I am writing a new book! [Archive]

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TucsonTrotskyite

10th October 2017, 23:22

Hello T.T. here and I have big news! (Bigly)

I have decided to write a new manifesto of our views on Socialism, Communism, Anarchism, and the whole of anti-capital ideas. This new thread I made is for all of you to post certain ideological theories and viewpoints to be included in the new manifesto! Please if you do decide to post leave your name so I can write it in the collaboration pages of the manifesto. I guess you could be like John (your online name/alias here) Doe. I want this manifesto to be a mix of democratic and authoritarian social/anarchic/communist ideologues. The few key points I've made have mainly been about our sworn enemies the fascists. Although I lean more towards the democratic side of Social-Communism, I do realize that there are some strong arguments for autocratic ideas and I refuse to allow any bias towards one side seep into my manifesto. This is mainly going to be a "rule book" for us far-left apostles so I want good and moral ideas. The big ideas that I have are:

The main enemy of the proletariat is the fascist, race supremacist, and the one whom utilizes the labor of others for profit.
The market economy has its gross flaws as does a command economy, by combining the ideas together can we create an economy that works for the everyone and not for the bourgeoisie.
In the creation of the socialist to communist state, the government has a third and final conflict of groups. When a state starts out, it first takes the form of a feudalistic economy of the Nobles and the Serfs (Slave Peasants). This is the first conflict of groups. Then as the peasants rise up (through violent revolution), they enact market- economic style changes. As the capitalistic ideas begin to surge, a second conflict of groups emerge. The ever repressive bourgeoisie and the working proletariat. This stifling of economic fairness begins to force a new idea, socialist ideologies start to rise and eventually take over and then the capitalist regime topples. Finally, there is the last conflict. The core conflicting ideas of Democracy and Autocracy shall have an ultimate decisive battle for the sake of humanity and in the search for a more perfect society, the Democratic Left MUST win.

Please feel free to reply your beliefs on this new manifesto.

ckaihatsu

11th October 2017, 16:09

I want this manifesto to be a mix of democratic and authoritarian social/anarchic/communist ideologues.

Do you have any initial conceptions on this -- ?

I'd be interested in how you'd reconcile these fundamentally conflicting approaches (bottom-up democracy vs. top-down authoritarianism).

I've noted in the past that the following is the objective societal structuring ('problem') that's in front of us:

[T]he layout of *work roles* would be the 'bottom' of 'top-down' (though collectivized) social planning, and would be the 'top' of 'bottom-up' processes like individual self-determination.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/threads/196538-Several-Questions?p=2879529#post2879529

---

2. The market economy has its gross flaws as does a command economy, by combining the ideas together can we create an economy that works for the everyone and not for the bourgeoisie.

This is a good summation of the overall 'problem' / political issue, for revolutionaries. I think it's a good path to lay-out, and I'd welcome any initial thoughts you have on this.

The core conflicting ideas of Democracy and Autocracy shall have an ultimate decisive battle for the sake of humanity and in the search for a more perfect society, the Democratic Left MUST win.

In the previous segment you seem to be indicating that some kind of *compatibility*, or 'hybridization', needs to happen -- at least in material-economic terms -- between market/commodity-production-type dynamics (which I eschew entirely), and command-type dynamics, in the material-economy.

But here you're acknowledging that democracy and autocracy are inherently conflicting, and you explicitly favor the *democratic* dynamic over the 'command' one. You may want to elaborate on this contradiction, both in the overall *societal* realm, and in the *material-economic* one as well.

TomLeftist

17th October 2017, 10:46

I am not an expert on marxism, but I think that the radical left, the left that is very far to the left, needs a sort of united front, composed of even uniting stalinists with anarchists and trotskists. I know this might sound crazy, but the thing is that as long as the radical left suffers from group narcissism and sectarianism, and many tendencies of hating each other, we won't see a workers state with free medical care and the other life-saving, traits of socialism

Hello T.T. here and I have big news! (Bigly)

I have decided to write a new manifesto of our views on Socialism, Communism, Anarchism, and the whole of anti-capital ideas. This new thread I made is for all of you to post certain ideological theories and viewpoints to be included in the new manifesto! Please if you do decide to post leave your name so I can write it in the collaboration pages of the manifesto. I guess you could be like John (your online name/alias here) Doe. I want this manifesto to be a mix of democratic and authoritarian social/anarchic/communist ideologues. The few key points I've made have mainly been about our sworn enemies the fascists. Although I lean more towards the democratic side of Social-Communism, I do realize that there are some strong arguments for autocratic ideas and I refuse to allow any bias towards one side seep into my manifesto. This is mainly going to be a "rule book" for us far-left apostles so I want good and moral ideas. The big ideas that I have are:

The main enemy of the proletariat is the fascist, race supremacist, and the one whom utilizes the labor of others for profit.
The market economy has its gross flaws as does a command economy, by combining the ideas together can we create an economy that works for the everyone and not for the bourgeoisie.
In the creation of the socialist to communist state, the government has a third and final conflict of groups. When a state starts out, it first takes the form of a feudalistic economy of the Nobles and the Serfs (Slave Peasants). This is the first conflict of groups. Then as the peasants rise up (through violent revolution), they enact market- economic style changes. As the capitalistic ideas begin to surge, a second conflict of groups emerge. The ever repressive bourgeoisie and the working proletariat. This stifling of economic fairness begins to force a new idea, socialist ideologies start to rise and eventually take over and then the capitalist regime topples. Finally, there is the last conflict. The core conflicting ideas of Democracy and Autocracy shall have an ultimate decisive battle for the sake of humanity and in the search for a more perfect society, the Democratic Left MUST win.

Please feel free to reply your beliefs on this new manifesto.

ckaihatsu

17th October 2017, 15:10

TucsonTrotskyite

18th October 2017, 08:16

I like that comparison of the Stalin-Trotsky style organization. While the Stalinist type has its pros, the cons are what made me reject is as the superior idea.

For the new manifesto I plan to take a more Trotsky-style approach to the formation of government. The idea that rather than a single-party state that exists with a head seat of power, the Duma or "congress" would be called the House of Democratic Soviets (HDS) and be comprised of local elected officials that are voted into office and then elect a leader to whom participate in the Democratic Soviet Senate(DSS). For example, my home district 3 of the Tucson area would elect its official to the local city counsel and the counsel would elect a city senator to the states' counsels chair. There would be no "central leader" to maintain the office of president rather the Executive branch would be a select group of Leaders from their respective cities. That describes the state-level leadership system, however the National Soviet Council of the People (NSCP) would be structured with no head of state in mind, this is critical to suppress the rise of a personality cult. There would be a cooperative governing board with its own oversight committee to deal with the factors of production and budget.

The oversight committee would function similar to the current Supreme Court (with term limits) and with the added responsibility of oversight on the individual state committees. The seats on the Oversight Committee of Supreme Soviets (OCSS) wouldn't be elected by the DSS or the NSCP, rather it would be directly elected in the national elections held every 10 years. I choose 10 years as that would allow the decentralized leadership to achieve lasting change without the short term limits that could cause corrupt politicians to seize power through dirty elections.

Lastly, the Military... rather than the Executive or Legislative branch be be in direct control of the military, the Military is in direct control of the people through the Military Peoples Government Co-Op (MPG-COOP). This branch of authority is a group of generals that are elected to the MPG-COOP through (you guessed it) direct democracy. The catch is the term limit is 15 years so that the experience of the generals is not wasted. The eligibility of the candidates is rather low as any NCO can apply to run for office. (Rank E9 and above)

So that is the branch of authority so far. I still need help, however, with the separation of powers and drafting the individual freedoms of the average citizen. How would I protect the proletariat in the case of corruption? What are potential flaws and do you have any fixes for it?

ckaihatsu

18th October 2017, 14:53

I like that comparison of the Stalin-Trotsky style organization. While the Stalinist type has its pros, the cons are what made me reject is as the superior idea.

