Republic vs democracy vs anarchy

[robbo203]

Capitalist Pig wrote:

 What you advocate sounds nice but it isn't based in reality. You don't explain how people will manage the land and what would be done to prevent the liberties of people from being trampled on, you just repeat how a planned economy will be all great and wonderful so there will be absolutly no problems. You probably have an anarchist view which I disagree with as you know but just stating the concept of a planned economy won't win you an agrument.

 Socialism isnt  yet a reality, I perfectly agree, but you are not surely suggesting here – are you? – that what you call "reality" is something that is eternally fixed or preordained?   Go back a few centuries and some people will be raising the very same objection about capitalism as you do about socialism – that is "not based on reality". I am not suggesting everything will be hunky dory in socialism, that it will be some kind of perfect utopia. Of course there will be problems to overcome. There always will be . The case for socialism is simply that it affords us a much better framework within which to solve these problems. The case for socialism is a pragmatic one I am not at all supppsing that individuals will be transfomed into angels without character defects. When you ask "what would be done to prevent the liberties of people from being trampled on " you seem to implying ths.  You seem to be implying the need for a strong state to exist to prevent our defective human nature from expressing itself,  We are basically all rotten apples – to use your metaphor  – in the end. This is  looking at the question the wrong way round.  You are starting from the individual.  You see the individual as someone with an inherent tendency to dominate others and trample over their liberties.  I am starting from society and the way it is organised.  My argument is that there is no social mechanism inside a socialist society that would allow some individuals to exert social power over others.  If there is then show me what it is.  That is my challenge to you.  Show me how, given a society of free access to goods and services, any one individual or group can bully, blackmail and generally coerce others into doing something against their will.  Common ownership of the means of production dissolves the very basis of political power itself – the state Finally,  I havent mentioned a "planned economy" at all so I am curious as to what you mean by this. All economies without exception involve planning,  Capitaliism is full of plans.  Usually by a planned economy is meant the idea of a single society-wiide plan to cover the entire economy. But I dont advocate such a thing it all.  In fact I am a fierce opponent of the idea and have argued against it repeatedly.. Socialism will necessarily involve a considerable degree of decentralisation.  It will necessarily be to a considerable extent a self regulating or self ordering system of production.   I think you are confusing the outlook of socialists with that of Leninists and their talk of a planned economy.  And by the way – how many anarchists do you know of who endorse such  a thing? I think you will find most if not all anarchists woud oppose it too

[alanjjohnstone]

To be fair, Robbo, CP is correct in the sense that we do seek an industrial production system that is planned, where their exists coordinated networks with rational decisions made in cooperation. Rather than opposing a planned economy, as yu have pointed out in contributions it is the centralised system of command economy, of government ministries laying down quotas and priorities for semi-independent enterprises who are still in competition for resources and labour. I am sure you can explain it more clearly to CP, Robbo. What socialists  oppose is the anarchy of production and the waste of socially unnecessary competition. We do seek a democratic planned world economy and once again we can thank capitalism for putting into place many of the foundations and structures of a supply and distribution chain that we will inherit and, adapt, and apply via various existing and future bodies. This isn't new. Syndicalists and Industrial Unionists have formulated plans of how they will do it, some of which are now obsolete.

[robbo203]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

To be fair, Robbo, CP is correct in the sense that we do seek an industrial production system that is planned, where their exists coordinated networks with rational decisions made in cooperation. Rather than opposing a planned economy, as yu have pointed out in contributions it is the centralised system of command economy, of government ministries laying down quotas and priorities for semi-independent enterprises who are still in competition for resources and labour. I am sure you can explain it more clearly to CP, Robbo. What socialists  oppose is the anarchy of production and the waste of socially unnecessary competition. We do seek a democratic planned world economy and once again we can thank capitalism for putting into place many of the foundations and structures of a supply and distribution chain that we will inherit and, adapt, and apply via various existing and future bodies. This isn't new. Syndicalists and Industrial Unionists have formulated plans of how they will do it, some of which are now obsolete.

