Questions

[Pogue]

1.If we base our society on "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need", how do we decide what an individuals need is?
2. What if someone is not pulling their weight?
3. How do we encourage developement in this profitless environment?
4. How do we deal with differing points of view on the management of our new anarchist/communist society?
5. How do we defend against crimes in our stateless society?
6. How do we affect mass change in a world where people are slaves to consumerism?
7. How do we prevent our new society from revolving round to becoming capitalist again?
8. Why is social democracy an inadequate system for the redistribution fo wealth and limiting the harmful effects of capitalism?
9. Can we justify taking from those who earnt their wealth by 'climbing the ladder' to redistribute it?
10. How do we redistribute it?
11. How do we end pvoertry all across the world? (In the case of world revolution)
12. What happens to those who disagree with our new communist society?
13. Why not base the system on "from each accroding to his ability, to each according to his efforts"

Preferably short, jargon free answers, such as could be used to counter capitalist arguments.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

1. Everyone can be considered to have equal needs unless they can prove otherwise. For example, they could use an official medical diagnosis to prove that they need a certain costly drug. In terms of entertainment and luxury items everyone can be considered to have equal needs.

2. Then they will very likely have no friends. A communist society will consider productive work to be a virtue, and people not pulling their weight will be looked down upon.

3. Development is not an end in and of itself. It is a means to achieve human happiness. Communism won't encourage development for its own sake - it will encourage people to do what makes them happy, which is more important than development.

4. Democratic voting.

5. However the community sees fit - solutions could range from a volunteer citizens' militia to a full-time police-like agency, except that such an agency would be controlled by, and responsible to, local communities.

6. In the Russian Empire, most people were extremely religious and the Tsar claimed to have a God-given right to rule. Yet the people rose up, deposed him and eventually executed him anyway. Modern consumerism is not nearly as powerful as the myths that old tyrants used to justify themselves. If people can be persuaded to rise against leaders who claim to be gods, they can certainly be persuaded to rise against leaders supported by the media. Consumerism only keeps people enthralled during times of economic boom, which never last forever.

7. Through democracy and a planned economy. To prevent the return of capitalism we must prevent the rise of powerful people with an interest in restoring capitalism. Democracy and a system of separation of powers prevents such people from rising in the government. A planned, non-market economy prevents such people from rising through economic means.

8. Because it is unstable, temporary, and depends on the good will of capitalists. Social democracy is a compromise between capitalism and socialism. It can only continue to exist while capitalist and socialist forces are equally powerful and balance each other out. This balance is hard to obtain and easy to lose. It took a world war - World War 2 - to create the balance that made social democracy as we know it possible. And the end of the Cold War and the beginning of globalization destroyed the balance. Today, capitalist corporations are much more powerful than workers, and thanks to globalization they can threaten to leave a country and take their jobs with them if they do not get their way. As a result, social democracy has no choice but to capitulate to neoliberalism. It is a dying ideology.

9. Yes, because they climbed the ladder by exploiting others. All profits of a capitalist company come from not paying its workers the full value of their labour.

10. All economic activity must be placed under the democratic control of the people. Or, in other words, the means of production must be made public property. A person should be paid according to how much he works, not according to how much property he owns.

11. By implementing point #10 on a global scale. There is enough wealth in the world already to eliminate poverty - we just have to give it to the workers, the people who produce it.

12. The same that happens to everyone else. They will live in communism by the same rules as everyone else. They are also free to complain about it as much as they want. We will simply ignore them.

13. It will be, in the short run. That is why under point #10 I said that people should be paid according to how much they work. That is the principle of socialism. In the long run, we want socialism to be transformed into communism. In other words, we want to advance to the point where it is no longer necessary to keep track of how much each person works, because most people get to do a job they enjoy - and therefore work to the best of their ability - and have learned not to take more than they need. Naturally, there will never come a time when ALL people will be like that. But communism only requires MOST people to be like that.

[Dros]

I'm not going to go through point by point and answer all of your questions as I don't really have time right now.

However, I will say that most of these arguments presume capitalist social relations and production relations. For instance, 1, 2, and 11 assume scarcity which is a product of the state of production relations under capitalism in an historic sense. Communism will be achieved only after scarcity has been defeated because of technological advancement, greater development of the means of production, and careful planning to destroy wasteful and anarchic production. This means that these things won't really be problems.

As for crime, Edric is right. But it is important to point out as well that most crime is a result either directly or indirectly of capitalist production and social relations. In the absence of that, crime will fall dramatically (although it won't disappear entirely).

I would ask you why you think a communist society would be likely to revert to capitalism? What would be the material basis for such a thing to occur? In capitalism, are there a lot of people who want to go back to feudalism? So why would this be any different? What would the basis for this transformation be?

[Niccolò Rossi]

1.If we base our society on "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need", how do we decide what an individuals need is? You may decide what your need is, within practical boundaries. Remember a communist society must be by definition one of super-abundance.