Yeah, I hear ya -- just putting it out there in response to Tom.

For the new manifesto I plan to take a more Trotsky-style approach to the formation of government. The idea that rather than a single-party state that exists with a head seat of power, the Duma or "congress" would be called the House of Democratic Soviets (HDS) and be comprised of local elected officials that are voted into office and then elect a leader to whom participate in the Democratic Soviet Senate(DSS). For example, my home district 3 of the Tucson area would elect its official to the local city counsel and the counsel would elect a city senator to the states' counsels chair. There would be no "central leader" to maintain the office of president rather the Executive branch would be a select group of Leaders from their respective cities. That describes the state-level leadership system, however the National Soviet Council of the People (NSCP) would be structured with no head of state in mind, this is critical to suppress the rise of a personality cult. There would be a cooperative governing board with its own oversight committee to deal with the factors of production and budget.

The oversight committee would function similar to the current Supreme Court (with term limits) and with the added responsibility of oversight on the individual state committees. The seats on the Oversight Committee of Supreme Soviets (OCSS) wouldn't be elected by the DSS or the NSCP, rather it would be directly elected in the national elections held every 10 years. I choose 10 years as that would allow the decentralized leadership to achieve lasting change without the short term limits that could cause corrupt politicians to seize power through dirty elections.

Lastly, the Military... rather than the Executive or Legislative branch be be in direct control of the military, the Military is in direct control of the people through the Military Peoples Government Co-Op (MPG-COOP). This branch of authority is a group of generals that are elected to the MPG-COOP through (you guessed it) direct democracy. The catch is the term limit is 15 years so that the experience of the generals is not wasted. The eligibility of the candidates is rather low as any NCO can apply to run for office. (Rank E9 and above)

So that is the branch of authority so far. I still need help, however, with the separation of powers and drafting the individual freedoms of the average citizen. How would I protect the proletariat in the case of corruption? What are potential flaws and do you have any fixes for it?

This is a *conventional* approach to the issue of a revolutionary organization -- the upsides are that this is probably what most people would be *expecting*, from historical precedent, and it would be a relatively quick and responsive vehicle since it uses a hierarchy. I myself, though, wouldn't want to see it as a *permanent* fixture because of the administrative specialization / substitutionism required, but maybe as more of a transitional 'stopgap' kind of implementation for the dictatorship-of-the-proletariat phase.

I also have political-philosophical-type reservations about *any* pre-prescribed, set-in-stone approach to an unknown set of circumstances, since we're not there yet -- but I won't dwell on this.

I've created a unique framework model myself that uses daily personal survey-type *rankings* (#1, #2, #3, etc.) of 'demands', as for needed material goods and services, and also to indicate relative personal prioritizations for all political matters. The idea is to leverage present-day communications technologies like a RevLeft-style discussion board, and automatic daily ranking *aggregations* over any given locality / localities, to arrive at a tally-sheet-type result showing which 'proposals' (or less-developed stages of public initiatives) receive the most ranking-inputs for any given rank (#1, #2, #3, etc.). (Maybe the vicinity of 'Urbanopolis' has tallied 78,921 #2-rankings for 'Proposal A' for October 18, 2017, while 'Proposal B' has the support of 80,031 #1-rankings for the same issue, from the same area, for the same day -- which one would win-out -- ? Technically Proposal B, of course, but it would ultimately be up to the internal organization of relevant liberated labor as to where they put their efforts for any given mass-demands.)

I welcome comments on any / all of this:

labor credits framework for 'communist supply & demand'

http://s6.postimg.org/jjc7b5nch/150221_labor_credits_framework_for_communist_su.jp g (http://postimg.org/image/p7ii21rot/full/)

communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

http://s6.postimg.org/7liqtmar5/2526684770046342459_Rh_JMHF_fs.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/nwiupxn8t/full/)

http://www.revleft.com/vb/entries/1174-revolutionary-policy-*solution*-(communist-supply-amp-demand)

A post-capitalist political economy using labor credits

To clarify and simplify, the labor credits system is like a cash-only economy that only works for *services* (labor), while the world of material implements, resources, and products is open-access and non-abstractable. (No financial valuations.) Given the world's current capacity for an abundance of productivity for the most essential items, there should be no doubt about producing a ready surplus of anything that's important, to satisfy every single person's basic humane needs.

