Government vs. No Government (My Idea)

[Marshal of the People]

Greetings Comrades this question has been bothering me for a while now and I would really like to hear your views on it. Is a government better than no government or is no government better than a government. I currently think that both those views are partially right and a mix of elements of the two would be a good idea and alternative to either one (that's just my current opinion I might be completely wrong or misguided if I am please explain why), in my system you wouldn't have politicians you vote into office to represent you, you would represent yourself, every week (or whenever an emergency meeting is called) you would go to your local council of citizens (I don't know if this is the right word to use) to be given a rundown on all that is happening in the nation and you would vote on decisions and laws which need to be approved or rejected every citizen would be represent by himself in the democracy which I think would stop the bureaucracy from taking over as what happened in the Soviet Union, the citizens every year would vote for members of the Board of Councils (just a word I made up for it a while ago don't know if it is really correct) who would manage the day to day running of the nation (e.g. managing production and carrying out the orders from the people) and quickly responding to emergency situations (for example an invasion etc.) though every law or major (when I say major I mean e.g. more funding to education, health, the military or stuff which affects the lives of citizens etc.) decision would have to be approved by the people so in reality the people are in charge of the board of councils they can be fired at anytime by the people and are limited to say 4 years as a member of the board.

The advantage I think of my hybrid system are:

* The board is selected by a lottery system of people who have signed up for a chance to rule the country and they are instantly dismissible by the people.
* All laws and all decisions are made by the people not the board (they can only make decisions in emergencies for a limited time and only when the people give them that power.
* The board is not an instrument for controlling the state it is an instrument controlled, used and owned by the people for aiding in the administration and control of the state.
* The board can respond quickly to emergency situation (The constitution outlines what scenarios the board can respond to e.g. invasions, rebellions, natural disasters etc.) but the board must immediately notify the people and an emergency meeting must be held where the people decide on a course of action.

I can't really think of any disadvantages. Please don't get angry at me if you don't like my idea just explain to me what about it you think is bad I’m more than happy to improve my idea and make it even better.

If you've read all that thank you and please reply below, thanks:)

Some Definitions:

Board of Councils (board): Groups of people who run the day to day business of the nation (e.g. ruuning the economy and managing the police force etc.), they are selected through a lottery system (for people to be selected they must sign up to have the chance of being elected, this stops people who don't care being put in the board their term is for 3 months and they are instantly dismissible by the people as long as there is a good enough reason and enough votes. example their would be different councils for different jobs e.g. the Council of Education, the Council of Health, the Council of Justice, the Council of War etc.

Councils of Citizens (Councils): The councils are political groups made up of all citizens they will meet once a week or when an emergency meeting is called they are the people who make the major decisions (increasing funding for certain areas, dismissing members of the board, passing new laws, decisions which regard the military [the board has no power over the military whatsoever unless when the constitution grants it like in war time but still must delegate to the people]), A majority vote of 80% is required to pass any decision or law.

[Q]

There is a real question going on here: How do we run a global society in a communistic way?

That we need to tackle this in a global manner is pretty obvious: Our society is simply too integrated to run things in a commune-like manner. Furthermore resources are unequally divided across the globe. Both facts necessitate global administration.

So, how do we treat this in a democratic fashion? Your instincts are quite right: Governments under capitalism (and the former "socialist" bloc) are everything but democratic. So, what is at cause here? Will soviets be a solution?

Soviets have their own problems: It's a stepped form of democracy. That is: The locality elects a representative for the local soviet. This local soviet will then elect a representative for the regional soviet. This regional soviet will then elect a representative for a provincial soviet and so on. When you're dealing with so many layers, the democratic effect of recallability gets diluted by several magnitudes. As such, the system grows at a fault and we see the same sort of institutional corruption happening as in the west, perhaps even more so.

So, what is at the root of these problems? Well, the actual cause is having elections in the first place. Elections are fundamentally an oligarchic principle, not a democratic one! Equating democracy with elections is one of the most brilliant forgeries the bourgeoisie ever accomplished. No society can genuinely rule itself as long elections are used as its mechanism. This fundamental point is often not understood on the left either, sadly.

So, how would a democracy - rule by the people, for the people - work? We only need to look at ancient Athens which used a form of lottery to select its administrative positions. These people only ruled for a short while (think in months, not years) and could be ostracised from politics if any corruption was to be found. Fundamental tenets of lottery democracy (or demarchy) are:
- Every position is selected by lottery.
- Terms are short.
- Positions are filled by collectives of people. So, instead of a "minister of education" you'd have a "council of education".

