One party vs. multiple parties vs. no parties

[GPDP]

I've been thinking about how a political system in a future socialist society might be structured, and what the vehicles for democratic/collective political organization, action, and dissemination of information might be. Obviously, one way of doing so would be through political parties, though I'm afraid I'm lacking good arguments in favor of and against them, and as to whether it's better to have one big party or several competing parties.

Does anyone have any resources that deals with this subject?

Again, remember the subject is about parties in the context of a socialist society, not present-day capitalist society.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

For a view against parties the writings of Paul Mattick and Anton Pannekoek are a good place to start. Both are available on MIA.

[Kotze]

An argument against parties: You can take an example that shows how a majority's will gets sometimes undermined by having districts and selecting the plurality winner — change "district" to "party" and "winning candidate" to "policy voted on by party members" — and you have an example how having parties can undermine the majority's will, even under idealized conditions. In reality the distortion is much worse than just with party members executing the decision of the party majority because there are more layers.

The link between the general population and a specific administrative decision should be short. Party-based voting methods should be avoided. For boards with a high number of seats random selection from the population gives the most representative results. For selecting a small group or a single person direct random selection is too risky, but different voting methods than the usual should be used (eg. STV (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote), Schulze (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulze_method)) and instead of the whole population only a random sample should vote, because giving only a sample the power to vote allows direct interaction between candidates and voters. Showing up to vote should be a duty with renumeration.

Another possibility for specific boards (eg. school board) is to use random selection among people who meet specific criteria for being on that board that relate to being an expert or being specifically affected by decisions of that board. To prevent cartels from forming, setting the restriction rules should not be done by these boards themselves, but by a purely random sample.

[Die Neue Zeit]

This is to quote from my relatively older CSR work, where I make the argument for a genuine one-party system (where there is an effective party-movement in charge, not what historian Moshe Lewin called a "no-party state"):


One more point needs to be made in regards to the post-revolution role of Social Proletocracy as a mass organization (SPD). As noted in Chapter 4, historical “one-party states” (more accurately described as “no-party states”) featured state-administrative “parties” without much of a political character. Some think (probably erroneously) that there should be multiple SPDs. Others think that such organizations should stay out of the organs of state administration altogether. Still others go even further, thinking that such organizations should also stay out of the organs of workers power. This Appendix hereby ends with what one Alexsei Razlatzki said creatively in 1979 regarding a possible relationship between the revolutionary-Marxist SPD, the organs of workers’ power, and the organs of state administration:

So what should we have? A two party (or multiparty) system? And will we let social contradictions resolve themselves through struggle between the ruling and the opposition party?

But, along this path, the fundamental contradiction of society, the source of its development, would be concealed, made more complicated and even pushed entirely to the side in the struggle for power; that is to say, secondary contradictions would divert much effort, but would in no way, shape or form assist in advancing society. Besides which, the existence of many parties inevitably assists in the stratification of society and the division of its interests, that is, serves to place additional obstacles on the path of the transformation of the society to classlessness.

No, solving the problem of the dictatorship of the proletariat is possible only by bursting through the historical (and altogether alien to proletariat) precedents, only by liberating oneself from the path of habitual schematism.

Not the opposition of a ruling and an opposition party, but the immediate opposition of the party and the state; this is what fully reveals the social contradictions, this is what the proletariat must strive for.

Yes, the party must lead the proletariat in the struggle for power. Yes, the party, at the head of the proletariat must seize this power. Yes, it must destroy the old state apparatus and build a new one. [The party] must promote its most experienced organizers, leaders and chiefs to the leading posts in the state; and then it must immediately cross them off its list of voting members.

Just that. This does not mean a complete rupture but a radical restructuring of relations; thus […] excluding state interference in party affairs and the direct influence of state interests on party activity.

The party must continue to monitor those of its members that have been promoted to administrative posts, it must understand their state concerns and must prove itself to be a direct help in organizing the masses for the support of state measures. But the party must do this, not under the diktat of the state, but only as it emerges from its own aims and tasks. It is completely natural that this support will be at its most energetic and powerful in the early period, when the leading ideas of the party and the state are almost completely convergent, when the state is being refounded and needs such support most of all. But even in this period the party must not bind itself with any promises.

