Communism and Will

[Jacob Cliff]

Communism being nothing more than social-self consciousness (and what this entails -- i.e., the mastery of man's alien conditions by mankind itself), as a "Phalanx which moves as its constituent members will it", what exactly is the means by which this socially self-conscious society 'moves'? How do the members of such a society -- members who individually embody the universality of society -- collectively decide which direction society goes, and so on?
We Communists obviously have no crystal ball -- I understand well that pretensions to some sort of blueprint mapping out exactly how we will do this or that is utterly anti-Marxist (and ossifies Communism as a transhistoric program, and at the same time, also ossifies the active men and women who constitute it) -- but can the 'mechanisms' by which a Communist movement is organized (e.g., Soviets in Russia) be telling of how a Communist society's participants would direct society itself? In other words: what are the means that would allow the participants of Communist society to actively 'move' or manage it? Are we dealing with democracy (clearly not in the bourgeois sense)? Demarchy? Or is this question, too, a false one?

[Rafiq]

Demarchy? Or is this question, too, a false one?

The spirit of a Communist movement, and then society, necessarily orients itself toward demarchy, insofar as what follows is an end to the division of labor (i.e. the last vestige of all fixed divisions of labor, in other words), and the ability for all constituent members of society to rule. As Lenin states (perhaps this is false quote, I forget), every cook must learn to rule. The movement, and then the proletarian dictatorship inevitably orients itself toward this tendency, but it must do so through an arduous struggle of education and self-discipline of its growing constituents. In other words, we ought to seek this, struggle towards it, even if that means before then it is necessary to structure the organization 'hierarchically' (of course, with complete and total accountability on the part of leaders to the group, and so on). It is necessary to do so when approaching the uneducated masses who unlike the socialist intelligentsia can and will oscillate between this movement and the pressures of ordinary life. The role of the 'leaders' in a socialist movement is to be the lasting bridge between this ordinary life, and class consciousness.

This means respecting the pace that which working people find themselves at, while at the same time not lowering ourselves to it.

At the outset, a movement cannot be structured like a 'demarchy', for this entails that the level of consciousness, dedication, etc. of all constituent members is the same, which it emphatically will never be so long as this movement exists within the context of the enduring social antagonism. Until the movement can encompass society as a whole, it must necessarily always oscillate between the 'inside' and 'outside' of it, and deal with matters that way accordingly. This means: Neither should we seek to become self-enclosed cults which exist at the expense of the concrete social reality, nor should we degrade our ideological, spiritual standards to the philistinism of everyday life.

what exactly is the means by which this socially self-conscious society 'moves'? How do the members of such a society -- members who individually embody the universality of society -- collectively decide which direction society goes, and so on?

If we are speaking of a hypothetical society free from the social antagonism, let me shock everyone: Where society goes collectively is both more and more predetermined by natural antagonism while at the same time being fully the 'free will' of its constituents. That is the 'paradox' we are dealing with: When all that remains is the antagonism with the natural world, i.e. with the physical reality which our active social being is irreducible to, society then moves in a very predictable and 'predetermined' fashion, i.e. seeking the conquest of nature on all fronts. The collective decision making of society, then becomes predictable, insofar as it is guided by all of the empirical boundaries that surround humanity and the overcoming of which. Remember: Freedom is the opposite of arbitrariness. Society only goes where its constituents will it to go, but that will is constituted by socially self-conscious individuals who now recognize human life as its own ends, and therefore the highest expression of human life as its own ends.

Political conflict is here impossible insofar as no longer does there exist private interests at the expense of the universality of society, or to be more frank, no longer are individual interests taken for granted. Think about a scandal with regard to corruption: If a mayor is today found to be a deeply corrupt person, he is attacked and oppose. But how? He is attacked for being 'selfish', a pervert, or whatever you want. But the means by which he enriches himself - getting rich, or having affairs, are not question. The propensity for 'humans to always want to get rich' and 'to always have as much women as they can', is cynically assumed to be something we naturally orient ourselves toward, and that we ought to try and suppress. But at the outset of a fully responsible, socially self-conscious culture, no longer is this the case: The very ideological dimension of seeking money, or so-called 'self' aggrandizement (in the form of giving oneself more than others, and so on) is now brought to light - the 'self-aggrandizing' person is brought to trial before the universal reason of society, and forced to confront his own self-freedom, i.e. forced to confront the ideological and spiritual dimension of his so-called 'self-aggrandizing' as precisely not a 'natural' or 'spontaneous' impulse but a real ideological difference they are responsible for.

In other words, no longer can there be private interests, because no private interests are respected as sufficient-unto-themselves: Now all private interests are related to the universality of the rationality of society, so for example a person 'seeking to better himself at the expense of others' in real terms could not exist, for the standards of self-betterment are now tied to the self-betterment of society at large. A person caught 'hoarding goods' or choosing to ration goods to closer acquaintances is no longer called selfish. The historical and ideological nature of their crime is brought to light and they must answer for it in terms of the universality of the rationality of society.

So you mistaken the point of collective decision-making: When we say society will collectively decide, we do not mean that society will decide collectively vis a vis individually. The decisions are now far from arbitrary and follow a definite social rationality: That which revolves around the last antagonism, between our social subjectivity and the empirical world. The paradox is this one: At the outset of becoming fully and completely free, and free from any arbitrariness, there is even more control, and therefore, the expression of will becomes almost 'determined', i.e. not actually determined, but following the rationality of the incessant conquest of nature. The actual, empirical barriers that surround humanity, this is the sea humanity sails upon, these are the wheels that propel the world of man in the direction he now takes.

