Libertarian Communism - your thoughts?

[Taverner]

This discussion thread was locked by Starry Messenger (a host of the Socialist Progressives group).

I am starting to really get into this idea. It goes by many other names: Anarcho-Syndicalism, Anarcho-Communism, Collectivized Mutualism, etc...

Mikhail Bakunin, Eugene Debs, Emma Goldman, and Nestor Makhno were all adherents, as is Noam Chomsky.

It's Socialism without the central control. Direct democracy runs the syndicates/collectives/soviets and central government is an administration, at most.

But...private property is abolished (note private, not personal property) and all workers get a vote.

[BOG PERSON]

1. sounds boring

[Taverner]

2. So does eight years of peace and prosperity

[white_wolf]

3. Just to be clear those names do define different ideologies.

For example, there are very few followers of Mutualism today. It was created by Proudhorn and kept the market system. Most anarchists oppose it. As for Debs, he considered himself a Bolshevik. "From the crown of my head to the soles of my feet I am Bolshevik, and proud of it." His is the speech here: http://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1919/daypeople.htm

[Taverner]

4. That was early on. After Trotsky went after the Anarchists, and Stalin took power

During his last days, those close to him said he was appalled by Stalin's purges. He wasn't writing much, so there isn't much of a record of it.

During the Bolshivek rev, ALL radicals were looking to Russia. They all had high hopes - hopes which were dashed when the Bolshiveks turned on Makhno and the Black Army in the Ukraine.

[BOG PERSON]

30. there were a lot of fine people that supported the purges

for example, lillian hellman. dorothy parker. theodore dreiser. etc.

[LooseWilly]

37. Well if Dorothy Parker was pro-purges, I'm pro-purges.

And after reading a bit about the Kulaks burning down the warehouses and stables of the newly collectivizing farms of the USSR in the late 20's to try to scare the serfs away, so that they'd be dependent on their grain grinders and petty cash loans for harvest seed, I'd say purges can sometimes be... very cleansing

[Starry Messenger]

5. How do you keep capitalist states from eating your lunch without central control?

[white_wolf]

6. Well the failures of the anarchists in Spain weren't due to lack of central control.

They failed due to the fact that they were outnumbered and outgunned, not due to lack of organization. Spain proved anarchists could organize, they were simply outnumbered. I don't think a Marxist-Leninist movement would have fared any better in Spain than the anarchists.

[Starry Messenger]

7. I was just speaking generally.

If libertarian communism started tomorrow in the US, where does it go from there?

[Taverner]

8. It also didn't help that Stalin was purging any non-Bolshiveks from the Spanish Republic

The story is that the Stalinist Communists in Spain shot in front at the Falange, and at the back at the Trotskyists and Anarchists

[BOG PERSON]

9. n/m

i found a decent looking book online about the spanish revolution, which is something i don't know very much about. if anybody else is interested, here it is: http://www.scribd.com/doc/24489987/Spain-the-Unfinished-Revolution

[joshcryer]

19. I would not consider that a balanced view since it was written...

...by a Popular Front guy. He's very belittling to the Spanish anarchists, imo.

Here's a more balanced view of what happened: http://libcom.org/files/041532095X.pdf

edit: yeah, I've read that book you linked. I really really can't say what I want on the subject here, however, but it's quite an Orwellian piece, particularly when is slights Spaniards for being fans of fascism essentially without realizing the reason they embraced it so. (Hint: civil war between two left groups meant the far right could welcome the non-belligerents with open arms.)

[joshcryer]

17. The Spanish Anarchists were outnumbered and weakened by the Popular Front.

They failed because of the Marxist-Leninists who were too corrupted to recognize Revolutionary Spain as it was, and were themselves a counter-revolutionary force.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcelona_May_Days

The whole "the party must prevail" concept is a really bad and unworkable idea, but I am verging on OT "criticism."

[joshcryer]

20. BTW, the anarchist spirit still exists in Spain:

[LooseWilly]

38. If anarchists organize, are they still anarchists?

Or... are they Libertarians at that point? (Say hello to Ron Paul for me...)

I'll say to you, now that you're also arguing the anarchist line, what I've always said to Josh Cryer.. if you like anarchism, go to Somalia— They've got the Real Thing. If you haven't got the nerve for Somalia, I suggest St. Louis, Oakland, the Bronx, Compton, or Flint. I'm not talking about a 2 day visit in a hotel near the airport... I'm talking about living there... and seeing what anarchy is really like.

