Worker's Self Management

[Post-Something]

Hi, just wondering about worker's self management. I've seen a few members on this board call it left liberal, or be a bit derisive to it in general. I'm not sure I understand the criticism, could somebody explain it? For example, here in the UK, what would be wrong if the government re-nationalized the railways, restructured it, and gave it to the workers to run themselves? Also, how far can workers self management go? If a whole nation was organised on its principle, and political and legal life was also organized on anarchist principles, What more is there to do other than it being adopted elsewhere? I guess the problem is that there is still a market, but what is really wrong with that?

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Hi, just wondering about worker's self management. I've seen a few members on this board call it left liberal

I don't know who you got this from, but they aren't communists. Worker's self-management is the whole point of classless society; anyone who claims that it's 'liberal' should take a long hard look at their own politics, the largest problem of which being why they are on a radical leftist forum in the first place.

Also, never take slogans as fact. As soon as you take shit like 'liberal', 'ultra-left' or 'totalitarian' to heart as actual criticism, you'll destroy yourself politically. A man can be as virulently adamant and aggressive as they wish, doesn't mean that they aren't wrong. And when dogmatists start churning out Marx quotes, question their validity and correctness.

As Abe Lincoln once said, the problem with quotes over the internet is that it's very hard to determine their authenticity.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Hi, just wondering about worker's self management. I've seen a few members on this board call it left liberal, or be a bit derisive to it in general. I'm not sure I understand the criticism, could somebody explain it? For example, here in the UK, what would be wrong if the government re-nationalized the railways, restructured it, and gave it to the workers to run themselves? Also, how far can workers self management go? If a whole nation was organised on its principle, and political and legal life was also organized on anarchist principles, What more is there to do other than it being adopted elsewhere? Production should be self-managed by workers, but I think it will take a revolution to achieve that fully in the sense of a society run by workers. Worker's self-management in capitalism is probably a much better condition for workers induvidually, but on the large-scale, if the whole economy isn't cooperativly run by workers, then a self-managing firm is only managing the cards that capitalism deals us and so there would still be a level where factors of production are not dependant on worker's power but the needs of the profit-system.


I guess the problem is that there is still a market, but what is really wrong with that?Well the market creates the pressures which favor the kind of capitalist management we typically see because in order for capitalists to compete on the market they need to compete with other firms and try and generate more profits or else they will be pushed out of the marker and/or eaten up by the bigger fish. The capitalist market is a particular form of organizing the economy and the basis for it is profit, not worker's control or production based on what people need and want, so I would counter-pose the capitalist market way of organizing with a democracticlly planned economy (either more loose or more directly planned in a centralized way, this another debate but is beside the point for this question IMO) based on collective prioritization of production.

So in firms that are either run as worker co-opts or have some other form of working class management, but within the larger framework of capitalism, there are still pressures of exploitation - although it would be self-imposed exploitation - and alienation from the larger productive process because market forces (which favor the large privite controllers of wealth and industry) determine factors of production, overruling democratic considerations at some point. Hell even induvidual capitalists themselves have a limit on their influence in the process - profits create a sort of Faustian situation where the capitalists benifit from the system but can't control it - this is why there are crashes and booms and the tendency to need to supress wages (or up production pace) and increase exploitation.

For some firms, this self-management can be a workable business model because essentially they can shift some of the money spent on the management layers over to the workers themselves which gives them a larger share of the surplus. But this is the exception to the rule. The larger the industry or company, the less the cost of managment saleries is actually a factor (and the less this money can be shifted to induvidual workers) and so I think this is why we tend to see co-ops work either in small shops or small manufacturers or in niche artisan production where labor is already less deskilled and devalued than in larger production-efforts.

But really a lot of this is besides the point - I am really just taking a shot at an explaination for why these kinds of things can have some sucess in a limited way, but couldn't really just spread within capitalism in a way that would negate the contradictions of the system. In practice, even if the rest is theorhetically possible, there is still the issue of class power and the capitalist class would violently resist people finding shortcuts out of the market if these strategies were able to take-off. At some point there would have to be a confrontation because the ruling class would use all means at it's disposal to keep society organized in the way they want.

