"authority" in a communist society

[Dóchas]

sorry if this sounds stupid but its one thing that whenever i get into a discussion about communism i cant answer

in a communist society there is no state or authority so therefore i presume there are no laws to control the people. hows does the society survive without a hierarchy? is there some sort of council to advise the people on what to do and guide them or do they just count on eachother to pull their own weight? the problems i see in this is that if there wasnt a hierarchy someone would make one, and become a dictator.

[cop an Attitude]

Thats a good question that I too find a bit hard to get over. I would like to think that communities can govern themsleves. Almost like how towns are run in New England, but much more democratic. Now I am not talking about economics, thats a totally different topic, but I actully support some athoritanian ideas even though I like to think of myself as an anarchist to some extent. No state but there are still some laws. The community can decided what they want to be outlawed, and other communites can check and balence them. This is what I found to be a solution to that question but there are still a lot of holes. If anyone else has another idea of getting past this I too would like to hear it.

[Herman]

in a communist society there is no state or authority so therefore i presume there are no laws to control the people.

No state is not the same as "no government" and the only authority is the people themselves. In a communist society, the government is the people. It will most likely take the form of a self-ruled direct democracy, on a local and national point of view. Communications technology by then will be so advanced that everyone will be able to participate in decision-making.

[Dóchas]

It will most likely take the form of a self-ruled direct democracy, on a local and national point of view.

so there would something like a regional council? and then a government? and in the government would there be just one political party so there would be no resistance to the revolution?

[Niccolò Rossi]

sorry if this sounds stupid but its one thing that whenever i get into a discussion about communism i cant answer

in a communist society there is no state or authority so therefore i presume there are no laws to control the people. hows does the society survive without a hierarchy? is there some sort of council to advise the people on what to do and guide them or do they just count on eachother to pull their own weight? the problems i see in this is that if there wasnt a hierarchy someone would make one, and become a dictator.

Marx poses the question of what will be left when the state disappears in The Critique of the Gotha Programme:
"The question then arises: what transformation will the state undergo in communist society? In other words, what social functions will remain in existence there that are analogous to present-day functions of the state?"
Marx, despite not answering the question, provides in this quote the beginnings of an answer. Engels also provides the beginnings of an answer to this question in his essay On Authority:
"Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out against political authority, the state? All Socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society."
For Marx and Engels the death of the state did not mean the death of "government" or of public administration, but merely the death of the institutions of class rule, that is to say, to employ the terms of Saint-Simon, the end of the administration of men, in favour of it's replacement by an administration of things.

If you are interested more in the question you may like to read The Death of the State in Marx and Engels (http://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1970/xx/state.html) by Hal Draper, particularly the chapter What is left when the state disappears?

[Sasha]

with these two post you seem to capture the two extremes in radical leftist politics:


in a communist society there is no state or authority so therefore i presume there are no laws to control the people. hows does the society survive without a hierarchy? is there some sort of council to advise the people on what to do and guide them or do they just count on eachother to pull their own weight? the problems i see in this is that if there wasnt a hierarchy someone would make one, and become a dictator.

this would be the indivudalist anarchist position, since its niether social nor practical in a real life situation i'm not a supporter of that, i will get back on that later


so there would something like a regional council? and then a government? and in the government would there be just one political party so there would be no resistance to the revolution?

and here you skid of in to the realms of authoriatrian bolshevism. and since i'm an anti-autoritharian (anarcho-)communist i don't think that scenario is very apealing either.

most anti-authoritarian communists/anarchist believe in various degree's of organised direct democracy from the bottomup, be it through unions (syndicalism) or neighboorhood councils sending delagates to city counsels who sends delagetes to nation councels etc etc (councel communism) there are many forms but in general we don't believe in one party systems.
communism is about more (i.e. real) democracy not less.

[Herman]

so there would something like a regional council? and then a government? and in the government would there be just one political party so there would be no resistance to the revolution?

Political parties would cease to exist in a communist society, as they are not needed. Like I said, the principle of self-rule applies. People themselves are the government by participating in some form of council or assembly.

[ZeroNowhere]

No ruler doesn't mean no rules.

[Dóchas]

thanks guys i really appreciate the help i have a better understanding of it now although i would definitly like to learn a bit more about it...thanks guys!!

[PostAnarchy]

In a anti-authoritian revolution or libertarian socialist revolution, authority will be shared and divided equally in a completely democratic manner of real workers control in stark contrast to the Stalinist or Leninist model of either a "great man" dictator or an elite class of intellectuals (vanguard party) leading the masses to victory.

This I think is no minor point in discussing the fundamental differences between the anarchists vs leninist marxist perspective. Having no rules or great leaders does not mean there will be rules and choas; these the are common misinterpretations of anarchists used often enough maliciously by the bourgeoisie and our opponents in Marxist to try to denigrate us.

