technocracy and socialism

[jinx92]

So i have seen technocracy and socialism paired together before, and I was wondering about the history of the relationship between the two, if one exists. Thank you.

[RED DAVE]

So i have seen technocracy and socialism paired together before, and I was wondering about the history of the relationship between the two, if one exists. Thank you.There have been a few, a very few, socialists in the 1930s who thought technocracy was cool. Most thought that back then it was an authoritarian movement with some fascist overtones.

Lately, a few people around here have tried to link it to socialism, but the two systems are incompatible. The modern form of technocracy differs somewhat from the "original" form, but it is not compatible with socialism despite some people's fantasies.

RED DAVE

[jinx92]

Thats what I thought, because the way I see it technocracy would just become bureaucracy at it's best, and fascism at it's worst. Thank you.

[Dimentio]

So i have seen technocracy and socialism paired together before, and I was wondering about the history of the relationship between the two, if one exists. Thank you.

I suggest you examine the dragon at it's mouth, and you will see that they were much are compatible. Especially as technocratic movements do not concern themselves with social issues.

www.eoslife.eu

[RED DAVE]

I suggest you examine the dragon at it's mouth, and you will see that they were much are compatible.About as compatible as St. George and the dragon. :D


Especially as technocratic movements do not concern themselves with social issues.And therefore it is, as a social movement, incompatible with socialism, with is totally concerned with social issues.


www.eoslife.euBy all means check it out. Make sure you look for terms like "working class," "exploitation," "capitalism," "socialism," etc.

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

Only because the term "capitalism" is not written there does not mean that we do not intend to abolish it.

Technocratic movements want to:

A) All resources should be managed according to a continuous energy survey where the amount of resources is monitored.

B) The access to the fruits of production should be distributed evenly to all people living within the Technate.

C) People should be free to think, do and live however they like as long as they don't hoard resources or destroy for other people.

The main difference between technocracy and socialism is that socialism cares very much about how people feel and think. Everyone must partake on meetings and be "active", whereas under technocracy, people would be free to spend their time however they like.

You have continuously tried to paint it as such that certain people would have material benefits above others under a technocratic system, and that specialisation in itself is hierarchy and alienation. The problem is, if you want to get rid of specialisation, you need to get rid of modern technology.

You seem to live in a world where words are more important than actual facts, and anyone who doesn't conform to your narrow, almost theological definition of "worker's democracy" (an idealised image of 1917-1918 Soviets) is an anti-socialist.

In a fully evolved technate, worker's democracy wouldn't make any sense since there wouldn't be any workers in the sense there is under capitalism. Neither is the technate responsible for laws or social values. That is up to whatever form of government the people locally, regionally or globally are setting up.

The only thing the technate is supposed to concern itself with is the rational management of the resources so that all individuals could get what they need and want within the constraints of what nature could provide them with.

That is pretty indistinguishable from socialism, and also more libertarian than for example the solution advocated by many marxist-leninists.

As for EOS. Our goal is not to take power, but to make research projects and build up a foundation for this future society. We cannot simply install anything which has never been tested before, before field testing it. That is self-evident. Therefore, we do not generally write articles against for example the war in Iraq or the revolt in Libya. We are a research organisation and an activity network. At the same time, members in EOS are allowed to be members of political parties, as long as those parties are not right-wing extremist.

[RED DAVE]

C'mon, Dimentio. Can't you do better than this?


Only because the term "capitalism" is not written there does not mean that we do not intend to abolish it.If you have no mouse traps and no cat, it is reasonable to assume that you are not interested in catching mice. There is nothing on the the various technocracy websites that has anything to with socialism. It may well me that technocracy is in some sense anticapitalist, although that's not clear, but it is obvious that it is not socialist and has little of nothing to do with the Left.


Technocratic movements want to:Note that even in an introductory statement such as this, there is no mention of the agency of history, which in Marxist theory is the working class.


A) All resources should be managed according to a continuous energy survey where the amount of resources is monitored.This is some nonsense going back the 1930s or even earlier. The technocrats are perpetually engaged in these bullshit "energy surveys," which are supposed to reveal some kind of deep secrets about capitalism. Of course, given their notions, they ignore the role of the working class.


B) The access to the fruits of production should be distributed evenly to all people living within the Technate.First of all, no one knows, or cares, what a "Technate" is. Second, notice the absence of any notion of working class power in the process of distribution.


C) People should be free to think, do and live however they like as long as they don't hoard resources or destroy for other people.Nice little petit-bourgois statement of rights, ignoring that all rights have a class basis.


The main difference between technocracy and socialismSo basically, unless you're a communist or an anarchist, you're outside the Left, which is historically accurate.


is that socialism cares very much about how people feel and think.And the Oscar for Dumb Remark of the Year goes to ... .


Everyone must partake on meetings and be "active"What he's talking about is his caricature of workers control of industry.


whereas under technocracy, people would be free to spend their time however they like.While the technocratic bureaucrats run it all. Of course, as usual, workers will do the work.


You have continuously tried to paint it as such that certain people would have material benefits above others under a technocratic systemIt has been obvious from the beginning that the technocratic system involves a hierarchy of power. You're learned to conceal this, but it's turue nonetheless.


and that specialisation in itself is hierarchy and alienation.No, lack of control of out labor and the products of our labor is alientation. Hierarchy, in the way you envision it, imvolves such alienation.


The problem is, if you want to get rid of specialisation, you need to get rid of modern technology.Who wants to get rid of specialization? What socialism wants to get rid of is bosses and bureaucrats.


You seem to live in a world where words are more important than actual facts, and anyone who doesn't conform to your narrow, almost theological definition of "worker's democracy" (an idealised image of 1917-1918 Soviets) is an anti-socialist.No, but it's obvious that technocracy is anti-socialist.


In a fully evolved technate, worker's democracy wouldn't make any sense since there wouldn't be any workers in the sense there is under capitalism.Well, Comrade, why don't you forget these silly fantasies, rooted in some bizarre notions dating back to Howard Scott and the 1920s and 1930s, and get involved in class struggle to eliminate alienated labor. Then, maybe, you can dust off your ideas and see if there's anything there worth considering.


Neither is the technate responsible for laws or social values. That is up to whatever form of government the people locally, regionally or globally are setting up.You've said before that your technate is compatible with a bourgeois republic, so why should any leftist consider it anything other than a petit-bourgeois utopia?


The only thing the technate is supposed to concern itself with is the rational management of the resources so that all individuals could get what they need and want within the constraints of what nature could provide them with.One more time, you fail to realize that the "rational management of the resources" is both a political and a class question. It is not a technical matter.


That is pretty indistinguishable from socialism, and also more libertarian than for example the solution advocated by many marxist-leninists.It has nothing to do with socialism as it completely excludes the notion of class struggle and class power. To say that you want to deal with some kind of vague future where alienated labor is abolished is ridiculous as none of us knows the parameters that will have to be dealt with for decades if not centuries after the revolutionary establishment of socailism.


As for EOS. Our goal is not to take power, but to make research projects and build up a foundation for this future society.Based on what? Where does the data for your research come from? What set of values informs it? Certainly not left-wing values as revealed on your website.


We cannot simply install anything which has never been tested before, before field testing it.Workers power is field tested every day as workers control their own labor, make decisions and fight against the bosses for self-determination.


That is self-evident. Therefore, we do not generally write articles against for example the war in Iraq or the revolt in Libya.Because you don't have jack shit to say about it, which makes you about as useless as tits on a bull.


We are a research organisation and an activity network.With no useful research and no activity. Whatever happened to that anti-racist work you were going to do?


At the same time, members in EOS are allowed to be members of political parties, as long as those parties are not right-wing extremist.Well, that's big of you. How about liberal parties, social democratic parties or moderate right-wing parties?

Why are you here on a revolutionary left-wing website spouting all this liberal bilge?

RED DAVE

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

The USSR and the PRC were/are both Technocratic states in how they are managed.

I would support some kind of socialized, participatory or "democratic" technocracy without a hierarchy, but technocracy in of itself is dangerous insofar as the "leaders" become unaccountable to the people and don't try to raise the level of the consciousness of the masses.

[Thirsty Crow]

We cannot simply install anything which has never been tested before, before field testing it.I don't have a firm opinion on technocracy or any organization that appropriates the label and the ideas.
But I'd be very interested in seeing how exactly can any gropus of people "field test" a proposed set of measures and principles within the context of a socioeconomic formation which is fundamentally (supposedly; at least according to saome technocrats) different from the proposed system? What is it that you "field test"?

[stoneMonkey]

I used to read the Economist regularly and they were constantly praising this or that (mostly developing country) leader as a "technocrat". Which seemed to mean that they were intent on applying neoliberal financial policies, pleasing western leaders with their policies, and ignoring the desires of their own populace.

Of course this is just "how they use the word", but more generally I think we can say that technocracy has to do with rationalizing society according to the beliefs of experts so that its means serve whatever ends are implicitly accepted as best. The best case is the Party (or other elite organization) tells everyone else what to do for their own good - whether or not that counts as "socialism" is hard to settle, but many of us don't really want that. The worst case is that what the experts are optimizing for isn't the people's interests at all. And since the experts are assumed in technocracy to be the only ones who are qualified to judge, the best case is always in danger of degrading into the worst case.

[Dimentio]

C'mon, Dimentio. Can't you do better than this?

If you have no mouse traps and no cat, it is reasonable to assume that you are not interested in catching mice. There is nothing on the the various technocracy websites that has anything to with socialism. It may well me that technocracy is in some sense anticapitalist, although that's not clear, but it is obvious that it is not socialist and has little of nothing to do with the Left.

Note that even in an introductory statement such as this, there is no mention of the agency of history, which in Marxist theory is the working class.

This is some nonsense going back the 1930s or even earlier. The technocrats are perpetually engaged in these bullshit "energy surveys," which are supposed to reveal some kind of deep secrets about capitalism. Of course, given their notions, they ignore the role of the working class.

First of all, no one knows, or cares, what a "Technate" is. Second, notice the absence of any notion of working class power in the process of distribution.

Nice little petit-bourgois statement of rights, ignoring that all rights have a class basis.

So basically, unless you're a communist or an anarchist, you're outside the Left, which is historically accurate.

And the Oscar for Dumb Remark of the Year goes to ... .

What he's talking about is his caricature of workers control of industry.

While the technocratic bureaucrats run it all. Of course, as usual, workers will do the work.

It has been obvious from the beginning that the technocratic system involves a hierarchy of power. You're learned to conceal this, but it's turue nonetheless.

No, lack of control of out labor and the products of our labor is alientation. Hierarchy, in the way you envision it, imvolves such alienation.

Who wants to get rid of specialization? What socialism wants to get rid of is bosses and bureaucrats.

No, but it's obvious that technocracy is anti-socialist.

Well, Comrade, why don't you forget these silly fantasies, rooted in some bizarre notions dating back to Howard Scott and the 1920s and 1930s, and get involved in class struggle to eliminate alienated labor. Then, maybe, you can dust off your ideas and see if there's anything there worth considering.

You've said before that your technate is compatible with a bourgeois republic, so why should any leftist consider it anything other than a petit-bourgeois utopia?

One more time, you fail to realize that the "rational management of the resources" is both a political and a class question. It is not a technical matter.

It has nothing to do with socialism as it completely excludes the notion of class struggle and class power. To say that you want to deal with some kind of vague future where alienated labor is abolished is ridiculous as none of us knows the parameters that will have to be dealt with for decades if not centuries after the revolutionary establishment of socailism.

Based on what? Where does the data for your research come from? What set of values informs it? Certainly not left-wing values as revealed on your website.

Workers power is field tested every day as workers control their own labor, make decisions and fight against the bosses for self-determination.

Because you don't have jack shit to say about it, which makes you about as useless as tits on a bull.

With no useful research and no activity. Whatever happened to that anti-racist work you were going to do?

Well, that's big of you. How about liberal parties, social democratic parties or moderate right-wing parties?

Why are you here on a revolutionary left-wing website spouting all this liberal bilge?

RED DAVE

I. In what way is EOS anti-socialist?

II. The data of our research has been assembled by Dr. Wallace and other researchers, and will soon come out in a progress work. We have several scientists from Sweden, Slovenia, the UK, Australia and the United States, and our research has moved far beyond what Howard Scott once advocated. You have evidently not read the material on the EOS website if you think we don't conduct any research.

ii.ii What I meant with a "constitutional republic" is not that it is compatible with a market system, but compatible with for example keeping a parallel structure of a constitutional monarch or the US constitution. The economy in a technate needs to be the technate in order for it to be the technate. And unlike dogmatics, I don't necessarily see any problem with for example keeping the French Fifth Republic, at least nominally, while changing the economic system of Europe. Some countries have powerless monarchs, remnants of feudal systems. So if people for nostalgic reasons want to keep nominal remnants of capitalist systems, then they are free to do so as long as it doesn't affect the resource system negatively.

III. The anti-racist activities were quite successful. We have an organised network of several activists in Umea now who meet every other Thursday.

IV. Why I am here? Why not? It has been pretty successful in gaining curiousity and followers here, despite very few resources.

And lastly, why would I forget "these silly fantasies"? You are not talking with a low-ranking activist, but with one of the founders of EOS. :D

[Dimentio]

I used to read the Economist regularly and they were constantly praising this or that (mostly developing country) leader as a "technocrat". Which seemed to mean that they were intent on applying neoliberal financial policies, pleasing western leaders with their policies, and ignoring the desires of their own populace.

Of course this is just "how they use the word", but more generally I think we can say that technocracy has to do with rationalizing society according to the beliefs of experts so that its means serve whatever ends are implicitly accepted as best. The best case is the Party (or other elite organization) tells everyone else what to do for their own good - whether or not that counts as "socialism" is hard to settle, but many of us don't really want that. The worst case is that what the experts are optimizing for isn't the people's interests at all. And since the experts are assumed in technocracy to be the only ones who are qualified to judge, the best case is always in danger of degrading into the worst case.

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

[Rêve Rouge]

Lately, a few people around here have tried to link it to socialism, but the two systems are incompatible. The modern form of technocracy differs somewhat from the "original" form, but it is not compatible with socialism despite some people's fantasies.

Depends on what form of socialism you're referring to. Besides, wasn't one of founders of socialism a technocrat in some sense? Saint Simon (who has been claimed to coin the term 'socialism') described a socialist society that sounded very technocratic. For example, he believed in "administrative efficiency", industrialism, and that "science is the key to progress".

Not all forms of socialism are anarchistic. Some forms maintain the use of the State, as advocated by Saint Simon, and the earlier forms of technocracy.

[Dimentio]

EOS doesn't even want to maintain the state. It is indifferent whether or not it is (nominally) maintained or not.

[MarxistMan]

I also like this system "Transhumanist Socialism"

Transhumanist Socialism

http://transocialism.com/trans-soc.html


Definition:Transhumanist socialism is a particular type of socialism which holds that future transhumanist technologies such as molecular nanotechnology (http://dmoz.org/Science/Technology/Nanotechnology/) will make it much more feasible to bring about a truly socialist world. A transhumanist socialist believes that despite the risks that may be involved in these new technologies, such as even more potent weapons and means of totalitarian control, it is on balance worth developing transhuman technologies in the long term, because of their potential to transform society for the better. (Note that this in no way necessarily implies that technology alone can solve problems. Everybody must change as well, because true socialism is not just a matter of who is "in charge", it is a mode of being of a whole society, on a world scale and including every person.)

Thus being a transhumanist and being a socialist are both necessary but not sufficient conditions for being a transhumanist socialist. It is at least logically possible to be a socialist and a transhumanist without accepting the further idea that transhuman technologies will be of significant benefit in their efforts to create a more just world - or one may be a socialist and believe that future technology can alleviate some important problems with "the human condition", but it still doesn't make world socialism significantly more feasible than it already is. Neither of these positions fall within transhumanist socialism - they are merely transhumanist and socialist, which is quite different. (I am not sure whether anyone would actually take the first position, but it is logically possible.)

Of course, the word "socialism" can mean many things to many people. Its usage here needs to be clarified, which I will attempt to do shortly.

"Transhumanist anarchism" is defined in a corresponding manner, with "socialism" being replaced with "anarchism" throughout.



Details: This idea has only recently broken through the surface of my mind, as it were. I have been considering it in the background ever since reading David Pearce's manifesto The Hedonistic Imperative (http://www.hedweb.com/) (which does not rest on any particular political position, I hasten to add - though it is probably incompatible with fascism!) but it is only now that I have begun to reorient myself towards feasibility-checking and pursuing this goal. I have hardly begun to think through the enormous social implications of nanotechnology alone (which in my considered opinion will be, out of all the technologies now forseeable, the most important technology of the 21st century, bar none). The idea of transhumanist socialism needs a lot of work to develop from it a cogent argument, with a key focus on what is technologically feasible, and how these technologies could be used (and abused) by all the relevant actors: states, corporations, advocacy groups, benevolence groups, and individuals. I hope to begin to develop such an argument during 1999, time permitting. The reader may be disappointed that I have not attempted to justify transhumanist socialism at this stage - if so, please bear with me. For now, I will just give a small hint: empathogens (http://www.empathogens.com/).


