Conversation between Mod1 and LBird
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LBird wrote:Then we have no political disagreement, mod1.Clearly, given your formulation, 'the majority' can decide whether there will be 'limits', and if so, what those 'limits' will be.This is at odds with what you've argued previously, though.Unless you wish to modify what you've just said, and return to your previous stance, that 'limits' exist prior to their social production by the democratic producers?The ball's in your court, mod1.
No, this is nonsense. There is absolutely no question about the fact that there will be limits to democracy – unless LBird is seriously proposing here that all 7 billion people can vote on billions upon billions – nay trillions – of decisions that need to be taken throughout the world every day in which case let him come out and state this is a serious proposition on his part. This is no more up for discussion than whether one can defy the laws of gravity when jumping off a tall building. What can be democratically decided beforehand by workers is where those limits will lie not whether there ought to be any limits at all, That latter is a peice of Leninist fantasy – totalistic society wide decisionmaking – invented by LBird himself which is completely incapable of being realised. And if it cannot be realised there is no point in even discussing it is there now?
LBird wrote:moderator1 wrote:LBird wrote:It seems that I've hit a sensitive spot!I'd always assumed that 'World Socialism' was a democratic concept for all socialists, but it appears my assumption is being corrected. If 'World Socialism' involves 'Limited Democracy', just who are the 'Specialists' who will determine those limits, prior to, and to the exclusion of, the producers themselves? Is it to be the SPGB?No you have not hit a sensitive spot. World Socialism still is – not was – a democratic concept for all socialists. It will be the majority, not the so called specialists socialists, like yourself, calling the shots prior to the transformation, who'll decide what the limits on democracy will entail. As its their democratic right to do so, and if they decide your pet theory is an abberation of democracy they'll vote accordingly.
[my bold]Then we have no political disagreement, mod1.Clearly, given your formulation, 'the majority' can decide whether there will be 'limits', and if so, what those 'limits' will be.This is at odds with what you've argued previously, though.Unless you wish to modify what you've just said, and return to your previous stance, that 'limits' exist prior to their social production by the democratic producers?The ball's in your court, mod1.
Like robbo has stated several times you have no understanding of democratic principles. I would add you also have no understanding of the democratic process working in practice. Its not a case of "whether there will be limits" but rather the majority recognising and acknowledging there will have to be limits on democracy in order for society to functionally produce needs.For instance, its very doubtful that the majority will bother to take a vote on retaining nuclear weapons, or on voting to dismantle them. What is the point of confirming a decision when we'll already know what the result is going to be? The majority will vote no on the former and yes on the latter because it makes socialist sense.Once the transformation is completed that decision will take immediate effect due to the aprior agreement of socialist consciousness. The actual transformation itself is going to be the ultimate abitrator to determine on what will go forward in a socialist society.
moderator1 wrote:LBird wrote:moderator1 wrote:For instance, its very doubtful that the majority will bother to take a vote on retaining nuclear weapons, or on voting to dismantle them. What is the point of confirming a decision when we'll already know what the result is going to be? The majority will vote no on the former and yes on the latter because it makes socialist sense.Once the transformation is completed that decision will take immediate effect due to the aprior agreement of socialist consciousness. The actual transformation itself is going to be the ultimate abitrator to determine on what will go forward in a socialist society.I think also they will leave the actual dismantling to specialists.
moderator1 wrote:Its not a case of "whether there will be limits" but rather the majority recognising and acknowledging there will have to be limits on democracy in order for society to functionally produce needs.[my bold]You've gone back to your earlier elitist formulation, mod1, which is why we disagree politically.The SPGB should tell workers what 'limits' they have to accept to their own democratic decision-making, according to the SPGB.If these 'limits' on workers' democracy 'have to be', why can't the workers themselves vote about whether these 'limits' exist or not for the producers? If the 'limits' 'have to be', as you argue, then surely workers too (and not just the SPGB elite) will 'recognise and acknowledge' these 'limits'?If the SPGB argues that 'limits' exist, but also argues that these 'limits' are recognisable only to an elite (like the SPGB) and are unrecognisable to 'the majority', then this has implications for the SPGB's concept of 'World Socialism'.'World Socialism' becomes, not something built by a self-conscious revolutionary class of producers, the proletariat, 'the majority', but something that only an elite, like the SPGB, can determine.Thus, 'World Socialism' becomes the product of 'Specialists', an elite with a 'Special Consciousness' who already know social 'functions' and 'needs'.I politically disagree with this elitism. I argue that only 'the majority' can self-consciously determine its own 'needs', 'functions' and 'limits'.
LBird wrote:moderator1 wrote:Its not a case of "whether there will be limits" but rather the majority recognising and acknowledging there will have to be limits on democracy in order for society to functionally produce needs.[my bold]You've gone back to your earlier elitist formulation, mod1, which is why we disagree politically.The SPGB should tell workers what 'limits' they have to accept to their own democratic decision-making, according to the SPGB.If these 'limits' on workers' democracy 'have to be', why can't the workers themselves vote about whether these 'limits' exist or not for the producers? If the 'limits' 'have to be', as you argue, then surely workers too (and not just the SPGB elite) will 'recognise and acknowledge' these 'limits'?If the SPGB argues that 'limits' exist, but also argues that these 'limits' are recognisable only to an elite (like the SPGB) and are unrecognisable to 'the majority', then this has implications for the SPGB's concept of 'World Socialism'.'World Socialism' becomes, not something built by a self-conscious revolutionary class of producers, the proletariat, 'the majority', but something that only an elite, like the SPGB, can determine.Thus, 'World Socialism' becomes the product of 'Specialists', an elite with a 'Special Consciousness' who already know social 'functions' and 'needs'.I politically disagree with this elitism. I argue that only 'the majority' can self-consciously determine its own 'needs', 'functions' and 'limits'.
I humbly suggest that the "limits" being discussed seem to me internally imposed limits of information processing and nature. for example the limit on how many things you can vote on in a day or the limit of how many people would want to vote on some trivial decision far away. the "elite" in this case would be some sort of information scientist or logistics expert who studies questions and solves problems like "how many people should vote on this and how". In effect this does create a class of individuals with technical knowledge, but that does not necessarily make that class of individuals more influential in the decision outcome, except for decisions within their area of specialty. So a specialist might determine the number of people needed to make a quarum and count the attendees at a meeting for example. Or so it seems to me. I suspect it's just my interpretation. No response from you is understood by me as indicating this comment was not valued as worth the time reading.
Steve-SanFrancisco-UserExperienceResearchSpecialist wrote:I humbly suggest that the "limits" being discussed seem to me internally imposed limits of information processing and nature.No, Steve, we're talking at political cross-purposes.Your 'internally imposed' is referring to 'individuals', whereas, being a Democratic Communist, I'm referring to 'social production'.If you wish to start from 'individuals', that's fine, but you can't understand what I'm arguing if you do so, because I'm starting from 'social production'.
Steve wrote:for example the limit on how many things you can vote on in a day or the limit of how many people would want to vote on some trivial decision far away. the "elite" in this case would be some sort of information scientist or logistics expert who studies questions and solves problems like "how many people should vote on this and how". In effect this does create a class of individuals with technical knowledge, but that does not necessarily make that class of individuals more influential in the decision outcome, except for decisions within their area of specialty. So a specialist might determine the number of people needed to make a quarum and count the attendees at a meeting for example.No, under Democratic Communism, 'specialists' will have to explain themselves to the majority, and then the majority takes the decision, based upon the interests, needs and purposes of the majority. 'Specialists' cannot determine those of the majority. If the 'Specialists' claim not to be able to explain themselves, or that the majority are too ignorant/incapable/uneducated to make decisions for themselves, then the 'Specialist' would be voted out of their position of power within their specialism. After all, they'd've been elected by the majority in the first place.
Steve wrote:Or so it seems to me. I suspect it's just my interpretation. No response from you is understood by me as indicating this comment was not valued as worth the time reading.No, I'm always willing to explain why I argue the way I do, and openly reveal upon which political ideology my arguments are based.If you disagree with me, it's likely to be because we don't share the same political ideology. Hope this helps.
For a few years now, LBird, you have been offering a critique of the SPGB.Can i suggest you put it to the workers now by sharing it with them. Is it possible for you to re-format your case into something that is in a more readable form rather than disjointed by the cut and thrust of a forum exchange.As others have done and demonstrated on this list, it is possible to create your own web-pages and present your ideas and interpretations of other thinkers' ideas thus bring the arguments to a wider audience of workers.They will then decide exactly how necessary this debate is to them. You know my attitude for i have said it before…if i was sitting with you, Robbo and YMS, i would have, by now, changed tables. Actually, it could have gotten to the stage where i would have gone on to switch pubs.
Of course there are limits to what democracy can do.Democracy cannot give the decision of votes to the minority, for starters.Democracy cannot decide the result opf a vote (if we have to vote on the truth, how can we know the result of a vote?).Democracy cannot give a blow job. It might be able to organise and authorise a blow job, but it really cannot give it.Democracy is not just voting, it is so much more than that.Now, as for social production: individuals have to come into definite relationships for there to be social production.Communism means from EACH (individual) according to the ability, to EACH (individual) acording to their needs.
alanjjohnstone wrote:For a few years now, LBird, you have been offering a critique of the SPGB.Can i suggest you put it to the workers now by sharing it with them. Is it possible for you to re-format your case into something that is in a more readable form rather than disjointed by the cut and thrust of a forum exchange.As others have done and demonstrated on this list, it is possible to create your own web-pages and present your ideas and interpretations of other thinkers' ideas thus bring the arguments to a wider audience of workers.They will then decide exactly how necessary this debate is to them.I know that you've asked for this before, alan, and I think that I've said before that my aim when I first started discussing these political issues here, was to engage in a conversation within which we all (including me) learned together how to present Marx's ideas in a format more suitable for (what the SPGB seems to call) 'generalists'.Unfortunately, this hasn't happened, because I've, to my surprise, discovered that the main ideology within the SPGB is Engels' 'materialism'. I've tried to discuss this, but it's not possible to discuss Marx's 'social production' with those who adhere to 'materialism', because this requires a religious faith in 'matter'. I'm by no means whatsoever the first to say this – in fact, since the late 19th century, many thinkers have pointed this out. I've given direct quotes from many, and links to wider passages for context, and recommendations for reading of even more. All to no avail. 'Materialists' don't discuss why humans invented 'matter', and soon resort to insults of those who question their faith in this 'god'.[quote-alan]You know my attitude for i have said it before…if i was sitting with you, Robbo and YMS, i would have, by now, changed tables. Actually, it could have gotten to the stage where i would have gone on to switch pubs. [/quote]And there's your answer, alan.Whilst even workers like you 'switch pubs', rather than discuss why you have faith in 'matter', and who gave you that faith, anything I write here makes no impression.No 'web page' or 'wider audience' (or newspaper or pamphlet) can make you ask 'why'. The curiosity and desire to read a 'web page', or any other medium, has to come from workers like you, as they ponder why the epistemology and politics of Lenin are still so widespread amongst 'socialists'. Like, it seems, within the SPGB.If you are already convinced that either it is of no interest to you, or that I'm a 'troll', what's the point of you even suggesting I work even harder and spend more time on these issues? For me, the 'cut and thrust' of this 'forum exchange' provides suitable stimulus to keep me digging deeper and reading wider. I'd like to carry others along on the journey, but it's their choice.I can't make 'curiosity' in others. 'Matter' requires faith, not curiosity, comrade.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Communism means from EACH (individual) according to the ability, to EACH (individual) acording to their needs.So, who determines 'ability' and 'needs', YMS?Isolated individuals or social producers?How are these social products made?By ahistoric, asocial personal intuition, or by democratic discussion?
I see LBird continues the dodging and weaving. Acting as though Robbo and his question has magically vanished; perhaps it was 'thought' away? LBird being a Centralist, Leninist, anti-Engelsian, idealist, may well think he has 'thought' Robbo and his question out of existence, but my democratic communist ideology indicates the contrary. , I *know* the question remains unanswered.And I *know* why."Do you believe that in communism there will be local forms of democracy aswell as regional and global forms? In other words, will there be cases wheredemocratic praxis limited to local communities?"
LBird wrote:Steve-SanFrancisco-UserExperienceResearchSpecialist wrote:I humbly suggest that the "limits" being discussed seem to me internally imposed limits of information processing and nature.No, Steve, we're talking at political cross-purposes.Your 'internally imposed' is referring to 'individuals', whereas, being a Democratic Communist, I'm referring to 'social production'.If you wish to start from 'individuals', that's fine, but you can't understand what I'm arguing if you do so, because I'm starting from 'social production'.
I think I'm intending to refer to social production of habitat. Not sure of the terminology for social production and what your definition is for that. the wikipedia idea for social production of habitat, as I understand it, is inseperably tying scope of voting and structure of the decision making process. So this is inherintly multi-centric and in fact has an infinite number of centers that are created and ignored dynamically in a social system. It's effectively describing an individuals sphere of influence in economic laws, decisions and exchange as strongly tied and inseperable from their voting interests. But where these spheres of economic exchange from your economic activities to another persons economic activities is called a sort of commons because there's sharing of decision making and resources. However, the exact form of the exchange is not speciefied or relevant to the concept of social production of habbitat and could be communisitic, or capitalisitc or whateveer as individuals see fit for their own individual transactions in practice.or maybe that's my framed understanding of the short description on wikipedia. . .
Quote:Social production of habitat is an international term used to convey the process and product arising from the experience of people in a community collectively determining the conditions of their own habitat (dwelling place and living environment). Social production is found when people take the initiative to pose solutions to the problems arising from their living conditions. Partners in social production can be informal groups or local organizations, and/or other actors external to the community, such as NGOs, donors, private sector enterprises, professional associations, academics or government institutions, or any combination of these. Social production is usually characterized by a large measure of voluntary action and people’s agency.In economic terms, social production involves people at the community level relying on them collectively to identify, exploit and increase local capital as assets in the development process.From a social perspective, social production is a process (and product) that identifies exploits and further develops relationships within the community on an equitable basis.From a human rights perspective, social production means collective action to satisfy human needs and, thus, realize human rights consistent with prevailing concepts of human dignity and fairness.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_production_of_habitat
LBird wrote:Steve wrote:for example the limit on how many things you can vote on in a day or the limit of how many people would want to vote on some trivial decision far away. the "elite" in this case would be some sort of information scientist or logistics expert who studies questions and solves problems like "how many people should vote on this and how". In effect this does create a class of individuals with technical knowledge, but that does not necessarily make that class of individuals more influential in the decision outcome, except for decisions within their area of specialty. So a specialist might determine the number of people needed to make a quarum and count the attendees at a meeting for example.No, under Democratic Communism, 'specialists' will have to explain themselves to the majority, and then the majority takes the decision, based upon the interests, needs and purposes of the majority. 'Specialists' cannot determine those of the majority. If the 'Specialists' claim not to be able to explain themselves, or that the majority are too ignorant/incapable/uneducated to make decisions for themselves, then the 'Specialist' would be voted out of their position of power within their specialism. After all, they'd've been elected by the majority in the first place.
I think that what I'm saying is yes everyone will have to explain themselves to everyone in theory, but in practice most people don't want to read EVERYTHING and don't have time or interest in reading EVERYTHING. So people self select what they want to vote on and spend their time to vote on or decide on. The emergent result of any system you describe as "explaining everything to everyone" is simply "put everything you do ever, in a google doc with open permissions for comment" and if you write down all your decisions in a google doc with public permission, then technically and in spirit you've achieved the requirement for communisism of everyone in the world gets to vote by adding a comment to the google doc saying "i vote against this". In practice, what evolves over time is people tend to vote only on the topics of interest to themselvess. Each voting decision can be said to have a sphere of people who can vote on it, wich is infinite and includes every person. But there's also a much smaller number or sphere of people who actually decide it's worth their time to voluntarily spend time to participate in the voting process. So is that polycentric or individual centric? or what?Now over time some people have specailized economic sphere of activity and decision making because they ignore all voting topics except those related to potatoe farming in their neighborhood for example. Then they become, for lack of a better word, "specalists" in potatoe farming. Now anyone in the world couild look at their voting record or decisions of this potato farming specialist, and vote on them either retro-actively as a bad thing someone did or prematurely as a bad plan for the potato farm. So there's still complete freedom of individuals to vote on anything or participate in any decision, but some people are specialized. There's probably eventually a need and emergent result of a specialist who's a type of police that just randomly looks at other peoples voting and decision making plans and history to vote on them and check for system failures or voting blocks or other kinds of social problems with the exchange norms. So this specialist cop who looks at other peoples voting and decisions to make sure they are fair is maybe looking at if there's enough people who voted on a big topic like building a dam in order for the decision to be approved and receive resources and confirm all resource holders or people involved in a project were informed and of the vote. See the problem becomes an overwhelming flood of opportunities to vote on things of no importance and finding the voting issues you really care about is how people struggle with a scarcity of good relevant information. So we convert a material scarcity into an attention scarcity problem for society under any system where anyone can vote on anything. The materials get fairly devided as long as the attention gets fairly allocated. In any case, back to our specialist cop who is doing all this random checking? why would he or she voluntarily do that? becasue a lot of people asked him to do that or someone asked her to do that and it's a need of society and it was voted someone should do it and there was some decision making process that resulted in him or her being given the option to spend time as a police person looking over other peoples voting. Someone could do that for free too if they wanted. But most people do this cop function because of promises or commitments they made when voting for more cops. So it's still free association and nobody is required to be a cop or a specialist, but there is some over-arching formulae or process for determining which of all the infinite voting opportunities gets to be on the top of your list for consideration. Then the materialist(not sure who says this counterargumet, please correct if it's not materialist) claim that this is going to turn into capitalism again just like a barter and trade cash currency we have now. And to some extent they're right because people will try to hoard the best voting information, like if there's a vote on a dam project that will hurt potatoe farming in the area, then a potatoe farmer might spend their time voluntarily promoting to others that they should find the dam vote and how to find the vote on the dam and then they should vote against it. So all of decision making turns out to look like a lot of "get out the vote" campaigns by individuals competeting for the attention and time of their friends and neighbors who they are recomending should vote a certain way.So the potatoe farmer now has a motive for hiding the informatin that there is a vote on the dam from some people who like the damn for other reasons such as increased electricity for manufacturing. And then "it's back to politics as usual" is the argument and with it comes power extraction and corporations and all the evil only the resource being exchanged and resource wealth being extracted from individuals is "attention" instead of "materials". and the entire economy material distribution equality and efficiency is determined by the "attentioin" production or distribution sectors of the economy. But I think counterargument that any fresh new start at economics will evolve (or devolve if you want to call it that) into capitalism is fundamentally flawed. It depends on if you see capitalism as an innevetable and unnavoidable form of free exchange or if you see capitalism as an unfortunate aberation in economic evolution. If you believe that any free association and freedom of individual evolves into capitalism as an end form, then yes this argument would hold true. But I believe capitalism is not the end form of society and exchange, so I don't believe it's innevetable that such an economic system managing attention scarcity would necessarily fall victim to the same problems as an economic system managing material scarcity. Several common capitalism problems and practices for monopolizing and exploiting material resources are simply not avaliable as options for exploiting attention resources. you can deprive people of their materials and the means of production, but you can not deprive people as easily of their ability to pay attention. The attempt to extract attention from individuals for a common good such as with a corporation or business is possible, but works in much different ways that seem inherently biased towards individual self government. The playing field in an Attention scarcity based economy is tilted in favor of individuals instead of groups much more than in a capital scarcity based economy.
LBird wrote:Steve wrote:Or so it seems to me. I suspect it's just my interpretation. No response from you is understood by me as indicating this comment was not valued as worth the time reading.No, I'm always willing to explain why I argue the way I do, and openly reveal upon which political ideology my arguments are based.If you disagree with me, it's likely to be because we don't share the same political ideology. Hope this helps.
I reather enjoyed and appreciate your willingness to explain to me like I'm 5 sometimes. You seem to actually understand most of the concepts I put forward and your agreements or disagreements I find enlightening. I see a lot of other posters as not being as good at understanding the concepts in plain engllish and I think a lot of them end up loading their political terminology with a lot of political bias and personalized definitions. I wonder how many of these discussions are definition disputes and framing arguments? Anyway thanks for your time for the reply worth reading.
Steve-SanFrancisco-UserExperienceResearchSpecialist wrote:I reather enjoyed and appreciate your willingness to explain to me like I'm 5 sometimes. You seem to actually understand most of the concepts I put forward and your agreements or disagreements I find enlightening. I see a lot of other posters as not being as good at understanding the concepts in plain engllish and I think a lot of them end up loading their political terminology with a lot of political bias and personalized definitions. I wonder how many of these discussions are definition disputes and framing arguments? Anyway thanks for your time for the reply worth reading.Steve, I wish a few more 'Marxist' writers would 'explain to me like I'm 5' all of the time!In fact, I've already argued that much of what passes as 'academic' thought is simply a way of not explaining. Most academics try to avoid explaining simply because if most workers ever get to understand what academics believe, think and write, they'd fall about laughing. To put it in the vernacular, having been myself an uneducated adult worker who eventually got to talk to academics, most of them are as thick as pigshit! [is that 'plain English' enough?] They are not even Democratic Communists, so they've got a lot further to go than we have in their socio-political development! I've had many more thoughtful, stimulating and happy conversations in pubs than I've had in universities. As a consequence of these proletarian experiences, I think that workers are going to have to set up their own educational structures, with a focus on democracy within them. I had hoped to develop these very initial thoughts by discussing with the SPGB, but from what I can tell here, the SPGB seem to be cheerleaders for the right of bourgeois academics to be 'disinterested elite individuals' who have a 'special educational consciousness' which entitles them, and them alone, to dictate to workers. Of course, this is all hidden under the bourgeois ideological cover of 'Academic Freedom' and 'Free Thought', which 'democratic control and accountability' will destroy.I've had a read of your post, and once again I'll simply say that I'm a Democratic Communist, and so your focus on 'individuals' and your lack of any 'democratic discussion and decision-making' leads me to think we are quite a way apart in our political views and ideological beliefs. Perhaps one key issue with which I'm closer to the SPGB is the issue of 'exchange', which plays a part in your views. I believe in 'free access' Communism, with any uncertainties and difficulties in that concept being cleared up by democratic discussion by the future class conscious revolutionary proletariat.Thanks, too, for your comradely words.
LBird wrote:I've had a read of your post, and once again I'll simply say that I'm a Democratic Communist, and so your focus on 'individuals' and your lack of any 'democratic discussion and decision-making' leads me to think we are quite a way apart in our political views and ideological beliefs. Perhaps one key issue with which I'm closer to the SPGB is the issue of 'exchange', which plays a part in your views. I believe in 'free access' Communism, with any uncertainties and difficulties in that concept being cleared up by democratic discussion by the future class conscious revolutionary proletariat.Thanks, too, for your comradely words.Hmm. well I guess I thought my focus included and required democratic discussion instead of lacking it. Maybe we have a different idea of "democratic discussion". Lets look back at the practical example of a simple model of 100% shared decision making as done by google docs. Google docs can have their privacy settings set to public and when set as a "public" document, anyone in the world can add to, edit, comment, vote or delete any part of the document. If you use this google document and simply write in to the document "I plan on planting potatoes next fall, Anyone want to vote yes or no on my plan", then you've met the requirements for free access and for anyone to vote on it. So to me as soon as even one person opens that google document and adds a comment saying "I agree you should plant potatoes next fall", then it's become a democratic decision. exactly what form of democracy, is undefined and probably up to the person planting the potatoes how to count the votes. Maybe the potatoe farmer weights some people who farm nearby as more influential in the decision than someone in another nation on the other side of the world? maybe the potatoe farmer just wants a minimum of 15 votes and majority of them for any single crop. It's really up to the potatoe farmer what form of government and decision making to use for her or himself. Probably the potatoe farmer gives him or herself a veto option so if most of the people suggest she plant mushrooms in the desert she doesn't have to. Instead of writing "I agree you should plant potatoes next fall", you or I couild write, "I think you should plant corn next fall" and then we have a democratic discussion in addition to the vote for a democratic decision making. There would be uncertainties and difficulties with such as system, such as how do you find out about the url for google doc to vote, which is analogous to the uncertainty of the old school "where do I vote for what should be in the general store" type question. Understand too, that the solution I'm proposing isn't so much a recipe for an outcome. It's a solution designed to formalize and scale the recipe for making decisions employed by a family or group. So I'm not proscribing this as a solution, I'm more suggesting this is the solution that works already in small communist activities like a familiy unit and adding a few mondifications like the google document which allows scaling a vate or exchange agreement or anthing else to function across longer distances where and when trust is a scarce commodity. the google doc and universal decision making isn't essential for the concept at a small scale to work, but it and allowing further specialization of activities. Or in other words. . . I'm arguing about the necessary and emergent properties of any information system where there are only a few requirements or rules and they are: free association, free information, no property, and voting determines action. I think once you get a potentiallyi infinite number of items to vote on from the system then you've got a transition to an attention scarcity economy instead of a material scarcity economy. so how do people in a post comunisit society make decisions? Well, they don't decide things based on resource costs to themselves thats for sure. What they decide to do or what farm product they decide to plant is decided by this information overload condition and the requirements for managing information overload or knowledge scarcity. The problem with everyone voting on everything in practice is the information management problem and there's a solution to that information management problem that emerges naturally in the abscense of strong political or social economic external effects. If you're familiar with the term "nash equilibrium", then consider my arguments a comparison of the nash equilibrium for the systems of material scarcity economy vs a information scarcity economy. (actually, I'm kind of misusing the word "information" scarcity economy. it's actually a "knowledge" scarce economy and an "information" surplus economy if you have the abilityf to vote on everything).
LBird wrote:Young Master Smeet wrote:Communism means from EACH (individual) according to the ability, to EACH (individual) acording to their needs.So, who determines 'ability' and 'needs', YMS?Isolated individuals or social producers?How are these social products made?By ahistoric, asocial personal intuition, or by democratic discussion?
Who is involved in this ..er.. democratic discussion about one's "abilities" and "needs"LBird has scoffed at the suggestion that there are any "limits" to democracy. For example he seems to have rejected even the idea that there will be such a thing as local democracy in a communist society since he sees this as putting a limit on democracy – in this case limiting discussion of local issues to the local populationWhich means, to be quite literal about it, that what LBird is suggesting is that 7 billion plus individuals in global communism are going to be sitting around discussing your, my or LBird’s particular "abilities" and "needs"SERIOUSLY???The more I read the endless tripe that seems to gush from LBird the more convinced I am that whatever communist consciousness he might have possessed has long ago gone through the meat grinder of Leninist ideology and has been reduced to mush It is basic to Marxian communism (to which LBird quite clearly is in many respects diametrically opposed) that the individual in a communist society should be free to chose how to express herself through work, her contribution to society. Of course we are social individuals and dont make our choices in a vacuum and are influenced by others around us but nevertheless ultimately in communism it is we as individuals who must decide what work we want to do. If we are not able as individuals to freely decide on this matter – that is if we are not able to contribute our labour on a genuinely voluntary basis – then our labour is not the result of free association . It is coerced or estranged labour. This is not communism. It is just another form of slavery and I can see why that should appeal to the Leninist streak in LBird who would have us all become cogs in a vast impersonal machine So the freedom to choose is a cornerstone of Marxian communism. It is implicit in that quote of Marx from the German Ideology: For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a shepherd, or a critical critic and must remain so if he does not wish to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, to fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have in mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic. Finally I cannot let LBird get away with this crass comment: Howare these social products made?By ahistoric, asocial personal intuition, or by democratic discussion? Actually democratic discussion doesn’t produce anything – at least not in the economic sense of “goods”. It is human labour aided as the case may be by machinery that does that . Democratic discussion may help to guide us in matters such as what to produce in some cases but certainly not all or even a majority of cases in a communist society unless LBird rejects the communist principle of free access as well as that other communist principle of volunteer labour. Free access means you decide what you want. If others decide for you this is no longe free access but some form of rationing. If that is what LBird wants he should come out and defend this position Democratic discussion certain has a role to play in communist production but it is only a small part of the overall process of social production though you would never think that listening to LBirds nonsensical blather about "democracy without limits". It conjures up a vision of a society in which there are endless rounds of mass meetings but nothing ever gets done.
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