Central planning and democracy.

[Taikand]

I'm a big advocate of central planning but I've been thinking lately of a problem.
Question: How can we have central planning without having a ruling elite of planners?

Theory 1: Planners would not have any special privileges, that is but one of the many types of work a citizen can do. Their task is to manage the way resources flow from one point to another. The planning council places quotas to different workplaces. How they reach this quota is decided by the persons that work there through a democratic process (I think it's easier to have 50 persons talking and reaching a decision then 50 million). The population affected by these planners (there will be levels of planning from city-level to world level) votes for them. This position is hold until enough persons withdraw their vote.


Problem :In order to have more efficient planning one should work at the position decided by the planning council.

Example : Person A is a ... carpenter, but because no more carpenters are needed in his town he has to move 100 miles away to occupy the position he is planned to occupy, thus the worker can not choose where to work.This is also present in the current situation where one must go and find a job, and may very often fin none in his city, at least now every person is guaranteed a job.

I shall continue this later I think, I'm tired now.
Discuss.
EDIT: This form does not allow too much text formatting, I can't use my indents, as I'm used to when I code.

[syndicat]

Question: How can we have central planning without having a ruling elite of planners?


you can't. that's the problem. the planners will accumulate all sorts of expertise about the economy that other people don't have, so there won't be a way to make them accountable. if they plan the economy, then workers will be simply given orders, and workers will therefore not be managing the industries where they work. there will be a tendency for this to evolve into a full bureaucratic class system, because the planners will want to have managers they appoint or control onsite to control workers.

moreover, the planners won't be able to obtain accurate, honest info, because workers and managers will have an incentive to lie to the planning agency, to get an easier set of tasks to do. they will lie about the resources they have and about what they are capable of. this was an endemic problem in the old USSR.

central planning will be persistently inefficient because it can't make use of the tacit knowledge that workers obtain by doing their jobs. in other words, the people who know the most about the work won't be giving the orders or making the plans.

[Taikand]

So, how would economy look post-capitalism?

[syndicat]

well, the alternative to central planning is participatory planning. under participatory planning, communities and regions develop their plans from the bottom up for what they want produced, and worker organizations develop their own plans for what they propose to produce, and there is then a process of negotiation, based on tallies of total projected supply and total projected demand. there would need to be a "center" but it would merely accumulate all the plans and accounce projected prices based on proposed supply and demand, and communiities, as consumers of products, and worker organizations, as producers, would then adjust their plans accordingly, to stay in budget. the crucial thing is that planning, as much as possible, be under the control of the workers and the communiities, not to be self-sufficient, as that is impossible, but to have a real say in what is produced.

[Adil3tr]

Central planning isn't the Marxist view, Its supposed to be democratic planning of the workers. Cental planning is more of a vanguardist position

[mikelepore]

Question: How can we have central planning without having a ruling elite of planners?

I like the "all-industry congress" goal recommended by the Socialist Labor Party of America. I also like these diagrams drawn in the 1960s by their artist Walter Steinhilber:

http://www.deleonism.org/images/hass-siuism-foldout1-699x461.jpg
http://www.deleonism.org/images/hass-siuism-foldout2-674x436.jpg
http://www.deleonism.org/images/hass-siuism-page7-343x469.jpg

[Taikand]

I like the idea proposed by mikelepore, does it bear any special name or I'll have to call it "democratic planning"?

[Telemakus]

I think you can have a ruling group without there being a power imbalance.
It will just be their job to plan things. Any citizen can watch them when they collaborate, and their collaborations will be made public. In this way, you prevent the problems with an elite group, as they don't really have power over people. However, they will not be based by vote. I think it be better to have them as a sort of wise elder group, who know the best course of action, but it is up to the people to follow it. Only people outside of the government can really enforce their ideas.

I think if this would work, it would have all the benefits of elitist rule and democracy in one. Criticism welcome. And yes, it is my refinement to the general Platonist view.

edit: and btw, I'm not excluding any particular type of economic/social/political ruling outside of this. So you could have worker councils like some said, and bottom up planning as well as this top down approach.
Also by coming to this forum, are we not discussing ideas so that we can get insight into how to change society to a particular thing? I don't think my political picture is too far off this kind of behaviour, but will produce proper advice more efficiently.