Unfortunately, due to the current lack of any practically useful nanotechnology, nano predictions are necessarily drawn from theoretical positions which may be carefully kept in check by the constraints of known physical law, but cannot be constrained by the as-yet undiscovered engineering challenges which are bound to crop up if and when nanotechnology becomes a practical, rather than theoretical, applied science. Moreover, the prevalence of (with hindsight) strikingly erroneous technological and scientific mispredictions throughout history, even from those who are apparently experts in the field - examples such as the radio, the aeroplane, alternating current and human-level artificial intelligence spring to mind - does not give me a great deal of confidence.

However, having said all that, the stakes are so high that it would be irrational to dismiss the possibilities out of hand without properly examining the scientific theory, just because little empirical proof of concept work has been done.

I would welcome any comments and criticisms - even if you want to debunk the whole thing - after all, if I am on a dead-end road I would like to know sooner rather than later! Please send them to [email protected]

Links to further info from the volunteer-run Open Directory Project (http://dmoz.org/):

Molecular Nanotechnology (http://dmoz.org/Science/Technology/Nanotechnology/) (and my own Nano bookmarks (http://dmoz.org/Bookmarks/G/greenrd/Sci/Nano/))
Transhumanism (http://dmoz.org/Society/Philosophy/Transhumanism/)

.


So i have seen technocracy and socialism paired together before, and I was wondering about the history of the relationship between the two, if one exists. Thank you.

[Dimentio]

The only problem with transhumanism for me is that it is probably a bit premature to talk about longevity and make people 20 feet tall when 2 billion people are living in squalor and the environment is murdered around us.

[neosyndic]

x

[Demogorgon]

I used to read the Economist regularly and they were constantly praising this or that (mostly developing country) leader as a "technocrat". Which seemed to mean that they were intent on applying neoliberal financial policies, pleasing western leaders with their policies, and ignoring the desires of their own populace.

Of course this is just "how they use the word", but more generally I think we can say that technocracy has to do with rationalizing society according to the beliefs of experts so that its means serve whatever ends are implicitly accepted as best. The best case is the Party (or other elite organization) tells everyone else what to do for their own good - whether or not that counts as "socialism" is hard to settle, but many of us don't really want that. The worst case is that what the experts are optimizing for isn't the people's interests at all. And since the experts are assumed in technocracy to be the only ones who are qualified to judge, the best case is always in danger of degrading into the worst case.
That is the common meaning of the term. Technocracy refers normally to Governemnt by experts rather than elected officials and a "technocrat" is an expert vested with power, typically a senior serveant. You sometimes hear as well about "technocratic governments" being appointed after a political crisis. This means a country's President or more rarely King has asked a senior Civil Servant to temporarily become Prime Minister to carry out a specific task to stabalise the situation and to be a caretaker pending election. Why the technocratic movement represented on this board have chosen to give themselves the same name, I am not sure.

As for what I think about the movement, I will be charitable and divide it to a group I oppose on principle and a group I regard as impractical. Howard Scott was a crypto-fascist and there are people on this board who still hold to him and demonstrate problematic views themselves. The vision of society they present is horrible.

They haven't popped up in this thread so I will leave it at that. As to the other group, represented here by Dimentio, my objections are primarily practical. I say primarily because there are objections of principle as well. They do underestimate how fundamentally political resource allocation is. Indeed it is the political question to a large extent. But let's leave that aside for a moment.

The practical problem centres around energy accounting. Using energy to calculate an economic matter doesn't work. The problem at the route might be the mistake of presuming that you can apply fairly clinical scientific procedures to something as unpredictable as inter-human relations.

[Queercommie Girl]

I'm not a technocrat, but I'm sympathetic to some of its views, partly because unlike Third Campist Trots such as Red Dave, I don't completely reject the Stalinist system, and Stalinism was technocratic to a significant extent.

Marxism certainly believes in further technological and scientific progress after the establishment of genuine socialism and communism. Society doesn't just "stop" when communism is established. Contradiction between classes would cease to exist, but contradiction between humanity and nature never will.

For an example of what an utopian socialist technocracy might look like, watch Star Trek. The United Federation of Planets in Star Trek is depicted as an utopian socialist society, in which money doesn't exist anymore. It is also a highly advanced technological culture, in which the maximum speed of starships has reached 2.74 light-years per day. (Yes I'm a Star Trek fan)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Federation_of_Planets#Economics

The Federation has largely been portrayed as an economic utopia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia), a condition enabled by a state of abundance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_scarcity). On Earth, war and poverty have been eliminated. Individuals strive for self-betterment rather than fiscal remuneration. This condition probably does not extend to the outer reaches of the Federation or other powers with similar levels of technology, where substances such as latinum (http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/latinum) are used as currency on a somewhat ad hoc (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hoc) basis, and for the purpose of trade with other cultures, although there have been persistent references to a "credit" unit of currency used at least occasionally in the Federation.

In the Star Trek: Voyager (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Voyager) episode "Dark Frontier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Frontier)," Tom Paris (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Paris) describes it as the "New World Economy," which began in the late 22nd century and eventually made money obsolete, as does Jean-Luc Picard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Luc_Picard) while explaining the timeline to Lily Sloane (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lily_Sloane) in Star Trek: First Contact (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_First_Contact).

[Queercommie Girl]

Ancient China had a variant of technocracy (China being the first country in the world to utilise the civil service examination system to select government officials based - at least in principle - on merit), but I think it's better than the modern one. Modern technocracy is purely scientific and amoral, whereas ancient Chinese meritocracy stressed a combination of "talent/expertise" and "moral virtue", not just expertise. Hitler was an extremely talented person but more dangerous and reactionary than people who are not talented at all. So it's better to emphasise on both "talent" and "virtue" rather than just on talent alone, as long as "virtue" is defined along socialist lines.

I went to primary school in the PRC, and the concept of Communist Morality (an official term in Communist China) was stressed a lot by teachers. We had a subject called "Moral Education", analogous to "Religious Education" in the West.

[Queercommie Girl]

I'm not a technocrat, but I think there is certainly a progressive element in technocracy. Marxism is not just about the liberation of workers, though that's obviously the primary goal, it's also about the liberation of the productive forces. School textbooks in China would depict the human struggle against nature as a heroic progress, just like the struggle of the oppressed throughout history against their oppressors.

Technological advancement stood behind the great progressive transitions in history. Around 2500 - 3000 years ago, the slavelord aristocracy class throughout the ancient world began to break down, partly thanks to the discovery and invention of the great technology of iron metallurgy.

As Chris Harman states in A People's History of the World:

Iron and Empires

The second great phase in the history of civilisation began among the peasants and pastoralists who lived in the lands around the great empires, not in the states dominated by the priests and pharaohs. It depended on the efforts of people who could learn from the achievements of the urban revolution - use copper and bronze, employ the wheel, even adapt foreign scripts to write down their own languages - without being sucked dry by extortion and brainwashed by tradition.

... ...

They could then take advantage of the crises of the ancient civilisations, tearing at them from the outside just as class tensions weakened them from within. "Aryans" from the Caspian region fell upon the decaying Indus civilisation; people from south east Europe, speaking a related "Indo-European" language, tore at Mycenaean Greece; a little known group, the "Sea People", attacked Egypt; the Hittites captured Mesopotamia; and a new Chou dynasty ousted the Shang from China.

... ...

The most important new technique emerged around 2000 BC in the Armenian mountains - and several hundred years later in West Africa. This was the smelting of iron. Its slow diffusion transformed production and warfare.

Copper and its alloy, bronze, had been in use since the early stages of the urban revolution. But their production was expensive and depended on obtaining relatively rare ores from distant locations. What is more, their cutting edges were quickly blunted. As a result, they were ideal as weapons or ornaments for the minority who controlled the wealth, but much less useful as tools with which the mass of people could work. So even the workers on the pyramids, tombs and temples often used stone tools a millennium and a half after the urban revolution, and copper and bronze implements seem to have been little used by cultivators.

Iron ore was very much more abundant than copper. Turning it into metal required more elaborate processes. But once smiths knew how to do so, they could turn out knives, axes, arrowheads, plough tips and nails for the masses. The effect on agriculture was massive. The iron axe enabled cultivators to clear the thickest woodlands, the iron-tipped plough to break up the heaviest soil. And the relative cheapness of the iron spear and iron sword weakened the hold of the military aristocracies, allowing peasant infantry to cut down knights in bronze armour.

Similarly, just as the iron sword destroyed the power of the slavelord knights of Ancient Egypt, the gunpowder-powered handgun destroyed the power of the feudal knights of Europe. Marx clearly said that the three key technologies of "gunpowder, compass and printing" helped to usher in the capitalist age. Also, socialism has only become objectively possible since the Industrial Revolution. Spartacus would never be able to construct socialism, no matter how hard he tries or how heroic he is.

It's important for socialists to understand that the progress of society is not purely the result of class struggle, but also influenced by technological progress. In this sense, it would be reactionary for any Marxist to completely reject technocracy. Communism is certainly not the return to primitivism, even if it has the most progressive productive relation and no exploitation at all. Primitivism is clearly reactionary.

Marx and Engels were extremely knowledgable about the Natural Sciences of their day, so every socialist today should become knowledgable about science and technology too.

[Dimentio]

I don't have a firm opinion on technocracy or any organization that appropriates the label and the ideas.
But I'd be very interested in seeing how exactly can any gropus of people "field test" a proposed set of measures and principles within the context of a socioeconomic formation which is fundamentally (supposedly; at least according to saome technocrats) different from the proposed system? What is it that you "field test"?

What we could field test on a "smaller" than global level, namely Energy Accounting and the Holonic Structure of the technate. The process could be tracked here:

www.technate.eu

[ckaihatsu]

Ancient China had a variant of technocracy (China being the first country in the world to utilise the civil service examination system to select government officials based - at least in principle - on merit), but I think it's better than the modern one. Modern technocracy is purely scientific and amoral, whereas ancient Chinese meritocracy stressed a combination of "talent/expertise" and "moral virtue", not just expertise. Hitler was an extremely talented person but more dangerous and reactionary than people who are not talented at all.

So it's better to emphasise on both "talent" and "virtue" rather than just on talent alone, as long as "virtue" is defined along socialist lines.


While I appreciate your inclusion of explicitly humanistic consideration into a planned political economy, you're begging the question / issue of *civilizational direction* by introducing the abstract, variable term of 'virtue'. Attempting to ground it by situating it "along socialist lines" only brings back the more-technical aspect of the consideration, since socialism is about societal *process* and does not speak to the qualities, or direction, of the overall enterprise of the human condition.





I went to primary school in the PRC, and the concept of Communist Morality (an official term in Communist China) was stressed a lot by teachers. We had a subject called "Moral Education", analogous to "Religious Education" in the West.


I have to object on principle to conflating religion with humanism -- anything "moral" or "religious" is actually merely *cultural* and does *not* automatically confer any kind of "superior" mode of action on those who study it.





I'm not a technocrat, but I think there is certainly a progressive element in technocracy. Marxism is not just about the liberation of workers, though that's obviously the primary goal, it's also about the liberation of the productive forces.


I agree with your description of Marxism here.





School textbooks in China would depict the human struggle against nature as a heroic progress, just like the struggle of the oppressed throughout history against their oppressors.


There's nothing to say that the ultimate goal of Marxism and of the socialist society it brings about would be "the human struggle against nature" -- this, too, is a *cultural* proposition, one that would have to be discussed and debated among those of a socialist society.

Back to the subject of 'virtue' I'll include an excerpt from Wilde that counterposes it against a more autonomous self-determination:





The mere existence of conscience, that faculty of which people prate so much nowadays, and are so ignorantly proud, is a sign of our imperfect development. It must be merged in instinct before we become fine. Self-denial is simply a method by which man arrests his progress, and self-sacrifice a survival of the mutilation of the savage, part of that old worship of pain which is so terrible a factor in the history of the world, and which even now makes its victims day by day, and has its altars in the land. Virtues! Who knows what the virtues are? Not you. Not I. Not any one. It is well for our vanity that we slay the criminal, for if we suffered him to live he might show us what we had gained by his crime. It is well for his peace that the saint goes to his martyrdom. He is spared the sight of the horror of his harvest.


Wilde, "The Critic as Artist"

http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/887/pg887.txt

[Queercommie Girl]

While I appreciate your inclusion of explicitly humanistic consideration into a planned political economy, you're begging the question / issue of *civilizational direction* by introducing the abstract, variable term of 'virtue'. Attempting to ground it by situating it "along socialist lines" only brings back the more-technical aspect of the consideration, since socialism is about societal *process* and does not speak to the qualities, or direction, of the overall enterprise of the human condition.


I'm sorry, but you don't understand what I'm talking about. The kind of ethics I'm describing is not abstract or Platonic at all. For instance, the Chinese concept of de is not intrinsically a purely moral term, but already is a fusion of ethics and expertise. As I said, it's similar in some ways to the ancient Greek concept of arete, or "excellence".

The real idealistic abstraction here is to actually think that "ethics" and "expertise" can really be completely separate and distinct. From a strict humanist-materialist perspective, this is not really possible. Just as it's impossible to have purely abstract ethics, it's also impossible to have completely amoral technocracy.

There is nothing wrong with thinking about and discussing the "direction" of human society, as long as it is conducted in a genuinely democratic manner, rather than by a few elites.



I have to object on principle to conflating religion with humanism -- anything "moral" or "religious" is actually merely *cultural* and does *not* automatically confer any kind of "superior" mode of action on those who study it.
I'm not conflating religion with humanism, since humanistic ethics is fundamentally different from religious ethics. I'm merely noting the analogous relationship.

However, it's true that I'm a supporter of religious and cultural freedom. Culturally I'm an anarchist so I oppose the suppression of religion by socialist states.

Of course, ethical education doesn't necessarily make one a better person, but note that the relationship between base and superstructure is always a complex and dialectical one, and it's not just the base that ultimately determines the superstructure, but under some circumstances the superstructure can also counteract on the base. Therefore to think that humanistic ethical education is useless is just as wrong as thinking that it is the primary element in making people good.

Communist Morality is also an official concept in Stalinism and Maoism, and despite being critical of Stalinism and Maoism in many ways, I think this is an element that genuine Marxists should inherit.



There's nothing to say that the ultimate goal of Marxism and of the socialist society it brings about would be "the human struggle against nature" -- this, too, is a *cultural* proposition, one that would have to be discussed and debated among those of a socialist society.
It's not a cultural proposition at all, it's an empirical scientific observation, since "humans struggling with nature" has already occurred throughout human history, just like "class struggle" has. It's not a "post-modern paradigm" that has been imposed upon society, but a simple fact of life. Indeed, for an individual to survive, he/she must struggle against nature on a daily basis.

To call it "heroic" is a value judgement rather than a fact, but it's simply based on the principle that scientific and technological progress will surely continue under socialism, only that the direction and the rate of change should be determined democratically.



Back to the subject of 'virtue' I'll include an excerpt from Wilde that counterposes it against a more autonomous self-determination:
The Chinese term I'm using here is not equivalent to the concept of "moral virtue" in Judeo-Christian philosophy, but rather an integral fusion of arete and agape.

The problem with Wilde's criticism here is precisely that it's too abstract, full of poetic inferences, but is not based on any kind of concrete and practical analysis of society. From a functional and utilitarian sense, ethics is required in any society in order for it to function effectively, it's something humans have inherited from our primates ancestors (and as Darwin says, a Baboon would know more about metaphysics than philosophers of the Enlightenment), it's as simple as that.

If talking about "abstract virtue" is idealistic, then talking about "abstract freedom" is even more ridiculous, and is a liberal bourgeois view at odds with Marxism-Leninism. I have no interest in abstract metaphysical discussions on the concept of "freedom".

The other point is that for all the limitations of the virtue-centric scheme of Chinese philosophy, it is clearly more advanced than either the caste-centric mysticism of Hinduism or the faith-centric theology of Islam and Christianity.

The bottom line is: Absolute Amoralism is stupid, reactionary and incompatible with Marxism-Leninism, just as Absolute Moralism is. Both extremes are terrible.

[ckaihatsu]

The kind of ethics I'm describing is not abstract or Platonic at all. For instance, the Chinese concept of de is not intrinsically a purely moral term, but already is a fusion of ethics and expertise. As I said, it's similar in some ways to the ancient Greek concept of arete, or "excellence".


That's fine and everything, but whatever qualitative term you're using is *still* abstract, and can only be defined abstractly in the general. Its inclusion into any given concrete context / situation will make it subject to interpretation and application by participants.





Communist Morality is also an official concept in Stalinism and Maoism, and despite being critical of Stalinism and Maoism in many ways, I think this is an element that genuine Marxists should inherit.


If you would like to post about this 'communist morality' it might be worth looking at, for educational purposes, but on its own it remains an abstract term like any other.





