established, there would need to be some form of popular uprising (revolution) on the part of the classes capable of such, including but not limited to the working class. This revolution, if successful, would smash current state and corporate structures and replace them with technocratic organisation.Okay. Rather than getting into a debate on these principles let me say that these are your principles not principles of Technocracy.

You have established that you are a revolutionary, not that Technocracy is a revolutionary ideology. The principles you have posted are not derivable from the principles of Technocracy as you have explained them and certainly not as Technocrat or Dimentio have described them or as posted on any Technocracy website.

So, welcome to the ranks of the revolution. Why not leave your baggage behind you?

RED DAVE

[RED DAVE]

Just in case any has any illusions as to whether or not Technocracy of the European flavor has anything to do with the working class as the agent of revolutionary change, here's a quote from an article on their website.

http://www.eoslife.eu/index.php?opti...cial&Itemid=95 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.eoslife.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=171:introduction-to-the-ideology-of-neo-industrial-society&catid=35:social&Itemid=95)
Nina Pestriakova's article is strange, and I'm quite dumbfounded why it appeared on our website since we've never heard of the person before. I've tried to discuss with her, and she seems to have some pretty strong differences with us.(1) Frankly, she seems to express pretty much the attitude evinced by you and Technocrat.

(2) If it doesn't express the opinions of Euro-Technocracy, why is it there. And please doesn't hide behind some crap that "we print material from all points of view."If this is true, and this piece doesn't express express the opinion of your group, it should be printed with a disclaimer.

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

(1) Frankly, she seems to express pretty much the attitude evinced by you and Technocrat.

(2) If it doesn't express the opinions of Euro-Technocracy, why is it there. And please doesn't hide behind some crap that "we print material from all points of view."If this is true, and this piece doesn't express express the opinion of your group, it should be printed with a disclaimer.

RED DAVE

There is an on-going discussion on our website WHY it slipped through. Its the responsibility of the editors and apparently someone just skimmed it through.

[RED DAVE]

(1) Frankly, she seems to express pretty much the attitude evinced by you and Technocrat.

(2) If it doesn't express the opinions of Euro-Technocracy, why is it there. And please doesn't hide behind some crap that "we print material from all points of view."If this is true, and this piece doesn't express express the opinion of your group, it should be printed with a disclaimer.
There is an on-going discussion on our website WHY it slipped through. Its the responsibility of the editors and apparently someone just skimmed it through.Frankly, Dimentio, the article seems to me to pretty much express the European Technocracy attitude. There isn't anything on the website about revolution, as understood n the webiste, one meager reference to theproletariat, no reference to unions, mass movements, etc. As I've said, there's nothing on the site that a social democrat or aliberal idealist could couldn't agree with.

It is obvious that European Technocracy, as expressed in its own website, is not a revolutionary ideology.

http://www.eoslife.eu/

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

Frankly, Dimentio, the article seems to me to pretty much express the European Technocracy attitude. There isn't anything on the website about revolution, as understood n the webiste, one meager reference to theproletariat, no reference to unions, mass movements, etc. As I've said, there's nothing on the site that a social democrat or aliberal idealist could couldn't agree with.

It is obvious that European Technocracy, as expressed in its own website, is not a revolutionary ideology.

http://www.eoslife.eu/

RED DAVE

EOS is a research organisation, not a political party :lol:

[RED DAVE]

EOS is a research organisation, not a political party :lol:George Orwell once said about literature: the decision not to put politics in a novel is a political decision. The decision for you to be involved in politics and pretend not to be political is a political decision.

Truth is, European Technocracy, like its American cousin, is political as hell. You just conceal it under the guise of "research" or the claim that you are evolving a "blueprint" instead of what is obvious: that you are promulgating an ideology.

And it is abundantly clear that Technocracy, Euro or American flavor, is not a revolutionary belief system.

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

George Orwell once said about literature: the decision not to put politics in a novel is a political decision. The decision for you to be involved in politics and pretend not to be political is a political decision.

Truth is, European Technocracy, like its American cousin, is political as hell. You just conceal it under the guise of "research" or the claim that you are evolving a "blueprint" instead of what is obvious: that you are promulgating an ideology.

And it is abundantly clear that Technocracy, Euro or American flavor, is not a revolutionary belief system.

RED DAVE

That is your belief.

And yay, I took entry numbero 100.

[RED DAVE]

That is your belief [that Technocracy is not a revolutionary ideology].How about a scintilla of evidence that it is. None of you supporters of this belief sustem have produced the sligtest indication that it is revolutionary, beyond your personal, undocumented opinion, unsupported by any action whatsoever.

So, c'mon, Dimentio, what has the Technocracy movement, European or American version, ever done to make anyone believe that it's revolutionary.

RED DAVE

[Wolf Larson]

I'm still waiting for any of you to demonstrate your understanding of Marx's materialist conception of history as it relates to the means of production. Why am I saying whoever holds disproportionate control of the means of production also controls society at large?

Also, what is your understanding of anarchism pertaining to facilitating abundance? Why is anarchism in need of "technocracy"? I'd suggest you start with some simple reading...perhaps Berkman's ABC of anarchism. It's a tad outdated but to think anarchism or certain strains of Marxism cannot facilitate material abundance/general equality without technocracy's silly proclamations is absurd. You moderators should be on a different forum spreading "Technocracy" not on a revolutionary socialist forum. Stratification to the tenth degree. Just another silly faction to marginalize the working classes social power. Great job guys. Keep going on and on, as you were, advocating a anti revoloutionary idiology on a revolutionary web site. It makes allot of sense.

[∞]

Yeah I work my ass off on one thread...zero-replies....I see this dumbass thread and everyone is involved. I thought revleft was an intellectual forum. I guess I was wrong:(

[Wolf Larson]

Yeah I work my ass off on one thread...zero-replies....I see this dumbass thread and everyone is involved. I thought revleft was an intellectual forum. I guess I was wrong:(
I thought it was a revolutionary socialist forum. I'd much rather discuss whatever it was you posted. Unless, of course, it was a post advocating a counter revolutionary ideology. Maybe I can start a scientology sub culture here on revleft? I don't see any reason Scientology cant be considered revolutionary. L Ron Hubbard is right up there with Marx.

But seriously. Lets test your intellectual prowess. Post away. I'll converse with you. Post a link to your thread and I'll comment on it. Just...whatever you do don't start advocating technocracy because half of the moderators on a 'revolutionary' web sire are doing it.

[∞]

I thought it was a revolutionary socialist forum. I'd much rather discuss whatever it was you posted. Unless, of course, it was a post advocating a counter revolutionary ideology. Maybe I can start a scientology sub culture here on revleft? I don't see any reason Scientology cant be considered revolutionary. L Ron Hubbard is right u there with Marx.

But seriously. Lets test your intellectual prowess. Post away. I'll converse with you. Post a link to your thread and I'll comment on it. Just...whatever you do don't start advocating technocracy because half of the moderators on a 'revolutionary' web sire are doing it.

Well okay,but I can't post links yet so go on theory and then click on "international fascism"

and no I'm no techfuck

[Wolf Larson]

All workers would be engineers, since menial labour would be largely phased out. Everyone would be trained to apply engineering solutions to everything.
This is the most absurd string of words I've seen yet.

Lets juxtapose your two statements:

"The only thing which the technate is existing to manage is the flow of resources, production, distribution and recycling."


"All workers would be engineers, since menial labour would be LARGELY phased out. Everyone would be trained to apply engineering solutions to everything."

Do I even need to say anything?

[Wolf Larson]

You can't manage production and distribution and flow of resources without managing labor. So, you're proposing right there a class system. Class is the power that some have over others in production. The working class consists of those who are subordinate to management and do not manage others. In addition to the wealthy plutocrats who control large scale investment strategy, you have the corporate and state bureaucratic class, which consists of managers and the various high-end professionals who work with them -- industrial engineers, architects, finance officers & accountants, top engineers, lawyers, judges, military officers, etc.

You may propose to expropriate the plutocratic parasites, but there is still the power of the bureaucratic class. Just removing the plutocracy actually makes the position of the bureaucratic class stronger.

The bureaucratic class is also an exploiting class. Their prestige, power and high salaries and other perks are based on their participation in the exploitation of the working class.
His answer to this is " MOST manual labor jobs wouldn't exist and JUST ABOUT everyone would be an engineer" LOL

[Dimentio]

His answer to this is " MOST manual labor jobs wouldn't exist and JUST ABOUT everyone would be an engineer" LOL

Yes, and what is wrong with that? It is certainly feasible. Most workers in developed capitalist nations today are educated how to operate advanced machinery, and their duties are mostly to supervise machinery. The only difference in the technate is that the surveillance and development would be more equally distributed within the workforce and that the labour time would be largely decreased.

The difference between the design of for example EOS and the soviet model is that the Soviet model kept and even developed the capitalist way of organising a firm, while we instead focus on establishing autonomous teams where those who are working within them have control over the means of production within their disposal and are free to determine how to try to reach the overall goals of sustainability for everyone.

*expect's Wolf to start trolling soon again*

[x371322]

WTF? Comparing Scientology to this discussion? Since it's here let's use it as an example: Is Scientology a revolutionary ideology? Of course not. But could a Scientologist be a revolutionary? Sure, why not. Even if Technocracy itself isn't explicitly revolutionary, it does NOT mean that it's adherents can't be.

I smell a witch hunt here. Wolf man must have been molested by technocrats as a child or something.

[Wolf Larson]

Yes, and what is wrong with that? It is certainly feasible. Most workers in developed capitalist nations today are educated how to operate advanced machinery, and their duties are mostly to supervise machinery. The only difference in the technate is that the surveillance and development would be more equally distributed within the workforce and that the labour time would be largely decreased.

The difference between the design of for example EOS and the soviet model is that the Soviet model kept and even developed the capitalist way of organising a firm, while we instead focus on establishing autonomous teams where those who are working within them have control over the means of production within their disposal and are free to determine how to try to reach the overall goals of sustainability for everyone.

*expect's Wolf to start trolling soon again*


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7j8Ba9rWhUg

Expects you to not understand the point of me posting that video.

[Wolf Larson]

WTF? Comparing Scientology to this discussion? Since it's here let's use it as an example: Is Scientology a revolutionary ideology? Of course not. But could a Scientologist be a revolutionary? Sure, why not. Even if Technocracy itself isn't explicitly revolutionary, it does NOT mean that it's adherents can't be.

I smell a witch hunt here. Wolf man must have been molested by technocrats as a child or something.
Or you're a blazing idiot who's appealing to authority. The exact problem I have with moderators on a revolutionary socialit website advocating technocracy. Stupid people like you will buy into it.

[Wolf Larson]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_%28film%29

[x371322]

Yep. Witch hunt. You make it more obvious with every post. Anyone who disagrees with the great Wolf Larson MUST be a blazing idiot, and insincere with their beliefs. I am after all only appealing to authority, I have no real interest in technocracy.

Douche.

[Dimentio]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_%28film%29

The fun thing is that the reason that I am a supporter of EOS is because I completely reject such anti-human societies as those of Metropolis. If we could administrate resources and technology in a rational manner and guided by the principles of humanism and sustainability, humanity as a whole could create a paradise where the purpose of the productive capacity is to free you and everyone else and allow you to live in a world where you could play, sport, have fun, listen to music and do whatever you want, where everyone would be forming their own working environment and be able to initiate their own projects and get the means to be able to carry them through.

[Wolf Larson]

Yep. Witch hunt. You make it more obvious with every post. Anyone who disagrees with the great Wolf Larson MUST be a blazing idiot, and insincere with their beliefs. I am after all only appealing to authority, I have no real interest in technocracy.

Douche.
Then why are you posting in this thread? Post something with subsistence will ya? Why don't you demonstrate you understand why I posted 'metropolis'? Or you can demonstrate your understanding of the materialist conception of history...while you're at it demonstrate your understanding of technocracy- the only idiot on a which hunt in this thread is you kid.

While you're at it take that Debs quote off your sig because Technocracy perpetuates class society. This is my entire point.

[Wolf Larson]

The fun thing is that the reason that I am a supporter of EOS is because I completely reject such anti-human societies as those of Metropolis. If we could administrate resources and technology in a rational manner and guided by the principles of humanism and sustainability, humanity as a whole could create a paradise where the purpose of the productive capacity is to free you and everyone else and allow you to live in a world where you could play, sport, have fun, listen to music and do whatever you want, where everyone would be forming their own working environment and be able to initiate their own projects and get the means to be able to carry them through.
I said: "His answer to this is " MOST manual labor jobs wouldn't exist and JUST ABOUT everyone would be an engineer"

Your answer: "LOL Yes, and what is wrong with that?"

[Dimentio]

I said: "His answer to this is " MOST manual labor jobs wouldn't exist and JUST ABOUT everyone would be an engineer"

Your answer: "LOL Yes, and what is wrong with that?"

And the jobs which couldn't be automatised would be assigned on a circulating schedule where all people have some mandatory service to do, no matter what administrative positions they otherwise have. For example the technate director would also need to take out time to work in daycare service or to help cleaning a hospital.

Administrative positions in a technate formed by the principles of EOS do not equal material privileges.

Sometimes your texts are really incomprehensible to everyone a part from yourself.

[x371322]

Then why are you posting in this thread? Post something with subsistence will ya? Why don't you demonstrate you understand why I posted 'metropolis'? Or you can demonstrate your understanding of the materialist conception of history...while you're at it demonstrate your understanding of technocracy- the only idiot on a which hunt in this thread is you kid.

While you're at it take that Debs quote off your sig because Technocracy perpetuates class society. This is my entire point.

Kid? You're the one acting like a child in this thread. Whining about not getting your way with how the forum runs. Get the fuck over it. If you don't like it here, then fucking leave. It's an INTERNET FORUM. God Damn man...

I admit I'm still learning the ins and outs, and don't know everything about technocracy, so I won't say much more about it. The answers to your questions have already been laid out for you, as plain as day, in this thread by the others. If what Dimentio is saying can't convince you of otherwise, then there is nothing I can do.

I think you're just looking to argue more and more. If it wasn't technocracy it would be something else. You must get off on it or something. I've said my piece, and now I'm done. I'm dropping it. You see how that works? This is me, not caring anymore. You should try it sometime.

[x371322]

Oh yeah one last thing before I bow out. Calling me "kid?" Like you're somehow a superior individual because you've got a few of years on someone? So now young people have nothing to offer a discussion? You're a fucking ageist man. THAT is what should be restricted on this site. You've got some nerve calling anyone elitist. Condescending prick.

Besides I'm 21 years old, and am already starting to lose my hair. I'm no kid. I've got bills to pay like everyone else.

[Wolf Larson]

And the jobs which couldn't be automatised would be assigned on a circulating schedule where all people have some mandatory service to do, no matter what administrative positions they otherwise have. For example the technate director would also need to take out time to work in daycare service or to help cleaning a hospital.

Administrative positions in a technate formed by the principles of EOS do not equal material privileges.

Sometimes your texts are really incomprehensible to everyone a part from yourself.
What would compel people to take part in these 'mandatory' tasks if not the/a state?

You have a shifty answer for every criticism we have. The one you just spouted was worse than your non plan to discard capitalism. Even when capitalism ceases to expand and growth stagnates or even goes into the negative capitalism will adjust and maintain class rule. A revolution is necessary.

Addressing the latest weak grasp at straws...your mandatory and equal work for everyone is bunkum and you know it. The entire premise of technocracy is to put the most "qualified" in control of the means of production. Quit the bullshit kid.

[Wolf Larson]

Oh yeah one last thing before I bow out. Calling me "kid?" Like you're somehow a superior individual because you've got a few of years on someone? So now young people have nothing to offer a discussion? You're a fucking ageist man. THAT is what should be restricted on this site. You've got some nerve calling anyone elitist. Condescending prick.

Besides I'm 21 years old, and am already starting to lose my hair. I'm no kid. I've got bills to pay like everyone else.
Have you ever lived on the east coast? Obviously not, kid.
And by your own admission you know nothing of technocracy yet came in here to 'defend' it (rather weakly I may add). So go read some god damned books and come back when you're ready to add to the discussion. Talk about trolling.

[x371322]

Have you ever lived on the east coast? Obviously not, kid.
And by your own admission you know nothing of technocracy yet came in here to 'defend' it (rather weakly I may add). So go read some god damned books and come back when you're ready to add to the discussion. Talk about trolling.

I just have to confront your bullshit here and clear my name. YOU say that by my own admission, I "know nothing of technocracy." Now lets see what I really said:


I admit I'm still learning the ins and outs, and don't know everything about technocracy

This is proof positive that you prefer to take one's words, and twist them into something entirely different if it will support your argument. It doesn't matter what points anyone argues with you, because you're only going to misrepresent their statements to make a point that isn't even valid... You're a liar.

[Dimentio]

What would compel people to take part in these 'mandatory' tasks if not the/a state?

You have a shifty answer for every criticism we have. The one you just spouted was worse than your non plan to discard capitalism. Even when capitalism ceases to expand and growth stagnates or even goes into the negative capitalism will adjust and maintain class rule. A revolution is necessary.

Addressing the latest weak grasp at straws...your mandatory and equal work for everyone is bunkum and you know it. The entire premise of technocracy is to put the most "qualified" in control of the means of production. Quit the bullshit kid.

Not the state, but the technate. For the first thing these mandatory tasks are considered a civic service, which everyone need to do in order to access the surplus. Moreover, each task should be personalised, which is meaning that the individual in question gets personal responsibility that a certain thing is in order.

