"To Begin With..." [Redefining the minimum program] [Archive]

Die Neue Zeit

29th September 2008, 19:55

"TO BEGIN WITH..."

“Proceeding from these principles, the Social Democratic Party of Germany demands, to begin with [...]” (Eduard Bernstein)

Yes, those words were written by Eduard Bernstein, the official spokesperson and theoretician of “yellow” (non-class-strugglist) tred-iunionisty and equally “yellow” bureaucratic careerists in the international proletariat’s first vanguard party, the then-Marxist Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD). Although many Trotskyists and other “anti-capitalists” prefer the transitional and directional methods, respectively [...] the modern conditions for open class struggle (or the relative lack thereof) are such that Social-Labourists should indeed consider Lenin’s own evaluation, in 1899, of the overly maligned Erfurt Program of the SPD:

We are not in the least afraid to say that we want to imitate the Erfurt Programme: there is nothing bad in imitating what is good, and precisely today, when we so often hear opportunist and equivocal criticism of that programme, we consider it our duty to speak openly in its favour. Imitating, however, must under no circumstances be simply copying.

What was said above was in fact a defense of the minimum-maximum programmatic approach against minimalists like Bernstein (who indeed authored the oppositionist “minimum” section of the Erfurt Program) who in fact rejected this approach (hence minimalism). In my earlier work, however, I deemed this original programmatic approach by Marx, Engels, and Kautsky to be problematic. Minimum programs were historically interpreted as being only on the threshold (that is, the maximum that could possibly be achieved under bourgeois capitalism, or, using the language of game theory, the most rudimentary interpretation of the concept of maximin in regards to programmatic questions), and sometimes included the hard-to-categorize demands for the conquest of specifically political power by the working class (i.e., “the democratic republic,” “soviet power,” and now class-strugglist democracy and the demarchic commonwealth). With the historical development of bourgeois capitalism, the second theoretical founder of “participatory economics,” Robin Hahnel, countered this static programmatic interpretation best:

In sum, any reform can be fought for in ways that diminish the chances of further gains and limit progressive change in other areas, or fought for in ways that make further progress more likely and facilitate other progressive changes as well.

On the other hand, those Trotskyists who adhere to “transitional” sloganeering have abandoned the aforementioned static interpretation and complemented their static “transitional” sloganeering with a vulgar, defensive, and ultimately economistic interpretation of oppositionist “minimum” demands (minimin) taken straight from the Second International minimalists, of whom Kautsky said in The Road to Power:

The reformers dream of the establishment of social peace between the classes, between exploited and exploiters, without abolishing exploitation. They would bring this about by having each class exercise a certain self-restraint toward the other, and by the giving up of all “excesses” and “extreme demands.”

In between the two extremes stands a method that is dynamic (or broadly directional) yet structural and oppositionist. Part of this method coincides with some of the minimax “ideals” of even the most structurally interventionist of “social-democrats,” while a larger part already goes beyond them, but which in its entirety facilitates the issuance of either intermediate or threshold demands later (the “Hahnel criterion,” per the note below) on while simultaneously enabling the basic principles to be “kept consciously in view” (to quote Kautsky, hence the reference to this criterion as the “Kautsky criterion” for the sake of this work) – through the emphasis on transnational class struggle in this method, specifically transnational pressure for legislative implementation (and not regulation by hardly accountable regulators) and politico-ideological independence for the working class.

[Note: For the sake of this work I will refer to the facilitating of the issuance of intermediate and threshold demands as the “Hahnel criterion.” This is due to Hahnel’s criticism of the “non-reformist reforms” precedent established by one Andre Gorz, notwithstanding the pareconist’s own misjudgment on the “full Keynesian program” (in fact “bastard Keynesianism” in the eyes of more radical Neo-Ricardians or Post-Keynesians such as Joan Robinson, Paul Davidson, Hyman Minsky, and Steve Keen) as being reform-enabling.]

Some of these demands are so dynamic that they transcend the political-economic divide of traditional “minimum” demands. The rest of this lengthy chapter will examine, on the basis of the Hahnel and Kautsky criteria provided above, various dynamic oppositionist demands.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/32-hour-workweek-t88097/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/class-strugglist-assembly-t99908/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/right-bear-arms-t113782/index.html?p=1506576
http://www.revleft.com/vb/local-autonomy-and-t106241/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/party-recallable-closed-t94427/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/against-personal-inheritance-t106772/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/socio-income-democracy-t92929/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/progress-poverty-and-t100661/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/abolition-indirect-and-t117359/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/right-city-t130974/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/sliding-scale-wages-t98609/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/private-sector-collective-t124045/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/class-based-affirmative-t133944/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/education-and-experience-t133376/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/worker-buyouts-t88629/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/do-we-address-t109089/index.html?p=1476266

(More analysis to follow)

REFERENCES:

Program of a New Type: Dynamic Minimum-Reformist-Revolutionary [http://www.revleft.com/vb/program-new-type-t83818/index.html]

Programme of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany (Erfurt Programme) by Karl Kautsky and Eduard Bernstein [http://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/1891/erfurt-program.htm]

A Draft of Our Party Programme by Vladimir Lenin [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dec/draft.htm]

Fighting For Reforms Without Becoming Reformist by Robin Hahnel [http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/6588]

The Road to Power by Karl Kautsky [http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1909/power/ch03.htm]

Sweetpotos

29th September 2008, 21:14

The problem I see with this is that, considering the nature of modern "democracy", achieving these reforms will be damned near impossible. And if you do manage to achieve them somehow, the worker's energies will be so exhausted, that they will stop short of any further advances.

There is no progress to be made under capitalism any more. In fact, achieving a 32 hour work week would actually seem regressive to the majority of people (due to bourgeois propaganda of course).

We need, in my view, some combination of an incessant demand for the dictatorship of the proletariat, and a very basic transitional program which clearly and unmistakably raises the question of taking power.

SchrÃ¶dinger's Cat

30th September 2008, 03:20

There is no progress to be made under capitalism any more. In fact, achieving a 32 hour work week would actually seem regressive to the majority of people (due to bourgeois propaganda of course).Not to mention a 32 hour work week would probably stifle productivity under capitalism from political purposes. That could create a very unwelcome backlash.

Does anyone know what South Korea's law saws about overtime? It would be nice to draw a comparison between the two, because capitalists like to trumpet nonsensical "competition" as a way to decrease working times.

(Jacob), pertaining to your second link about cooperatives, wouldn't it be possible for cooperatives around the globe to link up with each other and create larger cooperative efforts? If any concession still needs to be made, it's lifting laws around the world which restrict cooperatives (specifically mutual banks).

Die Neue Zeit

30th September 2008, 03:30

[FONT=Arial]Not to mention a 32 hour work week would probably stifle productivity under capitalism from political purposes. That could create a very unwelcome backlash.

Care to elaborate? There was no (immediate) backlash against the 40-hour workweek. Also, Newt Gingrich recently made some idiotic comment about the "need" for his assistants to work longer hours (around the lines of 60 to 80).

Does anyone know what South Korea's law saws about overtime? It would be nice to draw a comparison between the two, because capitalists like to trumpet nonsensical "competition" as a way to decrease working times.

I know you're trying to bring up the Wal-Mart scenario here, but where I'm coming from office workers can be over-worked.

(Jacob), pertaining to your second link about cooperatives, wouldn't it be possible for cooperatives around the globe to link up with each other and create larger cooperative efforts? If any concession still needs to be made, it's lifting laws around the world which restrict cooperatives (specifically mutual banks).

You'll have to fill me in on this (again, I'm not very informed on the subject of "mutual banks"). The demand that I took from David Schweickart was a logical extension of worker pre-emptions against lockouts (occupations and continuance of work).

Tower of Bebel

30th September 2008, 15:11

The 32-hour week is more a political demand than a economic demand. It would allow workers to be more involved with politics, party-building and decision making... ergo more democracy: it allows the proletariat to struggle against capitalism from a more favorable position. It is one step closer to the self-emancipation of the working class.

It is not our task to achieve such a demand through politics from above, with the help of bourgeois parties, but through class struggle.

BobKKKindle$

1st October 2008, 12:38

The 32-hour week is more a political demand than a economic demand.

You don't understand the difference between political and economic demands. An economic demand is something which, if implemented, would only affect an individual workplace or a small number of workplaces, depending on the scope of organization - for example, a group of workers demanding an increase in pay through their trade union. A political demand would, if implemented, have an effect on the whole of the working class, and political demands generally involve some kind of legislative action by the government which employers are forced to accept - for example, the government setting a minimum wage. There are some cases where the division between economic struggles and political struggles may break down such that an economic demand penetrates the political sphere and poses a challenge to the authority of the state - for example, workers trying to form an independent trade union in a country where trade unions are banned by the government, as in Russia prior to the Bolshevik revolution, or workers in a specific industry going on strike in defiance of the government, as in Britain during WW1, where the terms of the Munitions Act punished striking workers with fines and the threat of being sent to the front.

Lynx

2nd October 2008, 00:49

Should there be a demand to introduce job sharing?

rouchambeau

2nd October 2008, 02:16

What the fuck does "tred-iunionisty" mean?

