Would the police force exist in a Socialist world?
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SP,in socialism, people who refuse to comply with health and safety policies will be removed from workplaces. People who disrupt theatre performances will be kicked out. There wouldn't be a lot of time for empathy, and discussion with someone putting their own or their colleagues' lives in danger. Yes, cutting the amount of time we work so we have more time to build alliances, to discuss and encourage will help in the longer term; and removing the existential threat of the loss of means of subsistence means people may well be more willing to comply (or have less incentive to flout rules). But, as William Morris said, Peter sober needs protecting from Peter drunk.
Young Master Sweet, I one hundred percent agree with you there. We need to create a society whereby the overwhelming majority are protected from a few extremely dangerous individuals.Your comment also brings us back to the root topic, and that being that, if a police service did exist in a socialist society, then they would be there to serve the people and act in the interests of the people rather than repress the people because, under a socialist society, everyone and everything will act in the interests of the people due to the fact we will have common ownership and real democracy.
YMS, I do not think anyone, least of all SP would disagree with you, that in a Socialist society, we would not have anarchy! Of course there would be rules and regulations, if for no other reason than to keep us safe. What I think you, for whatever reason, overlook, is that as well as having "rules", as a basis for a sane society, we would also have that society based on "human values", values such as, "understanding, tolerance, patience, co operation, openness, even empathy and compassion". If these values were not considered or, moreover, placed at the "core" of the new society, how could it, in any meaningful sense, be called a "Social" ist society? Without the core values that differentiate us from the rest of the animal kingdom!By the way YMS, I do not see any link whatsoever, between your post and that of SP. Steve.
I don't think I overlooked "values"; what I stated was a materialist approach which says that values don't just drop down out of the sky, but are a function of the time and effort we can afford to put into them. Thus, bizarrely, our first response to the question of crime is to discuss cutting the working week (coupled with meeting everyone's material needs). Once freed from the necessity of wage-slavery and poverty, we can find out what humans are really like. If we're robbing, murdering cads, that's what we are, and we'll have to relate accordingly.
YMS- I think if we were robbing, murderous cads we wouldn't have bought about socialism in the first place. In spite of all the barriers which are put between us, race, religion, colour, white collar, blue collar etc etc we remain a remarkably cooperative species. Remove the barriers between us and I expect the cooperation to be even better. A police service may exist to talk us out of jumping off a bridge when a personal relationship goes wrong, but when posessions become common ownership the police service may well have little to do. A bit like a fire service, efficient and brave when they have to put out a fire but more effective when they prevent fires and can sit in the station and play cards or chess.
Nice one YMS. To answer your position as fully as is needed, would require me mentioning a certain issue. An issue I think should and could be made to reflect values I see as vital to socialism. But if I do that I could find my post deleted and possibly even suspended from the forum for "off topic".We hear similar excuses for todays "austerity" for the majority. Only the politicians are talking about the lack of financial resources. Not time and effort.Of course a socialist society would have no financial constraints, no concern for the profits of a few. Our concern would be meeting needs as YMS points out. However to do so in only a mechanical way, would end up with a system like we so often see in science fiction when portraying a purely science based, mechanical future society.Of equal importance, to fulfilling human material need, are the values and relationships we as humans deliberately foster with one another. So often in the direst situations positive human values shine through. Those situations do not see people calculating what emotions or values can be afforded, given the material resources and time available. As a species we find a way to foster positive relationships, to stay human.It is of the utmost importance to make a future socialist society function with specific values from the start and so the organisation that advocates socialism must start working on those values long before socialism is established. To push these to the sidelines, by saying they will receive the attention we have the time for, is missing the point entirely. We need to make that time for such an important issue.It is clear that there are two types of socialists in the WSM. Those who have a mechanical outlook and those who have a human outlook.
It's not mechanical versus values, but materialism versus utopianism. The values of society will be those that it is capable of in its material conditions. As one of our speakers is fond of saying, at the moment we're so busy taking care of business, we don't have time to take care of ourselves: when we have a society run in the interest of all human beings (with the human being at its centre) we will have the capacity to deal with one another in depth.I agree that the means must be commensurate with the ends.
