My Communist Principles

[LeftistEnthusiast]

Hello Everyone,

I've been a leftist for a while and I've recently been considering myself as an anarcho-communist based off a few core principles. First of all, deontology prevails over consequentialism, so these right-wing arguments about "but then we wouldn't have all these cool innovations, etc." are both untrue and irrelevant. The issue, then, is an issue of ethics… so how do you break down ethics?

I like to picture people on an island (make it nice and basic). Some people choose to fish. Some people choose to filter water to make it safe for drinking. Some people build shelter. Some people pick and grow vegetation. The list goes on. The core ethical principle of communism and true anarchism, in my opinion, is that all these products can rightfully be used by anyone. That is, everyone has an equal right to eat the fish and vegetables, drink the water, and live in the shelters. Anyone who thinks objectively would obviously see that this is the only rational point of view and would reject the right-wing proposal of "ethics," which is the greedy notion that humans somehow "own" whatever they "produce." Not only does this position have no logical basis, for humans have no magical means of exclusively "owning" natural resources (carrying the logic consistently, people must never be allowed to walk in the same spot as someone else has walked without the prior's "consent"), but is completely impractical and unethical, for the only way for the non-shelter builders to get shelter or the non-fishers to eat fish or the non-water filterers to drink water is to perform "favors" for the "owners." Of course, this perverse behavior is easily recognizable when a boss requires his employee to perform sexual favors for a job promotion, etc., but this common sense morality somehow escapes the minds of people. An employer holds out for "favors" in order to release what he has unlawfully stolen from society: "do this for me, do that for me, and I will give you enough to survive." Haven't these people ever heard of "sharing is caring"? Why do we teach our children these obvious truths but deny them in our adult lives? You don't tell your child he has an exclusive "right" to his toy because "you got it first!" but any sensible parent encourages the child to share and let toys be used as a community.

Here's the problem. In the case of scarcity, who takes priority over whom? In my island example, say builders were unable to build enough shelter for everyone. Who gets to have shelter and who doesn't? I feel like picking and choosing who can use scarcities is ranking hierarchies and is kind of "capitalist" in itself *vomit.* So I figured I would turn to my comrade communist brothers to guide me to the correct answer, so I joined this forum. Sorry if this is a stupid question, but it is something that right-wingers bring up to me and I want to be able to smash their stupidity into pieces.

Thank you!

[Marshal of the People]

Hello Everyone,

I've been a leftist for a while and I've recently been considering myself as an anarcho-communist based off a few core principles. First of all, deontology prevails over consequentialism, so these right-wing arguments about "but then we wouldn't have all these cool innovations, etc." are both untrue and irrelevant. The issue, then, is an issue of ethics… so how do you break down ethics?

I like to picture people on an island (make it nice and basic). Some people choose to fish. Some people choose to filter water to make it safe for drinking. Some people build shelter. Some people pick and grow vegetation. The list goes on. The core ethical principle of communism and true anarchism, in my opinion, is that all these products can rightfully be used by anyone. That is, everyone has an equal right to eat the fish and vegetables, drink the water, and live in the shelters. Anyone who thinks objectively would obviously see that this is the only rational point of view and would reject the right-wing proposal of "ethics," which is the greedy notion that humans somehow "own" whatever they "produce." Not only does this position have no logical basis, for humans have no magical means of exclusively "owning" natural resources (carrying the logic consistently, people must never be allowed to walk in the same spot as someone else has walked without the prior's "consent"), but is completely impractical and unethical, for the only way for the non-shelter builders to get shelter or the non-fishers to eat fish or the non-water filterers to drink water is to perform "favors" for the "owners." Of course, this perverse behavior is easily recognizable when a boss requires his employee to perform sexual favors for a job promotion, etc., but this common sense morality somehow escapes the minds of people. An employer holds out for "favors" in order to release what he has unlawfully stolen from society: "do this for me, do that for me, and I will give you enough to survive." Haven't these people ever heard of "sharing is caring"? Why do we teach our children these obvious truths but deny them in our adult lives? You don't tell your child he has an exclusive "right" to his toy because "you got it first!" but any sensible parent encourages the child to share and let toys be used as a community.

Here's the problem. In the case of scarcity, who takes priority over whom? In my island example, say builders were unable to build enough shelter for everyone. Who gets to have shelter and who doesn't? I feel like picking and choosing who can use scarcities is ranking hierarchies and is kind of "capitalist" in itself *vomit.* So I figured I would turn to my comrade communist brothers to guide me to the correct answer, so I joined this forum. Sorry if this is a stupid question, but it is something that right-wingers bring up to me and I want to be able to smash their stupidity into pieces.

