Questions.

[Time Warner]

Here are some questions that I have. Suppose that we live in a communist world.

I would assume that when I go to bed, I do and I don't own the bed that I sleep in at night. Technically everyone owns every thing, but no one has private ownership of anything, correct? So what happens when I walk into a house that someone and their family stays at consistently (they can't privately own right?), and I decide to sleep in the bed that they use? What do they do? I own the bed and the house as much as they do. When they go out of the house to do something, I can move in.

If I am not allowed to do these things, then who would prevent me from doing so? Who would write the law? A government? An organization who functions as the role of government but calls themselves something else? Private law? To my best understanding, there would be no government under real communism, or at least that is what I am told by most people who identify themselves as communist.

Also, I can never get a straight answer on this. To achieve communism, does a government grow and regulate all economic affairs, then somehow dissolve to a state of no government? I've been told so many different things. I know why, because Marx was not consistent. So to whom it may concern, what is your take on this? And if a government needs to be created to end (for lack of better words) capitalism, what makes you think that this supposed government/army will not fall to corruption like what has happened when societies try to establish communism in the past?

What do you say to the "proletarians" or working class people who do not want communism and prefer capitalism? Are these people your enemies even though they are not technically part of the "bourgeoisie"? Is your view on how the world should be, any more valid than the overwhelming majority of the proletarians whom happen to disagree with you? Do you truly believe that you represent a "class" of people who do not even agree with you?

How I see it, Communists and Ancaps are pretty looking for the same end game but with a different perspective of how humans would interact without a government. Both views want no government (usually). The difference is that Ancaps think that people will naturally retain private property in this situation, while Ancoms think that we will all naturally share property. If this is correct, then can't you align with the Ancaps and try to remove the role of government in society and then see what happens? The end game is the same.

In regards to using direct violence as a means to of establishing communism, I have heard different answers from ancoms (aren't all coms ancoms?). I would never advocate violence for a cause, but are you guys willing to do so? Go to war? Overthrow organizations? If you guys fight, then do you find a leader, chain of command? Does that constitute as government? What will stop such an organization from turning south and taking over? Or would people attack without coordination? Do you agree that people will organize regardless of the ideal situation? Or are the members here against the use of direct violence? If so, then how do you suppose communism will be established? By convincing people?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Here are some questions that I have. Suppose that we live in a communist world.

I would assume that when I go to bed, I do and I don't own the bed that I sleep in at night. Technically everyone owns every thing, but no one has private ownership of anything, correct? So what happens when I walk into a house that someone and their family stays at consistently (they can't privately own right?), and I decide to sleep in the bed that they use? What do they do? I own the bed and the house as much as they do. When they go out of the house to do something, I can move in.

Property is economic. What you are talking about is possession - but far be it from me to insinuate communists recognise some sort of right to possessions. In the communist society, the main category is use. If you're not using something, then another person can use it. Now in practice it's more convenient, hygienic and conductive to privacy if we don't use someone's shower, for example, if they're not home. The same goes for beds.

But if you don't have a bed because, I don't know, your city was burned down by Martian heat rays, and someone is not using their bed, then yes, I would say it's better that you sleep in the bed they habitually use than in the streets.

If I am not allowed to do these things, then who would prevent me from doing so? Who would write the law? A government? An organization who functions as the role of government but calls themselves something else? Private law? To my best understanding, there would be no government under real communism, or at least that is what I am told by most people who identify themselves as communist.

Now, of course, there are still things you wouldn't be allowed to do in communism. You wouldn't be allowed to punch someone in the face without their permission, for example. As for who would prevent you from doing so, well, first of all the person you're trying to punch, and second, other people around you. That is in fact how most of these things are solved, even today. The police come when everything's over, then pat themselves on the back for Helping the Citizens (TM).

Also, I can never get a straight answer on this. To achieve communism, does a government grow and regulate all economic affairs, then somehow dissolve to a state of no government? I've been told so many different things. I know why, because Marx was not consistent. So to whom it may concern, what is your take on this? And if a government needs to be created to end (for lack of better words) capitalism, what makes you think that this supposed government/army will not fall to corruption like what has happened when societies try to establish communism in the past?

Marx was consistent on the point. Have you read the Critique of the Gotha Programme, for example? The workers' state organises the economy as the productive forces have grown to the extent that they can't be under any other control but social control. Social control is organised by the state in the transitional period - when capitalism definitely falls as a global system, the state does not dissolve, it withers away, as its repressive functions fall into disuse and what remains is the technical organisation of production, the administration of things - calculation of product targets, drawing up of schedules etc.