 Well the problem is, Alan, that the term "planned economy" has precisely this connotation – of a "centralised system of command economy". That is why I do not use such a term to describe socialism.  In fact, I see it as being completely incompatible with socialism.  It is trying to plan the economy as a whole – that is to say in terms of a single giant plan. It can't be done and even if it could be done, it would be fundamentally at odds with the whole ethos of a socialist society. The issue is not coordination per se but the mode of coordination.  A self regulating economy is a coordinated economy just as much as a hypothetical centrally planned economy.  A self regulating economy is polycentric with numerous nodes or centres making their own plans in response to other plans in a mutally adjusting fashion.  There are multiple plans in other words but the interactions between the plans are not planned in advance .  If they were there would not be multiple plans.  There would only be one single plan. If we reject the idea of a single giant apriori plan for the total pattern of production then it logically follows  that we accept the need for a multiplicity of plans that interact spontaneously in a mutually adjusting fashion.  In other words  we accept that the total patten of output is unplanned – even if everything that is produced has been  planned for in a sense.  It just that the plan involved is one of many plans Because the total or overall pattern of production is not planned it must ipso facto be spontaneously or anarchically arrived at.  This is why I have grave misgvings about the expression "anarchy of production" to which you say socialists  are opposed. it is potentially highly misleading.  Seen in the light of what I said above,  any system of modern production cannot but be "anarchic" – including socialism.  "Anarchy of production" in that sense will and must be every bit as much an aspect of socialism as it is of capitalism. When we talk about the anarchy of capitalist production it is important that we should NOT appear to be attacking this self regulating aspect of capitalism which will also be an aspect of socialism,  Rather it is the economic laws of capitalism that we are alluding to here  that emerge and operate in defiance of human intentionality.  No one, for example, intentionally planned a recession, for example.  It periodically happens as a result of the inner dynamics of capitalism and its law of value Its got nothing to do with the fact that capitalist production is self regulating and not coordinated through a single planning authority. – or that captalism is not a planned economy in that sense

[alanjjohnstone]

I highly recommend this article by a certain Robin Cox  which i recommend to CP as a fuller explanation of your comment.http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1990s/1993/no-1066-june-1993/beyond-capitalismMy point was just we should not crucify a critic unjustly. CP had a point …we do have economic plans in socialism…Yet how these plans are created and then carried out have some similarities to capitalism but also some stark differences. I think we may very well use a global coordinator such as the United Nations WHO, after all they have shown that they can eliminate smallpox and now on the brink of ending polio by a world-wide approach tailored for local and regional circumstances. I'd like CP to understand that socialism isn't an instant panacea and an over-night process  but there will be need for goals and objectives in a similar vein as the Millennium Goals, (now replaced by the Sustainable Goals) were devised and global action taken….planned, so to speak…First, there would have to be urgent action to relieve the worst problems of food shortages, health care and housing which affect billions of people throughout the world.Secondly, longer term action to construct means of production and infrastructures such as transport systems for the supply of permanent housing and durable consumption goods. These could be designed in line with conservation principles, which means they would be made to last for a long time, using materials that where possible could be re-cycled and would require minimum maintenance.Thirdly, with these objectives achieved there could be an eventual fall in production, and society could move into a stable mode. This would achieve a rhythm of daily production in line with daily needs with no significant growth. On this basis, the world community could live in material well being whilst looking after the planet.

[Capitalist Pig]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

CP, i think it has been made quite clear that "government" need not be the present one and that societies around the world have had different forms of government that would be considered more representative of their populations than our own. Your objections to what you take to be anarchist administrations doesn't mean that they could not work in even the most sophisticated and elaborated societies, such as we have around the world.We have responded to your concerns that peoples personal property might be at risk by explaining the distinction between personal possessions and social property. An ex-capitalist will be most likely ermitted to retain his mansion and perhaps his holiday villa but it will be up to himself to maintain it in good order. We have plenty of experience in Europe of impoverished nobility letting their grand homes go into ruins because one person is simply unable to keep it in good repair and have had to go cap in hand to the State ministry for the upkeep and became a de facto care-taker than owner. Society in todays world is more or less run by paid-experts and not the owning class … and it has been since the 19th C when the capitalist no longer could manage his own affairs and begun hiring over-seers and accountants and executives to carry out his wishes. Socialism, when required to make decisions that cannot be taken locally will elect or even randomly appoint administrators to be the spokes-persons of the people and make choices. Democracy isn't that complicated…on the otherhand, CP, disguising class domination under the pretence of democracy does make politics very complicated.Murray Bookchin was an advocate of the New England town-hall assembly style of participatory democracy. America has its tradition of direct democracy that can be revived quite easily and adapted to the computer world.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_municipalismSwitzerland regularly hold referendums of it devolved decentralized cantons.  Rather than an exception its example could be common-place. I think if i began to list the failures and faults of existing "bourgeois democracy" it would be a very long post. 

How will you know that those randomly elected administrators will be compatent enough to run a planned economy though? If literally anyone can be elected to run it then that is obviously a bad idea. Democracy empowers the public but do we know that they are knowledgable enough to decide who will run something as complicated as a planned economy? These things are assumed and I'm saying thats not enough.

