Ideal Workers' State

[MrPointForward]

I'm in a bit of soul searching here. Generally, I'm a leftist - one who admires and picks up ideas from various ideologies and currents i.e. agrees with Lenin's theory of imperialism and united front strategy but not a Leninist, likes the idea on bottom-up participatory workers' councils but not a libertarian communist, admires Allende's Chilean experiment on Cybersyn but not a technocratic socialist, likes the idea of replacing money with labor vouchers + union confederalism but not an anarcho-syndicalist, admires resurging workers' self-management movements and cooperativism but neither an anarcho-communist nor a Titoist, amazed with the foco/protracted people's war employed by the Chinese, Vietnamese, and Cubans but not a Maoist, etc.

After months of internal soliloquies, I attempted to 'syncretize' and visualize a personal model of 21st century socialist construction. Features:

- proletarian revolution through protracted urban-rural people's war involving a united/popular front made up of various leftist elements (e.g. democratic socialist, Trotskyist, anarchist, antifa, feminist, eco-socialist, Marxist-Leninist, Maoist, etc.) in the spirit of a genuine people's uprising

- the various parties, unions, and organizations comprising the victorious united/popular front shall take power and shall operate in a multi-party national workers' council constructed from the bottom-up (participatory community council delegation up to the city, provincial, and nationwide levels and are instantly recallable once mandate is betrayed)

- "Bourse du travail" coordinates labor union appeals, manages commodity distribution, and instructs decisions based on collective interests and tangible statistical data (e.g. worker absenteeism, production surpluses/shortages), gathered and projected by a cybernetic network to minimize politicization of decision-making

- money (together with taxation) abolished, with labor vouchers serving as replacement; industrial data on worker contribution (e.g. no. of hours worked) fed to the cybernetic network

- collectivization and agricultural cooperativism voluntarily enforced through propaganda; workers' self-management promoted/institutionalized nationwide

Feel free to scutinize my ideas, but please do so in an objective and constructive manner. Any input (i.e. alternatives, criticism, supplements) regardless of ideology or persuasion would be appreciated. :grin:

[Blake's Baby]

Can I ask the question 'why?'?

It all seems quite academic: "I read about these things then picked some ideas I liked the look of".

Do you actually have a theory of revolution (as in, why the working class or 'the people', whoever they might be, should follow you), or do you just have a recipe?

[The Feral Underclass]

A non-existent one.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I genuinely do not understand the fetish for 'people's war'. The very phrase is a massive juxtaposition. When has war ever been about anything other than the ruling class in a society sending workers off to do their murderous bidding? People's war will never exist, because even wars fought in the name of ordinary people, inevitably lead to the massacre of said same ordinary people, lead to chains of command and entrenched social structures of power.

I am loathe to have any blueprint that I would ever push forward for a socialist society, simply because the idea of re-designing an ENTIRE society is so mammoth that I find it a bit repulsive and incredibly arrogant that some people think they can effectively solve the world's problems on the back of a cigarette packet.

All I will say is that if we want a peaceful society, avoid war - of the people, by the people, of any kind. If we want a humane society, avoid repression in all its forms. If we want to abolish the class system, avoid setting up new institutions that entrench class rule in any way.

You can go on and on, but the general point is not to try and perform gymnastics of logical thinking to try and justify ideological/arbitrary personal-political wants.

[helot]

- money (together with taxation) abolished, with labor vouchers serving as replacement; industrial data on worker contribution (e.g. no. of hours worked) fed to the cybernetic network



I disagree with this wholeheartedly. I do not think labour vouchers are the way forward. I think it's far too close to the wages system. We must remember that we cannot calculate an individual's share in the production of the world's wealth. Any formula for it would be too inaccurate and would require far too much energy expended on calculating it. I throw my lot in with rations and i'd expect this is what the workers would seek.

[Rural Comrade]

How would members of this council be chosen? Moreover how would one stop the differing parties from fighting with each other? Lastly is this suppose to be Marxist or socialist.