[I]t would only be fair that those who put in the actual (liberated) labor to produce anything should also be able to get 'first dibs' of anything they produce.

In practice [...] everything would be pre-planned, so the workers would just factor in their own personal requirements as part of the project or production run. (Nothing would be done on a speculative or open-ended basis, the way it's done now, so all recipients and orders would be pre-determined -- it would make for minimal waste.)

We can do better than the market system, obviously, since it is zombie-like and continuously, automatically, calls for endless profit-making -- even past the point of primitive accumulation, through to overproduction and world wars, not to mention its intrinsic exploitation and oppression.

Labor vouchers imply a political economy that *consciously* determines valuations, but there's nothing to guarantee that such oversight -- regardless of its composition -- would properly take material realities into account. Such a system would be open to the systemic problems of groupthink and elitism.

What's called-for is a system that can match liberated-labor organizing ability, over mass-collectivized assets and resources, to the mass demand from below for collective production. If *liberated-labor* is too empowered it would probably lead to materialistic factionalism -- like a bad syndicalism -- and back into separatist claims of private property.

If *mass demand* is too empowered it would probably lead back to a clever system of exploitation, wherein labor would cease to retain control over the implements of mass production.

And, if the *administration* of it all is too specialized and detached we would have the phenomenon of Stalinism, or bureaucratic elitism and party favoritism.

I'll contend that I have developed a model that addresses all of these concerns in an even-handed way, and uses a system of *circulating* labor credits that are *not* exchangeable for material items of any kind. In accordance with communism being synonymous with 'free-access', all material implements, resources, and products would be freely available and *not* quantifiable according to any abstract valuations. The labor credits would represent past labor hours completed, multiplied by the difficulty or hazard of the work role performed. The difficulty/hazard multiplier would be determined by a mass survey of all work roles, compiled into an index.

In this way all concerns for labor, large and small, could be reduced to the ready transfer of labor-hour credits. The fulfillment of work roles would bring labor credits into the liberated-laborer's possession, and would empower them with a labor-organizing and labor-utilizing ability directly proportionate to the labor credits from past work completed.

This method would both *empower* and *limit* the position of liberated labor since a snapshot of labor performed -- more-or-less the same quantity of labor-power available continuously, going forward -- would be certain, known, and *finite*, and not subject to any kinds of abstraction- (financial-) based extrapolations or stretching. Since all resources would be in the public domain no one would be at a loss for the basics of life, or at least for free access to providing for the basics of life for themselves. And, no political power or status, other than that represented by possession of actual labor credits, could be enjoyed by liberated labor. It would be free to represent itself on an individual basis or could associate and organize on its own political terms, within the confines of its empowerment by the sum of pooled labor credits in possession.

Mass demand, then as now, would be a matter of public discourse, but in a societal context of open access to all means of mass communication for all, with collectivized implements of mass production at its disposal. It would have no special claim over any liberated labor and would have no means by which to coerce it.

The administration of all of this would be dependent on the conscious political mass struggle, on a continuous, ongoing basis, to keep it running smoothly and accountably.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?bt=14673

TucsonTrotskyite

18th October 2017, 19:16

[QUOTE=ckaihatsu;2889135]

This is a *conventional* approach to the issue of a revolutionary organization -- the upsides are that this is probably what most people would be *expecting*, from historical precedent, and it would be a relatively quick and responsive vehicle since it uses a hierarchy. I myself, though, wouldn't want to see it as a *permanent* fixture because of the administrative specialization / substitutionism required, but maybe as more of a transitional 'stopgap' kind of implementation for the dictatorship-of-the-proletariat phase.