In detaching its better cadre and leading forces to state posts, the proletariat must clearly recognize that this will not resolve all the problems of social development. Sooner or later, the interests of the state apparatus will be brought into contradiction with the developing interests of the proletariat, will become a constraint on the formation of state structures and the point of some of their functions will be lost. Then, a new [social] revolution is needed which can raise to the state level those changes which have taken place in the consciousness of society. Only such an uninterrupted revolutionary development can lead to the foundation of a communist society.

[Q]

^ Now I understand more your insistance of a workers-only membership, as the class contradictions inside a party-in-power would tear it apart and quite likely let the party become the focal point of counter-revolution (as what happened in Bolshevik Russia).

I for one believe that post-revolution there should be a transition period from the point where a party-movement (that is, a genuine class movement of the proletariat consisting of vast layers of the class) seizes power and a jury-democracy (alotted representatives) in which parties only play a marginal role. The transition is needed so as to consolidate the revolution against counter-revolution and to make sure it spreads internationally.

Either way, an open discussion on the liquidation of power, and perhaps even the party, should happen right away after the seizure of power happens as this transition can't be more than a few years (as the Russian experience pointed out).

A simple ban on other parties isn't a good thing though as this would make the revolutionary party the focal point for all classes, a danger which is inherent in any ruling party anyhow.

[Jose Gracchus]

This is tricky, since it pretty much requires serious thought on radical transformative political institutions. I think the existence of 'private', 'voluntary' organizations for collective political actions by a grouping of people gather around a common purpose is inevitable. Any completely non-partisan citizens' pure democracy or something is probably going to be more a feature of the "higher stage" of communism.

There are also 'pre-figurative' questions. Clearly the post-revolutionary political organizations which attempt to collectively organize participation in government will have some relation to the pre-revolutionary 'vehicles' of class struggle. In other words, the post-revolutionary 'parties' necessarily must be considered when one is fashioning the tools of struggle in say, a revolutionary party, prior to the revolution.

I don't think political science suggests that any system where there is entrenched, normalized 'monopolized' power in any 'unitary' or centralizing institution will inevitable lead to degenerative tendencies. Once the revolution has been consumated, and the expansion of workers' power is manifest, then the internal democracy on "what should we do?" should be a lively and complex debate among workers, who should create organizations to push their collective interests. The fact is that especially in transition to communism, there will remain sectional pressures both to be guarded against (coordinator-party-encrustation above the workers; bourgeois restoration) and ones which must be respected as part of the legitimate rule of workers as a class. Different economies have different dynamics, and until this is significantly changed; it is legitimate that the interests of workers in 'extractive' economies, say, is preserved as well as those involved in industrial production.

[Die Neue Zeit]

An argument against parties: You can take an example that shows how a majority's will gets sometimes undermined by having districts and selecting the plurality winner — change "district" to "party" and "winning candidate" to "policy voted on by party members" — and you have an example how having parties can undermine the majority's will, even under idealized conditions. In reality the distortion is much worse than just with party members executing the decision of the party majority because there are more layers.

I have to disagree here.

The point of having parties is for fuller realization of participatory democracy. For example, in a party-recallable PR system where party machines can hire and fire their alloted MPs, parliamentary head honchos, and execs at will, this means that you've got to join the party in order to participate in policymaking.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^ Now I understand more your insistance of a workers-only membership, as the class contradictions inside a party-in-power would tear it apart and quite likely let the party become the focal point of counter-revolution (as what happened in Bolshevik Russia).

Funny, comrade, that it wasn't my intention. I thought my insistence was straightforward, in the context of a party of opposition. This part of my CSR Appendix is one I have yet to incorporate into my PCSSR work, because it's not a "demand on the state" so to speak. Unless, haha, I'd fancy some sort of law that prohibits state administrators from being voting members of any political party. :lol:

I think you didn't catch this in my PCSSR work, meanwhile ( ;) ), on factory committees vs. the Bolshevik party-of-power:

While very admirable in terms of going beyond the class-conciliationist collective bargain-ism of even the trans-Atlantic Workers Uniting union, [the factory committees'] rejection of political questions, which also forms the organizational basis of revolutionary syndicalism (an extreme form of “red” tred-iunionizm, in fact), compromised their class independence from even a Bolshevik party whose demographic would eventually be based more upon the petit-bourgeois peasantry and especially upon the “scientific management” coordinator class that was emerging from the czarist shackles on the technical and managerial intelligentsia, with Lenin as their own spokesperson [...]