Going back to the early years of capitalist development (and a process which continues in some places today) it was necissary for this development that people were prevented from seeking non-market/wage ways to eek out a living and so the commons were closed off and harsh punishment was given to people caught fishing or gathering or hunting in common lands - vagabonds and "masterless people" without a Lord or Master (boss) were imprisoned or sent to workhouses or colonial areas to do labor.

Essentially the same interests and needs that caused this process would prevent a gradual "socialism" to take hold. Co-opts can show how things can be done differently, but at some point workers will have to expropriate the entire process from the current expropriators in order to run society themselves.

[Post-Something]

Production should be self-managed by workers, but I think it will take a revolution to achieve that fully in the sense of a society run by workers. Worker's self-management in capitalism is probably a much better condition for workers induvidually, but on the large-scale, if the whole economy isn't cooperativly run by workers, then a self-managing firm is only managing the cards that capitalism deals us and so there would still be a level where factors of production are not dependant on worker's power but the needs of the profit-system.

Well the market creates the pressures which favor the kind of capitalist management we typically see because in order for capitalists to compete on the market they need to compete with other firms and try and generate more profits or else they will be pushed out of the marker and/or eaten up by the bigger fish. The capitalist market is a particular form of organizing the economy and the basis for it is profit, not worker's control or production based on what people need and want, so I would counter-pose the capitalist market way of organizing with a democracticlly planned economy (either more loose or more directly planned in a centralized way, this another debate but is beside the point for this question IMO) based on collective prioritization of production.

So in firms that are either run as worker co-opts or have some other form of working class management, but within the larger framework of capitalism, there are still pressures of exploitation - although it would be self-imposed exploitation - and alienation from the larger productive process because market forces (which favor the large privite controllers of wealth and industry) determine factors of production, overruling democratic considerations at some point. Hell even induvidual capitalists themselves have a limit on their influence in the process - profits create a sort of Faustian situation where the capitalists benifit from the system but can't control it - this is why there are crashes and booms and the tendency to need to supress wages (or up production pace) and increase exploitation.

For some firms, this self-management can be a workable business model because essentially they can shift some of the money spent on the management layers over to the workers themselves which gives them a larger share of the surplus. But this is the exception to the rule. The larger the industry or company, the less the cost of managment saleries is actually a factor (and the less this money can be shifted to induvidual workers) and so I think this is why we tend to see co-ops work either in small shops or small manufacturers or in niche artisan production where labor is already less deskilled and devalued than in larger production-efforts.

But really a lot of this is besides the point - I am really just taking a shot at an explaination for why these kinds of things can have some sucess in a limited way, but couldn't really just spread within capitalism in a way that would negate the contradictions of the system. In practice, even if the rest is theorhetically possible, there is still the issue of class power and the capitalist class would violently resist people finding shortcuts out of the market if these strategies were able to take-off. At some point there would have to be a confrontation because the ruling class would use all means at it's disposal to keep society organized in the way they want.

Going back to the early years of capitalist development (and a process which continues in some places today) it was necissary for this development that people were prevented from seeking non-market/wage ways to eek out a living and so the commons were closed off and harsh punishment was given to people caught fishing or gathering or hunting in common lands - vagabonds and "masterless people" without a Lord or Master (boss) were imprisoned or sent to workhouses or colonial areas to do labor.

Essentially the same interests and needs that caused this process would prevent a gradual "socialism" to take hold. Co-opts can show how things can be done differently, but at some point workers will have to expropriate the entire process from the current expropriators in order to run society themselves.

Ahh, that makes much more sense. A few questions I still have though:

1. Suppose there is a revolution and all the means of production are expropriated and we end up with a worker managed economy with a bottom up, democratic political structure, would that be enough?

2. Wouldn't this new society encounter the same problems on a global scale since we live in a globalized world where companies have to compete internationally?

3. For this to really work on any serious scale, wouldn't anarchism need to be a more efficient way of doing things? It sounds like you're suggesting re-prioritizing efficiency and growth with workers decision making and control. That's fine at some level, but it seems to me that historical growth doesn't favor humanitarian causes, just ones that make quicker, cheaper, and more abundant products.

4. Is there any way to keep the competition and vitality of the market whilst also having a democratic economy and political order? I just have a kind of gut reaction against central planning because history isn't really on it's side, and I like having totally stupid items that would never be made by a planned economy, such as silly putty or stress balls.