Thank you!

Welcome LeftistEnthusiast to RevLeft make sure to introduce yourself in the Introductions section (here: http://www.revleft.com/vb/introductions-f23/index.html).

Now onto your question in a communist society the maxim "from each according to his ability to each according to his need" applies so obviously the sick, elderly, young etc. would have priority over the older stronger ones. Though a communist society is supposed to be post-scarcity were there is enough of everything for everyone and so everything is freely available though seeing you island there should be enough shelter for everyone as long as everyone helps out as much as they can but if there isn't enough shelter at the moment the shelter would be given out according to need (the sick, old, young would have priority), but eventually there should be enough shelter for everyone. Well that is my view anyway, hope that helped.

[Marshal of the People]

Is any one else going to reply to this comrade? He wants our opinions and ideas and we should give them to him.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I think it's a valuable question and one to which the answer leftists give has a strong element of 'head buried in sand'. A communist society won't be post-scarcity, that is absurd.

There may be a lesser degree of scarcity, in the sense that less wastage, a more environmentally-friendly world (i.e. less energy expended on WMDs, less wasteful energy expenditure on profit-driven production beyond what people want or need) and more efficient and equitable distribution methods may lead to a situation tending more towards abundance than the status quo currently, but it's also just a simple truth that some resources which we need to use to convert into finished goods are scarce, limited, difficult to extract, or difficult to turn into finished goods.

As I say above, the best way we can move towards abundance is by abandoning the for-profit principle, producing only what people want/need, and reducing wasteful production and energy expenditure. That would go a long way towards solving the problem of scarcity. You can obviously expand a lot on what i'm saying in terms of the specifics but tbh we have more important fish to fry at the moment, and I think the idea of distribution for-need/for-use rather than for-profit is a sound one that is best left in its simple, easy-to-understand form for now.

[Marshal of the People]

I think it's a valuable question and one to which the answer leftists give has a strong element of 'head buried in sand'. A communist society won't be post-scarcity, that is absurd.

There may be a lesser degree of scarcity, in the sense that less wastage, a more environmentally-friendly world (i.e. less energy expended on WMDs, less wasteful energy expenditure on profit-driven production beyond what people want or need) and more efficient and equitable distribution methods may lead to a situation tending more towards abundance than the status quo currently, but it's also just a simple truth that some resources which we need to use to convert into finished goods are scarce, limited, difficult to extract, or difficult to turn into finished goods.

As I say above, the best way we can move towards abundance is by abandoning the for-profit principle, producing only what people want/need, and reducing wasteful production and energy expenditure. That would go a long way towards solving the problem of scarcity. You can obviously expand a lot on what i'm saying in terms of the specifics but tbh we have more important fish to fry at the moment, and I think the idea of distribution for-need/for-use rather than for-profit is a sound one that is best left in its simple, easy-to-understand form for now.

Thank you for replying The Boss.

[Bala Perdida]

According to my theoretical belief, what Marshal says is correct. The most in need, sick, old and young, have priority. The resources are rationed as best as possible and then production is increased. With everyone working and dedicating time to fix the problem, there should be new shelter's, more food, clean water, ect... soon after.

[Red Economist]

Here's the problem. In the case of scarcity, who takes priority over whom? In my island example, say builders were unable to build enough shelter for everyone. Who gets to have shelter and who doesn't? I feel like picking and choosing who can use scarcities is ranking hierarchies and is kind of "capitalist" in itself *vomit.*... Sorry if this is a stupid question, but it is something that right-wingers bring up to me and I want to be able to smash their stupidity into pieces. If that's your objective- it's never a stupid question. :grin: it's one of the more important questions.

how would a socialist/anarchist economic system work and how would it allocate resources without a system of market exchange? it's known as the "socialist calculation debate" amongst economists;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Calculation_Debate

I'm going to answer this as a Marxist but there are plenty of other ways out there. There is no 'final' answer (because one hasn't successfully remained in practice yet) and the point is just to keep looking and thinking. my apologies for this being such a long answer in advance and I have tried to edit it down to something more manageable.