[Taikand]

As I said, as long as the planner has no special privilege I don't see at as a ruling class.You talked about wise elder group, I'd rather have persons that study this, basically professional planners. They don't control the police, they don't control anything but what resource goes where and what new workplaces should be created. You don't like the way thy plan it?Replace them.

[Red Commissar]

One thing that can vastly help central planning is the utilization of the computer and the internet. It will cut down on response times and more importantly allow for a host of programs to help with matters. This won't require a specialist to operate, and ideally the decisions and information should be available to the public.

[Taikand]

I was thinking of this but the management of a very complex economical chain can not be controlled by everyone I'd say.
I was thinking of something lately.
The people control the economy but the fine tuning parts are being taken care by a team of mangers, or however you want to call them.

[mikelepore]

I like the idea proposed by mikelepore, does it bear any special name or I'll have to call it "democratic planning"?

No unique name.

The official 100-year-old name for the idea is Socialist Industrial Unionism, which has too many syllables to be a convenient name. Some people write that as SIU, which may get confused with Staten Island University.

Some writers have called it industrial government, or industrial union government, the industrial form of government, the use of "industrial constituencies" instead of "geographical constituencies", an "industrial republic" to be contrasted with a "political republic."

I have also seen some writers say that the use of tribal councils in primitive communism is the "first plan of government", the invention by the ancient Greek Cleisthenes to use territories as constituencies of government (towns, counties, provinces) is the "second plan of government", and to use industrial functions as constituencies is the "third plan of government."

[mikelepore]

This often gets me yelled at by the anarchists, but I promote the idea that socialism must have the following items centralized -- to decentralize them would be unworkable:

(1) Any policies that society wants to be universal

... (1A) Social policies. We have had enough of the nonsense where you can't teach evolution in Texas, you can't get an abortion in Oklahoma, etc. Fix each policy just one time and make it apply everywhere.

... (1B) Industrial policies. What is true for the above is also true for some industrial decisions. If we're going to discontinue the use of a dangerous chamical pesticide, or dedicate the frequencies of the radio band, for example, just fix the policy one time and apply it universally.

(2) Economic allocations

... (2A) Allocation of resources to operate each industry or social service (land, buildings, tools, supplies, energy)

... (2B) Allocation of the products of all industries. The total production of all industries has to be added into a master inventory (computer software) so that allocations can be transferred directly out of this total.

... (2C) Compensation for labor. I support a socialist sytem that will pay hourly compensation to workers, and I advise against the suggestion to distribute free products. These workers incomes must come from the single inventory of all industries.

Critics of my assertions say that I'm providing for a "bureaucratic ruling class". They fail to see that it's the set of democratic procedures that has to be established properly, if bureaucracy and special privilege are to be prevented. The degree of centrality has nothing to do with that issue.

[Taikand]

I'll try to make some diagrams if I can without my reactionary parents seeing them, I'd like your thoughts concerning them.

[Paulappaul]

Anton Pannekoek - a council communist - proposed that Workers Councils could plan production centrally (much like the Marxist-Deleonists) but without the burrecratic ruling class.

To quote his thesis "on the fight of the working class against capitalism" :


III. The goal of the working class is liberation from exploitation. This goal is not reached and cannot be reached by a new directing and governing class substituting the bourgeoisie. It can only be realised by the workers themselves being master over production.
Mastery of the workers over production means, first, organisation of the work in every shop and enterprise by its personnel. Instead of through command of a manager and his underlings all the regulation are made through decision of the entire body of the workers. This body, comprising all kinds of workers, specialists and scientists, all taking part in the production, in assembly decides everything related to the common work. The role that those who have to do the work also have to regulate their work and take the responsibility, within the scope of the whole, can be applied to all branches of production. It means, secondly, that the workers create their organs for combining the separate enterprises into an organised entirety of planned production. These organs are the workers’ councils.



The workers councils are bodies of delegates, sent out by the personnels of the separate shops or sections of big enterprises, carrying the intentions and opinions of the personnel, in order to discuss and take decisions on the common affairs, and to bring back the results to their mandatories. They state and proclaim the necessary regulations, and by uniting the different opinions into one common result, form the connection of the separate units into a well-organised whole. They are no permanent board of leaders, but can be recalled and changed at every moment. Their first germs appeared in the beginning of the Russian and German revolutions (Soviets, Arbitrate). They are to play an increasing role in future working class developments.