I for one believe that post-revolution there should be a transition period from the point where a party-movement (that is, a genuine class movement of the proletariat consisting of vast layers of the class) seizes power and a jury-democracy (alotted representatives) in which parties only play a marginal role.

It seems you and comrade Kotze are on one side, and comrade Paul Cockshott and I are on the other:


I think he has too primitive a conception of chance, all politics are the result of stochastic processes, the number of free variables is vast.

Clearly in a lottery system you also need mass parties, even more massive ones, since any party member may be an MP. Hence the party needs a significant fraction of the population if it is to be effective.

It has to train or ideologise a large fraction of the class it organises.

It would be unlike the vote gathering parties of today and more like mass movements like CND or the Protestant or Muslim sects.

This is from the e-mail discussion titled "Delegation, representation, and direct democracy: a conflict?" (which I'm sure you have)


This is tricky, since it pretty much requires serious thought on radical transformative political institutions. I think the existence of 'private', 'voluntary' organizations for collective political actions by a grouping of people gather around a common purpose is inevitable. Any completely non-partisan citizens' pure democracy or something is probably going to be more a feature of the "higher stage" of communism.

[...]

The fact is that especially in transition to communism, there will remain sectional pressures both to be guarded against (coordinator-party-encrustation above the workers; bourgeois restoration) and ones which must be respected as part of the legitimate rule of workers as a class.

This is more or less my opinion. The extent of which there would be a "non-partisan citizens' participatory democracy" in an already post-monetary "lower phase of communism" would depend on the global reach of the political and social revolution.


A simple ban on other parties isn't a good thing though as this would make the revolutionary party the focal point for all classes, a danger which is inherent in any ruling party anyhow.

Perhaps, but perhaps the transitional aggravation of dem Klassenkampf (“the class struggle”) (to correct Stalin in the 1930s and using the "sound tough" polemical edge of Bismarck's Kulturkampf and Hitler's Mein Kampf) by a genuine one-party system could speed up the political-before-social liquidation of hostile non-worker classes.



Also, ever since I discovered the "economic parliaments" musings of the left-Social-Democratic theorist Hilferding, the extent to which the genuine one-party system "must promote its most experienced organizers, leaders and chiefs to the leading posts in the state and then it must immediately cross them off its list of voting members" becomes more complex. At a minimum, there are these elements:

1) A state system proper (war and peace organizations, rules enforcement, and the courts);
2) A "social" political system (the welfare "state" plus perhaps the regulatory "state" to rebutt right-wing concerns of combining economic activity with regulation which they cite as a key problem with Chernobyl); and
3) An "economic" political system (where all the management of public enterprises occurs).

[Rafiq]

The Idea would be kind of new.

When Observing the American system, I think Noam Chomsky holds a good case.

America is still a single party state, with two branches off of that party. And you can choose between them.

So Multi-Party States would be sort of a different Idea then what we have always had.

But they may not be needed if a Revolution did occur.

[GPDP]

I would think anarchists would be against the idea of parties in general, though interestingly enough the Anarchist FAQ does appear to see a role for parties in an anarchist society to a certain extent.


Political parties and other interest groups will exist in an anarchist society as long as people feel the need to join them. They will not be "banned" in any way, and their members will have the same rights as everyone else. Individuals who are members of political parties or associations can take part in communal and other assemblies and try to convince others of the soundness of their ideas.
However, there is a key difference between such activity and politics under a capitalist democracy. This is because the elections to positions of responsibility in an anarchist society will not be based on party tickets nor will it involve the delegation of power. Emile Pouget's description of the difference between the syndicalist trade union and elections drives this difference home:

"The constituent part of the trade union is the individual. Except that the union member is spared the depressing phenomenon manifest in democratic circles where, thanks to the veneration of universal suffrage, the trend is towards the crushing and diminution of the human personality. In a democratic setting, the elector can avail of his [or her] will only in order to perform an act of abdication: his role is to 'award' his 'vote' to the candidate whom he [or she] wishes to have as his [or her] 'representative.' "Affiliation to the trade union has no such implication . . . In joining the union, the worker merely enters into a contract -- which he may at any time abjure -- with comrades who are his equals in will and potential . . . In the union, say, should it come to the appointment of a trade union council to take charge of administrative matters, such 'selection' is not to be compared with 'election': the form of voting customarily employed in such circumstances is merely a means whereby the labour can be divided and is not accompanied by any delegation of authority. The strictly prescribed duties of the trade union council are merely administrative. The council performs the task entrusted to it, without ever overruling its principals, without supplanting them or acting in their place.
"The same might be said of all decisions reached in the union: all are restricted to a definite and specific act, whereas in democracy, election implies that the elected candidate has been issued by his [or her] elector with a carte blanche empowering him [or her] to decide and do as he [or she] pleases, in and on everything, without even the hindrance of the quite possibly contrary views of his [or her] principals, whose opposition, in any case, no matter how pronounced, is of no consequence until such time as the elected candidate's mandate has run its course.
"So there cannot be any possible parallels, let alone confusion, between trade unions activity and participation in the disappointing chores of politics."
[No Gods, No Masters, vol. 2, pp. 67-68]
In other words, when individuals are elected to administrative posts they are elected to carry out their mandate, not to carry out their party's programme. Of course, if the individuals in question had convinced their fellow workers and citizens that their programme was correct, then this mandate and the programme would be identical. However this is unlikely in practice. We would imagine that the decisions of collectives and communes would reflect the complex social interactions and diverse political opinions their members and of the various groupings within the association.
Hence anarchism will likely contain many different political groupings and ideas. The relative influence of these within collectives and communes would reflect the strength of their arguments and the relevance of their ideas, as would be expected in a free society. As Bakunin argued, "[t]he abolition of this mutual influence would be death. And when we vindicate the freedom of the masses, we are by no means suggesting the abolition of any of the natural influences that individuals or groups of individuals exert on them. What we want is the abolition of influences which are artificial, privileged, legal, official." [quoted by Malatesta in Anarchy, p. 50]
It is only when representative government replaces self-management that political debate results in "elected dictatorship" and centralisation of power into the hands of one party which claims to speak for the whole of society, as if the latter had one mind.


Of course, for anarchists, representation would base itself on a delegated mandate rather than a party programme, so I suppose they would see a reduced role, but a role nonetheless.

Any thoughts on the FAQ's views?

[Q]

I think he has too primitive a conception of chance, all politics are the result of stochastic processes, the number of free variables is vast.

Clearly in a lottery system you also need mass parties, even more massive ones, since any party member may be an MP. Hence the party needs a significant fraction of the population if it is to be effective.

It has to train or ideologise a large fraction of the class it organises.

It would be unlike the vote gathering parties of today and more like mass movements like CND or the Protestant or Muslim sects.

Right, I do agree with this outlook (and retract my earlier comment that parties should be liquidated, which I didn't think through). My vision of "liquidation from power" so as to be replaced with an allotted democracy, seems to concur with this view as you indeed need mass party-movements to educate, organise and agitate the working class (who is now in power itself though).

[Victus Mortuum]

Outside of the operating structure of the government, the party-movement is an integral and necessary part of organization (at least in the short term). The Worker-Class must be organized as a single Party-Movement, but there will likely be other 'parties' representing other interests in the short term.

There is no room for parties internally within a radically-democratic governing organization, however.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I believe what you've said is the difference between having tendencies and factionalism:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/factions-tendencies-and-t132448/index.html


"Platform" could refer both to the Class-strugglist anarchist concept of Platformism as well as generally having a political program that subscribes to the basic principles of the larger organization but adds perspectives missing in the larger organization's program (i.e., lengthened section on rejecting coalitionism and mass strike-ism, lengthened cooperative program, identity politics if missing from the main program, etc.).

"Tendency" is a euphemism for open factions, with separate press and organizational matters, but overall the ability to organize is conditional upon tendency meetings and correspondence being fully disclosed (hence "open").

"Factionalism" refers to secret factions or minority factions bullying the larger organization by threatening to split unless their view is adopted by the larger organization (some Trotskyists use this age-old Menshevik tactic).

I'm a Eurocommunist on this: for forums, for currents, for platforms, for tendencies, but against "factions" (for "Stalinist" permanent ban on "factions" with off-the-record nods and winks ;) ).


Also, scrap congresses in favour of broader party plebiscites and a recallable but otherwise more autonomous central party council/committee/secretariat.