I like to picture people on an island (make it nice and basic). Some people choose to fish. Some people choose to filter water to make it safe for drinking. Some people build shelter. Some people pick and grow vegetation. The list goes on. This idea mean's you're looking for the 'natural' starting point for an economic system. In this scenario, you have begun with the assumption that people "choose" their position within social relations (whether they produce fish, filter water, build shelter, etc.).This sets up the question as an 'ethical' one between people who have made conflicting choices over the use of resources. The potential for each person to make decisions, means that they always have a potential to go into conflict with one another. By assuming individual agency or 'free will'- you end up needing an institution to 'settle' these disputes between them; a state.

I would say that the position a person takes within social relations is not entirely one based on choice; you can choose which job you have, but not whether you have a job. If you don't own means to subsist on your own terms- you have to get a job or else you'll starve (provision of social security, or relying on others financially being the only mitigating factor). In your example, people are producing fish, filtering water, building shelter by their conscious choice; In an 'economic' analysis this is the 'division of labor', in which our technologies limit our ability to produce; so if you have a fishing rod- you can catch fish, but not filter water at the same time. If you have a water filter, you can't build shelter at the same time, etc. This limits on a person's ability to produce mean that the division of labor and therefore a society's economic relations are objectively determined and independent of the will of an individual. As an Anarchist- it is important to note that such a determinist view is widely held to be conducive to totalitarianism because 'free will' is taken out of the equation, and therefore social relations are not subject to 'consent'. Personally, I still feel there remains 'some choice' and so it is not inevitably a totalitarian view, but certainly could be.



The core ethical principle of communism and true anarchism, in my opinion, is that all these products can rightfully be used by anyone. That is, everyone has an equal right to eat the fish and vegetables, drink the water, and live in the shelters.The argument I have made changes the problem from being an 'ethical' one (about the allocation of resources between conflicting individual interests) into an 'economic' one; (the way in which technologies determine economic relations and therefore social conflicts). The conception of 'right' that you are using in which "all these products can be rightfully used by anyone" attributes the origin of that right to the 'mind' or the idea as a product of the mind, as the 'ethical principles of communism and true anarchism'. By attributing the 'right' of a person to use resources in this way, the 'principles' determine the 'economic order'. As a Marxist, I would argue it is the other way round; That the "economic order" determines the "principles" or 'ideology' of a society.

In purely physical terms, you are right to say that "humans have no magical means of exclusively 'owning' natural resources". The 'state' therefore acts to enforce these property rights and the people who compose the state make this conception of property a social reality. In saying that it "is completely impractical and unethical [to enforce property rights'] ... the only way for non-shelter builders to get shelter or the non-fishers to eat fish or the non-water filterers to drink water is to perform 'favors' for the 'owners'"; your also right.
However, the division of labor in such a highly specialized way means that the fisherman comes to own (privately) the fish, the shelter builders own the 'shelter' and so on. This division of labor necessitates an exchange of fish and shelter between the fisherman and the builders in order for one to get the other. When you start to get 'mass production', the technology that products fish and shelter gets 'bigger' in terms of the physical capital (factories, fishing boats etc). Therefore, this produces a 'larger' amount of assets within the hands of a property owner. This process is the 'concentration of capital' (which produces large corporations).

The ethical idea that "greedy humans somehow 'own' whatever' they produce'" is a reflection of the underlying economic process as work in which technology produces private property (and then produces an ideology which legitimizes this sense of 'ownership') and so no matter how much you talk to someone, they just won't "get it" (unless they are already heading in that direction in the first place).

By saying that "An employer holds out for 'favors' in order to release what he has unlawfully stolen from society", I think you subscribe to Proudhon theory that "property is theft" and that private property violates the natural law of society. I'd agree with Mao when he said that "political power comes out of the barrel of a gun", so unfortunately- if the capitalists have the gun, they get to say who owns what. What is 'natural' for people to do, does not necessarily become the basis for a social order; rather 'human nature' is always partly conditioned where the 'natural' instincts of people are 'nurtured' in such a way as to conform to social relations.

In appealing to the way we bring up our children, your arguing that children represent the 'original' or 'natural' morality of a society. Unfortunately in our society- a significant number of parents do teach children that it's their toy because 'you got it first' [think "finder's, keeper's"] and often go further and behave that children can have 'anything they want' through consumerism.

So "In the case of scarcity, who takes priority over whom?"; Capitalism is producing technologies which create conditions for Mass production and making people work together and more and more- even within the constraints of a market economy. This means that people increasingly have to develop views which correspond to this new socialized pattern of economic activity. At the heart of the matter is how 'individualism' and 'collectivism' stop being irreconcilably opposed (based on the conflict between 'individual' private property and the 'collective' state) and how people find a way to 'soften' the edges of the two in this new environment.

