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Workers-Control-Over-Prod
18th April 2012, 06:34
I have been reading and thinking a lot about the institutionalisation of workers control and the relation to the workers' state in socialism. Basically i think that workers controlling their own surplus needs to have institutionalisation in socialism (the transition phase to communism) separate from but in communication with the soviet, not only as a counterbalance to the state's or 'bureaucrats' power, but also to secure political stability as the disparity between workers' productivity-vs-wage has caused many social and in the end political problems in the 20th century "communism".

"Socialism gets rid of its class antagonisms, but not yet its internal contradictions"; Class normally does not solely mean the the official ownership of the MoP, not just who has the Power over them, but who actually controls production.


"they [the workers] themselves appropriate this surplus either of the product or labor"- Karl Marx

So long the appropriators of the surplus (and their subservient) are not the producers themselves, so long there is not a communist subsumed class process of production, you cannot have a classless society (which would rectify a one party state as parties have always been representatives of different classes). So long the working class do not become their own board of directors to control the workplace and society (decide collectively who the supervisors are, the service needs required to hire, the subservient or subsubsumed class positions "planners") and production (what to produce with, how to produce, where to produce and what to do with the surplus) you cannot have a classless society in socialism.

I drew this graph trying to outline my basic thoughts on how it would be structured.

Description:
*The "People's National Council" would be a direct democratic national council where all members of society would be allowed to talk, discuss etc., know that they are not limited to their localities and have the possibility to coerce with the Communist Party's political agendas and plans, criticise, comprehend, dissent.
On the label "Workers' Council" I mean a national council where each enterprise's workers select a representative to go to the council to plan production. People's representative secretaries of the local soviets (recallable representatives of course) would communicate local problems/economic needs through the "Soviet" to the "Workers' Council" as well as state needs of surplus. In 'State and Revolution' Lenin lists 3 main points that apply to this communist subsumed class positions:

"(1) not only electiveness, but also instant recall; (2) payment no higher than that of ordinary workers; (3) immediate transition to a state of things when all fulfill the function of control and superintendance, so that all become 'bureaucrats' for a time, and no one, therefore, can become a bureaucrat". . . "Every cook must learn to govern the state".
I would like to add to the notion to establish the rotation of all members of society that we should extend all communist subsumed class positions (not just the state subsumed class positions, but) those of enterprises' supervisors and worker council planners as well.

Workers-Control-Over-Prod
19th April 2012, 02:50
I guess a central point here is whether you want the state to control the workers' surplus or the workers to. Socialism or State Capitalism? Without such or at least similar institutionalisation, i find it difficult to build a sustainable/strong socialism

Workers-Control-Over-Prod
19th April 2012, 03:22
By the way, if you think i'm the only marxist to think about the economic control of the workers separate from the workers' state, you are incorrect. I got my basic idea from one of the first marxist books i read "Die Revolution in Bayern 1918-1919" 'The Revolution in Bavaria 1918-1919'. In this time in Munich, Anarchism and Left-Communism was very active, and when the young Bavarian KPD came to power in 1919 there were discussions within the marxists about this exact point of the relation of the state to the economy once the Dictatorship of the Proletariat had succeeded (which in the end it was bloody destroyed) and the basic idea of the "Räterepublik", worker 'council republic' or workplace councils, existing on parallel to the Soviet state system in socialism.

I find this a very important subject and sadly, no marxists are talking about this.

ckaihatsu
19th April 2012, 09:11
All of this deals with degrees of *formalism* and *geographic extent of workers power*.

If we want each productive unit to produce *more* than it would need for its immediate surrounding area then the question would be "Why?"

In a revolution-in-progress it would be understandable that the answer might be "For the class war." Different kinds of formalism could then proceed from there, as you're positing.

But once a revolution is complete we could ask the same question again -- for what purposes would a surplus be deliberately produced and generalized? One answer then could be "for more consumer choices over a broader expanse", or "for cosmopolitanism in principle", etc.

I'm just leery of formalism for its own sake, though, especially in the current Internet age. (Meaning that flat-level participation for all matters is logistically more accessible than ever.)