Don't get me wrong, I kind of like it myself... I did west and east Oakland myself... but, I get the feeling the likes of Proudhon would get themselves knifed, so I have no patience for "theoretical" anarchists.

I'm sorry to see you've decided to join the ranks.

Let me know some stories when you get yout anarchy bonafides, in the meantime I will be forced to ridicule your theories... nothing personal, that's just one of the unwritten rules of the treatment of anarchism-tourists.

[white_wolf]

47. Your argument of comparing Anarchism to Somali is really poor.

For one thing there is still market there. The working class does not hold power. If you want to see actual anarchism in practice we can look at how it was done in Spain instead of debating a strawman.

[LooseWilly]

55. Anarchists never actually took power in Spain.

And if they had, they wouldn't be anarchists, would they? They'd be an organized government... which is, by definition, not an anarchy.

Who ever said that the working class holds power in an anarchy? If they do, it's not anarchy.

If anarchists claim that working people holding power is anarchy, then they're claiming Marxism as anarchism and they're plagiarists. If they want to establish a Marxist system of worker power without a state, then they're delusional and haven't learned from what the USSR faced when they tried to establish a workers state.

I don't argue one way or the other, or even really care one way or the other, if there "is still market" in Somalia... there is no central government in Somalia.

That is the definition of Anarchy.

If you are trying to argue in favor of a Utopian Anarchy, with a non-state State wherein the workers are in charge of... not being in charge (?, non-state, remember... no one in charge)... and they... collectively do everything that a society needs, but without a state to enforce anything... and without forming a state in order to ensure that everyone participates, rather than slacking or profiteering... and somehow manage to do so without a bureaucracy to try to organize all their production, not to mention distribution... I don't think such a system could possibly exist even at the size of the county I live in, let alone the state, and no-fucking-way at a national level... and even if it was managed on such a small scale as to be less-than-county-sized... without a greater bureaucracy it could never be organized up to the level and scope of the county I live in... let alone the state... which means such a system would be an invite for Mexico (or more likely the Zetas, or some other cartel) to move in, shoot a couple of workers... and take over.

Utopian Anarchistic Socialism can't co-exist with modern global powers and survive. It will be swallowed up like the various tribes of the Sioux who failed to join forces (or so my racist history book suggests) in the face of a more numerous and better armed aggressor (the US).

And once that happens, the workers will be oppressed all over again... just as after the Paris Communes... overrun and metaphorically "re-shackled".

[joshcryer]

72. Anarchist Catalonia disagrees with you. As does Orwell.

Anarchism is being against authority, not organization.

[TBF]

10. Yup, that remains the problem. The Paris Commune lasted all of 2 months or so. nt

[Starry Messenger]

11. I had a picture in my mind of Kissinger getting the now pissed off MIC to rally around him

He convenes the rest of the G-20 countries, promises various stuff they've all wanted for years and everyone goes to town on our stateless workers.

I think everyone would like to see greater worker control and the end of capitalism. It would just be nice if it lasted!

[joshcryer]

15. Capitalism itself hinges on central control. Without it they are made irrelevant.

Note: anarchists consider state socialism capitalistic in nature, so it becomes a bit muddled.

[BOG PERSON]

21. isnt anarchism basically socialism w/ the marxism excised?

[joshcryer]

32. Nah, most anarchists agree with 95% of Marxism.

Anarchism is socialism without the central power structure (ie, the state).

There's a post I won't respond to here that states Marx didn't invent dialectical materialism. Yet, he spent so much of his time arguing for the state. He may not have coined the term but he laid the foundation for it.

It's just that extra 5% is very disagreeable to anarchists.

[LooseWilly]

39. The "central power structure" (i.e. the state), under Marxism, is just a word for "the workers"...

Which means that, under your definition, "Anarchism is socialism without the {workers}"... so, that's either Libertarianism (they don't give a shit about creating a structure by means of which workers can have a stake/voice/control of production... either), or it's a fantasy land in which Underwear Gnomes are coerced into doing the work for a happy-go-lucky stateless paradise of people who have "outgrown" organization... and now merely make their living off the exploitation of said Underwear Gnomes who are enthralled by the Superior Anarchist Rhetoric into working like stateless slaves without the bother of wages, merely existing off the mana that they slurp from the underwear so self-lessly provided them, for slurping, by selflessly courageous anarchists willing to forego their own underwear in the name of social "progress"...

