Radical change, along “green” and “spiritual” lines

[stuartw2112]

Thank you Alan – you are spot on, that's exactly what I've been getting at. That's the "spiritual" angle (if you want to call it that, though you'll only put Adam off listening).On the material plane, perhaps I might switch to Graeberian terms to get a more sympathetic hearing. All socieities have things that they organise on the basis of hierarchy and tradition, things they organise communistically (from each according to ability, to each according to need), things the organise on the basis of equality and exchange. I'm sceptical that modern industrial society can be organised on communist lines, or that it would be desirable if it could be. But unless you're a "totalitarian, all at once" type, this doesn't affect ones political activity as a socialist/anarchist/libertarian all that much. You just push for progressive change in any area and any small way you can.

[robbo203]

stuartw2112 wrote:

 I'm sceptical that modern industrial society can be organised on communist lines, or that it would be desirable if it could be. 

 Perhaps,  Stuart, you ought to consider  the possibility that what is meant  by society being "organised on communist lines" is something much more flexible, elaborate and altogether richer in organisational terms than you might have allowed for. I have a sneaking suspicion that what lies behind your whole argument  is the idea a communist society  would be one that would be highly centralised,  where all decisions, certainly those of any import, would be effected by some kind of single  global planning centre.  This is certainly the conception of communism/socialism that is advanced by the anarcho-capitalists and you have admitted to having been influenced by their argument.  Their argument boils down to saying that modern industrial societies are just far too complex to be organised in this centralised "communistic" fashion whereby society as a whole speaks with one mind and one voice in respect of the the literally billions of economic  decisions that have to be made on a daily basis.  Calculation in kind , they say,  is feasible only within small scale units – like the family household –  but for anything larger than that  you need the objective metric of market prices to guide the allocation of resources.  The greater the scope you allow for the interplay of market forces, the great the probability of arriving at an optimal allocation outcome. Even the (state capitalist) Soviet Union which of course  never dispensed with the market relation, was obliged to bend to this truth as its economic base became progressively  more diversified and developed. Hence Perestroika and ultimately the collapse of the Soviet Union itself. However this whole argument or train of thought is a bogus one, from beginning to end.  I have been battling for years against what I see as a gross misconception of what a communist or socialist society is about which I think, with all respect, surfaces in your own arguments.  I would maintain that socialism would necessarily be to a very large extent a decentralised system of production in the literal sense and  that the coordination of productive activities would be effected very largely though a feedback mechanism – a self regulating system of stock control. In my exchanges with various Leftists on others forums I have been accused of advancing a sort of marketised version of communism.  This is totally to misunderstand the point.  There is absolutely nothing in the way of quid pro quo market exchanges within this schema. A spontaneously ordered economy –  that is to say, one in which the overall pattern of production is not centrally planned but arrived at spontaneously – does not depend on the market at all.  On the contrary, the market depends utterly on precisely that feedback mechanism I have pointed to above – a self regulating system of stock control.  Try to imagine how, say, a modern supermarket in a capitalist economy could operate without this and without physical calculation in kind (literally counting how many tins of baked beans you've got left on the shelf and how many more you need to order).  It can't.  Capitalism would not last a single day if it could not fall back on these kinds procedures which do not require a market at all in order to be implemented Any modern large scale society must necessarily be a spontaneously ordered one in this technical sense – that is to say, it cannot be operated from some mythical single centre but instead must involve the application of some kind of feedback mechanism.  Market capitalism is but one example of a spontaneously ordered economy .  The fatal error of the anarcho capitalists is to assume that market prices are the precondition and capture the very essence, of  such an economy.  That might well be the same error you have fallen into Stuart judging by your comments although I  am not entirely sure of this at this point in time.

[stuartw2112]

Hi Robin,Yes indeed, this is exactly the "error" I've fallen into, though obviously I don't share your judgement of the arguments! I accept the argument that, with the best will in the world, any attempt to seize state power and implement full communism will see the economy lunge disastrously down a Bolshevik type road. You obviously cannot object to the possibility of this in principle, for it's precisely analagous what you say happens to well-meaning types who take over capitalist governments.There are dangers lurking in the whole Marxian project: The first is that modern industrial society can be or should be subject to conscious control and planning, and that this will give better results than the spontaneous order created by the market. For me, this danger is not in the least averted by someone assuring us that the planning will be democratic, or that the centralising impetus will be checked by all kinds of decentralising good intentions. The centralising logic is inherent in the whole argument and intent. The second is that Marxists are thoroughly opposed to creating blueprints for the future. But neverthess, they are intent on taking state power in order to usher in the future society. This means that, when Marxists take power, they have absolutely no idea what they are supposed to do with it. But they have power, they have an idea that they are in the right and God (sorry, History) is on their side, that they must keep their enemies in check and start planning the economy so it works for the benefit of everyone. A chilling prospect. In other words, I now accept totally that Stalinism is a warning to all socialists, even those who strenuously reject Stalinism and are jolly nice chaps.These are not original arguments, obviously, but they strike me as convincing. Convincing as they are, they are not to me depressing. It doesn't stop me being a libertarian socialist. On the contrary, it frees one from unrealistic hopes and expectations and makes one sensitive to the dangers in authoritarianism of all kinds (including the authoritarianism of those who are damn sure they've got it all sussed out).

[Young Master Smeet]

Stuart,the full plan has already been published:http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/In fact, it's only one small fraction:

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Article 22.Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.Article 25.(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

We have the method to realise this in charities, and trade unions and other organisations.  At the firm level, each organisation need only set out its objects and how they relate to realising that plan, and the local key performance areas, in an iterative process down to the team level: it doesn't necessitate central control.For instance, article 25 had (finally) been recognised as a right to access to clean water, what is needful is that our organisations are freed to up pursue these aims without the distortion of private profit.

[stuartw2112]

To take your argument at its word, then, there's no need for a Marxist party presumably. All we need to do is get investors to accept massive losses instead of profits? (Not as laughable as it sounds since all the billionaires are giving their money away, setting up charities and begging governments to tax them more.)

[alanjjohnstone]

One argument i often hear is that we may, in fact, possess the material conditions for a society of abundance and have the administrative structures to implement free access but there is a psychological gap…the phrase of Marx in Gotha which is highlighted and emphasised by the Leninist and Trotskyist parties…So they say we will need a transitional society that i think Lenin estimated could be as long as 500 years. 

Quote:

What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges.

my emphasis I think Stuart has said in the past that the importance is of a "spiritual" transformation of individuals and this is why he still lays emphasis on the educational and ideological and democratic strategy of the SPGB but i think he does not see much evidence of that necessary change happening and so postpones socialism to a far off future.So in the meantime instead of demanding socialism as an immediate objective he is reliant upon doing the best we possibly can within the conditions of today that we all face…thus a committment to gradualism and reformism.The Buddhist middle road.Maybe it is not changing political attitudes taking place with Stuart but a "religious" transcendence …Until workers individually rise to another "spiritual' plane, then socialism is utopian and unrealisable. Not too different from our own case for the need of acquiring class and socialist consciousness. I hazard a guess Nove and Steele and Mises have little to do with this odyssy and proving them wrong isn't really an issue ….It is a question of not only minds but the hearts of the workers that we have to also change. Workers require a Damascene conversion moment and it is hard to see when and where it will come particularly as a class movement …so seek personal peace and be content with that simple one step at a time along the road rather than being obssessed with the destination.  Please, Stuart shoot me down if i have interpreted you wrongly. I probably have and most likely simplified a complex and conmplicated view of the world you now have. I am prone to making wrong assumptions on little evidence. Sometimes i even substitute my own thoughts for other peoples.One problem we face is terminology and words and how they are seen to mean…"The terms anarchist, socialist, communist should be so "mixed" together, that no muddlehead could tell which is which. Language serves not only the purpose of distinguishing things but also of uniting them – for it is dialectic."I don't know if you read it…Larry Gambones Cosmic Dialectics trying to explain Dietzgen's view of the world.

Quote:

The socialist materialist position, as expressed by Dietzgen is that: "We regard… forces, like heat, gravitation and all which is audible, visible and tangible, as a form or species, as a piece or product of the general force, which is identical with the omnipresent, eternal and indestructible cosmic matter." … “being a part of the cosmos, the human mind is cosmic, partakes of the eternal and infinite nature of the cosmos, the same as every substance and force.” 

http://vcmtalk.com/jospeh_dietzgen_page

[Young Master Smeet]

hmmm, they may accept the losses with more grace if they don't have an army to call upon, and the state machine is busy being converted to helping co-ordinate meeting those urgent needs.Just to take an example, I have been involved in a society that has a Royal Charter, and they had to apply to the privy council to alter it (a formality, largely, but still).  It wouldn't be unreasonable for the democratic population to have some say on the charters of firms, and their objects and declarations of principles…Just because we don't go to Fourier-esque levels of description, doesn't mean that we don't have som idea of how socialism could work, especially as so much is already happening within capitalism that we can use for our ends.

[stuartw2112]

By the way, when I said "all the billionaires", I obviously meant "three or four billionaires", but you see the point!Yes, Alan, I think you have me roughly right. Nove, for example, says he has absolutely no problem accepting the case for full communism if we accept 1. abundance and 2. the existence of "Socialist New Men", who are prepared to act as angels and not as human beings. (I'm putting my own spin on it and from memory, but I think this is roughly right.) So, I agree with him. Abundance, literally speaking, is a nonsense. Only makes sense spiritually. The development of Socialist New Men, too, are a hopeless dream within a materialistic/realist/cynical/hardheaded worldview. Only makes sense religiously.So, yes, Socialism is completely impossible. Long live socialism!(PS Love Dietzgen's materialist cosmicness. It's more or less exactly what Buddhism says as far as I can see.)

[alanjjohnstone]

I think my answer to the need for change in people for socialism to succeed …"the socialist woman and man" is that it isn't merely acquiring consciousness from ideas provided via socialist parties but as German Ideology put it. 

Quote:

Both for the production on a mass scale of this communist consciousness, and for the success of the cause itself, the alteration of men on a mass scale is, necessary, an alteration which can only take place in a practical movement, a revolution; this revolution is necessary, therefore, not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the shit of ages and become fitted to found society anew.

I think we understand this revolutionary change in attitudes in a variety of forms that we have experienced even today…When there is a natural disaster and people come together to rescue and rebuild, frequently without the aid and assistance of the State. It is no surprise that the first government intervention in New Orleans were armed National Guard to preserve law and order…aka private property…not bulldozers and engineers and medics… yet without orders or commands volunteers began the rescues.   Again, perversely, even in war, we have that "wartime" spirit of camaraderie and cooperation..the London blitz and all that(i have read it was over-exaggerated, though). Didn't they say that the trenches of World War One broke much of the class lines? Whole screeds on the positive sociological effects of war is recorded.  Our ideas and views and opinions undergo a revolutionary evolution and our behaviours and actions reflect that. Again sexual and womens liberation had its roots in the two wars.  I think a lot of people also discuss Marx's "realm of freedom" that can only emerge with the end of "realm of necessity"…To paraphrase, doesn't he mean only when we have abundance (or at least escaped from the fear of scarcity can people be truly free. And it will be via a free association of producers. Somebody more erudite on Marxology can explain it all to me.

[stuartw2112]

I think you're right Alan that Marx had a much more sensitive and profound understanding of all these issues than many of his followers did. His poin after all was that the point of religion was to realise it, not abolish it.

[stuartw2112]

Or abolish it by realising it, perhaps better to say 

[robbo203]

Hi Stuart 

stuartw2112 wrote:

Yes indeed, this is exactly the "error" I've fallen into, though obviously I don't share your judgement of the arguments! I accept the argument that, with the best will in the world, any attempt to seize state power and implement full communism will see the economy lunge disastrously down a Bolshevik type road. You obviously cannot object to the possibility of this in principle, for it's precisely analagous what you say happens to well-meaning types who take over capitalist governments. 

 I don't accept this argument at all and I find it quite difficult to imagine how you yourself, given your acquaintance with the  SPGB, could come up with such a preposterous idea.  I mean this is almost a kind of stereotypical "Colonel Blimp" knee jerk response to the proposal of a genuine class conscious – with the emphasis on conscious – socialist revolution:  "Damn Bolshies! They'll bring ruin to the economy!" Does it not occur to you that we are not talking at all about  a state capitalist minority revolution in a relatively backward peasant based  economy?

stuartw2112 wrote:

There are dangers lurking in the whole Marxian project: The first is that modern industrial society can be or should be subject to conscious control and planning, and that this will give better results than the spontaneous order created by the market. For me, this danger is not in the least averted by someone assuring us that the planning will be democratic, or that the centralising impetus will be checked by all kinds of decentralising good intentions. The centralising logic is inherent in the whole argument and intent. 

I think with respect you are treating this as a dogma in the same way as the anarchocaps cling to the conviction that socialism must necessarily be a centrally planned economy, they simply cannto handle the idea that things might be different.  There is no "must" about it.  Where did you get the idea  that the "centralising logic is inherent in the whole argument and intent"  Who said so and why should we take them at their word. Did you not read at all my argument about the need for a feedback mechanism?  I reject your claim about the spontaneous order "created" by the market. I don't think even the anarcho caps make such a claim.  They would argue to the contrary that it is the spontaneous order that creates or necessitates the market .  They are dead wrong – as are you. The market is only a particular instantiation of a spontaneous order.  There are other ways in which spontaneous order can manifest itself outside of the market. As I explained, a self regulating system of stock control using calculation in kind is one such example.  In fact capitalism can only exist and function thanks to these kinds of mechanisms that precisely a communist society would make use of

stuartw2112 wrote:

The second is that Marxists are thoroughly opposed to creating blueprints for the future. But nevertheless, they are intent on taking state power in order to usher in the future society. This means that, when Marxists take power, they have absolutely no idea what they are supposed to do with it. But they have power, they have an idea that they are in the right and God (sorry, History) is on their side, that they must keep their enemies in check and start planning the economy so it works for the benefit of everyone. A chilling prospect. In other words, I now accept totally that Stalinism is a warning to all socialists, even those who strenuously reject Stalinism and are jolly nice chaps.

 This is a ridiculous argument Stuart.  You seem to have completely lost sight of the fact that it is absolutely indispensable to an authentic  socialist revolution that it presupposes people in their millions have a pretty good idea of what they want to do having captured state power.  You aare ddressing this whole argument as if we were Leninists wanting to lead the workers to socialism without the workers having to want and understand socialism in the first place 

stuartw2112 wrote:

These are not original arguments, obviously, but they strike me as convincing. Convincing as they are, they are not to me depressing. It doesn't stop me being a libertarian socialist. On the contrary, it frees one from unrealistic hopes and expectations and makes one sensitive to the dangers in authoritarianism of all kinds (including the authoritarianism of those who are damn sure they've got it all sussed out).

 Capitalism in all its guises – including the Stalinist model you invoke as some kind of warning to socialists which we should take heed of – is authoritarian by nature.  But you offer no way out of capitalism and indeed dismiss the only conceivable way way out as "impossible".  Draw your own conclusions, Stuart

[Young Master Smeet]

An article I never get tired referring to:https://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/marx/works/1844/10/15.htmEngels in his discussion of intentional communities discusses very clearly how he understands socialism to be (pace the myth that he and Marx never discussed socialism itself).

Quote:

When one talks to people about socialism or communism, one very frequently finds that they entirely agree with one regarding the substance of the matter and declare communism to be a very fine thing; “but”, they then say, “it is impossible ever to put such things into practice in real life”. One encounters this objection so frequently that it seems to the writer both useful and necessary to reply to it with a few facts which are still very little known in Germany and which completely and utterly dispose of this objection. For communism, social existence and activity based on community of goods, is not only possible but has actually already been realised in many communities in America and in one place in England, with the greatest success, as we shall see.

Quote:

We see then that community of goods is by no means an impossibility but that on the contrary all these experiments have been entirely successful. We also see that the people who are living communally live better with less work, have more leisure for the development of their minds, and that they are better, more moral people than their neighbours who have retained private property. And all this has already been acknowledged by the Americans, British, French and Belgian ‘ s and by a large number of Germans. In every country there are a number of people who are busy spreading the ideal and have already taken up the communal cause.

[stuartw2112]

Some wags in the SPGB, when I was a member, used to dub "Socialist As A Practical Alternative", one of the party's pamphlets, as "Socialism: Practically The Same As Capitalism". I'm reminded of that gag now. You are asking us to believe that the global production line could be taken over, and that instead of using the current system of markets and states to coordinate it all, we'll put in place a better system that will work just as well if not better. So, all those people who can't currently afford an iPhone can have one, and all those people going to be bed hungry tonight can have steak and chips tomorrow. As in everything in economics, though, there's a trade off. Because after you've wolfed down your steak and chips, you'll be getting a bleep from somewhere telling you that the mine you work in is going to need to produce an extra few million tonnes of iron ore this year because of the soaring demand for cars in Africa. So you've got to put your knife and fork down and rush off to put in some overtime. With no incentive to do that apart from your fellow feeling for your African comrades, who you've never seen or met and never will do. And with no command structure to force you if you feel like a lie in instead, perhaps to sleep off all that meat. But never mind, you'll just do it because you're an angel, because you 'understand and want' socialism, and after all, the steak warehouse is open 24/7, so it's swings and roundabouts.No doubt this betrays the fact that I've never ever understood the SPGB case at all, that my argument is, as Robin likes to remind me, "preposterous", "ridiculous", etc, etc. But has it never occured to Robin that millions and millions of people, all of whom have some understanding of and desire for socialism, might differ with him, or with the "non-market market" he has created, on the desirability of those million tonnes? Clearly not, since this is the "only conceivable" way out of capitalism, and Robin has already worked out that such preposterous, ridiculous problems just won't arise because, well, because they're silly, dammit, and I won't have any silliness spoiling my lovely dreams of the future.I'm more sceptical. But not depressed, because, contrary to Robin's confidence, other ideas are absolutely "conceivable". And doable.

[stuartw2112]

Re Engels, yes, but no one is denying that communism in some form is possible and desirable. The argument is only that it is not possible to organise global modern industrial society entirely on that basis.

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