So yes Centrally planning can be Democratic.

[AK]

Anton Pannekoek - a council communist - proposed that Workers Councils could plan production centrally (much like the Marxist-Deleonists) but without the burrecratic ruling class.

To quote his thesis "on the fight of the working class against capitalism" :




So yes Centrally planning can be Democratic.
If it is done with the use of delegates, then it is essentially a non-hierarchical mode of organisation, yes. But when we talk about central planning, we generally mean that only a small group of individuals have planning power.

[mikelepore]

But when we talk about central planning, we generally mean that only a small group of individuals have planning power.

That is a habit of speech that has formed in the past couple decades, but it isn't part of the meaning. Central planning means that the planning is achieved through a common system of channels or signals, so that the parts operate in harmony. The central aspect is the same as when we say that a house has central air conditioning instead of individual room air conditioners, or when the human body is controlled by the central nervous system.

[mikelepore]

In addition to "centralized", another such term is "top-down." We all got into a habit of using this term to mean an undemocratic regime. However, there's another meaning of "top-down" that everyone should become aware of.

In any complex system of parts, some decisions will always become more inflexible as later decisions fill in the details around them. In building a house, you have to do all the excavation, then all the masonry, then all the framing, then all the plumbing. The steps have to be done in a certain order, and the first decisions that were made become inflexible as you are making the later decisions. If this sequential approach to making decisions is used in planning a city, you can have straight streets in a coordinate grid, as in Manhattan, which you couldn't achieve if you were to begin by construct buildings anywhere and then curve the streets around randomly-located buildings. When designing computer chips, the main thing that becomes inflexible once you have already begun the design process is the power supply distribution, so the circuit designers begin with a rows of straight voltage rails on a separate vertical layer from the rows of straight ground rails, and finally the circuits are placed into the available spaces around the power distribution. This approach is called the top-down engineering philosophy or top-down architecture.

It is a major fault of capitalism that it usually cannot apply this top-down philosophy. Under capitalism, the parts gets thrown together without a unified plan. First they sell the cars, then they have to build the roads to put the cars on, and then they observe that we seem to be stuck with this mode of transportation, even though no one consciously voted for it, and no matter now logical the arguments may be for replacing the roadways with a new mass transportation network. The haphazard system of energy sources is another example. Likewise, how did we end up with the city of New Orleans being built in a location that is below sea level, so that it can experience floods? First some individual capitalists decided that it would be profitable to set up operations where the river intersects with the gulf, and then the workers had to go to where the jobs were offered. Under capitalism there is usually no means for society to begin a large project with a logical decision.

But socialism can correct this fault. Socialism can permit top-down planning in the best sense of the word, the application of conscious reasoning when making the fundamental choices that will provide the infrastructure for the choices that will come layer.

Socialists haven't given enough emphasis to this advantage. This is because many socialists have confused the image of a top-down architecture with an _undemocratic_ system. In this other meaning of the phrase "top-down planning", the meaning that architects and engineers use, the point is to be logical and efficient. This is an approach that a socialist society can use without any loss of democracy; indeed, it would be a growth and an extension of democracy.

[syndicat]

Lepore's solution is pseudo-democratic. That's because he thinks democracy -- rule of the people -- can be reduced to voting for delegates. But this won't work for a number of reasons.

First, and most importantly, there is no real democracy without direct democracy, that is, the rank and file, the people themselves, making a significant number of decisions over things that directly affect them.

There is simply no way to ensure that representatives will do what we want them to on the range of things we are interested in.
Also, those at the center will accumulate inevitably certain kinds of information and expertise and this is power, as is their organizational position. It will be to their interest to further this. And, third, those at the base will have various forms of tacit knowledge, about the best way to do jobs and about the way various policies would affect them, that those distant from the scene won't have.

There are some ways of dealing with this:

First, this is why any movement of decisions away from the base and direct democracy to representatives has a prima facie case against it. Only those things that can't be dealt with through the direct democracy of the assemblies should be dealt with through representatives.

This is why the worker assemblies in workplaces need to have real power in regard to not only the way they are going to organize the work, but also in regard to crafting planning proposals for their industry, for their delegates to carry to larger conferences. And, secondly, neighborhood assemblies to control not only common affairs in an area where people live, but to craft proposals taken by delegates to conferences for a broader region.