Die Neue Zeit

2nd October 2008, 02:31

You don't understand the difference between political and economic demands. An economic demand is something which, if implemented, would only affect an individual workplace or a small number of workplaces, depending on the scope of organization - for example, a group of workers demanding an increase in pay through their trade union. A political demand would, if implemented, have an effect on the whole of the working class, and political demands generally involve some kind of legislative action by the government which employers are forced to accept - for example, the government setting a minimum wage.

Bob, you REALLY, REALLY need to read Marx's Program of the French Workers' Party (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/05/parti-ouvrier.htm), the Erfurt Program (http://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/1891/erfurt-program.htm), and Lenin's Draft Program of the RSDLP (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1902/draft/02feb07.htm). The minimum wage is an ECONOMIC demand.

Should there be a demand to introduce job sharing?

Comrade, I don't know (it's not in my intentionally not-so-extensive list). You'd have to test that demand against the two criteria that I mentioned above:

1) Does the reform enable more reforms or close the path to them?
2) Does the reform enable the basic principles to be, through the emphasis on class struggle in this method, “kept consciously in view”?

BobKKKindle$

2nd October 2008, 08:56

Bob, you REALLY, REALLY need to read Marx's Program of the French Workers' Party (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/05/parti-ouvrier.htm), the Erfurt Program (http://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/1891/erfurt-program.htm), and Lenin's Draft Program of the RSDLP (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1902/draft/02feb07.htm). The minimum wage is an ECONOMIC demand.

No, you're incorrect. An economic demand is not something which is concerned solely with economics, and so the fact that the minimum wage is listed as part of the "economic section" in Marx's document does not mean it is automatically an economic demand. Demanding the minimum wage is a political demand because it affects the whole of the working class and involves the employers being forced to do something by the government.

Lynx

2nd October 2008, 16:16

Comrade, I don't know (it's not in my intentionally not-so-extensive list). You'd have to test that demand against the two criteria that I mentioned above:

1) Does the reform enable more reforms or close the path to them?
Job sharing would require changes to apprenticeship and technical training. Payroll tax (ie. the 'head tax' for employees) would have to be reduced or eliminated. Unemployment services, human resources and opportunities for students, disabled and retired workers would be positively effected.

2) Does the reform enable the basic principles to be, through the emphasis on class struggle in this method, “kept consciously in view”?
Unsure :confused:
I believe it introduces a necessary component of socialism: participation (or rather, 'participaction')
In a tight labour market, job sharing is a way to allow as many workers as possible to earn income. However there are additional effects if one is willing to apply this concept further. 1) It alleviates the need for some workers to do exclusively menial work and exposes more workers to the reality of menial and other undesirable work. 2) It gives everyone a chance to learn new skills, broaden their horizons and participate in the workforce.
In Canada, 'participaction' was about getting physically active, improving your health and as a result, feeling better. Job participaction and subsequent improvements will be about making work not just tolerable, but desirable.

Social participation is also a basis for volunteerism, data gathering and direct democracy.

p.s. Was it Marx who talked about having a varied day?

Die Neue Zeit

3rd October 2008, 05:40

Job sharing would require changes to apprenticeship and technical training. Payroll tax (ie. the 'head tax' for employees) would have to be reduced or eliminated. Unemployment services, human resources and opportunities for students, disabled and retired workers would be positively effected.'

Comrade, "apprenticeship and technical training" sounds like this demand will only affect a certain segment of workers, unlike the 32-hour workweek. Nevertheless, maybe you can write up a draft section for me on this (since you know much more about this than I do) before I do additional research.

Unsure :confused:
I believe it introduces a necessary component of socialism: participation (or rather, 'participaction')

I know you aren't a Trotskyist and what not, but could this "job sharing" be a variant of Trotsky's "sliding scale of hours" transitional demand? :confused:

[Maybe Comrade Rakunin can enlighten the two of us.]

In a tight labour market, job sharing is a way to allow as many workers as possible to earn income. However there are additional effects if one is willing to apply this concept further. 1) It alleviates the need for some workers to do exclusively menial work and exposes more workers to the reality of menial and other undesirable work. 2) It gives everyone a chance to learn new skills, broaden their horizons and participate in the workforce.

Ah, I see where you're going here. This demand, while acknowledging the functional division of labour, attacks what Devine calls the "social" division of labour. :)

[Again, maybe some websites and that draft will be useful, because I'll be busy for the next while. I've intended to work further on "The Democracy Question" and attack the broad economism plaguing much of the left, but school has bogged me down. :( ]

p.s. Was it Marx who talked about having a varied day?

I'm not sure he went into a lot of detail, but he said that the division of manual and mental labour had to go. In Devine's interpretation, that would mean the social, not functional, division of labour. Keep in mind that a lot of jobs these days are "varied" in and of themselves (such as mine).

Lynx

4th October 2008, 13:28

From http://www.thecitizen.org.uk/articles/vol1/article05a.htm

First, any reduction in hours must be accompanied by a commitment to maintain income. If income is cut, aggregate demand is cut, the economy will be depressed, and more, not less, unemployment will be created. Secondly, working time reduction must be universally applied. If it is not, existing inequalities in the labour market will be reinforced. An elite will work shorter hours, while a majority, particularly in service industries with a high proportion of women and young workers, would work the traditional working week - or even longer.
This, along with aggregate production, means that job sharing is a requirement for the 32-hour week. Hence, no need to include job sharing as a separate demand - its in the details ;)

It would be advisable to examine the implications of each demand in yet greater depth.

I'm not sure he went into a lot of detail, but he said that the division of manual and mental labour had to go. In Devine's interpretation, that would mean the social, not functional, division of labour. Keep in mind that a lot of jobs these days are "varied" in and of themselves (such as mine).
However varied, too many view their job as the time they are being payed for being productive (aka "making a living"). This is a distinction that needs to wither away.

p.s. Who is Devine?

Die Neue Zeit

4th October 2008, 20:25

From http://www.thecitizen.org.uk/articles/vol1/article05a.htm

This, along with aggregate production, means that job sharing is a requirement for the 32-hour week. Hence, no need to include job sharing as a separate demand - its in the details ;)

Haha, I suppose. Some overworking jobs will require two people to fill the shoes.

It would be advisable to examine the implications of each demand in yet greater depth.

Is the planned "To Begin With..." not long enough? :confused:

But yeah, maybe a separate work or something may come in handy.

However varied, too many view their job as the time they are being payed for being productive (aka "making a living"). This is a distinction that needs to wither away.

p.s. Who is Devine?

http://matisse.univ-paris1.fr/heterodoxies/heter040519b.pdf

"Although a functional division of labour is a necessary condition of complex modern societies a social division of labour is not..."

Pat Devine, while concerned mainly about participatory socialism or whatever term he's using, is also concerned with the ambiguous "division of labour."

Die Neue Zeit

4th October 2008, 21:38

No, you're incorrect. An economic demand is not something which is concerned solely with economics, and so the fact that the minimum wage is listed as part of the "economic section" in Marx's document does not mean it is automatically an economic demand. Demanding the minimum wage is a political demand because it affects the whole of the working class and involves the employers being forced to do something by the government.

Although demanding minimum wage legislation is qualitatively different from scattered wage struggles, the "economic section" was labelled such precisely because advocating only for those demands in the economic section was tantamount to broad economism (which encompasses other matters, too). It is this broad economism that plagues much of the left today.

Lynx

4th October 2008, 23:33

Haha, I suppose. Some overworking jobs will require two people to fill the shoes.
It is an inherent property, easily overlooked. For example, if we were to return to a 60-hour week standard, the job sharing that exists today would be undone.

Is the planned "To Begin With..." not long enough? :confused:

But yeah, maybe a separate work or something may come in handy.
I'm suggesting the implications need to be worked out and made available in a more technical document.

Question: how are contract workers and workers earning commission to be included in a reduced work week?

http://matisse.univ-paris1.fr/heterodoxies/heter040519b.pdf
Thanks

Die Neue Zeit

19th October 2008, 03:56

^^^ I suppose that's a good loophole to address. Anyway, I found this site funny:

Minimax and transitional demands (http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2008/10/16/minimax-and-transitional-demands)

I posted a response to the usual gushing of Trotsky's not-updated transitional method, but then at work I noted something funny. Maybe this was the intent of the author, or maybe she doesn't know Game Theory at all (unlike the gimme-level "quantitative methods" education I got :( ) and inadvertently brought up Game Theory by contracting the term minimum-maximum:

http://www.maximax.com/index.php?ArticleId=13&PHPSESSID=28b5d9bfad9377409acdde6687f367ae

Maximax name came from Game Theory. Game Theory is the body of thoughts that describes the interaction between players who choose different actions with outcomes that are dependable on such actions. The interaction could be modeled and outcomes could be studied and formulated for each game. For outcomes that seek to maximize certain functions, say profits, players could choose to play four strategies, MiniMin, MiniMax, MaxiMin and MaxiMax.

"Minimax" implies the minimization of the maximum possible loss. Programmatically speaking, however, this fits well into today's pseudo-reformist parties, who minimize whatever little maximum programs they have.

"Minimin" implies the minimization of the minimum possible loss (on the assumption that such loss is the only realistic loss possible). Programmatically speaking, however, this too fits well into today's pseudo-reformist parties, who minimize their minimums on a daily basis while failing to inspire people.