From a functional and utilitarian sense, ethics is required in any society in order for it to function effectively, it's something humans have inherited from our primates ancestors


If the context for consideration is a functional and utilitarian one then you've already defined its overall goal-minded principle, at least generally -- one of functional and utilitarian-minded considerations. In such a social environment 'ethics' would still have to be defined -- in practice it would still be subject to concrete interpretation and may be of dubious value outside of concrete material objectives and political discussions.





The bottom line is: Absolute Amoralism is stupid, reactionary and incompatible with Marxism-Leninism, just as Absolute Moralism is. Both extremes are terrible.


I don't argue amoralism on any sort of principled basis -- rather any kind of "ethical" / "moral" framework may simply be superfluous, given concrete agreed-upon Marxist goals.

[Queercommie Girl]

That's fine and everything, but whatever qualitative term you're using is *still* abstract, and can only be defined abstractly in the general. Its inclusion into any given concrete context / situation will make it subject to interpretation and application by participants.


Ethics only has concrete meaning within a concrete context, but that doesn't mean I can't use the term "ethics" in a general sense. That's almost like the logical positivist view that one cannot even talk about any terms related to value theory (ethics and aesthetics).

Your criticism here is itself very "abstract". You seem to have a tendency to go into pedantic nit-picking.



If you would like to post about this 'communist morality' it might be worth looking at, for educational purposes, but on its own it remains an abstract term like any other.


It's a part of the school curriculum in socialist societies, designed to help teaching children to become better and more responsible Soviet citizens.

Of course, ethical teachings are only a supplement, rather than primary, and I always argue against those who talk about ethics all the time while ignoring the underlying socio-economic relation.



If the context for consideration is a functional and utilitarian one then you've already defined its overall goal-minded principle, at least generally -- one of functional and utilitarian-minded considerations. In such a social environment 'ethics' would still have to be defined -- in practice it would still be subject to concrete interpretation and may be of dubious value outside of concrete material objectives and political discussions.


In practice it would always have to be defined in the concrete sense, but as I said, that doesn't mean I can't mention the term "ethics" as a category.

In evolutionary terms, human societies have always had ethics, and of course different societies have completely different types of ethics, but the need for some kind of social ethical system seems to be an innate human trait.



I don't argue amoralism on any sort of principled basis -- rather any kind of "ethical" / "moral" framework may simply be superfluous, given concrete agreed-upon Marxist goals.


My ultimate concern is the result on the ground - a healthy progressive sustainable socialist society in which the rights, freedoms and welfare of all workers are included and defended. I believe having an ethical system will be conducive to this goal, but if hypothetically this goal can be achieved by other means, I wouldn't be against that.

But from a democratic point of view, I seriously doubt humanity would ever do away with ethics. In fact, I don't think it is absolutely certain that humanity would completely do away with religious sentiments, let alone secular humanistic ethics.

[Queercommie Girl]

One concrete application of ethics here on RevLeft is the debate regarding the fired Indian worker burning his boss to death.

My view is that I disagree with those who believe in a completely abstract morality and therefore morally condemn this worker, because genuine socialists should be able to empathise with his situation and be on his side in an ideological sense.

Having said this, I also disagree with those amoralists who actually applaud this act of killing, or those who think the only critique should be from a purely strategic angle. Strategic criticism is obviously very important, but someone did die, and while there is no human rights that completely transcends class, any act of violent murder should still not be seen as a "good thing" in itself.

It was an understandable but tragic act ultimately brought about by a reactionary socio-economic system. But I'd have more moral outrage about those Foxconn workers who committed suicide than a capitalist who was burned to death.

[Dimentio]

Ethics are essential. Whatever we are doing, we need to have goals, and the goals need to be defined by ethics.

[ckaihatsu]

My ultimate concern is the result on the ground - a healthy progressive sustainable socialist society in which the rights, freedoms and welfare of all workers are included and defended. I believe having an ethical system will be conducive to this goal, but if hypothetically this goal can be achieved by other means, I wouldn't be against that.

But from a democratic point of view, I seriously doubt humanity would ever do away with ethics. In fact, I don't think it is absolutely certain that humanity would completely do away with religious sentiments, let alone secular humanistic ethics.




Ethics only has concrete meaning within a concrete context, but that doesn't mean I can't use the term "ethics" in a general sense. That's almost like the logical positivist view that one cannot even talk about any terms related to value theory (ethics and aesthetics).




Your criticism here is itself very "abstract". You seem to have a tendency to go into pedantic nit-picking.


This entire *discussion* is abstract...(!)

I'll clarify by saying that my *point* is that matters of "morality" and "ethics" tend to be related to the exercise of existing power and social control. Our proletarian interests for worldwide revolution to overthrow bourgeois rule do not have to take matters of such property-minded *culture* into account -- rather, what's of importance to us are the specific *strategies* and *tactics* used to speed along our progress towards the political destination of proletarian revolution.

[stoneMonkey]

Iseul, just because a society is technologically advanced and is making good decisions about the use of technology doesn't make it a technocracy. I'm not sure but as far as I remember the political form in Star Trek was an idealized form of bourgeois parliamentary democracy.

[Dimentio]

The practical problem centres around energy accounting. Using energy to calculate an economic matter doesn't work. The problem at the route might be the mistake of presuming that you can apply fairly clinical scientific procedures to something as unpredictable as inter-human relations.

You do the mistake to assume that there would be any large-scale distributive or exchange operations conducted outside the sphere of the technate, no?

[RED DAVE]

I. In what way is EOS anti-socialist?
If the European people wants it, they could keep their traditional nation-states within the European technate, and govern the laws regulating social life and laws (and other issues not under the sphere of the technate) under their customs, for example parliamentarism in Britain combined with a constitutional monarchy, or a republic in France.http://www.eoslife.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=167:confederalism-democracy-and-technocracy&catid=35:social&Itemid=95



II. The data of our research has been assembled by Dr. Wallace and other researchers, and will soon come out in a progress work. We have several scientists from Sweden, Slovenia, the UK, Australia and the United States, and our research has moved far beyond what Howard Scott once advocated. You have evidently not read the material on the EOS website if you think we don't conduct any research.Actually, since the website is easily accessible, I've read a fair amount of it. It seems to me on the level a high school senior. It also has nothing to do with socialism.


ii.ii What I meant with a "constitutional republic" is not that it is compatible with a market system, but compatible with for example keeping a parallel structure of a constitutional monarch or the US constitution. The economy in a technate needs to be the technate in order for it to be the technate. And unlike dogmatics, I don't necessarily see any problem with for example keeping the French Fifth Republic, at least nominally, while changing the economic system of Europe.Considering that it is generally considered that the transition to socialism will involve a revolutionary republic, not a bourgeois republic, you seem to be advocating some kind of social democracy. Bourgeois states like the Fifth French Republic are the enemies of the working class, designed for the repression of the working class and have nothing to do with socialism.


Some countries have powerless monarchs, remnants of feudal systems. So if people for nostalgic reasons want to keep nominal remnants of capitalist systems, then they are free to do so as long as it doesn't affect the resource system negatively.There is nothing nominal about bourgeois states. They contain the police and war-making powers of the bourgeoisie and they are designed for the maintenance of capitalism. Part of the revolutionary process of socialism is the destruction of the bourgeois states.


III. The anti-racist activities were quite successful. We have an organised network of several activists in Umea now who meet every other Thursday.Wow. I'm sure that racists everywhere are quaking in their jack boots.


IV. Why I am here? Why not? It has been pretty successful in gaining curiousity and followers here, despite very few resources.What I meant is, since this is a website for revolutionary leftists, why are you here? I have always maintained that technocracy belongs in Other Ideologies and you seem to prove it every time you discuss it.


And lastly, why would I forget "these silly fantasies"? You are not talking with a low-ranking activist, but with one of the founders of EOS. :DAll the more reason, since you're attached to these beliefs that technocracy should be in Other Ideologies.

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

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=167:confederalism-democracy-and-technocracy&catid=35:social&Itemid=95)

Oh. What exactly is wrong with that article? I find it quite descriptive on what we intend to establish.


Considering that it is generally considered that the transition to socialism will involve a revolutionary republic, not a bourgeois republic, you seem to be advocating some kind of social democracy. Bourgeois states like the Fifth French Republic are the enemies of the working class, designed for the repression of the working class and have nothing to do with socialism.

Revolutionary republics suck.

That is why. Every Revolutionary Republic that has been established has quickly degenerated down to some kind of factional oligarchy. The separation of powers and an institutional framework codified in a constitution is necessary in order to make a system work somewhat like it is intended to work.

It shouldn't be possible to for example the "party leader" to call former competitors traitors and revisionists for disagreeing with him.

The technate is operating in another way. It is very much a cooperative monopoly on land, means of production, machinery and infrastructure, which is functionally independent from the state/confederacy/legislative powers. That mean that those latter institutions would basically sign a contract with the technate where they for example are leaving the responsibility of defense policies to the technate.

One similarity could be the way that private mega-corporations are taking over institutions in third world countries, like police, water utilities and schools. The difference of course is that the technate would be under control by the people.

The really fun thing there is that this proposed system is fool-proof, since we could utilise the structure to "protect private property" as a mean to fight private property. If the technate owns everything and is independent from the state... well, it would be harder for any reactionaries to come in and privatise parts of the technate, since the technate is not owned by the state. Thus, there is nothing to privatise and the technate could invoke the same defenses which private mega-corporations usually are utilising in order to protect themselves from nationalist or socialist leaders wanting to nationalise things. The technate could use the same measures to defend itself from right-wing governments that want to take technate property away and give it to capitalists.

That is much better than revolutionary republics with red flags that openly oppress people and make people angry.


There is nothing nominal about bourgeois states. They contain the police and war-making powers of the bourgeoisie and they are designed for the maintenance of capitalism. Part of the revolutionary process of socialism is the destruction of the bourgeois states.In the technate, the technate is taking responsibility for the defensive operations. If the people of Sweden for example keep their system, the armed forces will be operated by the technate.

People are sometimes nostalgically attached to their national anthems, their football teams, their monarchs, their churches and their states. If people want to keep those institutions, we could keep them and strip them of their power.

The goal is not that society should look a certain way, but that it should work a certain way.


Wow. I'm sure that racists everywhere are quaking in their jack boots.There are three to four racists in my town. Three of them are mentally unsound and practically locked away from society. The goal was not to fight non-existing fascist groups, but to engage people in building a sustainable society for the future.


What I meant is, since this is a website for revolutionary leftists, why are you here? I have always maintained that technocracy belongs in Other Ideologies and you seem to prove it every time you discuss it.To all extents, what we advocate would give identical overall results as socialism (with the difference that it would be more freedom for the individual under the technate since you could choose to not be a part of the social process).

Moreover, if you want to organise your holon as a worker's democracy, just do it. No one is going to stop you.

What is regulating the holons are not the project leaders (who are appointed by the people working in the holon) but the goals enshrined in the constitution. In short, your holon is allowed to do and act however it wants as long as you contribute to "the highest possible quality of life for all human beings for the longest time possible".

Do you understand or should I take it on Chinese?



All the more reason, since you're attached to these beliefs that technocracy should be in Other Ideologies.

You have still not explained why. By any measures of authoritarianism or elitism, we are surprisingly non-authoritarian and non-elitist.

Also. The main difference between EOS and you is that EOS want to institute a free access for everyone to the means and fruits of production under a technate in order to create a socially and ecologically sustainable society, while you want to do it in order to stop alienation of the working class. Our proposal will incidentally accomplish the other thing too.

In fact, I believe that when we established our first networks, there will be a snowball effect. And people will like us too, because we are innocent and cuddly and "only want" to help people achieve a better and more sustainable life. Socialists are distrusted by the public, even by the majority of the working class, because they nourish a lingering suspicion that what you want is really to establish political control over the means of production and instituting a "big government", whereas we don't have any pretensions.

Both left-wingers and right-wingers I've talked to (with a watered down version of our proposal) like us. One right-winger I talked to about it even called us "less extreme" than the Green Party, since he misinterpreted our message and thought we were a kind of cooperative/corporation.

I have also taken the initiative to tone down the rhetoric even more. For example "abolishment of private property" is instead called "public access to the means of production".

What is limiting us is not a lack of popularity, but a lack of resources.

The Zeitgeist Movement, which have a more centralised and authoritarian-technocratic model than us, are vastly more popular. People are freaked out by their authoritarianism and their lack of a transition plan though.

The EOS model of technocracy is more akin to Linux than to the Soviet Union (whereas the latter is incidentally closer to your position, especially as you have not liberated yourself of the mental image of red flags).

You see, that is the difference between us.

You care more of style than of substance, whereas I care more of substance than of style. In that aspect, you are not alone. Your main complaint is in reality that we are using cyan instead of red as our colour.

[Queercommie Girl]

Iseul, just because a society is technologically advanced and is making good decisions about the use of technology doesn't make it a technocracy. I'm not sure but as far as I remember the political form in Star Trek was an idealized form of bourgeois parliamentary democracy.

The Federation in Star Trek is not bourgeois because the economy is not based on private ownership. Show me one corporation logo from Star Trek.

In fact, it is a post-monetary economy, money isn't even in regular use. There is also no poverty, and no significant economic inequality. Therefore it can't be capitalist. The essential principle of Marxist economics would state that wherever there is capitalism, there is always significant inequality and mass poverty.

The Federation is like a Stalinist-style planned economic base with a parliamentary democratic superstructure sitting on top of it. It isn't communist, but it's utopian socialist.

If you combine the economic model of the USSR with the political model of the USA, you would get the Federation.

For a Marxist like me who doesn't intrinsically reject Stalinism, the system of the Federation is still much closer to communism than any society we have now.

[Queercommie Girl]

This entire *discussion* is abstract...(!)


In what way? I've provided quite a few concrete examples.



I'll clarify by saying that my *point* is that matters of "morality" and "ethics" tend to be related to the exercise of existing power and social control. Our proletarian interests for worldwide revolution to overthrow bourgeois rule do not have to take matters of such property-minded *culture* into account -- rather, what's of importance to us are the specific *strategies* and *tactics* used to speed along our progress towards the political destination of proletarian revolution.
And after the revolution? Ethics is innate to human society. As long as there is a society, there will be an ethical system, regardless of whether there is private property or not. Ethics is a human biological imperative, deeper than any ideological system.

Homo sapiens existed on Earth in the biological sense for 100,000 years. 95% of this time it lived in pre-class primitive communist societies without any private property. But there was certainly an ethical system in these primitive cultures, even if it's not elaborately written down like in later literate civilisations.

So if in pre-class societies there was ethics, why should there be no ethics in a post-class society?

To call ethics a manifestation of "property-minded culture" is ridiculous, since it contradicts direct empirical historical evidence. Primitive tribes without any private property all had ethics. Ethics existed for 90,000 years before class society emerged.

It's funny you think ethics is abstract but "freedom" is not. The Western bourgeois ideal of "abstract freedom" would be even more distant from Marxism-Leninism than any ideology of ethics. It makes far more sense to say that socialism is about the struggle for justice than to say that socialism is about the struggle for freedom.

[Queercommie Girl]

The mere existence of conscience, that faculty of which people prate so much nowadays, and are so ignorantly proud, is a sign of our imperfect development. It must be merged in instinct before we become fine. Self-denial is simply a method by which man arrests his progress, and self-sacrifice a survival of the mutilation of the savage, part of that old worship of pain which is so terrible a factor in the history of the world, and which even now makes its victims day by day, and has its altars in the land. Virtues! Who knows what the virtues are? Not you. Not I. Not any one. It is well for our vanity that we slay the criminal, for if we suffered him to live he might show us what we had gained by his crime. It is well for his peace that the saint goes to his martyrdom. He is spared the sight of the horror of his harvest.

Wilde, "The Critic as Artist"
This kind of continental philosophy style poetic rhetoric reminds me of ancient Chinese Daoism. Laozi once said: If benevolence and virtue are not dead, then great criminals will never cease to exist. He was referring to the hypocrisy of ruling class morality. Zhuangzi said something similar: The one who steals a fishing rod is punished, but the one who steals an entire country is made into a feudal lord.

Obviously I see the hypocrisy of ruling class morality and capitalist ethics. But such critique does not affect ethics in any intrinsic sense, all it means is that different socio-economic modes of production would have completely different kinds of ethical systems. Capitalist ethics must be replaced by socialist ethics.

[Dimentio]

Ethics are simply norms and institutions put in place to ensure that we do not break rules.

The systems for upholding the rules are generally "guilt", "shame" and "fear".

Guilt means that you yourself have attained values which make you feel disassociated when you break them. For example, when you commit a crime and no one sees you, you still feel ashamed despite that no one would ever know. This is the foundation for Greco-Christian culture.

Shame systems mean that the community is ostracising people who have committed wrongs, and that you cannot be accepted back into the community if you don't commit actions which seem self-harming. Families are also affected by socially unacceptable actions of a family member. Most collectivist cultures are based around this.

Fear. Means that if you commit an unacceptable action, you would be punished by society physically. I cannot think of any society solely based around fear.

