LBird
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robbo203 wrote: “…I have been vociferously supporting the right of the individual…“. [my bold]
Indeed, you have, robbo.
That’s what I’ve always accused you of doing.
Whereas, I have been vociferously supporting the right of social individuals.
Which, politically, equates to democracy.
You’re a Liberal, defending the rights of ‘the individual’, to ignore the rights of the productive collective of which you are inescapably a part.
I’m a Democratic Communist, defending the rights of the social producers, to democratically override the isolated wishes of ‘the individual’ (which is a bourgeois concepts of ‘rights’).
If you want your ‘individual wishes’ acted upon, robbo, you’ll have to convince your collective to agree. If the social producers (of which you’ll be one) disagree with your interpretation of your wishes/interests/needs/purposes/aims, then the democratic majority will prevail.
I can’t say this enough, but I regard ‘socialism’ as a form of society in which social production is democratically controlled. ‘Democratic Socialism’ isn’t the realisation of the bourgeois myth of ‘Individual Freedom’.
The sooner your party clarifies these issues of ‘power’, the sooner you’ll all be clearer about the political answers you should give, when asked these political questions.
alanjjohnstone wrote: ““[robbo203 wrote:] In this, as in other matters, there is always a “Golden Mean” ”
New to the expression. I assume it is related to the Buddhist “Middle Way” ”
That’s about the long and short of it, alan. A return to god or ‘The Absolute’, a final arbiter, a supreme authority, which is outside of the political control of humanity.
Of course, we both know that there is no ‘Golden Mean’, it’s a invention of humans, and those humans intend to be the ones to ‘interpret’ just what the ‘Golden Mean’ says.
The political outcome, as usual, will be robbo and his political supporters insisting that they, and they alone, have access to the ‘Golden Mean’, and that the vast majority of humanity will have to simply bow down to the authority of the ‘Golden Mean’. robbo will simply return like Moses with these ‘rules’ from the ‘Golden Mean’, and will thus have to enforce them, over and above the wishes of the vast majority, because otherwise the vast majority would simply override what robbo alleges that the ‘Golden Mean’ has said.
Only a society in which we, humanity, democratically determine what ‘The Golden Mean Says’, will equate to ‘democratic socialism’.
robbo simply wants an elite in political control of the vast majority. No doubt, they’ll be called ‘The Specialists’. And they’ll have ‘Special Needs’. The need for armed ‘Specialists’, to enforce The Word of the majesty, ‘Golden Mean’.
robbo203 wrote: “…the need to place limits on democracy…”
I suppose this is the closest that I’ll get, to an answer to my political question! 🙂
But if we were in a debate being listened to by interested workers, who wanted to know if they would have power within the two versions of ‘democratic socialism’ which the pair of us were alternatively putting forward, I’d point out that my debating partner is arguing for a ‘limiter’ of them, who (or what) they themselves don’t control.
I’m sure they’ll be keen to hear more from you about this supreme ruler, the ‘Golden Mean’.
‘Limits on democracy’, eh?
You’d be more accurate to name your version ‘Limited Democratic Socialism’, robbo, and I’ll stick with ‘Democratic Socialism’, and mean it.
robbo, I’ve been trying to give this answer some thought, so that I can illustrate what I consider to be the political problem at issue here.
Perhaps this formulation will help to capture the issue of power within democratic socialism (and I’ve tried to find as many examples as you’ve given in this thread of political bodies that you say will wield power without the oversight/authority of what I argue is the supreme power within democratic socialism, the democratic social producers).
If there is any dispute between “local communities/individuals/particular spatial levels of decision making/polycentric [bodies]/decentralised [bodies]”, who will have the power to override either/both/all the disputants, and, if necessary, disband a disputant?
Unless you can come up with an answer to this vital political question now, when, in the future, the need arises within democratic socialism to solve any political disputes, it will not be clear just where supreme political power resides – that is, where the buck stops for political decision making.
I think that for Marx, who argued for both democracy and for the control of social production by the associated producers themselves, that the only answer to this question of ‘supreme power’ must be ‘the social producers themselves, employing democracy’.
That is, if disbandment of any lower body of power is deemed necessary by this supreme power, the lower body is disbanded.
None of your “local communities/individuals/particular spatial levels of decision making/polycentric [bodies]/decentralised [bodies]” will have the final say on the issue of their existence.
