A little help

[littleredcircus]

Hi comrades,

I hope you're all well.

Basically I've been having a bit of trouble working out where I sit on the leftist scene and wondered if anyone could help?

Firstly I believe in the complete abolition of the private ownership of the means of production with full workers control.

Have read a lot of Marx and fully agree with his analysis of capitalism. Although I feel I'm more economically Marxian than philosophical.

I however do believe that some form of fully accountable minimal one party government with no leader(to deal with daily running and bureaucracy that most people wouldn't be interested in) and legal system is required (regardless of stage of communism) to protect innocent people against non-materialistic crime such as rape, murder, serial killers etc. Also legal system to defend people who require compensation after a genuine medical accident etc. Even under communism mistakes would happen.

I'm a semi-materialist (weird i know) I dont believe in ghosts, fairies etc, but religiously neutral and believe that alien lifeforms may exist in different galaxies.( I don't think this is crazy considering the size of the universe.) I believe in a secular state but not militant atheism. People should be allowed to worship whoever they want in private.

I believe completely in "to each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."

I don't believe the USSR was ever really socialist, especially after Lenin.

I disagree with most authoritarianism except for what is absolutely crucial. I.e keeping dangerous people out of society.

Sorry for this weird post

Thank you

[argeiphontes]

That's pretty much my position. I'm a libertarian socialist, or maybe a council communist, or both.

[Remus Bleys]

I wish more revleft was like this.


Prepare for revolutionary totalitarianism.

[Skyhilist]

Don't worry about tendencies too much -- but you sound like a pretty solid libertarian socialist or some sort or another.

[The Idler]

Welcome, libertarian socialism for the win.

[argeiphontes]

It's the only reasonable ideology on the left. ;)

[#FF0000]

Basically I've been having a bit of trouble working out where I sit on the leftist scene and wondered if anyone could help?

Gonna start off telling you that going about this in this checklist format is usually a mistake. What you should do is explore the issues you're talking about and make up you're mind on them and and not try to say "I think this, this, and this -- put me in a box".


Firstly I believe in the complete abolition of the private ownership of the means of production with full workers control.Every communist does -- question is what does "full worker's control" mean?


I'm a semi-materialist (weird i know) I dont believe in ghosts, fairies etc, but religiously neutral and believe that alien lifeforms may exist in different galaxies.( I don't think this is crazy considering the size of the universe.) I believe in a secular state but not militant atheism. People should be allowed to worship whoever they want in private. Nothing you said here is incongruent with philosophical materialism.

Reading your post, I have a difficult time "placing" you. You strike me as someone who needs to explore these ideas a little bit.

And so does everyone else in this thread who thinks "ah yes ur a libtarian socshlist of corse" after you say that you believe in a "minimal" one party state.

[The Idler]

Full workers control means not having workers councils shut down by anyone eg the ruling party.

[Comrade Jacob]

... legal system is required (regardless of stage of communism) to protect innocent people against non-materialistic crime such as rape, murder, serial killers etc. Also legal system to defend people who require compensation after a genuine medical accident etc. Even under communism mistakes would happen...


The people would take care of situations like that, you don't need anything "official" by the end goal.

[piet11111]

You dont need to put a label on yourself as over the years some of your positions will change.

The only way to make the radical left work is by cooperating so thinking strictly along tendency lines wont do much good.
If someone has a bad idea call that person out on it and explain why it is a bad idea.
If your both reasonable people then 1 of you will end up being corrected and it might even be you.

[#FF0000]

Full workers control means not having workers councils shut down by anyone eg the ruling party.

that's cute but things can't be defined only by what they aren't.

The question of what worker's control actually means in a practical sense is a pretty serious one.

[The Idler]

If anyone wants to learn from the Bolsheviks (who called themselves communists) activity and why the term "full workers control" might be necessary to distinguish from "communists" advocating "workers control", then they should read
The Bolsheviks and Workers Control by Maurice Brinton
available here
http://www.marxists.org/archive/brinton/1970/workers-control/
and
http://libcom.org/library/the-bolsheviks-and-workers-control-solidarity-group

[Luisrah]

I'm a semi-materialist (weird i know) I dont believe in ghosts, fairies etc, but religiously neutral and believe that alien lifeforms may exist in different galaxies.( I don't think this is crazy considering the size of the universe.) I believe in a secular state but not militant atheism. People should be allowed to worship whoever they want in private.

I don't understand why you call yourself a semi-materialist.
You don't believe in ghosts and fairies (which makes sense because they don't exist)
Believing everyone should be allowed to worship whoever they want isn't being less of a materialist, it's just being more tolerant of diferent ideas.
Religiously neutral? I don't know what that means. I suppose you mean that you are not religious, but also not an atheist so I suppose that you either don't care (i.e. don't think about it) which doesn't seem the case or you are an agnostic (doesn't think there is a way to prove whether or not a god exists)
Don't see how this can make you more of an idealist...

Plus aliens? What does it have to do? Billions of other galaxies exist, so I'd be surprised if aliens didn't exist (lots of them)
But this is still a guess. You aren't less materialist if you try to predict some things according to facts. You aren't less materialist if you guess that, according to science development, humans should have landed on Mars by [insert year here].
Predicting future phenomena is actually one of the achievements and objectives of science - knowing due to previous experience that an earthquake close to the sea will probably create a tsunami is an example.