99%, 95%... your 4% difference is not the sort or Rhetoric that will en-gnome-ify me or convince me to exist off the mana of your drawers... I really think you need to re-tool, so to speak, your pitch. Or, maybe, admit that anarchists will have to themselves admit to being "workers"... which would make them Marxists... oops.

And yes, Marx did invent dialectical materialism. Just as Hegel invented dialectical idealism...

[joshcryer]

42. Workers themselves do not constitute a "state."

Playing word games and using rhetoric doesn't change that fact.

[LooseWilly]

49. The workers themselves DO constitute a "state" if they take over the "machinery" of a state and

use it to implement their interests in place of the interests of the capitalists/industrialists/rich/1%/bourgeoisie ...

I wasn't so much playing a word game as postulating a future state base on Marxist-Leninist theory. In the USSR the soviets were the means by which the workers "implemented their interests"... did it work perfectly?.... I don't know, wasn't there... but does the system created by the slave-owning "founding fathers" work as they intended?...

One thing's for certain, unless a state manages to maintain a "hot" civil war indefinitely (as Somalia seems to have managed), then a "state" of some sort will inevitably develop... it's generally referred to as "civilization".

So, if one is trying to postulate possible futures... one either takes steps to consider a possible government (as Lenin did, as well as Jefferson), or one tries to create a scenario in which a civil war carries on ad infinitum at a level that is so "hot" as to make it too costly for any power to come in and settle matters and help "govern" once the dust settles.

Pray tell, what other scenario do you envision in which anarchy can exist amidst so many organized powers?

[joshcryer]

69. The "machinery of a state" are the police and property systems they've implemented.

Not the technologies which themselves are neutral.

Your ignorance of anarchism and statelessness is too astounding for me to waste my time on.

[Starry Messenger]

23. I understand the theory (though don't agree)

I'm just not sure how that answers my question. You have your anti-capitalist nonstate--you are surrounded by capitalist countries that don't have your principles and all of the US's capitalist powers have fled to the surrounding same countries. You can bet that there is going to be retaliation for taking the US out of the capitalist system. What happens next?

[joshcryer]

33. The only way I can see it happening is if the anarchist federation...

...is fully self-sufficient so it isn't relying on capitalism for its goods.

This way you remove any dependence on capitalism.

The only force then that is useful is military or violence (such as in Anarchist Spain).

At which point it simply hinges on who has the bigger guns.

I don't think you can "take the US out of capitalism." It's too entrenched. You have to start somewhere else if you're going to have any hope of success. Once you've started your own community elsewhere and the international community is watching, you might have a better shot at defending yourself.

I do think you can transition the US to a more gentler capitalism that is socialistic, but that's not much of a change as far as anarchists are concerned.

[LooseWilly]

40. The what what? The "anarchist federation"?? Is that like the "socialist business league"??

If we're just making shit up in our discussion here, I'm gonna have to make a call to the "Wookie Wobblies", a firmly Marxist-Leninist-Chewbaccanist organization that likes to eat pain-in-the-ass anarchists for lunch— literally (there's a reason C-3PO advised "let the wookie win&quot .

With their organizing power, and their Laser Crossbow Technology, the Koch brothers and their ilk stand no chance... and neitherwise the Anarchist Business League, or whatever you're calling your ridiculous faux organization.

Should I even ask where you envision this Anarchist Business League Federation being formed, since you've already dismissed the US?... Andorra?, is that small enough? Or, too small? Not Spain obviously... maybe Greece? Don't do it in the Falklands or the UK will invade you like a red-headed step child (Ireland.. that's a UK imperialism joke... haha).

So... you're saying change in the US can only be "not much of a change"... and that "real change" can only happen where it doesn't matter?

Wow, you're a friggin' revolutionary, you are...

[joshcryer]

41. Mars or something.

Shit ain't happening with any significant influence from capitalists and totalitarians.

[LooseWilly]

46. "Shit ain't happening with significant influence from capitalists and totalitarians"? Really?

So Wisconsin doesn't exist now? Governor Walker isn't taking personal meetings with the Koch brothers? They aren't capitalists? And the US isn't supporting any dictators in the world? (http://tinfoilpalace.eamped.com/2011/01/29/dictators-supported-by-the-us/)

Mars?

What's the matter?... unprepared to think when a discussion deviates from your prepared scripts?