[Capitalist Pig]

robbo203 wrote:

Capitalist Pig wrote:

 What you advocate sounds nice but it isn't based in reality. You don't explain how people will manage the land and what would be done to prevent the liberties of people from being trampled on, you just repeat how a planned economy will be all great and wonderful so there will be absolutly no problems. You probably have an anarchist view which I disagree with as you know but just stating the concept of a planned economy won't win you an agrument.

 Socialism isnt  yet a reality, I perfectly agree, but you are not surely suggesting here – are you? – that what you call "reality" is something that is eternally fixed or preordained?   Go back a few centuries and some people will be raising the very same objection about capitalism as you do about socialism – that is "not based on reality". I am not suggesting everything will be hunky dory in socialism, that it will be some kind of perfect utopia. Of course there will be problems to overcome. There always will be . The case for socialism is simply that it affords us a much better framework within which to solve these problems. The case for socialism is a pragmatic one I am not at all supppsing that individuals will be transfomed into angels without character defects. When you ask "what would be done to prevent the liberties of people from being trampled on " you seem to implying ths.  You seem to be implying the need for a strong state to exist to prevent our defective human nature from expressing itself,  We are basically all rotten apples – to use your metaphor  – in the end. This is  looking at the question the wrong way round.  You are starting from the individual.  You see the individual as someone with an inherent tendency to dominate others and trample over their liberties.  I am starting from society and the way it is organised.  My argument is that there is no social mechanism inside a socialist society that would allow some individuals to exert social power over others.  If there is then show me what it is.  That is my challenge to you.  Show me how, given a society of free access to goods and services, any one individual or group can bully, blackmail and generally coerce others into doing something against their will.  Common ownership of the means of production dissolves the very basis of political power itself – the state Finally,  I havent mentioned a "planned economy" at all so I am curious as to what you mean by this. All economies without exception involve planning,  Capitaliism is full of plans.  Usually by a planned economy is meant the idea of a single society-wiide plan to cover the entire economy. But I dont advocate such a thing it all.  In fact I am a fierce opponent of the idea and have argued against it repeatedly.. Socialism will necessarily involve a considerable degree of decentralisation.  It will necessarily be to a considerable extent a self regulating or self ordering system of production.   I think you are confusing the outlook of socialists with that of Leninists and their talk of a planned economy.  And by the way – how many anarchists do you know of who endorse such  a thing? I think you will find most if not all anarchists woud oppose it too

You assume that people are capable of running a planned economy on their own, people are only motivated through materialism, and civil liberties will always be upheld by a complete democracy. Your idealogy only thrives in a perfect world with perfect conditions and perfect people who all share the same collectivist ideas. Reality and ideology are like completly different things, you claim your model is applicable in reality and when problems come up you shield yourself from them saying that it is impossible for it to fail. With the populace being the ones that write and enforce the laws, people will simply pick and choose which laws they want to follow which means no law or order. Your idea is good in concept, but bad in practice.what i mean by a planned economy is a economy based on directly meeting needs and wants instead of through exchange as in a capitalist one.

[Capitalist Pig]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

I highly recommend this article by a certain Robin Cox  which i recommend to CP as a fuller explanation of your comment.http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1990s/1993/no-1066-june-1993/beyond-capitalismMy point was just we should not crucify a critic unjustly. CP had a point …we do have economic plans in socialism…Yet how these plans are created and then carried out have some similarities to capitalism but also some stark differences. I think we may very well use a global coordinator such as the United Nations WHO, after all they have shown that they can eliminate smallpox and now on the brink of ending polio by a world-wide approach tailored for local and regional circumstances. I'd like CP to understand that socialism isn't an instant panacea and an over-night process  but there will be need for goals and objectives in a similar vein as the Millennium Goals, (now replaced by the Sustainable Goals) were devised and global action taken….planned, so to speak…First, there would have to be urgent action to relieve the worst problems of food shortages, health care and housing which affect billions of people throughout the world.Secondly, longer term action to construct means of production and infrastructures such as transport systems for the supply of permanent housing and durable consumption goods. These could be designed in line with conservation principles, which means they would be made to last for a long time, using materials that where possible could be re-cycled and would require minimum maintenance.Thirdly, with these objectives achieved there could be an eventual fall in production, and society could move into a stable mode. This would achieve a rhythm of daily production in line with daily needs with no significant growth. On this basis, the world community could live in material well being whilst looking after the planet.

you guys like to write alot…lol

[alanjjohnstone]

Briefly 

Quote:

How will you know that those randomly elected administrators will be compatent enough to run a planned economy though?

