International or small community?

[Redhead]

Would you want a international global communist/anarchist society, or would you aim for a small community/country?

[Comrade Thomas]

Global, obviously. As internationally people are oppressed.

[Naroc]

Count me in for international.

[Jemdet Nasr]

Well, I think an international revolution is imperative to our success. The power of the Capitalists is international, and a revolution of similar magnitude is needed.

There are numerous historical examples of the capitalists destroying small Socialist states, like Catalonia or various South American revolutions. The Capitalists will attempt to destroy any threat to their power, and small, singular nations have little hope of surviving imperialist 'intervention'.

That's not to say foothold nations are bad, but they can only be successful if they help to spread the revolution to the rest of the world, and quickly at that.

[Thirsty Crow]

Would you want a international global communist/anarchist society, or would you aim for a small community/country?
The world is barely enough. Personally I aim for the Intergalactic Soviet.

[QueerVanguard]

Communism is and always has been a global project. Nations will disappear, as they should because humans don't need arbitrary little lines separating them from each another. We are internationalists or we are nothing at all.

[jake williams]

The question doesn't make any sense as an abstract ethical one, because basically no one is going to say "I only want socialism in my own town/country and not anywhere else, as a matter of principle".

The two main types of questions which I think are interesting relate firstly to strategy, and secondly to political-economic organization.


- Strategically, it's not obvious at which scale we should be organizing our activities. The most obvious example I could name in my own experience is whether left-wing groups and mass organizations in Canada should try to organize both in English Canada in Quebec, or simply in one or the other. Almost every organization chooses the latter, whether they intend to or not and whether or not they admit it. This is partly for political reasons (a lot of francophone groups in Quebec see no reason to spend their time organizing outside of Quebec, not because they don't want to see others do it but because they don't think they can personally have an impact elsewhere), and partly for really serious logistical reasons (basically, transportation and translation).

Anyone can say "well they should just be internationalists!" but practically speaking, there actually is a meaningful tradeoff for small organizations with limited resources (ie. basically every organization actually on the left in Canada) to organize outside of one city, or one province, and the decision is both highly dependent on circumstances, and difficult.


- There's a lot of room for debate about the extent to which a post-revolutionary society would be organized, both in terms of decision-making structures and in terms of production. Similarly there are questions of economies and diseconomies of scale, tradeoffs, the importance and efficacy of democratic decision-making at different structures, etc.

Personally I think it mainly ends up being a tradeoff between meaningful gains from scale (ie. I think we should have steel, and I don't think we should all make it in our backyards) and the practical difficulties of implementing democratic decision-making as scale increases.

It's easy enough to say it should be both local and international, and again most people would agree, but it's kind of a trivial point. It's only meaningful if you actually say something like "these are the structures which I think should be local, these are the structures I think should be regional, these are the structures I think should be international, this is how I think they should relate to each other, etc.".

For example, personally I think (speaking in the medium term, where it's possible to even think about it) a lot of things could be practically organized at the neighbourhood or city level (eg. social service provision, direct distribution of consumption goods like food, urban transportation, local production industries), whereas a lot of things would need to be organized at, at least, a regional level or even a state level (eg. defence from counterrevolutionaries, interurban transportation, large-scale infrastructure, large-scale industrial projects, environmental protection).

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

"Socialism" on the level of a country or community... isn't socialism. Socialism means that the means of production are controlled by society, a global phenomenon in the modern period, not that communities or countries (countries! in socialism!) control "their own" MoP, leading to markets etc.

[ckaihatsu]

Agree 100%.

And:





It's easy enough to say it should be both local and international, and again most people would agree, but it's kind of a trivial point. It's only meaningful if you actually say something like "these are the structures which I think should be local, these are the structures I think should be regional, these are the structures I think should be international, this is how I think they should relate to each other, etc.".


F.y.i....


Multi-Tiered System of Productive and Consumptive Zones for a Post-Capitalist Political Economy

http://s6.postimage.org/ccfl07uy5/Multi_Tiered_System_of_Productive_and_Consumptiv.j pg (http://postimage.org/image/ccfl07uy5/)

[Remus Bleys]

Marx says...
This “alienation” (to use a term which will be comprehensible to the philosophers) can, of course, only be abolished given two practical premises. For it to become an “intolerable” power, i.e. a power against which men make a revolution, it must necessarily have rendered the great mass of humanity “propertyless,” and produced, at the same time, the contradiction of an existing world of wealth and culture, both of which conditions presuppose a great increase in productive power, a high degree of its development. And, on the other hand, this development of productive forces (which itself implies the actual empirical existence of men in their world-historical, instead of local, being) is an absolutely necessary practical premise because without it want is merely made general, and with destitution the struggle for necessities and all the old filthy business would necessarily be reproduced; and furthermore, because only with this universal development of productive forces is a universal intercourse between men established, which produces in all nations simultaneously the phenomenon of the “propertyless” mass (universal competition), makes each nation dependent on the revolutions of the others, and finally has put world-historical, empirically universal individuals in place of local ones. Without this, (1) communism could only exist as a local event; (2) the forces of intercourse themselves could not have developed as universal, hence intolerable powers: they would have remained home-bred conditions surrounded by superstition; and (3) each extension of intercourse would abolish local communism. Empirically, communism is only possible as the act of the dominant peoples “all at once” and simultaneously, which presupposes the universal development of productive forces and the world intercourse bound up with communism. Moreover, the mass of propertyless workers – the utterly precarious position of labour – power on a mass scale cut off from capital or from even a limited satisfaction and, therefore, no longer merely temporarily deprived of work itself as a secure source of life – presupposes the world market through competition. The proletariat can thus only exist world-historically, just as communism, its activity, can only have a “world-historical” existence. World-historical existence of individuals means existence of individuals which is directly linked up with world history.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm#a4

[Brutus]

The self-emancipation of the working class is a social task, not a national or continental one. Communism: go big or go home.

[jake williams]

The self-emancipation of the working class is a social task, not a national or continental one. Communism: go big or go home.
To those of you saying "international, duh":


Describe, in broad terms, the step-by-step process you would like to see followed to abolish capitalism globally in a world with nation-states, social democracy, uneven development, nuclear weapons, surveillance, drones, etc.
Describe, in broad terms, what kind of international political and economic coordination you would like to see in a post-capitalist world.

[The Intransigent Faction]

If people start declaring socialism while the world is still divided by socially constructed imaginary lines rooted in an outmoded socioeconomic system, then I'm just gonna give up, move to a deserted island somewhere and declare a new...wait, never mind. :(

Put my vote down for global as well.

I know I'll be accused of a cop-out, but screw it...if it's a step-by-step process drawn up in detailed blueprints by some armchair suburban revolutionary rather than carried out by a spontaneous, revolutionary and democratic movement as it builds itself up, it's not a program for socialism. There'd be nothing to be gained by such a movement refusing to expand its ranks on a global scale by connecting workers from different parts of the world in solidarity.

[Redhead]

Thats what i thought, i just wondered because i talked to someone saying most wanted a small community, but that didnt make sense to me.

[TheMask]

I guess you could say for me.. The world is not enough

[TheMask]

Well, I think an international revolution is imperative to our success. The power of the Capitalists is international, and a revolution of similar magnitude is needed.

There are numerous historical examples of the capitalists destroying small Socialist states, like Catalonia or various South American revolutions. The Capitalists will attempt to destroy any threat to their power, and small, singular nations have little hope of surviving imperialist 'intervention'.

That's not to say foothold nations are bad, but they can only be successful if they help to spread the revolution to the rest of the world, and quickly at that.

Unfortunaty this is very true. Therefore as I see it a major objective for any communist society in the making is to spread quickly and idealize our ways before we are destroyed or put under the boot of a competition-minded, moneybased capitalist system.

As the great Che said it: "Hasta La Victoria Siempre!" - "Until The Everlasting Victory!"

[Igor]

"communism" on a small scale is a nice hobby for a very select group of people at best, not a real political system. even if it was plausible, it would exclude the vast majority and especially the most exploited of the working class and be entirely dependent on whims of capitalist society, serving next to no purpose at all

[Redhead]

Do you believe communism could be established in only some parts of the world, and still function as a state-less society with no wages? And if not, how would one establish communism in the entire world, internal revolutions in every countries, or conquering?

