Why capture political power, and what that involves?

We want control of the machinery of government, national and local, because that is essential to the achievement of socialism. This is our fundamental reason for contesting elections (albeit in present circumstances, the real reason is only publicity)The state—the agency of political power—can, and does, expropriate property, or transfer it to capitalists for their direct control. It can, and does when necessary, use violent force to protect the interests of the capitalist class. That force is used against other capitalists, and against the working class. The courts, police and military all respond to political power, not economic power contrary to the arguments of the industrial unionists and syndicalists. When the vast majority of the working class is socialist, so will be the police and military whose members are working class. At that time, the socialist working class will use its political power to capture the state. When the state, in its last action as the state, transfers legal ownership of the means of production to the people of the world as a whole, the economic power of the capitalists will have been extinguished by the political power of the working class. The capitalists could do nothing, with their economic power, to prevent expropriation. The fear that they could keep the working class out of the factories etc. is completely unfounded. How could they? Remember that the working class outnumbers them 10 or 20 to one. Also remember that the military and police (all working class, and mostly socialist) will be responsible to the political power of the working class. Even in the situations of Spanish Civil War and Chile most of the police and army either remained loyal to the government (or waited until who was going to prevail before choosing sides) The State is the form taken by the centre of social administration without which modern industrial society couldn't function. We want the working class to take it over and convert it into an unarmed democratic administration of things. We want to see an end to capitalist class rule not the breakdown of society.The workers en masse don't need create a different and more democratic decision-making structure from the ground up. What they need to do is to take over and perfect the existing, historically-evolved structures. We don't need to construct socialist society from scratch; this is not the way social evolution works; there will be a degree of continuity between what exists now and what will exist in socialism as there always has been between one system of society and another. We are not utopian system-builders like Parecon or Zeitgeist. You don't abolish the state, getting rid of our control of our society at the point of actually having won the thing, and then play at utopias. You grab it and hang on against anything the capitalist class, nationally and internationally, throws at us. During this process also you are transforming the institutions we hold from capitalist into socialist ones. What do we actually need to make a revolution? We need to be able to act in an imperfect world rather than waiting for a perfect one. Revolution is not merely an announcement of a successful ballot, it is a process, and the process itself will draw people into the struggle. The revolution makes the mass party – the actual date that power can be seen to shift to ourselves is not the beginning, but the beginning of a different phase. The revolution has a snowball effect. The more change is imminent, the faster and bigger it grows and rolls, without conscious direction of leaders, as many vanguardists and social democrats have often found. You cannot stop an idea when its time has come, as is frequently said. The Iron Heel couldn't maintain Marcos in Manila, the Shah in Tehran nor the party apparatchiks and nomenclatura  in Moscow, Berlin or Warsaw , nor in Tunisia when people decided to move. Despite the exceptions such as the Sisi counter-revolution in Egypt, when people want change they achieve it.Workers will use both fists to fight for socialism, and will not rely on only a right hook or be just a south-paw boxer. They will recognise it will be both parliament and non- parliament means to socialism. It is the democratic result that we want. Our case for Parliament is that it is the most efficacious application of the workers will to establish socialism. We seek the least disruptive method of revolution. We rather not build our socialism on the literal ruins of capitalism." The constructive element in the social revolution will be the the action of the Industrial Unions seizing the means of production in order to administer the wants of the community …Thus Industrial Unionism is the constructive weapon in the coming social revolution…In order to facilitate the work of industrial organisation it is absolutely imperative for the workers to disarm the capitalist class by wrenching from it its power over the political State …by destroying the capitalist control of the State , makes possible a peaceful social revolution…the work of the political weapon is purely destructive , to destroy the capitalist system. " William Paul , The State . Its Origins and Function ,1917 .Although we may have reservations on the actual economic organisation ie industrial unions , William Paul was much in accord with the SPGB views. "…The Socialist Party, in aiming for the control of the State, is a political party in the immediate sense, but we have an economic purpose in view, namely, the conversion of the means of living into the common property of society. Therefore, the question necessarily arises whether an economic organisation acting in conjunction with the political is vital to our task. We have on more than one occasion pronounced ourselves in agreement with the need for such an organisation, and in so doing have flatly denied the charge that the Socialist Party of Great Britain is "nothing but a pure and simple political party of Socialism." The Socialist Party and economic organisation, Socialist Standard , 1937William Paul, again:-"In order to facilitate the work of the industrial organisation, it is absolutely imperative for the workers to disarm the capitalist class by wrenching from it its power over the political State. The State powers include the armed forces of the nation which may be turned against the revolutionary workers. The political weapon of Labour, by destroying the capitalist control of the State makes possible a peaceful social revolution. But in order to tear the State out of the grasp of the ruling class the workers' political organisation must capture the political machinery of capitalism."