[white_wolf]

48. Well obviously you can't expect to ignore the capitalists.

That is why I don't think it is possible to build Socialism in a single country, no matter how large or powerful that country might be. It has to be international to have any real chance of survival. That's why (in my opinion) the USSR was forced to adapt such authoritarian measures because it was so isolated at the time. If the revolution had managed to spread to Germany things might have turned out very different. The conditions in Russia forced them to go that route. This is part of the reason why, while I firmly support the actions of the Greek working class, I get kind of wary when I hear some socialists talk about revolution there. Unless that spreads to the rest of Europe, it won't last. Sorry, I know that might be kind of of off-topic from what you and Josh are talking about, but I just thought I'd give my two cents.

[LooseWilly]

50. I think you've voiced something that I've always thought was an essential point.

The external pressures are exactly why I think the USSR adopted the authoritarian measures it did adopt... though I'm not convinced the measures were as authoritarian as the Hoover Institute would have us believe.

Nevertheless, the need to adopt what measures were adopted is then used as an argument against what socialism, or communism, can accomplish. Fending off the Nazis, who overran all of Western Europe and might've overrun the UK too had they not decided to try their luck against the USSR first, is generally dismissed as an achievement of socialism. The fact that the most backward country of Europe managed such a miraculous productivity build-up in so short of a time is dismissed. The fact that such development would've been impossible by means of a capitalist system is dismissed.

So much is dismissed.

And now you are also dismissing what Greek workers might be capable of.

Just saying...

When I'm working for insignificant wages, I don't work so hard. No one else works that hard either. If we thought we had a stake in the product of that work... might we work harder?... What do you think?

[white_wolf]

51. The USSR accomplished a great deal. I've made that point in GD on this site several times.

There can be no doubt of that. You are also right that the deaths in the USSR are extremely inflated. I've heard stats that say during the Stalin years 60 million died, I think the official stats from the Soviet archives were around 6 million.

However, I'm not sure why you say I'm dismissing anything in regards to Greece. I am trying to be realistic, I don't think socialist Greece can stand alone. I don't think Socialism in one country is possible due to the fact that capitalists won't let it exist. That isn't just an anarchist view either, Trotskyists share it as well. In fact, I think Marxism-Leninism is the only branch of Socialism that believes Socialism in one country is possible.

For the record, I am not an anarchist or a Marxist at this point. I am anti-capitalist. I hesitated to get more specific. I think Marx's analysis of capitalism is brilliant, I think Historical Materialism can tell us a lot about society and is a good tool to view history. In fact, as pointed out in another post, my problem is not with Marxism, but with Leninism. I know most of the people in this group are Marxist-Leninists or Trotskyists so I'm definitely alone in my views on Lenin.

[LooseWilly]

56. I guess I'm enough of a fan of Lenin to think that a socialist Greece can stand alone.

I don't think the US would be willing to brave the public outcry of invasion to enforce re-payment of bonds & interest.

I don't think the UK would be willing to brave that kind of bad PR either. Germany might consider it, but even they would have to just swallow the loss, I think.

Would Greece have an easy and consumer-happy time afterward? No, obviously not. Would it be worth it? Ask the Greeks, but I think so. There would always be the other outcasts of capitalism to trade with... Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, North Korea... not to mention most of Africa, and China. Could they get by, and even produce enough to flourish? Sure. Could they engage in trade deals with the West that would make the rich even richer? Not so much... guess who's opposed to the idea of Greece refusing the austerity packages being foisted on them by Germany and the EU?... right, these same rich A-holes.

I'm still curious to hear your complaints about Lenin... everything I've read of him is sheer genius... to the point that I'm on the verge of judging him more of a genius than Marx himself.

Do tell... How/Why is Lenin an asshole?

[white_wolf]

59. You do realize the mere fact that I disagree with his theories doesn't make him an asshole,right?

I really don't know where you are getting this from. Now as to why I disagree with him? Well for starters, I disagree over the issue of Socialism in One Country. Though, that is arguably more Stalin's theory than Lenin's. I'm not alone in that disagreement either, only Marxist-Leninists think it is possible to build socialism in country. Trotskyists who are also Leninists don't think it is, anarchists don't, Left Communists don't, Luxemburgists don't. The idea of building socialism in one country is in contradiction of pretty much every socialist theorist before or after Stalin and Mao. Indeed, I've seen some Left Communists refer to Leninism as the largest act of revisionism (to borrow a Marxist-Leninist term) in the history of Marxism.

