Capitalist Trials After The Revolution

[jookyle]

A couple of friends of mine(and myself) were having a discussion and the subject on what to do with the capitalists after the revolution came up. Out of the three of us, two are marxists and the third being a reform/democratic socialist. So the question was asked if they should be put to trial for what they did under capitalism. Myself and my marxist comrade both agreed that they should and the reformists response was it wouldn't be right because not everything they did was illegal and you can't hold them responsible for doing something when it was legal. My response was something like, "They committed crimes against the people and perpetuated a system of oppression. They should be held in trial."

So I'm just curious as to what you all think on the subject. Take it away, comrades! :)

[Book O'Dead]

Isn't it a bit premature for this kind of discussion? I mean, shouldn't we be more preoccupied with planning on how we must take power before we talk about revenge on anyone?

[Agent]

That is a horrid idea.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

Honestly, I think this question is kind of stupid. I mean, my main concern is destroying capitalist relations, classes, etc. The whole "revenge" aspect takes a backseat. I mean, maybe if there is mass proletariat support for such actions, but otherwise I don't see the point unless they are active violent counter-revolutionaries. In that case, I think we all know how to deal with them ;)

[Blake's Baby]

Everything you have ever done will be held against you on Day 2 of Year 0. The righteous vengeance of the proletariat will make the Spanish Inquisition look like the particulalry fluffy wing of the Unicorn Dreams and Rainbow Sparkle Party of Fairy Princesses. We will all descend on each other and tear each other limb from limb with our own wailing gnashing teeth, for the whole point about revolution is drown the world in a vast sea of blood.

That's the problem with capitalism see, it isn't violent and destructive enough.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

It depends, what crimes are we talking about? Being a capitalist? No, they shouldn't be on trial for that alone.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

I find it an important psychological aspect to put people to trial. It shows that there is a new order, a new state that is washing out the old and trying to form something new. Mainly a workers government would go after more notorious capitalists, politicians and maybe some old militarists of the old capitalist state.

[Book O'Dead]

I find it an important psychological aspect to put people to trial. It shows that there is a new order, a new state that is washing out the old and trying to form something new. Mainly a workers government would go after more notorious capitalists, politicians and maybe some old militarists of the old capitalist state.

Yeah, set up show trials and maybe get you to stand somewhere in the courtroom shouting "FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BAD!"

[Leftsolidarity]

What would the purpose be?

[Ocean Seal]

No there shouldn't be a trial for the worst of capitalists, such would be a trial of the revolution itself. For the others we should afford them trials for crimes committed, the rest of the capitalists (who didn't break any laws or do anything exceptionally horrible) can sweep the streets with us proles.

[Le Socialiste]

I'll second (or third) anyone who's pointed that these "trials" would be of secondary importance - if that. The ruling-classes will be stripped of their power and privilege. If they should actively seek to destabilize or sabotage this process and everything after, such acts should be punishable to the fullest extent possible, within the proper boundaries (by which I mean trials).

[RedAtheist]

I think if we put all capitalists on trial (that means members of the capitalist class, not supporters of capitalism) we would find that the majority had broken laws that applied under the capitalist system (e.g. failing to pay taxes, paying less than minimum wage, violating environmental protection and workplace safety laws, etc.) If people have broken such laws, I don't see why we should not put them in jail, that's what usually happens to people who break laws and cause serious harm. I also think it would be a valid way of preventing them from regaining their position as capitalists.

[pluckedflowers]

Why give so many people an existential reason to fight the revolution at all costs? A social revolution would be a threat to their existence as capitalists, of course, but not to their existence as such. If it became such a threat, they would be stupid not to fight.

[Leftsolidarity]

I'm just not understanding what the actual productive purpose would be. Rehabilitation? Looking for answers? What would you aim to get out of it?

If there's nothing to be gain other than some shouts of "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!!!", then I don't see a point to have them.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

You shouldn't try someone if they did stuff that, under the laws of their time, was not illegal.

Besides, it'd just be a waste of time and money, and would be an act of petty vengeance.

By avoiding this type of 'winners' justice', we would be showing that Socialism - unlike the State Socialism of the 20th Century - is a definitive break from Capitalism, evidenced by the maturity of the proletariat under such a system.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Counter-revolutionary generals might be put on trail like that, but some businessman or super rich person will 1) probably just go into hiding long before anyone could locate them 2) As induviduals they are not inherently a threat - they should be poltically disenfranchised and prevented from organizing counter-revolution and that's the important part. I don't think workers would have the time or inclination to hold trials against capitalists for being part of a rotten system: "You exploited me!". If a boss during the height of revolution did something particularly vile and harmful like have private security murder strikers or revolutionary workers, then they might be put on trail for those specific crimes.