Since maximax is obvious enough, I'll skip to the remaining strategy of "maximin." As Comrade Rakunin noted here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/discussion-imperialism-world-t87730/index.html?p=1231256

I don't see what imperialism has to with making old tactics, strategies and demands ineffective and reactionary. Of course the state is far more important and aggressive than it was before imperialism, and of course the state is incorporating and buying out trade unions; but that makes things just harder, not impossible. That's why I never supported defending the maximum-program alone during my short "left-communist" stage. And that's also why I never supported Trotsky when he wrote that the current period, one of imperialism, made the "division" between minimum and maximum program obsolete. Yet, the idea that minimum demands were the same demands as the demands of today's bourgeois Labour parties made me also denounce the minimum-program... until I saw that Marx', Engels' and Lenin's minimum-demands were entirely different. They were more radical than the demands of social-chauvenists and "progressive" liberals. Of course I support both transitional demands and the "maximum-program". It's not that I'm a simple reformist or something like that.

Considering that "ordinary workers" will ask "What is a minimum program?" anyway (as noted by CPGB comrade Mike Macnair in this excellent video debate with Mark Hoskisson of Permanent Revolution (http://communiststudents.org.uk/?p=524), a group that has emerged from hyper-centralists within the League for the Fifth International, in spite of that group's recognition of Kautsky's programmatic contribution), perhaps I'll rework some of my current WIP material on the "immediate-intermediate-threshold-directional-velvet-revolutionary program" to include Game Theory terminology.

Tower of Bebel

19th October 2008, 10:34

Since you keep on reposting my small "confession"; I found these articles of Lenin, written in 1916, interesting: nascent imperialist economism (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/sep/00.htm)and the charicature (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/carimarx/index.htm).

Die Neue Zeit

19th October 2008, 22:07

Regarding national self-determination, you do realize that Lenin was a sophisticated "republican socialist," don't you? ;)

Perhaps the axiom "scratch an ultra-left, find a reformist/opportunist" should be rephrased to refer to economism ("we are opposed to a minimum programme... as 'contradictory' to socialist revolution"). Not every economist, who can't connect the radical dots raised by workers themselves, is a yellow or orange reformist, it would seem.

In any event, I made similar remarks in Devrim's "principled" user group:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/entrysm-t86143/index.html

And they can't seem to distinguish between the various types of reforms, hiding behind their discredited interpretation of "decadence" (at least the IBRP has an honest ultra-leftism-for-ultra-leftism's-sake position):

I took a look at the 'dynamic' minimum programme, and there's not much 'offensive' in it - just calls for more radical reforms. Yes, the questions of entryism and minimum programmes are related. Jacob, you haven't really grasped the significance of the change in conditions between capitalism's epoch of ascendancy (pre-WW1) and decay (post WW1). You seem to still be glued to the old perspective of seeing capitalism as being capable of granting, the bourgeoisie of being progressive enough to actually listen to demands, of the revolution being a slow process of evolution, and the labour/trotskyist/stalinist parties as still containing proletarian elements that can be rescued. Well, they aren't any more on all counts.

Jacob, the communist left made a thorough critique of these hangovers from social-democratic practice through the 20s and 30s. You should take a look at some of the ICC's books on this and seriously engage with what the communist left said, and still says today. You'd save yourself a whole lot of wasted time and effort.

That's the point. Instead of defensive calls like "end privatization," "preserve civil rights," and other demands that have been vulgarized as being "minimum," the suggested program goes on the offensive.

And if I call for more radical reforms, they reduce such calls to idealism:

JR - the problem I have with your platform is precisely that - it is yours, the product of an individual, not the result of collective discussion and reflection. As Marx said in the Manifesto, "The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based on ideas or principles that have been invented, or discovered, by this or that would-be reformer. They merely express, in general terms, actual relations springing from an existing class struggle, from a historical movement going on under our very eyes." You come across as one of these would-be reformers, complete with all your own words and colour-schemes.

That is off the mark, especially on semantics.

I do not come across as a "would-be reformer," because others already suggested the idea[s] of a 32-hour workweek, PR, expanded gun rights, class-based affirmative action, anti-inheritance measures, and indexed minimum wage laws. If you had said that my ideas were based on those discovered by "would-be reformers," then you would be half-right. Those would-be reformers, in turn, expressed their ideas from material conditions.

BTW, in my work I show that I'm trying to get past the Manifesto, so if anything else I suggest you take that historical-piece-of-propaganda-work for what it is and take into account modern conditions.

Martin Blank

14th December 2008, 23:56

From an IM discussion between myself and Jacob on immediate demands:

(5:37:27 PM) Miles: One of the things we'll be doing ... is revising the platform. Since we have that opportunity, I'd like to get as many ideas from you on amendments as possible.
(5:37:38 PM) Jacob Richter: "Direct election of judges" seems suspicious
(5:37:50 PM) Jacob Richter: Remember my stuff on random sortition?
(5:38:11 PM) Miles: Yeah.
(5:38:16 PM) Jacob Richter: Any thoughts?
(5:39:18 PM) Miles: Can you remind me where in your documents that is?
(5:39:42 PM) Miles: I'd like to have a look at it again before offering thoughts.
(5:39:51 PM) Jacob Richter: Just briefly in the second on the Democracy Question (no commentary on demarchy yet)
(5:39:58 PM) Jacob Richter: But this is basically reiterating Cockshott's stuff
(5:40:06 PM) Miles: OK.
(5:40:17 PM) Jacob Richter: BTW, why "adjusted to the cost of living and tied to inflation"?
(5:40:22 PM) Jacob Richter: Isn't that redundant?
(5:41:06 PM) Miles: Could be seen that way, yes.
(5:41:57 PM) Jacob Richter: I'll scrap "sliding scale of hours"
(5:42:13 PM) Jacob Richter: Macnair talked about Trotsky's wage and hours thing as "Year Zero"
(5:42:51 PM) Miles: Must have missed that. What did he mean?
(5:43:13 PM) Jacob Richter: http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/640/macnair.htm
(5:43:34 PM) Jacob Richter: The centrepiece demands of the transitional programme - the sliding scale of wages and sliding scale of hours - amount to a proposal not for a transitional regime under workers’ political power, but for the immediate abolition of the law of value. As such, they point precisely towards forced collectivisations, ‘Cultural Revolution’ and ‘Year Zero’, however much Trotsky himself would have denied it
(5:43:44 PM) Jacob Richter: * Year Zero: Cambodia
(5:47:40 PM) Miles: It is an attack on the law of value, yes. But I would disagree that it points to forced collectivization. I think that's a leap of logic, and ends up being more of a rhetorical/polemical flourish than a finished position.
(5:48:05 PM) Jacob Richter: Macnair's point has nothing to do with forced collectivization
(5:48:14 PM) Miles: For example, HOW does it lead to forced collectivization?
(5:48:24 PM) Jacob Richter: Sliding scale of hours would be something like, say, the Soviet calendar crap under Stalin
(5:48:42 PM) Jacob Richter: They changed it from the seven-day week to five
(5:49:04 PM) Miles: He says "they point precisely towards forced collectivisations, ‘Cultural Revolution’ and ‘Year Zero’, however much Trotsky himself would have denied it" -- how?
(5:49:33 PM) Jacob Richter: Because it attacks the law of value prematurely
(5:49:47 PM) Jacob Richter: Marx talked about labour credits still reinforcing the law of value, I think
(5:50:10 PM) Jacob Richter: I've re-arranged some demands to fit more logically
(5:50:14 PM) Miles: OK.
(5:50:26 PM) Jacob Richter: The Canadian demand on state debt is further down, and the first nationalization to crop up is banks
(5:50:43 PM) Miles: How is it a "premature" attack, if workers are in control and are beginning the transition from capitalism to communism?
(5:50:46 PM) Miles: OK.
(5:51:23 PM) Jacob Richter: I think the key is the word "beginning"
(5:52:07 PM) Miles: So, when do we attack the law of value?
(5:52:50 PM) Miles: And since it is a sliding scale, can it not slide back and forth, as conditions dictate?
(5:53:11 PM) Jacob Richter: People have the impression that it's a downward adjustment only
(5:54:10 PM) Miles: Only Trotskyists have -- and give! -- that impression. The scale is adjusted according to material conditions, not the whims of political fools and simpletons.
(5:54:49 PM) Miles: If it's adjusted too far, too fast, the economy will collapse and capitalism will sweep in to thunderous applause.
(5:56:10 PM) Miles: I think that Macnair's problem is that he sees the demand only in the context of how the Trotskyists raise it, and not on its own merits.
(5:56:57 PM) Miles: It would be like dismissing the call to abolish the monarchy just because the bourgeoisie uses it as a means of enhancing their own power.
(5:57:04 PM) Jacob Richter: On military unionization, I placed it up in Section II, and not in Section IV (your Canadian document)
(5:57:09 PM) Miles: OK.
(5:57:28 PM) Jacob Richter: It immediately precedes the military officer corps stuff
(5:57:37 PM) Miles: OK. Good.
(5:57:50 PM) Miles: Sounds like the right place for it.
(5:58:42 PM) Jacob Richter: I'll insert briefly "either cooperative or public" in terms of failing businesses
(5:58:51 PM) Miles: OK.
(6:00:12 PM) Jacob Richter: What's your opinion on a shorter workweek? 35? 32? 30? Other?
(6:01:16 PM) Miles: Depends on the circumstances and occupation. That's why we've used the sliding scale formulation. Some positions can be 30, others 35, others as low as 20.
(6:03:13 PM) Jacob Richter: E-mail sent
(6:03:37 PM) Miles: OK. Thanks.
(6:04:25 PM) Jacob Richter: I didn't mention "national-democratization" ;)
(6:04:38 PM) Miles: OK.
(6:06:09 PM) Miles: Got them. Thanks.
(6:06:16 PM) Jacob Richter: How does it look?
(6:06:37 PM) Miles: Reading it now.
(6:06:38 PM) Jacob Richter: BTW, I have yet to discuss the issue of land, in either your platform or my WIP :(
(6:07:30 PM) Jacob Richter: Also
(6:07:32 PM) Jacob Richter: - [Open source and the peer-to-peer movement as a nascent form of non-commodity economy] - [Recognition of professional education from abroad, professional education standardization, etc. to counter underemployment of educated immigrants]
(6:08:27 PM) Jacob Richter: And if you talk about penalties for "capital flight" (which could be misinterpreted as labour protectionism)
(6:08:55 PM) Jacob Richter: There should be something in there addressing the obscene subsidies to First World small farmers (hence cripping the Third World petit-bourgeois equivalent)
(6:09:33 PM) Miles: OK. Give me a minute to get through this and find where to incoroporate those.
(6:09:38 PM) Miles: incorporate*
(6:09:49 PM) Jacob Richter: No probs - plz don't incorporate today, though
(6:10:09 PM) Jacob Richter: My view is that there needs to be sufficient discussion or at least individual thought before putting stuff in
(6:11:29 PM) Miles: Well, what I'm doing is making a proposal that will be submitted to others for discussion.
...
(6:18:53 PM) Jacob Richter: Anyway, let me know when you're done
(6:22:02 PM) Miles: OK.
(6:30:32 PM) Jacob Richter: FYI, I reposted that "far left policies are what" stuff in OI into the new board I registered.
(6:30:39 PM) Jacob Richter: Hopefully the OP won't be so ignorant
(6:30:52 PM) Miles: OK.
(6:34:56 PM) Miles: OK. Done. Looks good. I only made a couple very small changes to what you added/amended.
(6:35:54 PM) Jacob Richter: I take it you didn't incorporate those other undiscussed demands in yet
(6:36:45 PM) Miles: I incorporated the "open source"/"peer-to-peer" and abroad education demands, as well as the abolition of farm subsidies demand.
(6:37:12 PM) Jacob Richter: Re. farm subsidies
(6:37:23 PM) Jacob Richter: How did you word the demand, may I ask?
(6:38:59 PM) Miles: "Abolition of subsidies for 'factory farms' and farms worked by hired labor, Placement of such farms into cooperative or public ownership, under the control of elected councils or assemblies of farm workers."
(6:39:26 PM) Jacob Richter: Hmmm... I was thinking you went against subsidies for the small farmers
(6:39:36 PM) Jacob Richter: Unless you know better on who's crippling Third World peasants
(6:40:20 PM) Miles: Most family farmers grow for local economies. It is the factory farms and American latifundia that compete in the world market.
(6:40:40 PM) Jacob Richter: I didn't know that. My apologies. :(
(6:41:07 PM) Miles: No problem. Such farmers are still petty bourgeois, but we'll deal with them in due course.
(6:42:02 PM) Jacob Richter: Whatever discussion arises from this farming thing, "transcripted" or otherwise, please let me know (for incorporation into my WIP)
(6:42:10 PM) Jacob Richter: Cuz my impression
(6:42:34 PM) Jacob Richter: Was that the small farmers got the subsidies, then sold to the world market distributors at prices that choked the Third World development
(6:42:56 PM) Jacob Richter: There was talk awhile back of the government paying small farmers NOT to produce
(6:43:28 PM) Jacob Richter: Then there's the EU. Who knows what extent the factory farms and "latifundia" have control over their agriculture.
(6:43:29 PM) Jacob Richter: ?
(6:43:36 PM) Miles: No. Individual farmers (different from small farmers) deal mainly with local economies. "Small farmers", farmers that hire between 1 and 50 hands, are another matter entirely.
(6:44:07 PM) Jacob Richter: And I take it that's the same in the EU?
(6:44:31 PM) Miles: I'm not sure how the EU distinguishes between individual farmers and small farmers.
(6:45:44 PM) Jacob Richter: I'd probably use the term "employer-farmer" or "farmer-employer" to describe the latifundia
(6:46:25 PM) Jacob Richter: At least to counter the "small farmer" rhetoric on the one hand and anti-rural "peasant" rhetoric on the other
(6:47:25 PM) Miles: I'll have to think about that.
(6:47:45 PM) Jacob Richter: No prob