[RED DAVE]

Revolutionary republics suck.Kind of says it all. You are not a Marxist; you are certainly not a revolutionary. Technocracy is a petit-bougeois ideology that belongs in Other Ideologies.

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

I explained why they are a bad idea if you want to consolidate the victories of a revolution.

The lack of controlled institutions and partition of powers usually either turn them into autocracies or oligarchies for a new ruling class.

If the USSR had an independent judiciary, the Stalinist purges would have been a bit harder to accomplish.

[RED DAVE]

I explained why [revolutionary republics] are a bad idea if you want to consolidate the victories of a revolution.Considering that you have no concept of the revolutionary process, especially no concept of the role of the working class. You are a reformist and, at best a social democrat.

I think you need to go back and study history before you present us with your version.


The lack of controlled institutions and partition of powers usually either turn them into autocracies or oligarchies for a new ruling class.As I said, you have no concept of the reevolutgionary process, and your notion of separation of powers is nothing more than the mirror of a bourgeois republic, whose purpose it is to repress the people and regulate capitalism.


If the USSR had an independent judiciary, the Stalinist purges would have been a bit harder to accomplish.If my grandmother had wheels, she would have been a bus. Again, you have no concept of the revolutionary process; you don't even know how it was perverted in the USSR.

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

The purpose of the separation of powers is not instituted in order to protect the ruling class from the people, but to protect the ruling class from the state. In most states where there is no separation of powers, it usually turns into the law of the jungle.

You are throwing out the baby with the bath-waster.

I know what trotskyists claim about the perversion of socialism in the USSR, but I do not agree with it.

If the World Revolution had succeeded, and the world by 1925 had been one giant socialist republic, all other factors similar, the purges and amount of violence would have been a 1000 times worse, because of the very same reason - the lack of separation of powers and rule by law.

So it is not a question about that I "have not read" history. It is that I disagree with you on a fundamental level.

[Queercommie Girl]

The purpose of the separation of powers is not instituted in order to protect the ruling class from the people, but to protect the ruling class from the state. In most states where there is no separation of powers, it usually turns into the law of the jungle.

You are throwing out the baby with the bath-waster.

I know what trotskyists claim about the perversion of socialism in the USSR, but I do not agree with it.

If the World Revolution had succeeded, and the world by 1925 had been one giant socialist republic, all other factors similar, the purges and amount of violence would have been a 1000 times worse, because of the very same reason - the lack of separation of powers and rule by law.

So it is not a question about that I "have not read" history. It is that I disagree with you on a fundamental level.

Many 3rd World capitalist countries, like India, apparently have a superficial separation of powers, but are still extremely brutal and corrupt, even more so than state-capitalist China at the moment.

[Queercommie Girl]

Considering that you have no concept of the revolutionary process, especially no concept of the role of the working class. You are a reformist and, at best a social democrat.

I think you need to go back and study history before you present us with your version.

As I said, you have no concept of the reevolutgionary process, and your notion of separation of powers is nothing more than the mirror of a bourgeois republic, whose purpose it is to repress the people and regulate capitalism.

If my grandmother had wheels, she would have been a bus. Again, you have no concept of the revolutionary process; you don't even know how it was perverted in the USSR.

RED DAVE

What political superstructure there should be in a socialist society is something that can be discussed, there is no need for dogmatism here. Having different opinions with respect to the political or cultural superstructure do not make people non-socialist at all.

For one to be a revolutionary, the only essential requirement is for one to believe in the complete overthrow of capitalism and worker's control of the means of production. It's a matter of the economic base, not the political superstructure.

[Dimentio]

Many 3rd World capitalist countries, like India, apparently have a superficial separation of powers, but are still extremely brutal and corrupt, even more so than state-capitalist China at the moment.

Yes.

But India is a capitalist country where the transition from feudalism has not yet been completed.

The Indian ruling class has managed to preserve electoral democracy though, for 63 consecutive years, and even carried out peaceful transfers of power. Sure, politicians could get murdered, but the system is surprisingly resilient.

I nourish no illusions that things wouldn't be violent during the transition. But it is my firm belief that the idea of democratic centralism and one centre of authority - the vanguard party - is a recipe for disaster.

Because whoever control the party apparatus could take out his critics by calling them reactionaries, right-wing deviators and reformists. And usually, such parties tend to end up led by a few characters similar of dave.

I know what would have happened with me had he run things.

[Queercommie Girl]

The Indian ruling class has managed to preserve electoral democracy though, for 63 consecutive years, and even carried out peaceful transfers of power. Sure, politicians could get murdered, but the system is surprisingly resilient.


Superficial political democracy doesn't mean a thing for the poor rural masses of India on the edge of starvation, or the lowest caste dalits, who are murdered at will and treated like slaves by the higher castes.

Contemporary state-capitalist China, without any electoral democracy, is actually a significantly more humane system.

[Dimentio]

Superficial political democracy doesn't mean a thing for the poor rural masses of India on the edge of starvation, or the lowest caste dalits, who are murdered at will and treated like slaves by the higher castes.

Contemporary state-capitalist China, without any electoral democracy, is actually a significantly more humane system.

Yes, I agree. Though China's "less inhumane" structure is hardly a result from the lack of balancing institutions (and it could be argued that Post-Hua China and the Post-Kruschev Soviet Union had/has some kind of rudimentary balance of powers internally).

But I was talking about separation of powers under a non-capitalist system.

If we make a revolutionary republic without separation of powers, the result would be waves of purges, either until the revolution has been defeated or supplemented with a new kind of exploitative dictatorship.

[RED DAVE]

The purpose of the separation of powers is not instituted in order to protect the ruling class from the people, but to protect the ruling class from the state. In most states where there is no separation of powers, it usually turns into the law of the jungle.Oh, please! What protection does the ruling class need from the state? The state is their instrument. Whatever details they construct are to serve their own purpose.


You are throwing out the baby with the bath-waster.You have great affection for the bourgeois state.


I know what trotskyists claim about the perversion of socialism in the USSR, but I do not agree with it.Let's see if you can back up your opinions.


If the World Revolution had succeeded, and the world by 1925 had been one giant socialist republic, all other factors similar, the purges and amount of violence would have been a 1000 times worse, because of the very same reason - the lack of separation of powers and rule by law.You are so full of shit, it's coming our of your ears. You obviously know nothing of socialism, revolution or the working class. Instead you put forth bourgeois notions such as the separation of powers.

The fundamental principle of socialism is proletarian democracy. Whatever forms this takes, this is the root and the branch. Your EOS website, which you claim is somehow relevant to socialism, does not even mention the working class.


So it is not a question about that I "have not read" history. It is that I disagree with you on a fundamental level.Of course you disagree with me. You're a social democrat with no concept of the role of the working class in history. However, you also are fairly ignorant of history, which shows in every remark you make about it.

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

Oh, please! What protection does the ruling class need from the state? The state is their instrument. Whatever details they construct are to serve their own purpose.

Generally, they need protection from themselves. The ruling class has often resorted to infighting, which occasionally has been pretty bloody. Just look at all dictators who've been assassinating competitors within their banana republics. That is the reason why Magna Charta, the US Constitution and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights were established.


You have great affection for the bourgeois state.

And if the General Secretary of the Party of the United Socialist States of America suddenly decides that you are a revisionist and should be tried in a revolutionary tribunal controlled by the Party?

Evolution. Evolution. Evolution.

When the frog turned into a lizard, it did not shed off it's lungs. Not everything in bourgeois societies are evil. Especially not the balance of powers inherent for example in the US Constitution. Those are pretty essential to provide stability and prevent that one faction takes complete control.



Let's see if you can back up your opinions.

"According to Trotsky, the Russian Revolution failed because the revolutions in Germany and Hungary failed, leaving Russia isolated. The weakness of the Russian proletariat, which was small in size, led to the bureaucratisation of the Bolshevik Party and the rise of Stalin."

Funny though, that both Stalin and Trotsky were supportive of an international revolution until 1920-1921, when the Polish campaign failed, and that both later became supporters of the "Socialism in one state" proposal, which was probably adopted by necessity rather than ideological convictions.

Stalin's and Trotsky's fighting which led to the exile and murder of the latter, is a perfect example why there needs to be division of power.


Of course you disagree with me. You're a social democrat with no concept of the role of the working class in history. However, you also are fairly ignorant of history, which shows in every remark you make about it.

I have read history since I was 11 years old. I have a particular fondness of ancient history.

I happen to disagree with Trotsky. I think the Separation of powers could have prevented Stalinism and the purges of the 1930's.

I also happen to think that you perfectly illustrate why there needs to be separation of powers in society. By the way you are debating, I wouldn't want to see you as the general secretary of a vanguard party in power.

If you happen to believe so fervently that I have no place here, why not start a thread about little me in the Members Forum and demand my restriction?

Either you do that, or stop using veiled threats in debates.

[ckaihatsu]

In what way? I've provided quite a few concrete examples.

And after the revolution? Ethics is innate to human society. As long as there is a society, there will be an ethical system, regardless of whether there is private property or not. Ethics is a human biological imperative, deeper than any ideological system.





Ethics are simply norms and institutions put in place to ensure that we do not break rules.


'Norms' is the more accurate / appropriate term here, since we're talking about the societal / political scale of things. We might say that any given social grouping, at any point in history, will develop certain social routines, just as we do as individuals. These normative routines are the societal norms, meaning that they're the prevailing behaviors because they're more or less optimal for that given constant social environment.





The Western bourgeois ideal of "abstract freedom" would be even more distant from Marxism-Leninism than any ideology of ethics. It makes far more sense to say that socialism is about the struggle for justice than to say that socialism is about the struggle for freedom.




It's funny you think ethics is abstract but "freedom" is not.


I don't know which of my words you're referring to here, but I have not used the term 'freedom'.





This kind of continental philosophy style poetic rhetoric reminds me of ancient Chinese Daoism. Laozi once said: If benevolence and virtue are not dead, then great criminals will never cease to exist. He was referring to the hypocrisy of ruling class morality. Zhuangzi said something similar: The one who steals a fishing rod is punished, but the one who steals an entire country is made into a feudal lord.

Obviously I see the hypocrisy of ruling class morality and capitalist ethics. But such critique does not affect ethics in any intrinsic sense, all it means is that different socio-economic modes of production would have completely different kinds of ethical systems. Capitalist ethics must be replaced by socialist ethics.


I'm pretty sure I'm in agreement here in the abstract, but you may want to put forth some outline of a 'socialist ethics'.





In most states where there is no separation of powers, it usually turns into the law of the jungle.




The purpose of the separation of powers is not instituted in order to protect the ruling class from the people, but to protect the ruling class from the state.


I'd say it's both. (See diagram, attached.)





If we make a revolutionary republic without separation of powers, the result would be waves of purges, either until the revolution has been defeated or supplemented with a new kind of exploitative dictatorship.


This is both formulistic and presumptuous -- what matters more than the sub-structures within a bureaucracy is the material-political basis of the bureaucracy itself. Currently the bureaucracy is a bourgeois one, separated into three branches of government -- this is just mere formalism since the government functions as a single entity.

You're being flippantly dismissive of a revolutionary workers' administration here -- what you call "purges" may very well be valid revolutionary activity against counter-revolutionary forces. You also presume that valid revolutionary activity would necessarily either be defeated or would, if successful, produce a dictatorship. This is nothing more than unfounded pessimism and expecting history to automatically repeat itself.


Ideologies & Operations -- Left Centrifugalism

http://postimage.org/image/1g4s6wax0/

http://postimage.org/image/2cvo2d7fo/

[Dimentio]

I don't mean that a failure is deterministic, but that it increases the likelihood of failure when suddenly all those who originally carried out the revolution are accused of being counter-revolutionaries and executed/put in forced labour camps. For me, the most important issue is the issue of likelihoods.

[ckaihatsu]

I don't mean that a failure is deterministic, but that it increases the likelihood of failure when suddenly all those who originally carried out the revolution are accused of being counter-revolutionaries and executed/put in forced labour camps. For me, the most important issue is the issue of likelihoods.


This line isn't "deterministic" -- it's *fatalistic*. You're contending that a certain outcome is inevitable without providing any kind of reasoning to back it up.

[Dimentio]

I haven't said it is inevitable. I have said there is a profound risk for a collapse if those who carry out a revolution cannot accept disagreements and are preoccupied with trying to root out alleged counter-revolutionaries.

[ckaihatsu]

I haven't said it is inevitable. I have said there is a profound risk for a collapse if those who carry out a revolution cannot accept disagreements and are preoccupied with trying to root out alleged counter-revolutionaries.


Again, I find this to be an incredibly pessimistic sentiment -- certainly it's a very bad attitude for anyone going into any kind of political activity.

What you're describing could simply be called the messiness of politics, but you're also being decidedly glass-half-empty about it, too -- I will counterpose your sentiment by noting that as the working class attains collective power it would more likely be *solidarized* in victory, turning its attentions to immediately punishing its defeated class foe's *leading agents* for their war crimes.

Finally, I think you're imputing a coloration of dramatic intrigue onto the practice of politics generally -- politics is hardly so mysterious and cloak-and-dagger as you're making it out to be. And especially in our contemporary times of the Information Revolution there is more data readily available around those who take part in public life, for the political and historical record.

[Dimentio]

If we analyse all risks and potential setbacks, we could be better prepared to fight against and evade them.

My Machiavelli still helps me.

[ckaihatsu]

I haven't said it is inevitable. I have said there is a profound risk for a collapse if those who carry out a revolution cannot accept disagreements and are preoccupied with trying to root out alleged counter-revolutionaries.


One rule of thumb to avoid getting pulled down into the minutiae of social intrigue is to focus one's political attentions on the prevailing *policy*, since that's what affects millions and billions of lives -- this is about *macro* forces, after all.... (Note the 'policy' component in the first diagram attached, below.)





The purpose of the separation of powers is not instituted in order to protect the ruling class from the people, but to protect the ruling class from the state.





I'd say it's both.


My reasoning here -- since I didn't include any -- is that as the ruling class' own inherent (structural) power weakens -- say during the transition from monarchical forms to parliamentary forms -- it finds that it has to resort to increasing degrees of power *sharing*, spreading positions around to a bureaucracy, for instance.

A bureaucracy knows that its authority is derived from the social arrangement based on class, but at the same time it is also able to carve out a layer of its own, to limited extents -- the governmental apparatus will grow and democratize as its parent ruling class weakens, and will shrink during periods in which the ruling class offensive has the upper hand.

I would indicate a basic (nationalist) entity as 'autarkic' -- the lower-right corner in the chart below, attached. Over time its governmental bureaucracy could *expand* at the expense of its ruling class, moving it in a Stalinistic direction, or else its bureaucracy could *weaken* as its controlling ruling class becomes less dependent on it as a bulwark against the working class -- this would indicate imperialistic expansion over conquered lands and markets.


Consciousness, A Material Definition

http://postimage.org/image/35t4i1jc4/


Political Spectrum, Simplified

http://postimage.org/image/35tmoycro/

[Dimentio]

Your contributions are probably valid and insightful.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Something tells me you're approaching separation of powers from the wrong angle. There should be separation of defense from childcare, but within each separate sphere there should be unity of lawmaking and execution power.

Also, rule of law is a bourgeois concept. Any illegal mass political action is automatically deemed as "violent," "mob rule," etc. Something along the lines of "rules" should replace the concept of "law" with its army of lawyers and judges.

[Dimentio]

Something tells me you're approaching separation of powers from the wrong angle. There should be separation of defense from childcare, but within each separate sphere there should be unity of lawmaking and execution power.

Also, rule of law is a bourgeois concept. Any illegal mass political action is automatically deemed as "violent," "mob rule," etc. Something along the lines of "rules" should replace the concept of "law" with its army of lawyers and judges.

Look at the EOS constitution. It is based on goals rather than procedures.

[RED DAVE]

Oh, please! What protection does the ruling class need from the state? The state is their instrument. Whatever details they construct are to serve their own purpose.
Generally, they need protection from themselves.Nowhere near as much as they need to regulate the beast they ride for profit and fun and need protection from the masses.


The ruling class has often resorted to infighting, which occasionally has been pretty bloody.Nothing compared to what they do to the working class, minorities and women.


Just look at all dictators who've been assassinating competitors within their banana republics. That is the reason why Magna Charta, the US Constitution and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights were established.The state is primarily required to defend all these swine from those who they exploit and repress.

Then of course, there's war, which is definitely, dollar for dollar, the ruling classes favorite sport and for which its state is designed.


You have great affection for the bourgeois state.
And if the General Secretary of the Party of the United Socialist States of America suddenly decides that you are a revisionist and should be tried in a revolutionary tribunal controlled by the Party?You have great affection for the bourgeois state.

I'll let the working class deal with what happens in the revolutionary republic of the world.


Evolution. Evolution. Evolution.I'm all for it.


When the frog turned into a lizard, it did not shed off it's lungs. Not everything in bourgeois societies are evil.No but the bourgeois state is. By the way, biological analogies to political processes are pretty lame.


Especially not the balance of powers inherent for example in the US Constitution. Those are pretty essential to provide stability and prevent that one faction takes complete control.you have great affection for the bourgeois state and have no concept of the revolutionary process.