Lepore makes the fallacious assumption that everyone is affected equally by everything and that's why it's okay to centralize decisions. but the assumption is false.

to take the example of toxic pollution, this tends to affect people who are in the relevant environmental region, such as those who breathe air polluted by a coal powered power plant, or those in neighborhoods near a refinery. so if the neighborhoods near the refinery don't have the power to control use of the enviro commons...because everything has been centralized in D.C....then they can't protect themselves. i could foresee a national workers congress ignoring their pollution because what they want would increase costs for oil refining.

to control delegates, there should be a rule that any controversial decision at the broader conference (such as a national conference) can be forced back for debate and decision at local assemblies if a relatively small number of people sign petitions so requesting.

[Paul Cockshott]

soviet experience was that the planners were not a particularly powerful group, they were always very much subordinate to the party leadership.

[Kotze]

Central planning means that the planning is achieved through a common system of channels or signals, so that the parts operate in harmony. The central aspect is the same as when we say that a house has central air conditioning instead of individual room air conditioners, or when the human body is controlled by the central nervous system.This is also what I mean with central planning when I talk about it. It's about synchronizing processes better and standardizing things more. Whether these decisions are made by a tiny priveleged group or in a more democratic fashion is orthogonal to that definition.

No system can guarantee that you get the type of work you want, at the time you want to do it, in the area you want. No system can guarantee even one of these with 100% assurance. If everybody wanted to live in my house, the laws of physics wouldn't allow that. What a system can do however, is taking individual preferences and preference strength into account. So I'm thinking about a society with everybody having an internet connection and a centralized job site offering the option to assign different weights to different aspects according to how important they are to you.

[Paulappaul]

If it is done with the use of delegates, then it is essentially a non-hierarchical mode of organisation, yes. But when we talk about central planning, we generally mean that only a small group of individuals have planning power.

I wouldn't call it a small group of individuals while maintaining that the Soviet Union and other State Socialist countries pertain a colossal state. Centrally planned economics have been historically, very large and in the day to day affairs of the Commonwealth.

I get what your saying though. It's not the society at large, which Socialists want. But despite this, it's not a couple guys on a round table.

I guess you could say I support a Centrally Planned (not in the State Socialist sense of the word) production, as long as it is Non-Hierarchical, that is too say, Delegates simply transfer information and personal opinions of the factory they represent to larger committees of workers rather then hold a sense of Political Supremacy.

This is really one of the big things that separate Anarcho - Syndicalists (and Anarchists who support Councils at large) and the Left Communists. While Anarcho -Syndicalists represent the views of Federalism first expounded by Proudhon and later theorized by Bakunin, Left Communists - and I speak particularly of the German, Dutch, Russian and British Left - admire Centralism, driving from the lessons and model of the Paris Commune, which aspired to be a smaller part of a larger Centralized Commune of France.

The Deleonists as spoken of earlier were also admirers of Centralism. They believed in the combination of Militant Trade Unionism (as practiced by Anarcho - Syndicalists), Centralism and Marxism, advocating the creation of an National Congress of Labor and International Union of Labor, created through militant unions, electing representatives to higher and higher committees as described in mikelepore's diagram provided by SLP I presume.

The philosophy of the Socialist Labor Party proved to very close to the ideas of Left Communism and that of American Anarcho Syndicalism.

Anarcho - Federalism as practiced by most, if not all Anarchists, was shown to strive for first in the works of Proudhon, a beautiful agricultural-industrial federation - as coined by himself - of a free association of Communes. Proudhon’s federation was not one in the strictest sense of the word. It bore greater resemblance to Literalistic theories of a Confederation.

Such a confederation would be created not through Class Struggle or insurrection, but that the revolutionary transformation was going to be both voluntary and moral in nature, that is to say, through Monetary reform via Credit Banking and Workers’ associations.

Such proved not able to change society. But Bakunin took the Federalist concept from Proudhon and combined it Marx’s critique of Capitalism and his own politics to shape Anarchism for much of the later movement. Rocker in particular adapted the Federalist concept to tactics itself. By building confederated unions of labor, each one could remain autonomous and thus resist nature of centralised trade unions to degenerate. In essence it meant that “Goals define means” therefor the creation of such unions would be both a means of tactics and the creation of the later society. This being similar to Council Communist notion of Workers’ Councils, but for Anarchists it no doubt came from Proudhon who attempted to the same without the Class Struggle of Anarcho-Syndicalism.