[Jimmie Higgins]

1. Suppose there is a revolution and all the means of production are expropriated and we end up with a worker managed economy with a bottom up, democratic political structure, would that be enough?Well yes, but to me a worker managed economy implies collective/democratic management of the whole economy, not just the specific workplaces.

This doesn't mean some elected beurocrat in a building somewhere comes up with a plan in a top down and unaccontable way, and it also doesn't mean every worker votes quarterly on if we continue to produce PEZ or not. It could be a situation where initially, people democratically organize their priorities for production on a regional scale but then workplace councils or elected representatives are empowered to negotiate the nuts and bolts - but recallable and subject to those they represent.


2. Wouldn't this new society encounter the same problems on a global scale since we live in a globalized world where companies have to compete internationally?Not sure what you mean here. I think that workers would want to organize the economy democratically in order to eliminate redundant production, labor that only goes into things that help maintain the system (like the military) or generate profits (like advertising) and get rid of competition between workplaces. Competition on the market leads to things like overporduction, falling rate of profits, and increased exploitation so I think workers would need to find an alternate way to manage the economy, than management through the market for profits.


3. For this to really work on any serious scale, wouldn't anarchism need to be a more efficient way of doing things? It sounds like you're suggesting re-prioritizing efficiency and growth with workers decision making and control. That's fine at some level, but it seems to me that historical growth doesn't favor humanitarian causes, just ones that make quicker, cheaper, and more abundant products.Well what kind of growth do you mean? Capitalist growth is just the accumulation of profits - this has historically advancing qualities but at a different level is also a barrier to further growth. This is one of the contradictions of the system: to creates abundance, but that abundance is necissarily concentrated and controlled in social organization and that abundance when it gets to the point of overproduction, rather than satisfying needs, actually then causes the capitalist economy to stagnate or crash and causes misary and less acess to that abundance for workers.

This contradiction is also why some bourgois favor keynsian strategies or will support nationalist policies as an attempt to bridge some of these markert contradictions even though this seems at odds with classic economic liberalism on the surface. Capitalist countries themselves have used beurocratic planning for all sorts of "advancements" that for whatever reason could not be done under the usual business methods. Germany and Japan at the middle/end of the 1800s used state power and beurocratic planning in order to "modernize" and catch up with the industrializing countries.

So society run by workers may not be "efficient" when it comes to generating profit, but it would be more efficient in satisfying use-vale because all the efforts which only are useful for profits or exchange value can be made redundant. As far as motivations for innovation, rather than profits being the motive, again, there would be a motive in finding ways to satisfy our actual needs and wants in a more efficient way both in terms of producing abundance to satify absolute demand but also in finding methods which are more plesant for the actual producers.

Further, freeing people from gearing their lives, education, and so on around the demands of wage-labor and profits would mean that the pool of people with the time and skills and desire to engage in research or innovations to impove their lives would be incredibly vast compared to today. Because decisions about production would be made by the producers, this would also create an inherent motivation for impoving production. In education, this would allow for more "pure" research for the sake of discovery which could later yield benifits and without privite property in the sense we know it today, any technological development could be expanded on by others or adopted by others.

Even in modern capitalism, it was the burocratically planned research by the military and public universities which brought about computers and the internet and other innovations of the 20th century. So I don't think that the market is the only or the best way for technological advancements and impovements.

Not to mention things like planned obsolencence and the way that multiple competing companies in technology might produce the same product or service but intentionally make them incompatable with their competator's analogous products. For example, how many people do you know that have a DVD or Blue Ray player, a computer, and multiple gameing platforms - there's no reason other than profits not to make these things compatable and more flexible. Instead we have lots of resources and enegy spent making digital things non-copyable etc even though in the larger sense, this is one of the potential advances of digital technology.


4. Is there any way to keep the competition and vitality of the market whilst also having a democratic economy and political order? I just have a kind of gut reaction against central planning because history isn't really on it's side, and I like having totally stupid items that would never be made by a planned economy, such as silly putty or stress balls.Well I think the problem with historical examples of planned economies is the basis on which the economy was planned.

I think with modern productive capabilities, reorganizing production around a democratic and collective process rather than a privite profit process (or national) we'd potentially be able to "have our cake and eat it too". I think with "use-value" there would still be a strong motivation for things that make life more enjoyable - and with all of us having to work less and under non-alientating conditions, there'd be pleanty of time for people to follow their personal interests and prioritize the things that make life fun and enjoyable - including novelty toys.