Posted per Jacob's request FYI.

davidasearles

15th December 2008, 14:38

Why is there even any discussion of a MINIMUM program when that MINIMUM program does not openly, first and foremost have as its goal collective ownership of the industrial means of production and distribution by the workers? ANY program minimum, maximum or medium that does not have that is a BETRAYAL.

Die Neue Zeit

15th December 2008, 14:56

"Our program is deliberately opposed to the standpoint of the Erfurt Program; it is deliberately opposed to the separation of the immediate, so-called minimal demands formulated for the political and economic struggle from the socialist goal regarded as a maximal program. In this deliberate opposition [to the Erfurt Program] we liquidate the results of seventy years' evolution and above all, the immediate results of the World War, in that we say: For us there is no minimal and no maximal program; socialism is one and the same thing: this is the minimum we have to realize today." (Rosa Luxemburg)

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/653/programme.htm

However, to conclude from August 1914 that the minimum-maximum programme was the cause of this debacle is a mistake, to say the least. Though, admittedly, a mistake made by Luxemburg herself. Eg, her speech to the founding congress of the Communist Party of Germany, which met over December 30 1918-January 1 1919. The “separation” between the minimum and maximum sections of the programme was described as being one of the bulwarks of opportunism in the SDP. She demanded socialism as a “minimum”, putting her trust, it should be emphasised, in the spontaneity of strikes and economic demands that pit worker against the capitalist boss. Wrong, though understandable in the tumultuous days of 1918-19. Politically incoherent in 2006.

Besides, per the CPGB's interpretation, the minimum program's political section should be all about the DOTP itself, not mere political reforms here and there.

davidasearles

15th December 2008, 15:42

das:

Why is there even any discussion of a MINIMUM program when that MINIMUM program does not openly, first and foremost have as its goal collective ownership of the industrial means of production and distribution by the workers? ANY program minimum, maximum or medium that does not have that is a BETRAYAL.

******
the person who identifies himself as “Jacob Richter” quotes from the holy texts:

“For us there is no minimal and no maximal program;
socialism is one and the same thing: this is the minimum
we have to realize today."

******
das continues:

then why does the person who identifies himself as “Jacob Richter” insist on dwelling upon programs that do not openly first and foremost have as a goal social control of the industrial means of production and distribution by the social producers, the workers?

I say it is because he insists upon betrayal of the workers. No more second fiddle for the workers! No more obsequence to those who seek to hijack the revolution by their insisted upon special knowledge of all things pertaining to the revolution – they can quote the holy texts ad infinitum yet dain never explain anything on their own.

A program no matter how it is styled that does not, first and foremost have as its goal collective ownership of the industrial means of production and distribution by the workers is a BETRAYAL.
___________
"Revolutionary Marxism":

Is besides the point.

Die Neue Zeit

16th December 2008, 04:13

^^^ I quoted Rosa Luxemburg precisely because that specific work of hers is NOT "holy text" (in other words, I was siding with the CPGB's criticism). :glare:

Contrast her opposition to the Erfurt Program with the "holy text" remarks of my namesake in the very first post:

We are not in the least afraid to say that we want to imitate the Erfurt Programme:
There is nothing bad in imitating what is good,
And precisely today, when we so often hear opportunist and equivocal criticism of that programme,
We consider it our duty to speak openly in its favour.
Imitating, however, must under no circumstances be simply copying.

(Lenin, A Draft of Our Party Programme)

davidasearles

16th December 2008, 14:24

to the person who identifies himself as "Jacob Richter"

I see that your post above didn't agree with the blurb from r.l. but then you merely gave refernce to the CPGB position, as if that justified not openly putting collective control of the industrial means of production and distribution by the workers as "the" or at least a main goal.

And beyond this, why ought anthing by CPGB be persuasive on the point of the legitimacy of having a program that does not openly have collective control of the indurial means of production and distribution by the workers as "the" or at least a main goal? Go to their home page: www.cpgb.org (http://www.cpgb.org) Is there a single word about collective control of the industrial means of production by the workers??

Go to the latest edition of the cpgb newspaper

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/749/WW749web.pdf (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/749/WW749web.pdf)

Nowhere in the whole paper will you find a clear statement that a primary goal of the SPGB is collective worker control of the industrial means of production.

So why would referring to an organization that does not have this as an openly stated primary goal be at all pursuasive on why to not have that it is not a betrayal of the workers?

_____________
"Revolutionary Marxism"

Is besides the point

Die Neue Zeit

17th December 2008, 05:28

I know that this is crazy talk - WE SHOULD NOT CONCERN OURSELVES WITH CONSCIOUSNESS.