[Tim Cornelis]

You shouldn't try someone if they did stuff that, under the laws of their time, was not illegal.

What Hitler did was not illegal under his own reign, but he sure should have been tried if the opportunity had presented itself.

That being said, there is no reason to put capitalists on trial in a post-revolutionary society as they have been assimilated as workers and are no threat to anyone anymore.

[maskerade]

If there was to be a successful revolution I'm fairly certain most capitalists would flee to remaining capitalist countries, along with their possessions and capital, and those that remained would probably integrate themselves into the revolutionary process - I mean, who would want to stand against the will of the masses?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

What Hitler did was not illegal under his own reign, but he sure should have been tried if the opportunity had presented itself.

That being said, there is no reason to put capitalists on trial in a post-revolutionary society as they have been assimilated as workers and are no threat to anyone anymore.

Ah, Godwin's Law.

But yeah, you may have a point there. I guess there is space for discretion, you're absolutely right. But I think we can agree that, in general, we shouldn't try capitalists for being capitalists.

Besides, what if we do? Are we going to execute capitalists for being capitalists? In that case those who perpetrate these trials would have a lot of work to do, and would it be worth it?

And if you just put them in jail, then what? Would we hope to rehabilitate them or just let them rot? If the latter, then how can we establish a better, mroe rehabilitating prison system for the rest of the population?

Moral hazard, moral hazard.

[islandmilitia]

I don't think there should be trials according to whether capitalists committed crimes in the legal sense, and according to bourgeois law itself, because the entire point of bourgeois law is that it codifies and makes permissible relations of exploitation. If you are in a revolutionary process that is supposed to be about overthrowing bourgeois society and its legal system, it would just make no sense to acknowledge and reinforce the bourgeois legal system, by using it as the basis for trials against the former capitalist class. However, there should be public opportunities in the new society for recognizing the exploitation and suffering of the past, and those opportunities should involve the exposure and humiliation of former capitalists and other segments of the ruling class. The reason for this is that an important part of the way capitalism functions is for people to internalize their oppression by transferring the experience of exploitation in their lived practice to internal forms of humiliation and self-degregation. It follows that we should understand liberation not only in the external sense of changing the way workplaces are owned, or even through the transformation of politics, but also as involving a cathartic experience, whereby people go through activities and processes which allow them to relinquish and reject their internalized oppression and alienation. You cannot ultimately have this experience of catharsis without the public exposure of the former capitalist class and the enactment of violence against them, because the enactment of violence in different forms by the oppressed is a basic precondition for their self-liberation and transcendence of the oppressor-oppressed relationship. It is this violent catharsis that Fanon theorizes in The Wretched of the Earth - he talks about how decolonization can only happen in a meaningful way in the form of the liberation war because all other forms of political change (like the former clonal authorities peacefully passing the state to the control of a post-colonial intelligentsia) do not enable the oppressed to realize their own strength through the enactment of violence.

There is a long history of catharsis in revolutionary movements. In the Chinese Revolution, the struggle sessions in the countryside were all about peasants acknowledging their experiences of exploitation and suffering in highly public settings where the landlords were made to kneel in humiliating positions and submit themselves to the judgments and accusations of the peasants. When they were carried out in the northern base areas whilst the war against the KMT was still continuing, the effect of these struggle sessions (and the process of land reform of which they were a part) was to create new forms of rural community, to empower women, and to bind peasants to the revolutionary process. None of that would have been possible had land reform proceeded in a calm, measured way - like a dinner party, if you will.

[Jimmie Higgins]

What Hitler did was not illegal under his own reign, but he sure should have been tried if the opportunity had presented itself.Well in that case, it wasn't a "people's trial" it was a other ruling classes coming in and holding trials of top NAZIs in part in order to contrast and justify the new minority rule of the UK/US/Russia over the old minority rule of the NAZIs. Repression is often necessary at first for a new ruling group to "lay down the law". The other thing about the post-NAZI era was that while some top people were tried, the US put the middle-layer of the NAZIs back into power in Germany!

Some aspects of the post-Slavery reconstruction period of the US might be good historical examples to look to as well as to avoid. I don't think there were trials of the Slave ruling class during radical reconstruction - not for being slave-owners anyway. But they were disenfranchised during the radical reconstruction phase and Union Troops kept to make sure the old ruling class couldn't organize a reactionary force like the proto-KKK groups that formed right after the war but before this radical phase. All this was undone, of course, when the northern capitalists made a compromise with the old slave-owning class and they retook political power (i.e. the "solid south" one-party - the Democrats - state which lasted for 100 more years) and disenfrancized blacks and poor whites.