The entire premise of the European technocracy movement is not to put the most qualified in control, but to put control in itself under a system which is beneficial to the large majority of human beings. Political control as a phenomenon will be communitarian and associated with the local community, whereas technate control is not encompassing human beings but machinery and infrastructure. While tasks which require education of course are brought under the responsibility of those who are qualified to conduct such tasks, they do not have indiscriminate control and are according to the rules responsible to document and motivate each step of the processes they are involved with an invocation of the constitution to see how their conduct is correspondent with the greater aims of the technate, which are egalitarianism and humanistic ecologism.

The one who is attacking strawmen here is you. Your criticism is as valid as republicans attacking Obama for wanting to build death camps for gun-owners and bible-believing christians. Your premise is that our group is a sinister conspiracy and that all the members of EOS somehow are hiding their "true" intentions.

[Wolf Larson]

I just have to confront your bullshit here and clear my name. YOU say that by my own admission, I "know nothing of technocracy." Now lets see what I really said:



This is proof positive that you prefer to take one's words, and twist them into something entirely different if it will support your argument. It doesn't matter what points anyone argues with you, because you're only going to misrepresent their statements to make a point that isn't even valid... You're a liar.

Confront what? I don't think you've brought any thing of subsistence to the table. Perhaps you can demonstrate what little you do know of Technocracy, Anarchism/Marxism/socialism? I'll be over here watching my "reputation" plumet into the minus hundreds at the hands of a bunch of fraud reactionaries who know fuck all of socialism.

[Wolf Larson]

Not the state, but the technate.

The entire premise of the European technocracy movement is not to put the most qualified in control,



Bullshit.

[x371322]

I'll be over here watching my "reputation" plumet into the minus hundreds at the hands of a bunch of fraud reactionaries who know fuck all of socialism.

For what it's worth I have not given you negative rep. I've never given anyone negative rep. I think it's a flawed system anyway.

Just so we're clear.

[Wolf Larson]

I don't agree with your characterisation at all. Reformism doesn't work, that's been proven for over a century. So what else is left? Certainly I can't think of anything other than some sort of revolution.



Technocracy requires a wholesale re-organisation of the means of production in line with the goal of providing the largest amount of people with the highest standards of living, as opposed to profit-motivated production for those that can afford it. A technocratic society has no economic classes as each citizen has equal access to the products of society. There is no divide between producers and consumers, thus in a technocratic society workers will not be alienated from their products on a societal level.

If that's not revolutionary enough for you, well, tough shit! Your hectoring, bloviating attitude tells me that nothing short of wholesale conversion to RED DAVE's First Church of Marx will convince you of anything.


Techoboi siad: "each citizen has equal access to the products of society"

I say: Each citizen does not have equal CONTROL over the MEANS of production. What do you not understand about Marx's materialist conception of history? Fuck man...you don't even understand Marxism let alone Anarchism.

[Dimentio]

Techoboi siad: "each citizen has equal access to the products of society"

I say: Each citizen does not have equal CONTROL over the MEANS of production. What do you not understand about Marx's materialist conception of history? Fuck man...you don't even understand Marxism let alone Anarchism.

Obviously, a person working in electronics should not have equal say in how a person who is working in another entirely different branch of the economy is conducting his or her work. Everyone should be able to make decisions regarding their areas of responsibility, but not the areas of other people with other focuses.

[Invincible Summer]

Obviously, a person working in electronics should not have equal say in how a person who is working in another entirely different branch of the economy is conducting his or her work. Everyone should be able to make decisions regarding their areas of responsibility, but not the areas of other people with other focuses.

Yes, and AFAIK anarchists uphold the same ideas, which is funny since Wolf Larson claims to be one.

[ckaihatsu]

Since this thread has picked up again and since the topic of a planned economy is more forward-oriented I'll address a few main points / themes here:


-- 'WHAT' VS. 'HOW' --

In any kind of planning we can start at the *end* and work our way *backwards* to cover what inputs need to go into the supply chain at each point in order to give us what we *want* -- the 'what' -- as the final output at the end.





Technocracy is compatible with anarchism because it does not meddle in people's lives. Under a technate, everyone would be free to form whatever kind of democratic associations they want. The only thing which the technate is existing to manage is the flow of resources, production, distribution and recycling. It doesn't decide what should be produced, only how things should be produced.





And the supposition is, of course, that decision of how things should be produced are qualitatively different from decisions as to what should be produced.

It is painfully obvious, and has been demonstrated again and again, from numerous points of view, that this is a nonrevolutionary ideology.


The overall question here -- (as I see it) -- is *to what extent* the [1] means (the 'how') can be safely *detached* from the [2] ends (the 'what') without running into the problems of elitism and class rule.

The reason to advocate for the means being detached from the ends *at all* -- Dimentio's position -- is because it could be argued that the two are *inherently* different, and so by treating the means differently from the ends a societal mode of production would be better clarified and more efficient, in an assembly-line (workflow pipeline) kind of way.

Red Dave is understandably suspicious of this detaching of the means from the ends and states that those who do the demanding for the 'what' -- as for satisfying basic human needs for everyone -- could just as easily handle the 'how' at the same time, *without* a detached technological infrastructure and hierarchy of technical personnel.

Since plans, albeit informed by the past, are *hypothetical* by definition, we can only gauge our models in terms of *how much overlap* *could potentially exist* between the 'what' and the 'how' -- if you would, please picture a Venn diagram of two circles, side-by-side, sliding into each other and overlapping, or drifting out and away from each other.

*Could* a worldwide revolutionary working class *also* organize in such a way as to make the most of specific formalized hierarchical technical roles *without* succumbing to caste pressures and a re-emergence of elitist, privileged bureaucracy?

Or could the same somehow *integrate* themselves in more ad-hoc ways, blending the political and the functional, while avoiding the emergence of localism and possible turf battles?


-- HERE VS. THERE --





As for the real reply. By agitate for a revolution, we won't recruit anyone except FBI informers. It is better to try to change the productive relations directly, by buying up land, technology and infrastructure.





So you have no plan at all. This is some vague utopian scheme.

But two things are sure: You are not a revolutionary, and your belief system, your ideology, is not revolutionary.


It's *ludicrous* to think that the oppressed can beat the oppressors at their own game -- not only does the capitalist class have tremendous reserves of wealth but they *also* control the *definition* of wealth (rate of extraction of natural resources) and debt (who receives financial consideration) -- I'm reminded of the latest EU shakeups, or shake-downs, that are occurring within the context of various levels of sovereign debt. By the numbers alone even *advanced*, *highly financialized* economies like the UK's and France's have relatively *high* levels of sovereign debt (in ratio to GDP), yet *those* countries are *not* being pushed to the EU's periphery as the "PIIGS" countries are.

So we can easily see that, even more important than one's debt load, is one's relationship in relation to the larger collective -- in this case, the EU bourgeois political collective.

And, by extension, just how far outside of major banking consideration do you think the working class is? We already know the answer to that in light of the gargantuan U.S. and EU bailouts to the top banking institutions that have incurred loads of bad debt overhang.





No one with a very small organisation could call for an armed revolution and appear as sane. As long as there isn't a situation where it would be legitimate to call for an uprising, we should focus on recruiting people and building up a movement with institutions able to replace those we see around us today.


"Institutions able to replace those we see around us today" -- ???

Can you elaborate on this in light of the existence of central banking, the United Nations Security Council, the U.S. military, international security networks, etc. -- ?





Times have changed the Bolsheviks didn't have to worry about night vision and heat detecting technology. Also the Political/Historical factors that caused the rise of Marxist-Leninism don't exist today. The system is way too stable to collapse, its a lot easier and less costly to life, to exploit the capitalisat system and grow inside it, then collapse it.


Same thing here -- how does one "exploit the capitalist system and grow inside it" -- ???





And where are you coming from, junior?

What makes you think that you/we can "exploit the capitalisat system and grow inside it, then collapse it"? This is the fantasy of every utopian.


-- POLITICAL VS. ECONOMIC --





1. It would be a weakened shadow state which would only exist because people in generak like their traditional rituals, aesthetics and procedures. All its functions would really be taken care of by direct democratic councils.

2. What a silly question. By buying it of course.

3. This "shit" will ensure our survival and gradually increased influence. When we could establish our own institutions...


There's no way to separate the economic from the political -- one does not *get* wealth without being *political* to a like degree, in the furtherance of wealth itself. So the cost of wealth is the *political advocacy* of wealth -- support for the bourgeois nation-state. Your point #1 conflicts with your point #2. (I've addressed point #3 already.)





We have continuously referred to councils as a way for people to administrate their own social matters.

http://www.eoslife.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=167:confederalism-democracy-and-technocracy&catid=35:social&Itemid=95

A formal republic or a formal monarchy is not incompatible with a direct democratic confederacy. If the people want to keep their formalised institutions and procedures, then let them keep it. It doesn't really mean life or death of an economic system that the political procedural system is somewhat anachronistic. Feudal institutions like monarchies have survived as constitutional monarchies stripped of any formal political powers into our day without meaning so much a problem. So we don't see any problems with their continuation.

So no, I have not wobbled. The one who is desperate is you.


Here you're side-stepping the *largest* concerns of a revolutionary politics -- *of course* we don't have to deal with "social matters" like rituals or formal habits, because such things have *zero* political impact, as you're pointing out. So you're not even saying anything here -- it's like saying that we wouldn't have to worry about what names are given to the colors of the rainbow while we engage in revolutionary activity -- *of course not*...!!

Finally, to conclude on more of a forward-looking note:





Clarke’s three laws (Wikipedia)

Arthur C. Clarke formulated the following three "laws" of prediction:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong.

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke’s_three_laws

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Techoboi siad: "each citizen has equal access to the products of society"

I say: Each citizen does not have equal CONTROL over the MEANS of production.

In any advanced technological society, they simply cannot. There is simply too much for any single person to learn in a natural lifetime.


What do you not understand about Marx's materialist conception of history? Fuck man...you don't even understand Marxism let alone Anarchism.

Perhaps you could point out the flaws in my statements instead of lambasting me for a supposed lack of knowledge - because as far as I'm concerned, your criticisms have no greater semantic content than "lol ur stoopid".

[Dimentio]

To address ckaihatsu's concern:

In energy accounting, what is produced is determined by the people, but not through a voting process but through their allocation of their energy credits, which mean that the technate would be obliged to produce whatever the people as a whole are demanding. Energy accounting is putting the power over your share of the fruits of the productive capacity in your own hands and your own hands alone.

The technate is deciding how things should be produced, in the terms that everything which is produced need to be sustainable. Those who make the final decisions are the people working with the products, which are organised in a network of autonomous project groups guided by some common guidelines.

Advanced societies require specialisation. That is not something which could be walked around in any way. Specialisation doesn't necessite hierarchies in order to work, but there need to be some kind of control - in terms of common goals and a common agreement to follow the goals.

[Wolf Larson]

In any advanced technological society, they simply cannot. There is simply too much for any single person to learn in a natural lifetime.



Perhaps you could point out the flaws in my statements instead of lambasting me for a supposed lack of knowledge - because as far as I'm concerned, your criticisms have no greater semantic content than "lol ur stoopid".

Wishful thinking my friend. Me pointing out you have no understanding of Marx and hence anarchism is not akin to me saying "lol ur stoopid". Although the shoe does indeed fit.

All you have to do is show you understand the materialist conception of history as it relates to the means of production. While you're at it perhaps some examples of why anarchism needs "technocracy" to provide material abundance.

[Dimentio]

Anti-dogmatism is essential in order to bring success. Our attitude to the teachings of "great men and women" is that we take parts of their ideas, weigh them carefully, discard what we see as unnecessary and outright impossible, field test the rest and the ideas which are successful at reaching the main goals are implemented on a wider scale then. That is a scientific approach.

To just invoke and weigh in everything in comparison to what Marx said is constituting the same thing as invoking the Bible to end discussion. No man is infallible and no man has right in all his ideas. In order to see what ideas are working, we need to test them out.

[ckaihatsu]

Yeah, I appreciate the distinction between consumption-oriented (human-needs-based) mass demand, and the *supplying* of that demand from the efforts of a liberated labor.

However I *don't* think that the fundamental unit of measurement and indexing should be *resource* based, as with the energy credits. It remains too arbitrary a measurement -- we should be cognizant of the critical role that *labor* plays in the creation of anything worthwhile. Without human labor there would not even be any civilization whatsoever.

So, on these grounds it would be better to pivot all measurements and political considerations around the fundamental unit of labor-time-times-difficulty-or-hazard -- this is the basis I use in my model that incorporates labor-hour-based labor credits.





communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

This is an 8-1/2" x 40" wide table that describes a communist-type political / economic model using three rows and six descriptive columns. The three rows are surplus-value-to-overhead, no surplus, and surplus-value-to-pleasure. The six columns are ownership / control, associated material values, determination of material values, material function, infrastructure / overhead, and propagation.

http://tinyurl.com/ygybheg




All workers will be entirely liberated from all coercion and threats related to basic human living needs, regardess of work status -- any labor roles will be entirely self-selected and open to collective labor organizing efforts on the basis of accumulated labor credits.




Workers with past accumulated labor credits are the funders of new work positions and incoming laborers -- labor credits are handed over at the completion of work hours -- underfunded projects and production runs are debt-based and will be noted as such against the issuing locality.


The outstanding issue remains -- in my mind -- how much of an overlap there could be between the 'what' (mass demands) and the 'how' (labor processes). Certainly higher-level labor is based more on technical knowledge, but the concern then is if we're not putting the cart before the horse -- should we act as if technical knowledge and training would remain so commodified and channeled as it is today (despite the existence of the Internet), to the point where a liberated labor just winds up being beholden to the technical knowledge that constitutes their specialized, formal work positions -- ?

Or might there be more possibilities for an open flow of technical knowledge and work procedures so that a post-capitalist society *doesn't* have to formalize work roles, risking objectification and commodification -- ?





I've been / am of the mind that, once the obstacle of capitalist rule has been surmounted, the bulk of people's work activity would be *political*, much like what we're doing here at RevLeft. With widespread automation the "outside world" would be mostly like a communal kitchen, where even complex technical procedures would be "handwritten out" -- available on the net -- so that *anyone* could just come along and take care of those routine duties in passing.

People could just freely learn about the more nitty-gritty technical side of things and then specialize in the practice of it so as to build up the communist society's infrastructure. Today such people are called "hobbyists" because, however knowledgable and/or skilled, they're disempowered from being able to *implement* self-motivated learning and practice into the actual workings of political society.

[Dimentio]

There we disagree.

As for the expansion phase. Imagine a vertically organised chain of resources, where the same resources are under the control of the same economic organism. For example, we will aim to own the means of production to exercise control over all chains of production for a number of products, the base being electricity, food and heating, which we could offer to our members for free. As the network is growing, the more we could subsidise our membership base and the more attractive it would become to be a member.

[ckaihatsu]

This is certainly an admirable sentiment -- I would consider it to be on par with charity.

The *doing* of it, though, begs the *political* question -- how, exactly, would such an organization *acquire* the means of mass production in the first place? By focusing on the mass-demand, *consumption* aspect you're side-stepping the *supply* question, particularly for that of labor. Even given that the means of mass production is somehow acquired, *who exactly* would be doing the work to keep the machinery maintained and in motion?

The political landscape is *littered* with consumption-oriented plans that don't specify the back-end, or how it would be accomplished -- this kind of formulation, then, is nothing more than (political) marketing.

[Dimentio]

This is certainly an admirable sentiment -- I would consider it to be on par with charity.

The *doing* of it, though, begs the *political* question -- how, exactly, would such an organization *acquire* the means of mass production in the first place? By focusing on the mass-demand, *consumption* aspect you're side-stepping the *supply* question, particularly for that of labor. Even given that the means of mass production is somehow acquired, *who exactly* would be doing the work to keep the machinery maintained and in motion?

The political landscape is *littered* with consumption-oriented plans that don't specify the back-end, or how it would be accomplished -- this kind of formulation, then, is nothing more than (political) marketing.

http://wiki.eoslife.eu/index.php/Proto-technate

[ckaihatsu]

Proto-technate

[...]

An Example

A small start up network consisting of:
A web design company
A computer hardware company
A translation company

The web design company provide web design services to NPOs in the out side world for a cost but could also provide web designs for free to those inside the network. The computer hardware company provides servers for web hosting. The company would charge for serves provided outside the network but could host websites for free for those inside the network. The translation company offers translation services at cost to those outside the network but would offer free translation services for those inside the network.

So, the web service company could design a web site for the translation company, hosted on the hardware companies servers and then the translation company could help translate web sites for the web design company and help with advertising for the hardware company.

[...]

http://wiki.eoslife.eu/index.php/Proto-technate


Do you *realize* that this isn't even *political* -- ??? What happened to the means of mass production??? Where would the metals that go into the microchips for the computers come from???

This is a model for a network of business associates, *at best*. You've side-stepped and ditched any plans that you may once have had for mass (working class) claims to the control of society's industrial production.

[Dimentio]

Do you *realize* that this isn't even *political* -- ??? What happened to the means of mass production??? Where would the metals that go into the microchips for the computers come from???

This is a model for a network of business associates, *at best*. You've side-stepped and ditched any plans that you may once have had for mass (working class) claims to the control of society's industrial production.

No, it isn't political. And its the beauty of it. Its sub-political.

It would allow us the liberty to build up a network from the root, and from it we could have a platform to build up a mass-movement. But that is like step 2 or 3. Moreover, this network will - if implemented correctly - be able to provide its members with greater safety nets than the collapsing welfare states are able to.

Any assumption of any other responsibilities will be accrued later - if necessary. As for me, my question is not "how to bring a mass movement into power", but rather "how to build a long-term lasting mass-movement" which then could be utilised as a vehicle for social change in one way or another, or cooperate with other movements with somewhat similar end-goals.

I have also consistently said that this movement isn't a political party, but something deeper. Political parties are merely expressions of the productive relations of society. Our goal is to build up productive relations which are positive for a change in the overall society. Of course, political action will be necessitated at some point, but it would be idealistic to claim that political and political action alone will be able to transform society.