Some more reading/watching:
- To win the battle of democracy (http://marxistcenter.com/2013/08/13/to-win-the-battle-of-democracy/). An article on MarxistCenter.com, a project I myself am involved in, although the article is by someone else.
- Video on what democracy is and isn't. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/lecture-democracy-video-t172673/index.html?t=172673)
- Collective Decision-Making and Supervision in a Communist Society (http://www.zcommunications.org/collective-decision-making-and-supervision-in-a-communist-society-by-moshe-machover.html), a paper by Moshé Machover explaining the problems of representative democracy, soviets and proposing an alternative (ePub here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/epub-collective-decision-t180663/index.html?t=180663)).
- Democracy or oligarchy? (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/788/democracy-or-oligarchy) An article by Paul Cockshott (also a Revleft member) explaining what demarchy is all about and why communists should care.

[Marshal of the People]

There is a real question going on here: How do we run a global society in a communistic way?

That we need to tackle this in a global manner is pretty obvious: Our society is simply too integrated to run things in a commune-like manner. Furthermore resources are unequally divided across the globe. Both facts necessitate global administration.

So, how do we treat this in a democratic fashion? Your instincts are quite right: Governments under capitalism (and the former "socialist" bloc) are everything but democratic. So, what is at cause here? Will soviets be a solution?

Soviets have their own problems: It's a stepped form of democracy. That is: The locality elects a representative for the local soviet. This local soviet will then elect a representative for the regional soviet. This regional soviet will then elect a representative for a provincial soviet and so on. When you're dealing with so many layers, the democratic effect of recallability gets diluted by several magnitudes. As such, the system grows at a fault and we see the same sort of institutional corruption happening as in the west, perhaps even more so.

So, what is at the root of these problems? Well, the actual cause is having elections in the first place. Elections are fundamentally an oligarchic principle, not a democratic one! Equating democracy with elections is one of the most brilliant forgeries the bourgeoisie ever accomplished. No society can genuinely rule itself as long elections are used as its mechanism. This fundamental point is often not understood on the left either, sadly.

So, how would a democracy - rule by the people, for the people - work? We only need to look at ancient Athens which used a form of lottery to select its administrative positions. These people only ruled for a short while (think in months, not years) and could be ostracised from politics if any corruption was to be found. Fundamental tenets of lottery democracy (or demarchy) are:
- Every position is selected by lottery.
- Terms are short.
- Positions are filled by collectives of people. So, instead of a "minister of education" you'd have a "council of education".

Saying Soviets was actually a mistake what I should have said was groups (perhaps unions is also a good word?) the people would be placed into groups because you can't fit the entire population in a single room they would be based on geographic location so they are like communities the groups would not be controlled by anyone they would be completely independent from any type of authority so here's an example: At a previous meeting an idea to increase funding to education is discussed and subsequently written up by a group of people (consisting of teachers, students and other people who should be asked on the matter) and they present it to the groups via telecommunication like Skype (though Skype would not be used for obvious reasons [NSA]) the pros and cons would be discussed by debating and such and each member of the groups would make up their own mind and cast their vote and the votes would be counted and the law/decision either passed or declined in which case they could change the bill to make it easier to pass. (I think that the 51% majority is unfair to the 49% minority so that an 80% majority be mandatory to pass bills and also a constitution which outlines that no one can be oppressed or have their rights taken away but I'm not completely sure on this one)

So the people in the groups would independently decide on their view and make their vote on the matter the side with an 80% majority would then win, there would be no stepped democracy it would be direct democracy each person would cast a vote. (though democracy isn't fair for the minority so I’ll probably change my idea on this matter after I do a bit more research)

Q I really like your idea of a lottery system and also the councils instead of ministers and also the short terms (would 3 months be too short ?)their now part of my system thanks for that:grin:

I'll read the links you gave me thanks for them.

[Q]

Q I really like your idea of a lottery system and also the councils instead of ministers and also the short terms (would 3 months be too short ?)their now part of my system thanks for that:grin:
Well, there is actually a caveat with lotteries: How do you ensure that people will be caring enough to actually fulfill their duties? This is hardly a spot of envy for most people. So you need to watch for apathy rising with those selected.