Of course, the workers' state would at once dispense with hundreds if not more of the reactionary and unnecessary laws of the bourgeois state. So in that regard, the "government", as people in America sometimes say, would "shrink".

What do you say to the "proletarians" or working class people who do not want communism and prefer capitalism?

"Hi."

Are these people your enemies even though they are not technically part of the "bourgeoisie"?

That depends. In a revolution, everyone who takes up arms against the dictatorship of the proletariat is an enemy of the dictatorship of the proletariat, oddly enough, even if they are the descendants of seven generations of factory workers and can sing the Internationale in every language that exists, even if they call themselves socialists or communists, revolutionaries or democrats. Today, and note that we are neither in the middle of the revolution or in a pre-revolutionary situation, it depends. The willful misleaders of the proletariat, the social-democrats and reformists, they are our enemies, yes.

Is your view on how the world should be, any more valid than the overwhelming majority of the proletarians whom happen to disagree with you?

What a bizarre question. Do we believe we are right? Obviously we do, otherwise we wouldn't hold the beliefs we do. No one believes they are wrong - although they might believe they were wrong.

Do you truly believe that you represent a "class" of people who do not even agree with you?

Revolutionary socialists represent, not the proletariat (the proletariat can represent itself just fine), but the objective interest and the historical mission of the proletariat.

How I see it, Communists and Ancaps are pretty looking for the same end game but with a different perspective of how humans would interact without a government.

No. Just, no. Socialists want a stateless society of free access based on a socially controlled, consciously planned production process. "An"-caps want some kind of idealised mediaeval Iceland where the mean old gubbmint won't interfere with their hired death squads, throwing gays out of their gated communities, and so on.

Both views want no government (usually). The difference is that Ancaps think that people will naturally retain private property in this situation, while Ancoms think that we will all naturally share property. If this is correct, then can't you align with the Ancaps and try to remove the role of government in society and then see what happens? The end game is the same.

Socialists don't want to "remove the role of government... and then see what happens". We want to smash capitalism.

In regards to using direct violence as a means to of establishing communism, I have heard different answers from ancoms (aren't all coms ancoms?). I would never advocate violence for a cause, but are you guys willing to do so? Go to war? Overthrow organizations? If you guys fight, then do you find a leader, chain of command? Does that constitute as government? What will stop such an organization from turning south and taking over? Or would people attack without coordination? Do you agree that people will organize regardless of the ideal situation? Or are the members here against the use of direct violence? If so, then how do you suppose communism will be established? By convincing people?

Anarcho-communists think that there is no need for a transitional state. And being a revolutionary socialist, standing for revolution as opposed to reform, means advocating violence - in the last instance, it means civil war.

[#FF0000]

I'm pretty busy as I'm posting this so forgive the hella rough answers which I'm sure will bring up more questions than it answers -- but hopefully it's a start until I can come back to this.

I would assume that when I go to bed, I do and I don't own the bed that I sleep in at night. Technically everyone owns every thing, but no one has private ownership of anything, correct? So what happens when I walk into a house that someone and their family stays at consistently (they can't privately own right?), and I decide to sleep in the bed that they use? What do they do? I own the bed and the house as much as they do. When they go out of the house to do something, I can move in.

Nope. To put it in the most basic terms possible, we make a distinction between "property" and "possessions". A factory, acres of arable land, etc. are "property". Your toothbrush, your home, the items you use, are your "possessions". Apparently different people have different opinions on this, but it solves a lot of headaches to recognize personal property. No one's oppressing anyone by having a toothbrush.

If I am not allowed to do these things, then who would prevent me from doing so? Who would write the law? A government? An organization who functions as the role of government but calls themselves something
else? Private law?

The community and the person who lives in the house you just barged into, first off. Second, I'd have to wonder why you'd bother -- if we're talking about a communist society, you've got no reason to take from someone else when you're already provided for anyway.

To my best understanding, there would be no government under real communism, or at least that is what I am told by most people who identify themselves as communist.

As for the statelessness, Marxists see the State as an organ of class rule, and as necessary to manage the affairs of one class, and repress another. That said, statelessness can't happen until material scarcity is eliminated and human labor marginalized to the greatest extent possible. At which point, what was once the "state" is relegated to nothing more than the body through which workers administer and manage production.

Also, I can never get a straight answer on this. To achieve communism, does a government grow and regulate all economic affairs, then somehow dissolve to a state of no government? ... So to whom it may concern, what is your take on this? And if a government needs to be created to end (for lack of better words) capitalism, what makes you think that this supposed government/army will not fall to corruption like what has happened when societies try to establish communism in the past?