[Igor]

Do you believe communism could be established in only some parts of the world, and still function as a state-less society with no wages? And if not, how would one establish communism in the entire world, internal revolutions in every countries, or conquering?the point is not whether it could "work" or not. communism is emancipation of the working class and as long as it's not global, the working class is not emancipated: individual workers are

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

To those of you saying "international, duh":


Describe, in broad terms, the step-by-step process you would like to see followed to abolish capitalism globally in a world with nation-states, social democracy, uneven development, nuclear weapons, surveillance, drones, etc.
Describe, in broad terms, what kind of international political and economic coordination you would like to see in a post-capitalist world.



If any of us could sit down and write a detailed revolutionary strategy that would unfailingly lead to communism, they would be holding parades in our honour as we speak. Of course, most of us have a broad outline of a possible strategy - we Leninists-Trotskyists, for example, fight for the creation of a workers' revolutionary party as part of an international of revolutionary parties - an international ruled by democratic centralism instead of the federalism of many fake internationals - for the creation of organs of dual power and for the smashing of the bourgeois state apparatus, first in the "weakest links", then in other regions.

What you need to explain, I think, is why any of the things you have listed are barriers to a revolutionary internationalist strategy. I mean, just listing "social democracy" doesn't tell us anything.

As for the second question, again, socialism means that society, which in our times is a global society, makes the decisions concerning the employment of the means of production. Socialism means a global centralism.

[ckaihatsu]

To those of you saying "international, duh":

Describe, in broad terms, the step-by-step process you would like to see followed to abolish capitalism globally in a world with nation-states, social democracy, uneven development, nuclear weapons, surveillance, drones, etc.


[7] Syndicalism-Socialism-Communism Transition Diagram

http://s6.postimage.org/jy0ua35yl/7_Syndicalism_Socialism_Communism_Transiti.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/jy0ua35yl/)

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2246003&postcount=19





Describe, in broad terms, what kind of international political and economic coordination you would like to see in a post-capitalist world.


communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

http://s6.postimage.org/nwiupxn8t/2526684770046342459_Rh_JMHF_fs.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/nwiupxn8t/)




http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1174

[jake williams]

If any of us could sit down and write a detailed revolutionary strategy that would unfailingly lead to communism, they would be holding parades in our honour as we speak. Of course, most of us have a broad outline of a possible strategy - we Leninists-Trotskyists, for example, fight for the creation of a workers' revolutionary party as part of an international of revolutionary parties - an international ruled by democratic centralism instead of the federalism of many fake internationals - for the creation of organs of dual power and for the smashing of the bourgeois state apparatus, first in the "weakest links", then in other regions.
Perhaps I was unclear about what I was asking for: I wasn't saying "read the future, then lead us to victory", I was saying "what is your strategy?".

The sort of strategy you lay out here is one such strategy - you're talking about how you would go about abolishing global capitalism.

I think people should state how they envision internationalism to work, because basically every communist is some sort of "internationalist", and where people tend to differ is in how they define the term.


What you need to explain, I think, is why any of the things you have listed are barriers to a revolutionary internationalist strategy. I mean, just listing "social democracy" doesn't tell us anything.
I'm the most skeptical about people who say that they don't support the existence of worker states, but also want to have an international revolution.

Specifically the concerns I was referring to:
nation-states - the existing system of nation-states is an impediment to the establishment of international stateless communism which one would need to overcome
social democracy - ideological barriers etc. I think the technologies of ideological control that have developed over the past century make it increasingly difficult to establish revolutionary consciousness
uneven development - in basically every way, the circumstances in which revolutionaries work are unevenly developed across the globe - material development, level of political organization, and so on. any internationalist strategy needs to respond to that fact
nuclear weapons, surveillance, drones - every revolutionary strategy needs to contend with the immense capacity of states for violent repression


As for the second question, again, socialism means that society, which in our times is a global society, makes the decisions concerning the employment of the means of production. Socialism means a global centralism.
So you would have some kind of global economic planning authority? How would it work? How would 7 billion workers meaningfully participate?