Our technologies change 'human nature' so that people aren't so hostile to one another on the basis of their own 'self-interest' (and therefore solves 'most' of the problem- the remainder is the 'ruling class' that needs to be overthrown to establish a communist society) because they have to work together to get things done, identify a common interest. In the event that a capitalist society is replaced by a socialist/communist one, people will have to accept a morality in which they 'choose' who takes priority based on their perceived "needs". So the most 'in need' and the ones who should take priority. How those needs are measured is going to be determined probably by a consensus and 'trial and error'.

[LeftistEnthusiast]

Thank you all so much for taking the time to explain all this to a newbie and help me understand! :) We need more people like this to explain reality to these right-wingers.

This really does clear everything up. And I would agree that scarcity would obviously be much less of a problem in a communist society but I can't quite get my head around a post-scarcity environment -- that's a very interesting concept.

I just have something else I want to clear up. Again, I'm not trying to be poking annoying holes -- I'm still learning and just trying to fully understand everything. Obviously, there isn't a precise answer for everything, but I like to get an idea. As for objectively determining who will produce the most, who makes the determination? If not the individual and not the state, would it be done democratically? I know there could be many different ways, but I just want to get an idea of that.

Again, thank you all very much for being patient with me and explaining all this to me in such detail. :)

[ckaihatsu]

Here's the problem. In the case of scarcity, who takes priority over whom? In my island example, say builders were unable to build enough shelter for everyone. Who gets to have shelter and who doesn't?


I'll note that we're currently living under an 'intellectual property' ('IP') regime that conditions us to see ourselves as entirely walled-off, individualistic organisms-with-brain-tissue that are supposed to "innovate" and "create" on a purely *separatist* basis.

I say this in order to point out that, in your island example, we're encouraged to dichotomize between those who are 'builders' and those who are 'non-builders'.

I would think that, realistically, anyone with minimal physical capabilities would probably be motivated to *learn* how to build shelters, and there would be a prevailing social norm of *sharing* that know-how, so that no one would be overly *dependent* on anyone else.

I'll further expand on this point to bemoan our current norm that sees practical and intellectual knowledge as 'proprietary' and 'not-to-be-disseminated'. It winds up leaving the average person with a perception that those who 'know' are to be *revered* in some way, based on our being conditioned to see knowledge itself as 'fixed' / constrained somehow, due to prevailing bourgeois legal principles.

So, in the spirit of communistic 'free-access', I'll say that the island population should *expand capacity* as much as possible so as to make needed resources available to all.





I feel like picking and choosing who can use scarcities is ranking hierarchies and is kind of "capitalist" in itself *vomit.*


Yep -- your instincts are correct.

That said, though, anything -- especially new innovations -- that is not yet mass-available, is necessarily 'scarce', and we should be able to address this reality directly.

Here's from another thread:





[P]er-item scarcity [...] will always exist, as with goods that are still in-development, or services that are limited by constraints of space and time.

I again reject the intermediary of any price system.





So I figured I would turn to my comrade communist brothers to guide me to the correct answer, so I joined this forum. Sorry if this is a stupid question, but it is something that right-wingers bring up to me and I want to be able to smash their stupidity into pieces.

Thank you!

[ckaihatsu]

As for objectively determining who will produce the most, who makes the determination?


This is fetishism of production, based on the *competitive* paradigm of 'maximizing commodity / exchange value'.





If not the individual and not the state, would it be done democratically?


I'll defer to Red Economist in post #7 in that it would ultimately be human-need-based.

[LeftistEnthusiast]

@ckaihatsu Thanks for the insight and bearing with me. :grin: Good points made.


I'll defer to Red Economist in post #7 in that it would ultimately be human-need-based.
But who makes the determination of what is human-needed? I believe it was Red Economist who said that the "division of labor" needs to be on an objectively determined basis and not a "free will" one (which makes sense to me), but what I don't understand is who would make that objective determination.

[Red Economist]

I just have something else I want to clear up. Again, I'm not trying to be poking annoying holes -- I'm still learning and just trying to fully understand everything. Obviously, there isn't a precise answer for everything, but I like to get an idea. As for objectively determining who will produce the most, who makes the determination? If not the individual and not the state, would it be done democratically? I know there could be many different ways, but I just want to get an idea of that. Glad to be of help; I was kind of worried I was burying you under a lot of stuff as I got a bit carried away...

Who makes the determination of what is produced is dependent on the division of labor. I hope it's done democratically- but this kind of 'out of my control' because it's objectively determined.