The truth is that people will be together because they are willing to do it,thats the whole matter.They will be united because they know that united they are better than individual,united they improve the productions,united they help each other.There is NO need of authority to feel united,instead authority inherent divides, it does not unite!

The way an anarchist society would function in the way I at least envision it is that nothing would be enforced,the decisions of the community are decided by all members, if someone disagrees he can can air out his views publicly and allow the community to then vote and decide what is best. Theat person if still feeling slighted could even find another community he might agree with.

Authority as represented by either great leaders (read dictators) or vanguard political parties is truly against authentic socialism, against workers control and finally against communism, where there is authority over the heads of the working masses there isnt communism.

[thinkerOFthoughts]

Authority as represented by either great leaders (read dictators) or vanguard political parties is truly against authentic socialism, against workers control and finally against communism, where there is authority over the heads of the working masses there isnt communism.
Using a Vanguard to lead people into revolution isn't anti-Communism but keeping the Vanguard after a successful revolution is ? would I have that down right?

[venusINfurs]

The way an anarchist society would function in the way I at least envision it is that nothing would be enforced,the decisions of the community are decided by all members, if someone disagrees he can can air out his views publicly and allow the community to then vote and decide what is best. Theat person if still feeling slighted could even find another community he might agree with.

What about the possibility of communities disagreeing, perhaps warring, over resources and such? My knowledge of anarchism is limited (although I'm curious to learn more). Would there not need to be some regulation of these things? Because I'm sure communal fighting is not in the interests of anarchism. And people WILL go to lengths to gain resources for their own communities.

[Poison]

Here's how it works in my opinion:

Ultimately the people govern themselves and production. The only law that should exist is one may not infringe on the personal freedoms of another (which will take me far too long to explain). This "law" is enough to cover all things that should be illegal and it would be up to the community to punish infringements upon individual rights.

[Annie K.]

the problems i see in this is that if there wasnt a hierarchy someone would make one, and become a dictator.Why ? The "there was not a hierarchy" suppose that the people destroyed it. Why wouldn't they be able to prevent another from appearing ?
Hierarchy is not needed to fight against hierarchy.

[Dóchas]

Why ? The "there was not a hierarchy" suppose that the people destroyed it. Why wouldn't they be able to prevent another from appearing ?
Hierarchy is not needed to fight against hierarchy.

because there is always gonna be one person who wants a little bit more than everyone else and it snowballs from there

[Annie K.]

I still don't see why would everyone else obey that one person.
If one wants to get a little more, we give him a little more. If one wants to snowball from there, we snowball him.

[PostAnarchy]

because there is always gonna be one person who wants a little bit more than everyone else and it snowballs from there

While I believe "those people" would be reduced to a bare minimum come revolution your point about demagogues and power hungry people who want to use authority to usurp others would of course have to be controlled and effectively put in their place by workers councils and the armed proleteriat.

[Sasha]

I still don't see why would everyone else obey that one person.
If one wants to get a little more, we give him a little more. If one wants to snowball from there, we snowball him.

qft :thumbup:

[Dóchas]

I still don't see why would everyone else obey that one person.
If one wants to get a little more, we give him a little more. If one wants to snowball from there, we snowball him.

two examples off the top of my head are Castro and stalin (im just using these as examples i dont really want to get into a debate about their ideas) people followed them because they liked the way they thought whats stopping people doing it again?

[Sasha]

stalin didn't get "followed" at least not en mass, stalin took over an already excisting represive regime and became a ruthless dicatator and castro was for the people a national liberator first and a socialist second.

[Dóchas]

castro was for the people a national liberator first and a socialist second.

oh i always thought he had socialism on his 'agenda' when he was fighting batista

[Oneironaut]

Castro was ever hesitant to declare that the Cuban revolution had a "socialist" character. I don't think he declared publicly that the new Cuban government was socialist until April 1961. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Cuba

Psycho is exactly right. The Cuban Revolution was a national liberation movement that didn't declare its socialist character until much later.

[Dóchas]

well you learn something new every day i always thought he has socialist intentions

[Annie K.]

As far as I know, not really. A land ownership reform don't make socialism. He was even supported by US liberals at first.

But I don't see how the situation in 59 in cuba can compare to a communist society without authority. And for stalin, well, you already know.

[Liberte ou la Mort]

The problem that I see in moving from the staus quo to whatever kind of socialist, de-centralized, anarcho-communist utopia that you may be dreaming of is the transition itself.

The good thing about the staus quo is that in developed countries all people manage to get access to food. When you dismantle the system in place several things will happen.

Petrol will stop getting to the trucks, the trucks will stop delivering food into the cities and millions upon millions will starve. This is what happened to most wetern nations in the Great Depression. The Great Depression was not the wholesale dismantling of the capitalist engine but merely a hiccup.