Let's see if you can back up your opinions.
"According to Trotsky, the Russian Revolution failed because the revolutions in Germany and Hungary failed, leaving Russia isolated. The weakness of the Russian proletariat, which was small in size, led to the bureaucratisation of the Bolshevik Party and the rise of Stalin."Okay.


Funny though, that both Stalin and Trotsky were supportive of an international revolution until 1920-1921, when the Polish campaign failed, and that both later became supporters of the "Socialism in one state" proposal, which was probably adopted by necessity rather than ideological convictions.Uhh, comrade, I think that you will have to do your research in an alternative universe before you find Trotsky supporting socialism in one country.


Stalin's and Trotsky's fighting which led to the exile and murder of the latter, is a perfect example why there needs to be division of power.yeah, a Supreme Court would certainly have been able to rein Stalin in.

Jeez, Dimentio, do you read what you write?


Of course you disagree with me. You're a social democrat with no concept of the role of the working class in history. However, you also are fairly ignorant of history, which shows in every remark you make about it.
I have read history since I was 11 years old. I have a particular fondness of ancient history.I suggest, then, that you confine your remarks to ancient history and leave revolutionary history to people who study and practice it.


I happen to disagree with Trotsky. I think the Separation of powers could have prevented Stalinism and the purges of the 1930's.Yeah. I can just see a Supreme Court handing down a ruling telling Stalin to stop engaging being a bad boy.


I also happen to think that you perfectly illustrate why there needs to be separation of powers in society. By the way you are debating, I wouldn't want to see you as the general secretary of a vanguard party in power.Well, I wouldn't want to see you, with your bizarre social democratic ideas, anywhere near power. As for me, I'm happy being a shop steward.


If you happen to believe so fervently that I have no place here, why not start a thread about little me in the Members Forum and demand my restriction?If I'm so inclined, I will do so. I certainly think that Technocracy needs to be placed under Other Ideologies as it has nothing to do with revolution or the left, except in your fantasies.


Either you do that, or stop using veiled threats in debates.In New York City, is the world's largest store: Macy's. It has large display windows facing the street.

I invite you to come to New York, and in one of those display windows, kiss my ass.

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

Of course, a worker's state would need regulations too, and procedures, in order to protect the working people from would-be tyrants.


Yeah. I can just see a Supreme Court handing down a ruling telling Stalin to stop engaging being a bad boy.

If the security apparatus wasn't under the control of the Central Committee, it would have been much less risk that it could be used for the singular interests for one faction.


Well, I wouldn't want to see you, with your bizarre social democratic ideas, anywhere near power. As for me, I'm happy being a shop steward.

I prefer Social Democracies before Slaughterhouses. Social Democracies do not accomplish anything, while Slaughterhouses accomplish human corpses.


If I'm so inclined, I will do so. I certainly think that Technocracy needs to be placed under Other Ideologies as it has nothing to do with revolution or the left, except in your fantasies.

Okay. Just do it then.


In New York City, is the world's largest store: Macy's. It has large display windows facing the street.

I invite you to come to New York, and in one of those display windows, kiss my ass.

And if I enjoy kissing asses? ;)

[Summerspeaker]

I'm fond of technocracy as a critique because it so effectively refutes the efficiency pretensions of mainstream economists. Their supposed rational and scientific system fails to provide for the common good from a technical point of view. Analyzing the theoretical capabilities of productive technology puts the faults of capitalism into stark relief.

[Dimentio]

I'm fond of technocracy as a critique because it so effectively refutes the efficiency pretensions of mainstream economists. Their supposed rational and scientific system fails to provide for the common good from a technical point of view. Analyzing the theoretical capabilities of productive technology puts the faults of capitalism into stark relief.

The only really interesting point of view of the 1930's technocrats were energy accounting and governance based on empiric facts. The structure itself is authoritarian and hierarchic. Therefore, EOS has proposed a more de-centralised, holarchic and libertarian structure for the technate.

[Summerspeaker]

No doubt. Howard Scott's group turned super scary as the years went by. Henry Elsner assessment of the movement as authoritarian leftist rather than fascist strikes me as accurate.

[Dimentio]

No doubt. Howard Scott's group turned super scary as the years went by. Henry Elsner assessment of the movement as authoritarian leftist rather than fascist strikes me as accurate.

Scott alienated most engineers and scientists in the middle thirties, since he was some kind of loud-mouthed alpha male character who wanted it HIS way or NO WAY. I think it is great that the movement did not succeed, since I do believe that the authoritarian tendencies in the structure would have compromised the material and social benefits and also alienated the American and Canadian peoples, as well as forever staining technocracy.

The good thing with being a part of a movement which never have had any power, is the innocence. We don't have any killing fields we need to distance ourselves from or apologise for.

[Demogorgon]

You do the mistake to assume that there would be any large-scale distributive or exchange operations conducted outside the sphere of the technate, no?That wasn't what I was talking about. I was coming back to the fundamental problem that human economic activity is not like a natural force and can not be managed in the same way. Energy as I have said before is not a relevant unit of measurement with respect to economic activity.

Moving onto the separation of powers debate, I agree as it happens that courts should be independent, I think history proves the reason for that well enough, but you are probably mistaken if you think an independent judiciary could have stopped Stalin. Under the circumstances if the courts had stood up to him, he would simply have had the Judges arrested on some invented charge. The Soviet State by this point was not interested in obeying its own laws and would have ignored judges who tried to enforce them. Other dictatorships where courts have attempted to enforce the law have provided examples of what tends to happen.

Nevertheless courts should be independent because in normal situations where the Government is mindful of obeying the law the courts need to be neutral. Certain other separation of power as it is sometimes practiced is problematic though. I refer specifically to separation of the Executive and Legislative powers as seen in Presidential systems. That kind of system is designed to produce in built deadlock and hence a status quo bias. This is particularly true in places like America with strong separation within the legislature with symmetrical but non-congruent bicameralism.

I think DNZ is onto something when he talks about separation of powers between different aspects of Governance rather than between lawmaking and enforcement of it, though I wouldn't go as far as him. You could probably split it in two with a Government dealing with matters we would currently consider political (including certain economic matters like health, education and a welfare state) and another authority managing the broader economy, essentially bringing the whole economy under democratic control without vesting all the power in the authority that also gets to make criminal law (a situation with a dubious track record).

[ckaihatsu]

I'm posting the diagram below, attached, to illustrate my following point here that [1] politics and [2] economics are fundamental social dynamics and cannot be blithely cleaved apart upon the mere intention of an author. (The diagram is not here for the sake of the argument it depicts.)





I think DNZ is onto something when he talks about separation of powers between different aspects of Governance rather than between lawmaking and enforcement of it, though I wouldn't go as far as him. You could probably split it in two with a Government dealing with matters we would currently consider political (including certain economic matters like health, education and a welfare state) and another authority managing the broader economy, essentially bringing the whole economy under democratic control without vesting all the power in the authority that also gets to make criminal law (a situation with a dubious track record).


If we're talking about a feasible post-capitalist mass co-administration of society then there's no point to inventing these contrived bureaucratic separations -- it's merely formalistic and only parrots current bourgeois forms.

It may be helpful to start at the end, with matters of distribution, and then work backwards towards the beginning to see what could enable those end results. I've been particularly impressed with a fairly recent posting on this topic from Victus Mortuum, for whatever it's worth:








It's about distribution systems. Communism (socialism with communal distribution) is usually conceived as a gift economy, but I think a democratic-community model of distribution is a much more accurate depiction of what the intent is. Hypothetically you could have various cities democratically deciding to have different distribution models for different product groups. That seems the most workable model to me.

- Market
- Labor vouchers
- Communal-Democratic
- Gift





This is an excellent point, one I'm surprised we haven't seen earlier. You're placing these various, differentiated methods of distribution on a sliding scale according to the relative *abundance* of the component goods and services produced within.

Perhaps, then, one of the major tasks of a mass collectivized political economy administrating all of this would be to simply categorize *all* goods and services according to their abundant availability, on this sliding scale -- I picture it as a circular bulls-eye centralized point of (all) production, radiating its production outward, with gift distribution closest to the center (indicating abundance), then a bulk-pooled communal-democratic method outside of that, followed by a ratio-based labor voucher system outside of that, with a market-type system (of floating exchange rates) on the outlying peripheral area for least-common and more-specialized items.





In a fully evolved technate, worker's democracy wouldn't make any sense since there wouldn't be any workers in the sense there is under capitalism. Neither is the technate responsible for laws or social values. That is up to whatever form of government the people locally, regionally or globally are setting up.

The only thing the technate is supposed to concern itself with is the rational management of the resources so that all individuals could get what they need and want within the constraints of what nature could provide them with.

That is pretty indistinguishable from socialism, and also more libertarian than for example the solution advocated by many marxist-leninists.


You're brushing aside the concept of a workers' democracy, yet you invite the people en masse to set up whatever form of government they think would be most appropriate. This, then, *could* be open to a working class revolution that establishes soviet-type groupings of industrial (productive) administration, if that's what the people would support.

And, you're for "the rational management of the resources so that all individuals could get what they need and want within the constraints of what nature could provide them with", which you term as being "pretty indistinguishable from socialism".

So, then, dismissing a workers' democracy here in favor of concentrating on the sheer technical operations of production can only be described as a kind of sectarianism, since *some* body of people would have to interface with those productive implements, whatever they were, and in so doing would have distinct interests in common as 'workers'.





ii.ii What I meant with a "constitutional republic" is not that it is compatible with a market system, but compatible with for example keeping a parallel structure of a constitutional monarch or the US constitution. The economy in a technate needs to be the technate in order for it to be the technate. And unlike dogmatics, I don't necessarily see any problem with for example keeping the French Fifth Republic, at least nominally, while changing the economic system of Europe. Some countries have powerless monarchs, remnants of feudal systems. So if people for nostalgic reasons want to keep nominal remnants of capitalist systems, then they are free to do so as long as it doesn't affect the resource system negatively.


Here you're toying around with various formations of government throughout history as if they were merely action figures to be played with on a whim -- in practice they result from the real productive and economic bases of a society and so are intertwined with those fundamental productive / economic bases. If such governmental-type formations were to be treated as just so much ceremonial decoration -- like the monarchical figureheads of old that still linger around today -- then it would only *beg the question* of where the *real* politics was taking place, and in whose interests.


[7] Syndicalism-Socialism-Communism Transition Diagram

http://postimage.org/image/1bufa71ms/

[Dimentio]

The tecnate would be the operation responsible for that. The foundation for the operations would be the constitution, which stipulates the overall goals of the technate. People could have a significant influence over the projects they are working on, and they could also elect their project leaders (providing that those have the right competence for the tasks), but they could not and should not depart from the goals.

If people want to keep old structures, because of nostalgic reasons, they won't be abolished, but stripped of their powers.

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

It is explained here. People would manage themselves essentially, the technate would manage resources, infrastructure and production.

The productive implements are decided by workers not in terms as producers, but as consumers.

[ckaihatsu]

If people want to keep old structures, because of nostalgic reasons, they won't be abolished, but stripped of their powers.





[Y]ou're toying around with various formations of government throughout history as if they were merely action figures to be played with on a whim -- in practice they result from the real productive and economic bases of a society and so are intertwined with those fundamental productive / economic bases. If such governmental-type formations were to be treated as just so much ceremonial decoration -- like the monarchical figureheads of old that still linger around today -- then it would only *beg the question* of where the *real* politics was taking place, and in whose interests.





The foundation for the operations would be the constitution, which stipulates the overall goals of the technate. People could have a significant influence over the projects they are working on, and they could also elect their project leaders (providing that those have the right competence for the tasks), but they could not and should not depart from the goals.




The productive implements are decided by workers not in terms as producers, but as consumers.


This is problematic since those who work at the means of mass production (productive implements) are, by function / definition, *workers*, and are not necessarily consumers as well. In any developed, industrialized economy those who work will be more efficient within production if they are in more-routinized, more-specialized positions within a larger division of labor roles -- that is, assembly-line production through various nodes in a cascading supply chain. Because of this routinization and specialization, those who work will *not* be consuming *only* what they produce themselves, nor would they be *able* to consume the vast quantities of what they themselves produce -- the productive economy would be more variegated and complexified than any artisan-type whole-product production.

So if it is *workers* who work at the productive implements (means of mass production), then shouldn't it be those *workers* who collectively determine *how* those implements are utilized? They may decide to direct their production towards the goals / demands put forth by consumers, but clearly the workers at the implements would not be *synonymous* with those who are consumers.

[Dimentio]

They would by necessity be consumers too, because there is not any differentiation by income in a technate. People don't get wages, since there isn't any money. Instead, people get a share of the production capacity which they could allocate to what they want produced for themselves.

That is actually better than having workers producing stuff for their own needs, since not all workers have identical spheres of talent. Some might produce computers, while others might produce food. But both groups need both utilities. Barter or a centrally planned economy both have disadvantages. Energy accounting has very few in comparison, and no group would be disadvantaged.

Specialisation - which is the case under any industrial system - means that no worker or no single group of workers could completely produce everything for their own needs without a severe loss of efficiency. It often takes several years to learn to operate industrial systems nowadays. We must also take into account that fewer and fewer workers constantly are needed for a productive process (which capitalism has solved by inflating the service sector and the bureaucracy).

[ckaihatsu]

[Workers] would by necessity be consumers too, because there is not any differentiation by income in a technate.


Yes, I understand that people who work will also consume, but surely you understand and recognize that the two things are *different* functions, or modes of living, with distinctly *different* interests, inherently -- ? (For example those who are working may find that they need break time, away from the work routine, during the course of the work day. One who is in the mode of consuming may readily "take a break" from consumptive activities without it affecting other people.)





It often takes several years to learn to operate industrial systems nowadays. We must also take into account that fewer and fewer workers constantly are needed for a productive process (which capitalism has solved by inflating the service sector and the bureaucracy).


And do you acknowledge that, regardless of the productive process and/or productive implements, there will have to be *some* kind of concentrated attention paid to the task of operating the machinery, for the purpose of production -- ? This, then, would be correctly called 'work' since it differs from other modes of living, like 'consuming'.





So if it is *workers* who work at the productive implements (means of mass production), then shouldn't it be those *workers* who collectively determine *how* those implements are utilized? They may decide to direct their production towards the goals / demands put forth by consumers, but clearly the workers at the implements would not be *synonymous* with those who are consumers.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Moving onto the separation of powers debate, I agree as it happens that courts should be independent, I think history proves the reason for that well enough, but you are probably mistaken if you think an independent judiciary could have stopped Stalin. Under the circumstances if the courts had stood up to him, he would simply have had the Judges arrested on some invented charge. The Soviet State by this point was not interested in obeying its own laws and would have ignored judges who tried to enforce them. Other dictatorships where courts have attempted to enforce the law have provided examples of what tends to happen.

Nevertheless courts should be independent because in normal situations where the Government is mindful of obeying the law the courts need to be neutral.

The problem arises with the question of bourgeois federalism. I proposed the Third World context of presidents being able to pack constitutional courts (not criminal courts or civil courts) precisely to overcome the "states rights" or "provincial rights" garbage. In this, I like Chavez's relationship with his "servile" Supreme Court.

A separate court for dealing with the central government vs. lower jurisdictions should be packed and sacked by and biased towards the former.


I think DNZ is onto something when he talks about separation of powers between different aspects of Governance rather than between lawmaking and enforcement of it, though I wouldn't go as far as him. You could probably split it in two with a Government dealing with matters we would currently consider political (including certain economic matters like health, education and a welfare state) and another authority managing the broader economy, essentially bringing the whole economy under democratic control without vesting all the power in the authority that also gets to make criminal law (a situation with a dubious track record).

A DOTP need not necessarily go as far as Burnheim's suggestion in the immediate stages. On the level of reforms, there's a split into two, though not your arrangement: the "night watchman" state / Marxist definition of the state re. core functions, and the "social" governance (the whole welfare state thing). On the level of the immediate DOTP, there's a split into three or four: State, Social, Labour (added this one to perform statistical and audit functions and then some), and Economic.

[Dimentio]

And do you acknowledge that, regardless of the productive process and/or productive implements, there will have to be *some* kind of concentrated attention paid to the task of operating the machinery, for the purpose of production -- ? This, then, would be correctly called 'work' since it differs from other modes of living, like 'consuming'.

Yes of course. But that is something regulated through holons. All works in the technate model proposed by EOS are done within the framework of holons, which team together to form larger structural organisations.


http://www.eoslife.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=75:holons-and-a-holonic-society&catid=27:engineering&Itemid=95

The holons decide how they should produce things, but their decisions need to be placed within a specific framework of goals. They do not, however, decide what people should consume through a planned economy. People decide what they want to consume.

[RED DAVE]

People would manage themselves essentially, the technate would manage resources, infrastructure and production.

The productive implements are decided by workers not in terms as producers, but as consumers.Translation: workers control of production is out the window. The economy will be managed by experts.