 If I  might just paste here what i wrote in the other thread  to provide context… 

 So to respond to your point SP,  its not the "state" that gets converted once it is democratically captured.  It is the "machinery of government"  and, even then, only some of this – the rest will be scrapped as dysfunctional or pointless to needs of a socialist society e.g.. tax collection The moment the state is captured by a socialist majority  will coincide with its demise.  Anything other than than is is to buy into that preposterous notion that a slave society can be administered in the interests of the slaves – the so called "dictatorship of the proletariat". If the state continues in any way shape or form after the capture of it by the worker then that implies the perpetuation of class society since the state is essentially a tool of class oppression and you cannot have class oppression without there being classes.There may be disgruntled ex capitalists – but not capitalists – around who might seek to violently overthrow the new system but the force applied against such individuals will not be tantamount to the actions of a state but rather those  of a stateless society  (and as the anthropological literature attests, stateless society are also capable of wielding coercive force; this is a function not limited to state-based/class based societies)  Perhaps an analogy might help.  If an individual dies some of his her organs might be used – transplanted into the body of another individual.  The heart or liver of the deceased person is, however,  not the person as such. The person is more than the sum of his or her individual parts and it is that which has ceased to exist when that person dies. In the same way, when the state dies some of the functions carried out by the state and in the name of the state will to operate but they will no more imply the existence of a state than a transplanted organ implies the continued existence of the original donor

1) I for one an allergic to dying of typhoid the day after the revolution, the whole gammut of state regulation of sanitation and health will need to be taken over (disrupting it will be harmful).2) Why create new democratic structures when perfectly functional ones exist?  Local councils and parliamentary bodies exist and we will need something of their like (even if we change the terms of election and their precise duties: what would definitely be dismantled would be the separate and secret executive functions of the state).3) Even if we didn't need to use the police and army, their weapons would be in our hands and useable against violent recalcitrant minorities.  We may need to lock up a few Anders Breiviks.4) Even if we could co-ordinate our revolution worldwide, there is the possibility of at least one remnant reactionary state power trying it on, and they will need to be deterred from exercising the war route.

Erm, five paragraphs, and I can't see where you're disagreeing with me.

I think certain democratic bodies need to be created within the sphere of production and distribution or do we not intend to have industrial democracy as it was once described. Call them workers council, producers guilds or whatever but they will also transform the trade union movement into a much more hands-on administration of industry. At the moment, there is an absence of such and when created as part of the revolutionary process (and not post-revolution) they need to be integrated into the other expressions of democracy which maybe can be described as geographic democracy. Combined they become social democracyI also think perhaps existing but often dormant bodies will be revived such as at the local level the parish council. I know many responsibilities can be transferred to them. But they may well have already existing tenants associations to absorb or merge with too. We should be wary of implying the exporting a British-centric model to other regions of the world who may well have stronger traditions of local democracy and assemblies. The Town Hall Meetings of New England is often cited by Bookchin admirers but in many Central and South American countries there exist indigenous peoples decision-making organs in parallel with the nation-state. 

Good point.  But how it works out in practice depends on the tools and circumstances appertaining to those social organisations willing to adopt DPD.  The theory of DPD in practice is not set in stone neither is it – like I point out – a one suit fit all model.  DPD also takes into consideration the cultural aspects of a particular locality.  Thus, its application in practice will depend on how much baggage of the past is still attached to those procedural issues which can in certain circumstances serve the interests of an elite.Not that its my intention to go down that off-topic route.  Suffice to say the growth of DPD will be an indication that social organisations have decided that the current model of democracy is insufficient in addressing their needs or their aspirations and expectations.