If you disagree with me, and argue that there will be no ‘final authority of appeal’, that’s a political answer that I would disagree with.
alanjjohnstone wrote: “I thought I was discussing the situation in socialism, not what we have today, or the means to achieve it. I was speculating on future society, LBird”
Yeah, I thought so, too, alan! 🙂
But… whereas I seem to think the educational structures within socialism will be different to those in universities now – revolutionary different – you seem to think they’ll be very similar, if not even identical. I doubt that.
alanjjohnstone wrote: “And in socialism there will not be the removal of position for teaching “heresies” or a minority opinion because they might be unpopular as signaled by some sort of vote by the students.”
Of course there will! That’s what power is all about.
Otherwise, who will have the power, to remove, reinstate or retain ‘teachers’?
The ‘teachers’ themselves?
Once again, I find the political awareness of ‘power’, both now and in the future, to be very naive, on this site.
Whenever I ask political questions about ‘power’, there seems to be a general assumption that not very much will change. That is, there’s going to be a revolution, in which ‘the world will be turned upside down’, that will involve much sacrifice (almost certainly including torture and death for some), and yet things will carry on in much the same old way afterwards.
This is all very different from ‘heresies’ (not least because I’m the heretic here!), or unpopularity, or difference, or disagreement, or debate, or opinion, etc.
The point is, who’s to decide if any given ‘teaching’ is inimical to our collective interests as humans?
If you can’t tell the difference between ‘difference’ and ‘danger’, I’m sure that the democratic producers will be able to.
Indeed, if I didn’t believe this – that the majority can come to consciously know their own interests and needs – I wouldn’t be a democratic socialist. And when there’s any issue about what’s ‘heresy’ and what’s ‘dangerous’, only the democratic social producers can decide. All social production – science, education, physics, mathematics, logic, etc. – is done by us, collectively, and only we can determine our social product.
To argue otherwise, is to argue for an elite, and to denigrate, from the outset, the potential of humanity as a collective force.
alanjjohnstone wrote: “But I know from experience that their usage immediately puts the listener off.”
Yeah, you’re right, alan.
‘Experience’ during a retreat from class politics (such as the last 40 years) provides such a lesson.
But, we’re Marxists, who always place ‘experience’ within socio-historic contexts, and know that, as the context changes, ‘usages’ produce different ‘experiences’.
My advice, alan, is to go back to ‘proletariat/bourgeoisie’, which so clearly exposes the exploitative class nature of our current society, and as the new audience for class politics emerges amongst the young, your ‘experience’ will change. 🙂
alanjjohnstone wrote: “The freedom will be that the student can stop attending the lessons and lectures…”
Ah, the old bourgeois myth about ‘individual freedom’!
Just like when one doesn’t like one’s pay being too low, simply ‘stop attending’ that workplace!
No, alan, collective, conscious, political action to change the structure we find ourselves in.
As for workplaces, so for universities.
We are having some revealing political statements today, aren’t we?!
alanjjohnstone wrote: “No, not at all. Just which body would have the authority to do so?”
The body elected by the students.
To argue otherwise, is to argue that ‘teachers’ have the authority.
Simple political question – who has power, and how is it wielded?
My answer – the majority, and democratically. That’s the political basis of socialism.
robbo203 wrote: “LBird – again all I want to know from you is 1) what is your proposed structure of democratic decision-making in socialism and 2) what is the scope of this democratic decision-making.”
Well, since even Marx didn’t venture to describe any ‘proposed structure’ for socialism, I think that you’re asking too much of any socialist now to make such a proposal. I think that the only answer to this quite reasonable political question is to say, like Marx, that any ‘structures’ will emerge from the building process by the proletariat itself, as it becomes self-conscious of its own power.
But, as to the scope, then I think we can say that it will be all-embracing. That is, that all social production within socialism will be democratically controlled. If we don’t argue that, now, during our building of socialism, then it will leave open the political option for some minority to argue that they, and they alone, should politically control some (or even all) of social production within socialism.
There is a long, well-established, history within the workers’ movement of minorities claiming that that particular minority ‘know better’ than the majority of workers, and that that minority should have (supposedly ‘temporary’) political control of the construction process, because the majority are not capable, for themselves, of planning, directing and doing the building of socialism.
At least these ‘elites’ in the past have had the political sense to claim that their political control was to be temporary (even though that’s a lie), but I’m not too sure about the political acumen of those who tell workers, that they, the majority, the social producers, having built socialism, employing democratic methods, will, after the ‘glorious day’, simply hand over this hard-won political control to an unelected minority.