Moshé Machover proposes a solution to this in the form of lotteries-through-political-lists. The way this works is that people who would care about politics would enlist themselves, say a new definition of "political party", and they then would be able to be selected for service. Machover gives plenty of mathematical proof that this form is highly effective and democratic so I do suggest you read it.

This then also assumes highly democratic political parties. There would no longer be a function for the standard hierarchical party form you see now in so many left sects and far beyond in bourgeois parties where the party leadership "thinks" and the branches are merely the "foot soldiers". Every party member would need to be educated to rule and be ruled.

[Marshal of the People]

Well, there is actually a caveat with lotteries: How do you ensure that people will be caring enough to actually fulfill their duties? This is hardly a spot of envy for most people. So you need to watch for apathy rising with those selected.

Moshé Machover proposes a solution to this in the form of lotteries-through-political lists. The way this works is that people who would care about politics would enlist themselves, say a new definition of "political party", and they then would be able to be selected for service. Machover gives plenty of mathematical proof that this form is highly effective and democratic so I do suggest you read it.

This then also assumes highly democratic political parties. There would no longer be a function for the standard hierarchical party form you see now in so many left sects and far beyond in bourgeois parties. Every party member would need to be educated to rule and be ruled.

Another great idea Q, you’re very smart.

The first link was very good it basically said the exact same things that are part of my (with a big thanks to Q for aiding in the evolution of my idea)

I also agree with some of the points from the second link it isn't possible for every decision to be voted by everyone all the time in my system the boards main role is to take care of the day to day running of the nation like controlling the economy, public services (e.g. hospitals, public transport, education) and such and also to respond quickly to decisions that need a quick response like an invasion as I’ve mentioned earlier.

EDIT: The Board of Directors shall now be called the Board of Councils because it shall be made of of councils like e.g. Council for Education, Council of Justice etc.
And the Soviets/groups shall now be called Councils of Citizens because the citizens are organised into councils (groups) where they control the nation themselves.

[tuwix]

There is a real question going on here: How do we run a global society in a communistic way?


I think that a direct democracy answers this question.

[Marshal of the People]

I think that a direct democracy answers this question.

I wholeheartedly agree tuwix, though a constitution would be necessary to protect minorities.

[Q]

I think that a direct democracy answers this question.
"Direct democracy" is just a phrase, it answers nothing.

[Crabbensmasher]

Wow, quite the platonic discussion we have going on. Hope you don't mind if I jump in.

You asked for it, so let me play devil's advocate here:

Now, the idea of councils where everyone votes is logical, but there are a few flaws. I'm not experienced in this, but I've been to a few union meetings before, and one thing has always disappointed me about them. They tend to be boring. I'm enthusiastic about the process, and being able to have my vote heard is fulfilling, but the meetings make me want to sleep. There can be budget micromanagement, long winded arguments, etc. And if we're using this 80% threshold, it could take hours to pass any resolution. I'm not defending political apathy, but there is a limit for everyone, no matter how politically interested they are. This is still assuming these people are educated in such a manner as to facilitate democratic voting (Not like what we have now).

Furthermore, I'm assuming these councils will be positioned locally. This makes a lot of sense, but could we clarify what they're voting on? Local/provincial/national issues or global issues? There are problems with each. As for the latter, if the councils vote on global issues, I'm afraid they won't have the relevant knowledge/experience to make logical decisions. If you're deciding on whether to evacuate citizens from a massive Tsunami in Indonesia whilst you're sitting in America carefree, I wouldn't think either parties involved would feel comfortable. It would require everyone to have an advanced knowledge of geopolitics, demographics, global education, global healthcare and a million other things. I wouldn't expect the council of citizens to know these things, but even if they go to the more experienced board of councils, I don't know if I would have enough faith for them to operate globally.
Now, to move on, if we assume these councils operate on a local level, then of course the council of people, and the board of council will have relevant knowledge. The problem however, is how this operates within a global democracy. For this to work, there will still have to be administrative divides, taking the form of nations. When the people simply vote in the interests of one municipality/province/nation, this may breed nationalism and erode any semblance of global equality within our fictional system.

I had some more points, but I just forgot them. Might come back to me later. And once again, I'm playing devil's advocate - not necessarily my personal views.

[Marshal of the People]

Wow, quite the platonic discussion we have going on. Hope you don't mind if I jump in.