It was not the French revolution which brought capitalism, but capitalism which brought the French revolution. To claim that single political events could engineer entirely new social environments is to put the cart before the horse.

[ckaihatsu]

It was not the French revolution which brought capitalism, but capitalism which brought the French revolution. To claim that single political events could engineer entirely new social environments is to put the cart before the horse.


Here you're comparing a *bourgeois* revolution (fueled from below by France's working class) to a *socialist* revolution, which is all about the collective self-agency of the proletariat, *in its own interest*. The two are *not* comparable in social composition.

I'll acknowledge that the social event itself -- revolution -- may be an expression of deeper-underlying objective dynamics that have been building up. I *don't* claim that any single political event takes place on its own in a social vacuum.





No, it isn't political. And its the beauty of it. Its sub-political.

It would allow us the liberty to build up a network from the root, and from it we could have a platform to build up a mass-movement. But that is like step 2 or 3. Moreover, this network will - if implemented correctly - be able to provide its members with greater safety nets than the collapsing welfare states are able to.

Any assumption of any other responsibilities will be accrued later - if necessary. As for me, my question is not "how to bring a mass movement into power", but rather "how to build a long-term lasting mass-movement" which then could be utilised as a vehicle for social change in one way or another, or cooperate with other movements with somewhat similar end-goals.

I have also consistently said that this movement isn't a political party, but something deeper. Political parties are merely expressions of the productive relations of society. Our goal is to build up productive relations which are positive for a change in the overall society. Of course, political action will be necessitated at some point, but it would be idealistic to claim that political and political action alone will be able to transform society.


This is all marketing.

[Dimentio]

This is all marketing.

It is impossible to predict the look for the future transformation of society. The best way to ensure that a progressive movement is influential in that transformation is to ensure that it is developing an own autonomous/embedded position to be built from, so that it could stay influential no matter how popular or unpopular it is.

Everyone here are marketing something.

[ckaihatsu]

Everyone here are marketing something.


No, there's a difference between politics and marketing -- politics is about *large-scale* policy, conventionally enforced by governmental authority. Marketing is about stirring up like-minded sentiment within the public in order to create groupings of people that are willing to buy goods and services or participate in some activity.





It is impossible to predict the look for the future transformation of society.


Political involvement, while partially including the faculty of prediction -- as with any science -- is not *confined* to the activity of prediction. Politics is about *shaping* society. And, since I'm partisan to the working class, I'm politically a revolutionary Marxist.





The best way to ensure that a progressive movement is influential in that transformation is to ensure that it is developing an own autonomous/embedded position to be built from, so that it could stay influential no matter how popular or unpopular it is.


*Your* position over the last few posts has been decidedly *consumer*-centric, and *not* oriented to the empowerment of the world's working class.

[Dimentio]

No, there's a difference between politics and marketing -- politics is about *large-scale* policy, conventionally enforced by governmental authority. Marketing is about stirring up like-minded sentiment within the public in order to create groupings of people that are willing to buy goods and services or participate in some activity.

Political involvement, while partially including the faculty of prediction -- as with any science -- is not *confined* to the activity of prediction. Politics is about *shaping* society. And, since I'm partisan to the working class, I'm politically a revolutionary Marxist.

*Your* position over the last few posts has been decidedly *consumer*-centric, and *not* oriented to the empowerment of the world's working class.

On the contrary, our position is producer-centric and focused not towards profit but expansion of the network. The difference is that our model does not need to gain majority or even a critical mass in order to function.

Large-scale politics have proven to be tremendously efficient in rallying the masses against progressives, even when progressives are in power. The usual end result is alienation from the masses and oppression from the ruling segments of the party. Policy is about ordering people around, while our model rather is a management model where the network itself and its nodes are shaping the conditions of their local communities while expanding.

[ckaihatsu]

On the contrary, our position is producer-centric and focused not towards profit but expansion of the network. The difference is that our model does not need to gain majority or even a critical mass in order to function.




our model rather is a management model where the network itself and its nodes are shaping the conditions of their local communities while expanding.


Okay, I think I got it now -- basically it's a network of self-regulating NPOs.

Again, this model is *not* formidable enough to be considered at all *political*, much less a threat to the continued rule of capital. While imperialism crunches millions more lives away to starvation, poverty, malnutrition, and warfare, it's relatively easy to tout a buddy network of service providers, but what about the rest of the world, and what about industrial production?





Large-scale politics have proven to be tremendously efficient in rallying the masses against progressives, even when progressives are in power. The usual end result is alienation from the masses and oppression from the ruling segments of the party.


You're talking about the Democratic Party, right?





Policy is about ordering people around


I really can't think of a better word to use than 'policy' -- it's not necessarily a *bad* thing, especially if the policy can somehow be beneficial to workers' real interests, like the 8-hour day or workmen's compensation.

'Policy' just means that there's a prescribed, equitable treatment of everyone given certain foreseen and planned-for circumstances.

The *alternative* to the use of policy would, by default, be a case-by-case treatment of particular, non-routine situations as they arise. Perhaps in some social environments a more ad-hoc approach would be called for, but in a modern urban society of any thousands or millions I think we can realize more orderly functioning and economies of scale by using policy of some sort. Of course I don't agree with *current*, *bourgeois* policy that respects financial rights over human and worker rights, but 'policy' can range anywhere from revolutionary to progressive to reactionary and worse.

Also, given that we have spent *any* time at all in reflection on *how* society should be formulated, we would, by extension, have subscribed to certain sets of ideas about the same. This can be called 'theory', and its realized application in the real world can be called 'policy':


Consciousness, A Material Definition

http://i46.tinypic.com/24fwswi.jpg

[Dimentio]

I'm talking about parties like the CPSU.

When the network start to attain the control over units of industrial production then?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Wishful thinking my friend. Me pointing out you have no understanding of Marx and hence anarchism is not akin to me saying "lol ur stoopid".

Yes it is. For example, if somebody says something about planetary science (doesn't matter what) and I reply with nothing more than "you know nothing about planetary science", all I'm telling that person, and anybody following the conversation, is that I think their knowledge is lacking; I'm conveying an opinion, not facts in order to correct someone's misperception.

You are doing the exact same thing, and in the process wasting everybody's time.


All you have to do is show you understand the materialist conception of history as it relates to the means of production.

I certainly don't think supernatural agents or forces had any hand in the development of the means of production.

You see, I think this is an illustration that Marxists have a tendency to pervert the meaning of words for their own political purposes, and I cannot countenance the fundamental dishonesty of such practices.


While you're at it perhaps some examples of why anarchism needs "technocracy" to provide material abundance.

That's an impossible question to answer, and you should know that if, as you claim to be, are knowledgable about anarchism.

Here's a hint; try narrowing the parameters of your question with regards to "anarchism". It's an incredibly diverse political meta-philosophy.

[ckaihatsu]

I'm talking about parties like the CPSU.


So you're expressing a mistrust of mass political movements of the proletariat, because of what happened in the USSR -- ?





When the network start to attain the control over units of industrial production then?


Is there something in particular you'd like me to do?

[Dimentio]

So you're expressing a mistrust of mass political movements of the proletariat, because of what happened in the USSR -- ?

Is there something in particular you'd like me to do?

Not only in the USSR, but everywhere it has been tried. Political movements tend to canalise the power through the state, which leads in to some form of palace economy where the welfare eventually exists in order to keep those in power in power.

No, I don't want you to do anything in particular, except maybe not trying to interfer with the network.

[RED DAVE]

It is impossible to predict the look for the future transformation of society. The best way to ensure that a progressive movement is influential in that transformation is to ensure that it is developing an own autonomous/embedded position to be built from, so that it could stay influential no matter how popular or unpopular it is.What do you mean by "an own autonomous/embedded position"? What does it have to do with revolution?

RED DAVE

[ckaihatsu]

Not only in the USSR, but everywhere it has been tried. Political movements tend to canalise the power through the state, which leads in to some form of palace economy where the welfare eventually exists in order to keep those in power in power.


You happen to be mistaking an entrenched Stalinist bureaucracy for the self-activity of a mass proletarian political movement.





No, I don't want you to do anything in particular, except maybe not trying to interfer with the network.


I'll assure you that I have far more important things to do than "interfere" with your precious business network. I'm not quite sure what you're implying here about my motivations but I certainly don't appreciate *any* kind of negative insinuation against my person.

[RED DAVE]

Not only in the USSR, but everywhere it has been tried. Political movements tend to canalise the power through the state, which leads in to some form of palace economy where the welfare eventually exists in order to keep those in power in power.
You happen to be mistaking an entrenched Stalinist bureaucracy for the self-activity of a mass proletarian political movement.
No, I don't want you to do anything in particular, except maybe not trying to interfer with the network.
I'll assure you that I have far more important things to do than "interfere" with your precious business network. I'm not quite sure what you're implying here about my motivations but I certainly don't appreciate *any* kind of negative insinuation against my person.Fascinating interchange.

It shows, quite clearly, the actively and essentially nonrevolutionary nature of Technocracy.

RED DAVE

[RED DAVE]

If we could administrate resources and technology in a rational manner and guided by the principles of humanism and sustainability, humanity as a whole could create a paradise where the purpose of the productive capacity is to free you and everyone else and allow you to live in a world where you could play, sport, have fun, listen to music and do whatever you want, where everyone would be forming their own working environment and be able to initiate their own projects and get the means to be able to carry them through.And not a word about agency. This is a petit-bourgeois utopia, which has nothing at all to do with the revolutionary overthrow capitalism by the working class. There is no reference to working class democracy, councils, etc.

RED DAVE

[Invincible Summer]

And not a word about agency. This is a petit-bourgeois utopia, which has nothing at all to do with the revolutionary overthrow capitalism by the working class. There is no reference to working class democracy, councils, etc.

RED DAVE

So do you want everyone's post on Revleft at every possible moment to include buzzwords for your sake, so you can be sure that the poster is a "true revolutionary?"

Apart from not including your favorite words, I don't see how it is different from a description of a communist society.

[RED DAVE]

And not a word about agency. This is a petit-bourgeois utopia, which has nothing at all to do with the revolutionary overthrow capitalism by the working class. There is no reference to working class democracy, councils, etc.
So do you want everyone's post on Revleft at every possible moment to include buzzwords for your sake, so you can be sure that the poster is a "true revolutionary?"No, what I would like to see is people who are genuine revolutionaries distinguished from petit-bourgeois utopians who are trying to build businesses inside capitalism as a method of building socialism.


Apart from not including your favorite words, I don't see how it is different from a description of a communist society.The difference is this: If I want to drive from New York to San Francisco, I require something other than a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge, beautiful though it may be. I require a map. Technocracy, at its best, is that picture. As a map, however, it will end us in the nastier parts of the Hudson River.

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

And not a word about agency. This is a petit-bourgeois utopia, which has nothing at all to do with the revolutionary overthrow capitalism by the working class. There is no reference to working class democracy, councils, etc.

RED DAVE

Those who are the agents of a technate are the project groups which are ran by groups of peers, amongst which the majority would be what you would consider "working class" groups. But class would of course be a meaningless concept within a technate.

[RED DAVE]

And not a word about agency. This is a petit-bourgeois utopia, which has nothing at all to do with the revolutionary overthrow capitalism by the working class. There is no reference to working class democracy, councils, etc.
Those who are the agents of a technate are the project groups which are ran by groups of peers, amongst which the majority would be what you would consider "working class" groups. But class would of course be a meaningless concept within a technate.Gobbledy gook following gibberish.

Still no reference to agency. How will this paradise of "project groups which are ran by groups of peers" be established?

Is a revolution required? If so, what is the role of various social classes, beginning with the working class, in the revolution?

If a revolution is not required, how is the Technocracy to be established?

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

Gobbledy gook following gibberish.

Still no reference to agency. How will this paradise of "project groups which are ran by groups of peers" be established?

Is a revolution required? If so, what is the role of various social classes, beginning with the working class, in the revolution?

If a revolution is not required, how is the Technocracy to be established?

RED DAVE

I have not claimed that a revolution is not required. But we are as I previously mentioned not a political party, neither are we a union. We are a research network and a social network aimed at establishing a growing seed of the society of tomorrow, to show that an egalitarian and sustainable society could yield important material benefits to those who are a part of it and make the likelihood of change more likely.

[RED DAVE]

Still no reference to agency. How will this paradise of "project groups which are ran by groups of peers" be established?

Is a revolution required? If so, what is the role of various social classes, beginning with the working class, in the revolution?

If a revolution is not required, how is the Technocracy to be established?
I have not claimed that a revolution is not required. But we are as I previously mentioned not a political party, neither are we a union. We are a research network and a social network aimed at establishing a growing seed of the society of tomorrow, to show that an egalitarian and sustainable society could yield important material benefits to those who are a part of it and make the likelihood of change more likely.This is the classic method of utopianism. It has nothing to do with working for revolution or with the revolutionary process.

Since what is required for the achievement of revolution will be fighting unions and fighting political parties, what we are dealing with is, at best, a petit-bourgeois experiment and, at worst, a fantasy and a diversion. This is especially true since there is no reason whatsovever to believe that the working class, having overthrown capitalism and established democratic organs of control of industry, will have anything to do with Technocracy.

By the way, Dimentio, elsewhere, as I recall, you have projected an apocalyptic end to civilization and the emergence of Technocracy from the wreckage. Hardly a description of a revolutionary process but in keeping with the non-working class nature of your ideology.

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

This is the classic method of utopianism. It has nothing to do with working for revolution or with the revolutionary process.

Since what is required for the achievement of revolution will be fighting unions and fighting political parties, what we are dealing with is, at best, a petit-bourgeois experiment and, at worst, a fantasy and a diversion. This is especially true since there is no reason whatsovever to believe that the working class, having overthrown capitalism and established democratic organs of control of industry, will have anything to do with Technocracy.

By the way, Dimentio, elsewhere, as I recall, you have projected an apocalyptic end to civilization and the emergence of Technocracy from the wreckage. Hardly a description of a revolutionary process but in keeping with the non-working class nature of your ideology.

RED DAVE

On the contrary, I do not believe that anything progressive could be born out of an "apocalypse". That is why I am supporting the creation of a proto-technate as a supporting base for the people. It is not a joke that 133% of the yearly regeneration capacity of the planet is used. You cannot take more from a system than you give and expect it to hold.

What we are doing is not utopianism. Our goal is not isolated communities living the perfect lifestyle already, but transitional formers which will empower the members of our group and make them able to connect and form a self-sustaining network which will be embedded in the current society but autonomous.

I don't think that untested routes should be attacked as diversions.

Who knows, if we are talking about diversions, then the tactic of standing outside of Wal-Mart and trying to sell a newspaper for a communist party which in the November 2008 elections gained like 300 votes might be a diversion too?

[ckaihatsu]

What we are doing is not utopianism. Our goal is not isolated communities living the perfect lifestyle already, but transitional formers which will empower the members of our group and make them able to connect and form a self-sustaining network which will be embedded in the current society but autonomous.


This is laudable and all but -- with neutral motivations -- consider this: At some point your network grows in size and scope to the point of being a cottage industry and somewhat known, say, comparable to today's free software movement and the average person's knowledge of what Linux is.

If it becomes sizeable enough what would prevent it from being attractive to a hostile takeover, either by force of arms, or legal manuevers, or buyouts, or political influence of key members? Since it exists *within* the larger capitalist framework it would have to come to some kind of terms with the prevailing convention of private property ownership / values, legal practices, and so on. If it "plays ball" with the system then it's a small fish in a big sea -- if it doesn't then it's marginalized and will face much greater funding hardships.

[RED DAVE]

If it becomes sizeable enough what would prevent it from being attractive to a hostile takeover, either by force of arms, or legal manuevers, or buyouts, or political influence of key members? Since it exists *within* the larger capitalist framework it would have to come to some kind of terms with the prevailing convention of private property ownership / values, legal practices, and so on. If it "plays ball" with the system then it's a small fish in a big sea -- if it doesn't then it's marginalized and will face much greater funding hardships.To which I might add; what are you accomplishing anyway? If your technate, on a microlevel, outperforms its capitalist "competitors," all you've done is demonstrated a more efficient method for the exploitation of labor.

Oneida Community (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oneida_Community)

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

To which I might add; what are you accomplishing anyway? If your technate, on a microlevel, outperforms its capitalist "competitors," all you've done is demonstrated a more efficient method for the exploitation of labor.

Oneida Community (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oneida_Community)

RED DAVE

As earlier stated, we are not aiming to build a community, but a network of communities and project groups. Our aim is not lifestylism, but autonomy.

[RED DAVE]

To which I might add; what are you accomplishing anyway? If your technate, on a microlevel, outperforms its capitalist "competitors," all you've done is demonstrated a more efficient method for the exploitation of labor.
As earlier stated, we are not aiming to build a community, but a network of communities and project groups. Our aim is not lifestylism, but autonomy.So, what you are intending is "a network of communities and project groups" which will function under capitalism and outperform capitalism itself. So, what you are doing is inventing a new way to exploit labor. As ckaihatsu says, above, what is to prevent capitalists from co-opting you in one way or another?

RED DAVE
__________________

[Dimentio]

So, what you are intending is "a network of communities and project groups" which will function under capitalism and outperform capitalism itself. So, what you are doing is inventing a new way to exploit labor. As ckaihatsu says, above, what is to prevent capitalists from co-opting you in one way or another?

RED DAVE
__________________

That it isn't allowed for us to borrow money or for private owners of companies to try to join our existing operations and buy them up.

[RED DAVE]

That it isn't allowed for us to borrow money or for private owners of companies to try to join our existing operations and buy them up.Isn't that sweet. What is the difference between this and the average coop?

So what the fuck does this have to do with the working class and the fight for socialism?