There is a goal - and I don't know how many people even on this site buy into it - of collective control, of the industrial means of production and distribution by the workers.

Instead of trying to raise people's consciousness why don't we come right out and say that we are working for the goal of worker collective control?

If a man wanted to go out with a woman would he try to raise her consciousness about himself or would he simple screw up his courage and ask her out. (I suppose if humanity relied upon the consciousness path we wouldn't have any problem of over population:-)

We supposedly want other workers to want collective control of the means of production, etc. but we can't come right out and talk to them about it. Instead we must come up with these intracate "minimum plans" that address everything under the sun BUT collective worker control. Just what in hell is that all about??

Whose idea was it, and what are the factual and logical bases for an educational theory that says that "consciousness" must be "raised" BEFORE any worker should be talked to about workers acquiring collective control?

It seems quite backward to me. How about to others?

Well, you're trying to paint us as if we're all a bunch of Bernsteins here, which we are NOT. Please re-read that remark of Lenin above regarding "opportunist and equivocal criticism." Also, please re-read this from the OP:

What was said above was in fact a defense of the minimum-maximum programmatic approach against minimalists like Bernstein (who indeed authored the minimum section of the Erfurt Program) who in fact rejected this approach (hence minimalism).

And also these programs tidbits:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/05/parti-ouvrier.htm

Considering,

That the emancipation of the productive class is that of all human beings without distinction of sex or race;

That the producers can be free only when they are in possession of the means of production

http://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/1891/erfurt-program.htm

Only the transformation of the capitalist private ownership of the means of production – land and soil, pits and mines, raw materials, tools, machines, means of transportation – into social property and the transformation of the production of goods into socialist production carried on by and for society can cause the large enterprise and the constantly growing productivity of social labor to change for the hitherto exploited classes from a source of misery and oppression into a source of the greatest welfare and universal, harmonious perfection.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/plekhanov/1883/xx/sdelg1.htm

The economic emancipation of the working class will be achieved only by the transfer to collective ownership by the working people of all means and products of production and the organisation of all the functions of social and economic life in accordance with the requirements of society.

The modern development of technology in civilised societies not only provides the material possibility for such an organisation but makes it necessary and inevitable for solving the contradictions which hinder the quiet and all-round development of those societies.

http://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/sweden/program-1897.htm

Thus the unions are formed and the constantly on-going, all the more larger forms taking struggle on the national and international labour market between workers and employers, a struggle, which shall never cease, until the working class have stopped being a class of wage earners.

This again can only happen through abolishment of the private capitalistic monopoly on the means of production and their transformation to collective, to all society belonging property, and the replacement of the planless production of goods with a socialistic, society’s real needs and corresponding production.

The social democracy therefore wants to enforce also the political organisation of the working class, take possession of the public power and gradually transform to common property all means of production — the means of transportation, the forests, the mines, the mills, the machines, the factories, the earth.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1902/draft/02feb07.htm

The real emancipation of the working class requires a social revolution—which is being prepared by the entire development of capitalism—i.e., the abolition of private ownership of the means of production, their conversion into public property, and the replacement of capitalist production of commodities by the socialist organisation of the production of articles by society as a whole, with the object of ensuring full well-being and free, all-round development for all its members.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/reviprog/ch04.htm

By introducing social in place of private ownership of the means of production and exchange, by introducing planned organisation of social production to ensure the well-being and many-sided development of all the members of society, the proletarian social revolution will do away with the division of society into classes and thereby emancipate the whole of oppressed humanity, for it will put an end to all forms of exploitation of one section of society by another.

A necessary condition for this social revolution is the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the conquest by the proletariat of such political power as will enable it to suppress all resistance on-the part of the exploiters.

And of course:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/basic-principles-sectarian-t87880/index.html

Nevertheless, without the technological, economic, political, and other developments associated with this society, the realistic possibility of abolishing the exploitation and alienation of human labour through, along with more emancipatory measures, the full establishment of collective worker control and responsibility over the economy – free from surplus labour appropriations by any elite minority, from private ownership of productive and other non-possessive property, and from all forms of debt slavery – could not have come about.

davidasearles

17th December 2008, 06:34

in the "Jacob Richter"/CPGB lexicography - minimum program = zero advocacy of collective worker control of the industrial means of production and distribution.

and it's all "minimum" to them 24/7

in other words betrayal of the workers

"Jacob" did you ever consider that all you have to do is to stop these inane defenses of not advocating for collective worker control and simply start clearly, consistently and regularly advocating for it? Would that be so hard to do?

________________
"Revolutionary Marxism"

is besides the point

Die Neue Zeit

7th January 2009, 04:55

in the "Jacob Richter"/CPGB lexicography - minimum program = zero advocacy of collective worker control of the industrial means of production and distribution.

and it's all "minimum" to them 24/7

You're only partially right there. What about calls on the left to *really* nationalize the banks, for example?

in other words betrayal of the workers

"Jacob" did you ever consider that all you have to do is to stop these inane defenses of not advocating for collective worker control and simply start clearly, consistently and regularly advocating for it? Would that be so hard to do?

Try my new Article Submission on the "sliding scale of wages."

davidasearles

7th January 2009, 05:42

The workers’ involvement with collectivization of the MEANS OF PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION must be total and it must be a CONSCIOUS ACT of the workers.

No doubt you're at least familiar with the concept.

Your suggestion that the left does or should call for nationalization of banks seems to indicate that you are ignorant f the concept that banks have no part in the productive process. With workers in collective control of the industrial means of production and distribution every bank in the world could fold and it would not affect the workers ability to produce the material necessaries of life. But somehow you think that there is a logical educational theory that suggests that NO DON'T PRESENT THE OPTION OF COLLECTIVE WORKER CONTROL OF THE INDUSTRIAL MEANS OF PRODUCTION TO THE WORKERS - BUT RATHER DISCUSS NATIONALIZATION OF BANKS.

Sorry "Jacob Richter," whoever or whatever you are - to me I don't see how that notion does not equate to treason.

davidasearles

8th January 2009, 20:52

I was just wondering how this applies to "the mininum program" presently
advocated by our "Jacob Richter".

+++++++++++++++++++
Participation in a government with the bourgeois democrats
has been banned by a resolution of the Amsterdam
Congress[3]; it is JaurÃ¨sism, i.e., unconscious
betrayal of the interests of the proletariat, the reduction
of the proletariat to a hanger-on of the bourgeoisie, its
corruption with the illusion of power, which in reality is
completely unattainable in bourgeois society.

That reasoning is no less fallacious. It shows that those
who resort to it havememorised good resolutions without
understanding their meaning; they have learned a few
anti-JaurÃ¨sist catchwords by rote, but have not duly
weighed them and thus misapply them; they have learned
the letter but not the spirit of the
recent lessons of international revolutionary
Social-Democracy. To judge JaurÃ¨sism from the point of
view of dialectical materialism one must draw a clear line
between subjective motives and objective historical conditions.
Subjectively, JaurÃ¨s wanted to save the republic by entering
into an alliance with the bourgeois democrats. The objective
conditions of this â€œexperimentâ€ were that the republic i
n France had become an established fact and was in no
grave danger; that the working class had every opportunity
of developing an independent class political organisation but
did not take full advantage of this opportunity, partly because
it was influenced by the parliamentary humbug of its leaders;
that in actual practice, history was already objectively posing
before the working class the tasks of the socialist revolution,
from which the Millerands were luring the proletariat with promises
of paltry social reforms.

http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/lenin/works/1905/apr/12b.htm (http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/lenin/works/1905/apr/12b.htm)

Tower of Bebel

9th January 2009, 11:49

The question is what kind of program became accepted by the coalition? In the case of the opportunist SPD: the party ignored most serious minimum demands when it took power (for example the abolition of the standing army). It was not a marxist minimum-maximum program at all.

The minimum-maximum program itself is not a problem. To me the real problem is the organizational question. The 2nd International adopted a theory which explained that opportunism (coalitionism, reformism trade-unionism, etc.) was part of the ideology of craftsmen, not of the proletariat. The rise of the proletariat would eventually get rid of this opportunism. This meant for example that reformists were allowed to join the party (Bernstein). Only during the first imperialist war (when it was too late) did revolutionary marxism really give a satisfying answer to the growth of opportunism. It is the party that guides its members, so it is important to discuss the marxist principles on which a party must be built.

Die Neue Zeit

9th January 2009, 15:49

And my response is here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/deleonism-list/message/368

Dave, you should *temporarily* drop your hostility towards your fellow worker and view the first video here:

http://communiststudents.org.uk/?p=524

A bunch of class collaborationists in the Second International thought that entering into a coalition, whether as a minority partner or as the senior partner, would be a quick route to reforms:

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/618/McNair%20-%20Strategy3.htm

Calling for reforms isn't necessarily a "slippery slope" towards the coalitionism derided by the revolutionary Marxists such as Lenin in the work you cited.

Jacob

P.S. - It's good to know you're reading more works of Lenin the "Kautskyist." :)

[Can a mod please fold this thread into my minimum program thread? Thanks.]

davidasearles

10th January 2009, 00:12

Die Neue Zeit

10th January 2009, 01:41

"promises of paltry social reforms" cuts deep doesn't it faux pseudu Jacob?