Federalism Vs. Centralism is an age of question though, finding support from both Anarchists and Marxists alike. While I do like the concept of Centralism, I understand the criticisms of Federalists. I generally like Noam Chomsky’s idea that such criticisms that both Federalists and proponents of Centralism pertain to the other will however be solved through Trial and error. Certain conditions, geographical, the nature of the working class and others will define whether or not Federalism is applicable and most efficient for the working class to raise themselves against Capital.

[mikelepore]

Lepore's solution is pseudo-democratic. That's because he thinks democracy -- rule of the people -- can be reduced to voting for delegates. But this won't work for a number of reasons.

First, and most importantly, there is no real democracy without direct democracy, that is, the rank and file, the people themselves, making a significant number of decisions over things that directly affect them.

There is simply no way to ensure that representatives will do what we want them to on the range of things we are interested in.

You are combining two separate issues. One contrast is centralized versus decentralized. Another contrast is direct democracy versus representative democracy. They are not the same question. These two dimensions are orthogonal.

I assert that direct democracy can have only limited application, and some representative democracy is necessary, but it has nothing to do with the degree of centralization, which means the size of the population unit that is participating.

If we are going to apply direct democracy to settling some question, to have a billion people vote on it, and then apply the result to all, would not involve any more technical difficulty than to have a hundred thousand people vote on the question in each of ten thousand sub-units, and then apply the local result to the local unit. On the contrary, I think it would be technically simpler to conduct a single vote for which the result shall apply everywhere. Therefore, my arguments in favor of centralization are NOT equivalent saying that representative democracy is better than direct democracy. Centralization applies very well to direct democracy.

I argue in favor of representative democracy for different reasons:

(1) All decisions that must be made will naturally line up in order ranging from the most fundamental to the minor details. In the age of biotechnology, health consciousness, etc., the population of the world will be busy enough debating the ethical questions that arise. If we apply direct democracy to those issues, we will fill all of the time that we can dedicate to direct democracy. Then we will want to take the more mundane issues, say, questions about how to manufacture can openers and toasters, and delegate them to committee.

(2) An additional reason to use representative democracy is to receive the advantage of expert knowledge. Let an elected panel of the best agricultural scientists make most of the decisions about agriculture. Let an elected panel of experts in aerospace make most of the decisions about aerospace. They will do a better job at it than allowing you and me vote on daily issues. Our daily interference would only mess it up. On a "plan of record" basis (a typical day, nothing unusually happening), delegate most of the management. When a fundamental issue arises in those fields, such as an ethical question on which people are divided, than apply direct democracy to override whatever the delegated authority had intended.


Also, those at the center will accumulate inevitably certain kinds of information and expertise and this is power, as is their organizational position. It will be to their interest to further this. And, third, those at the base will have various forms of tacit knowledge, about the best way to do jobs and about the way various policies would affect them, that those distant from the scene won't have.

When you say "how to do their jobs" I think of job specializations. Did you mean job specializations, or did you mean geographical neighborhoods? Nurses know best how to do nursing. Miners know best how to do mining. But that is NOT an argument for decentralizing. The new decision could be the decision of all the nurses in the world, or all the miners in the world. That would make it centralized. Your case doesn't establish a need to localize the decision process in a geographical way, say, a decision by the nurses of the south side of Chicago.


There are some ways of dealing with this:

First, this is why any movement of decisions away from the base and direct democracy to representatives has a prima facie case against it. Only those things that can't be dealt with through the direct democracy of the assemblies should be dealt with through representatives.

This is why the worker assemblies in workplaces need to have real power in regard to not only the way they are going to organize the work, but also in regard to crafting planning proposals for their industry, for their delegates to carry to larger conferences. And, secondly, neighborhood assemblies to control not only common affairs in an area where people live, but to craft proposals taken by delegates to conferences for a broader region.

What are some of the "common affairs in an area where people live"?


Lepore makes the fallacious assumption that everyone is affected equally by everything and that's why it's okay to centralize decisions. but the assumption is false.

