What would we do with non-compliers?

[Invincible Summer]

So I was having a debate with one of my friends, and we were talking about what would be done with anti-Communists, or just people who don't wish to live in a Communist society, if a great majority of the world went Communist (very realistic, I know).

I suggested that they are free to move to the non-Communist part of the world, but he countered by saying that not everyone can afford to move. I told him that because a communist society would entail production of goods and services in accordance to need, the community could just send the non-compliant members of society out on the People's Airline to the non-communist portion of the world.

The issue was then brought up that you can't just keep doing that every time there is a dissenter. Also, he proposed that the non-Communist part of the world would grow larger over time and pose a counter-revolutionary threat.

I wasn't sure how to respond because destroying the non-communists would just be too purge-like. I didn't want my friend to think I supported the outright murder of every capitalist, right here, right now.

Thoughts on the topic?

[ZeroNowhere]

Answer: Nothing.
On the other hand, they may set up capitalist societies somewhere or the other if they wish, but you have to wonder how they'd get enough willing slaves. Of course, one thing that they couldn't do is hold their workers by a contract, dissenting workers would have to be able to leave whenever they want.

[GPDP]

What do we do with the people that want to live in a feudal monarchy today?

[Wild_Fire]

Before you think too deeply on this and comment back to your friend, you should think about how you get to the Communist Society of a majority you propose.:confused:

To get to a Communist Society, no reforms won in the political sphere of the powerful minority, will do much good. If 'we' get too strong and get too many reforms, so that, the powerful feel threatened... they will smash us down with their military , break up our movements and get the fascists to kill us all!:crying:

We can make small gains and reform to a point but I think we need to fight for our very lives to win it. After victory, some will be 'prisoners or dissenters'. Those, we can send away to a nominated part of the world....Besides to provide for those who still want to believe in exploitation of the people and the crushing of true freedom can piss-off and find their own way to that part of the world. They are not welcome!:mad:

Violence is the only option, Revolt is compulsory! :mad:

I don't think there would be many Capitalists left afterwards though, do you?:confused:

[Niccolò Rossi]

I suggested that they are free to move to the non-Communist part of the world [...] the community could just send the non-compliant members of society out on the People's Airline to the non-communist portion of the world.


This is the fundamental problem with your argument, you assume communism can function on a national scale. Communism is either international and implies the destruction of all nations or it is nothing.

[Decolonize The Left]

So I was having a debate with one of my friends, and we were talking about what would be done with anti-Communists, or just people who don't wish to live in a Communist society, if a great majority of the world went Communist (very realistic, I know).

I suggested that they are free to move to the non-Communist part of the world, but he countered by saying that not everyone can afford to move. I told him that because a communist society would entail production of goods and services in accordance to need, the community could just send the non-compliant members of society out on the People's Airline to the non-communist portion of the world.

The issue was then brought up that you can't just keep doing that every time there is a dissenter. Also, he proposed that the non-Communist part of the world would grow larger over time and pose a counter-revolutionary threat.

I wasn't sure how to respond because destroying the non-communists would just be too purge-like. I didn't want my friend to think I supported the outright murder of every capitalist, right here, right now.

Thoughts on the topic?

"We" won't do anything. Given the assumptions you have made, the working class will decide what to do.

- August

[Invincible Summer]

This is the fundamental problem with your argument, you assume communism can function on a national scale. Communism is either international and implies the destruction of all nations or it is nothing.

Hmmm.. I normally understand that, but I didn't realize I was suggesting that in my post.


Man I feel dumb

[Pogue]

"We" won't do anything. Given the assumptions you have made, the working class will decide what to do.

- August

This. There will be discussions on this, anyone with a problem with the system we implement will get a fair trial/part in discussion in terms of deciding what happens to them. The commune will be democratic, as will its law, so if you're in the commune you'll agree to its laws. Capitalism will be against the law, so if you want to practice capitalism it'll have to be elsewhere, outside of the commune. Just like how now, if you break the law you go to jail. except our laws will be consensual and jail will be 'anywhere not part of our free commune'.