Oh I went to those two links in your post above. I didn't see anything in either of them that would lead me, and I think anyone who chose to go to those links, to not agree with Ulyanov on this one.

Minimum program indeed. More like minimum (zero) integrity.

Dave, before replying in defense of your sectarian "constitutional amendment" shibboleth (as if that's the ONLY legit tactic), please read ALL of this:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/reviprog/index.htm#ch02

In it, you will find the "Erfurtian" program of the RSDLP from its inception until 1917, as well as equally "Erfurtian" Bolshevik amendments regarding "all power to the soviets" (not to mention a demand for nationalizing the banks).

davidasearles

10th January 2009, 15:27

Tower of Bebel

10th January 2009, 15:43

Where I went to school I learned that capitalism is in the saddle because the workers are not in collective control of the industrial means of production not because banks, which last I checked produce nothing, are privately owned. Whatever the Bulsheviki had in a platform 90 years ago in Russia, today a call for nationalization of the banks would be in the category of what Ulyanov described as a paltry social reform (lower interest rates and debt forgiveness) as opposed to collective control of the industrial means of production and distribution.

"all power to the Soviets" diverted from what the revolutionary message ought to have been - "all industrial power to the workers"
But the minimum program as a whole is meant to make collective workers' control effective.

In reality there exists no working class ready for its historic task. Which means a conscious, patient road to power must be laid down first. That's what the minimum program is all about. Yet what you do is almost like crying Wolf.

davidasearles

10th January 2009, 15:48

Don't tell me what it is meant to do. It does not clearly convey to the workers the goal of collective worker control of the industries (and that nothing less than that will do) nor does it convey to the workers their own responsibity to make that happen.

Tower of Bebel

10th January 2009, 15:52

Is it all about mentioning workers' control? What about this minimum program. Does the preamble fit your conditions?

Considering,
That the emancipation of the productive class is that of all human beings without distinction of sex or race;
That the producers can be free only when they are in possession of the means of production;

That there are only two forms under which the means of production can belong to them
The individual form which has never existed in a general state and which is increasingly eliminated by industrial progress;
The collective form the material and intellectual elements of which are constituted by the very development of capitalist society;
Considering,
That this collective appropriation can arise only from the revolutionary action of the productive class – or proletariat - organized in a distinct political party;
That a such an organization must be pursued by all the means the proletariat has at its disposal including universal suffrage which will thus be transformed from the instrument of deception that it has been until now into an instrument of emancipation;
The French socialist workers, in adopting as the aim of their efforts the political and economic expropriation of the capitalist class and the return to community of all the means of production, have decided, as a means of organization and struggle, to enter the elections with the following immediate demands:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/05/parti-ouvrier.htm

Die Neue Zeit

10th January 2009, 17:12

Comrade, isn't that the maximum program of the French Workers' Party? :confused:

davidasearles

10th January 2009, 17:55

Pardon me a thousand times - perhaps I am just too stupid. I just see no program at all above by which the workers come into collective control of the industrial means of production and distribution.

Tower of Bebel

10th January 2009, 18:57

Comrade, isn't that the maximum program of the French Workers' Party? :confused:
I know, but I was wrong about David. I thought maybe he criticized the minimum program because it didn't mention collective ownership and control of the means of production. By showing that the maximum makes up for this I though he would understand. This is not the case.

davidasearles

10th January 2009, 22:51

Am I to understand that maximum program and minmum program are always presented together?

And also:

"The French socialist workers, in adopting as the aim of their efforts the political and economic expropriation of the capitalist class and the return to community of all the means of production, have decided, as a means of organization and struggle, to enter the elections with the following immediate demands...."

A "demand" is what one insists that the guys on the other side to do to do.

A "call" usually toward is what one wants the people on his or her own side to do.

I see demands "immediate demands" but I see nothing in the program seen as an entirety through which the proposed organizing for the immediate demands has workers coming to the conclusion that they must collectively control the industrial means of production.

Don't you think that you can sell the idea of collective control to the workers up front?

That's what I see - you yourself don’t believe that workers can acquire the idea of collective control without decades and now centuries of beating about the bush. And these are the people who we want to be in collective control? For some reason I believe that you in fact do not want that. That you simply want to make a intellectual career out of beating about the bush.

Thanks but no thanks.

davidasearles

17th January 2009, 14:14

And as it turns out the highly touted 1891 "Erfurt program" in the vaunted minimum/maximum form is merely the 1889 SLP of America program http://www.slp.org/pdf/platforms/plat1889.pdf with a few minor changes. By 1900 the SLP dropped the reform demands in its national platforms in favor of direct advocacy of a summary end to capitalism itself :

" wage workers of the United States ... to organize ... into a class-conscious body, aware of its rights and determined to conquer them by taking possession of the public powers; so that, held together by an indomitable spirit of solidarity under the most trying conditions of the present class struggle, we may put a summary end to that barbarous struggle by the abolition of classes, the restoration of the land and of all the means of production, transportation and distribution to the people as a collective body, and the substitution of the Cooperative Commonwealth for the present state of planless production, industrial war and social disorder; a commonwealth in which every worker shall have the free exercise and full benefit of his faculties, multiplied by all the modern factors of civilization. " http://www.slp.org/pdf/platforms/plat1900.pdf (http://www.slp.org/pdf/platforms/plat1900.pdf)

where the Erfurt program and others up to "Jacob Richter" today continue in the tradition of the 1889 (pre-DeLeon) SLP to call for reform demands in their "minimum" (read diversion) programs.

mikelepore

17th January 2009, 17:18

Die Neue Zeit

17th January 2009, 21:16

I would re-word that and say (with two links that you should read):

I have confidence that you all have read the basic principles and understand what kind of new socioeconomic system we are talking about. I also have confidence that you all have read our position on radical/revolutionary/class-strugglist democracy and understand the only viable political means by which to implement that new socioeconomic system.

However, a lot of you aren't exactly keen about "revolution" and "up to arms, comrades" (http://www.politics.ie/current-affairs/37428-socialists-credit-crunch-far-left-policies-what.html) - and also retain reformist sympathies of wanting to know how to get from the practical concerns of today to the new socioeconomic system of tomorrow, even if the "social-democrats" the world over have betrayed you time and time again.

Very well: here is a list of real, reform-enabling reforms that keep the basic principles consciously in full view. Unfortunately, "social-democrats" are best known for their ineptitude at fulfilling these reforms (http://www.revleft.com/vb/left-politics-mess-t99233/index.html?p=1333484). Therefore, only CLASS STRUGGLE can achieve and, more importantly, maintain and expand them.

EDIT: Please check out my new critique of Trotsky's Transitional Program, which is EXACTLY the kind of program you're criticizing.

Lynx

17th January 2009, 22:09

It is worthwhile to focus on the details, to force your opponents away from the usual slogans. Opponents will keep shrieking COMMUNIST as a scare tactic anyway.

Tower of Bebel

17th January 2009, 23:54

Led Zeppelin

18th January 2009, 19:28

Merged the two threads on this.

Rawthentic

18th January 2009, 20:19

I think mikelepore makes a point worth looking into, even if he posed it rather crudely.

Yes, I do believe it is incorrect the theory that says that we can earn the "trust of the workers" by means of appealing what is in their immediate interests, and then hoping that they will see a "bigger picture". Where do things ever work like that?

Don't working people want to make revolution? Doesn't that require the oppressed to become what Lenin described as "tribunes of the people", rather than union hacks, and expose the system and all its class forces?

We need a movement that focuses on the larger political questions that raise the sights of the people beyond what they percieve to be in their immediate interests.

I am quite hungover. If not, I would write a lot more.

Labor Shall Rule

18th January 2009, 21:12

We need a movement that focuses on the larger political questions that raise the sights of the people beyond what they percieve to be in their immediate interests.Agreed.

I think we need to take a lesson or two from the Christian fascist movement - they (being the different 'churches' and far-right groups that accompany it) have been able to organizationally operate with each other in a non-sectarian way, and have set up an ideological current that relies on jingoism and xenophobia. It has influenced the face of local and national politics in extraordinarily terrifying ways that present revolutionaries and the social movements that they lead with a challenger.

They do not think 'transitionally' and say that any resolution to make gay marriage legal should stay in state lines (and that any 'present' work should be based on that), they go right to the jugular vein and demand that it's illegal altogether.

The liberals portray the antagonisms of capitalist society as a battle of 'good v.s. evil' (or, hope v.s. four more years of Bush) and the fascists make it out to be 'Islam v.s. Christianity'. If there was a cohesive communist current that could push left and radical imagery in a way that would popularize revolutionary ideas, then there is a possibility that a wider audience could look at issues of class power, culture, wealth, gender, and race more critically.

Rawthentic

19th January 2009, 01:25

Today in this world we are witnessing an imperialist war, massive Third World migration (from Latin America to the U.S. and worldwide), police brutality, the attack on gay rights, revolutionary movements in South East Asia, and SOOOO many more things, yet...so many "communists" STILL insist on organizing workers around wages and workplace conditions as the crux of their work?

It certainly is this narrow and economist framework that is adopted by a vast portion of the Left that is what leads to lowered sights and stagnant movements that have no chance of making revolution.

The spirit that needs to permeate a revolutionary movement is one the Black Panthers popularized: Serve the People.