I think I partially answered this in the section above. Either way, I'm of the transition from capitalism to socialism/communism -- the Dictatorship of the Proletariat -- has to be an explosion of democracy from just the political sphere to the economic sphere as well, and the only way to avoid corruption and an altogether ineffective worker's state is to make sure it is as democratic as possible. As to how this state is to be structured, I don't have an answer that I'm comfortable with yet, though I'm reading an interesting paper on a model that mixes the old worker's council model and bicameralism -- I'll post a link when I can find it.

I've been told so many different things. I know why, because Marx was not consistent.

I hope I'm not being rude but I don't know if you're all that familiar with Marx's actual writing.

What do you say to the "proletarians" or working class people who do not want communism and prefer capitalism? Are these people your enemies even though they are not technically part of the "bourgeoisie"? Is your view on how the world should be, any more valid than the overwhelming majority of the proletarians whom happen to disagree with you? Do you truly believe that you represent a "class" of people who do not even agree with you?

They are not "technically" part of the bourgeoisie -- one's class is determined by their relationship to the means of production. They're proletarians all the same. And I don't think we "represent" them as if we're their voice -- I think that (certain) communist or anarchists groups best represent the interests of the proletariat. Certainly, we wouldn't be the only minority group that thought this. The Continental Congress wasn't made up of the majority of colonists in what became the United States -- and certainly not all of those colonists agreed with them.

In regards to using direct violence as a means to of establishing communism, I have heard different answers from ancoms (aren't all coms ancoms?). I would never advocate violence for a cause, but are you guys willing to do so? Go to war? Overthrow organizations? If you guys fight, then do you find a leader, chain of command? Does that constitute as government? What will stop such an organization from turning south and taking over? Or would people attack without coordination? Do you agree that people will organize regardless of the ideal situation? Or are the members here against the use of direct violence? If so, then how do you suppose communism will be established? By convincing people?

First off, no, not all communists are anarchists. Communists and anarchists have different strategies and different tactics, and anarchists can't really be called Marxists, though they are influenced by Marx.

As for violence, I don't believe in violence except in self defense. In this case, I don't think violence could be avoided, because Power will use their "legitimate" violence to defend itself even against non-violent threats. We live in a world where companies and governments have murdered workers for witholding their labor until they would allow a contract to be negotiated with the employer. So, violence is a tactic. In very few and very special circumstances, it is useful and justifiable. In most cases, it is not useful, and not justifiable.

You say that you would never advocate violence for a cause -- but do you mean that? Were the American revolutionaries wrong for taking up arms against the British? Were the slaves aboard the Armistad wrong? Were the French Resistance, or the Partisans in Italy, Germany, Greece, etc. wrong?

[tuwix]

Here are some questions that I have. Suppose that we live in a communist world.

I would assume that when I go to bed, I do and I don't own the bed that I sleep in at night. Technically everyone owns every thing, but no one has private ownership of anything, correct?

You confuse private property with personal property. Such thongs as bed, toothbrush, watches are personal property and it will be allowed. But excessive amounts of goods that you have only to have it that was obtained most likely by exploitation are private property. And that is to be abolished. So bed is personal property and will be allowed to own it, but eighteenth century castle or factory of yogurt is private property and you won't be allowed to have it.

[ChangeAndChance]

I've nothing really to add here and I know its really juvenile but...

"Such thongs"

This is perhaps the worst typo I've ever seen here.

[Time Warner]

You confuse private property with personal property. Such thongs as bed, toothbrush, watches are personal property and it will be allowed. But excessive amounts of goods that you have only to have it that was obtained most likely by exploitation are private property. And that is to be abolished. So bed is personal property and will be allowed to own it, but eighteenth century castle or factory of yogurt is private property and you won't be allowed to have it.

Who decides what is excessive? The people? A democracy? Small localized government? House by house basis? What if the people decide that we can have tons of personal property? Would you try to force them to stop it or allow it to happen?

[#FF0000]

I ain't tuwix but I think the "excessive" thing is unnecessary. I don't think there's anything wrong with someone having a TV in every single room of the house if that's possible to accommodate. Obviously if someone's hoarding things and it means other people can't get any (say someone's taking all the light bulbs and meteors just so happened to demolish every other lighthouse warehouse in the region, or whatever), then I could certainly see the community saying "Hey, other people need some of those light bulbs" and the community taking charge of distributing them.

Like I said, a communist society is one in which material scarcity is eliminated to the fullest extent possible. In this case, why would someone hoard things, unless they had an obsessive disorder or something?

Of course, things would be different during the transition from capitalism to socialism/communism, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. In which case, production and distribution of scarce materials would be decided democratically.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I ain't tuwix but I think the "excessive" thing is unnecessary. I don't think there's anything wrong with someone having a TV in every single room of the house if that's possible to accommodate. Obviously if someone's hoarding things and it means other people can't get any (say someone's taking all the light bulbs and meteors just so happened to demolish every other lighthouse warehouse in the region, or whatever), then I could certainly see the community saying "Hey, other people need some of those light bulbs" and the community taking charge of distributing them.

Like I said, a communist society is one in which material scarcity is eliminated to the fullest extent possible. In this case, why would someone hoard things, unless they had an obsessive disorder or something?

The problem is not so much with people using TVs or whatever, the problem is that some people think that personal possessions are sacred and inviolable in socialism. I would say, to the contrary, that there is no possession in socialism - no right to just do whatever you please with "your" things - but use.

[#FF0000]

The problem is not so much with people using TVs or whatever, the problem is that some people think that personal possessions are sacred and inviolable in socialism. I would say, to the contrary, that there is no possession in socialism - no right to just do whatever you please with "your" things - but use.

I don't think they're sacred and inviolable -- just practical and useful. In the end, this discussion wouldn't even need to take place, because why would someone walk into your house to use your toothbrush when they would just have their own?

You're not wrong though -- in a world where material scarcity is eliminated as far as possible, it would follow that people wouldn't have the same attachment to their possessions in most cases.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I don't think they're sacred and inviolable -- just practical and useful. In the end, this discussion wouldn't even need to take place, because why would someone walk into your house to use your toothbrush when they would just have their own?

You're not wrong though -- in a world where material scarcity is eliminated as far as possible, it would follow that people wouldn't have the same attachment to their possessions in most cases.

Toothbrushes (why is it always toothbrushes?) are something of a special case because sharing toothbrushes is unhygienic. As I said, sometimes hygiene or privacy dictate that we let someone "reserve" an object even if they are not currently using it. But this is not the case for every object. A car is definitely something that can be shared. So even if you used a car once, it doesn't mean you have some kind of exclusive right to it, in socialism. If you're not using it, someone else can.

[Rudolf]

The problem is not so much with people using TVs or whatever, the problem is that some people think that personal possessions are sacred and inviolable in socialism. I would say, to the contrary, that there is no possession in socialism - no right to just do whatever you please with "your" things - but use.

Yes, thank you! It all comes back to absolute domain and that is fundamentally messed up. Even when limiting possessions to de facto occupancy and use it remains problematic. I may occupy this house for the majority of my life but to suggest i can do whatever with it opens up the possibility that i can destroy it. So upon destroying this house i could then go and occupy another and destroy that. Likewise i could do the same to arable land and destroy it's fertility. Continuing such practices over the years, hell i could conspire over the generations, i've then helped produce conditions wherein some lack shelter and food and are thus ripe to be exploited.

Socialism must grant one thing: the right to reasonable use. Control must remain social.

[Baseball]

I don't think they're sacred and inviolable -- just practical and useful. In the end, this discussion wouldn't even need to take place, because why would someone walk into your house to use your toothbrush when they would just have their own?

You're not wrong though -- in a world where material scarcity is eliminated as far as possible, it would follow that people wouldn't have the same attachment to their possessions in most cases.

So, at the end of the day, there really is no such thing as a "personal possesion" in the socialist community. It all belongs to "society."

[Baseball]

Either way, I'm of the transition from capitalism to socialism/communism -- the Dictatorship of the Proletariat -- has to be an explosion of democracy from just the political sphere to the economic sphere as well, and the only way to avoid corruption and an altogether ineffective worker's state is to make sure it is as democratic as possible. As to how this state is to be structured, I don't have an answer that I'm comfortable with yet, though I'm reading an interesting paper on a model that mixes the old worker's council model and bicameralism -- I'll post a link when I can find it.

What are the "structures" that you have previously seen, and why the discomfort with them?

[#FF0000]

What are the "structures" that you have previously seen, and why the discomfort with them?

The most common one is based on a federation of councils. Everyone from anarchists to Leninists paint a picture of a post-capitalist society centered around some kind of tiered structure of workers councils -- with with people electing delegates to local councils, which elect delegates to regional councils, which elect delegates to national/continental/whatever council above that.

Moshe Machover from the Communist Party of Great Britain wrote a pretty interesting paper (PDF link) that made some good points about the shortcomings of the council system. The two that stuck out to me the most, however, were the issues of what the councils would actually represent, and how democratic the model actually is (or rather, isn't). Firstly, people in the council system are represented only in terms of their function or locality -- as workers at a particular plant or as members of a particular region. Secondly, the council pyramid actually dilutes voter power with each tier, and is susceptible to voter burnout and what is called majority deficit.