The sorts of decisions that are suitable for decentralization are those that are unimportant to the world as a whole. For example, there is a tradition in the city of Beacon, New York, population 13,000, of having an annual festival, which must always be held in June, always on the bank of the river, and always providing folk music and free strawberry shortcake. Let them have it. The global unimportance of it is what makes it suitable for decentralization. It is the relative importance of certain issues that calls for having global policy.


to take the example of toxic pollution, this tends to affect people who are in the relevant environmental region, such as those who breathe air polluted by a coal powered power plant, or those in neighborhoods near a refinery. so if the neighborhoods near the refinery don't have the power to control use of the enviro commons...because everything has been centralized in D.C....then they can't protect themselves. i could foresee a national workers congress ignoring their pollution because what they want would increase costs for oil refining.

When someone pollutes the air, they pollute the whole planet's air. They are polluting their own neighborhood only for the first day, and then the air mixes. That makes it my business in New York if someone pollutes the air in Tokyo. On the opposite side of the planet, I should have just as much of a vote on whether pollution is allowed in Tokyo as someone who lives next door to the factory.

For ethical questions, this should go without saying. It's my busness in New York if husbands are beating their wives in Mazar-i-Sharif. There is no basis for local policy in ethical matters.


to control delegates, there should be a rule that any controversial decision at the broader conference (such as a national conference) can be forced back for debate and decision at local assemblies if a relatively small number of people sign petitions so requesting.

I think that's the wrong approach. The general population should have the power to overrule the conference of delegates, but that doesn't translate to a corresponding role for the geographically local community.

[ckaihatsu]

Okay, I just made a "graph" that plots many of the political formulations / bodies that are covered in this thread. It's attached to this post and is also at a hosting site:


Centralization-Abstraction Diagram of Political Forms

http://i56.tinypic.com/15eitkg.jpg


Hope it's helpful -- comments are welcome.

[Apoi_Viitor]

To be honest, this debate utterly confuses me. So following in ckaihatsu footsteps, I drew a chart to illustrate my ideology.

Now, I have an utter contempt for representational democracy - I believe that comities should be formed akin to "jury duty". By some sort of "lottery" system, you are randomly chosen to be one (of many) delegates that represent your constituency.

Since the agricultural industry was brought up before, I'll use that as a context. Now, by this "lottery" system, delegates that represent consumers and producers make up Group A. Group A decides what mikelepore, referred to as "ethical" issues - such as pesticide use. Group B, while still being represented by a "lottery" system, decides the more mundane issues, which only refer to the producers themselves - such as "who does what".

Of course this system I drew up was a vast oversimplification, and at lower levels of decision making I assume decisions will be made by a consensus-democracy, by workers themselves. In either Capitalism: A Love Story or The Corporation, there was a great example of a technetics firm that was run sort of like this. Every day, they would meet in the morning and discuss daily dilemma's that pertained to them - and voted democratically on how to go about solving them.

But they were voting on dilemma's that only pertained to them - like how to meet certain quotas/demands, etc. That's where the centralist vs. federalist debate starts to go astray. There are pragmatic limitations to completely accepting either or, and I'll reiterate what Paulappaul said, that through trial and error, a society will have to decide what decisions should be made by "non-hierarchical" central planning - and what decisions can be left up to "federalist" associations.

Chomsky: http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/19760725.htm

EDIT: Also, in response to mikelepore : I feel that your ideal of representative democracy sounds more like technocracy.

[ckaihatsu]

Well, I couldn't remain *purely* descriptive, so here's my argument:

Of course we'd all *like* things to be relatively simple, and to stay close to the ground and only pick the low-hanging fruit, but the situation facing labor is not so pastoral. A *higher-up* perspective gives one a better lay of the land, and under certain conditions this perspective is *not* optional.

The best example is actually the current, *realistic* one of facing down the forces of capital. In conditions of (class) war workers *can't afford* to be too decentralized or informal -- it invites being dispersed and neutralized by a more concentrated political assemblage of ownership, like a column of soldiers marching through and laying waste to a countryside. Sure, it takes more effort to go "higher up" for a better viewing point, and the position is more precarious, but there really isn't much of an alternative to having a bird's-eye view, or higher ground.

Labor's forces *must* be relatively centralized and abstracted -- in the best way possible -- so that it can be focused against its class enemy. Some express concerns that this provides a bad precedent for *after* the revolution, when such centralization may invite elitism, but it's going to have to take that risk in order to be in the proper configuration for overcoming the forces of capital in the more-immediate future.