I also have political-philosophical-type reservations about *any* pre-prescribed, set-in-stone approach to an unknown set of circumstances, since we're not there yet -- but I won't dwell on this.

I've created a unique framework model myself that uses daily personal survey-type *rankings* (#1, #2, #3, etc.) of 'demands', as for needed material goods and services, and also to indicate relative personal prioritizations for all political matters. The idea is to leverage present-day communications technologies like a RevLeft-style discussion board, and automatic daily ranking *aggregations* over any given locality / localities, to arrive at a tally-sheet-type result showing which 'proposals' (or less-developed stages of public initiatives) receive the most ranking-inputs for any given rank (#1, #2, #3, etc.). (Maybe the vicinity of 'Urbanopolis' has tallied 78,921 #2-rankings for 'Proposal A' for October 18, 2017, while 'Proposal B' has the support of 80,031 #1-rankings for the same issue, from the same area, for the same day -- which one would win-out -- ? Technically Proposal B, of course, but it would ultimately be up to the internal organization of relevant liberated labor as to where they put their efforts for any given mass-demands.)

That is brilliant! It would allow the direct control of industrialization by the people. The only thing i'd change is the rate of voting at which the people vote on proposed plans, maybe weekly or bi-weekly?

- - - Updated - - -

Excuse me, I have no idea how to insert quotes

ckaihatsu

19th October 2017, 15:04

That is brilliant! It would allow the direct control of industrialization by the people. The only thing i'd change is the rate of voting at which the people vote on proposed plans, maybe weekly or bi-weekly?

- - - Updated - - -

Excuse me, I have no idea how to insert quotes

No prob -- try arranging the quote blocks (bookended by quote-begin and quote-end tags) *sequentially*, so that there's no overlap, or 'nesting'.

Thanks for the positive feedback -- couple points:

- It's not exactly *voting* -- it's about the relative *prioritizations* of any given number of separate items (demands, political initiatives). Alternatively one could simply take the *inverse* of the rank position (1/1, 1/2, 1/3, etc.), to get a pool of decimals for all items that show straight *numerical* sorting, so that larger numbers (higher rankings) have more 'weight' than smaller numbers (lower rankings). (1, .5, .333, etc.)

The advantage here is that much could be done *in parallel* and at the same time, within the same locality's population, and/or across several localities by combined consent -- such as for very large-scale industrial-type public works projects.

- The *pace* at which the computer-networked system would mass-aggregate all submitted items into cumulative ranking tallies (from individuals' personally-prioritized lists) would be 24/7, iterated daily, for the aggregated public display of all results (no individual personal info of any kind). This would be the information most needed by society, and by liberated labor in particular -- a mirror-reflection of total verbatim collective consciousness through compiled data.

Here's the thing: No one would be *obligated* to do a *thing* within this system. No one would *have* to submit any personal prioritized demands list, not even once. If post-capitalist liberated-labor production happened to find that, say, a *25%* surplus, over and above received formal demand, happened to wind up being the correct amount of production to satisfy all recipients, then *that* would be sufficient, and many might *not* want to use the formal personal-prioritized-demands-list component, and would just go straight to the factory warehouse to pick up the common mass-produced goods that they need. (Most, if not all, routine *services* would presumably / most-likely be fully computerized and fully automated.)

More regularly, people who *did* submit their personal-prioritized demands lists wouldn't *have* to do it on a *daily* basis -- just as-needed, as inputs to the formal aggregating process. On the whole, more-commonly-needed goods like toilet paper and socks would cumulatively rise to the top of the rankings, showing everyone -- and liberated-labor in particular -- what the mass demands of society happened to be at any given time. Lesser-needed goods like snorkeling equipment, large optical lenses, or truffles, would be far lower down on the cumulative ranking-slot tallies, and would *not necessarily* find available-and-willing liberated labor for their fulfillment. (The *means* of production would never be proprietary, of course, so people could always d.i.y., even for relatively larger projects, if appropriate.)