Although the internet is obviously not free from capitalist logic and entanglements, it's relative new-ness and the minimal price for creating digital content, the ammount of creative things people do from blogs to memes to DIY programs IMO gives a small glimpse of the type of inventiveness and creativity that could potententially be let free if society was organized to work for us, not profit.

[Thirsty Crow]

4. Is there any way to keep the competition and vitality of the market whilst also having a democratic economy and political order? I just have a kind of gut reaction against central planning because history isn't really on it's side, and I like having totally stupid items that would never be made by a planned economy, such as silly putty or stress balls.
Why would the revolutionary working class want to keep the competition among isolated economic units when it is pretty much clear that this is first of all a consequence of capitalist production, and furthermore produces both social consequences which are not conducive to workers' emancipation, in the sense of the abolition of class and production for human need and not for the accumulation of (exchange) value? Why would workers' need to manage their own exploitation?

[Post-Something]

Well yes, but to me a worker managed economy implies collective/democratic management of the whole economy, not just the specific workplaces.

This doesn't mean some elected beurocrat in a building somewhere comes up with a plan in a top down and unaccontable way, and it also doesn't mean every worker votes quarterly on if we continue to produce PEZ or not. It could be a situation where initially, people democratically organize their priorities for production on a regional scale but then workplace councils or elected representatives are empowered to negotiate the nuts and bolts - but recallable and subject to those they represent.

Not sure what you mean here. I think that workers would want to organize the economy democratically in order to eliminate redundant production, labor that only goes into things that help maintain the system (like the military) or generate profits (like advertising) and get rid of competition between workplaces. Competition on the market leads to things like overporduction, falling rate of profits, and increased exploitation so I think workers would need to find an alternate way to manage the economy, than management through the market for profits.

Well what kind of growth do you mean? Capitalist growth is just the accumulation of profits - this has historically advancing qualities but at a different level is also a barrier to further growth. This is one of the contradictions of the system: to creates abundance, but that abundance is necissarily concentrated and controlled in social organization and that abundance when it gets to the point of overproduction, rather than satisfying needs, actually then causes the capitalist economy to stagnate or crash and causes misary and less acess to that abundance for workers.

This contradiction is also why some bourgois favor keynsian strategies or will support nationalist policies as an attempt to bridge some of these markert contradictions even though this seems at odds with classic economic liberalism on the surface. Capitalist countries themselves have used beurocratic planning for all sorts of "advancements" that for whatever reason could not be done under the usual business methods. Germany and Japan at the middle/end of the 1800s used state power and beurocratic planning in order to "modernize" and catch up with the industrializing countries.

So society run by workers may not be "efficient" when it comes to generating profit, but it would be more efficient in satisfying use-vale because all the efforts which only are useful for profits or exchange value can be made redundant. As far as motivations for innovation, rather than profits being the motive, again, there would be a motive in finding ways to satisfy our actual needs and wants in a more efficient way both in terms of producing abundance to satify absolute demand but also in finding methods which are more plesant for the actual producers.

Further, freeing people from gearing their lives, education, and so on around the demands of wage-labor and profits would mean that the pool of people with the time and skills and desire to engage in research or innovations to impove their lives would be incredibly vast compared to today. Because decisions about production would be made by the producers, this would also create an inherent motivation for impoving production. In education, this would allow for more "pure" research for the sake of discovery which could later yield benifits and without privite property in the sense we know it today, any technological development could be expanded on by others or adopted by others.

Even in modern capitalism, it was the burocratically planned research by the military and public universities which brought about computers and the internet and other innovations of the 20th century. So I don't think that the market is the only or the best way for technological advancements and impovements.

Not to mention things like planned obsolencence and the way that multiple competing companies in technology might produce the same product or service but intentionally make them incompatable with their competator's analogous products. For example, how many people do you know that have a DVD or Blue Ray player, a computer, and multiple gameing platforms - there's no reason other than profits not to make these things compatable and more flexible. Instead we have lots of resources and enegy spent making digital things non-copyable etc even though in the larger sense, this is one of the potential advances of digital technology.

