In need of Clarifications

[brotherinexile]

delete post

[flyby]

Originally posted by [email protected] 28 2004, 10:29 PM
I am only coming up in political thinking as a high schooler. I wish to make a difference, but I am curious about a few hypocracies in Communism/Socialism/Anarchism. I also have a few questions.

First, concidering communism is a economic form could we not have a democratic communism insted of a totalirist communism. It seems like it would work and be more true to "true freedom". Also, it seems communism and anarchism are almost opposite. Because as I understand anarchism is every person for themselves which i thought was the oppistie of communism. Anarchy, it seems, would not work because with no governing body organized could move in a oppress the people.

I am also completly confuse about socialism. I recently got my copy of "Global Justice" by Guevara and its seems he belived in socialism but i was under the impression he was a communist.

Please answer my questions and correct me if I am misinformed.
There are many different things you raise, all of which is important.

Communism is our goal. It is a classless society where all forms of oppression have been finally overthrown. It can only be reached on a worldwide basis by replacing capitalism (and all class relationships) with new liberated and revolutionary relationships.

The way we get to communism (from capitalism) is through a complex transition period of revolutionary change. This period is called "socialism."

so all communists support socialist revolution -- since socialism is the road to communism, and communism is what the struggle within socialism is about.

the whole idea of "totalitarianism" is a bourgeois concept -- it does not really exist in the real world. (In other words, no society is so "totalized" that opposition is impossible. the claims of capitalist theoreticians like Hanna Arendt that oppositional thinking can be eliminated by tightly controlled mass media -- as portrayed in the novel 1984 -- is actually not possible.)

All class societies are the dictatorship of one class or another. So capitalism is not tied to "democracy" -- it is essentially the dictatorship of the capitailst ruling class. And similarly, socialism is the dictatorship of the proletariat (the previously oppressed) who are not leading and transforming society.

The best work on this (a challenging work tho!) is Democracy: More Than Ever We Can and Must Do Better Than That (http://rwor.org/chair_e.htm#democracy) by Bob Avakian -- which breaks down what the necessary political forms are for moving from capitalism to communism.

Here is another great source: On Proletarian Democracy and Proletarian Dictatorship--A Radically Different View of Leading Society (http://rwor.org/chair_e.htm#onproletarian)



I hope this helps. Let me know if you have other questions.

[flyby]

there are built in problems with voting -- where people are atomized as invividuals in little booths, voting on "their personal intersts" isolated from other people and larger processes of debate.

There needs to be voting in socialist society, but it is not guarantee at all of popular rule. This U.S. society shows how voting can be used to give people political lobotomies, to legitimize brutal and reactionary policies, and isolate people from each other into different warring "interest groups."

voting is not democracy.

and democracy is itself a contradictory thing.

[flyby]

i don't think politics is possible without representation....
because there canot be "direct power" in a complex society.

(Just think through for a second, how to develop and organize a rubber industry, and how it will interact with a steel industry to produce products, and how all this has to be part of a society-wide rev process of transformation. Such things can't simply be carried out "at the plant floor" or based on whatever each little group of people wants or thinks.)

Social revolution is by its nature a complex and many leveled process, that needs all of us to be conscious, but which also concentrates leadership in organized forces of the most revolutionary.

the masses of people always consist of the relatively advanced, intermediate and backward.... and it is always necessary to organize the most advanced to influence the larger population and process.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by flyby
I don't think politics is possible without representation....because there cannot be "direct power" in a complex society.

So we've been told...many times.

However, just because "everybody knows" something does not necessarily mean it's true.

"Direct power" might, in many cases, turn out to be quite practical...no one really knows at this point.

Meanwhile, if we "must" have "representation", there's the question of where it is to come from and how it is to be selected -- and, most importantly, how it is to be kept from "getting out of control" and turning itself into a new ruling class.

Here's one way that might be done...

Democracy without Elections; Demarchy and Communism (http://redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1083335872&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&)

Further Notes on Demarchy (http://redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1083543192&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&)

And there may be other ways as well.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Djehuti]

"First, concidering communism is a economic form could we not have a democratic communism insted of a totalirist communism."

Well, communism is more then an "economic form".
And no, there can never be any democratic communism, nor any totalitarian communism. Democracy is just disguised class opression, and totalitarianism is in its essence anti-communist, just as any form of dictatorship (except the dictatorship of the proletariat, but thats not a dictatorship in the words common sence, its rather a kind of democracy).


"When I said can we have a democratic communism. I meant to avoid classes and being opressed shouldn't the people be able to vote on decisions that will (in)directly effect them? I belive with todays technology we CAN accoplish a true democracry without representives."

I think that would be possible in a communist society. Ofcource those who are affected by a decision should be the ones who decide. And with the huge potention that lies within todays technological development (the is alot of unused potential in our society that could only come to its fully use when capitalism has been abolished) I think we could be able to have a well functional (if not perfect) form of direct "democracy" (dont like that term, but I currently have no bether)...Though I do believe that there will be some kind of need for representatives even in a communist society, but I do not see that as something bad. Direct-"democracy" is not all good, and representative "democracy" is not all bad.

"Also, it seems communism and anarchism are almost opposite. Because as I understand anarchism is every person for themselves which i thought was the oppistie of communism. "

No, anarchism is not about "every person for themself", and communism is not about "all for the sake of the collective, the individual is nothing" either. In fact, almost all anarchism that is not totaly useless is some kind of anarcho-communism.


"Anarchy, it seems, would not work because with no governing body organized could move in a oppress the people."

But the state IS the organized oppression. But organization in itself is not "evil", its good. And anarchists do agree with me in this. But that does not mean that we will need a state, or even any goverment in todays sence of the word...


"I am also completly confuse about socialism. I recently got my copy of "Global Justice" by Guevara and its seems he belived in socialism but i was under the impression he was a communist."


Its not like "you can be either a communist or a socialist", you can be both.
There is alot of different definitions of the word "socialism", I rarely use it though.
Personally, I would say that Che was some kind of socialist, but I would not call him a communism.