redstar2000
15th May 2003, 22:47
We've had many threads on this board concerning whether or not this country or that country was "a workers' democracy" (or dictatorship of the proletariat, to use the old term).
The discussion is sometimes framed in a "formal" way...what institutions exist "on paper" and how are they supposed to function, again "on paper"?
Sometimes, a lot of the evidence is "anecdotal"...people say "I've been there and saw this or was told that" or even "I lived there and this is what it was like".
And, with depressing regularity, some people will argue that this country or that country is/was a workers' democracy because it said so...it pasted that label on itself.
Consequently, I thought it might be interesting to start a thread on what we would actually expect to see, from a distance, in a real workers' democracy.
I'm assuming that all, or nearly all of us have either lived only in bourgeois "democracies" or dictatorships...that none of us has any direct experience with workers' democracy.
So we can't just extrapolate from our own experiences in capitalist "democracies" what a working class democracy might be like. There would have to be some pretty big differences.
Consider the obvious: freedom of speech, that grand old icon for some folks, exists effectively only for the capitalist class and its apologists in capitalist "democracy". Clearly, we'd expect the exact opposite in a workers' democracy...even if capitalists still existed, they would be excluded from the media, just as we are excluded from their media now.
What about elections and political parties? In capitalist "democracy", all the major political parties accept the basic premises of capitalism itself. Elections are "popularity contests" for the most part; sometimes they will reflect differences between capitalists, not over anything as irrelevant as principle, but rather over the division of spoils.
We would expect the counterpart in a workers' democracy, would we not? All of the political parties would accept the major premises of communism; but they would still have differences...most likely though perhaps not inevitably over the allocation of resources.
It seems to me that the crucial controversies in a workers' democracy would be over questions that are now decided by capitalists; what should be produced and how much, what compensation should producers receive, etc.?
In a workers' democracy, it seems to me that we would expect to see these kinds of questions be the major focus of public controversy...not only in terms of discussions among specialists, but as the active framework of political discussion throughout society.
Finally, there is another attribute that I would look for. Real democracy, even when limited to the specialists employed by the capitalist class, is "sloppy" and "inefficient".
That ought to be even more the case in a workers' democracy...because there are many more people involved. It's not reasonable to assume that the working class, millions or tens of millions or hundreds of millions of people with all the diversity that implies, would "spontaneously unite" behind one particular position or another except that they nearly all would agree that capitalism must not be permitted to re-establish itself.
It seems to me that heated controversy would be the "norm" of a workers' democracy, that meetings of all kinds would be frequent and rowdy, that decisions would be difficult to reach and subject to frequent modification or reversal, etc., etc. The media of such a society would reflect those controversies and even magnify them so as to draw more workers into the debates.
It would not be an "orderly" or "efficient" society.
If I am right about these expectations, then we have yet to see, except in brief and temporary periods in a few places, the actual functioning of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
It is still something to look forward to.
:cool:
The discussion is sometimes framed in a "formal" way...what institutions exist "on paper" and how are they supposed to function, again "on paper"?
Sometimes, a lot of the evidence is "anecdotal"...people say "I've been there and saw this or was told that" or even "I lived there and this is what it was like".
And, with depressing regularity, some people will argue that this country or that country is/was a workers' democracy because it said so...it pasted that label on itself.
Consequently, I thought it might be interesting to start a thread on what we would actually expect to see, from a distance, in a real workers' democracy.
I'm assuming that all, or nearly all of us have either lived only in bourgeois "democracies" or dictatorships...that none of us has any direct experience with workers' democracy.
So we can't just extrapolate from our own experiences in capitalist "democracies" what a working class democracy might be like. There would have to be some pretty big differences.
Consider the obvious: freedom of speech, that grand old icon for some folks, exists effectively only for the capitalist class and its apologists in capitalist "democracy". Clearly, we'd expect the exact opposite in a workers' democracy...even if capitalists still existed, they would be excluded from the media, just as we are excluded from their media now.
What about elections and political parties? In capitalist "democracy", all the major political parties accept the basic premises of capitalism itself. Elections are "popularity contests" for the most part; sometimes they will reflect differences between capitalists, not over anything as irrelevant as principle, but rather over the division of spoils.
We would expect the counterpart in a workers' democracy, would we not? All of the political parties would accept the major premises of communism; but they would still have differences...most likely though perhaps not inevitably over the allocation of resources.
It seems to me that the crucial controversies in a workers' democracy would be over questions that are now decided by capitalists; what should be produced and how much, what compensation should producers receive, etc.?
In a workers' democracy, it seems to me that we would expect to see these kinds of questions be the major focus of public controversy...not only in terms of discussions among specialists, but as the active framework of political discussion throughout society.
Finally, there is another attribute that I would look for. Real democracy, even when limited to the specialists employed by the capitalist class, is "sloppy" and "inefficient".
That ought to be even more the case in a workers' democracy...because there are many more people involved. It's not reasonable to assume that the working class, millions or tens of millions or hundreds of millions of people with all the diversity that implies, would "spontaneously unite" behind one particular position or another except that they nearly all would agree that capitalism must not be permitted to re-establish itself.
It seems to me that heated controversy would be the "norm" of a workers' democracy, that meetings of all kinds would be frequent and rowdy, that decisions would be difficult to reach and subject to frequent modification or reversal, etc., etc. The media of such a society would reflect those controversies and even magnify them so as to draw more workers into the debates.
It would not be an "orderly" or "efficient" society.
If I am right about these expectations, then we have yet to see, except in brief and temporary periods in a few places, the actual functioning of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
It is still something to look forward to.
:cool: