Does power corrupt?

[MegaBrah]

[QUOTE=So if you have pre-class society, what process and what motivating factors made them change to a hierarchical class system?[/QUOTE]


The drive to dominate the competition and pull themselves out of the cespit of nature into a static stable civilisation and to meet their want and need for material conditions to improve their lives, even if at the misery of others, as we saw with awrring tribes, klans etc etc.

[Firebrand]

So if you have pre-class society, what process and what motivating factors made them change to a hierarchical class system?

Fundamentally as I understand it it is a slow process that arises from the development of a surplus and agriculture. While hunter gatherer societies do often have chiefs etc, it is not the same sort of thing as a hiararchy where some benefit from the work of others.

The shift to a situation where there is a ruling class generally happens because it becomes necessary to adopt new modes of production that require some individuals to act as coordinators, rather than actively working in the fields. It also often becomes necessary for these coordinators to be given control over the surplus in order to plan and maintain production in the future, and make sure that in times of shortage enough of the surplus is stored to tide the population over.

When famines etc do occur it is often necessary for these co-ordinators to ration food, as the rationing becomes more acute it becomes necessary for them to use force to a) keep people working even while starving and b) make sure that the rations are kept to.

This situation can lead the coordinators to see that forcible control of the general population by them is necessary for the society to survive. They then start to see their continued good health and survival as vital to the survival of the community and therefore increase their own rations accordingly. As the shortage continues it is harder for this class of co-ordinators to maintain control so they persuade the strongest members of the population to protect the food stores in exchange for increased rations. When the famine ends the coordinators find themselves in a position of power, they have soldiers to protect their position and they are better off than most of the population. There is now a class society.

It happens bit by bit as a response to matierial conditions.

[MotherCossack]

i suspect that human beings are not equipped to deal with being leaders.

maybe there should be some system whereby we all get a short go... like jury service.
it should be regarded as a highly dangerous occupation with a strict maximum length of service. with lots of intermitent head checks to ensure that the boots still fit.
[QUOTE]- myself-

you know what.... mother cossack..... thats not a bad idea!!!!!!

[Q]

i suspect that human beings are not equipped to deal with being leaders.

maybe there should be some system whereby we all get a short go... like jury service.
it should be regarded as a highly dangerous occupation with a strict maximum length of service. with lots of intermitent head checks to ensure that the boots still fit.
- myself-

you know what.... mother cossack..... thats not a bad idea!!!!!!

It's called demarchy today and is the way Athenian democracy operated in ancient times (be it in a limited way). This system was regarded by Plato (if I'm not mistaken) to be the ruling system of the poor (and he was not known for his democratic views). And I would say he was correct as such a "lottery democracy" where ministers are replaced by councils (for example, a council of education as opposed to a minister of education) and where lotteries would be held after short periods (such as every year) and where all allotted would get a normal wage, would indeed lead to a policy where the society as a collective genuinely rules over itself and since the working class is a vast majority in the capitalist core countries, this would be what Marx and Engels envisioned as the "dictatorship of the proletariat".

[CommieCarlene]

I think it depends on the person , they can eitherhave good or bad intentions, they my also be a good or bad inturperator of whats right or wrong. So there are a lot of factors of how power can be considered corrupt . but there's really no way to tell .

[Q]

I think it depends on the person , they can eitherhave good or bad intentions, they my also be a good or bad inturperator of whats right or wrong. So there are a lot of factors of how power can be considered corrupt . but there's really no way to tell .

Hence we need a system where no one person or a small group of persons have their ultimate say over the whole of society. See my previous post for one such solution.

[MotherCossack]

It's called demarchy today and is the way Athenian democracy operated in ancient times (be it in a limited way). This system was regarded by Plato (if I'm not mistaken) to be the ruling system of the poor (and he was not known for his democratic views). And I would say he was correct as such a "lottery democracy" where ministers are replaced by councils (for example, a council of education as opposed to a minister of education) and where lotteries would be held after short periods (such as every year) and where all allotted would get a normal wage, would indeed lead to a policy where the society as a collective genuinely rules over itself and since the working class is a vast majority in the capitalist core countries, this would be what Marx and Engels envisioned as the "dictatorship of the proletariat".

i am a bit thick at the moment [ there is nothing like the death of a priceless close family member for putting a spanner in the works, metaphorically speaking]
and so, in the interests of clarity can i just make sure.... does this nean you are in favour.....

[Q]

i am a bit thick at the moment [ there is nothing like the death of a priceless close family member for putting a spanner in the works, metaphorically speaking]
and so, in the interests of clarity can i just make sure.... does this nean you are in favour.....

Yes, I'm strongly in favor of demarchy. But we are in a minority so far on this forum or the wider far left for that matter.

[Desperado]

I am talking about systemic hierachy and economic disparity based on hierachal economic mode of production, this is not related to being able to make your brother make you a grilled cheese.

The analogy works perfectly. The hierarchy of the capitalists owning capital and the workers owning none results in the social hierarchy of control and exploitation.

[The Old Man from Scene 24]

I'm pretty clear on where I stand politically, for example on my blog here on Revleft, so either you didn't care to investigate or I guess you're new.

Nah, I don't read every single thing written by people.

[KR]

One cannot abolish the state, as long as we still have a class society

Because i say so Do you have anything to back this up?

[KR]

I agree with Q's posts totally.

Also I think you have to be corrupt to obtain power in most modern capitalist countries. US politicians don't make deals and take money and engage in cronyism because they get power-mad, this is the route to make the money and get the backing in order to get political power. In dictatorships nepotism and corruption are how autocrats protect their power.

"Power corrupts" is just plain abstract - what power, whose power, for what purpose, corrupt in what way? I think this saying is popular because it gives a sort of personal motivation to the lack of real democracy and transparent rule in capitalist countries. It also subtly suggests that no matter who or how power works in society, it will be just as bad as what we have now.

How so, how do you define a state?

An entity that exist separately from the rest of society and has the sole authority to enforce laws on it's people and maintains a monopoly on force. The reason a state cannot be radical is because it will always be misused by people for they own gain and will be used to oppress the people, who are not allowed to govern themselves because of the state.

[Q]

Because i say so Do you have anything to back this up?

Yes, such as the rest of post 12 you forgot to quote and post 6.

[Deicide]

Here's a thought experiment.

If the bourgeoisie offered you unfathomable wealth, e.g, ''here's 500 million dollars! You can live like a king! All you have to do... Is abandon this foolish hope for a revolution, forget those comrades, betray them, come be one of us!''

I'm inclined to believe that most people would accept this offer within one heart beat.

[Jimmie Higgins]

So if you have pre-class society, what process and what motivating factors made them change to a hierarchical class system?

Fundamentally as I understand it it is a slow process that arises from the development of a surplus and agriculture. While hunter gatherer societies do often have chiefs etc, it is not the same sort of thing as a hiararchy where some benefit from the work of others.

It was a rhetorical question. This is how I view it as well, I was arguing against the idea that people first created a hierarchy and then somehow used that system to develop the surplus and division of labor - rather, than as you argue, class and then the hierarchical structures that bolster it developed in a process... I agree.

I disagree, however, with the answer to this question as presented below:

The drive to dominate the competition and pull themselves out of the cespit of nature into a static stable civilisation and to meet their want and need for material conditions to improve their lives, even if at the misery of others, as we saw with awrring tribes, klans etc etc.

So people living before class society wanted class society to pull themselves out of the "cespit of nature" and into a "static stable civilization"? If you didn't know what class society looked like or had no idea what future civilization looked like, how would be able to pull yourself towards it? Your argument is an idealist conception of the development of class societies... some (elitist) people thought it would be better to have hierarchy and class and so tried to build it. A materialist conception of this process is that the physical conditions and the ways in which people produced what they needed changed and then how people related to that process changed. So when people developed a stable surplus through farming, it was no longer necessary for everyone to farm since things would just go to waste after a certain point, but there was not enough surplus for all people not have to farm much and so divisions of labor arose where some farmed, some made goods and tools, others did other tasks, and some managed the surplus.

Those who didn't create but managed and tracked the surplus eventually became more of a caste or class where they would develop accounting and writing skills, pass those onto their family. They had to develop ways to protect their position and justify it and so they often became the priests or chiefs and might develop religious reasons for their position or claim that their labor actually made the deities happy or not and could produce more abundance or not. As societies got more complex and had more distinct classes, whole ideologies and hierarchical structures were developed to maintain the stability of these class systems.

[Ostrinski]

Here's a thought experiment.

If the bourgeoisie offered you unfathomable wealth, e.g, ''here's 500 million dollars! You can live like a king! All you have to do... Is abandon this foolish hope for a revolution, forget those comrades, betray them, come be one of us!''

I'm inclined to believe that most people would accept this offer within one heart beat.

Except that hope isn't what begets revolution. For the record, if I was offered 500 million dollars, I would take it. Idk why anyone wouldn't. Money is precious in capitalist society.

[Revolution starts with U]

The moral quandry wasn't just taking the 500 million. The quandry was would you take it only if in exchange you had to give up all hope and support for revolution, and betray the working class.

Of course if it's a hand-free 500 million, you'd either have to be idiotic or a primitivist not to take it.