The most important division of labor in a society is the one between physical and intellectual labor. On the one hand the workers engage in physical labour and produce the food, water, shelter etc, necessary for people to live. Where as the 'intellectuals' manage this economic activity, and engage in politics, law, philosophy, art etc.

However, in order for intellectuals to live- they must take a portion of the products away from the workers. The division between mental and physical labor is the economic basis for exploitation. the 'intellectual' class acts of the ruling class, but of course cannot rule without subsisting on the work of the working class.

Again- in theory- this division of labor is technologically determined by specialization. Workers specialize in using the tools to produce physical products, where as intellectuals produce intellectual products. Because the workers are specialised in physical work- they don't have the time to 'think' about their social conditions and hence adopt the ideas of the ruling (intellectual class) as a 'false consciousness' of their social relations.

Who makes the decision as to what is produced in a communist society is dependent on this division of labor;

IF their continues to be a division between mental and physical labor when a revolution happens- you end up with a new 'ruling class' who controls all economic and political activity through the state. This is the 'totalitarian' outcome. The gradual 'abolition of mental and physical labor' was supposed to be a feature of socialism according to Lenin's definition but it didn't work out that way.

Many Marxists came to the conclusion that the Soviet Union produced a 'bureaucratic' or 'managerial' ruling class and then turned against communism because it didn't make the workers free. In this scenario- economic decisions are made by a centralized state.

The one I remember is 'James Burnham' who wrote "the managerial revolution" in 1941. He was a 'trotskyist' who later became a neo-conservative. There was (and still is) a group of trotskyists who thought that the Soviet Union became a new ruling class and they wanted to belong to a 'third camp' (neither Capitalist or Soviet) in the Cold War. Burnahms book is basically a 'Marxist' version of Hayek's Road to Serfdom and was a major influence on Orwell when he was writing '1984'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Burnham
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureaucratic_collectivism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_camp_Trotskyism

There are a number of variations on this theory in which the state becomes a new ruling class and they vary from tendency to tendency. But so far- This is the most 'right-wing' I've come across and most close to libertarian anti-communist arguments from a Marxist standpoint. It has strongly Anti-Leninist and Anti-Stalinist Implications because it means any conception of the 'vanguard of the proletariat' ends up producing an exploiting society (because intellectuals/bureaucrats telling the workers what to do, need to exploit the workers in order to survive). The Soviet Bureaucracy was not an accident- as Capitalism produced it's own bureaucrats in the form of 'management', so they're is probably an underlying technological reason why 'socialism' didn't work in the USSR.

There will also be people who will argue for this position to one degree or another; I'll leave that to them do it, but it will be something along the lines of this is 'what is possible'.

The 'other' option is that technology eliminates the division of intellectual and physical labor, and produces a situation in which the workers become the Defacto ruling class and therefore the revolution is simply a formality is transforming their control of economic activity into a new social and political order; a democratic communism. In this scenario, it is a 'democratic collective' of the workers (probably with a horizontal system of organization) which controls economic activity.

I have my fingers crossed it's the last one- but it's down to the technologies. The internet is 'helpful' in reducing the division of mental and physical labor so I think any revolution now would be 'more' democratic than a Leninist one, but it still needs to go much further from simply democratizing information to democratizing control.

I've simplified here- but these are the two extremes and you'll find a lot of variations and gradations in the middle depending on which tendency you follow.

[LeftistEnthusiast]

Thank you for the information. You've definitely given me a lot of food for thought.

[Slavic]

I do not understand how you are linking a deontological approach to ethics with your island scenario. If you follow deontological ethics, what principles do you derive your morality from and what is the justification for these principles?

[Sabot Cat]

Hello there LeftistEnthusiast, and welcome to the forum! :)

I am of a similar tendency as you, although I am consequentialist. Why do you believe that deontological ethics prevails over consequentalist ethics?

[LeftistEnthusiast]

Because equality comes before anything.

For example, black slavery, whether or not cotton would be picked when it was abolished, needed to be abolished because of the hierarchy of Master and Slave (not because of the "lack of free will," as the free market libertarians like to claim). The consequence of no cotton doesn't matter -- a Master and Slave relationship is wrong as it violates equality.

[ckaihatsu]

@ckaihatsu Thanks for the insight and bearing with me. :grin: Good points made.


Yup, no prob -- *and* we're just getting started here...(!)





But who makes the determination of what is human-needed?


This is always a critical issue for revolutionary politics -- another way of looking at it is 'need vs. want', or 'basics vs. luxuries'.