So, finally, please note that since there's no 'voting', exactly -- there's no 'middle-layer' of specialized professional (substitutionist) administrators. Either people d.i.y. (small-scale), or else they have to find and actively co-coordinate some aspect of social production (larger-scale) through available-and-willing liberated-labor. The component of labor credits is meant to facilitate this process by circulating and covering the empirical dynamics of supply and demand only for liberated labor *itself* (no commodity production).

CommunistOrganon

29th October 2017, 20:14

First things first; when writing a book, it is a general rule that ou read a ton of books before you start writing. You don't need to just familiarize yourself with the subject, you need to throughly research it. This way you can avoid some of the bigger mistakes, like presenting ages old ideas as something fresh and new. Few comments on the current outlines you made:

This is mainly going to be a "rule book" for us far-left apostles so I want good and moral ideas.
Since most of the revolutionary left (well, at least nominally...) considers itself materialist, it it important to point out that it is not good and moral ideas that come down from the clear skies or something like that should be the main drive of our actions. These "moral ideas" are always socially cnstructed abstractsthat are heavily influenced by the ideology and cultural hegemony of the ruling classes. Historical necessity and historical duty gives as a stronger legitimacy than shaky-idealistic, often arbitrary moral norms. That doesn't mean we are or we should be amoral tools in the hand of the revolution (although Nechayev akes some bombastic arguments for this). It just means we shouldn't base our core politics on idealistic moral grounds.

The big ideas that I have are:

The main enemy of the proletariat is the fascist, race supremacist, and the one whom utilizes the labor of others for profit.

The main enemy of the proletariat is capitalism and capitalists (the ruling class and its allies). This encompasses all agents of capitalism, from ultra-reactionaries (like fascists, supremacists, anti-feminists, etc.) to fancy, liberal, socdem capitalists who are not searching how to end, but how to salvage capitalism. Fascists should be combatted immediately whenever and wherever they pop up, but they are only a fraction of the "enemy", only a representant of the system we need to abolish.

The market economy has its gross flaws as does a command economy, by combining the ideas together can we create an economy that works for the everyone and not for the bourgeoisie.

We don't need to create an economy that works for everyone. We need to abolish what we today call, in our essentially enlightenment-based modern-positivist vocabulary as 'economy'. Also, arbitrary 'combining' ideas is futile. Correct ideas emerge not from solitary experiments in 'combining' other ideas; they emerge from the material realities and conditions we face today.

In the creation of the socialist to communist state, the government has a third and final conflict of groups. When a state starts out, it first takes the form of a feudalistic economy of the Nobles and the Serfs (Slave Peasants). This is the first conflict of groups. Then as the peasants rise up (through violent revolution), they enact market- economic style changes. As the capitalistic ideas begin to surge, a second conflict of groups emerge. The ever repressive bourgeoisie and the working proletariat. This stifling of economic fairness begins to force a new idea, socialist ideologies start to rise and eventually take over and then the capitalist regime topples. Finally, there is the last conflict. The core conflicting ideas of Democracy and Autocracy shall have an ultimate decisive battle for the sake of humanity and in the search for a more perfect society, the Democratic Left MUST win.

This is what I said earlier about the reading part. I don't mean to offend you, but this kind of understanding is a bit shallow; for example the transition of feudalistic mode of production to capitalism is really not like what you described here. The main class conflict of late-feudalism was not between serfdom and nobility (although it was clearly present) but between bourgeoisie and nobility. This arose because it was the bourgeoisie, and not the peasantry which managed to organize itself as a class, a class capable to carry out its revolutions. Traditional peasantry either became later the part of the proletariat (like landless agricultural laborers) or the bourgeoisie (as kind of an agrarian-based bourgeoisie). This way peasantry integrated (in many, although not all parts of the world and of course not at once) into the new system of class struggle between those who own the means of production and those who not.

ckaihatsu

30th October 2017, 15:35

Labor credits Frequently Asked Questions

https://www.revleft.space/vb/threads/200014-Labor-credits-Frequently-Asked-Questions?p=2889338#post2889338