Our movement needs to start off (from the beginning!) with that in mind, and make sure that revolution and communism are part of EVERYTHING we do.

Let me make something clear: there is nothing wrong with workers and others organizing around the close and daily interests. We need to support that. BUT, the people are already capable of doing so. OUR task lies in analyzing which are the most important struggles that raise questions of the fundamental nature of this system, not tailing and catering to the daily needs of the people.

We need a daring and exciting movement, none of that stale shit of "well maybe they'll get to like us when we get them higher wages and maybe we can make revolution."

davidasearles

19th January 2009, 17:13

I don't agree with everything in the above post but I am pleased that it is being seriously discussed as opposed to relying upon dead script to point the way.

On the Black Panther movement. It did do great things to raise the spirits through many works. It did not leave much behind as to broad understanding of where we needed to go from there as to the institution of a workers collective throughout the entire society.

Rawthentic

19th January 2009, 18:02

The Black Panther Party indeed had its shortcomings.

But, why should a revolutionary movement aim for a "worker's collective"?

Don't we need a much more far-sighted movement? IMO, that is a very narrow concept, one that cannot get us to communism (and I doubt make revolution).

Like I said, we need to focus on how the proletariat and the people will be the emancipators of humanity and what that means - all in a broad sense - and we cannot achieve that with lowered sights.

I know I will get a lot of disagreement on this, but hey, this is a serious issue.

davidasearles

19th January 2009, 19:30

"The Black Panther Party indeed had its shortcomings.

But, why should a revolutionary movement aim for a "worker's collective"?"

That's just it, I don't think the Back Panthers was a revolutionary movement.

And of course you and I might differ on what revolution or revolutionary is or isn't So I will not assert that what I am advocating is in fact revolutionary - in fact I don't think that the concept of worker control is very much a revolutionary concept at all.

To me it's the demand of the workers by the workers that their collective may in the word of the declaration of independence assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them.

At one point I imagine that was pretty revolutionary stuff, it's downright conservative now in my mind I must admit. But that's all that I'm after. If we can all agree that much should happen, that would be a pretty big thing. Let us have that and then we can figure out where we need to go from there.

(And sometimes you do have to lower your sites in order to hit something.)

Rawthentic

19th January 2009, 20:12

david;

im going to reply to this in the thread i made.

davidasearles

23rd January 2009, 14:03

The root of the prblem is the means of production in private hands. Anything that does not directly exhort the workers to push for their collective control of the indisial means of production and distribution is a farse.

A "minimum program" is a program (if it can even be termed a program at all) to do nothing but leave capitalism in place.

Die Neue Zeit

23rd January 2009, 14:59

You're like an old tape, Dave. Comment on the actual self-directional demand.

davidasearles

23rd January 2009, 18:45

I'm the looped tape? Perhaps.

"self directed demand of a minimum program"??

You can put as many adjectives in front of the word demand that you want and it doesn't make an actual demand out of anything. And putting the word minimum in front of program doesn't make it any kind of a program for resolution of the class struggle in favor of the workers.

.

Die Neue Zeit

1st February 2009, 22:20

Long ignored in the tradition of formulating minimum demands is the one demand dealing with the capture (not just "taxation") of every last cent of economic ground rent and the application of such to exclusively public purposes, intentionally called for in the Communist Manifesto before the implementation of progressive income taxation:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/progress-poverty-and-t100661/index.html

Charles Xavier

5th February 2009, 14:22

Tower of Bebel

5th February 2009, 15:27

Tzonteyotl

5th February 2009, 16:29

Why should we reject all reforms? I will except reforms to make the system more livable, if you're in the highlands of Bolivia with a heart conditions you don't want to wait 30 years for a revolution to occur to visit a doctor but you want the ability immediately. If you're a kid with no access to schools, you don't want to wait until you're in your 40s to attend one. We as revolutionaries must not reject reforms on the way to revolution. Working people winning victories builds momentum and builds the organized proletariat. It makes struggle easier when you aren't worrying about the extra baggage of capitalism.

I wasn't trying to imply that we should flat-out reject reforms. But, seeing that a lot of these reforms have come (in the US) under reactionary governments, it just presents the movement here as basically reformism. Then some use this fact to speak about progress within the system and that this shows that the system works. I guess I'm just over-worried about complacency growing as a result of all the reforms. Might have something to do with the rise of the "Yes we can!" messiah, haha.

NiccolÃ² Rossi

5th February 2009, 20:41

Tzonteyotl, I think Georgi's post was directed at me:

Why should we reject all reforms?

To put it simply, because real, lasting and meaningful reforms are no longer possible within the framework of capitalist decadence.

Working people winning victories builds momentum and builds the organized proletariat. It makes struggle easier when you aren't worrying about the extra baggage of capitalism.

Lining up the working class behind a left-wing or reforming faction of capital, however, is a complete betrayal of the struggle and the road to the crushing defeat of the working class.

Charles Xavier

5th February 2009, 20:57

Tzonteyotl, I think Georgi's post was directed at me:

To put it simply, because real, lasting and meaningful reforms are no longer possible within the framework of capitalist decadence.

Lining up the working class behind a left-wing or reforming faction of capital, however, is a complete betrayal of the struggle and the road to the crushing defeat of the working class.

I would agree with the first part, It is absolutely true that real, lasting and meaningful reforms are not possible under capitalism. However I would say, everyone reform won is not the ruling classes feeling good and wanting to share the wealth, but it shows the strength of the working class in its ability to secure better living conditions, albeit temporary. And in this, the working class seeing they can secure better living conditions become more willing and able to push even further.

Tzonteyotl

5th February 2009, 23:32

I would agree with the first part, It is absolutely true that real, lasting and meaningful reforms are not possible under capitalism. However I would say, everyone reform won is not the ruling classes feeling good and wanting to share the wealth, but it shows the strength of the working class in its ability to secure better living conditions, albeit temporary. And in this, the working class seeing they can secure better living conditions become more willing and able to push even further.

So it's great that they decided to push for these reforms in the constitution representing an elevated consciousness, but in actuality these reforms are not "real, lasting and meaningful?" These reforms after all can be reversed. But again, as we agree, for the here and now, they are at least a temporary improvement.

I guess then I would ask Niccolo Rossi about this, as in theory, yes, I'd agree with your comments. But realistically, is there any way to avoid this situation and win working class people over to the socialist cause if we can't help them in some way right now as opposed to just talking about the future?

Killfacer

5th February 2009, 23:36

Die Neue Zeit

6th February 2009, 01:10

Since tendencies of militarism, monopolies and the degeneration of bourgeois political democracy are important features of the so called epoch of imperialism together with the tendency to buy out the working class, isn't it justified then for marxists to discard democratic minimum demands as the main component of the minimum program? Just rambling by combining thoughts I have formulated after reading gilhyle's posts about imperialism and your Hilferding thread.

Let's see what you've posted there first (bolded emphasis):

I have a problem with Hilferding's analysis of imperialism (correct me if I'm wrong): imperialism is capitalism not only controlled but also regulated by a finance capitalist olygarchy. Monopolies and their olygarchies regulate capitalism, not the law of value or any other characteristic of capital. Only the contradictions between proletarians and capitalists on the level of distribution remains an important source of class struggle. The olygarchies of finance capitalists use the state repressively against the proletariat because imperialism enforces class contradictions. Bourgeois democracy degenerates and we live an era of wars and revolutions. Ultimately some sort of general cartel or monopoly is formed, yet the proletariat will eventually conquer this monopoly. It's the task of social democracy to take over the state of the finance capitalist so that instead of an elite the proletariat runs this general cartel or monopoly of finance capitalism. Because imperialism is capitalism run by cartels and monopolies, not the law of value, etc. - in the eyes of social democrats - capitalism actually ceazes to be genuine capitalism making it justified for social democracy to take over the capitalist state and monopoly capitalism.

Wasn't this last part the line that Lenin ultimately took in my CSR critique, though?

"Only the contradictions between proletarians and capitalists on the level of distribution remains an important source of class struggle"? Well, in that case, Hilferding should not have stuck with his monetary view of the lower phase of communism, given that labour credits are a key factor in the distribution process.

Now, since by democratic I assume you mean the proletocratic stuff and not the bourgeois-constitutionalist facades, why would they be discarded?

They range from time dedicated to "workplace democracy," self-management, etc. to class-strugglist assembly and association to people's militias to other central demands listed in "The Democracy Question" (plus strategic demands pertaining to public debt abolition, finance expropriations, labour mobility, and class litigation ;) ), the total fulfillment of which would lead to the DOTP.

Now, as for, say, Green politics and the identity politics of same-sex legal rights, racial equality, feminism, etc.: certainly those are by no means that important these days. Notice that none of the 15 or so "immediate" demands (let alone the "national-democratization" stuff) address those things. The "Miscellaneous Questions" should deal strictly with democratizing organized labour, nation-specific demands, and supporting but not advocating reform-enabling reforms that fail to meet the Kautsky criterion.

The programs of the Communist League and the Workers Party in America, while putting up a number of "identity politics" demands, are able to bury them in a class-strugglist context (unionization rights for prostitutes).

Die Neue Zeit

6th February 2009, 01:23

To put it simply, because real, lasting and meaningful reforms are no longer possible within the framework of capitalist decadence.