[Kotze]

I have to disagree here.You shouldn't disagree with mathematically true statements :P
A majority inside a majority is not always a majority of the whole. And when you have more layers, subsets of subsets of subsets of subsets, the necessary size of a minority that can overrule the majority gets smaller and smaller.
For example, in a party-recallable PR system where party machines can hire and fire their alloted MPs, parliamentary head honchos, and execs at will, this means thatit looks proportional because of the proportional seats/party ratio, but aside from superficial appearance isn't really proportional since whatever currents there are inside parties (not to speak of the subgroups inside these currents) get "represented" by drab samenes. Again, we can recycle a gerrymandering example here.

I see that what I propose could be problematic right after revolution, but I took it the OP was about a long-run perspective.

[Kiev Communard]

Quite interesting idea.Do you think that in that case all other socialist parties (or, in case of Libertarian Communists, movements) should be merged with the dominant party, or not?

[GPDP]

A majority inside a majority is not always a majority of the whole. And when you have more layers, subsets of subsets of subsets of subsets, the necessary size of a minority that can overrule the majority gets smaller and smaller. it looks proportional because of the proportional seats/party ratio, but aside from superficial appearance isn't really proportional since whatever currents there are inside parties (not to speak of the subgroups inside these currents) get "represented" by drab samenes. Again, we can recycle a gerrymandering example here.

What if the parties were relatively devoid of tendencies, stuck to a single programme, and if tendencies do arise they can split off from the party and create their own programme?

I realize this might mean tons of sectarian splitting akin to what already happens with socialist parties today, which makes them the butt of many jokes, but would it really be problematic in an actual socialist society?

[Die Neue Zeit]

You shouldn't disagree with mathematically true statements :P
A majority inside a majority is not always a majority of the whole.

But we're only talking about the working class as "the whole." "The whole" excludes the bourgeoisie, petit-bourgeoisie, etc.

Preferrably the ultra-mass party-movement encompasses every working-class person except in some isolated cases. It would be true that a 50%+1 majority in the ultra-mass party-movement might not be a majority for the class as a whole, but a supermajority in such ultra-mass party-movement should be more than enough to be a working-class majority.


And when you have more layers, subsets of subsets of subsets of subsets, the necessary size of a minority that can overrule the majority gets smaller and smaller.

You should elaborate this further within the context of my scenario.


it looks proportional because of the proportional seats/party ratio, but aside from superficial appearance isn't really proportional since whatever currents there are inside parties (not to speak of the subgroups inside these currents) get "represented" by drab samenes. Again, we can recycle a gerrymandering example here.

So you're not talking about my preferred scenario where the MPs, parliamentary head honchos, and execs are randomly selected by the majority party and subject to firings-at-will? :confused:

[Die Neue Zeit]

Quite interesting idea.Do you think that in that case all other socialist parties (or, in case of Libertarian Communists, movements) should be merged with the dominant party, or not?


What if the parties were relatively devoid of tendencies, stuck to a single programme, and if tendencies do arise they can split off from the party and create their own programme?

I realize this might mean tons of sectarian splitting akin to what already happens with socialist parties today, which makes them the butt of many jokes, but would it really be problematic in an actual socialist society?

There should be one ultra-mass party-movement of the working class. Such scenario even applies on a PNNC basis, that is, proletarian-not-necessarily-communist wherein the organization meets the three criteria of a "proletarian party" in the Communist Manifesto (worker-class rule, which is NOT the aim of "bourgeois worker parties" or even "petit-bourgeois worker parties" like typical Labour "parties") but does not necessarily advocate going into the communist mode of production. [More on PNNC in my PCSSR Appendix B]

Only in a political minority scenario within PNNC political domination of society (DOTP) can communists then rehabilitate the syndicalist General/Mass Strike strategy of workers everywhere seizing the means of production via a general strike a la Bakunin and Sorel, since the "struggle for socialism" in any event is economic not political. Only with the PNNC political domination of society does the General/Mass Strike strategy lose its unfavourable "conning the masses into taking power" connotations this side of political revolution. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1172) [Again, PCSSR Appendix B]

[blake 3:17]

Multi-party, multi-tendency.

I'm pretending this a poll.

[GPDP]

I was kinda short-sighted for not making a poll, wasn't I?

[Paul Cockshott]

in a lottery system parties can exist and propagandise but not rule.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Could you please critique my attempt to reconcile lottery systems with Razlatzki's suggestion?