So in a very rough way, I think this shows what workers might do: have a militia for a period after the revolution to prevent any armed or organized reaction and a political disenfranchisement of the former ruling class. Trials are generally used by classes to help establish their hegemonic authority as well as show their repressive ability: "Look at how fair and rational our rule is" and/or "Look at what we can do if you step out of line". Workers as a class that doesn't need systematic exploitation in order to run society, doesn't need repression in these ways - we need to defend ourselves, but that's about it - we're the majority, we don't need to exploit others, so our "authority" comes from this, not that we are most rational or best to rule society and we don't have to scare other groups into society into accepting our rule, just prevent reaction.

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

In the scenario where a revolution takes place and the capitalist system is dismantled, I don't see much good coming from such a venture; they lost their power and, I would assume, their wealth in the revolution. The revolution is their punishment.
Besides, what would the sentences be? 10 years hard labour for mis-managing a hedgefund? Firing squad for indirectly supporting right-wing militias in Columbia?
I like the idea of the worst of the capitalist class getting some kid of payback for their inhumane acts but I fear it would just become a petty revenge excercise which could turn viscious and bloody.
They lost, we won; court adjourned.

[Blake's Baby]

I think if we put all capitalists on trial (that means members of the capitalist class, not supporters of capitalism) we would find that the majority had broken laws that applied under the capitalist system (e.g. failing to pay taxes, paying less than minimum wage, violating environmental protection and workplace safety laws, etc.) If people have broken such laws, I don't see why we should not put them in jail, that's what usually happens to people who break laws and cause serious harm. I also think it would be a valid way of preventing them from regaining their position as capitalists.

Here's an idea, let's imprison everyone who breaks capitalist laws.

Hmm, revolution, that's illegal, isn't it? Brilliant. I know, why don't we all just take ourselves off to prison now, that'll show the capitalist bastards what they're dealing with.

[roy]

i categorically fail to see any point to this whatsoever in communism

[Leo]

Put the capitalists in trial... to do what, exactly? Will we not confiscate all their property if they've been nice when they were capitalists? Or is the intention to kill them? If their crime, perpetuating a system of oppression is set from the start - in them being capitalists, it most certainly is - and if the punishment for this is death, then why hold trials in the first place instead of just killing them? Show trials don't have a positive record.

No, having all their property confiscated and being forced to work just like everyone else will be enough punishment for the capitalists, and we don't need trials to do that. As communists, we are clear about what it is we intend. This is not to say there won't be trials for torturers, hit-men and certain politicians.

[helot]

I think that at the very least those who fought against the revolution will end up being put to death, it could possibly extend to large and well known former capitalists as well whether we like it or not. I don't think we can expect the working class to not slaughter those that have been oppressing them for centuries.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I think there are definitely room for some trials but only for those capitalists who do horrible things. Like Don Blakenship(I think thats his name), the coal operator who ignored regulations over and over again which ended up costing many lives when a mine blew up. Or how many coal companies are fucking up people's water supply and lying about it as it makes the miners sick. I think trials for these people would be good, although I don't know about the whole "off with their heads" thing...

[Comrade #138672]

Why give so many people an existential reason to fight the revolution at all costs? A social revolution would be a threat to their existence as capitalists, of course, but not to their existence as such. If it became such a threat, they would be stupid not to fight.Isn't a social revolution a nightmare for capitalists in itself? They would lose all power -- their whole identity. They would fight anyway. But you're right, let's not make them even more willing to fight. It will be hard enough as it is.

[Le Communiste]

Kill Kill Kill


Just kidding. The only sentence that should be put into practice is stripping away of all their fortune, and be forced to be working class with the rest of the proletariat.

[A Marxist Historian]

I find it an important psychological aspect to put people to trial. It shows that there is a new order, a new state that is washing out the old and trying to form something new. Mainly a workers government would go after more notorious capitalists, politicians and maybe some old militarists of the old capitalist state.

All those show trials Stalin had in the 1930s were such fun!

Criminals who ought to have been put on trial for their crimes under capitalism, but weren't because the capitalist system protected them, like the bankers who looted the economy blind or the war criminals responsible for torture and mass murder in Iraq and Afghanistan and so forth, should be put on trial.

But there should be no trials for the sake of having trials, for capitalists or anyone else.

-M.H.-

[Leftsolidarity]

I think that at the very least those who fought against the revolution will end up being put to death, it could possibly extend to large and well known former capitalists as well whether we like it or not. I don't think we can expect the working class to not slaughter those that have been oppressing them for centuries.