It doesn’t seem to me to be a ‘winning formula’ when it’s explained to workers, and, not surprisingly, workers in the past have told those saying this (that the workers will do the hard and dangerous work of building socialism, but then won’t control socialism) to, ahem, ‘Go Away!’.
There has never yet been a successful case of this political strategy working with workers, and though it’s possible to argue that workers simply can’t become self-conscious, I’m inclined to think that workers soon suss out this nonsensical political strategy, and so it always fails, and always will.
I’m convinced that, like Marx, it’s better to argue for ‘democratic control of social production’ – all social production – and make that the basis of ‘democratic communism’.
Bijou, you (and Vin) especially seem to have a problem with me using the terms ‘proletariat’ or ‘workers’ to describe the ‘social producers’ in this society, and that the ‘proletariat’ or ‘workers’ form the heart of the future ‘social producers’ within ‘socialism’.
The difference between capitalism and socialism, is that within capitalism the majority of the ‘social producers’ don’t democratically control ‘social production’, whereas within socialism the majority of the ‘social producers’ will democratically control ‘social production’.
Furthermore, the building for socialism within this society will be consciously done by the ‘proletariat’ or ‘workers’, and since they (ie. the majority) have built socialism, they (ie. the majority) will have the political control of what they (ie. the majority) have built.
Clearly, the majority won’t be exploited within socialism, because the exploiting minority won’t exist. But the ‘social producers’, of course, will still exist.
So, if we’re talking about the majority of social producers within capitalism, we can call them the ‘proletariat’ or ‘workers’, but we wouldn’t call the majority of social producers within socialism the ‘proletariat’ or ‘workers’, because those classes won’t exist.
If we refuse to use the terms ‘proletariat’ or ‘workers’ within this society, then we lose sight of the exploitative nature of our class society. But clearly the ‘proletariat’ or ‘workers’ literally forms the basis of the ‘social producers’ within socialism. The ‘proletariat’ or ‘workers’ are the creators of ‘democratic socialism’.
I’m not really sure why this causes so much difficulty with you, Vin, or anyone else.
robbo203 wrote: “So just to be clear here LBird – are you saying that humanity in its entirety should democratically determine the entire output of global production…”
Well, since Marx argued that humanity creates its own ‘entire output of global production’, the most fundamental political question is ‘who should control that output?’.
It seems to me that Marx also argued for ‘democracy’ within our ‘social production’, and that particular political mode of social production would be called ‘communism’.
I openly state that I’m a Democratic Communist, influenced by Marx, so I have to admit that I think that ‘socialism’ means the ‘democratic control of social production’.
Of course, you might disagree with Marx (about his view that humans collectively create their world, and that this production should be democratic), and so you’d disagree with me, but if so, you’d have to explain, in your political view, ‘who’ would control ‘social production’, and ‘how’.
To put this in your terms, if humanity doesn’t democratically control the entirety of its production, who does? You must have in mind a subset of humanity (ie. some sort of an elite) and a political system which is thus not democratic (otherwise, your ‘elite’ could be outvoted).
You seem to be exasperated by my views, which I think are completely consistent with both ‘democratic communism’ and Marx’s political and philosophical views, but you never say what you think (in opposition to my constantly reiterated open clear view that the subject is ‘democratic humanity’), but merely appear incredulous that someone should argue for ‘democratic production’.
What’s more, in many ways, during our longstanding debates, you’ve seemed very close to many of the things that I’ve argued would be necessary for such a social system as ‘democratic socialism’, for example, a democratic education system. But when I point out that any power within socialism would be under the control of the associated producers, you seem to divide power into two. Again, for example, to me, democratic education would mean the election of ‘teachers’, so if the ‘students’ disagreed with their ‘teacher’, the ‘teacher’ would/could be removed. This political method would apply just as much to ‘science’ – if the ‘student’ majority disagree with the ‘physics’ being taught by the ‘physicist’, then the ‘physicist’ would/could be removed.
The only other political method would be to argue that something is outside of the productive control of the majority, and this something determines ‘Truth’, and that a special minority ‘know’ this ‘something’ (and the majority either can’t ‘know’ or are stupid enough to ignore this ‘Truth’), and so, in the final analysis, the majority simply can’t be allowed to take political control and enforce their democratic wishes within social production. ‘Something’ is ‘out there’ which isn’t ‘socially produced’, and the elite ‘know’ this ‘something’.