[Paulappaul]

In Marx's Critique of Bakunin, he said that the problem with Bakunin's theory of Anarchy, is that his Socialism is that - and using his own words - "bottom up". Because such a word implies that there is a top, and therefor a bottom to be ruled. Ruling implies Alienation, so such a "top down" perspective of Socialism is not Marxist.

Marx goes on to say that Workers will generally organize in a fashion where there is no top or bottom, but where every worker rules equally.

The greatest challenge of Working Class is to create the means by which small scale institutions of labor can remain autonomous and equal to larger institutions of delegates. Such a system is Workers' Councils, as they tend to be natural forms of working class collaboration.

Such Councils are not abstracted, but remain tightly nit to their electors, in spirit and by referendum to the electors of such a council. Class Conciseness will imply that Workers understand their mutual interests, and thus diminish any separation between "top" and "bottom".

[ckaihatsu]

Such Councils are not abstracted, but remain tightly nit to their electors, in spirit and by referendum to the electors of such a council. Class Conciseness will imply that Workers understand their mutual interests, and thus diminish any separation between "top" and "bottom".


With all due respect, and with neutral intentions, I'd like to ask about the *expanse* of representation provided by such councils. Could you provide some rough estimation of *how broad* an area one council may typically represent, and/or some kind of a ratio of council members to their electors (workers)?

Please note that you state here that it is a "challenge" to keep small-scale institutions of labor autonomous and equal to larger institutions of delegates:





The greatest challenge of Working Class is to create the means by which small scale institutions of labor can remain autonomous and equal to larger institutions of delegates. Such a system is Workers' Councils, as they tend to be natural forms of working class collaboration.




Marx goes on to say that Workers will generally organize in a fashion where there is no top or bottom, but where every worker rules equally.


I think we *all* realize that there is an inherent *structural* challenge, or trade-off, between autonomy and efficiency. Workers could have "perfect" autonomy if they didn't even identify as working-class, much less self-organize as laborers. The trade-off would be that they (we) would continue to be exploited and oppressed by the capitalist class and thus hardly 'autonomous'.

Or, on the other hand, workers could be "perfectly" efficient in their collective interest as laborers, merely by throwing their entire political support to some purported labor representative. But even the best, most genuine representative would be subject to real-world political pressures, and such ideal representation would not address workers' *local* interests and political activity, in the direction of autonomy and self-activity.

So, *any* ratio of ground-level workers to representative delegates is going to involve *some* process of abstraction, for the better or for the worse. While our much-improved technological implements may facilitate more mass ground-level input over more detailed (labor) issues, the constraints of physical geography will remain, meaning that global issues can *never* substitute for *local* concerns, and vice-versa.

[Paulappaul]

I'd like to ask about the *expanse* of representation provided by such councils

Laying out any ground work for how such Councils will work in the future is contradictory to their point. Workers' Councils are a Spontaneous creation of the Working Class itself. They wouldn't be Spontaneous or a self expression of the working class, if they weren't created by their own logic.

With that said, historically councils have come to represent the entire working class. In some Councils, specialists have taken a bigger position then other workers for practical reasons.


Could you provide some rough estimation of *how broad* an area one council may typically represent, and/or some kind of a ratio of council members to their electors (workers)?

It ranges from Factory to Factory, city to city, region to region, etc. I can give a estimation, but it won't be historically true.

Historically in the smaller Workshops, workers operate under a genuine direct democracy. In the Larger Factories, labor is delegated to higher board. The earliest workers' councils elected directly to a regional soviet. But in large cities it was generally for every 1000 workers 1 delegate was chosen to represent their respective trades in a city wide council.


real-world political pressures

Such As?

[ckaihatsu]

Historically in the smaller Workshops, workers operate under a genuine direct democracy. In the Larger Factories, labor is delegated to higher board. The earliest workers' councils elected directly to a regional soviet. But in large cities it was generally for every 1000 workers 1 delegate was chosen to represent their respective trades in a city wide council.





real-world political pressures





Such As?


My concern is more with *existing* political pressures that would be on rank-and-file labor representatives, for obvious reasons.