I'd suggest taking a look at Machover's paper. It's only about 50 pages long, and you can skip right to section 3 (starting on the bottom of page 13) where he illustrates these problems better than I could.

[#FF0000]

So, at the end of the day, there really is no such thing as a "personal possesion" in the socialist community. It all belongs to "society."

Depends on who you're asking, apparently. In the transition from capitalism to socialism/communism -- the dictatorship of the proletariat -- you wouldn't have people going around and gathering up people's televisions and furniture and other household items to redistribute. However I think it's more than reasonable to say that people's relationship to possessions would be very, very different in a society where scarcity is eliminated.

I mean, here's what Marx said in the Manifesto, after all:

We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man’s own labour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence.

Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.


Or do you mean the modern bourgeois private property?


But does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage-labour, and which cannot increase except upon condition of begetting a new supply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labour. Let us examine both sides of this antagonism.


To be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a social status in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion.



Capital is therefore not only personal; it is a social power.


When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society, personal property is not thereby transformed into social property. It is only the social character of the property that is changed. It loses its class character.

[#FF0000]

Yes, thank you! It all comes back to absolute domain and that is fundamentally messed up. Even when limiting possessions to de facto occupancy and use it remains problematic. I may occupy this house for the majority of my life but to suggest i can do whatever with it opens up the possibility that i can destroy it. So upon destroying this house i could then go and occupy another and destroy that. Likewise i could do the same to arable land and destroy it's fertility. Continuing such practices over the years, hell i could conspire over the generations, i've then helped produce conditions wherein some lack shelter and food and are thus ripe to be exploited.

Socialism must grant one thing: the right to reasonable use. Control must remain social.

Well I mean, even now you're not allowed to wreck a house too badly, what with Homeowner's associations, building codes, and laws against arson.

[Baseball]

Depends on who you're asking, apparently. In the transition from capitalism to socialism/communism -- the dictatorship of the proletariat -- you wouldn't have people going around and gathering up people's televisions and furniture and other household items to redistribute. However I think it's more than reasonable to say that people's relationship to possessions would be very, very different in a society where scarcity is eliminated.

:

I was asking you- sorry I wasn't clear. 870 is quite adamant that there is no distinction between the two-- you originally replied to the OP making such a distinction, then apparently steadily backpedaled.

Nor is it clear that during the transition, there would not be people "going around and gathering up people televisions... to redistribute." In this very thread, this possibility was raised and agreed it could occur (the question of course becomes, how would society even know how many TV's or lightbulbs somebody might have in their domicile).

[Baseball]

The most common one is based on a federation of councils. Everyone from anarchists to Leninists paint a picture of a post-capitalist society centered around some kind of tiered structure of workers councils -- with with people electing delegates to local councils, which elect delegates to regional councils, which elect delegates to national/continental/whatever council above that.

Moshe Machover from the Communist Party of Great Britain wrote a pretty interesting paper (PDF link) that made some good points about the shortcomings of the council system. The two that stuck out to me the most, however, were the issues of what the councils would actually represent, and how democratic the model actually is (or rather, isn't). Firstly, people in the council system are represented only in terms of their function or locality -- as workers at a particular plant or as members of a particular region. Secondly, the council pyramid actually dilutes voter power with each tier, and is susceptible to voter burnout and what is called majority deficit.

I'd suggest taking a look at Machover's paper. It's only about 50 pages long, and you can skip right to section 3 (starting on the bottom of page 13) where he illustrates these problems better than I could.

It sounds like the problem being identified is for how society to remain democratic while moving up the tier.

[#FF0000]

It sounds like the problem being identified is for how society to remain democratic while moving up the tier.

Yep, that's certainly a big part of it, with every tier making votes less and less meaningful.

Nor is it clear that during the transition, there would not be people "going around and gathering up people televisions... to redistribute." In this very thread, this possibility was raised and agreed it could occur (the question of course becomes, how would society even know how many TV's or lightbulbs somebody might have in their domicile).

I think a lot of this confusion is due to no one being clear as to what we're talking about -- a socialist/communist society or a dictatorship of the proletariat.

[Rudolf]

Well I mean, even now you're not allowed to wreck a house too badly, what with Homeowner's associations, building codes, and laws against arson.

It's true that property rights have always included 'within the limits of the law' but as a general rule this itself has merely been to limit the effects the use of property has on the property of others. It's a confirmation of the right. It's also true that in some countries there remains stringent building codes etc but i'd imagine that this becomes the case in response to events that hindered or had a serious potential to hinder capital.

Oh and nothing says destroy more than being able to demolish tons of housing that is still fit for use like what's been occurring in my city.