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

Wrong, that would be a planned economy. While some planned components would be needed, like infrastructure, resources and industries, most of the economic decision power would be under control of the people.

Step 1: An accounting of all available resource capacity within Earth's carrying capacity is made.

Step 2: All human beings get an equal share of the access to that resource capacity.

Step 3: They allocate their energy credits to what they want produced for themselves.

Step 4: The production is adapted after what all human beings, as individuals, are asking after.

The experts are working within the holons, and those who are working in the project teams elect their project leaders. The only criteria is that the project leaders must have sufficient knowledge and competence within what they are doing.

What is regulating the production process is not the whims of "experts" but the goals stated in the constitution. Products must follow certain criteria.

For many of the members within EOS, the greatest problem of Capitalism is that it is a long-term threat to human survival and dignity on this planet. Right now, 133% of the Earth's yearly regeneration capacity is used every year. That means that biological diversity is reduced every year. At the same time, Capitalism is unable to provide for people. 41 000 children starves to death each day. In one year, that makes considerably over 6 million children (the food produced today would be enough to feed 12 billion people).

[L.A.P.]

From what I know about technocracy (which isn't much), it's the idea that people such as engineers, scientist, etc. should be in charge of their fields instead of business owners. That sounds pretty compatible with socialism to me.

[Dimentio]

From what I know about technocracy (which isn't much), it's the idea that people such as engineers, scientist, etc. should be in charge of their fields instead of business owners. That sounds pretty compatible with socialism to me.

That is soooo 1930's. We are in the 21st century now. Our goal is to have an open source system constituted of numerous autonomous parts working in concert, utilising the best parts of both planned and market economies, while shedding the shit from both of them.

Look into: http://eoslife.eu

[Queercommie Girl]

From what I know about technocracy (which isn't much), it's the idea that people such as engineers, scientist, etc. should be in charge of their fields instead of business owners. That sounds pretty compatible with socialism to me.


Not in its pure form, since the majority of workers are not scientific or technological specialists, but every worker deserve a political voice, including those who are less educated. As Lenin puts it, a cook can become the prime minister of the country.

Socialism can borrow elements from technocracy, but technocracy in its pure form is not a simple equivalent of socialism.

[RED DAVE]

That is soooo 1930's.And technocracy, in its modern form is still sooooooo 1930's with the bullshit about energy surveys, capitalism as a price system and your systematic ignoring of the role of the working class in history.


We are in the 21st century now. Our goal is to have an open source system constituted of numerous autonomous parts working in concert, utilising the best parts of both planned and market economies, while shedding the shit from both of them.Our goal is revolutionary socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat, not some petit-bourgeois gobbledy-gook.


Look into: http://eoslife.euI suggest that everyone look here by all means. Words that are missing: "socialism," "working class," "revolution," workers control."

The history of Technocracy is tainted with authoritarianism and contempt for the working class and socialism. This cannot be dismissed with a wave of the future as this is built into the system. If you take away from Technocracy such nonsense as capitalism as a price system, administration of the economy by technical experts, etc., you have nothing.

RED DAVE

[Queercommie Girl]

If you take away from Technocracy such nonsense as capitalism as a price system, administration of the economy by technical experts, etc., you have nothing.


I agree that the scientific field of economics is generally not the strong point of technocrats. Marxist economics is a much better analysis.

However, economic administration by technical experts does have its positive points. You do realise that technically technical experts are also working class, especially if their actual wage is no higher than the working class average? Socialism can borrow elements from technocracy, as long as they are under genuine democratic control.

I'm politically Leninist but culturally anarchist. What I mean by this is that what features one should have in the superstructure can be discussed and debated. There is no need for dogmatism in this area, as long as the economic base remains firmly socialist.

Of course, I don't agree with Dimentio's idea that technocracy is simply "equivalent" to socialism, because it's not.

[RED DAVE]

I agree that the scientific field of economics is generally not the strong point of technocrats. Marxist economics is a much better analysis.Technocracy's "analysis" is stupid.


However, economic administration by technical experts does have its positive points.If you're an elitist of some sort.


You do realise that technically technical experts are also working class, especially if their actual wage is no higher than the working class average? This is a serious fallacy. If these so-called t4echnical experts are making decisions that are not under the direct control of the working class, they are in a different class. This is a serious mistake.


Socialism can borrow elements from technocracy, as long as they are under genuine democratic control.There is nothing that socialism can get from technocracy other than a good laugh. TYechnocracy is elitist to the core. However the working class decides to administer the means of production, it will have nothing to do with technocracy. Take a look at their website: petit-bourgeois nonsense. It isn't even particularly radical.


I'm politically Leninist but culturally anarchist. What I mean by this is that what features one should have in the superstructure can be discussed and debated. There is no need for dogmatism in this area, as long as the economic base remains firmly socialist.I lean the same say as you. This is a system that is/was closer to fascism than to anything on the left. It has a complete lack of working class content in theory, practice and history.


Of course, I don't agree with Dimentio's idea that technocracy is simply "equivalent" to socialism, because it's not.It's not in the same league; we don't play the same game.

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

I have actually taken the liberty to alter some terms. We used to have an article where we talked about abolishing private property. I changed it to "enabling public access to the means of production" or something like that. We should work to appear as non-radical as possible, since that would maximise our window of potential support under our current size and influence.

I have noticed that you haven't mentioned energy accounting, and exactly what is wrong with energy surveys? Would your proposed system simply ignore the carrying capacity of the planet?

Also, you have consistently ignored every thread where I explain how EOS isn't authoritarian.

Your tactic is basically to build strawmen and then burn them, which is making debates with you excessively tiresome.

[Demogorgon]

If we're talking about a feasible post-capitalist mass co-administration of society then there's no point to inventing these contrived bureaucratic separations -- it's merely formalistic and only parrots current bourgeois forms.

That's true to an extent but it is worth talking about what is feasible and that involves examining what currently exists and how it should be changed. New systems don't appear fully formed out of a vacuum, they reflect the developments of previous systems.

The problem arises with the question of bourgeois federalism. I proposed the Third World context of presidents being able to pack constitutional courts (not criminal courts or civil courts) precisely to overcome the "states rights" or "provincial rights" garbage. In this, I like Chavez's relationship with his "servile" Supreme Court.

I don't particularly like the idea of packing courts to be honest. If they need to be packed then it is a sign that they have too much political power in the first place. Ordinary courts should not be ruling on political questions at all, that should go to the constitutional court which could only strike down laws in extreme circumstances if they were nakedly unconstitutional. It could of course be given a broader role interpreting the best way to interpret laws in a constitutional manner when this isn't clear as well as the main role of ruling on demarcation disputes between different institutions which leads me too.


A separate court for dealing with the central government vs. lower jurisdictions should be packed and sacked by and biased towards the former.You want to be very careful here because whether that is a good thing depends on the precise political situation. Where lower units are pleading "states' rights" to try and prevent change you want the centre to prevail, but when it is lower units pushing most strongly for the change in the first place, then they should prevail.


A DOTP need not necessarily go as far as Burnheim's suggestion in the immediate stages. On the level of reforms, there's a split into two, though not your arrangement: the "night watchman" state / Marxist definition of the state re. core functions, and the "social" governance (the whole welfare state thing). On the level of the immediate DOTP, there's a split into three or four: State, Social, Labour (added this one to perform statistical and audit functions and then some), and Economic.I'm aware of that proposal and the difference with mine. it has a long pedigree, but I disagree with it, I think it ignores the way the state has evolved up until now. I think attempting to have any kind of night watchman body now is no longer realistic and at any rate it would probably compromise the democratic quality of the body to not let it have a social role. My division attempts to divide between matters likely to be more contested (which includes both the law and things like health and education) and give them to one body and things where it is more about getting consensus and having the widest possible input and giving them to others.

I note your preference for a greater division than that and agree with it to an extent. As a step towards that perhaps every political portfolio could have a separate assembly chosen by sortition scrutinising and advising whoever is responsible for it.

[ckaihatsu]

---





That's true to an extent but it is worth talking about what is feasible and that involves examining what currently exists and how it should be changed. New systems don't appear fully formed out of a vacuum, they reflect the developments of previous systems.





Russian Revolution of 1917

The popular organizations which came into existence during the Russian Revolution of 1917 were called “Councils of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies.” These bodies were supposed to be holding things together under the provisional government until the election of a constituent assembly could take place; in a sense, they were vigilance committees designed to guard against counter-revolution.




The Bolsheviks and their allies came out with a program called “soviet government.” The soviet system was described as “a higher type of state” and “a higher form of democracy” which would “arouse the masses of the exploited toilers to the task of making new history.” Furthermore, it offered “to the oppressed toiling masses the opportunity to participate actively in the free construction of a new society.” According to Lenin, the author of these quotations, soviet rule “is nothing else than the organized form of the dictatorship of the proletariat.” A code of rules governing elections to the soviets was framed, but the following classes were disqualified to vote: “Those who employ others for profit; those who live on incomes not derived from their own work — interest on capital, industrial enterprises or landed property; private business men, agents, middlemen; monks and priests of all denominations; ex-employees of the old police services and members of the Romanov dynasty; lunatics and criminals.”[note 1]

With village and factory soviets as a base, there arose a vast pyramid of district, cantonal, county and regional soviets, each with its executive soviet. Over and above these stood the “All-Russian Soviet Congress,” which appointed an “All-Russian Central Executive Committee” of not more than 200 members, which in turn chooses the “Soviet of People's Commissaries” — the Ministry. Beginning with a minimum of three and maximum of 50 members for smaller communities, the maximum for town soviets was fixed at 1,000 members. The soviet system was seen as an alternative to parliamentary systems for administering republican governments.[note 1]




en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_(council)

[RED DAVE]

I have actually taken the liberty to alter some terms. We used to have an article where we talked about abolishing private property. I changed it to "enabling public access to the means of production" or something like that. We should work to appear as non-radical as possible, since that would maximise our window of potential support under our current size and influence.We have a word for that on the Left: it's called opportunism.


I have noticed that you haven't mentioned energy accounting, and exactly what is wrong with energy surveys? Would your proposed system simply ignore the carrying capacity of the planet?Energy surveys are about as controversial and radical as a population census. They have nothing to do with socialism. They are a fetish in your politics left over from the days of Howard Scott; likewise, the defintion of capitalism as a price system.


Also, you have consistently ignored every thread where I explain how EOS isn't authoritarian.You can explainit all you want, but as soon as you separate adminstration of the economy from power, you have created a bureaucracy.

And, by the way, why would the workers, having shed their blood to overthrow capitalism and take over the economy, turn its administration over to technocratic experts?


Your tactic is basically to build strawmen and then burn them, which is making debates with you excessively tiresome.If you don't like criticism, take your petit-brougeois, anti-socialist belief system over to Other Ideologies where it belongs. Otherwise, expect criticism.

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

We have a word for that on the Left: it's called opportunism.

Like when Lenin promised all land to the peasants and then the state kind of took it?


Energy surveys are about as controversial and radical as a population census. They have nothing to do with socialism. They are a fetish in your politics left over from the days of Howard Scott; likewise, the defintion of capitalism as a price system.

I think it is pretty necessary to define the carrying capacity of the planet at any given point, don't you agree?

I also think it is pretty radical to give all human beings equal access to the resource base. Don't you agree?


You can explainit all you want, but as soon as you separate adminstration of the economy from power, you have created a bureaucracy.

And, by the way, why would the workers, having shed their blood to overthrow capitalism and take over the economy, turn its administration over to technocratic experts?

But the people do have the power to control production in a technate. As I explained again, again and again, people allocate their EC's to what they want produced for themselves, and receive the products and services in return.


If you don't like criticism, take your petit-brougeois, anti-socialist belief system over to Other Ideologies where it belongs. Otherwise, expect criticism.

Strawmen isn't criticism. It is like.

"I believe that socialism would..."

"Baby Eater!"

"Socialism is about worker's control over the means of production..."

"You want to TAKE OUR GUNS!"

Also, if you want to take this into OI, you would have to take me to OI. So bring it on. ^^

[ckaihatsu]

Your outline here is more descriptive of an enlarged bureaucratic protective state apparatus, in the best possible sense of the formulation -- while you've expressed profound pessimism about the revolutionary endeavor generally you nonetheless are advocating a Stalinist-type administration by specialists.

Marxism would *generalize* the work roles and work load *even further* than this, away from capitalism's commodification of labor, and so would be preferable to this technocratic model that features an artificial separation between productive and social modes within society.





Wrong, that would be a planned economy. While some planned components would be needed, like infrastructure, resources and industries, most of the economic decision power would be under control of the people.

Step 1: An accounting of all available resource capacity within Earth's carrying capacity is made.

Step 2: All human beings get an equal share of the access to that resource capacity.

Step 3: They allocate their energy credits to what they want produced for themselves.

Step 4: The production is adapted after what all human beings, as individuals, are asking after.

The experts are working within the holons, and those who are working in the project teams elect their project leaders. The only criteria is that the project leaders must have sufficient knowledge and competence within what they are doing.

What is regulating the production process is not the whims of "experts" but the goals stated in the constitution. Products must follow certain criteria.

For many of the members within EOS, the greatest problem of Capitalism is that it is a long-term threat to human survival and dignity on this planet. Right now, 133% of the Earth's yearly regeneration capacity is used every year. That means that biological diversity is reduced every year. At the same time, Capitalism is unable to provide for people. 41 000 children starves to death each day. In one year, that makes considerably over 6 million children (the food produced today would be enough to feed 12 billion people).

[Queercommie Girl]

If you're an elitist of some sort.

This is a serious fallacy. If these so-called t4echnical experts are making decisions that are not under the direct control of the working class, they are in a different class. This is a serious mistake.

There is nothing that socialism can get from technocracy other than a good laugh. TYechnocracy is elitist to the core. However the working class decides to administer the means of production, it will have nothing to do with technocracy. Take a look at their website: petit-bourgeois nonsense. It isn't even particularly radical.


How is it "elitist"? Class is determined economically, not culturally. Just because someone is much better educated in a particular field than everyone else, does not make him/her any less working class at all, as long as he/she has the same kind of economic and political status as other workers. (i.e. wages that are not higher, and no more control of the means of production than any average worker)

When I say socialists can borrow certain ideas from technocracy, what I mean is that socialism needs to have a planned economy that is based on sound rational principles, which would need a lot of input from technical experts.

Would you say that a footballer cannot be working class, even if he earns an average worker's salary, just because he is an expert in the sport of football and play it much better than most other workers?

To say someone is "not working class" simply because he/she is much more talented in a certain field than other workers is really really stupid.

[Queercommie Girl]

Marxism would *generalize* the work roles and work load *even further* than this, away from capitalism's commodification of labor, and so would be preferable to this technocratic model that features an artificial separation between productive and social modes within society.


I can see the benefit of non-specialist work objectively to some extent, but it's certainly not something that can be imposed on the masses.

What if people actually decide they want a mixture of meritocratic technocracy and direct democracy, with some specialists in various fields? This is a possibility. As long as it's something workers have decided democratically, then it must be the way to go.

It's like religion. The majority of Marxists expect it to fade away in a socialist society (including me), but strictly speaking from a scientific perspective this is no more than a hypothesis. What if religion never fades away? What if workers decide they actually want to keep religions forever? Then for a radical proletarian democrat like me, anything the workers say goes, no dogma.

This is what I mean by taking a scientific approach to Marxism, rather than treating Marxist postulates as absolute truths. First and foremost, Marxism is a strategic political program, aiming to overthrow capitalism and giving political and economic power to all workers. Up to this point it's certain. After this, no-one, and certainly not the "vanguard", has the right to simply dictate how society will go and in what direction, in terms of both the political and the cultural superstructure, it can only be democratically decided by the masses. There must be freedom of discussion and debate in this area.

Which is why even though I don't agree with a lot of Dimentio's ideas, I don't think it's right for Red Dave to simply try to push him away for being "un-socialist". We should encourage free thought. "Let a hundred flowers blossom".

[Dimentio]

Is it stalinist with a de-centralised model where each and every project group (now we are talking about 12-200 individuals sized-groups) is autonomous and the project leaders are elected by the people working in the project, and also re-callable?

The only criteria for electability established by the technate is that the pool of electable persons need to have the right knowledge.

How should such a generalisation of labour be realised?

Reducing the technological level, or enlarging people's brains?

[Queercommie Girl]

The only criteria for electability established by the technate is that the pool of electable persons need to have the right knowledge.

How should such a generalisation of labour be realised?

Reducing the technological level, or enlarging people's brains?


Well, in principle, it is certainly possible to make everyone an expert in something, it's simply a matter of the educational system, not innate biology. No-one is really "intrinsically stupid".

However, one problem I can see with technocracy is that it would place too much emphasis on "efficiency". Whereas for a radical proletarian democrat like me, I would rather have a generally less efficient system that progresses slower technologically, but is more democratic, than a less democratic system that is more technologically progressive.

I appreciate certain elements in technocracy, but for me direct worker's democracy is always primary. People shouldn't be discriminated against just because they are less educated, and play a smaller part in the political decision-making process simply as a result of this. If this means less technological and productive efficiency, then frankly, so be it.