You asked for it, so let me play devil's advocate here:

Now, the idea of councils where everyone votes is logical, but there are a few flaws. I'm not experienced in this, but I've been to a few union meetings before, and one thing has always disappointed me about them. They tend to be boring. I'm enthusiastic about the process, and being able to have my vote heard is fulfilling, but the meetings make me want to sleep. There can be budget micromanagement, long winded arguments, etc. And if we're using this 80% threshold, it could take hours to pass any resolution. I'm not defending political apathy, but there is a limit for everyone, no matter how politically interested they are. This is still assuming these people are educated in such a manner as to facilitate democratic voting (Not like what we have now).

Furthermore, I'm assuming these councils will be positioned locally. This makes a lot of sense, but could we clarify what they're voting on? Local/provincial/national issues or global issues? There are problems with each. As for the latter, if the councils vote on global issues, I'm afraid they won't have the relevant knowledge/experience to make logical decisions. If you're deciding on whether to evacuate citizens from a massive Tsunami in Indonesia whilst you're sitting in America carefree, I wouldn't think either parties involved would feel comfortable. It would require everyone to have an advanced knowledge of geopolitics, demographics, global education, global healthcare and a million other things. I wouldn't expect the council of citizens to know these things, but even if they go to the more experienced board of councils, I don't know if I would have enough faith for them to operate globally.
Now, to move on, if we assume these councils operate on a local level, then of course the council of people, and the board of council will have relevant knowledge. The problem however, is how this operates within a global democracy. For this to work, there will still have to be administrative divides, taking the form of nations. When the people simply vote in the interests of one municipality/province/nation, this may breed nationalism and erode any semblance of global equality within our fictional system.

I had some more points, but I just forgot them. Might come back to me later. And once again, I'm playing devil's advocate - not necessarily my personal views.

I agree with all your points here Crabbensmasher but if there is too much bureaucracy and concentration of power then it will turn into a dictatorship (as happened in the USSR and China), I'm still researching a lot on this topic specifically about how Soviets were supposed to function so I might have to get back to you on those points. I think being part of the political system should be a duty like jury duty and not participating being an offense (unless you have an excuse e.g. being sick) written in the constitution.

[Kamp]

* The board is selected by a lottery system of people who have signed up for a chance to rule the country and they are instantly dismissible by the people.

How about - your collegues votes for you because you are intrested in politics and they think that you would do a good job - as a representative and as guider. This places you in union and the people votes for representatives in the union branches that they represent.. and so on..

The problem is that we need the state to make quick desitions and therefore we must trust them. In any other manner the people should always vote for a descecion..

[Crabbensmasher]

I agree with all your points here Crabbensmasher but if there is too much bureaucracy and concentration of power then it will turn into a dictatorship (as happened in the USSR and China), I'm still researching a lot on this topic specifically about how Soviets were supposed to function so I might have to get back to you on those points. I think being part of the political system should be a duty like jury duty and not participating being an offense (unless you have an excuse e.g. being sick) written in the constitution.

Yeah, you could make it something like jury duty. Like I said though, it can take hours to vote on all these matters.
Also, what's going on while everybody is voting? Does the world grind to a halt? Would they miss work? Would they be reimbursed for the time they spent voting?
We need to find some way for the people to give their direct input easily, while not being turned off by the political process. It's effective, but very crude. I think it just lies in giving the board of councils more power, and limiting what the populace votes to important matters. Micromanaging can be done by the board of councils. Unfortunately this raises another problem...

At the same time though, this elected board of councils we have can't breed the rise of career politicians. Will limiting their term really change much? Will they be able to run again? What if they become famous, and people want to vote for them again? This raises the question on why they would become famous in the first place. If we want to prevent the rise of career politicians as we see today, we'll have to keep these people out of the spotlight. But still, if they're being voted in, CAN they stay out of the spotlight? People need to know their name to vote for them.

So invariably, I think this leads us back to where we are now.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I would just like to point out that 'lottery democracy' makes no sense; if the system is demarchic (i.e. random selection based on certain rules), then that is not a democracy.

Democracy is the rule of the majority. We need to ask ourselves if this is the best way for society to self-govern. If it is, then we need to ask:

a) how we can best implement the 'rule of the majority', and
b) if there are any checks we want on democracy, for example to protect minorities.