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

Isn't that sweet. What is the difference between this and the average coop?

So what the fuck does this have to do with the working class and the fight for socialism?

RED DAVE

Haven't I explained about one million times now that EOS isn't a political party?

[ckaihatsu]

Haven't I explained about one million times now that EOS isn't a political party?


Well, this happens to be a *political* discussion forum....

While your NPO business network may happen to be more *culturally* progressive than conventional ones, overall, any time that it's not addressing the existence and practice of imperialism then it's not at all political at the same moment. (You've touted anti-capitalist credentials in previous posts.)

Among revolutionaries the vehicle of a party (and vanguardism) remains controversial and debated, but I think we can draw a line between political practice and non-political practice. Anything *claiming* to be political while concentrating on building grassroots networks of commerce is *problematic* from a political point of view since it's not really getting its hands dirty in the muck of political practice.

[Dimentio]

Well, this happens to be a *political* discussion forum....

While your NPO business network may happen to be more *culturally* progressive than conventional ones, overall, any time that it's not addressing the existence and practice of imperialism then it's not at all political at the same moment. (You've touted anti-capitalist credentials in previous posts.)

Among revolutionaries the vehicle of a party (and vanguardism) remains controversial and debated, but I think we can draw a line between political practice and non-political practice. Anything *claiming* to be political while concentrating on building grassroots networks of commerce is *problematic* from a political point of view since it's not really getting its hands dirty in the muck of political practice.

This is the first time I've heard that getting the hands dirty is a positive trait. ^^

I usually think its the best thing to wash them clean when they're getting dirty.

:lol:

And our final goal is a sustainable classless civilisation, but we do nowhere hold the pretensions that we alone could manage it. Our attitude is rather that we could help humanity achieve that state of being.

[ckaihatsu]

This is the first time I've heard that getting the hands dirty is a positive trait. ^^

I usually think its the best thing to wash them clean when they're getting dirty.

:lol:


Cute, but if you don't mind my taking this seriously, I'd like to remind you that the world of world-defining politics is *not* a pretty place, and the rest of us have to live in the world that it creates.

An enjoyable life would be to be propertied, non-minority, college educated, and with a good position or thriving business. But none of that is *political* -- if anything it only reinforces the status quo by not-encouraging resistance to it.





And our final goal is a sustainable classless civilisation, but we do nowhere hold the pretensions that we alone could manage it. Our attitude is rather that we could help humanity achieve that state of being.


I'll take this in a positive way, and it's the reason I'm participating on this thread at all -- I think technocratic stuff has good propaganda value, and I think it *can* help people to snap out of the disempowering headspace that capitalist society imposes on us.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

This is the classic method of utopianism. It has nothing to do with working for revolution or with the revolutionary process.

Since what is required for the achievement of revolution will be fighting unions and fighting political parties,

Considering the abject failure thus far of political parties and unions to make a significant dent in the capitalist machine, I don't think you should be the one to criticise anyone else for not achieving their aims.

[ComradeOm]

Considering the abject failure thus far of political parties and unions to make a significant dent in the capitalist machine, I don't think you should be the one to criticise anyone else for not achieving their aims."Abject failure"? When compared to what?

Stack every failure of the workers movement in the past two hundred years against aborted projects such as Owenism* et al and you'll find that the former are, even in failure, infinitely more important, influential, and (yes) triumphant than anything that ever resulted from Utopian ventures. The idea of even making a comparison between organised labour and those well-meaning nutters is ludicrous. What can you counterpose to a over a century of mass revolutionary movements? Some dream of robotic dinosaurs?

Which brings us back nicely to the whole crux of utopianism - its ends and means are completely divorced from one another. Fault it all you like, but the political party does at least present a very clear avenue for a transformation in social relations through political action. "A network of communities and project groups" is nothing of the sort

*Whose raison d'etre could adequately be summed up as "a research network and a social network aimed at establishing a growing seed of the society of tomorrow, to show that an egalitarian and sustainable society could yield important material benefits to those who are a part of it and make the likelihood of change more likely"

[Dimentio]

"Abject failure"? When compared to what?

Stack every failure of the workers movement in the past two hundred years against aborted projects such as Owenism* et al and you'll find that the former are, even in failure, infinitely more important, influential, and (yes) triumphant than anything that ever resulted from Utopian ventures. The idea of even making a comparison between organised labour and those well-meaning nutters is ludicrous. What can you counterpose to a over a century of mass revolutionary movements? Some dream of robotic dinosaurs?

Which brings us back nicely to the whole crux of utopianism - its ends and means are completely divorced from one another. Fault it all you like, but the political party does at least present a very clear avenue for a transformation in social relations through political action. "A network of communities and project groups" is nothing of the sort

*Whose raison d'etre could adequately be summed up as "a research network and a social network aimed at establishing a growing seed of the society of tomorrow, to show that an egalitarian and sustainable society could yield important material benefits to those who are a part of it and make the likelihood of change more likely"

Our goal isn't exactly to settle down in some god-forgotten wilderness and put up a farm with biodynamic vegetables, even though we could theoretically cooperate with people who do that.

[RED DAVE]

And our final goal is a sustainable classless civilisation, but we do nowhere hold the pretensions that we alone could manage it. Our attitude is rather that we could help humanity achieve that state of being.What you are saying is that setting up a network of businesses on some kind of dubiously progressive basis is helping to achieve a classless society.

Bullshit. You have your little Technocratic theories, and you're going to play around with them while others do the real political work of organizing.

You and your ilk keep demonstrating that Technocracy has nothing to do with revolution.

RED DAVE

[Wolf Larson]

You are doing the exact same thing, and in the process wasting everybody's time.



I certainly don't think supernatural agents or forces had any hand in the development of the means of production.

You see, I think this is an illustration that Marxists have a tendency to pervert the meaning of words for their own political purposes, and I cannot countenance the fundamental dishonesty of such practices.



That's an impossible question to answer, and you should know that if, as you claim to be, are knowledgable about anarchism.

Here's a hint; try narrowing the parameters of your question with regards to "anarchism". It's an incredibly diverse political meta-philosophy.
supernatural agents or forces? what the? it's just the opposite you dolt. it dictates whomever has disproportionate control of the means of production also controls society at large. in a nut shell. capitalists are the ones who think primitive accumulation was some accident or 'supernatural' occurrence.

LOL the materialist conception of history has noting to do with supernatural forces. it dispels that myth.

The anarchism question is not impossible to answer it gets to the heart of the "debate" here and you cannot answer it because you know fuck all of nothing.

I'll even expand that question to marxism as well as anarchism. why do marxists need technocracy in order to provide material abundance? as if marxists are anti technology. what does communism lack where technocracy picks up the 'slack'?

[Wolf Larson]

Considering the abject failure thus far of political parties and unions to make a significant dent in the capitalist machine, I don't think you should be the one to criticise anyone else for not achieving their aims.

Why are you a moderator here?

[Wolf Larson]

From the poster "Technocrat":

"Technocracy is a meritocracy - not a democracy. Popular opinion of the masses by itself is not sufficient to determine who will lead. It will be the merit of the individuals themselves, considered within the framework of the project at hand, that will determine who will take what job.

If we look at history, the single longest lasting political institution in the history of humanity was meritocratic in nature - Confucianism, which lasted for almost 2,000 years - long enough to make the Roman Empire seem ephemeral.

In fact, Meritocracy is what the Founding Fathers were aiming for with Democracy - the idea was that with sufficient education, an enlightened citizenry would select leaders on the basis of their merit (not their popularity). I don't think I need to explain how poorly that's worked out.

*under NET's proposed plan, a simple majority is sufficient to remove someone from their position. The basic idea is still a 'meritocratic ascent of volunteers."

And what was your comment below his post NoXion?

Was it this :

"Excellent post. Bumped because it seems I can't sticky it"



Do you understand what anarchism is? Direct worker democracy. Direct democracy with worker control of the means of production. Get a clue. You don't even know what democracy is if you think the 'founding fathers' were in any way interested in actual democracy. They set up a capitalist plutocracy and blaming 'democracy' for Hitler is also a tactic the capitalists use. Funny how your Technocrat buddy did the same in the other thread.

[Invincible Summer]

Wolf, I'd like you, as an anarchist who I assume supports the idea of "degrees of authority" (not sure what the anarchist term is, but I know that many anarchists support having responsibility/a level of authority over issues in relation to how they are affected by them) thinks about this:


Obviously, a person working in electronics should not have equal say in how a person who is working in another entirely different branch of the economy is conducting his or her work. Everyone should be able to make decisions regarding their areas of responsibility, but not the areas of other people with other focuses.

[Dimentio]

From the poster "Technocrat":

"Technocracy is a meritocracy - not a democracy. Popular opinion of the masses by itself is not sufficient to determine who will lead. It will be the merit of the individuals themselves, considered within the framework of the project at hand, that will determine who will take what job.

If we look at history, the single longest lasting political institution in the history of humanity was meritocratic in nature - Confucianism, which lasted for almost 2,000 years - long enough to make the Roman Empire seem ephemeral.

In fact, Meritocracy is what the Founding Fathers were aiming for with Democracy - the idea was that with sufficient education, an enlightened citizenry would select leaders on the basis of their merit (not their popularity). I don't think I need to explain how poorly that's worked out.

*under NET's proposed plan, a simple majority is sufficient to remove someone from their position. The basic idea is still a 'meritocratic ascent of volunteers."

And what was your comment below his post NoXion?

Was it this :

"Excellent post. Bumped because it seems I can't sticky it"



Do you understand what anarchism is? Direct worker democracy. Direct democracy with worker control of the means of production. Get a clue. You don't even know what democracy is if you think the 'founding fathers' were in any way interested in actual democracy. They set up a capitalist plutocracy and blaming 'democracy' for Hitler is also a tactic the capitalists use. Funny how your Technocrat buddy did the same in the other thread.

And Technocrat is not a member of EOS. Technocracy Incorporated is an organisation with a more centralist approach reminiscent of how the Soviet Union worked. I think we have established that a long time ago.

[RED DAVE]

And Technocrat is not a member of EOS. Technocracy Incorporated is an organisation with a more centralist approach reminiscent of how the Soviet Union worked. I think we have established that a long time ago.Technocrat's antisocialist foolishness is well known. What we are establishing here is the fact that the EOS version of Technocracy also has nothing to do with socialism. What you are positing is a series of small businesses with a somewhat different accounting system from capitalist businesses, which will allegedly outperform capitalist businesses, and thus, somehow, play a role in the period after the working class overthrows capitalism.

Anyone sitting down for an evening with a computer and a pad can come up with a utopia. It's a standard assignment in college courses. Yours has its origins in the antidemocratic fantasies of a bogus engineer in the 1920s (Howard Scott). While you claim to have purged yourselves of his shit, in fact, many of your key ideas still stem from him: capitalism as a price system (not a production system), a fetishism of technique, and a refusal to engage in any aspect of politics, including left-wing politics.

Technocracy, of the European and North American varieties has nothing to do with revolution or the left. Discussions of it clearly belong in the "Opposing Ideologies" forum.

RED DAVE

[Wolf Larson]

Technocrat's antisocialist foolishness is well known. What we are establishing here is the fact that the EOS version of Technocracy also has nothing to do with socialism. What you are positing is a series of small businesses with a somewhat different accounting system from capitalist businesses, which will allegedly outperform capitalist businesses, and thus, somehow, play a role in the period after the working class overthrows capitalism.

Anyone sitting down for an evening with a computer and a pad can come up with a utopia. It's a standard assignment in college courses. Yours has its origins in the antidemocratic fantasies of a bogus engineer in the 1920s (Howard Scott). While you claim to have purged yourselves of his shit, in fact, many of your key ideas still stem from him: capitalism as a price system (not a production system), a fetishism of technique, and a refusal to engage in any aspect of politics, including left-wing politics.

Technocracy, of the European and North American varieties has nothing to do with revolution or the left. Discussions of it clearly belong in the "Opposing Ideologies" forum.

RED DAVE
I was also showing how the other poster, NoXion, colludes with what he supposedly rejects in regards to his claim to 'anarchism'.

[Invincible Summer]

I was also showing how the other poster, NoXion, colludes with what he supposedly rejects in regards to his claim to 'anarchism'.


Please reply to this post:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1787229&postcount=179

[Wolf Larson]

Please reply to this post:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1787229&postcount=179

no anarchists do not seek to put "specialists" in disproportionate control of the means of production. Do you even understand what direct democracy is? The post you were praising from Technocrat was filled with anti democratic rhetoric.

Read and understand as much as you can concerning the materialist conception of history (not dialectical materialism) so you can understand my point in saying "specialists" should have no more control in any decision making process- obviously a doctor or construction worker will not tell an engineer how to build a building. The historical conception of history first and foremost dictates that the social construct is determined by the way in which human beings come together to produce their means of survival. Every mode of production from foraging, feudalism, slavery and capitalism had it's own set of social relations- the social arrangements people interacted in production and reproduction of their lives. Each mode of production had it's dominate class and it's oppressed exploited class (the exception being hunter gather societies where all had equal access to nature)What both anarchists and most Marxists propose is a society based on the conscious mastery of production and distribution without classes- democratically and consciously planned by the producers with the application of the most sophisticated scientific knowledge- technocracy has no new claim to this-technocracy would, according to the materialist conception of history, place 'specialists' in disproportionate control of the means of production and hence society at large. A new class of 'specialists' would arise to take the capitalist class position ::

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism

Read this (especially chapter 5) for perspective into what you should be advocating if you're an anarchist- most of it holds true even today :

http://www.lucyparsonsproject.org/anarchism/berkman_abc_of_anarchism.html


(http://www.lucyparsonsproject.org/anarchism/berkman_abc_of_anarchism.html)

[Invincible Summer]

no anarchists do not seek to put "specialists" in disproportionate control of the means of production. Do you even understand what direct democracy is? The post you were praising from Technocrat was filled with anti democratic rhetoric.


I made no mention of "specialists" or "disproportionate control of the MoP." I did not even bring up direct democracy, so I'm not sure where you're pulling this stuff from.

You yourself acknowledge that

obviously a doctor or construction worker will not tell an engineer how to build a building. So this engineer will then have "disproportionate control of the MoP" simply by virtue of him/her having more knowledge about engineering. It is not physical or legal control, but a form of control nonetheless. The guidance of a person with expertise in a field is already "disproportionate control." But so long as everyone is cool with letting a person with expertise take up a bit more slack, what's the big deal? This is how I interpreted Dimentio's post.

I don't get why some anarchists have this phobia of not having perfectly even distribution of responsibility and power? If I know more about making cakes than you, you're probably going to let me handle the planning and creation of cakes to a greater extent than you, right? But so long as it's voluntary and not coerced, then who fucking cares if it's not perfect control over the cake production?


Read and understand as much as you can concerning the materialist conception of history ... blah blah blahWhy so condescending?





Read this (especially chapter 5) for perspective into what you should be advocating if you're an anarchist- most of it holds true even today :

(http://www.lucyparsonsproject.org/anarchism/berkman_abc_of_anarchism.html)I'm not an anarchist. I do have that book though.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

"Abject failure"? When compared to what?

Stack every failure of the workers movement in the past two hundred years against aborted projects such as Owenism* et al and you'll find that the former are, even in failure, infinitely more important, influential, and (yes) triumphant than anything that ever resulted from Utopian ventures. The idea of even making a comparison between organised labour and those well-meaning nutters is ludicrous. What can you counterpose to a over a century of mass revolutionary movements?

I don't think that being able to say "we may have failed, but we failed bigger than you" is a valid defence.


Which brings us back nicely to the whole crux of utopianism - its ends and means are completely divorced from one another. Fault it all you like, but the political party does at least present a very clear avenue for a transformation in social relations through political action. "A network of communities and project groups" is nothing of the sort

I'm somewhat skeptical of EOS's methods, and despite their minimal progress over the past two centuries I'm not arrogant enough to believe that political parties and workers' unions will not have their part to play. But I also think we should be willing to take a zetetic approach to achieving our common objective of a classless society.


supernatural agents or forces? what the? it's just the opposite you dolt. it dictates whomever has disproportionate control of the means of production also controls society at large. in a nut shell. capitalists are the ones who think primitive accumulation was some accident or 'supernatural' occurrence.

LOL the materialist conception of history has noting to do with supernatural forces. it dispels that myth.

Indeed, and I was stating that I did not think that history had been shaped in any supernatural way. How is that not materialist?


The anarchism question is not impossible to answer it gets to the heart of the "debate" here and you cannot answer it because you know fuck all of nothing.

Fine, I'll answer, but I don't think you'll like it: It depends.

Certainly I can understand why individualist anarchism is incompatible with technocracy, and in my experience anarcho-capitalists cannot even comprehend the concept. Technocracy also seems to be an anathema to anarcho-primitivists.

But the collectivist, communist and syndicalist tendencies have no reason to oppose technocracy.


I'll even expand that question to marxism as well as anarchism. why do marxists need technocracy in order to provide material abundance? as if marxists are anti technology. what does communism lack where technocracy picks up the 'slack'?

As far as I know, Marx did not even attempt to describe the technical organisation of a classless post-scarcity society. It is my understanding that Technocracy in some form or another would be able to fill that gap.


Anyone sitting down for an evening with a computer and a pad can come up with a utopia. It's a standard assignment in college courses. Yours has its origins in the antidemocratic fantasies of a bogus engineer in the 1920s (Howard Scott). While you claim to have purged yourselves of his shit, in fact, many of your key ideas still stem from him: capitalism as a price system (not a production system),

Why can't it be both? It's obvious that not only are goods and services produced "for sale" (the price system), but also the way these goods and services are constructed and provided are geared towards the purpose of capital accumulation via wage labour.


