Federalism and Centralism- is this a real conflict?

[homo sapien]

These thoughts were mostly sparked by reading Bakunin's Revolutionary Catechism (and another recent thread where this was mentioned as one of the true differences between Anarchism and Marxism). I really struggle with why Anarchists and Marxists still identify as seperate things because of the idea of Federalism. In the Anarchist conception, society should be structured from the bottom up, with local governments forming regional governments, which would form national governments, which would form a world government. I use the word "government" which some Anarchists might not like, because for all intents and purposes these organizations are governments according to Bakunin. They resolve disputes between communes. They coordinate production and trade between local communes. They raise an army and wage war on reactionary forces. This sort of organization also sounds pretty much like the worker's state Marx and Engels describe in the Manifesto. I suppose Anarchist see a difference in that they do not maintain the more "coercive" aspects of government which make it a State. However, if they are going to be waging war against reactionary forces than most of these coercive aspects are going to exist in a Federalist system. Furthermore, when I've read the specific suggestions put out by organizations like the ISO for what a worker's state would look like, they talk about a basically federal structure based on local soviets, with all representatives being instantly recallable etc, just like how Anarchists describe a federalist structure. The Anarchist Federation and the Socialist Worker's State don't seem to really differ much in terms of their function and composition to me. I suppose the big difference would be that the higher levels of an Anarchist Federation would not have power to dictate to the lower levels, whereas in planned economies the top can dictate to the bottom. But modern day post-USSR Trotskyist Marxists seem to have a highly libertarian concept of what the revolution would look like which could have room for rights and protections for lower level structures. Is there really a difference on this point anymore or do both sides converge as socialists become more non-Stalinist and Anarchists become more serious about large scale organization?

[Nuke Israel]

Marxists are centralists. A socialist economy is centrally planned because it needs to coordinate production and consumption in a monolithic way. Devolution of economic coordination to regional or local bodies undermines central planning and is often the basis for a sort of market model, like Tito's Yugoslavia.

Anarchist/Trotskyist federalism is often very broadly outlined. For example, what sorts of limits are put on self-management? If the central state has a final say, how is that much different than the historical socialist model? Almost all work on self-management has to do with the philosophy behind it, in actual practice it does not seem robust.

[TheEmancipator]

For me it is the most underrated conflict. As an increasing admirer of platformism I feel that centralism was perhaps the main issue of the 20th century Marxist-leninists. With the debate raging on about the role of the EU, I feel a strong federal system would be favourable to both a European superstate governed by bourgeois interests and the nation-states which have outlived their usefulness a long time ago. new micro-states should be formed with a general union to ensure the proleteriat has control over the factors of production.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Marxists are centralists. A socialist economy is centrally planned because it needs to coordinate production and consumption in a monolithic way. Devolution of economic coordination to regional or local bodies undermines central planning and is often the basis for a sort of market model, like Tito's Yugoslavia.

Just to re-assure the OP, and any other interested observers, this is not representative of all strands of socialist/anarchist thought. Indeed, whilst some believe that socialism must equate to an economy whose production and distribution of resources must be planned from the centre, there are also others who believe that a de-centralised, regional economy can flourish, and take better account of social and cultural sensitivities, and can work if implemented alongside the strongest possible socialist democracy, especially at local and regional levels.

[Art Vandelay]

Why any particular tendency would want to elevate the tactics of federalization and centralism, to principles, has never made any sense to me. There are certain situations where federalism proves more effective and certain situations centralism is entirely necessary. There is no conflict, it depends on context. Anarchists fetishism of federalism is really no better then certain communists fetishism of centralism.

[Tim Cornelis]

Marxists are centralists. A socialist economy is centrally planned because it needs to coordinate production and consumption in a monolithic way. Devolution of economic coordination to regional or local bodies undermines central planning and is often the basis for a sort of market model, like Tito's Yugoslavia.

Anarchist/Trotskyist federalism is often very broadly outlined. For example, what sorts of limits are put on self-management? If the central state has a final say, how is that much different than the historical socialist model? Almost all work on self-management has to do with the philosophy behind it, in actual practice it does not seem robust.

I think you're misconstruing the meaning of centralism. Centralism within a workers' state would mean that a sort of 'supreme soviet' consisting of mandated and recallable workers' deputies would be binding on all constituents, whereas within a federalist framework autonomous constituent bodies are not compelled to do so. Centralism, in this sense, has nothing to do with the so-called "socialism" of planning capital centrally, i.e. from the top-down with no involvement or participation of workers and consumers (a class dictatorship over workers).

Moreover, socialism and communism are classless societies based on the free association of equals, in terms of decision-making power it'll be the most decentralised system to have ever existed in the history of humanity as every individual has an equal decision-making power. With your suggestion that Marxists are centralists (administration from above) you in effect contend that Marxists are anticommunists.

The 'coordination' of production and consumption 'monolithically' has proven itself to be relatively inefficient and ineffective in the Soviet Union and elsewhere. It is not a suitable alternative to the market economy.

Incidentally, at the OP, if the only difference between centralism and federalism is whether constituent bodies are to abide by whatever is decided at the central level then, in practice, the difference will be minimised as different times and places will result in slightly different outcomes.

[Brotto Rühle]

I don't mean to just drop a link, but I think it's relevant to the conversation:

http://libcom.org/library/marx-bakunin-question-authoritarianism