Well I think the problem with historical examples of planned economies is the basis on which the economy was planned.

I think with modern productive capabilities, reorganizing production around a democratic and collective process rather than a privite profit process (or national) we'd potentially be able to "have our cake and eat it too". I think with "use-value" there would still be a strong motivation for things that make life more enjoyable - and with all of us having to work less and under non-alientating conditions, there'd be pleanty of time for people to follow their personal interests and prioritize the things that make life fun and enjoyable - including novelty toys.

Although the internet is obviously not free from capitalist logic and entanglements, it's relative new-ness and the minimal price for creating digital content, the ammount of creative things people do from blogs to memes to DIY programs IMO gives a small glimpse of the type of inventiveness and creativity that could potententially be let free if society was organized to work for us, not profit.

Right, I'm with you up until here, except for the international aspect. Wouldn't it mean that we'd have less buying power on the international market, and that importing goods would be much more expensive? Surely our currency would be much weaker? If we're producing primarily to service local people and not to make profit, without overproduction, and much of the costs of production going to ensuring safe working conditions and decent pay for workers, wouldn't it mean that they wouldn't be able to compete with wage-slaves in other countries? Ie. in Anartopia, we produce plasters, primarily for local needs in our hospitals, but we also want to sell a few on the market to make some money for investment. But our plasters are much more expensive to produce since we have all these safety precautions etc compared to people in Kazakhestan. And since we're spending so much more of our money on the production process overall, surely our trade deficit would be a problem? How will we import Champagne, low fat-greek yogurt, and beef jerky?

[Post-Something]

Why would the revolutionary working class want to keep the competition among isolated economic units when it is pretty much clear that this is first of all a consequence of capitalist production, and furthermore produces both social consequences which are not conducive to workers' emancipation, in the sense of the abolition of class and production for human need and not for the accumulation of (exchange) value? Why would workers' need to manage their own exploitation?

I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I completely understand you. Do you mean why would we need competition of the market when we have self-sufficient economic units? Because:

1. I'm primarily talking about the beginings of a revolutionary structure, ie, just in one country so far, and

2. Because you don't want a monopoly, as they will charge too highly for products, therefore leaving consumers little money to buy other products. (I know you can say "ah, well everyone will be paid equally", but that doesn't work here as the workers can simply work slower, or not as efficiently, and claim the same amount of money).

[Thirsty Crow]

Right, I'm with you up until here, except for the international aspect. Wouldn't it mean that we'd have less buying power on the international market, and that importing goods would be much more expensive? Surely our currency would be much weaker?
The overthrow of capitalism, which is a global mode of production, rests on international revolution, and the abolition of both the international market and competition arising from it, enables the development of production for human need and not profit.

In other words, in a developed communist/socialist mode of production, which is also a global mode of production, the notions of buying power, the international market, and import and export would be simply unnecessary since there would be no actual practices which then notions would correspond to. This goes for currency, and money in general, as well.


If we're producing primarily to service local people and not to make profit, without overproduction, and much of the costs of production going to ensuring safe working conditions and decent pay for workers, wouldn't it mean that they wouldn't be able to compete with wage-slaves in other countries?The assumption that production would primarily be geared towards servicing local needs is false.

And again, why do you assume that (capitalist) competition is sort of a natural necessity of human productive work in general?



Ie. in Anartopia, we produce plasters, primarily for local needs in our hospitals, but we also want to sell a few on the market to make some money for investment. But our plasters are much more expensive to produce since we have all these safety precautions etc compared to people in Kazakhestan. And since we're spending so much more of our money on the production process overall, surely our trade deficit would be a problem? How will we import Champagne, low fat-greek yogurt, and beef jerky?
I think you're outlying the inherent problems with capitalist production here, probably unwittingly.
If production remained on the basis of capital, there would soon appear a drive towards the elimination of precisely those aspects you summarize as "safety precautions" (pertaining to both the living conditions of the working class and the conditions in the immediate process of production). Again, why would not the revolutionary working class do away with such practices and mechanisms world wide?


I'm sorry, I'm not sure if I completely understand you. Do you mean why would we need competition of the market when we have self-sufficient economic units? Because:

1. I'm primarily talking about the beginings of a revolutionary structure, ie, just in one country so far, and

Sorry if I'm being unclear.