In capitalism, what sustained society was money for the sake of money. This in turn led to an incessant transformation of the natural world unprecedented in history, for money as its own ends now means the pursuit of money exists at the expense of all worldly, natural obstacles. In capitalism, all the small pleasures, all of the small luxuries, all of the enjoyments, are merely provisional, 'side-activities' immersed in the wider ethical pursuit of seeking money for the sake of it. But money is merely the alienated ability of mankind. It is a middle man, all money stands for is the alienated activity of real individuals, abstractly represented in something external to them.

In Communism, what sustains the movement of society is no longer alien, rather, the conquest of the natural world happens for the sake of the conquest of the natural world, knowledge for the sake of knowledge, and science for the sake of science. This is the only real ends as far as human life now is concerned: The traversing of all natural obstacles for the sake of it. All 'side-activities', all small pleasures, all small luxuries, small enjoyments, will exist only in the context of a society which is constantly overcoming all of its real empirical boundaries for the sake of it.

The significance of this 'sake of it' are not just tautological, but actual. Meaning, we will do X, in pursuit of Y wider goal, which ultimately is in pursuit of Z wider goal. And there is no final goal, it goes on infinitely. For example, we may manipulate our human physiology for the sake of surviving in inhospitable cosmic environments. We may seek out these cosmic environments for the sake of discovering new resources, life, and whatever you want for some other ends. And this never, ever ends. What comes first is the sustenance of all peoples, their ability to live, i.e. to be fed, and to live, without disease, and without sickness, and so on. Once this barrier is 'secured', then everything else comes afterwards as the conclusion and improvement of which by the standard of being able to expand the highest potentials of human life itself.

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Recall this passage from 'Our Materialism':

"We know capitalism is the last class society because the empiricists embody and represent the last manifestation of the social antagonism: The empiricists represent the last stand of the world of the ‘irrational’, the world of non-existing demons. It is said that primitive peoples struggled to grasp the multiplicity of possibility with regard to nature and the world around them. Everywhere and all around the world of the primitive man,respected the multiplicity of possibility as it concerned the highest reaches of their imagination. All around the world of the primitive man, were invisible (but in their minds, visible) demons, monsters, things that could be influenced magically, which were referred to in their speech and informed their reasoning (ie.. their logic was entirely and infinitely different). The backwardness of the primitive man is that… the only recourse they had against this world of the unknown, of demons, was assuming it. Masks with magical properties would be carved, ridiculous rituals and dances, this was man’s conquest of nature: Man’s conquest of nature was the projection upon it his most wild imagination, and his recourse against nature was to create an island of safety, of meaning, by bringing into control these demons from a world of unmeaning. This is what limited their life-activity and this is why there is nothing to be savored about pre-neolithic society: Pre-neolithic society offered man the most base, and narrow relationship to nature that was at the level of almost bare subsistence – the artistic and spiritual capacity of such a society did not extend beyond reinforcing the same superstition which made their relationship to nature one of bare subsistence (because everything else was a world of unknown demons). Primitive Communism is the opposite of Communism and the last vestiges of primitive Communism find themselves in empiricism. Why? Because while throughout the course of history the margins of this unknown world of demons has decreased exponentially, the last margin that which the world of demons finds itself in – is in bourgeois empiricism and in idealism, the superstition of the social.


This is why the bourgeois ideologue is an idealist: for him, the world of demons remains, and our only recourse against it is in the form of rituals which give us knowledge, give us access to ‘the real truth’. The epistemology of the bourgeois-ideologue is thus not a critical one, but only positive. In a sea of a world of demons, there are only positive empirical claims, against whom there is an abyss of irrationality and an abyss of the most crass superstition. The positivists thus far have attempted to suppress the monsters of this abyss who cannot past their trial, and have failed – never before in the history of capitalism has the wall that separates the abyss irrationality and the rationality of bourgeois society as it concerns the empirical been so brittle and awaiting impending collapse. Communism is the disavowal of all superstition, it is the destruction of the world of demons and the assertion in practical terms of only two worlds – the world of man and the world that is not of man. The closet margins of being able to manipulate the world that is not of man, to bring it under the mastery of the world of man, are attained therefore only with the presumption of social self-consciousness and mastery of the world of man (so that the world of oustide man no longer be used to assert conditions of the world of man and limit the activity of the world of man in relation to it and to other men). Communist epistemology is therefore solely practical – if we do not have to believe in demons, or even their potential existence, why should we? The actual task of empiricism upon its inception, which was the ability to know the natural world without superstition, is therefore only possible through the real materialism whose predecessor was absolute idealism."

[ckaihatsu]

How do the members of such a society -- members who individually embody the universality of society -- collectively decide which direction society goes, and so on?

I developed a comprehensive model, a few years ago, to address exactly this issue, and all other logistical-type issues related to it -- excerpts are here, followed by a link to the blog entry of all of it:

communist administration -- All assets and resources will be collectivized as communist property in common -- their use must be determined through a regular political process of prioritized demands from a locality or larger population -- any unused assets or resources may be used by individuals in a personal capacity only

consumption [demand] -- Every person in a locality has a standard, one-through-infinity ranking system of political demands available to them, updated daily

consumption [demand] -- Basic human needs will be assigned a higher political priority by individuals and will emerge as mass demands at the cumulative scale -- desires will benefit from political organizing efforts and coordination

consumption [demand] -- A regular, routine system of mass individual political demand pooling -- as with spreadsheet templates and email -- must be in continuous operation so as to aggregate cumulative demands into the political process

revolutionary policy *solution* (communist supply & demand)

http://www.revleft.com/vb/entries/11...-amp-demand%29

tinyurl.com/csdmmf


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Also, complementarily:


labor credits framework for 'communist supply & demand'