Some capitalist countries employ bourgeois democracy, most notably those that have a presidential system, where turnout in the final round is likely to be nearly 100% and the choice is between two candidates, thus ensuring that one candidate gets as realistically close to the support of at least 50% + 1 of the population as is practically possible. So in this sense bourgeois democracy (as a phrase) makes sense, albeit only in the most limited sense, since the democracy normally occurs very infrequently (normally a couple of times a decade at most), and only for one position, and the barriers to entry for that position normally ensure that either the same person wins several elections on the bounce, or the same type of person, ensuring that the choice is between Jim Smith or Jim Smith 2.0, essentially.

Other capitalist countries say they employ a liberal democracy, but do not. Britain is a fantastic example. If by democracy we mean 'rule of the majority', then I don't think there has been any sort of election in Britain in living memory, or even further back, that could be labelled 'democratic', since the parliamentary system, with no run off, ensures that the perenially low turnout, plus the spread of votes across parties, means that even in landslide election wins, no ruling party is normally supported by much higher than 1/3 of the population, and sometimes as low as 1 in 5 of the total population.

So given the above, it seems clear that a genuine form of democracy, in which as many of the positions of responsibility and power as possible are decided through democratic voting means, would represent a huge and positive break with any voting system hitherto under capitalism or any other social system, in terms of its fairness, equity, accountability and inclusiveness.

There are various options we could investigate, and one could plot them on a continuum from that which represents the most basic improvement on the bourgeois democracy that currently exists, namely genuinely democratic, open-access and inclusive democratic elections at the national and local level for positions of power, to the very end of the spectrum which is represented by consensus democracy, where all decisions in society are made by everyone involved.

For me, the former isn't ambitious enough (and doesn't really represent that much of a break from bourgeois democracy; indeed, one could make the case for such a democracy within a social system based on the profit motive and rule of capital), whilst the other is unworkable in practice, particularly when it comes to decisions that involve thousands or more involved parties, for example medium- to large-scale building projects.

So for me we need to look for something that steers a middle ground, and here there are even more possibilities to consider. Two of the most plausible and interesting seem to be council democracy, where workplaces and local neighbourhoods have their own councils (soviets) who make decisions of distribution and of community issues, and federated democracy, which may include councils but whose main element, as far as i'm aware, is that the regional delegate is elected from the pool of local delegates, the national delegate elected from the pool of regional delegates and so on.

The advantages of council democracy include all those of consensus decision-making; namely inclusivity, and that decisions are made by those who will be affected, and council democracy avoids the pitfalls of needing consensus on every issue. Federated democracy strikes a balance between having a link between local and national levels, whilst making decision making more efficient by providing a level of delegation when it comes to input on non-local issues. For example, an island like the United Kingdom would find it more efficient to make island-wide decisions using a federal system, which delegates decision making on island-wide issues to a national-level body, whilst still retaining a democratic link between the national-level body and those who elected the local delegate.

I don't think it's possible to make a definitive conclusion on what sort of system works best, in fact I think it's a better idea, as a rule of thumb, not to attempt blueprints in advance of a social system even coming into being. Further, the dynamics of decision-making will certainly depend on geographic and cultural factors, the level of a region's economic development and of its productive forces, and of course of the social nature of the people of that region/island. However, it is interesting and definitely possible to identify factors that do affect what sort of democratic system may be most likely to be employed, what its pros and cons may be, and any obstacles to its real-world enaction and operation.

[ckaihatsu]

n my system you wouldn't have politicians you vote into office to represent you, you would represent yourself, every week (or whenever an emergency meeting is called) you would go to your local council of citizens (I don't know if this is the right word to use) to be given a rundown on all that is happening in the nation and you would vote on decisions and laws which need to be approved or rejected every citizen would be represent by himself in the democracy




Board of Councils (board): [...] their term is for 3 months and they are instantly dismissible by the people as long as there is a good enough reason and enough votes.


Hi, MOTP. Your *motivations* are of the highest caliber and are unimpeachable, but the *theory* you're suggesting is the same old bourgeois song-and-dance that keeps regular people constantly in motion their entire lives, producing plenty of friction but no light whatsoever.

It's important to keep in mind that the current bourgeois 'democratic' practice came out of the rising economic -- and thus, political -- power of the merchant class of the late European feudal era:





[...]

The land [of Northern Europe] was divided between warring baronies, often separated from each other by dense woodlands or marshes. Each was a virtually self contained economy, its people depending almost entirely on what was produced on its lands. For the peasants this meant a diet dominated by bread and gruel, and clothing spun and woven in their own homes out of rough wool or flax . It also meant devoting at least two fifths of their energies to unpaid work for the lord, either in the form of labour or goods in kind. As serfs, the peasants did not have the freedom to leave either the land or the lord.