Technocracy, of the European and North American varieties has nothing to do with revolution or the left. Discussions of it clearly belong in the "Opposing Ideologies" forum.

Damn your arrogance.

[RED DAVE]

Anyone sitting down for an evening with a computer and a pad can come up with a utopia. It's a standard assignment in college courses. Yours has its origins in the antidemocratic fantasies of a bogus engineer in the 1920s (Howard Scott). While you claim to have purged yourselves of his shit, in fact, many of your key ideas still stem from him: capitalism as a price system (not a production system)
Why can't it be both? It's obvious that not only are goods and services produced "for sale" (the price system), but also the way these goods and services are constructed and provided are geared towards the purpose of capital accumulation via wage labour.Of course you can define capitalism as a price system, but what conclusion do you draw from this with regard to the commodities produced? If the system is considered as a conglomeration of priced commodities, then what we are concerned about is efficiency and a fair price: liberal concepts. If you consider capitalism as a commodity-producing system, then what we are concerned with is control of production. Any system that employs money, or even barter, can be considered a price system. But only capitalism is a system whose identifiable feature is the production of commodities for sale not use.

Technocracy is revealed, in all aspects of its system, as a nonrevolutionary ideology. Individuals of revolutionary bent may adhere to it, but there is nothing per se revolutionary about Technocracy. In fact, as is seen in practice by its refusal to engage in revolutionary practice, it is a non- or anti-revolutionary system.

RED DAVE

[x371322]

there is nothing per se revolutionary about Technocracy.So what? There's nothing per se revolutionary about A LOT of things. That doesn't mean we should de facto restrict every ideology that you don't agree with. Christianity is not a per se revolutionary belief system, yet that doesn't mean that all Christians should be restricted on this forum. The case could even be made that Socialism itself isn't a per se revolutionary ideology. It is the adherents that truly make something revolutionary. There are, after all, many socialists who don't support revolution. As long as someone can show themselves to be a revolutionary, and an anti-capitalist, then that should be enough to be a part of this forum. Technocracy is, at it's core, anti-capitalist, and obviously any technocrats joining the REVOLUTIONARY left web forum, must advocate revolution. I sure as FUCK do. The only viable way to dismantle capitalism is through revolution. At least as far as I can see.

[Dimentio]

So what? There's nothing per se revolutionary about A LOT of things. That doesn't mean we should de facto restrict every ideology that you don't agree with. Christianity is not a per se revolutionary belief system, yet that doesn't mean that all Christians should be restricted on this forum. The case could even be made that Socialism itself isn't a per se revolutionary ideology. It is the adherents that truly make something revolutionary. There are, after all, many socialists who don't support revolution. As long as someone can show themselves to be a revolutionary, and an anti-capitalist, then that should be enough to be a part of this forum. Technocracy is, at it's core, anti-capitalist, and obviously any technocrats joining the REVOLUTIONARY left web forum, must advocate revolution. I sure as FUCK do. The only viable way to dismantle capitalism is through revolution. At least as far as I can see.

All social systems could be rocked by calamities, but ultimately tend to gravitate back into their productive relations. At the same time, most social systems tend to be transitionary. No one could deny that capitalism existed prior to the French revolution.

It is my belief that the post-capitalist economic system, whatever it might be, must manifest itself in some form before a political change could make it a reality. All systems are emergent, whether progressive or reactionary.

[x371322]

It is my belief that the post-capitalist economic system, whatever it might be, must manifest itself in some form before a political change could make it a reality. All systems are emergent, whether progressive or reactionary.

Oh I agree that it must first manifest in some form. As you've said before, we have to test out ideas first to sort out what works and what doesn't. I'm always in support of a scientific approach. A good first step towards revolution is building mass public support, and I don't see how we could achieve that kind of support without at least having some sort of prototype in place... and I certainly don't see what harm it could do.

[ckaihatsu]

I think this thread of discussion is continuing to revolve around the twin poles of 'what' and 'how', and how closely the two aspects may be located to each other.





The outstanding issue remains -- in my mind -- how much of an overlap there could be between the 'what' (mass demands) and the 'how' (labor processes). Certainly higher-level labor is based more on technical knowledge, but the concern then is if we're not putting the cart before the horse -- should we act as if technical knowledge and training would remain so commodified and channeled as it is today (despite the existence of the Internet), to the point where a liberated labor just winds up being beholden to the technical knowledge that constitutes their specialized, formal work positions -- ?

Or might there be more possibilities for an open flow of technical knowledge and work procedures so that a post-capitalist society *doesn't* have to formalize work roles, risking objectification and commodification -- ?


What's boggling *my* mind right now is how *some* people are treating technical expertise as some kind of sacred text that would be the drop-in replacement mode of commodification / objectification of human beings if the capitalist system of commodity values ("price system") was abolished.

Wouldn't a humanities-sided (non-technical-focused) approach -- which happens to be the whole *point* of socialism / communism -- need to at least be considered *more important* than a more technical-sided approach, simply for the sake of being more humane?





a fetishism of technique





I don't get why some anarchists have this phobia of not having perfectly even distribution of responsibility and power? If I know more about making cakes than you, you're probably going to let me handle the planning and creation of cakes to a greater extent than you, right? But so long as it's voluntary and not coerced, then who fucking cares if it's not perfect control over the cake production?


I don't claim anarchist credentials but I will address this point -- *shouldn't* the 'perfectly even distribution of responsibility and power' be the goal to aim for?

The only *alternative* to a people-sided political egalitarianism, as expressed in that phrase, would be the technical-sided *reverence* of technical knowledge. The danger is in *objectifying* the knowledge itself to the point where it's considered un-reproducible and only able to be kept by a holy order of monk-like technicians.





The guidance of a person with expertise in a field is already "disproportionate control." But so long as everyone is cool with letting a person with expertise take up a bit more slack, what's the big deal?





"specialists" should have no more control in any decision making process- obviously a doctor or construction worker will not tell an engineer how to build a building.


These two statements are worrisome because they are "slippery-slope" kind of positions -- sure, it's easy to defer to specialized knowledge and objectified (formal) work roles, but, in the direction of socialism / communism, we need to ask why the knowledge and participation isn't being spread around -- *could* a doctor show a construction worker something about medicine and let them do some minor things that would contribute to the hospital somehow? And, likewise, could the construction worker share some engineering ideas with the doctor, etc. -- ?

Technocratic oriented ideas are helpful to the point that they encourage the working class to imagine *themselves* in a collectivized political and work environment, *collectively* controlling the industrial means of mass production.

But if the model of technocracy being advanced is just going to allow the technical knowledge itself to take on a corporate-personhood kind of status then it's flipped around and the technocracy has become a *reactionary* vision.





Technocracy, of the European and North American varieties has nothing to do with revolution or the left. Discussions of it clearly belong in the "Opposing Ideologies" forum.





Damn your arrogance.


It *isn't* arrogance if the technocracy being advanced is the reactionary kind that deifies technical expertise -- in *that* case it *is* counter-revolutionary and belongs in the "Opposing Ideologies" forum.





It is my belief that the post-capitalist economic system, whatever it might be, must manifest itself in some form before a political change could make it a reality. All systems are emergent, whether progressive or reactionary.


I like to think that digital-based goods and services -- and the free software movement in particular -- are a kind of proto-model for how collective participatory work roles could be voluntary, transparent, and mutually constructive, producing use-value that far exceeds the work effort put in (since digital-based goods and services are infinitely, perfectly reproducible).

[Invincible Summer]

I don't claim anarchist credentials but I will address this point -- *shouldn't* the 'perfectly even distribution of responsibility and power' be the goal to aim for?

The only *alternative* to a people-sided political egalitarianism, as expressed in that phrase, would be the technical-sided *reverence* of technical knowledge. The danger is in *objectifying* the knowledge itself to the point where it's considered un-reproducible and only able to be kept by a holy order of monk-like technicians.


Oh no don't get me wrong, striving to have everyone be able to contribute as much as possible (vis a vis people becoming experienced enough in various fields to do so) should be a goal. I just think that having a zero-tolerance policy on perfection regarding distribution of responsibility/power is unrealistic.



These two statements are worrisome because they are "slippery-slope" kind of positions -- sure, it's easy to defer to specialized knowledge and objectified (formal) work roles, but, in the direction of socialism / communism, we need to ask why the knowledge and participation isn't being spread around -- *could* a doctor show a construction worker something about medicine and let them do some minor things that would contribute to the hospital somehow? And, likewise, could the construction worker share some engineering ideas with the doctor, etc. -- ?

Technocratic oriented ideas are helpful to the point that they encourage the working class to imagine *themselves* in a collectivized political and work environment, *collectively* controlling the industrial means of mass production.

But if the model of technocracy being advanced is just going to allow the technical knowledge itself to take on a corporate-personhood kind of status then it's flipped around and the technocracy has become a *reactionary* vision.

Again, I'm not offering an end-all, be-all answer here. Doctors could (should) most definitely show engineers a thing or two about medicine. My point was to flesh out the idea that some degree of "authority" is not unreasonable, but sometimes even necessary.

Although the doctor will show an engineer some tricks about medicine to help in the hospital, the doctor will still be the go-to person for most medical problems, will they not?

[Dimentio]

The reason why we put so much emphasis on the technical side is because we don't wish to see the future society dictate how human beings should live their lives. Some people are really social, some are solitary. Some might want to participate 80% in the social life of their communities, others 20%.

[ckaihatsu]

Oh no don't get me wrong, striving to have everyone be able to contribute as much as possible (vis a vis people becoming experienced enough in various fields to do so) should be a goal.


Cool.





I just think that having a zero-tolerance policy on perfection regarding distribution of responsibility/power is unrealistic.


Sure, we shouldn't be *perfectionistic* about it, but, along the lines of utopianism and/or technocracy, these idealized models give us a far-off point to *focus* towards....





Although the doctor will show an engineer some tricks about medicine to help in the hospital, the doctor will still be the go-to person for most medical problems, will they not?


Yes, but that isn't saying much, and it isn't saying anything *political*. We should be more concerned with the "delta", or change-towards, a more-empowered and politicized proletariat.





Again, I'm not offering an end-all, be-all answer here. Doctors could (should) most definitely show engineers a thing or two about medicine. My point was to flesh out the idea that some degree of "authority" is not unreasonable, but sometimes even necessary.


Okay, that clarifies the *point* you had in that statement of yours....

I'll clarify *my* position here by saying that we should strive to have a post-capitalist society in which the technical knowledge is *liberating*, and not *objectifying*. This means that while an experienced doctor would obviously *know* more about medicine, it would be the society's *collectivized knowledge* about medicine that would be the "authority", not a specific strand of knowledge itself in a commodified / objectified package, *or* the commodified / objectified technician *themselves*....





The reason why we put so much emphasis on the technical side is because we don't wish to see the future society dictate how human beings should live their lives. Some people are really social, some are solitary. Some might want to participate 80% in the social life of their communities, others 20%.


Okay, I'm duly noting a *second* comment here regarding the practice of authority. Here you're more concerned with *authoritarianism* than Helios+ is....

I happen to agree that a post-capitalist, automated, collectivized industrial means of mass production would enable a *minimal* amount of participation in labor society, if that's what the individual wanted, while still enabling a humane baseline of human needs being met for all.

[ComradeOm]

I don't think that being able to say "we may have failed, but we failed bigger than you" is a valid defenceWell you're right in a way - its actually pretty difficult to compare the vast impact that organised labour has made on modern society with utopian projects. Despite past failures, the unions and parties have proven capable of mobilising mass movements and forcing social revolution and reform to the very top of the agenda. The likes of Owenism and its modern descendants have nothing remotely similar to boast of

So any analytic approach to the past two hundred years that concludes that mass working class parties/unions are as useful or influential as "communities and project groups" is deeply flawed

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Of course you can define capitalism as a price system, but what conclusion do you draw from this with regard to the commodities produced? If the system is considered as a conglomeration of priced commodities, then what we are concerned about is efficiency and a fair price: liberal concepts.

What's wrong with efficiency? Its ethical character is determined by the goals that the efficiency serves. Under a price system, the limitations of money determine what is "efficient", rather than wider social considerations. "Efficiency" under the capitalist price system is a dreaded term because it almost always means that workers will be sacrificed on the altar of the free market, a fundamentally sociopathic economic system.

Which leads on to my next point; prices are not and will never be "fair". While regulation may soften the blow somewhat, the inherent short-sightedness of markets means that sooner or later regulations will be abolished or relaxed or circumvented, and the result is a boom-bust cycle that contributes to an increasingly uneven distribution of goods, services and resources. The widening gap between rich and poor is but one sign of this.


If you consider capitalism as a commodity-producing system, then what we are concerned with is control of production. Any system that employs money, or even barter, can be considered a price system. But only capitalism is a system whose identifiable feature is the production of commodities for sale not use.

In which case capitalism is a subset of a wider family of price-based systems. Price systems have wider problems than the idiotic concept of producing stuff for sale.


Technocracy is revealed, in all aspects of its system, as a nonrevolutionary ideology. Individuals of revolutionary bent may adhere to it, but there is nothing per se revolutionary about Technocracy. In fact, as is seen in practice by its refusal to engage in revolutionary practice, it is a non- or anti-revolutionary system.

Technocracy proposes that we rip up the old rulebook, a collection of historical holdovers and ad hoc measures, and write a shiny new tome intended to achieve results we actually want if we wish to continue considering ourselves a civilised species. It may not be revolutionary in the totally Marxist sense, but who says it has to be?

What do we want, ideological purity or a better society? I know which one I'd rather have.


Well you're right in a way - its actually pretty difficult to compare the vast impact that organised labour has made on modern society with utopian projects. Despite past failures, the unions and parties have proven capable of mobilising mass movements and forcing social revolution and reform to the very top of the agenda. The likes of Owenism and its modern descendants have nothing remotely similar to boast of

So that's what you're gloating about? Reforms and concessions? And some people have the nerve to call Technocrats counter-revolutionaries!

Sure, I'd rather live under a nice(er) version of capitalism than the hellish libertarian fantasy of a cut-throat society, mercenary to the core. But capitalism has proved itself well able to devote some resources to placating the masses enough to ward off revolution. Of course, it may not be able to keep that up indefinately; the ruling classes have been paring away at their reforms and concessions as much as they dare to from day one. But regardless of how long they can keep up their charity act, reforms and concessions have been proven to be mostly irrelevant to the business of creating a classless society.

[ComradeOm]

So that's what you're gloating about? Reforms and concessions? And some people have the nerve to call Technocrats counter-revolutionaries!Revolution is the pinnacle of class struggle but it is madness, and complete idealism, to ignore the daily struggles that lead to this social transformation. The latter occurs when the bourgeois state has no more to offer. To simply dismiss the countless minor triumphs of the organised working class, through the parties and unions, and focus only on some eventual paradise is to be completely divorced from class struggle and the workers movement

Which brings us back to technocracy and other utopian tendencies. Its so much easier to paint a vision of a future hi-tech society than it is to actively work towards a communist one. Technocrats know where they want to go but have absolutely no mechanism, beyond vague "networks", for achieving this. Actually fighting to improve the conditions under which workers labour would involve dirtying your hands in "reforms and concessions". In short: your movement offers nothing but a fantasy

Of course, even if one is to only take revolutionary scenarios in which the workers movement rose to the forefront, its still hard to make any sort of a meaningful comparison with utopian projects


What do we want, ideological purity or a better society? I know which one I'd rather haveTechnocracy is definitely not the former and has no plan for arriving at the latter

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Revolution is the pinnacle of class struggle but it is madness, and complete idealism, to ignore the daily struggles that lead to this social transformation. The latter occurs when the bourgeois state has no more to offer. To simply dismiss the countless minor triumphs of the organised working class, through the parties and unions, and focus only on some eventual paradise is to be completely divorced from class struggle and the workers movement

Where did I say that workers should not struggle in their interests? in fact we should do our best to wring the bastards dry! But we shouldn't fall prey to the delusion that whatever we do wrest out of the tight fists of the ruling class is one more step on the road to a classless society; that's simply repackaged reformism.


Which brings us back to technocracy and other utopian tendencies. Its so much easier to paint a vision of a future hi-tech society than it is to actively work towards a communist one. Technocrats know where they want to go but have absolutely no mechanism, beyond vague "networks", for achieving this. Actually fighting to improve the conditions under which workers labour would involve dirtying your hands in "reforms and concessions". In short: your movement offers nothing but a fantasy

Of course, the thought of working together doesn't seem to have occurred to you. If, as you claim, unions and political parties are an efficient mechanism in spreading awareness, motivation, and otherwise "getting things done" and technocrats have a clear idea of the destination, then the two halves could synergistically build on each others' successes and achieve more than either would working alone.


Of course, even if one is to only take revolutionary scenarios in which the workers movement rose to the forefront, its still hard to make any sort of a meaningful comparison with utopian projects

Indeed, which is why I think such ideological pissing contests are not only tiresome but pointless.


Technocracy is definitely not the former and has no plan for arriving at the latter

I didn't even realise you had a plan. Mind spilling the beans?

[ComradeOm]

Where did I say that workers should not struggle in their interests?When you belittled the achievements of the organised labour movement. Like it or not, little things like the eight-hour day are significant achievements. Class struggle being an ongoing fight and whatnot


Of course, the thought of working together doesn't seem to have occurred to youYou're right - it really hasn't. Simply because technocrats have no monopoly on "clear ideas of the destination" and I really don't care their science fiction

So let me send your statement back to you - if communists are able to "get things done" and have a "clear idea of the destination", why exactly would we want to work with technocrats or other utopians? I'm not suggesting that any cooperation is impossible, but I just don't see any reason to do so


Indeed, which is why I think such ideological pissing contests are not only tiresome but pointlessI'm not asking you to compare the idealogical content of these movements but rather their historical impact. It was, after all, yourself who raised the issue of past failures


I didn't even realise you had a plan. Mind spilling the beans?You want to take a pick from any decent revolutionary theorist in the past century? Probably more worthwhile reading the likes of Gramsci (who is particularly good in the party as a 'germ of future society') than Asimov

[RED DAVE]

So what? There's nothing per se revolutionary about A LOT of things.I agree. But socialism isn't one of them.