I'm arguing that competition is a result of "self-sufficient economic units" (enterprises) and that it is inherently capitalist, or in other words, cannot lead to communism unless it is, as a potential first stage in a given region or country, overcome by the activity of the revolutionary working class - that is, if production is not completely reorganized.

I would not want to speculate on the viability and minute details of such practices in an isolated region or country. I don't know whether workers would or should organize production on these lines in the immediate, short-time period following a revolutionary upsurge and the establishment of workers power. What I think I know is that for there even to be a possibility of the global elimination of capitalist production, an international revolution must take place, and from there on the question of the reorganization of production on a global level can be posed.

[Post-Something]

The overthrow of capitalism, which is a global mode of production, rests on international revolution, and the abolition of both the international market and competition arising from it, enables the development of production for human need and not profit.

In other words, in a developed communist/socialist mode of production, which is also a global mode of production, the notions of buying power, the international market, and import and export would be simply unnecessary since there would be no actual practices which then notions would correspond to. This goes for currency, and money in general, as well.

The assumption that production would primarily be geared towards servicing local needs is false.

And again, why do you assume that (capitalist) competition is sort of a natural necessity of human productive work in general?



I think you're outlying the inherent problems with capitalist production here, probably unwittingly.
If production remained on the basis of capital, there would soon appear a drive towards the elimination of precisely those aspects you summarize as "safety precautions" (pertaining to both the living conditions of the working class and the conditions in the immediate process of production). Again, why would not the revolutionary working class do away with such practices and mechanisms world wide?

Sorry, maybe I'm not making myself clear. I understand that once there is a worldwide revolution things will be different and the profit motive will dissappear, but that it unlikely to happen overnight in every country. It would most likely break out in one country, like it did in Spain, and then perhaps spread to others. In that case, the country we're talking about has to deal with international trade to get the goods it needs, not every country can supply it's own TV's, cars, lamposts and cigarrettes.

[Post-Something]

I would not want to speculate on the viability and minute details of such practices in an isolated region or country. I don't know whether workers would or should organize production on these lines in the immediate, short-time period following a revolutionary upsurge and the establishment of workers power. What I think I know is that for there even to be a possibility of the global elimination of capitalist production, an international revolution must take place, and from there on the question of the reorganization of production on a global level can be posed.

Ah, of course, but that will take years, possibly hundreds of years! How are we supposed to convince people to revolt in their own countries if it might lead to economic isolation and stagnation? We need a programme that promises to fit in well with the international economy while subverting it at the same time.

[Thirsty Crow]

Sorry, maybe I'm not making myself clear. I understand that once there is a worldwide revolution things will be different and the profit motive will dissappear, but that it unlikely to happen overnight in every country. It would most likely break out in one country, like it did in Spain, and then perhaps spread to others. In that case, the country we're talking about has to deal with international trade to get the goods it needs, not every country can supply it's own TV's, cars, lamposts and cigarrettes.
Yes, precisely this.
This is the imminent danger for an isolated revolutionary working class, in one country or even in several countries. I'm not actually sure what's the problem here, what do you want to ask or argue since it seems like you have a more or less solid grasp on why it would be virtually impossible for workers of an isolated country to abolish both capital as the basis of production and rid themselves of the myriad social consequences of its basic operation.

And I also argue that the model of workers' self-management, if understood as you laid it out, the ownership of individual economic units or enterprises within a broader framework of a national, let's say, workers' state, would not and could not eliminate those consequences of capitalist production, and much less the capitalist base itself.

The whole point is in the question you have posed in OP, how far can workers' self-management go? And a possible answer, compressed into an analogy, would be: as far as traditional socialdemocracy has shown itself historically capable.

Ah, of course, but that will take years, possibly hundreds of years! How are we supposed to convince people to revolt in their own countries if it might lead to economic isolation and stagnation? We need a programme that promises to fit in well with the international economy while subverting it at the same time.
The point is not to convince anybody of anything as the social conditions which in the first place enable the question of revolution to be posed are marked by the international scope of the social crisis provoked by capital.

And the programme you mention would be absolutely useless as it would amount to a deliberate manipulation and contradiction. Nobody should fool themselves thinking that communism is as easy as child's play as it is manifestly not. There are innumerable obstacles and dangers in the way of workers' emancipation.