[...]

There were few towns, and ‘entire countries, like England and almost all the Germanic lands, were entirely without towns’.88 The towns that did exist were little more than administrative centres for the bigger barons or religious establishments, and were made up of a few houses clustered around a castle, monastery or large church.

Yet this most backward extremity of the great Eurasian continent was eventually to become the birthplace of a new civilisation which would overwhelm all the rest.

[...]

The importance of what happened in the countryside between about 1000 and 1300 is all too easily underrated by those of us for whom food is something we buy from supermarkets. A doubling of the amount of food produced by each peasant household transformed the possibilities for human life across Europe. Whoever controlled the extra food could exchange it for the goods carried by the travelling traders or produced by the artisans.

Crudely, grain could be changed into silk for the lord’s family, iron for his weapons, furnishing for his castle, wine and spices to complement his meal. It could also be turned into means that would further increase the productivity of the peasant cultivators—wooden ploughs with iron tips, knives, sickles, and, in some cases, horses with bridles, bits and iron shoes.

By supplying such things at regular markets the humble bagman could transform himself into a respectable trader, and the respectable trader into a wealthy merchant. Towns began to revive as craftsmen and traders settled in them, erecting shops and workshops around the castles and churches. Trading networks grew up which tied formerly isolated villages together around expanding towns and influenced the way of life in a wide area.101 To obtain money to buy luxuries and arms, lords would encourage serfs to produce cash crops and substitute money rents for labour services or goods in kind. Some found an extra source of income from the dues they could charge traders for allowing markets on their land.




Harman, _People's History of the World_, Chapter 6, 'European feudalism', pgs. 140-141, 144





[...]

The forces of the French Revolution had defeated the armies of half the monarchies of Europe.

Ten years earlier nothing would have seemed more absurd to most thinking people than the idea of a revolution in France, let alone one that would set all Europe ablaze. The French monarchy had ruled for well over 1,000 years and had enjoyed unchallenged power for 140 years. Louis XIV, the ‘sun king’, and his great palace at Versailles symbolised the consolidation of an enduring ‘absolutism’ which had made France the greatest power in Europe, such had been the inheritance of his successors Louis XV and Louis XVI.

Yet in the summer of 1789 that power had suddenly begun to fall apart. The king had summoned representatives of the three ‘estates’ which made up French society—the clergy, the nobles and the rest of the population, the ‘third estate’—to discuss ways of raising taxes.

But the representatives of the third estate had refused either to bow to the nobles or to do what the king told them. They proclaimed themselves a ‘National Assembly’ and, gathering on a tennis court after the king had locked them out of their hall, swore an oath not to disperse until he gave them a constitution. The king responded by summoning 20,000 troops and sacking his chief minister, Necker, supposedly sympathetic to the call for reform.

The delegates of the third estate were all from the respectable middle class, and most from the wealthier parts of it. Half were lawyers, the rest mostly merchants, bankers, businessmen and wealthy middle class landowners. There was not a single artisan or peasant. They were also almost all convinced of the need for a monarchy, albeit a ‘constitutional one’, and for rigid property qualifications in any electoral system. But they were not prepared simply to be crushed, and the arguments in Versailles were creating a ferment among vast numbers of people in Paris who had never thought of politics before. Clubs emerged, initially among well off members of the middle class, at which people discussed what was happening. A host of news sheets and pamphlets appeared. Some 400 representatives of the Parisian middle class met in the city hall and declared themselves the city council, or ‘commune’.




Harman, _People's History of the World_, Chapter 2, 'The French Revolution', pgs. 277, 279


I include those excepts to point out that what was at stake at the time was the legacy of *hierarchical* rule, and rule-making, that continues to be the bourgeois *norm*.

However, for those who have to sell their labor power in order to make their living -- the vast majority of the human race -- this legacy of top-down power must be *negated* in its entirety, not battled-over among ourselves, as if for a differently-branded political regime.

From the working-class point of view the bourgeois hierarchy and bureaucracy has a quality of *abstractness* and arbitrariness because of its historical origins -- its politics take on the form of a 'one-upmanship' jockeying for hierarchical position, irrespective of any actual *policy*, as over general human health and livelihood.

Moreover, the merely electoral procedures you're suggesting, MOTP, can never address the *institutionalization* of establishment machine politics -- this is why we see the same or similar nationalist policies under the undebatable imperative of 'national security', no matter who happens to be in whatever office, including the presidency.