That doesn't mean we should de facto restrict every ideology that you don't agree with.Only if it's a nonrevolutionary ideology. And I'm glad, by the way, that you admit that Technocracy is an ideology and are not using that bullshit about it being a blueprint. However, it is abundantly clear from its history and current practice that Technocracy is not revolutionary.


Christianity is not a per se revolutionary belief system, yet that doesn't mean that all Christians should be restricted on this forum.It is not a matter of restricting Christians. However, I would argue that Christianity is definitely a nonrevolutionary ideology and should be restricted. Now followers of liberation theology could argue otherwise, but they are by no means ordinary Christians, and they have a history of revolutionary practice, unlike Technocracy, which has no such history. On the contrary, leaders of Technocracy have explicitly counterposed it to revolutionary ideologies such as anarcho-syndicalism.

The case could even be made that Socialism itself isn't a per se revolutionary ideology.Not around here. Non-revolutionary forms of socialism, such as social democracy, do not get a warm welcome here. In fact, they get no welcome at all.

It is the adherents that truly make something revolutionary.A quarter truth at best. A person who considers themself to be a revolutionary cannot turn a nonrevolutionary ideology into a revolutionary one by wishing it to be so. What makes an ideology revolutionary is that from that ideology revolutionary conclusions, including revolutionary practice, can be deduced. This is definitely not the case with Technocracy.

There are, after all, many socialists who don't support revolution.As I said above, not here as far as I know.

As long as someone can show themselves to be a revolutionary, and an anti-capitalist, then that should be enough to be a part of this forum.I have no problem with that with regard to individuals. My problem is with Technocracy, which is an explicitly nonrevolutionary ideology.

Technocracy is, at it's core, anti-capitalistSo are many brands of utopian socialism. And even social democracy claims to be so. Technocracy has been around for a long time and has never produced anything in the way of actions that would help an active revolutionary to engage in anti-capitalist activity. It’s ideology is, at core, elitist, as I have shown over and over again. It’s economics conceal profound misunderstandings of the nature of capitalism. All this leads people like Dimentio to engage in utopian business enterprises and claim that these have something to do with revolution.


and obviously any technocrats joining the REVOLUTIONARY left web forum, must advocate revolution.Correct.


I sure as FUCK do. The only viable way to dismantle capitalism is through revolution. At least as far as I can see.As far as you can see, cool. But that’s your subjective opinion. It has nothing to do with Technocracy.

[REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL]

I'm coming late to this thread, but i've read at least 7 pages and I don't think this question has been straightforwardly addressed by the technocrats (although admittedly its easy to get lost in this shitstorm of insults.)

Why will being able to manage production not place the "Managers" in a position of control and power over those that they manage, considering that these managers are already essential to the running of the technate, and therefore the provision of anything at all to the rest of the populace?

Surely you can see there are different "class" incentives for the group that manage things, and the group that are managed?

I know you've told us that the technate will work like X or Y, and will have democratic oversight, and everyone will be paid the same, etc etc, but you haven't presented a material incentive for things to remain that way (or even enter that state of affairs in the first place.)

Its little different from me claiming that "my system will work because everyone will be kind to each other in it."

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I'm coming late to this thread, but i've read at least 7 pages and I don't think this question has been straightforwardly addressed by the technocrats (although admittedly its easy to get lost in this shitstorm of insults.)

Why will being able to manage production not place the "Managers" in a position of control and power over those that they manage, considering that these managers are already essential to the running of the technate, and therefore the provision of anything at all to the rest of the populace?

My understanding of technocracy is that there will be no managers, because for one they will be surplus to the requirements of organising production. What can managers do that competent scientists, engineers, technicians and other specialists cannot?


Surely you can see there are different "class" incentives for the group that manage things, and the group that are managed?

I know you've told us that the technate will work like X or Y, and will have democratic oversight, and everyone will be paid the same, etc etc, but you haven't presented a material incentive for things to remain that way (or even enter that state of affairs in the first place.)

The material incentive lies in achieving and maintaining a high standard of living, not just for oneself but for others also. Why is that important? Because if one advocates a society with an economic hierarchy, probability dictates that one is more likely to end up at the bottom of the ladder rather than near the top. So it is in one's direct self-interest to advocate a society that is as economically horizontal as possible.

[Wolf Larson]

" What can managers do that competent scientists, engineers, technicians and other specialists cannot?"

Before I address this I'd like to say whoever keeps neg rep'ing me is, well, lame. Just as lame as the mods who keep giving me infractions for trolling.


The quote above from Noxion is quite telling and exactly my point. So called "competent scientists, engineers, technicians and other specialists" would be the new ruling class....call them managers if you will. It's all over the technocracy rhetoric. they would have disproportionate control over the means of production. The lame response to this in the past has been "but everyone will be engineers".

Anyhow, what does anarchism and or Marxism lack which makes either approach in need of technocracy? Seeing this thread is regarding anarchism I'd like to know why anarchism needs 'technocracies specialists' running things? Even debating this has been some what absurd though....it's plain as day technocracy isnta revolutionary political movement at best a fantasy plan for a future utopia.

I'm tiered of spending time discussing it. I'm willing to accept whatever it is you people do on here....I don't really care. It's just a shame if younger people come looking to learn about socialism and end up becoming inoculated with this silliness.

I don't think you guys are reactionary...per say, not as a "anarcho" capitalist or fascist....you mean well but so do liberals, Fabian socialists, reformists and so on. Go discuss your future non revolutionary utopia on a technocracy website?

[Wolf Larson]

economic hierarchy is rooted in who has disproportionate or total control of the means of production. this is why i keep referring to marx's materialist conception of history.

without the disproportionate control of the means of production it's not technocracy it's simply an advanced communist society ie anarchism.

get with it man.

[Dimentio]

I'm coming late to this thread, but i've read at least 7 pages and I don't think this question has been straightforwardly addressed by the technocrats (although admittedly its easy to get lost in this shitstorm of insults.)

Why will being able to manage production not place the "Managers" in a position of control and power over those that they manage, considering that these managers are already essential to the running of the technate, and therefore the provision of anything at all to the rest of the populace?

Surely you can see there are different "class" incentives for the group that manage things, and the group that are managed?

I know you've told us that the technate will work like X or Y, and will have democratic oversight, and everyone will be paid the same, etc etc, but you haven't presented a material incentive for things to remain that way (or even enter that state of affairs in the first place.)

Its little different from me claiming that "my system will work because everyone will be kind to each other in it."

This have been dealt with thoroughly by us in the European technocratic movement.

Firstly, we have looked at incentives. In a technate, people will not be "paid" because of what work they do, but on the merit of being citizens of the technate alone. What is supposed to give incentives for everyone to do their social service is a matching process where individuals are hooked up on the works they like the most and find most rewarding. Moreover, overall labour time will drop.

As for control and management. The European technate will be divided into autonomous project groups on various levels, so-called holons. These holons will be fully responsible for reaching the goals on their own or by cooperating with other holons. They have a code of behaviour they are supposed to adhere to, and holons which start to stray away from the goals are shut out from the technate. Hence, even if a technocratic "Stalin" is emerging, he and she will not have influence over more than 150 people.

There isn't even any need to purge, just to close off.

[RED DAVE]

What can managers do that competent scientists, engineers, technicians and other specialists cannot?I really respect your revolutionary adherence to the principle of workers self-management and its key role in the process of overthrowing capitalism.

Your commitment to the cause of workers expertise and control of industry is really touching.

RED DAVE

[ckaihatsu]

As for control and management. The European technate will be divided into autonomous project groups on various levels, so-called holons. These holons will be fully responsible for reaching the goals on their own or by cooperating with other holons.


As has already been stated innumerable times this kind of modelling is problematic because it is done abstractly, in a historical vacuum. While I myself find some of this to be useful in a thought-experiment kind of way, we also have to admit that it's flawed in not even *attempting* to situate itself into any kind of (future) *historical* flow of political-societal dynamics.

No one can claim that a technocratic model is revolutionary if the model itself happens to *not reference* a revolution. If the proponents of technocracy are serious about its some-day implementation then they *know* that it isn't possible while the global system of capitalism is still in effect.

But if a technocratic system is to be post-capitalist then that means a revolution to *overthrow* capitalism must occur at some point.

Yet the technocratic model doesn't *include* the revolution in its (future) historical premise whatsoever -- one might consider that the qualities of the worldwide working class revolution needed to displace capitalism would be a *direct influence* on the shape and characteristics of the society that it births. While we can't say for certain *exactly* what kind of a post-capitalist society a successful revolutionary workers' movement will bring about, we *can* say that the revolutionary force itself will most likely have to be quite *centralized*, or coordinated on a trans-continental scale so as to be effective everywhere.

This large-scale nature of proletarian revolution also implies that such a large-scale force could readily give way to global-scale-sized levels of organization that could leverage massive economies of scale, even greater than that realized by today's largest corporations -- but liberated from the heavy burden of commodity production.

I have to seriously question whether we should limit ourselves to a politics that is constrained to a locality, or inter-locality, level when revolution itself would enable much more liberating economic forms, ones never even yet seen in humanity's history.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

The quote above from Noxion is quite telling and exactly my point. So called "competent scientists, engineers, technicians and other specialists" would be the new ruling class....call them managers if you will. It's all over the technocracy rhetoric. they would have disproportionate control over the means of production. The lame response to this in the past has been "but everyone will be engineers".

How is that "lame"? We have the technological and material resources to properly educate and train a significant if not vast majority of the population, but the capitalist price system prevents that.

Of course, not everyone has it in them to become a highly trained specialist in a technical field. But there will still be plenty of engaging and socially necessary jobs available as alternatives.

But whatever the specialisation, be it nanotechnology research, civil engineering, vehicle maintenance & repair, tree surgery, 20th century history or abstract expressionism, the point is that the people actually doing the work and who therefore know the most about it, are the ones in the best position to manage themselves.

There seems this idea among some Marxists that skill or pay grade, rather than relationship to the means of production, defines what a worker is. The worker who is forced by circumstances beyond their control into work that is unskilled or semi-skilled is the creation of a socioeconomic system with an insatiable hunger for labour and profit. There's nothing glorious or noble about that.


Anyhow, what does anarchism and or Marxism lack which makes either approach in need of technocracy? Seeing this thread is regarding anarchism I'd like to know why anarchism needs 'technocracies specialists' running things?

It's not ideologies that need specialists... it's any technologically advanced society. Those specialists should have the autonomy they need to do their jobs properly, without being hen-pecked by unaccountable bureacrats, bean-counters or business-beings, who are concerned only about the bottom line.


I'm tiered of spending time discussing it. I'm willing to accept whatever it is you people do on here....I don't really care. It's just a shame if younger people come looking to learn about socialism and end up becoming inoculated with this silliness.

I don't think you guys are reactionary...per say, not as a "anarcho" capitalist or fascist....you mean well but so do liberals, Fabian socialists, reformists and so on. Go discuss your future non revolutionary utopia on a technocracy website?

Technocracy may not mention revolution, but it doesn't mention reform either. Is it really beyond your conception to imagine that sort of thing being left up to the technocrat to reason out for themself? Have you no confidence in the correctness of the need for a revolutionary transformation of society? Have you no confidence in the ability of the average person to come to the right decision after giving the matter some thought?

Certainly I cannot imagine a Technate being established through reformist methods; and any attempt by a minority to enforce a technocratic society on an unwilling majority would rapidly degenerate into some kind of dictatorship or oligarchy, as far my understanding of history tells me.

[RED DAVE]

How is that "lame"? We have the technological and material resources to properly educate and train a significant if not vast majority of the population, but the capitalist price system prevents that.The capitalism mode of production will be replaced by the revolutionary democracy of the working class, which you always fail to mention. This constant fetishism of technique reveals, constantly, your petit-bourgeois orientation.


Of course, not everyone has it in them to become a highly trained specialist in a technical field. But there will still be plenty of engaging and socially necessary jobs available as alternatives.Elitism to the core.


But whatever the specialisation, be it nanotechnology research, civil engineering, vehicle maintenance & repair, tree surgery, 20th century history or abstract expressionism, the point is that the people actually doing the work and who therefore know the most about it, are the ones in the best position to manage themselves."[T]he people actually doing the work and who therefore know the most about it" are the workers as a class. This seems to escape you, Dimentio, Technocrat and the rest of your ilk.


There seems this idea among some Marxists that skill or pay grade, rather than relationship to the means of production, defines what a worker is.Uhh, comrade, the notion that a worker is defined by their relationship to the means of production is one of the rock-bottom ideas of Marxism. What have you been reading?


The worker who is forced by circumstances beyond their control into work that is unskilled or semi-skilled is the creation of a socioeconomic system with an insatiable hunger for labour and profit. There's nothing glorious or noble about that.True. What is glorious and noble is the ability of the working class, not the stratum of engineers, managers and technocrats, to transform the world.


It's not ideologies that need specialists... it's any technologically advanced society. Those specialists should have the autonomy they need to do their jobs properly, without being hen-pecked by unaccountable bureacrats, bean-counters or business-beings, who are concerned only about the bottom line.This is your notion of working class democracy: "bureacrats [sic], bean-counters or business-beings."


Technocracy may not mention revolution, but it doesn't mention reform either.Translation: it's not a revolutionary ideology. Stop trying to weasel out of this. Revolutionary ideology is explicit, active, open and committed to working class democracy. Technocracy is none of these.


Is it really beyond your conception to imagine that sort of thing being left up to the technocrat to reason out for themself?Not beyond my conception but beyond my politics. Under no circumstances can crucial decisions be left to technocratic specialists outside of democratic reach, which is exactly what Technocracy posits. If you didn't had a belief in working class democracy, instead of a petit-bourgeois fetish of technique, you would be a revolutionary socialist.


Have you no confidence in the correctness of the need for a revolutionary transformation of society?Yes, led by the working class, with the future society based on working class democracy. Do you have confidence in the revolutionary democracy of the working class?


Have you no confidence in the ability of the average person to come to the right decision after giving the matter some thought?As an individual, given crucial decisions for society as a whole, not much. I am a firm believer in revolutionary democracy, in collective decision-making.


Certainly I cannot imagine a Technate being established through reformist methodsAnd I can't imagine the working class, having overthrown capitalism based on Marxist principles, opting for an elitism utopia championed by a group that abstained from the revolution. I really can't see either the North American or European flavor of Technocracy being involved.


and any attempt by a minority to enforce a technocratic society on an unwilling majority would rapidly degenerate into some kind of dictatorship or oligarchy, as far my understanding of history tells me.So we have nothing to worry about it because the workers as a class will give your ideological souvenir from the 1920s and 30s exactly the attention it deserves.

RED DAVE

[Zanthorus]

Actually the rock bottom of Marxist analysis of class is the distribution of surplus labour time which in capitalism takes the form of surplus-value. Relationship to the means of production is only a part of that. Another concept of Marxism is the idea of communism as the development of the "rich individuality which is as all-sided in its production as in its consumption", i.e production and consumption which involves a disintegration of the division of labour between mental and manual workers.

Don't mind me though.

[RED DAVE]

Actually the rock bottom of Marxist analysis of class is the distribution of surplus labour time which in capitalism takes the form of surplus-value. Relationship to the means of production is only a part of that. Another concept of Marxism is the idea of communism as the development of the "rich individuality which is as all-sided in its production as in its consumption", i.e production and consumption which involves a disintegration of the division of labour between mental and manual workers.

Don't mind me though.Are you going to try to one-up me with your knowledge of Marxism or are you going to participate in the criticism of Technocracy? I said "one of the rock-bottom ideas."

Regardless, Technocracy has nothing to do with your rock-bottom idea or mine. It conceives of capitalism as a price system rather than a production system and therefore cannot and does not place the working class at the center of the revolutionary process or the post-revolutionary society.

RED DAVE

[Wolf Larson]

down to minus 2 now. technocracy in action. i like the message you left with the negative rep as well....you know...this one:

"Die in a fire, fuckface."

you people are fucking pathetic. Noxion should be restricted. This one was classy as well:

"Fuck right off."

I'm not sure why you guys are even allowed to post on here. Funny thing is I'm the one one the way to being banned or restricted. Why not answer the question Noxion.....why does an advanced communist society need technocracy?

[Dimentio]

As has already been stated innumerable times this kind of modelling is problematic because it is done abstractly, in a historical vacuum. While I myself find some of this to be useful in a thought-experiment kind of way, we also have to admit that it's flawed in not even *attempting* to situate itself into any kind of (future) *historical* flow of political-societal dynamics.

No one can claim that a technocratic model is revolutionary if the model itself happens to *not reference* a revolution. If the proponents of technocracy are serious about its some-day implementation then they *know* that it isn't possible while the global system of capitalism is still in effect.

But if a technocratic system is to be post-capitalist then that means a revolution to *overthrow* capitalism must occur at some point.

Yet the technocratic model doesn't *include* the revolution in its (future) historical premise whatsoever -- one might consider that the qualities of the worldwide working class revolution needed to displace capitalism would be a *direct influence* on the shape and characteristics of the society that it births. While we can't say for certain *exactly* what kind of a post-capitalist society a successful revolutionary workers' movement will bring about, we *can* say that the revolutionary force itself will most likely have to be quite *centralized*, or coordinated on a trans-continental scale so as to be effective everywhere.

This large-scale nature of proletarian revolution also implies that such a large-scale force could readily give way to global-scale-sized levels of organization that could leverage massive economies of scale, even greater than that realized by today's largest corporations -- but liberated from the heavy burden of commodity production.