[Post-Something]

The point is not to convince anybody of anything as the social conditions which in the first place enable the question of revolution to be posed are marked by the international scope of the social crisis provoked by capital.

And the programme you mention would be absolutely useless as it would amount to a deliberate manipulation and contradiction. Nobody should fool themselves thinking that communism is as easy as child's play as it is manifestly not. There are innumerable obstacles and dangers in the way of workers' emancipation.

Ahh, now I'm starting to see. Are you saying that since capitalism is a global system, we should wait until there is a gobal crisis, ie, a universal revolutionary situation, before being able to challenge it?

[Thirsty Crow]

Ahh, now I'm starting to see. Are you saying that since capitalism is a global system, we should wait until there is a gobal crisis, ie, a universal revolutionary situation, before being able to challenge it?
Pretty much yes, though it depends on what you exactly mean by "we" in we should wait and so on.
Though, the crisis I mention obviously does not appear in exactly the same way world wide, which is also a part of the problem in figuring out how to act within class struggle.
To try and be more clear, if by "we" you actually mean pro-revolutionary groups, then I'd assume that first what is needed is a sober assessment of our own irrelevance - we can't bring capitalism down, and should not fall into the trap of self-aggrandizement.
So what can "we" do? I'm not sure. We can develop our ideas through mutual interaction, we can intervene in concrete struggles with concrete ideas of how these could be furthered. This is definitely a hot topic among people who are for communism and you'll get all sorts of answers on this.

[Post-Something]

Pretty much yes, though it depends on what you exactly mean by "we" in we should wait and so on.
Though, the crisis I mention obviously does not appear in exactly the same way world wide, which is also a part of the problem in figuring out how to act within class struggle.
To try and be more clear, if by "we" you actually mean pro-revolutionary groups, then I'd assume that first what is needed is a sober assessment of our own irrelevance - we can't bring capitalism down, and should not fall into the trap of self-aggrandizement.
So what can "we" do? I'm not sure. We can develop our ideas through mutual interaction, we can intervene in concrete struggles with concrete ideas of how these could be furthered. This is definitely a hot topic among people who are for communism and you'll get all sorts of answers on this.

Fucking hell.
I have to say that's the most radical thing I've heard in a long time. Very incisive and somber. I always thought that the goal was to get a revolution in one country and to spread it to others via subversion, but this is new to me. So you really are a person of faith, for me, I just believed it was possible to organize society differently, in a more humane way, but you really believe that this epoch must come to an end. I have to respect that. Is this the view of just your tendency by the way? Do all Left-Communists think this way?

[Thirsty Crow]

Fucking hell.
I have to say that's the most radical thing I've heard in a long time. Very incisive and somber. I always thought that the goal was to get a revolution in one country and to spread it to others via subversion, but this is new to me. So you really are a person of faith, for me, I just believed it was possible to organize society differently, in a more humane way, but you really believe that this epoch must come to an end. I have to respect that. Is this the view of just your tendency by the way? Do all Left-Communists think this way?
What do you mean by "subversion" in spreading the revolution?
To clarify, I don't think the broad layers of the working class in such a case should do absolutely nothing to aid class struggle in other parts of the world, far from it. What forms could this internationalism take? Surely, it can take the form of agitation and propaganda through communication channels. It can take the form of direct aid in arming the workers, and of course in international political work. I don't think it is possible to assume that a simultaneous (take it pretty much literally) world revolution could take place.

What do you mean, a person of faith? I don't think faith is necessary or, in fact, desireable, as it is clear that capital depends both on the continued existence of the working class and on the continuous attacks on the working class, so this would not be a matter of faith. It's a matter of a basic insight into the basic and insolvable (on capitalist terms) problem of capital.

Also I do think that if the conditions of the working class are to be eliminated this whole deal with global capitalism must come to an end since, as I think it is also clear, historically all sorts of attempts at amelioration of results, consequences, has shown itself to be of only a temporary and fleeting character. And what's the alternative? Millions massacred in imperialist wars, continued and depeening destitution?

And in the end, when you couple self-interest arising from one's one social position with what I think can be called an insight into how things work, you don't need faith.

There are a whole lot of issues here so it might be best if you PMed me about what you ask here about left communism in general (that could potentially derail the thread, I think).