The world's bourgeois systems are painfully out-of-date since the advent of *industrial* production, and all that *that* material system entails, especially for the world's working class.





So, what is at the root of these problems? Well, the actual cause is having [I]elections in the first place. Elections are fundamentally an oligarchic principle, not a democratic one! Equating democracy with elections is one of the most brilliant forgeries the bourgeoisie ever accomplished. No society can genuinely rule itself as long elections are used as its mechanism. This fundamental point is often not understood on the left either, sadly.


Our proletarian interests are firmly within the scope of mass *industrial* productivity -- our experience as workers should be our guide in determining how to massively co-administrate this state of affairs *collectively*:





4. Ends -- Flat, all-inclusive mode of participation at all levels without delegated representatives

[In] this day and age of fluid digital-based communications, we may want to dispense with formalized representative personages altogether and just conceptualize a productive entity within a supply chain network as having 'external business' or 'external matters' to include in its regular routine of entity-collective co-administration among its participants.

Given that people make *points* on any of a number of *issues*, which may comprise some larger *topics* -- and these fall into some general *themes*, or *categories* -- wouldn't this very discussion-board format of RevLeft be altogether suitable for a massively parallel (ground-level) political participation among all those concerned, particularly workers, for *all scales* of political implementation -- ?

I think there's conventionally been a kind of lingering anxiety over the political "workload" that would confront any regular person who would work *and* wish to have active, impacting participation in real-world policy, along the lines of the examples you've provided for this thread's discussion.

But I'll note that, for any given concrete issue, not everyone would *necessarily* find the material need to individually weigh in with a distinct proposal of their own -- as I think we've seen here from our own regular participation at RevLeft, it's often the case that a simple press of the 'Thanks' button is all that's needed in many cases where a comrade has *already* put forth the words that we would have said ourselves, thereby relieving us from the task of writing that sentiment ourselves.

Would concrete issues at higher, more-generalized levels be so different, so inaccessible to the regular, affected person on the ground? Wouldn't the information gathered within such an appropriate thread of discussion "clue everyone in" as the overall situation at that level -- say, from the participants of several different countries -- ?

I'll ask if delegated representatives *are* really required anymore when our current political vehicle, the Internet-based discussion board, can facilitate massively participatory, though orderly and topic-specific conversations, across all ranges of geography and scales of populations.


tinyurl.com/ckaihatsu-concise-communism


Centralization-Abstraction Diagram of Political Forms

http://s6.postimage.org/xxj3liay5/2374201420046342459e_NEwo_V_fs.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/xxj3liay5/)

[Q]

I would just like to point out that 'lottery democracy' makes no sense; if the system is demarchic (i.e. random selection based on certain rules), then that is not a democracy.

Democracy is the rule of the majority. We need to ask ourselves if this is the best way for society to self-govern. If it is, then we need to ask:

a) how we can best implement the 'rule of the majority', and
b) if there are any checks we want on democracy, for example to protect minorities.
Your definition already presumes a majority/minority dichotomy. This dichotomy only structurally makes sense in a parliamentary setting, where you have fixed majorities and minorities on a whole plethora of subjects based on electoral results.

In an actual democratic system, you'd have something much closer to "rule of the people" (not "rule of the majority", that is simply not what it means), where majorities and minorities shift along policy debates, quite possibly very dynamically, as new developments come along. This in turn implies a free and highly educated society.

Much of the rest of your post brings home the point I also made regarding the oligarchic nature of parliaments. So it seems strange that you insist in equating democracy and parliament. I think we, as communists, should be explicitly clear regarding the misuse of the term "democracy" under capitalism.

But while I agree that we shouldn't be making blueprints, as we have little experience with these systems, we should actively think about these concepts and how we can implement these in the here and now, starting in our own movement. Not only do we need democracy in order to politically organise our class, the politically organised working class itself is after all just foreshadowing the society of the future.

[reb]

Government, as an organ of the bourgeois state, has to be abolished, as well as all of the other institutions of the state. Self governance though, is fine but as long as it's not attached to a state and thus class society. We don't want to continue class society as communists. I would recommend reading Marx's stuff on the Paris Commune and Engels' appendixes http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/index.htm

[Rafiq]

No one knows how anything would function, or even if it would function. Who knows, maybe cities can turned into communes, no one knows.