I have to seriously question whether we should limit ourselves to a politics that is constrained to a locality, or inter-locality, level when revolution itself would enable much more liberating economic forms, ones never even yet seen in humanity's history.

The problem is that revolutions are following their own dynamics which often are as likely to produce societal collapse as they are to produce new kinds of societies.

Moreover, when the working class - or for that matter the peasant class - is making a revolution, they are usually not making revolution for a new kind of society, but rather because they deem they have more to lose by not overthrowing their government than to do it.

It is not only a matter of vanguard failure that revolutions fail, but also about a discrepancy between what revolutionaries think the people want and what the people want. The people in general want safety and to lead a prosperous life.

In the Middle Ages, the rebelling peasants generally made a rebellion because they held the opinion that the powers that be had violated their social obligations (kill the king's "evil Queen"/"evil Jewish advisors").

Nowadays, when workers and peasants are making rebellions (or riots as the case is in first world nations), they generally do so because they view that rights/privileges/entitlements are threatened. In third world nations, it is generally a bit different, but I doubt that "worker's control" is what a naxalite peasant rebel in India is primarily thinking of. Rather I believe, they think about how they should be able to feed their local communities in the future.

Marxist-leninist parties are trying to move around this fact by educating the masses. The problem though is not that the masses cannot be educated, but that they in general very much prefer "the false conciousness" since it is able to grant them at least certain levels of safety, like "not being killed", "having a house if they work", "having two week's holiday a year".

Moreover, I doubt the workers or the masses want to have control over the means of production in the manner which marxists envision. The reason why we got work differentiation at the beginning was that it was easier to delegate some tasks to be made by people accustomed in those arts as society became more advanced (during the transition between hunter-gatherer and farmer forms of production). Human history is not only a history about people wanting to have rights, but also a history of people fleeing responsibilities.

The point I have is that it is more likely to actually have a political shift when a large segment of production is organised according to the lines of the future progressive society. To repeat my previous example - the French revolution was produced by capitalism, capitalism was not produced by the French revolution.

If the French monarchy had been overthrown in 1589 or 1689 instead of 1789 and a republic would have been instituted, it would most likely have been a religious republic, perhaps a huguenotte theocracy. It would not have been a secular revolution which eventually was to be subverted by the capitalists and the bankers.

By that same token, the Russian Revolution in 1917 did not produce a society where the people had the control over the means of production. It just produced yet another version of the Russian Empire with the "heavenly mandate" supplanted by "international worker's revolution". Stalin's five year plans were just a new variation of Peter the Great's modernisation programme.

If the levels of technology, social organisation and experience are low, they will not produce any long-lasting results which won't be steadily eroded by time. In short, any kind of political revolution not supported by an economic base will be built on sand and either implode or transform itself into something reminiscent of what it originally replaced.

And Noxion: It is not nice to call people fuckfaces.

Tsk tsk tsk

[ckaihatsu]

Your facile interpretation of the French and Russian revolutions aside, I'd like to address your *political* points here:





The point I have is that it is more likely to actually have a political shift when a large segment of production is organised according to the lines of the future progressive society. To repeat my previous example - the French revolution was produced by capitalism, capitalism was not produced by the French revolution.




If the levels of technology, social organisation and experience are low, they will not produce any long-lasting results which won't be steadily eroded by time. In short, any kind of political revolution not supported by an economic base will be built on sand and either implode or transform itself into something reminiscent of what it originally replaced.


Are you arguing here that *today's* "levels of technology, social organization and experience are low" -- ??? And you're saying that there's not enough of an economic base for a worldwide working class revolution to take place -- ???

If anything these conditions have been *overripe* since well before the era of industrialization in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Instead of being glass-half-empty here, or counter-revolutionary, you might consider being glass-half-full and look at current conditions as an *opportunity* for all of the factors you listed to be *resourceful* and *empowering*, *for* revolution.

[RED DAVE]

The problem is that revolutions are following their own dynamics which often are as likely to produce societal collapse as they are to produce new kinds of societies.Please give examples of this. Which revolutions in major countries "produce[d] societal collapse."


Moreover, when the working class - or for that matter the peasant class - is making a revolution, they are usually not making revolution for a new kind of society, but rather because they deem they have more to lose by not overthrowing their government than to do it.This represents a complete misunderstanding of the process of revolution, which is hardly surprising coming from a follower of Technocracy. In the process of revolution, the vision of "a new kind of society" is crucial to the revolutionary process. Also, the "peasant class," in the process of revolution, is never the leading class. So it is iffy as to whether or not we can say that the peasantry can make a revolution.


It is not only a matter of vanguard failure that revolutions fail, but also about a discrepancy between what revolutionaries think the people want and what the people want. The people in general want safety and to lead a prosperous life.Please give us an example where a revolution failed because of "a discrepancy between what revolutionaries think the people want and what the people want."


In the Middle Ages, the rebelling peasants generally made a rebellion because they held the opinion that the powers that be had violated their social obligations (kill the king's "evil Queen"/"evil Jewish advisors").You are confusing rebellion and revolution.


Nowadays, when workers and peasants are making rebellions (or riots as the case is in first world nations), they generally do so because they view that rights/privileges/entitlements are threatened.Sigh! I could spend an hour or so refuting this, but, let me just say, BULLSHIT. Note that you have failed to even mention economics as a factor, and you are confusing rebellion and revolution.


In third world nations, it is generally a bit different, but I doubt that "worker's control" is what a naxalite peasant rebel in India is primarily thinking of. Rather I believe, they think about how they should be able to feed their local communities in the future.Which is why peasants can never be the leading class in a revolution.


Marxist-leninist parties are trying to move around this fact by educating the masses.What fact? All you've made so far is a bunch of half-baked or erroneous statements about revolution, which you seem to know nothing about.


The problem though is not that the masses cannot be educated, but that they in general very much prefer "the false conciousness" since it is able to grant them at least certain levels of safety, like "not being killed", "having a house if they work", "having two week's holiday a year".What you are dealing with is the problem called "economism," which generally states that the working class cannot come to revolutionary consciousness without the presence of a revolutionary party.

This is still an iffy question, and is by no means settled. However, since there are revolutionary parties in every country in the world, the question is probably moot.


Moreover, I doubt the workers or the masses want to have control over the means of production in the manner which marxists envision.What is the basis for this amazing statement beyond your own class prejudice?


The reason why we got work differentiation at the beginning was that it was easier to delegate some tasks to be made by people accustomed in those arts as society became more advanced (during the transition between hunter-gatherer and farmer forms of production). Human history is not only a history about people wanting to have rights, but also a history of people fleeing responsibilities.This is about the most elitist statement I have ever seen on this website.

So, instead of the famous statement from the Manifesto,

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles

we will have

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of people fleeing responsibilities

I have never read such nonsense by a self-styled leftist in my life.


The point I have is that it is more likely to actually have a political shift when a large segment of production is organised according to the lines of the future progressive society.This is, of course, a sneaky way of saying that your elitist fantasy, Technocracy, is 'the future progressive society." Of course, it is no such thing, but, rather, an elitist utopia that would be run by managers, engineers, scientists, etc. Not bloody likely.


To repeat my previous example - the French revolution was produced by capitalism, capitalism was not produced by the French revolution.Actually, the truth is that the process was dialectical: the revolution produced a society that opened the door for unbridaled capitalism. However, the capitalist class made an alliance with the urban masses, which it then betrayed, in order to make the revolution. (This, of course, is a gross simplification of the process, but it partakes of the actual movement of the class conflicts as opposed to your distortion.)


If the French monarchy had been overthrown in 1589 or 1689 instead of 1789 and a republic would have been instituted, it would most likely have been a religious republic, perhaps a huguenotte theocracy. It would not have been a secular revolution which eventually was to be subverted by the capitalists and the bankers.I think, before you spout off on the nature of revolutionary republics, you read Engels' The Peasant Wars in Germany. What this has to do with your reactionary utopia, though, I have no idea.


By that same token, the Russian Revolution in 1917 did not produce a society where the people had the control over the means of production. It just produced yet another version of the Russian Empire with the "heavenly mandate" supplanted by "international worker's revolution". Stalin's five year plans were just a new variation of Peter the Great's modernisation programme.Class, for your quiz today, how many historical errors can you find in this statement?


If the levels of technology, social organisation and experience are low, they will not produce any long-lasting results which won't be steadily eroded by time. In short, any kind of political revolution not supported by an economic base will be built on sand and either implode or transform itself into something reminiscent of what it originally replaced.Read one way, all this says is that revolutions occur when the economic conditions are ripe. However, what you are really saying, I believe, with that little phrase "social organisation" is that your Technocratic uptopia grown up within capitalism, will be the cradle of the new civilaztion. You are conterposing the profit-making ability of your utopia to the revolutionary democarcy of the working class.

As I have said, Technocracy is a nonrevolutionary ideology that belongs in the "Opposing Ideologies" section of this website, and this is becoming more and more evident as time goes by.

RED DAVE

[Wolf Larson]

Like your quasi-religious politico-economic apocalypticism is any more effective.

Why are you a moderator on a revolutionary socialist web site? Did you children get angry because my revleft "rep" was building back up? LOL Seriously Noxion or whatever your real name is....why are you even on this site let alone moderating? Same goes for the rest of you techno-mods...if you think revolutionary socialism is "quasi-religious politico-economic apocalypticism" I want to know just what the hell you're doing moderating this site? Any actual socialist mods can answer this question as well. What are they doing on here?

[Wolf Larson]

"Human history is not only a history about people wanting to have rights, but also a history of people fleeing responsibilities." -Dimentio-

(Laughing) That's not what I meant when I said read and understand the materialist conception of history. The quote above just about sums up your view on the working class. A history of fleeing responsibility!

[Wolf Larson]

From the poster "Technocrat": "Technocracy is a meritocracy - not a democracy. Popular opinion of the masses by itself is not sufficient to determine who will lead. It will be the merit of the individuals themselves, considered within the framework of the project at hand, that will determine who will take what job. If we look at history, the single longest lasting political institution in the history of humanity was meritocratic in nature - Confucianism, which lasted for almost 2,000 years - long enough to make the Roman Empire seem ephemeral. In fact, Meritocracy is what the Founding Fathers were aiming for with Democracy - the idea was that with sufficient education, an enlightened citizenry would select leaders on the basis of their merit (not their popularity). I don't think I need to explain how poorly that's worked out. *under NET's proposed plan, a simple majority is sufficient to remove someone from their position. The basic idea is still a 'meritocratic ascent of volunteers."

And what was your comment below his post NoXion?

Was it this :

"Excellent post. Bumped because it seems I can't sticky it"


Do you understand what anarchism is? Direct worker democracy. Direct democracy with worker control of the means of production. Get a clue. You don't even know what democracy is if you think the 'founding fathers' were in any way interested in actual democracy. They set up a capitalist plutocracy and blaming 'democracy' for Hitler is also a tactic the capitalists use. Funny how your Technocrat buddy did the same in the other thread.

So it looks like your fake claim to "anarchism" just went out the window. :) Or was that "Jazzrat"? I get all of you confused there's so many of you.

[Dimentio]

As I have said, Technocracy is a nonrevolutionary ideology that belongs in the "Opposing Ideologies" section of this website, and this is becoming more and more evident as time goes by.

RED DAVE

By all respect, technocracy cannot be considered an ideology, since it doesn't say anything about how people should live their lives. It is only proposing a method of organisation of the infrastructure which will eventually liberate people from the need to work.

EOS do have an ideology, which we only refer to as "The Ideology".

[Zanthorus]

Are you going to try to one-up me with your knowledge of Marxism or are you going to participate in the criticism of Technocracy? I said "one of the rock-bottom ideas."

Both points were supposed to be in your favour. There are people out there who are technically wage-labourers but get payed more than they actually produce meaning they have no direct interest in the establishment of communism. Just being a wage-labourer is not necessarily enough to establish wether or not someone is proletarian.

The thing about the Grundrisse quote is that either the Technocrats are going to do what their opponents say they're going to do and put everyone under the rule of scientists and engineers in which case their ideology is anti-Marxist to the core or they're going to make everyone scientists and engineers in which case they haven't really advanced anywhere beyond regular Marxism.

[RED DAVE]

As I have said, Technocracy is a nonrevolutionary ideology that belongs in the "Opposing Ideologies" section of this website, and this is becoming more and more evident as time goes by.
By all respect, technocracy cannot be considered an ideology, since it doesn't say anything about how people should live their lives. It is only proposing a method of organisation of the infrastructure which will eventually liberate people from the need to work.With all due respect, where did you get your definition of an ideology as a belief system that must "say anything about how people should live their lives"? Technocrat was touting that one months ago, and it shows a misunderstanding of what an ideology is. It's also dishonest because you are trying to conceal the true nature of your movement.

Awhile ago, you had this nonsense about Technocracy being just a "blueprint" for a future society, but it has been demonstrated, over and over again, that Technocracy has a series of views on class, political action, the nature of industrial relationships, the relationship between technology and society, etc., all of which are part of an ideology. The following is from Google defintions (slightly edited for clarity):


• political orientation: an orientation that characterizes the thinking of a group or nation

• imaginary or visionary theorization

wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

• An ideology is a set of aims and ideas that directs one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things (compare worldview), as in common sense (see Ideology in everyday society below) and several philosophical tendencies ...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideology

• Doctrine, philosophy, body of beliefs or principles belonging to an individual or group; The study of the origin and nature of idea
s
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ideologyhttp://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=define%3A+ideology&aq=0&aqi=l1g6g-s1g-m2&aql=&oq=DEFINITION+IDEO&gs_rfai=C-vtl84kwTJeMEpmMhQSLxvCJBAAAAKoEBU_QK5py&gs_upl=6021%2C3371%2C13%2C3%2C74%2C89%2C13

It's clear from this that Technocracy is an ideology, and it is clear from many threads and the statements of adherents to it and analysis of these statements that it is a nonrevolutionary ideology.


EOS do have an ideology, which we only refer to as "The Ideology".This is weird. I thought you said that Technocracy isn't an ideology. Or are you saying that your brand of Technocracy, EOS, is an ideology. :blink:

RED DAVE

[Wolf Larson]

How is that "lame"? We have the technological and material resources to properly educate and train a significant if not vast majority of the population, but the capitalist price system prevents that.



No capitalism prevents that and before that it was mercantilism and before manorialism/feudalism all centering around hierarchy or disproportionate control of the means of production.....and your system will look like this :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PAdQ5anhZE


That is, until the people who don't fall into the "significant if not vast majority of the population" facilitate a revolution. The ones "living under metropolis" making it all happen. After all, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. If technocracy did somehow manifest (without a revolution) the "specialists and engineers" would have to be swept aside once the peak or plateau of material sustenance is reached.


Whats really bothering me ,still, was your praise of Technocrats post where he mangles the meaning of actual democracy and touted meritocracy as the goal of technocracy. This obviously sets up a hierarchy not of nobility but intelligence and is not compatible with anarchism. Instead of dodging this while handing out neg rep why don't you tell us why you fell head over heals for Technocrats post?

[Dimentio]

This is weird. I thought you said that Technocracy isn't an ideology. Or are you saying that your brand of Technocracy, EOS, is an ideology. :blink:

RED DAVE

EOS isn't an ideology, it is an organisation with a proposal for how society should be organised.

Technocracy is the methodology for reaching to a sustainable state of being for humanity. But it isn't our ideology. Our ideology is simply called "The Ideology".

[ckaihatsu]

Our ideology is simply called "The Ideology".


Heeeeyyyyyy, looks like your Marketing Department is back in full swing...!





X factor (Wikipedia)

X factor is an expression referring to an indefinable quality, particularly when referring to individuality and personality. Since these elements of a person or thing might not be measurable or definable, the "X factor" (since "X" is commonly used as a variable) is often used to explain its appeal. Compare je ne sais quoi.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

No capitalism prevents that

But not through lack of technological or material resources, as I was saying.


and before that it was mercantilism and before manorialism/feudalism all centering around hierarchy or disproportionate control of the means of production.....and your system will look like this :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PAdQ5anhZE

Metropolis? Are you serious? In that case, why can't I take Red Dawn to be a devastating critique of Marxist-Leninism? Does this asinine referenciness mean that criticisms of genetic engineering based on Brave New World are also valid?

At best such examples serve as a warning, a warning which I have already taken on board long before.


That is, until the people who don't fall into the "significant if not vast majority of the population" facilitate a revolution.

You mean, pampered middle class "revolutionaries" with their fantasies of rising to the top of some convoluted Party hierarchy?

Euch. No thanks.


The ones "living under metropolis" making it all happen.

You know, if technocrats had proposed a strict social hierarchy, I could understand where you're coming from.

Bu they don't; there is no "underclass" slaving their bollocks off in some industrial hell. Do you seriously think I would throw my lot in with something that has a good chance of dumping me in the shit?


After all, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. If technocracy did somehow manifest (without a revolution) the "specialists and engineers" would have to be swept aside once the peak or plateau of material sustenance is reached.

Provide a plausible scenario of technocracy without a revolution and I'll consider it.


Whats really bothering me ,still, was your praise of Technocrats post where he mangles the meaning of actual democracy and touted meritocracy as the goal of technocracy. This obviously sets up a hierarchy not of nobility but intelligence and is not compatible with anarchism.

Merit and intelligence aren't the same thing. The ability to do sums in my head is not the same as being able to run 200 metres as quickly possible, and it won't help me paint in the style of Botticelli either.


Instead of dodging this while handing out neg rep why don't you tell us why you fell head over heals for Technocrats post?

The last time I gave you neg rep was in your distinctly trollish post in the Ecodensity Megastructures thread, if I remember correctly. Are you still smarting about that? Seriously, grow the fuck up.