I don't think you should sit there and talk so nonchalantly about, as you even phrased it, "slaughtering" people.

[helot]

I don't think you should sit there and talk so nonchalantly about, as you even phrased it, "slaughtering" people.

I'm not saying i agree with it nor that i consider it a good idea, as long as reaction's defeated and the possibility of a counter-revolution is nil then such an act would only reduce the amount of people capable of productive work, but i do think large amounts of the working class would seek vengeance. Let's call that my pessimistic view of a successful revolution.

[jookyle]

I think that people should be held accountable for things they did under capitalism. Not just being capitalists but say, the CEO's at Dole who have okayed a banned pesticide to be used on banana farms in Nicaragua that cause the banana pickers to become sterile and develop cancer. Or people who fund the violant diamond mines in Africa and things of that nature.

[Positivist]

Yes I think there should be trials, but not for beig capitalists alone, but for things like jookyle mentioned above. There should be trials for such things now but the system is protecting them.

[Regicollis]

I also think there should be some kind of trials in order to signal a break with capitalism. However the trials should be about exposing capitalism more than about punishing individual capitalists. What is important is to have a collective forum that deals with the systemic criminality of capitalism. Thus the revolutionary courts should be lenient in their sentencing.

The punishments metered out for the previous capitalists who are put on trial should - like all other punishments - have therapy and rehabilitation as their goal. Inflicting pain on convicts simply to satisfy a distasteful desire for revenge is deeply reactionary and not at all fitting for a revolutionary system of justice. The convicted capitalists should receive all the help they need to confront what they've done and to become good members of society.

[Leftsolidarity]

What? How do you rehabilitate a capitalist? A capitalist is an individual who owns private property and exploits other people's labor. Take away their property and ability to exploit others' labor. What rehab is needed for that?

I personally find this whole idea to be a wee bit crazy.

[CryingWolf]

For any capitalist, a lifetime of not living off of the labor of others should be punishment enough. :laugh:

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Yeah, set up show trials and maybe get you to stand somewhere in the courtroom shouting "FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BAD!"

Thank God you're Banned for such drivel!

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

I also think there should be some kind of trials in order to signal a break with capitalism. However the trials should be about exposing capitalism more than about punishing individual capitalists. What is important is to have a collective forum that deals with the systemic criminality of capitalism. Thus the revolutionary courts should be lenient in their sentencing.

The punishments metered out for the previous capitalists who are put on trial should - like all other punishments - have therapy and rehabilitation as their goal. Inflicting pain on convicts simply to satisfy a distasteful desire for revenge is deeply reactionary and not at all fitting for a revolutionary system of justice. The convicted capitalists should receive all the help they need to confront what they've done and to become good members of society.

Yes, i definitely agree with your post. Since the State is merely the representative of the ruling class, the trials will have to be coordinated to show how not only capitalism was evil, but how the capitalists' State was criminal. But if some workers attack a capitalist during the insurrection, i will look the other way. If someone files a complaint (i.e. survives...) this will of course have to be brought to court, but the laws will be lenient and geared towards rehabilitation of the individual human.

[A Marxist Historian]

I'm not saying i agree with it nor that i consider it a good idea, as long as reaction's defeated and the possibility of a counter-revolution is nil then such an act would only reduce the amount of people capable of productive work, but i do think large amounts of the working class would seek vengeance. Let's call that my pessimistic view of a successful revolution.

Yes indeed. And it would be the job of the more advanced elements of the working class, organized in its vanguard party, and in the repressive apparatus of the new workers state, to prevent that as much as possible.

A good part of the work of the Cheka was preventing that sort of thing to the degree possible, which in the course of a bloody civil war was not always possible.

Thus, a lot of coal miners in the Donbass wanted to kill the engineers and mine managers who had made their lives so incredibly miserable under the old regime and had usually collaborated with the White Guards, and this had to be prevented, if for no other reason than to make sure coal production was not disrupted.

-M.H.-

[Aussie Trotskyist]

I'm personally in favor of attempting to assimilate them into the working class.

However, if that fails, there is always the guillotine.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Yes, i definitely agree with your post. Since the State is merely the representative of the ruling class, the trials will have to be coordinated to show how not only capitalism was evil, but how the capitalists' State was criminal. But if some workers attack a capitalist during the insurrection, i will look the other way. If someone files a complaint (i.e. survives...) this will of course have to be brought to court, but the laws will be lenient and geared towards rehabilitation of the individual human.

So you're not talking about a trial to do with teh law, you're talking about a show trial, since you've already decided the crimes and the guilt.