This belief in a non-socially-produced ‘something’ is not Marx’s view, and it isn’t mine. If it is yours, you should tell us what ‘it’ is.
Bijou, I’m a Marxist, and surely you know by now that by ‘workers’ a Marxist means an exploited class of proletarians. In our present capitalist society, this is the vast majority of humans on this planet.
You seem to be using the term ‘workers’ to mean ‘people who go to work’ as opposed to ‘people who don’t go to work’, the ’employed’ versus the ‘unemployed’ (or, ‘unemployable’). If you’ve been using this ideology to try to understand what I’ve been arguing, it’s not wonder that you’ve been misunderstanding my political arguments.
Perhaps it’s my fault for assuming that on a political site dedicated to democratic socialism, the other posters would be more familiar with Marx.
robbo203 wrote: “I am actually in favour of democratic planning…”
We seem to agree then, mate…
…but I can sense a ‘but’ coming…
robbo203 wrote: “…but in the context of polycentric and largely decentralised model of planning”
So, ‘who’ (ie. which political authority) determines and ‘how’ (ie. which political method) is it determined – the ‘polycentric’ powers (as opposed to legitimate authority), the ‘largely’ (as opposed to those few not), the ‘decentralised’ (as opposed to any ‘centralised’), the ‘models’ (as opposed to forbidden ‘models’, like those of, for example, ‘eugenics’), and ‘planning’ (as opposed to simple, spontaneous, individual choices)?
I’d give the political answer that ‘humanity’ is the ‘who’, and that ‘democracy’ is the ‘how’. That’s what I mean by ‘democratic communism’ – the democratic control of social production. Furthermore, I’d argue within any workers’ councils (should we ever see them!), that anyone who introduces a ‘but’ into ‘democratic planning’ has a concealed political agenda (whether they themselves are aware of that or not). I’d argue that unless this political agenda is unveiled and discussed openly in the present, that it will come back to haunt us in the future, because it is a question of political power and authority, which all societies have to determine the basis of, for that society.
The ‘political authority’ is the ‘social producers’, and the ‘political method’ is ‘democracy’.
You might disagree with me, robbo, but you should give a political answer to this political question.
On a philosophical level, the ‘social producers’ are the ‘subject’, that creates its ‘object’. And this act of ‘creation’, by the active, conscious, subject, is ‘labour’. This is Marx’s view, and mine, too. That’s why we humans can change our reality. We create ‘reality-for-us’.
We’re just going to have to agree to disagree, robbo.
You define ‘wide’ as ‘central’, whereas I define ‘wide’ as ‘democratic’.
So, to me, ‘wider’ involvement means greater democratic participation, whereas, to you, ‘wider’ means less democratic participation.
Though I might be wrong, I suspect your usage follows from your equation of ‘democracy’ with ‘more individual control’, whereas I equate ‘democracy’ with ‘more social control’. Once again, I think that this is about ‘definitions’.
I define ‘democracy’ as ‘people power’ (demos, kratos), (what the bourgeoisie call ‘mob rule’), whereas I think you define ‘democracy’ as ‘individual freedom’ (which I regard as a liberal, not a communist, definition).
So, to be frank, I want to see ‘mob rule’, and I define ‘democratic socialism’ as ‘mob rule’ (in the terms of bourgeois individualism).
Ochlocracy, to keep the Greek ruling class theme going.
robbo203 wrote: “I will argue to the contrary that socialist society will not and cannot decide what is produced overall because that implies centralised “society wide” planning and a single gigantic plan…”
I don’t want to go over old ground, robbo, but it’s clear we have a different political viewpoint/ideology about ‘democracy’.
I don’t regard ‘democratic’ as meaning ‘centralised’.
To me, a democratic communist, if ‘produced overall’ and ‘society wide planning’ are democratic, then they are not ‘centralised’.
You are, in effect, defining any ‘democratic’ decision that clashes with, and overrides, an individual’s opinion, as ‘centralised’ and ‘single’.
We’re going to have to disagree on this issue, and simply allow any developing workers’ movement to determine whether it can have its democratically expressed wishes (which might involve ‘centralisation’, or ‘a single gigantic plan’, regarding some profound issue facing humanity) overridden by ‘individuals’, who claim that their own interests/purposes/needs/plans necessarily precede and trump those of the majority, and that those individuals are the ones to determine this, outside of any democratic political controls.
Suffice to say, this is not my view of ‘democratic socialism’.