I live in Capitalism "now" and even "now", I attempt to treat people in a way I would imagine would exist within a Socialist society. When I see news reports of starvation and famine, I look at them in a way they would be approached in a society of common ownership! When I hear the bigotted talk of immigrants coming into "their" country, for a better life, I ask these people, what would you do if you were in their situation? would you not try the same, for you and your family? Most tellingly, most refuse to answer! Even in their ignorant bigotry, they see to the heart of the matter. Apart from the fact that, most of them own none of "their" supposed country, or so little as to make no difference.Finally, one can do no other than agree with SP, when he states their are those who have a Mechanistic outlook to Socialism and those who have a human outlook to Socialism and I would add, to being a Socialist. The pages of this forum being proof positive of this.It is "acting" like human beings now, not just in a future Socialist society, that will shape that society. As Jon Brown states, even with all the barriers thrown up by Capitalism, we are a remarkably cooperative species, remove these barriers! what kind of blossoming of humanity could we envisage? Certainly a blossoming that would make "police" redundant in all the cponnotations with which they exist in Capitalism!Steve.
It's obviously true that we can't second guess what attitudes a socialist community would take on this issue at any future time or in any particular circumstances. Personally, though, I hope, that they wouldn't be motivated to institute a dealth penalty or any kind of retributive response to anti-social behaviour. I'm just thinking about what kind of institutions would be needed to back that up and I can't say that they would appear very social to me. As far as I can tell there are four reasons for acting against someone who steps out of line socially. You can take your revenge on them; you can place some limitation on them to protect the rest of society from a repetition of their anti-social behaviour; you can make an example of them to deter others from behaving in in a similar way; or you can attempt to 'rehabilitate them by making them understand the consequences of their behaviour. Capital punishment as a form of deterrence or retribution seem a particularly unsocial act to me. Deterrence denies the social identity of a person since they are merely being used as an object to enforce acceptable behaviour in others. Retribution is not much better. It's a comprehensible desire but its main aim is to make those affected feel better. The death penalty in particular seems an excessive way to do this, and in any case, there are far better ways of dealing with rage and anger (and therefore fear) than killing someone. That leaves the two genuinely social motivations of 'rehabilitation' and limitation. Clearly the death penalty is not going to rehabilitate anyone, and though it will effectively limit them from any future anti-social acts, once again it seems excessive. I would presume in a community of freely associating human beings, the aim would be to deal with people who engage in antisocial behaviour by encouraging them wherever possible to behave socially, and, if necessary to protect society in future by placing some limitation on their ability to repeat the behaviour. The minimum effective limitation would be all that was required.I don't like speculating about whether institutions common in capitalism would exist within socialism. I find that confusing.. I think it's probably better to start by asking what would the needs of socialist society be and work outwards from there. Even if I thought that socialist society would need some established coercive force to deal with antisocial behavour, I can't imagine it would be anything like a poorly unacountable, full-time, legally backed 'police force' like we have at present. 'Police force' would therefore be the wrong phrase.
Young Master Smeet wrote:It's not mechanical versus values, but materialism versus utopianism. The values of society will be those that it is capable of in its material conditions.Not sure who mentioned utopia, I certainly do not see a future socialist society as a perfect, flawless society. But as Steve Colborn, Jon Brown and myself have said, even within capitalism people show a remarkable ability to demonstrate positive values among the cruelest environments. Proving values are probably more important, resilient and motivating than the acquisition of material well being. In fact without the values I have already outlined we would not be socialists. We would be Tory, social Darwinists. So YMS, if a societies values are solely determined by it's material conditions, and only within socialism will we be able to figure them out, then why can so much good be found among so much horror in todays capitalism? Surely such a competitive, aggressive, destructive, bigoted system would produce nothing more than the worst kind of humans and we would not be advocating a better society here on this forum?
Jon Brown wrote:A bit like a fire service, efficient and brave when they have to put out a fire but more effective when they prevent fires and can sit in the station and play cards or chess.I thinks this demonstrates nicely how values would be put into practice in a socialist society in dealing with community problems. Prevention first and foremost. How do we prevent incidents from reoccurring? We avail ourselves of the issue, investigate and seek to get to the cause of the problem.It is obvious that in any of todays judicial systems, there is not much emphasis on seeking to find out why people do the things they do. All modern judiciary systems want, is to prove guilt or innocence, as quickly and as cheaply as possible. The outcome so often depends on the size of ones bank balance. It seeks to learn nothing of how to prevent the monotonous reoccurring of the same crimes over and over again.Without knowledge, we can not learn. If we do not learn, we can not change.Does anyone seriously expect a socialist society to lock rule breakers up indefinitely, throw away the key and ignore the opportunity to learn how to avoid the same things happening again and again? Most people would think that is an utterly ridiculous approach. We may find that some people are natural born criminals, but without attempts to find out what went wrong and if a person could be rehabilitated, we condemn the future to the same mistakes.I don't think socialists would choose such a path, or would they?