Why this Left Economism? :(

http://www.revleft.com/vb/transitional-program-updated-t99491/index.html

This was originally done in an era of progressive capitalism, when it possible to gain significant improvements for working people over a long period by organising around demands which capitalism could deliver. Successes reinforced the movement and reinforced belief in the importance of class organisation.

We canot expect that systematically today. We no longer live in an epoch of progressive capitalism. But we do live in an imperialist epoch which has the capacity to lurch from periods which reveal the underlying senility of capitalism to periods which mimic, for short periods, the characterisitcs of the epoch of progressive capitalism.

We must adapt to that more complex reality. We need the ability to build around demands for reforms which capitalism can deliver, as well as insisting on demands that it cannot or is deeply reluctant to deliver.

Also, the method is important:

"All [...] are firmly convinced that their consistent, preferrably simultaneous, obviously complete, and especially lasting implementation – for the sake of not losing or losing again what has already been won – can only be achieved by transnational class struggle."

This means that, if preserving the gains down the road ultimately means overthrowing the bourgeoisie as part of heightened class struggle, then so be it.

NiccolÃ² Rossi

6th February 2009, 05:50

However I would say, everyone reform won is not the ruling classes feeling good and wanting to share the wealth, but it shows the strength of the working class in its ability to secure better living conditions, albeit temporary. And in this, the working class seeing they can secure better living conditions become more willing and able to push even further.

You are certainly correct when you say that "reforms" (the actual form of which we are talking vary) are not a form of bourgeois charity (though this certainly does exist). However, you are incorrect to assert that these "reforms" are victories of the working class (though they may assume the form of concessions awarded after a working class offensive). Fundamentally what we are talking about here is statification of the economy, whether it takes the form of wholesale nationalisation of the economy, the bringing of selected industries under state command, regulation of working conditions, provision of services (roads, health, education etc.). In no way is this process a victory for the working class, on the contrary it is the manoivering of the ruling class attempting to stave off the effects of a mode of production in permanent economic crisis or the threat of a working class offensive. Statfication is the final refuge of bourgeoisie. To support a "reforming" or left-wing faction of the ruling class in this era is to support the continued exploitation of the proletariat, that is, to cross over to the camp of the ruling class.

Secondly, it is incorrect to speak mechanically of the working class "securing better living conditions" leading necessarily to an increased militancy and consciousness of the working class, just as the reverse is true, increased suffering and misery of the working class does not neccesarily realise the revolutionary potential of the proletariat.

NiccolÃ² Rossi

6th February 2009, 06:00

I guess then I would ask Niccolo Rossi about this, as in theory, yes, I'd agree with your comments. But realistically, is there any way to avoid this situation and win working class people over to the socialist cause if we can't help them in some way right now as opposed to just talking about the future?

Of course. Working class political militants have no interests different to or aside from those of the international working class, thus, we can and must support the working class in all of it's struggles against the attacks of capital and the fight for better and improved conditions. Supporting this or that faction of the ruling class on the basis of it offering political or economic reform is however antithetical to this aim, all factions of the bourgeoisie are in this era reactionary, they have nothing to offer the working class.

In short, winning over the working class comes from supporting the interests of working class in all it's struggles and not supporting the ruling class.

Why this Left Economism? http://www.revleft.com/vb/../revleft/smilies/sad.gif

Jacob, to be very frank, when you can explain to me what the hell "Left Economism" is without linking me to one of your articles I might be inclined to respond to you.

Die Neue Zeit

6th February 2009, 06:06

Jacob, to be very frank, when you can explain to me what the hell "Left Economism" is without linking me to one of your articles I might be inclined to respond to you.

Left Economism is not having an oppositionist program, as Lenin noted in 1914:

Now a new Economism is being born. Its reasoning is similarly based on the two curvets: “Right”—we are against the “right to self-determination” (i.e., against the liberation of oppressed peoples, the struggle against annexations—that has not yet been fully thought out or clearly stated). “Left”—we are opposed to a minimum programme (i. e., opposed to struggle for reforms and democracy) as “contradictory” to socialist revolution. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/sep/00.htm)

This means that left-communists leave workers alone to struggle for mere crumbs, even though the workers themselves know they want *much* more in the way of political rights, more free time, and economic measures - even if they're not yet for revolution and communism.

NiccolÃ² Rossi

6th February 2009, 22:12

This means that left-communists leave workers alone to struggle for mere crumbs

This is not true. Left communists support the struggle of the working class in all its manifestations, intervening in them actively wherever possible.

even though the workers themselves know they want *much* more in the way of political rights, more free time, and economic measures

As I have noted recently, capitalism can no longer offer the working these measures. In struggling for them the working class will inevitably run up against barriers (or rather the barrier of decadent capitalist social relations), pushing them either onto the path of revolution (the only means of accomplishing it's aims in this era) or defeat at the hands of the ruling class.

Tzonteyotl

7th February 2009, 06:19

Of course. Working class political militants have no interests different to or aside from those of the international working class, thus, we can and must support the working class in all of it's struggles against the attacks of capital and the fight for better and improved conditions. Supporting this or that faction of the ruling class on the basis of it offering political or economic reform is however antithetical to this aim, all factions of the bourgeoisie are in this era reactionary, they have nothing to offer the working class.

This sounds quite contradictory to me. On the one hand, revolutionary socialists should support the working class in all its struggles for better/improved conditions. Yet, on the other hand, you've stated that to support these reforms to help the working class in the temporary is basically to support the ruling class. How then, does the working class, for the time being, get any relief at all?

Die Neue Zeit

7th February 2009, 08:11

This is not true. Left communists support the struggle of the working class in all its manifestations, intervening in them actively wherever possible.

As I have noted recently, capitalism can no longer offer the working these measures. In struggling for them the working class will inevitably run up against barriers (or rather the barrier of decadent capitalist social relations), pushing them either onto the path of revolution (the only means of accomplishing it's aims in this era) or defeat at the hands of the ruling class.

This sounds quite contradictory to me. On the one hand, revolutionary socialists should support the working class in all its struggles for better/improved conditions. Yet, on the other hand, you've stated that to support these reforms to help the working class in the temporary is basically to support the ruling class. How then, does the working class, for the time being, get any relief at all?

There's one more aspect to consider in terms of raising the kind of reform proposals I've proposed: they, unlike raising or even supporting the typical "social-democratic" palliatives (like even left-communists do from time to time), require workers to break away from politico-ideological dependence on other classes.

NiccolÃ² Rossi

7th February 2009, 10:11

This sounds quite contradictory to me. On the one hand, revolutionary socialists should support the working class in all its struggles for better/improved conditions. Yet, on the other hand, you've stated that to support these reforms to help the working class in the temporary is basically to support the ruling class. How then, does the working class, for the time being, get any relief at all?

In an era when real reform in impossible within the framework of capitalism all partial and economic struggles of the working class become revolutionary, challenging the very fabric of bourgeois society. Revolutionaries must thus intervene in all real workers struggles and constantly bring their real, international interests to the forefront, drawing out the real lessons of the past and pushing the cause for revolution forward.

On the other hands, "reforms: offered by the bourgeoisie, given that they remain within the framework of capitalist social relations, are not real reforms at all. In this era, to support this or that reforming or "left-wing" faction of the bourgeoisie, means to be actively opposed to the working class struggle.

Hope that clears it up. Any issue with the above or anything else, please bring it up :)

Tower of Bebel

7th February 2009, 22:01

moved posts (off topic discussion from original thread: Bolivia approves ... (http://www.revleft.com/vb/bolivia-approves-new-t100150/index.html)) per request.

Left Turn

1st March 2009, 11:28

I wonder what would happen if a "minimum program" speaker at the podium were to tell the truth about what he or she is really thinking, and say to the audience:

"What I really advocate is a completely new system, but I don't think you're smart enough to understand that. You people have to be lured into our movement by promises of incremental reforms to the present system, which should be simple enough for even you to understand. Once you 'masses' have been lured into joining us, you will then be available for our leaders to manipulate. Then we shall have our revolution. Of course, the new society will have a full-time professional leadership in control of it, since the preliminary organization process, the strategy of not telling you the whole truth, hasn't prepared you for anything else."

What would happen if any public speaker were to reveal that secret agenda to the audience? How would they react?

I'm reminded of the scene in Monty Python, where the lumberjack sings about wearing women's underwear, and then all the other lumberjacks get disgusted and walk away.

I really don't think this is an accurate representation of a minimum-maximum program.

The way I see it, the minimum part of a minimum-maximum program is the absolute minimum that we are willing to fight for, in that we will fight for nothing less. For example, if we dicide that our minimum programmatic demands include a $16/hour "livable" minimum wage, then we won't work on a campaign for a $10/hour minimum wage.

The maximum part of a minimum-maximum program is what we are actually fighting for in the long term. In my case, this is the abolition of private, for profit businesses; the end of private, for-profit housing; the placement of the means of production either in the hands of the state, or in worker owned co-operatives; the creation of a system of community councils (as have been implemented in Venezuela); and the radical restructuring of the economy around carbon neutral production, carbon neutral public transportation, and sustainable farming.

Following then from the minimum-maximum program is a dual pronged strategy that emphasizes action to achieve the minimum program, and education to win broad support for the maximum program. Further strategic considerations are then made on the basis of the success, or lack thereof, of each part of the dual-pronged strategy.