[lombas]

One must understand that someone who doesn't agree is not a target. Someone who doesn't agree and wants to hurt his comrades or actively prevent necessary social reforms is.

[piet11111]

One must understand that someone who doesn't agree is not a target. Someone who doesn't agree and wants to hurt his comrades or actively prevent necessary social reforms is.

and that sums it up nicely.

[davidasearles]

Z. wrote:

"Communism is either international and implies the destruction of all nations or it is nothing."

das:

Any "ism" is an ill defined goal. So the truth statement above could never verified. At best we have theorists saying or writing that this particular “ism” has to be international (what ever “international” does mean - Mexico US and Canada?) or it is nothing. As with any ideology the conclusions are many but the actual factual and logical supports for those conclusions are sparse.

To me a more practical and defined goal is collective worker control of the industrial means of production and distribution. I think that a single large country and even some small ones could pull that off without requiring a complete breakdown of all international borders or sovereign nationalities. But that's just me.

What do we do with people who don't agree? Nothing at all. But as to compliance - of course everyone world be expected to comply with the determination, once made that a certain work place has come under worker collective control.

However, I would leave it up to the workers at individual workplaces to make the determination as to whether the workplace ought to go into the collective.

[rednordman]

As far as i am concerned as long as they are willling to work and simply get along with the communistic society, i wouldnt have a problem with them. If they decided that they would not do anything, or even worse become 'active' counter-revolutionary against the regime using violence and terrorism, it becomes a totally different matter entirely. Lenin and the Bolsheviks found this out the hardway.
Its very unlikely that everyone is going to be 100% happy with the society and environment they live in. In fact, I as well as probably around 90% worlds population dislikes a world ruled by unregulated capitalism (though this doesnt mean they are communists though), but i simply grit my teeth and and try to make the best of things. Ideally, they should also try and have this attitude. After all if this was to actually happen, things could be a lot worse. At least we do not judge people solely on the colour of their skin or what 'part of town they are from'.

[Pogue]

As far as i am concerned as long as they are willling to work and simply get along with the communistic society, i wouldnt have a problem with them. If they decided that they would not do anything, or even worse become 'active' counter-revolutionary against the regime using violence and terrorism, it becomes a totally different matter entirely. Lenin and the Bolsheviks found this out the hardway.
Its very unlikely that everyone is going to be 100% happy with the society and environment they live in. In fact, I as well as probably around 90% worlds population dislikes a world ruled by unregulated capitalism (though this doesnt mean they are communists though), but i simply grit my teeth and and try to make the best of things. Ideally, they should also try and have this attitude. After all if this was to actually happen, things could be a lot worse. At least we do not judge people solely on the colour of their skin or what 'part of town they are from'.

If your active in a socialist group you do more than grit your teeth though.

[Delirium]

What do we do with the people that want to live in a feudal monarchy today?

Subsidise our agriculture to drive them off there land and make sell thier labor to survive?

[8bit]

Violence is the only option, Revolt is compulsory! :mad:

I don't think there would be many Capitalists left afterwards though, do you?:confused:

Violence? Why? Every other major economic transition has occurred gradually, and without directly related violence. People simply realized the more advanced stage would be better for the general public. This happened with Feudalism, this happened with Capitalism, it is happening with Socialism as we speak, and it will happen with Communism.

I think this response is most accurate:


What do we do with the people that want to live in a feudal monarchy today?


I'm thinking I'm going to change my display message to Techno-Marxist. Too many Anarcho-Communists are convinced Communism will be created simply through a near-overnight transition via violent revolution.