I'm with YMS on this one. I don't think he said anything about Utopia, SP. He spoke about 'utopianism' which is not the same thing. I assume he was referring to a bunch of theories that include the idea that we have to become better people before we can effectively introduce socialism. You're right. We can be remarkably co-operative within capitalism and to my mind that's not particularly surprising. To function at all, capitalism requires a very high degree of co-operation, just as it requires a high degree of competition. But just as we can behave co-operatively in capitalism though, we can also behave in very anti-social, self-centred and competitive ways. From my perspective, socialist theory scores on this point because to achieve socialism it doesn't demand everyone to become better, kinder, more thoughtful and more co-operative first. In a hugely competitive and dog-eat-dog society like capitalism that would sound like a tall order. You might as well go out and tell everyone to 'love thy neighbour as thyself.' All socialism requires is a recognition of material class interest. I agree with you, though, in one sense, because as a socialist movement arises from people who have recognised that they have a common interest in overturning capitalism, they may well begin to acquire a more developed collective consciousness in which co-operative behaviour is reinforced. And in those circumstances more co-operative values are likely to arise in the prelude to socialist wresting control from the capitalist class. But a large scale refocusing of social values in a single direction is only likely to occur if there are shifts in our material conditions or relationships first. Individuals may have many different motives for wanting socialism and many different theories about why they want it or what it will look like once it arrives, but people are only likely to coalesce into a large scale movement if the material conditions arise to focus it in that direction. So, I disagree that you can contrast materialist socialism, (or more perjoratively 'mechanical' socialism) with 'values''. The two are both expressions of our relationship with our environment. But values arise primarily as a consequence of material conditions and only secondarily as a cause of them. It is utopian, I think, to hold to a set of values and then propose a society that is built on them. That might be attractive to the imagination of individuals who hold those values and that vision, but it won't make a mass movement.
Starting from values and ideas is the utopian approach (and a very dangerous one, I might add). Starting from the world as it is is the materialist approach. Yes, even now there are signs of human empathy, solidarity and the need to help one another, but for every one person, say, who gives to a beggar, there are a thousand who simply don't. For every one person who might shout at a group of kids playing silly buggers, there are many too frightened, or too busy, or determined it's not their business.Indeed, capitalism relies on bonds of human solidarity as an externality it can slough its costs off onto, and many of those acts of kindness are a necessity to simply live.Like I said, the people who live now, with their attitudes, temprements and ideas are the ones who will exist in socialism, not some abstract 'pure' new people, so if the capacity doesn't exist in the here and now it won't happen at all.But, take the example of parents. Parents who are holding down jobs all day, and come home tired don't have the same time and energy to play with their kids and give them attention as someone with a bit more free time. With the best will in the world, no no less love, the former is more likely to snap and appear to be an ogre of a parent compared with the latter.
YMS and Hudd955Rehabilitation, protection for the community, retaliation, revenge, all have a basis in a human value system. So too does socialism, material or utopian.Did Karl Marx suddenly one day think, "I know, I think I will formulate a critical analysis of the current economic system, just for a laugh." I wonder if he was at all motivated by the industrial scale misery he saw on a daily basis, as a result of capitalism? I expect he sought to improve socialism, make it a stronger more robust ideology that could be a realistic basis for positive revolutionary change.I am no utopian, my values are not separate inventions and certainly not idealistic. My values are taken from my environment and experiences. Quite a few negative ones, but overwhelmingly positive ones. But as with most others the negative experiences feel heavier.I ask everyone who is taking part in this debate to come forward and state their values. I expect the majority would express values that are at odds with the ideology of capitalism. Through my experiences within the party, I would put money on a list that is similar to mine, rather than say, a Cameron, Thatcher or Blair.With that in mind, it is not unreasonable to expect a socialist society to start off with a given set of values that are at the opposite end of the scale to that of capitalism. The two ideologies are opposites, are they not?Where is the problem?
"I ask everyone who is taking part in this debate to come forward and state their values."I'm for the right to be lazy and the right to be greedy.http://libcom.org/library/right-be-greedy-theses-practical-necessity-demanding-everythinghttp://www.marxists.org/archive/lafargue/1883/lazy/
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