My Utopia, how's yours?

[Not Convinced]

Hi everyone, I'm Alistair, friends call me broon

I'm trying to get my mind straight and have seen the other side so my question is, in three points how would you order the world after the revolution. For me it would be;

*Guarantee absolute freedom of speech
*No person is allowed to accumulate a disproportional influence in society
*Free Education, based on how much you put in is the amount of state funding you get

These are just mine, I think that a more socialist system is the only way to go but it has to be based in reality so, what you got?

[Arlekino]

Is that including freedom or right wing speeches, prejudice?

[Questionable]

Greetings, comrade Alistair. A few things to say about your vision.


*Guarantee absolute freedom of speechThis is a point of discussion among leftists but I and many others don't agree with this. Why should we have free speech for racists, sexists, bigots, etc? Besides, our main goal is to eliminate economic oppression. "Free speech" is irrelevant to the main goal of the abolishing of capitalism.


*No person is allowed to accumulate a disproportional influence in society

I'm not sure how this could happen under a socialist society. We're trying to eliminate the social relations that make it possible to accumulate wealth (Which I assume you mean by "influence") in the first place. If capitalism is abolished and the means of production are publicly owned, and all workers relate to each other with free association, I'm not sure how one could gather influence or wealth.


*Free Education, based on how much you put in is the amount of state funding you get

Could you elaborate on what this means? In an ideal socialist society funding wouldn't be an issue as the conflict between exchange-value and use-value would be removed. What you're describing reminds me a bit of what Marx said about society right after the revolution (Labor vouchers), but I'm not sure if that's what you're getting at.

Good thoughts though. Keep on reading and learning!

[Robespierres Neck]

Sounds more liberal/libertarian than left.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Sorry but I'm a materialist, don't care for this sort of thing.

[Geiseric]

Well if we're having a revolution, the bourgeois speech will be seen as bullshit by the working class that is carrying out the revolution, so I don't think anybody will be listening to racists, scabs, or petit bourgeois fascists if the revolution is happening at all.

[The Idler]

I can't imagine an emancipated intelligent socialist society appointing censors to decide what we can and can't communicate no matter how offensive. A socialist society would in all likelihood have all the social freedoms we have now and more.

A socialist society will be thoroughly egalitarian so not likely to have a state or taxes. Free education will not be means tested.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I'm trying to get my mind straight and have seen the other side so my question is, in three points how would you order the world after the revolution.

Hmm, my ideal:

1. Workplace and neighborhood democratic decision-making bodies would be the political foundation for workers deciding how to reorganize society after the revolution. I think specific things like any sorts of general points of agreement for society, any immediately needed democratically decided-apon dictates could be made, would fall under this. (All my points are just my best guesses or "ideal" so ultimately it would be based on what people decide they need at the time - this is especially true of any revolutionary agreements made, but as a wild guess I might say that certain things should be guarenteed such as the right to recall elected representatives, outlawing overt counter-revolutionary/racist/sexist organizing, and cementing in any other gains won through the course of the revolution such as rights to common land in places where that might be an issue.)

2. After food and housing people would prioritize free medical care and ongoing and voluntary education beyond basic math and reading skills.

3. Systmatic reorganization of work-tasks so that as soon as possible "shit-jobs" could be replaced with methods that don't require someone to devote all their working time to backbraking or smelly or just boring work; and working hours could be reduced across the board so that the process of making work as we know it obsolete can begin and people would have much more of their lives to do with what they want.

But my ideal utopia in the sense of a pre-planned fanstasy of how I'd like to live:

1. communities organized like "campuses" with houses and appartments surrounding a central hub (within realitivly easy walking-distance) that provides communal services. Each community hub could be connected to other hubs in an urban area by a rail line so that communities could provide basic communal services such as kitchens (resturants), education, day-care, entertainment and even specialize on certain activities that community members share but no one would be stuck with only those services (or people). So one hub might be the "theater" hub and some of their communal services would be based around that and they'd have multiple theaters and rehearsal spaces etc - another might focus on some other shared interest or activity. Organized sports could also be arranged through this kind of set-up - though the althletic-interests commune would probably have the upper hand :D

This is a fantasy because this is just my ideal for a life that could offer what modern urban life can potentially offer while minimizing the alienating and impersonal way that modern cities are organized and give people an easy and organic structural way to organize any community-based decision-making. In a shallow way some college-housing is supposed to be set up this way - and I think when the goal of direct profits is removed from the question of dealing with housing a lot of people, there's a certain inherent logic to this sort of living arrangement. Of course colleges aren't automonous areas and are directly connected to the system on various levels, so their goal isn't "liberated living" either so college-housing has it's own problems.

Anyway, who knows how people will want to live. Early utopian-oriented socialists tended to see a very rural and pastoral "communism" where people would live more like a combination of tradditional villiage life but with democracy and communal work/ownership. This was partially because the class struggle hadn't developed as much and a lot of resistance to capitalism at that time was frocused on restoring old coimmunal rights - partially as a reaction to the beginings of industrialization, so tradditional rural life seemed more appealing than the rural mills that were popping up. In the early 20th centruy of course lots of visions for an ideal society revolved around seeing a much more urban and high-tech society where all workers reaped the benifits of what industrial technology could bring. In the 60s and 70s there was a return to rural ideals of communist life as a rejection to the modernist techno-utopias and the failure of the USSR to achieve a more pleasant way of life. So my vision might just be my own reaction to contemporary life - rejections of the excesses of capitalist communitiy life now: the atomization of the suburbs, the anonimity and isolation within large cities, the inequality of access to infrastructure and culture.

2. Really exotic privite locations such as Hearst Castle or Disneyland would be open for free for anyone and people could organize, say, big drug-parties (they'd have to reserve the space after demonstrating that enough people had agreed to attend - so a group of 3 or whateve couldn't monopolize a whole park or whatnot for a whole day if there was lots of demand to use that space) in those locations in particular. Party like the rich, but everyone!!!

3. A metric-based calander is adopted for the whole world. The extra days that don't fit into the calander would become annual world-wide holdidays and party days.