Regardless, and -- hopefully without being too pessimistic -- I wonder if there wouldn't be *larger-scale* and *lateral* pressures on rank-and-file labor representatives in a *post-capitalist* context. By this I mean that -- even under ideal circumstances -- new details would emerge at broader levels of coordination that respective memberships simply *could not have known* beforehand, like land allocation, etc.

I like to think that, absent the *current* ubiquitous atmospheric pressure to re-channel bulk funds down into some private sinkhole, *real* (revolutionary) labor representatives could actually simply be the couriers of mass-voting results to more-generalized levels. In this way all that would matter would be the *issues*, with personages reduced to their true political irrelevance.

[meow]

This often gets me yelled at by the anarchists, but I promote the idea that socialism must have the following items centralized -- to decentralize them would be unworkable:

(1) Any policies that society wants to be universal

... (1A) Social policies. We have had enough of the nonsense where you can't teach evolution in Texas, you can't get an abortion in Oklahoma, etc. Fix each policy just one time and make it apply everywhere.

yes yelled at by anarchists because how can you impose this without central governemt!
and what if that central government is captured by right wingers? who then say you cant get abortion anywhere and that teaching evolution is not allowed anywhere? you (and the rest of us) lose.


... (1B) Industrial policies. What is true for the above is also true for some industrial decisions. If we're going to discontinue the use of a dangerous chamical pesticide, or dedicate the frequencies of the radio band, for example, just fix the policy one time and apply it universally.



"Railways were constructed piece by piece, the pieces were joined together, and the hundred different companies, to whom these pieces belonged, gradually came to an understanding concerning the arrival and departure of their trains, and the running of carriages on their rails, from all countries, without unloading merchandise as it passes from one network to another. All this was done by free agreement, by exchange of letters and proposals, and by congresses at which delegates met to discuss well specified special points, and to come to an agreement about them, but not to make laws. After the congress was over, the delegates returned to their respective companies, not with a law, but with the draft of a contract to be accepted or rejected."
"And the most interesting thing in this organization is, that there is no European Central Government of Railways! Nothing! No minister of railways, no dictator, not even a continental parliament, not even a directing committee! Everything is done by free agreement."




Critics of my assertions say that I'm providing for a "bureaucratic ruling class". They fail to see that it's the set of democratic procedures that has to be established properly, if bureaucracy and special privilege are to be prevented. The degree of centrality has nothing to do with that issue.
he who counts the votes...
also even if you have "democratic procedures" it doesnt stop someone from opressing another. at least with a decentralized system the number is limited. with a centralized system all are at risk.

[ckaihatsu]

I agree with Mike's general stance of centralization (of industrial implements and production), and for social policy as well.

This is *distinct* from a mid-scale 'confederationism' (if you will) that meow describes. I think that *theoretically* the bottom-up approach can work fairly well, but we also need to be mindful of the political environment that *currently* exists -- one in which a consistent proletariat-minded political focus for labor would be beneficial, with centralization *increasing* that focus, onto definite strategies, over greater areas.

Please note that -- refering to the chart I posted -- *abstraction* can take place *without* centralization. Market socialism, for example, would use market-type forces for the economy, but on a base of assets and resources that is fully revolutionized and liberated from capital and commodity production. (For the record I think market socialism would invite financing and the abstraction of value all over again, and so I am *not* a supporter of it.)

So, back to the point, there *are* models that exist to allow for very local and ground-level interconnections to be made so as to effect a *very* organic and emergent process to yield larger-scale areas of coordination.

I'm continually concerned, though, that without *political* trajectories towards centralization there would be a lack of a coherent, consistent *policy* for economic / material efficiency (particularly for more investigative, theoretical, and speculative directions over larger scales), and for social / societal policy.

Your point about the bottom-up development of European national railways is well-taken, meow, but -- prior to further research -- I'd have to question the *standardization* and *efficiency* of the trans-European rail system as a whole.

I *don't* see 'bottom-up' and 'centralization' as *counterposed* to each other -- rather, I tend to think that *initially* an emergent force from many localities can give rise to a prevailing sentiment that can then coalesce into a centralizing and guiding momentum, towards the direction of an all-encompassing industrial and social policy. Where capitalism left latecomers by the wayside to be colonized and scavenged by major powers, a revolutionary proletarian movement can *bring up* and *integrate* smaller and slower-developing localities into a large-scale, centralized entity.