[Niccolò Rossi]

Any "ism" is an ill defined goal. So the truth statement above could never verified.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this. Communism refers to a potential future mode of production. You are correct in saying that communism is "ill defined" (atleast to some degree), however this is not a result of it being an "ism" (whatever that means), but rather the fact that it is a potential and future mode of production, something we can not study scientifically and make specific and accurate statements about it's nature and characteristics. Despite this, it is foolish to brush off all discussion of communisms nature and characteristics given that the history of all hitherto existing society and particularly that of capitalism and the workers movement provides us with means to do exactly that.


To me a more practical and defined goal is collective worker control of the industrial means of production and distribution. I think that a single large country and even some small ones could pull that off without requiring a complete breakdown of all international borders or sovereign nationalities.

I, like the vast majority of "Marxists", today and historically, would insist that islands of communism and proletarian nations are impossibilities. Communism is in it's end and it's means international. As early as 1847, when capitalism was in the progress of generalising itself globally and was yet to reach its zenith, Engels replied to the question "Will it be possible for this revolution to take place in one country alone?" in his work Principles of Communism with this:
No. By creating the world market, big industry has already brought all the peoples of the Earth, and especially the civilized peoples, into such close relation with one another that none is independent of what happens to the others.
Further, it has co-ordinated the social development of the civilized countries to such an extent that, in all of them, bourgeoisie and proletariat have become the decisive classes, and the struggle between them the great struggle of the day. It follows that the communist revolution will not merely be a national phenomenon but must take place simultaneously in all civilized countries – that is to say, at least in England, America, France, and Germany.

[...]

It is a universal revolution and will, accordingly, have a universal range
Today more than ever it is evident that not only can communism or socialism not be established nationally or on a local scale but even the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot hold itself out or complete its tasks. As long as global capital continues to exist it will dominate and subjugate the process of social production and consumption. Capitalism is a world system, something communism cannot be built from within.

[Wild_Fire]

Violence? Why? Every other major economic transition has occurred gradually, and without directly related violence. People simply realized the more advanced stage would be better for the general public. This happened with Feudalism, this happened with Capitalism, it is happening with Socialism as we speak, and it will happen with Communism.

&



I'm thinking I'm going to change my display message to Techno-Marxist. Too many Anarcho-Communists are convinced Communism will be created simply through a near-overnight transition via violent revolution.


I never said Revolution will be a near-overnight transition. I think that a Revolution is a process, not an event. What I said was is that if we make too many advances towards getting things done in a measured, political way, to take away the power of the privileged/ruling classes, that they would turn on us and throw us in jail, kill us and destroy any gains we had made.

You know that they would use violence on us with out even batting an eyelid, and still do.:crying:

How is Feudalism an economic system? I am pretty sure any broad description of Feudalism doesn't include it being an economic system, rather it is seen as a European medieval political system, if that term is still workable.

Besides, I'm sure that many peasants who chose to be thrown off their land and had their means of production confiscated or else be killed, saw that Capitalism was the best way forward from feudal society too :rolleyes:

[Niccolò Rossi]

Subsidise our agriculture to drive them off there land and make sell thier labor to survive?

Independent peasant agriculture is not feudalism.


Violence? Why? Every other major economic transition has occurred gradually, and without directly related violence. People simply realized the more advanced stage would be better for the general public. This happened with Feudalism, this happened with Capitalism, it is happening with Socialism as we speak, and it will happen with Communism.

Whilst your initial statement is correct re. the gradual development of new modes of production and economic formations growing up inside the husk of the old (despite your mischaracterisation of them as merely being a choice made consciously for the benefit of humanity), you make a vital mistake in assuming that the transition to communism is synonymous with and follows the same path as previous revolutions. The proletariat, unlike all hitherto existing revolutionary classes, does not possess an economic base or property form as the basis of it's power. Thus unlike all previous revolutions, proletarian power can not grow up inside the womb of capitalism with the political revolution being a mere confirmation of it's economic dominance, rather, the proletarian revolution proceeds from the political with communism only established on a world scale after the political and military triumph of the working class. The ICC has a number of pamphlets and articles which stress this same point, if you are interested I could gladly link you to them.