[Dimentio]

Well, in principle, it is certainly possible to make everyone an expert in something, it's simply a matter of the educational system, not innate biology. No-one is really "intrinsically stupid".

However, one problem I can see with technocracy is that it would place too much emphasis on "efficiency". Whereas for a radical proletarian democrat like me, I would rather have a generally less efficient system that progresses slower technologically, but is more democratic, than a less democratic system that is more technologically progressive.

I appreciate certain elements in technocracy, but for me direct worker's democracy is always primary. People shouldn't be discriminated against just because they are less educated, and play a smaller part in the political decision-making process simply as a result of this. If this means less technological and productive efficiency, then frankly, so be it.

Everyone could be trained to be an expert, yes. But not everyone could be an expert in everything.

And I cannot understand how the model we have designed would be less democratic than a worker's democracy.

No planning committee controls what you should consume.

You direct the production of your share of the planet's production capacity.

When you work in a project group, it is autonomous. We have a subsidiarity principle, that decisions should be made as close to the affected parties as possible.

You elect your own project leaders, and could re-call them as well.

You could leave your holon and join another one.

I cannot see how that doesn't fit the criteria of a worker's democracy?

Efficiency is not a fetischism. It is necessary in order to match human needs with the planet's capability to provide for those needs. Today, humanity collectively is utilising 133% of the planetary regeneration capacity of biomass.

In order for a sustainable future to be realised, at least one quarter needs to be cut.

We don't want to lower the human standard of life, so what we need to do is to optimalise production and establish a system which is working according to closed re-cycling principles, tracking every single step of the production.

We would also strive to for example reduce human consumption. For example, there would be no attempts to make humans consume more "trendy" things (no commercials and so on), and a focus on durable and sustainable products which doesn't break and could be easily updated.

The Wuppertal institute showed in the 1990's that the world production could be reduced with 75% and yet we could provide for all human beings. It was just a question of optimalisation.

That would also consequently mean that a lot of jobs would disappear, which means that a lot of people would be idle and that labour time would be reduced quite much.

[ckaihatsu]

This is what I mean by taking a scientific approach to Marxism, rather than treating Marxist postulates as absolute truths. First and foremost, Marxism is a strategic political program, aiming to overthrow capitalism and giving political and economic power to all workers. Up to this point it's certain.




I can see the benefit of non-specialist work objectively to some extent, but it's certainly not something that can be imposed on the masses.

What if people actually decide they want a mixture of meritocratic technocracy and direct democracy, with some specialists in various fields? This is a possibility. As long as it's something workers have decided democratically, then it must be the way to go.


While working class democracy would / should be paramount, there remain better ways to do things and worse ways to do things -- this would apply to the prerequisite of revolution first and foremost.





After this, no-one, and certainly not the "vanguard", has the right to simply dictate how society will go and in what direction, in terms of both the political and the cultural superstructure, it can only be democratically decided by the masses. There must be freedom of discussion and debate in this area.





I'm more than a little surprised that so many are so concerned about a vanguard organization's potential for "hanging onto power" after a revolution is completed. In my conceptualization the vanguard would be all about mobilizing and coordinating the various ongoing realtime aspects of a revolution in progress, most notably mass industrial union strategies and political offensives and defenses relative to the capitalists' forces.

*By definition* a victorious worldwide proletarian revolution would *push past* the *objective need* for this airport-control-tower mechanism of the vanguard, for the basic fact that there would no longer be any class enemy to coordinate *against*. Its entire function would be superseded by the mass revolution's success and transforming of society.

tinyurl.com/ckaihatsu-vanguardism





Well, in principle, it is certainly possible to make everyone an expert in something, it's simply a matter of the educational system, not innate biology. No-one is really "intrinsically stupid".

However, one problem I can see with technocracy is that it would place too much emphasis on "efficiency". Whereas for a radical proletarian democrat like me, I would rather have a generally less efficient system that progresses slower technologically, but is more democratic, than a less democratic system that is more technologically progressive.

I appreciate certain elements in technocracy, but for me direct worker's democracy is always primary. People shouldn't be discriminated against just because they are less educated, and play a smaller part in the political decision-making process simply as a result of this. If this means less technological and productive efficiency, then frankly, so be it.





It would be *better* for us to use our collective intelligence to *consciously* organize in a way that encourages, supports, and rewards those who willingly socialize their skills and efforts in an "upwards" direction, for higher-level and broader-based societal projects, progressing onward.




[T]here could very well be a "core" of hobbyist-like liberated laborers who wind up plotting society's technical and artistic trajectory from their own interests and inclinations, as long as they have a sufficient political base by which to do so, for using society's collectivized implements. These would be the liberated scientists and artists of a post-capitalist society, free to pursue their large-scale-enabled visions as long as there were no legitimate political grounds for denying them their proportionate access to collectivized implements.

- A second would be that there *could* be a "division of labor" in a post-commodity economic context, by which *mass demands* could be fulfilled by *mass liberated labor*, and *not* dependent on a perpetual avant garde sector of society for forward progress. In this way liberated labor would *not* be tied into being one and the same as those who politically *support* a project, and, likewise, those who *are* political and provide proposed plans for the use of society's collectivized machinery would not be constrained to their own ranks for the subsequent *implementation* of those (mass-approved) plans, as with their own liberated labor alone.


Centralization-Abstraction Diagram of Political Forms

http://postimage.org/image/35ru6ztic/

[Queercommie Girl]

Everyone could be trained to be an expert, yes. But not everyone could be an expert in everything.

And I cannot understand how the model we have designed would be less democratic than a worker's democracy.

No planning committee controls what you should consume.

You direct the production of your share of the planet's production capacity.

When you work in a project group, it is autonomous. We have a subsidiarity principle, that decisions should be made as close to the affected parties as possible.

You elect your own project leaders, and could re-call them as well.

You could leave your holon and join another one.

I cannot see how that doesn't fit the criteria of a worker's democracy?

Efficiency is not a fetischism. It is necessary in order to match human needs with the planet's capability to provide for those needs. Today, humanity collectively is utilising 133% of the planetary regeneration capacity of biomass.

In order for a sustainable future to be realised, at least one quarter needs to be cut.

We don't want to lower the human standard of life, so what we need to do is to optimalise production and establish a system which is working according to closed re-cycling principles, tracking every single step of the production.

We would also strive to for example reduce human consumption. For example, there would be no attempts to make humans consume more "trendy" things (no commercials and so on), and a focus on durable and sustainable products which doesn't break and could be easily updated.

The Wuppertal institute showed in the 1990's that the world production could be reduced with 75% and yet we could provide for all human beings. It was just a question of optimalisation.

That would also consequently mean that a lot of jobs would disappear, which means that a lot of people would be idle and that labour time would be reduced quite much.

I don't agree with a lot of this, of course, but you make some interesting points.

[Amphictyonis]

The only problem with transhumanism for me is that it is probably a bit premature to talk about longevity and make people 20 feet tall when 2 billion people are living in squalor and the environment is murdered around us.

Some guy wrote a book entitled "My Struggle" outlining his plan to speed up human evolution. It didn't work out very well.

[Amphictyonis]

I'm not a technocrat, but I'm sympathetic to some of its views, partly because unlike Third Campist Trots such as Red Dave, I don't completely reject the Stalinist system, and Stalinism was technocratic to a significant extent.

Marxism certainly believes in further technological and scientific progress after the establishment of genuine socialism and communism. Society doesn't just "stop" when communism is established. Contradiction between classes would cease to exist, but contradiction between humanity and nature never will.

For an example of what an utopian socialist technocracy might look like, watch Star Trek. The United Federation of Planets in Star Trek is depicted as an utopian socialist society, in which money doesn't exist anymore. It is also a highly advanced technological culture, in which the maximum speed of starships has reached 2.74 light-years per day. (Yes I'm a Star Trek fan)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Federation_of_Planets#Economics

The Federation has largely been portrayed as an economic utopia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia), a condition enabled by a state of abundance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_scarcity). On Earth, war and poverty have been eliminated. Individuals strive for self-betterment rather than fiscal remuneration. This condition probably does not extend to the outer reaches of the Federation or other powers with similar levels of technology, where substances such as latinum (http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/latinum) are used as currency on a somewhat ad hoc (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hoc) basis, and for the purpose of trade with other cultures, although there have been persistent references to a "credit" unit of currency used at least occasionally in the Federation.

In the Star Trek: Voyager (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Voyager) episode "Dark Frontier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Frontier)," Tom Paris (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Paris) describes it as the "New World Economy," which began in the late 22nd century and eventually made money obsolete, as does Jean-Luc Picard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Luc_Picard) while explaining the timeline to Lily Sloane (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lily_Sloane) in Star Trek: First Contact (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_First_Contact).

Stalin actually purged the early Russian engineers and trained new ones with loyalty to the party because the old engineers ended up having too much influence over Russian society. There was basically a power struggle between Stalin and the engineers who by all accounts controlled industry. Needless to say the early Russian engineers lost that power struggle (for better or worse). Power in any given society fundamentally comes down to one thing, as Marx explained, who controls the surplus or in modern times who controls industry. THE question any socialist should ask be they Marxist or Anarchist is when we implement socialism should there be any one minority in disproportionate control over surplus goods/industry?

Stalin used the state to suppress the power grab made by engineers in his time but in a theoretical future socialist society how would workers defend themselves from a new ruling class taking form via disproportionate control of industry?

[Die Neue Zeit]

I don't particularly like the idea of packing courts to be honest. If they need to be packed then it is a sign that they have too much political power in the first place. Ordinary courts should not be ruling on political questions at all, that should go to the constitutional court which could only strike down laws in extreme circumstances if they were nakedly unconstitutional.

The SCOTUS is much more a constitutional court than an ordinary court.


You want to be very careful here because whether that is a good thing depends on the precise political situation. Where lower units are pleading "states' rights" to try and prevent change you want the centre to prevail, but when it is lower units pushing most strongly for the change in the first place, then they should prevail.

But "change" can be utilized for neoliberal or worse purposes as well. Just look at Wisconsin.

In a Third World Caesarean Socialist scenario, I'd be more than happy for El Presidente to go so far as jail constitutional judges that don't toe the Leader's line, and in fact it's not just the constitutional judges who should be at the whims of the Leader:

http://boffyblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/egypt-what-is-to-be-done-part-5.html

PATRIMONIALISM

I made my comment earlier in Part 1 of your blog. This next part is the hot potato part, as it addresses the problems with the first four demands.

The top civil service offices (and many more bureaucratic positions, I might add), police chief positions, general staff, and courts of constitutional law (not the rest of the court system) should be packed and sacked on the authority of one person.

However, said person should be the leader of a party, and should have the confidence of that party and the legislature.


I'm aware of that proposal and the difference with mine. it has a long pedigree, but I disagree with it, I think it ignores the way the state has evolved up until now. I think attempting to have any kind of night watchman body now is no longer realistic and at any rate it would probably compromise the democratic quality of the body to not let it have a social role. My division attempts to divide between matters likely to be more contested (which includes both the law and things like health and education) and give them to one body and things where it is more about getting consensus and having the widest possible input and giving them to others.

I note your preference for a greater division than that and agree with it to an extent. As a step towards that perhaps every political portfolio could have a separate assembly chosen by sortition scrutinising and advising whoever is responsible for it.

I should add that the division between "Social" and "Economic" addresses populist concerns about separating economic regulation from economic management. Economic regulation from one body could have prevented Chernobyl-style economic mismanagement by another.

[ckaihatsu]

Stalin used the state to suppress the power grab made by engineers in his time but in a theoretical future socialist society how would workers defend themselves from a new ruling class taking form via disproportionate control of industry?


As long as the collectivized mode of production is widespread (worldwide) and mostly evenly spread out, there *wouldn't* be any valid cause for concern about slipping back into *less*-productive, *less*-integrated modes of production. It's only in very dire times -- for a given mode of production -- that earlier, more-"comfortable" modes start to look attractive since the current one isn't doing so hot anyway.

(Consider today's economic environment of little to no growth under capitalism's market system -- simpler modes of production begin to subtly seem more meaningful since slavery, feudalism, and fascism are more-integrative at smaller, more-localized scales.)(Of course capitalism has already brought us the development of more-integrative productive capacities at *greater* scales, but their full realization would require the world's working class to take control of it by usurping the existing balkanized nation-state bourgeois political framework.)

[Dimentio]

Some guy wrote a book entitled "My Struggle" outlining his plan to speed up human evolution. It didn't work out very well.

There is a difference between positive eugenics and negative eugenics.

Negative eugenics means removing human beings with hereditary diseases or other traits which the culture deems as "non-viable" from the gen pool, either by sterilisation or by killing the individuals.

Positive eugenics means removing for example the genes which cause obesity in children from them at an early age. Genetic therapy means that we could enhance the life experience of individuals.

The difference is like the difference between "chair" and "electric chair".

Negative eugenics are collectivist and is based around removing "defective people". It doesn't take into account the dreams, aspirations and feelings of those individuals.

Positive eugenics are individualist (in a positive sense) since they evolve around enhancing the individual life experience for human beings which have been born with disabilities.

To give a cripple a crutch is not the same thing as to beat a cripple to death with a crutch.

[Amphictyonis]

There is a difference between positive eugenics and negative eugenics.

There was a reason I thanked your post. I don't agree with 'transhumanism' without socialism. I think actual advanced communism would imply technology be used for the betterment of mankind rather than profits. Talking about it now is a sort of science fiction as actual 'positive' eugenics is impossible under capitalism. Who will have the funds for such things? 'Transhumanism' under capitalism is just a new face on the old master race game. In lieu of Aryans it will be the rich who can become the ubermensch. This was what I meant when I said a man wrote a book putting forth theories on how to speed up human evolution.

[Dimentio]

There was a reason I thanked your post. I don't agree with 'transhumanism' without socialism. I think actual advanced communism would imply technology be used for the betterment of mankind rather than profits. Talking about it now is a sort of science fiction as actual 'positive' eugenics is impossible under capitalism. Who will have the funds for such things? 'Transhumanism' under capitalism is just a new face on the old master race game. In lieu of Aryans it will be the rich who can become the ubermensch. This was what I meant when I said a man wrote a book putting forth theories on how to speed up human evolution.

Wealthy people possibly. Have you also noticed how millionaires, billionaires and African dictators seem to get older and older and healthier and healthier?

[Amphictyonis]

Wealthy people possibly. Have you also noticed how millionaires, billionaires and African dictators seem to get older and older and healthier and healthier?

Well, it's definitely not the 24 hour ghetto workout making the rich healthy in old age :)

kDCxH88-9X8

[RED DAVE]

In a Third World Caesarean Socialist scenario, I'd be more than happy for El Presidente to go so far as jail constitutional judges that don't toe the Leader's line, and in fact it's not just the constitutional judges who should be at the whims of the Leader.Welcome to the wonderful world of stalinism.

RED DAVE

[Queercommie Girl]

Stalin actually purged the early Russian engineers and trained new ones with loyalty to the party because the old engineers ended up having too much influence over Russian society. There was basically a power struggle between Stalin and the engineers who by all accounts controlled industry. Needless to say the early Russian engineers lost that power struggle (for better or worse). Power in any given society fundamentally comes down to one thing, as Marx explained, who controls the surplus or in modern times who controls industry. THE question any socialist should ask be they Marxist or Anarchist is when we implement socialism should there be any one minority in disproportionate control over surplus goods/industry?

Stalin used the state to suppress the power grab made by engineers in his time but in a theoretical future socialist society how would workers defend themselves from a new ruling class taking form via disproportionate control of industry?

I'm not a Stalinist, and I do think it's better to have pure technocracy than Stalinism, since although in both cases the working class in general does not hold power, at least technocracy is much more rational than Stalinism and less dictatorial. The planned economy would have functioned better and with less human toll.

I don't even completely reject Stalinism but to think that Stalinism is relatively progressive compared with pure technocracy is somewhat incorrect, IMO. Stalin suppressed power grab by engineers but only concentrated power into the hands of the bureaucrats in turn. Are bureaucrats better than engineers at ruling society?

Wouldn't you say that a society like the Federation in Star Trek, with a Soviet economic base and an American political superstructure, is indeed theoretically much better than Stalinism itself which has no real political democracy? Even if there isn't direct worker's democracy in the Federation, at least there is indirect worker's democracy, which was absent in Stalinism.

Of course, I said Star Trek is utopian socialism, not communism, because it might indeed be the case that a system of "Soviet economy + American politics" will never really come about unless there is direct worker's democracy in society.

The only reason I used the term "Stalinist technocracy" is to contrast it to Western technocracy, is because the former takes place in a completely planned and non-capitalist economy.

Why would you think engineers would automatically always try to grab control? Just because they have more knowledge and skills than most other workers doesn't make them elitists according to Marxism, as long as they are not economically or politically privileged.

This kind of "reverse elitism" against those who are knowledgable and skilled is really quite reactionary, and is contrary to the liberation of the productive forces, which is one of the goals of Marxism.

