Economic System

  1. YugoslavSocialist - 6th January 2013, 22:23
    What economic system do Trotskyists support? because I personally support and Decentralized planning and Workers' self-management and I'm wondering can I be a trotskyist and support Decentralized planning and Workers' self-management.
  2. Geiseric
    Geiseric - 6th January 2013, 22:31
    Yeah local planning, which is ultimately part of a larger ecnomic scheme, is the ideal. Every single detail being hnded down from above isn't very efficient, and we saw that didn't work during collectivization. We need to mix and match local and national planning, seeing as they're both beneficial in their own rights.
  3. YugoslavSocialist - 14th January 2013, 19:45
    Yeah local planning, which is ultimately part of a larger ecnomic scheme, is the ideal. Every single detail being hnded down from above isn't very efficient, and we saw that didn't work during collectivization. We need to mix and match local and national planning, seeing as they're both beneficial in their own rights.
    What about workers' self Management can I be a Trotskyist and support it?
  4. Brutus
    Brutus - 16th January 2013, 07:32
    Yep, there's no real Trotskyist guidelines. Unless you believe socialism can exist in one country, or you don't believe in a vanguard party.
    Trotskyists are anti-Stalin leninists when it boils down
  5. Anglo-Saxon Philistine - 5th March 2013, 08:12
    Even so, I think that an insistence of thorough, democratic central planning is what separates Leninists from syndicalists. This does not, of course, mean that everything should be decided by the centre; the centre should provide a broad set of goals, and let raional and communal bodies to work out the details, taking the economic conditions of their area into account.

    As for workers' self-management, I think that all consistent Leninists should support it (within reason - allowing one worker corporation to act like an independent economic body, similar to capitalist corporations of the present, would be syndicalism), in opposition to the Stalinist reliance on unelected, dictatorial industrial executives.
  6. Geiseric
    Geiseric - 9th March 2013, 19:21
    Syndicallists are against seizing state power, which is what seperates them from marxists. "Leninists" are for direct democracy in the economy and in politics.
  7. Anglo-Saxon Philistine - 11th March 2013, 18:27
    The yellow syndicalists, yes, but there are anarcho-syndicalists, Marxist syndicalists like de Leon and even, God help us all, national syndicalists. But note that I am not against democracy in the workplace; far from it. It's just that I think economic planning is something that needs to be done at large scales if we are to avoid a return to the market or market mechanisms.

    And that planning needs to be democratic, not only as a basic political demand, but also because even the best planner is not omniscient and can't tell what the people really want without democratic input.
  8. red flag over teeside
    red flag over teeside - 23rd June 2013, 22:16
    Suppose it all comes down to what you mean by decentralised planning and how decentralised you mean. For instance down to street level or city/town level. Surely if you beleive in internationalism then would you mean country wide level?

    For me the important thing is to ensure that the wealth that is created socially is also used socially so that all people benefit. This means centralisation ensuring that resources are used the most effectively and the most humanely.
  9. Lenin1986
    Lenin1986 - 5th July 2013, 22:28
    I think at the beginning of socialist construction the economy would have to be centralized. And then the gradually decentralize the economy into workers' self-management.
  10. Brutus
    Brutus - 6th July 2013, 09:19
    That, my friend, is a bloody good idea.
  11. Geiseric
    Geiseric - 20th July 2013, 04:53
    That won't work, the system will become bureaucratized. It has to be done from a grassroots level, its heart and soul should be the realization that the working class is now as a whole in charge of production. Of course it has to be organized within the boundaries of a socialist territory, in order to make the whole territory which the revolution has won over work in sync in order for maximum efficiency, however unless there is a complete breakdown in an area due to a counter revolution most things should be decided by local soviets and workers councils which send a delegate to the larger body of soviets to delegate what has been voted on.
  12. Geiseric
    Geiseric - 20th July 2013, 05:05
    That won't work, the system will become bureaucratized. It has to be done from a grassroots level, its heart and soul should be the realization that the working class is now as a whole in charge of production. Of course it has to be organized within the boundaries of a socialist territory, in order to make the whole territory which the revolution has won over work in sync in order for maximum efficiency, however unless there is a complete breakdown in an area due to a counter revolution most things should be decided by local soviets and workers councils which send a delegate to the larger body of soviets to delegate what has been voted on.