[Dimentio]

Heeeeyyyyyy, looks like your Marketing Department is back in full swing...!

What is wrong with marketing exactly now again? :cool:

In fact, the ideas about biocentric humanism, the wholeness of the world perspective and eudaimonia would very much be the foundation of any progressive future society. Our new goal is to become a broad movement.

[ckaihatsu]

---





What is wrong with marketing exactly now again?





[T]here's a difference between politics and marketing -- politics is about *large-scale* policy, conventionally enforced by governmental authority. Marketing is about stirring up like-minded sentiment within the public in order to create groupings of people that are willing to buy goods and services or participate in some activity.

[Dimentio]

---

In order to invoke large-scale changes, one must begin with trying to create a movement able to instir large-scale changes. It is just silly with all these one-member parties around all advocating for revolution, the seizure of the means of production, working class control and condemnation of parties which doesn't adhere to ideological puritanism.

What is mattering is not your purity, but your ability. I would be highly surprised if communism in its traditional form would ever more become a popular movement in the first world.

[RED DAVE]

In order to invoke large-scale changes, one must begin with trying to create a movement able to instir large-scale changes.Wow! Brilliant! Did you stay up all night thinking about that.


It is just silly with all these one-member parties around all advocating for revolution, the seizure of the means of production, working class control and condemnation of parties which doesn't adhere to ideological puritanism.Considering that many of these one-person groups have substantial membership and they're growing shows how full of shit you are. Why don't you admit that you have and want nothing to do with revolution or revolutionary groups, pure or other wise?


What is mattering is not your purity, but your ability. I would be highly surprised if communism in its traditional form would ever more become a popular movement in the first world.And I would be amazed if your elitist Technocracy ever climbs out of the garbage pail of history where it was dumped in the 1940s.

Why don't you go and build your Technocratic utopia and stop trying to confuse people, who genuinely want revolution (especially younger people who've never heard of your bullshit before)?

RED DAVE

[Zanthorus]

In order to invoke large-scale changes, one must begin with trying to create a movement able to instir large-scale changes.

This is where your position is fundamentally at odds with any half decent concept of human liberation. We don't need to create any new movements or sects trying to push their ideas on people. Communism is already contained implicitly within capitalism as the real world which capitalism is the inverted mirror of. It isn't a question of making up entirely new struggles, or giving new slogans to old movements, but showing the world what it's really fighting for.


What is mattering is not your purity, but your ability. I would be highly surprised if communism in its traditional form would ever more become a popular movement in the first world.

I agree. Except communism in it's traditional form was the utopian communism of Owen, Fourier and Saint-Simon which is perfectly in accordance with the views of most technocrats and fundamentally at odds with Marx's idea of communism as the real movement which abolishes the existing state of things and based on the global praxis of the working class.

[Dimentio]

I agree. Except communism in it's traditional form was the utopian communism of Owen, Fourier and Saint-Simon which is perfectly in accordance with the views of most technocrats and fundamentally at odds with Marx's idea of communism as the real movement which abolishes the existing state of things and based on the global praxis of the working class.

The global praxis of the working class is not to try to transform society itself, but to try to get as big a share of the cake as possible. Only if the society is so impoverished or hierarchical that change cannot be reached by compromise will the workers overthrow the government.

We are not utopians, since we do not believe that our proposed model is a final solution, neither that isolated villages could sway all the society.

And we are not elitists. Compared with vanguard parties, we are very flat and holarchic.

[Zanthorus]

The global praxis of the working class is not to try to transform society itself, but to try to get as big a share of the cake as possible. Only if the society is so impoverished or hierarchical that change cannot be reached by compromise will the workers overthrow the government.

You're mistaking the Marxist concept of a revolution led by a working-class which has been made fully conscious of the ways in which capitalism distorts the potentials of human productive activity, it's removal from a mode of life which is fundamentally in accordance with human essence, through the revolutionary process and struggle itself and the purely populist politics of resentment basing itself on the existing state of the working class movement which completely subordinates itself to stikhiinost (The original Russian used by Lenin in WITBD which is usually translated as "spontaneity" but actually means the opposite - spontaneity refers to the worlds lack of control over the self, stikhiinost means the selfs lack of control over the world). Capitalism as a system is a distortion of human productive activity and as such the creations of human productive activity get out of our control. To bring the human productive forces back under control, to create a world which is in harmony with human essence, must be the task of the class which is most alienated from it's own humanity, from the material human community. There is no socialism apart from the working class.


We are not utopians, since we do not believe that our proposed model is a final solution, neither that isolated villages could sway all the society.

Yes, you are. You have a vision of society which you believe is more "rational" than the existing one.


And we are not elitists. Compared with vanguard parties, we are very flat and holarchic.

The concept of a "vanguard party" is not elitist, nor is it even a singular concept as different people at different times have had different interpretations.

[Dimentio]

You're mistaking the Marxist concept of a revolution led by a working-class which has been made fully conscious of the ways in which capitalism distorts the potentials of human productive activity, it's removal from a mode of life which is fundamentally in accordance with human essence, through the revolutionary process and struggle itself and the purely populist politics of resentment basing itself on the existing state of the working class movement which completely subordinates itself to stikhiinost (The original Russian used by Lenin in WITBD which is usually translated as "spontaneity" but actually means the opposite - spontaneity refers to the worlds lack of control over the self, stikhiinost means the selfs lack of control over the world). Capitalism as a system is a distortion of human productive activity and as such the creations of human productive activity get out of our control. To bring the human productive forces back under control, to create a world which is in harmony with human essence, must be the task of the class which is most alienated from it's own humanity, from the material human community. There is no socialism apart from the working class.


Well, productive activity in the terms of human labour is something which we want to eventually see abolished. As for alienation, modern research tend to emphasise that the foundational problem is deeper than what you think, and at the same time simpler. The main problem is not only about the organisation but about the size of human society. When societies consist of less than 150 individuals, they are overseeable and class societies tend to not spontaneously arise. When they are turning larger, it tend to be an information between groups which is working to help pyramid-shaped societies take form. We intend to solve that problem by utilising information technology to turn power of the means of production into the hands of autonomous groups consisting of the size the human brain has evolved to handle.

We do not have a design for a "rational society" but for rational ways to manage society in order to get rid of political control of human beings, unsustainability, material inequality and so forth. It is evidently clear that no society simply could be "installed" and then work perfectly. All human societies are the result of emergent processes.

What we intend is to affect these emergent processes so they evolve towards a state of being where insustainability could be replaced with sustainability, where inequality could be replaced with egalitarianism, where control of humans by machinery could be replaced by human control over machinery, for the good of all of humanity.

We admit that we do not have a clear route to that. But that is actually a strength, since it means we could adapt ourselves to changing circumstances instead of parroting the same things over and over again no matter the circumstances.

[Zanthorus]

Well, productive activity in the terms of human labour is something which we want to eventually see abolished.

That's impossible. One of the most important aspects of human beings is that we not only passively react to the natural world but transform it in order to satisfy certain needs. What you can do is make smaller and smaller amounts of human labour set into action greater and greater masses of means of production. But the total abolition of human productive activity is simply fantasy.


We do not have a design for a "rational society" but for rational ways to manage society in order to get rid of political control of human beings, unsustainability, material inequality and so forth.


Well I think this is essentially the same as having a design for rational society. I personally don't see how there could be any "rational" modes of life - only human and inhuman ones.


We admit that we do not have a clear route to that. But that is actually a strength, since it means we could adapt ourselves to changing circumstances instead of parroting the same things over and over again no matter the circumstances.

If this is intended to be a hit at communist groups then it is a very poor one.

[Dimentio]

That's impossible. One of the most important aspects of human beings is that we not only passively react to the natural world but transform it in order to satisfy certain needs. What you can do is make smaller and smaller amounts of human labour set into action greater and greater masses of means of production. But the total abolition of human productive activity is simply fantasy.

Well I think this is essentially the same as having a design for rational society. I personally don't see how there could be any "rational" modes of life - only human and inhuman ones.

If this is intended to be a hit at communist groups then it is a very poor one.

Humans might be as productive as they want on their spare-time. We do not intend to forbid them to make artworks or do whatever they want with their free time. On the contrary, we want to give human beings as much time as possible to be human.

We are not going to create "rational" modes for life where everyone is forced to comply to some "rational" manners and certain thoughts, behaviours or such things are illegal. On the contrary, a rational way of dealing with the resources of humanity would create a humane existence for humanity, if the goals are correct.

[ckaihatsu]

Humans might be as productive as they want on their spare-time. We do not intend to forbid them to make artworks or do whatever they want with their free time. On the contrary, we want to give human beings as much time as possible to be human.


This is a *policy proposal*, based on the authority of your proposed technocracy.





We are not going to create "rational" modes for life where everyone is forced to comply to some "rational" manners and certain thoughts, behaviours or such things are illegal.


And this is an obvious slur on revolutionary leftism, by characterizing it as some kind of authoritarian Stalinism.

Overall, your business network is trying to dabble in politics by hinging the entire functioning of a proposed society on your interpretations of what is "rational".

[Dimentio]

This is a *policy proposal*, based on the authority of your proposed technocracy.

And this is an obvious slur on revolutionary leftism, by characterizing it as some kind of authoritarian Stalinism.

Overall, your business network is trying to dabble in politics by hinging the entire functioning of a proposed society on your interpretations of what is "rational".

* No, its a non-policy proposal. We simply don't care what people are doing with their time as long as they aren't killing one another or destroying the infrastructure necessary to ensure their survival.

* Our "business network" is not built on interpretations of rationality, but on cooperation between autonomous nodes. We will not exactly begin by "dabbling" though. One is only trying to dabble when one has an actual chance of succeeding.

* Neither have I attacked anyone else here. I have only explained what we don't intend to do.

* As no human being is expected to do exactly the same thing during a life-time, no organisation could be expected to fulfil exactly the same functions during all stages of its existence. A party of 25 or 50 individuals who are calling for world revolution and redistribution of property is like a toddler wanting to be an austronaut without training, practice or education.

* Political work is about trying to grasp the currents of humanity. Sometimes, people might be content. Sometimes they might be angry. If you make yourself to the slave of the currents, you will be drowned by them eventually.

* Establishment of infrastructure control is a more certain way of influencing society than trying to achieve popular control. People tend to change their mind quite often. Machines and infrastructure do not change their mind so very often. They are thus providing a more stable foundation for creating radical social change than the popular base.

[ckaihatsu]

* Establishment of infrastructure control is a more certain way of influencing society than trying to achieve popular control. People tend to change their mind quite often. Machines and infrastructure do not change their mind so very often. They are thus providing a more stable foundation for creating radical social change than the popular base.


Politically this is called a 'coup' -- I hope you realize that....





A party of 25 or 50 individuals who are calling for world revolution and redistribution of property is like a toddler wanting to be an austronaut without training, practice or education.


Nice -- real sly. You want to make attacks without them being *called* attacks.





[T]his is an obvious slur on revolutionary leftism, by characterizing it as some kind of [infantile] [ignorant] authoritarian Stalinism.





* Our "business network" is not built on interpretations of rationality, but on cooperation between autonomous nodes.


Again, your material social network will be subject to the existing dynamics of capital ownership and bourgeois state authority.

[redmist]

Just read this thread, this technocracy is suspect!


We are not utopians, since we do not believe that our proposed model is a final solution, neither that isolated villages could sway all the society.


Can you explain a final solution, do you know it?



* No, its a non-policy proposal. We simply don't care what people are doing with their time as long as they aren't killing one another or destroying the infrastructure necessary to ensure their survival.


Maybe I've missed a trick here or this is out of context, but... Not much mention of equal distribution of... anything, or of any class struggles? I'm pretty sure I read that you lot are a non-political organisation, so I'd imagine you don't follow a Marxist line of thought, where does the class struggle come into this?!

[Invincible Summer]

Maybe I've missed a trick here or this is out of context, but... Not much mention of equal distribution of... anything, or of any class struggles? I'm pretty sure I read that you lot are a non-political organisation, so I'd imagine you don't follow a Marxist line of thought, where does the class struggle come into this?!

Well, socialist/communist society is the only way that Technocracy can really be implemented without the restrictions of a price system, so take it and run with it.

[Dimentio]

Maybe I've missed a trick here or this is out of context, but... Not much mention of equal distribution of... anything, or of any class struggles? I'm pretty sure I read that you lot are a non-political organisation, so I'd imagine you don't follow a Marxist line of thought, where does the class struggle come into this?!

We want equal access to the means of production for all human beings. We are not a political organisation, but it is our belief that we need to elaborate on working and realistic models in order to realise a future non-capitalist egalitarian society.

[Dimentio]

Politically this is called a 'coup' -- I hope you realize that....

No, it isn't. A coup would require the cooperation of the population, or at least not their opposition. To take over one million square metres of land and a uranium mine (for example) just require some billions of cash and not people.



Nice -- real sly. You want to make attacks without them being *called* attacks.

Don't be paranoid now, man :lol:



Again, your material social network will be subject to the existing dynamics of capital ownership and bourgeois state authority.

Yes, at the beginning yes. When it turns larger, it could start to transform the dynamics of these relationships and get a new position which is more beneficial for the short-term and long-term goals. The issue is getting there.

[RED DAVE]

We want equal access to the means of production for all human beings.Whatever happened to "revolutionary control of the means of production by the working class?


We are not a political organisationYou are a very political organization. But you conceal your politics constantly. The claim to be unpolitical is political.


but it is our belief that we need to elaborate on working and realistic models in order to realise a future non-capitalist egalitarian society.There is no reason to believe that this is anything but a prelude to a business model. Whatever happened to working class democracy as the agent of revolutionary change?

RED DAVE

[ckaihatsu]

A party of 25 or 50 individuals who are calling for world revolution and redistribution of property is like a toddler wanting to be an austronaut without training, practice or education.





Nice -- real sly. You want to make attacks without them being *called* attacks.




[T]his is an obvious slur on revolutionary leftism, by characterizing it as some kind of [infantile] [ignorant] authoritarian Stalinism.





Don't be paranoid now, man :lol:


---





No, it isn't. A coup would require the cooperation of the population, or at least not their opposition. To take over one million square metres of land and a uranium mine (for example) just require some billions of cash and not people.


You are sounding more and more like some elitist privileged -------- who will talk out of both sides of your mouth in order to seal a deal. Meanwhile you *have* to attack those who *do* have and support an actual revolutionary program because its existence threatens the "originality" and marketability of whatever it is you're peddling around.

[Dimentio]

You are sounding more and more like some elitist privileged -------- who will talk out of both sides of your mouth in order to seal a deal. Meanwhile you *have* to attack those who *do* have and support an actual revolutionary program because its existence threatens the "originality" and marketability of whatever it is you're peddling around.

It is paranoia to claim that I am saying anything above what I am saying. The work of political parties which are acting as a torch for the working people is indispensable, and such things do humanity need more of. I have not said that the work done by such parties are unnecessary - what I have criticised is the idea that all movements which want to enact change would necessarily come into being as political parties.

Moreover, the history of marxism is showing a tendency to constant splits into smaller and smaller political units. Lets say that we have a Judean Worker's Party. Soon, there would be the Judean People's Front, the People's Front of Judea and the United People's Front of Judea... each with 20 members and a newspaper writing a little about the war in Britannia and slagging of the other parties.

Such parties are neither threats to or comptetitors with EOS. But EOS have all the rights to defend itself against attacks, even if that would hurt the emotions of the bullies. EOS do not view the world in terms of confrontations, but in terms of opportunities.

[ckaihatsu]

Well, just for the record, I do resent all of your blanket and specific caricatures (mischaracterizations) that you've made of my politics and my person.

[RasTheDestroyer]

Marxism-Leninism should not be relied on as an abstract doctrine with ready-made answers. That is to say, analysis should not start from general principles, laws, etc., but from a concrete analysis.

Lenin for example developed the idea of the vanguard party. Some might compare that to a technocracy: rule by a specialized elite. However, Lenin's form of political organization was indeed suited to the class composition of the Russian proletariat in 1914. The isolated and minoritarian status of the industrial proletariat of Russia necessitated a delegating organization independent of the proletariat.

The objection one might raise regarding Lenin is that he defined this power as a non-dialectical absolute, thereby failing to resolve many of the contradictions that beset Russia.

Engels once pointed out that labeling something 'authoritarian,' among some revolutionaries, had become a sufficient reason for condemning it, then went on to explain that a revolution is the most authoritarian act there is: 'Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out against political authority, the state? All Socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society. But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority.'

[redmist]

We want equal access to the means of production for all human beings. We are not a political organisation, but it is our belief that we need to elaborate on working and realistic models in order to realise a future non-capitalist egalitarian society.

Models of what? Business? If not can I have examples of what you mean

Personally from the way it sounds, I don't want to elaborate on working and realistic models, that sounds a lot like some sort of entrepreneurial bollocks. No offence mate!

[redmist]

EOS do not view the world in terms of confrontations, but in terms of opportunities.

Double post, apologies!

That more or less word for word sounds like what some consultant at my work used when talking about job cuts in my team! :blink:

[RasTheDestroyer]

Models of what? Business? If not can I have examples of what you mean


To be fair - and this was the subject of a recent discussion I had on here - both Stalin and Mao were in agreement that development should still depend on the commodity form and Mao further affirmed the necessity of increasing the 'money supply' during the stages of socialism on the road to communism. It was his view that the emphasis should be placed on transforming the productive relations and social system before the productive forces and technical capacity of the country (an inversion of Stalin's model of development). His opponents in the 8th Party Congress held that the primary contradiction in socialist China was between the advanced social system and the backwards social productive forces, whereas Mao, probably correctly, held that it was still between the base and superstructure and the opposing political and ideological forces which could only be resolved through the struggle of the mass line.