I am sure there will be a system of balances and counter-checks via a process of recall, CP, as they do nowadays in many places.

Quote:

With the populace being the ones that write and enforce the laws, people will simply pick and choose which laws they want to follow which means no law or order.

Just as they do today…laws on the statute books that are simply ignored.http://ijr.com/2014/12/222618-50-state-laws/ 

[robbo203]

Capitalist Pig wrote:

 You assume that people are capable of running a planned economy on their own, people are only motivated through materialism, and civil liberties will always be upheld by a complete democracy. Your idealogy only thrives in a perfect world with perfect conditions and perfect people who all share the same collectivist ideas. Reality and ideology are like completly different things, you claim your model is applicable in reality and when problems come up you shield yourself from them saying that it is impossible for it to fail. With the populace being the ones that write and enforce the laws, people will simply pick and choose which laws they want to follow which means no law or order. Your idea is good in concept, but bad in practice.what i mean by a planned economy is a economy based on directly meeting needs and wants instead of through exchange as in a capitalist one.

 I am not assuming any of the things  you say, CP and I certainly have not suggested that socialism would be a perfect, problem-free society.  Rather my argument hinges on the point – which you have still not addressed –  that there wil be no mechanism inside a socialist society by which a minority could leverage political power over others in a way that might threaten thier "civil liberties". Again I ask you – show me how this could be done when goods and services are available on a completely free access basis .   You talk about "materialism" but this is a very materialist observation I am making! Thank you for explaning what you mean by a "planned economy",  I think the descrition is misleading however for the reasons I stated – that every kind of economy involves planning and that, if you mean by a planned economy specifically a system of centralised society-wide planinng then this will definitely not be what socialism is about.  I think the term that you are searching for is not a planned economy but a "natural economy" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_economy

[Capitalist Pig]

robbo203 wrote:

Capitalist Pig wrote:

 You assume that people are capable of running a planned economy on their own, people are only motivated through materialism, and civil liberties will always be upheld by a complete democracy. Your idealogy only thrives in a perfect world with perfect conditions and perfect people who all share the same collectivist ideas. Reality and ideology are like completly different things, you claim your model is applicable in reality and when problems come up you shield yourself from them saying that it is impossible for it to fail. With the populace being the ones that write and enforce the laws, people will simply pick and choose which laws they want to follow which means no law or order. Your idea is good in concept, but bad in practice.what i mean by a planned economy is a economy based on directly meeting needs and wants instead of through exchange as in a capitalist one.

 I am not assuming any of the things  you say, CP and I certainly have not suggested that socialism would be a perfect, problem-free society.  Rather my argument hinges on the point – which you have still not addressed –  that there wil be no mechanism inside a socialist society by which a minority could leverage political power over others in a way that might threaten thier "civil liberties". Again I ask you – show me how this could be done when goods and services are available on a completely free access basis .   You talk about "materialism" but this is a very materialist observation I am making! Thank you for explaning what you mean by a "planned economy",  I think the descrition is misleading however for the reasons I stated – that every kind of economy involves planning and that, if you mean by a planned economy specifically a system of centralised society-wide planinng then this will definitely not be what socialism is about.  I think the term that you are searching for is not a planned economy but a "natural economy" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_economy

my computer just shut off b4 i could save my f'ing comment i got to start all over…What i meant by a planned economy is an economy based on producing products for use.Under your envisionment of communism there will be no mechanism for a minority to leverage power but what I was trying to say is that communism can not be implemented perfectly as you envision. Democracy is a double edged sword, it lets the majority exurt its will through a popular vote but at the same time represses the will of minorities, which could lead to human rights violations. There needs to be a balance between the power of the state and the people, with one extreme you have totalitarianism and the other you have mob rule.never heard of a natural economy but my guess is that it never even existed lol

[Capitalist Pig]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Briefly 

Quote:

How will you know that those randomly elected administrators will be compatent enough to run a planned economy though?

I am sure there will be a system of balances and counter-checks via a process of recall, CP, as they do nowadays in many places.

Quote:

With the populace being the ones that write and enforce the laws, people will simply pick and choose which laws they want to follow which means no law or order.