[Queercommie Girl]

There was a reason I thanked your post. I don't agree with 'transhumanism' without socialism. I think actual advanced communism would imply technology be used for the betterment of mankind rather than profits. Talking about it now is a sort of science fiction as actual 'positive' eugenics is impossible under capitalism. Who will have the funds for such things? 'Transhumanism' under capitalism is just a new face on the old master race game. In lieu of Aryans it will be the rich who can become the ubermensch. This was what I meant when I said a man wrote a book putting forth theories on how to speed up human evolution.

You make a good point, only that science fiction doesn't have to be capitalist.

The Federation in Star Trek is not capitalist (no poverty, no money, no corporations), even though it's only an utopian socialist society.

[Dimentio]

Most early 20th century Science Fiction had socialist overtones. Most Science Fiction writers assumed that the future would be socialistic. Right-wing science fiction was quite rare until the 1950's (if we don't account Nazism).

Buckminster Fuller actually tried to deliver on that.

[RED DAVE]

Everyone could be trained to be an expert, yes. But not everyone could be an expert in everything.True but trivial.


And I cannot understand how the model we have designed would be less democratic than a worker's democracy.That's because you're not a socialist and have no concept of class.


No planning committee controls what you should consume.Yippee shit. But how about the conditions of labor and what workers produce. Technocracy systematically fails to understand that essence of capitalist exploitation and repression involves production, not consumption. That's why is defines capitalism as a "price system" as opposed to a system of commodity production.


You direct the production of your share of the planet's production capacity.Since you do not believe in workers democracy, I assume that means that workers control production by consumption, which is as false under “socialism” as it is under capitalism.


When you work in a project group, it is autonomous. We have a subsidiarity principle, that decisions should be made as close to the affected parties as possible.This has nothing to do with socialism and workers control. Who establishes the “project groups”? Who establishes the overall plan? Under Technocracy it’s the bureaucrats.


You elect your own project leaders, and could re-call them as well.That’s sweet. How about factory managers, district managers, etc.?


You could leave your holon and join another one.Considering that there is no such thing as a holon, this has no meaning whatsoever.


I cannot see how that doesn't fit the criteria of a worker's democracy?That’s because you don’t understand the Marxist concept of class.


Efficiency is not a fetischism. It is necessary in order to match human needs with the planet's capability to provide for those needs. Today, humanity collectively is utilising 133% of the planetary regeneration capacity of biomass.That has nothing to do with efficiency. That has to do with the capitalist mode of production and consumption. Efficiency is a trivial function compared with democracy. In fact, there will be no efficiency without workers democracy.


In order for a sustainable future to be realised, at least one quarter needs to be cut.So say you, with your petit-bourgeois utopia.


We don't want to lower the human standard of life, so what we need to do is to optimalise production and establish a system which is working according to closed re-cycling principles, tracking every single step of the production.Nice ideas, but trivial compared to who is going to make the decisions, which you studiously avoid.


We would also strive to for example reduce human consumption. For example, there would be no attempts to make humans consume more "trendy" things (no commercials and so on), and a focus on durable and sustainable products which doesn't break and could be easily updated.And suppose the workers, in their delight in the world they have won, decide for awhile that they want “trendy” things? Is the big, bad technate going to stop them? All of this is liberal environmentalism.


The Wuppertal institute showed in the 1990's that the world production could be reduced with 75% and yet we could provide for all human beings. It was just a question of optimalisation.Fine. Give us their phone number. We’ll call them after the revolution.


That would also consequently mean that a lot of jobs would disappear, which means that a lot of people would be idle and that labour time would be reduced quite much.Maybe yes; may no; maybe rain; maybe snow.

I still find it incredible that this petit-bourgeois reformist belief system has found a home on a revolutionary website. We don’t permit liberalism or social democracy to roost here. Why isn’t this bullshit in Other Ideologies?

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

As said, if you want to put it in the OI, you have to advocate for putting me in the OI.

Just one thing about the project groups. They could establish themselves, and a large project group could divide itself into smaller project groups. The project groups ARE the holons. And we already have several running within EOS. Holon means "part of a whole which could be studied as a whole in it's own right", and it is no neologism. It is a term established within robotics engineering.

Environmentalism isn't trendy. It is actually essentially to keep production within the planet's carrying capacity. Otherwise, whatever kind of system we would set up would collapse when it has depleted it's natural base. You seem to have an inability to look at the whole picture.

[Robocommie]

The Federation in Star Trek is not bourgeois because the economy is not based on private ownership. Show me one corporation logo from Star Trek.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_xdN0QQwsP1A/TBEV2C8BXCI/AAAAAAAAICE/tUw3Fk6t6Q4/s1600/2-19-08-paramount_logo.jpg

/cheeky bastard

[Queercommie Girl]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_xdN0QQwsP1A/TBEV2C8BXCI/AAAAAAAAICE/tUw3Fk6t6Q4/s1600/2-19-08-paramount_logo.jpg

/cheeky bastard

So what? The story itself describes a post-monetary society.

Obviously in our capitalist society today, if you want to make any kind of TV show, instead of just a paperback novel, then you would have no choice but to co-operate with capitalists. But Gene Roddenberry had an utopian vision for sure.

Show me one corporation logo from the Star Trek universe itself. (Except those of the Ferengi)

[Kuppo Shakur]

Wait, first you guys are debating about technocracy, and now your arguing over Star Trek?
This is why I steer clear of technocracy.

[Amphictyonis]

Wait, first you guys are debating about technocracy, and now your arguing over Star Trek?
This is why I steer clear of technocracy.

Kinda my point :) We're here now and the most pressing issue is making sure capitalism doesn't devolve into some sort of global nepotic plutocracy....oh wait a minute....looks like it's happening. (Priorities?). If we want to talk about technology/engineering I'd be more curious to question what will bring the global capitalist economy into another boom cycle in so setting us up for the next crisis or are the capitalists setting the system up in a way that there will be no more bubbles and bursts. Is that even possible? The 'business cycle' or overproduction is a fundamental element built within capitalism. Is a non speculative steady as she goes capitalist system possible? A capitalist system without crisis of overproduction? If they readjust unemployment to a 'normal' level of 8% I don't see that 'saving' capitalism I see that creating a permanent 'reserve army of labor. This means either civil unrest in the streets, more people in prison or a large scale war in our future. Sorry about the off topic train of thought post....

[Die Neue Zeit]

Welcome to the wonderful world of stalinism.

RED DAVE

Yeah, FDR and Chavez were/are Stalinists. :rolleyes:

You need to expand your horizons beyond knee-jerk "Stalinism" or "Social Democracy" screams.

[Robocommie]

So what? The story itself describes a post-monetary society.

Obviously in our capitalist society today, if you want to make any kind of TV show, instead of just a paperback novel, then you would have no choice but to co-operate with capitalists. But Gene Roddenberry had an utopian vision for sure.

You're overthinking it, I was really just making a joke.

[ckaihatsu]

---





As said, if you want to put it in the OI, you have to advocate for putting me in the OI.





[T]ake your petit-brougeois, anti-socialist belief system over to Other Ideologies where it belongs.


x D

[Demogorgon]

The SCOTUS is much more a constitutional court than an ordinary court.

True, but that is just an aside. My point is that constitutional courts should be limited as well. Their main role should be settling demarcation disputes, not striking down laws. Of course they need some power to do that in extraordinary circumstances, but it should not be a regular thing.

And as I say ordinary courts shouldn't be doing this at all.


But "change" can be utilized for neoliberal or worse purposes as well. Just look at Wisconsin.Yes, but you know what I mean. Suppose for the sake of argument that Saskatchewan were to elect another Tommy Douglas-not very likely right now, but let's imagine-and the federal Government of Canada was much as it is now. Would you want the centre to prevail then?


In a Third World Caesarean Socialist scenario, I'd be more than happy for El Presidente to go so far as jail constitutional judges that don't toe the Leader's line, and in fact it's not just the constitutional judges who should be at the whims of the Leader:

http://boffyblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/egypt-what-is-to-be-done-part-5.html

PATRIMONIALISM

I made my comment earlier in Part 1 of your blog. This next part is the hot potato part, as it addresses the problems with the first four demands.

The top civil service offices (and many more bureaucratic positions, I might add), police chief positions, general staff, and courts of constitutional law (not the rest of the court system) should be packed and sacked on the authority of one person.

However, said person should be the leader of a party, and should have the confidence of that party and the legislature.

I'm afraid I don't agree with that. Vesting too much power in "one person" regardless of whom they may be is a recipe for disaster and even if we somehow found a saint to give this authority to, it would still be relying on one individual which usually means things break down once they are gone.


I should add that the division between "Social" and "Economic" addresses populist concerns about separating economic regulation from economic management. Economic regulation from one body could have prevented Chernobyl-style economic mismanagement by another.
Yes, I agree with that. But the point of debate I think is where matters like health provision and education should fall. I place them with the political authority while you do not I think?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Welcome to the wonderful world of stalinism.

RED DAVE

After previous posts, somehow I got the feeling I'd get an expected one-line "Stalinism!" yell, even after my repeated attempts to drill home the point about independent working-class political organization.


True, but that is just an aside. My point is that constitutional courts should be limited as well. Their main role should be settling demarcation disputes, not striking down laws. Of course they need some power to do that in extraordinary circumstances, but it should not be a regular thing.

Isn't that the same thing in a lot of cases? "States rights" demarcation leads to striking down a number of laws.


And as I say ordinary courts shouldn't be doing this at all.

I'm sure already that in every country they don't do "legislating from the bench" or "judicial activism." Certainly at lower levels they have separate courts to do this kind of stuff.


Yes, but you know what I mean. Suppose for the sake of argument that Saskatchewan were to elect another Tommy Douglas-not very likely right now, but let's imagine-and the federal Government of Canada was much as it is now. Would you want the centre to prevail then?

OTOH it could be argued that it's still better that way. Just consider the various NDP provincial governments that have been more right-wing than the federal NDP, from the days of Glen Clark to the infamous Rae Days. The jurisdiction should simply be federalized and fought for on that level.


I'm afraid I don't agree with that. Vesting too much power in "one person" regardless of whom they may be is a recipe for disaster and even if we somehow found a saint to give this authority to, it would still be relying on one individual which usually means things break down once they are gone.

I don't know if you noted my qualifier at the end there about accountability to parties. It could be that the party leadership itself decides on the packing and sacking in secret, while El Presidente for the sake of "heroic" personality cults gets to do folksy talk like Chavez.


Yes, I agree with that. But the point of debate I think is where matters like health provision and education should fall. I place them with the political authority while you do not I think?

I do. I just place them under Social and not State. Social also gets to regulate stuff. Economic, OTOH, gets to have all those Soviet-style economic ministries, and Labour gets to do a huge checking function and then some.

[Demogorgon]

Isn't that the same thing in a lot of cases? "States rights" demarcation leads to striking down a number of laws.

That depends really. In unitary states it doesn't happen full stop for obvious reasons and even in federal states that isn't always the case. In Switzerland for instance Cantonal but not federal laws can be struck down as unconstitutional (federal laws can be struck down on the much narrower grounds of violating international treaties Switzerland is party to, but let's forget about that for a moment). Besides the demarcation I had in mind most of all was between the political and economic authorities.


I'm sure already that in every country they don't do "legislating from the bench" or "judicial activism." Certainly at lower levels they have separate courts to do this kind of stuff.

Well it depends on the country.

As an aside if you want a perfect example of exactly the sort of thing courts shouldn't be doing, one came up the other day. How on earth can this sort of thing possibly be a judicial issue?

http://www.thelocal.de/politics/20110315-33733.html


OTOH it could be argued that it's still better that way. Just consider the various NDP provincial governments that have been more right-wing than the federal NDP, from the days of Glen Clark to the infamous Rae Days. The jurisdiction should simply be federalized and fought for on that level.

Yeah I know, but I wonder how different the federal NDP would be if they were actually in power. But let's leave that aside for a moment and imagine simply a fight between Tommy Douglas and Steven Harper.

It is fair enough to argue that the fight should be on a federal level (though in Canada's case that opens up a can of worms as to what you do with Quebec) but if you are basing it on the view that appeals for State or Provincial rights are typically reactionary, it is best to take into account counter-examples.


I don't know if you noted my qualifier at the end there about accountability to parties. It could be that the party leadership itself decides on the packing and sacking in secret, while El Presidente for the sake of "heroic" personality cults gets to do folksy talk like Chavez.

Yeah I did, but I still disagree with it. As I say a personality account is never a good idea, not just for the obvious reasons but because even if it doesn't go horribly wrong the leader will still retire or die and that's the end of that.

Besides I am skeptical of anything that purports to do too much on people's behalf rather than actively empower them.


I do. I just place them under Social and not State. Social also gets to regulate stuff. Economic, OTOH, gets to have all those Soviet-style economic ministries, and Labour gets to do a huge checking function and then some.
Ah yes, your four way division versus my two way one. I suppose it is best just to wait and see what happens. No point in squabbling over abstract models when there is no chance of them being implemented in the immediate future.

[RED DAVE]

After previous posts, somehow I got the feeling I'd get an expected one-line "Stalinism!" yell, even after my repeated attempts to drill home the point about independent working-class political organization.Your concept of independent working-class political organizations is, at best, social democratic. If any thing is required to prove this, the text of the post above is perfect.


OTOH it could be argued that it's still better that way. Just consider the various NDP provincial governments that have been more right-wing than the federal NDP, from the days of Glen Clark to the infamous Rae Days. The jurisdiction should simply be federalized and fought for on that level.What does this have to do with revolutionary leftism?

Or this little turd:


I do. I just place them under Social and not State. Social also gets to regulate stuff. Economic, OTOH, gets to have all those Soviet-style economic ministries, and Labour gets to do a huge checking function and then some.Your bizarre system of theird-world caesarism and technocracy deserve each other. You should form a united rear (as opposed to a united front :D).

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

This style of argumentation is so reminiscent of the drunkard sitting on a porch who two weeks ago shouted at me that I was a "Communist Muslim".

[RED DAVE]

This style of argumentation is so reminiscent of the drunkard sitting on a porch who two weeks ago shouted at me that I was a "Communist Muslim".Conbsidering the fact that both your ideas and those of technocracy float around in your heads with about as much meaning and application as Communist Muslim, I would say the drunk was correct in style if not in content.

RED DAVE

[Die Neue Zeit]

That depends really. In unitary states it doesn't happen full stop for obvious reasons and even in federal states that isn't always the case. In Switzerland for instance Cantonal but not federal laws can be struck down as unconstitutional (federal laws can be struck down on the much narrower grounds of violating international treaties Switzerland is party to, but let's forget about that for a moment). Besides the demarcation I had in mind most of all was between the political and economic authorities.

In that latter case, it's already analogous to the Soviet state arbitration courts which settled disputes between ministries. Separate courts can handle intra-federal infighting. :D


Yeah I know, but I wonder how different the federal NDP would be if they were actually in power. But let's leave that aside for a moment and imagine simply a fight between Tommy Douglas and Steven Harper.

It is fair enough to argue that the fight should be on a federal level (though in Canada's case that opens up a can of worms as to what you do with Quebec) but if you are basing it on the view that appeals for State or Provincial rights are typically reactionary, it is best to take into account counter-examples.

Autonomy and not "rights" is the way to go for provincial matters.


Yeah I did, but I still disagree with it. As I say a personality account is never a good idea, not just for the obvious reasons but because even if it doesn't go horribly wrong the leader will still retire or die and that's the end of that.

You mean cult not account, right?

Caesarean Socialism in the Third World is acknowledged not to be permanent. At some point its progressiveness would be exhausted.


Besides I am skeptical of anything that purports to do too much on people's behalf rather than actively empower them.

Did you read that section of my Managed Democracy commentary where I quoted an essay stating that Chavez's populism is different than typical populism? Most populisms don't empower "the masses," but for both Caesar and Chavez, there's the Tribunal Assembly (http://www.revleft.com/vb/julius-caesar-lost-t147255/index.html) and the communal councils, respectively.

It's Democratism and Absolutism allying against Oligarchy, not mob rule or benevolent tyranny.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Your concept of independent working-class political organizations is, at best, social democratic. If any thing is required to prove this, the text of the post above is perfect.

What does this have to do with revolutionary leftism?

Or this little turd:

Your bizarre system of theird-world caesarism and technocracy deserve each other. You should form a united rear (as opposed to a united front :D).

RED DAVE

It's a better, concrete Marxist understanding of just what the hell the state is:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/local-autonomy-and-t106240/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/material-separation-state-t120151/index.html

[RED DAVE]

It's a better, concrete Marxist understanding of just what the hell the state is:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/local-autonomy-and-t106240/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/material-separation-state-t120151/index.htmlIt's a form of stalinism. You ae a cross between a stalinist and a social democrat.

RED DAVE

[Die Neue Zeit]

If you think you've screamed enough "Stalinist!" and "Social-Democrat!" screams, just wait and you'll have a heart attack if I send you very provocative and colourful material on political steroids. :p