I happen to see the potential for *a lot* of controversy around this issue, even around the basics, if we start with how contentious topics of nutrition can be, for starters, not to mention matters of personal taste.

I'm on-the-record about this, too, from a fairly recent thread:





The matter of material accounting -- with labor credits or whatever -- will remain a pressing question, along with the issue of luxury goods, and it would be better to be as decisive as possible on these, earlier rather than later.


The quickest way to frame 'basics vs. luxuries' is to consider that most people probably *will* address their own most critical human needs first, if all options for material procurements can be considered as being roughly evenly available.

This is a *good* thing, because that means we can just start with what people *say* they need the most. One way to get this kind of information would be to have people *prioritize* and *rank* their consumer (and political) preferences, starting with #1, #2, #3, etc.


[17] Prioritization Chart

http://s6.postimage.org/jy5fntvcd/17_Prioritization_Chart.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/jy5fntvcd/)


Now that everyone has specified their preferences on an individual basis, then what -- ?

I'll argue that, from here, the next thing would be to *collate* all of those thousands and millions of prioritized lists, grouped by some kind of geographical designation, say a 'locality'. (And several localities could always decide to coordinate on these, for broader / greater economies of scale in production.)

I'll pause here to recommend another fairly recent thread that more-or-less picks up at this point....


Computer aided economics?

http://www.revleft.com/vb/computer-aided-economicsi-t184585/index.html


So this method of prioritization is *far more* democratic than any system of political representation could ever be. That's because not only is it *issue*-based, but it also allows for people's inputs *on a gradient*, relative to each other, through the action of ranking them.

I'll leave off here -- feel free to follow-up....





I believe it was Red Economist who said that the "division of labor" needs to be on an objectively determined basis and not a "free will" one (which makes sense to me), but what I don't understand is who would make that objective determination.


No, RE was talking about *eliminating* the division of labor (intellectual work vs. physical work), because it has historical class origins, and tends to *reinforce* the class division.

[Full Metal Bolshevik]

Nice system, but don't you think the Borda method is better? If not, why?

[Sabot Cat]

Because equality comes before anything.

For example, black slavery, whether or not cotton would be picked when it was abolished, needed to be abolished because of the hierarchy of Master and Slave (not because of the "lack of free will," as the free market libertarians like to claim). The consequence of no cotton doesn't matter -- a Master and Slave relationship is wrong as it violates equality.

I think you're misconstruing consequentalist ethics. Deontological ethics advocate following certain moral maxims no matter what the circumstances such as "do not steal" or "do not lie", while consequentialist ethics are beholden of situations where there are exceptions that need to be made for the benefit of most. Both deontological and consequentalist ethics can be egalitarian or hierarchical depending on one's meta-ethical premises like what constitutes a person to be considered in the consequences of one's actions or to be the subject of one's moral maxims. One could even collapse deontological ethics into a consequentialist ethics systems through a maxim like, "One should always chose the action that produces the most happiness for the most people over all other actions". I always follow this maxim like a Kantian categorical imperative, but in so doing I eschew the traditional applications of deontological ethics as used by Kant or in divine command theory, and I only "follow it" because I believe it evident that the greatest happiness principle is what being good is.

[Slavic]

One could even collapse deontological ethics into a consequentialist ethics systems through a maxim like, "One should always chose the action that produces the most happiness for the most people over all other actions". I always follow this maxim like a Kantian categorical imperative, but in so doing I eschew the traditional applications of deontological ethics as used by Kant or in divine command theory, and I only "follow it" because I believe it evident that the greatest happiness principle is what being good is.

This approach, which I subscribe to as well, prioritizes the ends as opposed to the means of an ethical dilemma. Which is interesting because deontological approaches to dilemmas are traditionally means based with the ends being an afterthought.


Because equality comes before anything.

I ask, by equality do you mean equal in class or equal in some other sense such as freedom of expression, right to life, etc.?

[ckaihatsu]

Nice system, but don't you think the Borda method is better? If not, why?


The Borda method deals with how a winning *candidate* is selected through a voting process, whereas the prioritization system is about spreading 'bits of approval' -- if you will -- over an unlimited number of *item* choices. (In the Prioritization Chart each person has 100 points to distribute over any number of available proposals -- ranking items as #1, #2, #3, etc., accomplishes the same end.)





[T]his method of prioritization is *far more* democratic than any system of political representation could ever be. That's because not only is it *issue*-based, but it also allows for people's inputs *on a gradient*, relative to each other, through the action of ranking them.





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.




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