2. What if someone is not pulling their weight? I don't believe this would be a major problem. Even today i'd say most people feel a need to work hard in their jobs for no other reason than to help their fellow workers.

Remember also, "human nature" is (within reason) determined by the social conditions in which men live. In a capitalist society where man is alienated from his work he feels fulfilled only in his "animal functions", resting, procreating, sleeping, eating. In a communist society man would be fulfilled in his real human function, developmental labour and thus compelled to act based on this for his own individual and collective development.


3. How do we encourage development in this profitless environment?
What profitless environment are you referring to. This detail is in reality irrelevant as the profit motive is a distinct product of capitalism. In a socialist or communist society the economy and all productive labour will not be gear towards the satisfaction of the profit motive, but rather the satisfaction of real human needs.


4. How do we deal with differing points of view on the management of our new anarchist/communist society?
People's opinions will always differ, in a communist society these views would be reconciled by (where possible) consensus decision making.


5. How do we defend against crimes in our stateless society?
Crime would be radically reduced in a communist society. Today crimes such as theft, vandalism and murder are perpetuated by class divisions. This is why today we see the highest crime rates in working class areas, “housing commission” areas, areas of low socio-economic status.

Crime will still exist and to ensure the safety of all, democratic people's militias will be formed alongside what would be considered "vigilantism" today.


6. How do we affect mass change in a world where people are slaves to consumerism?
Consumerism is an example of cultural hegemony. It is a means by which the ruling class is able to keep the working masses blind, docile and "happy".

A constant objective of the communists must at all times be the disruption of this cultural hegemony and the raising of class consciousness. The methods by which this should be achieved would be numerous and highly variable depending on local situations, think about this one for yourself.


7. How do we prevent our new society from revolving round to becoming capitalist again?
The communist society or a socialist one?

I pose an alternate question. How does/did the bourgeoisie prevent capitalist society from being rolled back to feudalism?

After the revolution (socialism) of course there are going to exist a bourgeois class. Disempowered, it is inevitable that they will engage in counter-revolutionary activity. The way this is stopped is by the state, the mediator of all class struggles. When the proletariat constitute their own state, a proletarian state, comprised of organs of workers rule, the proletariat will have the means to mediate the class war still occurring in their own favour.


8. Why is social democracy an inadequate system for the redistribution fo wealth and limiting the harmful effects of capitalism?
Social democracy is a perfectly adequate system for the redistribution of wealth in the first world. The idea of social democracy is a simple one. Much like consumerism it acts, by raising the standards of living for the masses, to subdue revolutionary expression, keeping people content with their current living conditions. It is wholly and utterly bourgeois.

The communists are not for the redistribution of wealth as a principal. Rather we are for the revolutionary transformation of society as a result of a social, economic and historical "neccesity", which just so happens to result in the redistribution of the means of production to the produces themselves, abolishing alienation in the production process and existing class antagonisms, resulting in the unequal distribution of wealth.


9. Can we justify taking from those who earnt their wealth by 'climbing the ladder' to redistribute it?
Firstly, one only “climbs the ladder” by crushing those beneath.


Secondly, it needs no justification. We aren't playing moralistic games here.


10. How do we redistribute it?
Redistribution of wealth comes with the means of production, and therefore the production process, being consciously controlled by the proletariat as a whole and geared toward the satisfaction of real human needs.


11. How do we end povertry all across the world? (In the case of world revolution)
Firstly, poverty is directly, a product of capitalist class society and the profit motive. Today we have the means to satisfy all basic human needs. Yet why to millions go hungry? Capitalism is a decadent system today geared toward the satisfaction of the profit motive. Today capitalism today fails to satisfy real human needs, with people in dire poverty, surviving solely by means of cultural hegemony and military force.


Secondly, in a communist society, in order to satisfy the needs of all, the means of production must be radically developed to an unprecedented level in order to generate a super abundance for all. This development of the means of production will allow for the annihilation of all forms of poverty.


12. What happens to those who disagree with our new communist society?
In a socialist society those bourgeois elements committed to counter-revolution must be openly fought against as enemies of the proletariat. Depending on who you talk to this may be interpreted differently to mean anything from capital punishment, to slave labour, incarceration, exile or confiscation of property.


This is not to say people have no right to criticise. On the contrary a communist/socialist society must guard the right to dissent.


13. Why not base the system on "from each according to his ability, to each according to his efforts"
Marx in his Critique of the Gotha Programme saw that in future communist society, production and distribution would be organised “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”. This means that every person would give a corresponding amount of their labour in production and would in turn, take what they “need” (and we use the term loosely, not just referring to necessities) from the social product.


In a socialist society, however, Marx predicted production and distribution would be organised based “From each according to his ability, to each according to his labour”. This means that in the socialist society where by the means of production are not developed to an extent to ensure the satisfaction of all human needs (whether such a stage is necessary any more, in a world of surplus, may be debated), each person would receive back from society in one from, in proportion, all that they give to it in another (labour)


Preferably short, jargon free answers, such as could be used to counter capitalist arguments.
Sorry if mine aren't desirable.