Just as they do today…laws on the statute books that are simply ignored.http://ijr.com/2014/12/222618-50-state-laws/ 

yea things are funny like that, like with the federal and state law on pot possesion, some states completely ignore the feds hehe

[alanjjohnstone]

I'm reluctant to intervene in your exchanges with Robbo, CP.  but you are raising some valid points which should be considered.The right of a minority when they are subject to the will of the majority is an issue that has been discussed and debated by the socialist movement for years and various solutions have been raised, the question of the "tyranny of the majority" has not been neglected but the replies are not yet all in. Ideally, following the example of the Occupy Movement, decisions are arrived at by consensus but there was a fatal weakness. Some minorities were able to act without the authority of the majority and misrepresent the views of the majority. When a situation is 49% to 51% i think it is encumbent upon the 51% to take the narrowness of their majority into consideration by a compromise or a concession but reality tells us that some mtters cannot be negotiated in such a way. It is either this way or not at all. Are these disagreements common.I'm not so sure they areBut what about 75% to 25%? Should the 25% thwart the will of three-quarters? And what about the abstainers? In the UK the 1979 Scottish home rule referendum required a "pass" figure of 40% of the electoral roll voting for it. It meant those dead or dying who were still registered for a vote were effectively "no" voters. Was that democratic? The maority of voters went for hoome rule but the magic 40% figure of all eligible to vote was not achieved. The abstainers or don't cares were the winners.Our Party conducts its affairs by a Party individual member poll and a simple majority give the decisions its legitimacy. A majority of even one is sufficient. It really hasn't raised too many problems in practice or application. The general response to defeat is that there is always next year. But perhaps there might have been a missed opportunity but in the long term, it didn't have a lasting detrimental effect, It is like good luck and bad luck…over time these balance out. The point is that the very mechanism of decision-making we have today is a product of the social system we live under. The market economy, with its built-in contradictions and conflicting interests, has massively complicated the process of decision-making itself. It has moved it further and further from the ambit of "ordinary people" as the system itself has become more and more globalised. I'll leave Robbo to answer more fully. 

[alanjjohnstone]

Quote:

things are funny like that, like with the federal and state law on pot possesion, some states completely ignore the feds

Also importantly the so-called sanctuary cities in regards to enforcement of immigration laws and undocumented migrants

[robbo203]

Capitalist Pig wrote:

 my computer just shut off b4 i could save my f'ing comment i got to start all over…What i meant by a planned economy is an economy based on producing products for use.Under your envisionment of communism there will be no mechanism for a minority to leverage power but what I was trying to say is that communism can not be implemented perfectly as you envision. Democracy is a double edged sword, it lets the majority exurt its will through a popular vote but at the same time represses the will of minorities, which could lead to human rights violations. There needs to be a balance between the power of the state and the people, with one extreme you have totalitarianism and the other you have mob rule.never heard of a natural economy but my guess is that it never even existed lol

 I understand what you are saying but be aware that the concept of a "planned economy" has other connotations and is usually associated with  a command economy model of state capitalisn such as existed in the Soviet Union which we socialists do not support in any way.  A "natural economy" is essentially a non-exchange or non-monetised  economy and in that sense has certainly existed.  Peasant subsistence production is an example of this. As I and others here have tried to explain the concept of democracy in socialism/communusm that  we put forward is something much more nuanced than you are attempting to portray.  For a start, we do not envisage the continuation of the state in communism,  The state is a particular kind of institution that can only exist in a class based society.  In communism there are no classes – because the means of production are held in common – and therefore there can be no state. There will be democracy in communism, however,  as a  natural extension of common ownership but democracy will be a multi-faceted and multi-level phenomenon, operating at different scales of social organisation – local regional and even global.  A further point is that the scope of democratic decisionmaking, though it will be significantly wider than is the case today , will have limits and will need to have limits.  It has to be counter balanced by considerations that bear upon the freedom of the individual or indeed  the minorities you speak of (meaning democracy will tend to take a consensual. form based on compromise rather than an adversarial form)  In fact, I have always argued that the great bulk of decisions in a communist society – if we are to be quite literal about this – will not be democratically-based but individually-based,  For instance it would be up to you as an individual to decide what you wish to consume or what work you wish to contribute.  This is implicit in the communist slogan "from each according to their abilities to each according to their needs." Where democracy comes intio the picture is when you have decisions that need to be made that have unavoidable collective or joint impacts.  It is quite right that the people who are going to be significantly affected by a decision  should have a say in it.   The only alternative to that is to have decisions imposed on you from above and I am sure you wouldnt agree with that! So certainly democracy has a very important role to play in a future socialist or communist society but it is not quite the role you seem to imagine

[John Pozzi]

Hi Eugene, Yes!Take it to the next level via grb.net and be an Earth shareholder.  

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