As to other areas of disagreement, I think Rosa Luxemburgs complaints about the centralizing of political power in the hands of a party and the dangers of giving too much power over to a bureaucracy have been proven correct. Again, I'm not in the minority on that criticism either, aside from Marxist-Leninism (Stalinism such you seem to refuse to acknowledge other strains of Leninist thought) I doubt you'll find a single branch of socialism that does not agree with me that the centralizing of power in the hands of a Vanguard failed. Even Leon Trotsky realized it was a mistake, he realized it too late to do a damn thing, but he realized it.

Granted, I don't expect to sway you with any of this, I'm sure you've heard it all before and more eloquently and have reasons for disagreeing, which is fine.

[LooseWilly]

65. Everyone that I disagree with is an asshole... it's just a rhetorical flourish, no need to blush...

I think you are right, that it was Stalin who decided that Socialism could be enacted in one country.

From what I've read, by Anna Louise Strong, who was a Moscow reporter during Stalin's tenure in power, Stalin gleaned from the people of Russia that they had no patience with the theorists that Socialism couldn't be enacted in one country alone (especially a country as backward as Russia was at the time). So Stalin decided that it could be done, because he had deduced that the people were convinced that it could be done.

So he pushed that it should be done, and anyone who argued otherwise (most notably Trotsky) found themselves without any popular support... and in Trotsky's stubborn-ass case... exiled.

And the people did it. They built railroads and steel plants and collectivized farms (occasionally having to execute Kulaks who sabotaged their efforts...) and built an infrastructure that made the Japanese think twice about invasion via Manchuria. The Nazis may've thought twice, but not thrice... and they paid the price for likewise assuming that socialism couldn't be put into place in one country.

The fall of the USSR does, though, beg the question. Was Stalin, ultimately, wrong?

Were the backward peoples of the USSR in 1924 ultimately wrong?

You apparently say yes. I say no. Lenin, being dead, seems undecided. He did clarify a number of points of Marxism for the US Communist Party before he went though... including the issues of racism and imperialism, and how they relate to Marxist theory.

I think Stalin was right, though, because, at the time, the people were with him, or rather he was with the people. Whenever the people, the workers and even the rest, are behind a thing, it is possible. The peoples of the USSR were ready to build for themselves... and they did so.

On the other hand... even if the people are ready, if they are lead by someone like Trotsky, or you, who doesn't believe in them or what they are capable of... then it isn't possible.

Stalin, in my opinion, whatever his faults, made it possible for the peoples of the USSR to build socialism... and part of what Stalin did to make that possible was to exile Trotsky... and it was only by the genius embracing of the hopes of the people by Stalin, and the exiling of Trotsky among other things, that the USSR was able to industrialize sufficiently to withstand the onslaught of the Nazis... and thereby save the world from fascism.

Yes, in my opinion Trotsky nearly turned the world over to the Nazis. The UK and the US swooped in to mop up after the USSR, under Stalin's leadership, had done the dirty work of a war of attrition (much as France had done in WWI).

The more I look at it, the more I think Stalin is the greatest hero of WWII... Stalin and the people of the USSR.

Would more freedoms to criticize the central committee have been nice? (Rosa Luxemburg's point, as I recall) Yes... but... war never really ended for the USSR. It went from hot to cold... but there was always threat, always espionage/sabotage.... always the threat of the West.

Complaints about giving too much power over to a committee/bureaucracy are tautological. They are always valid.

The question to ask though isn't whether there were abuses by the bureaucracy/central committee... but whether or not they succeeded in what they were tasked to do... and they did until Gorbachev came along and succumbed to the West and privatized the economy, allowed inflation to swallow all the savings of the people while foreigners and gangsters were the only ones with hard assets enough to buy/take over all the industries of the country... and foreign "advisors" like Larry Summers and Tim Geithner steered a country into poverty, starvation, prostitution, destitution and desperation ... after that same country had been the first power in space.

Compared with the "decentralization" under Gorbachev, Summers & Geithner, the "despotism" of Stalin doesn't seem so bad to many... which explains why Stalin is still respected in many parts of Russia.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-big-question-why-is-stalin-still-popular-in-russia-despite-the-brutality-of-his-regime-827654.html

[joshcryer]

70. Gorbachev did not cede to the west, he ceded to the Eastern Bloc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989

Now whether the Eastern Bloc ceded to the west is debatable. One can say that being occupied by a foreign country can only last so long, however.

[white_wolf]

73. Your post touches on the heart of this whole debate.

Did the USSR build socialism or not? That is the key question. It certainly raised living standards far beyond what it had existed before and even what exists in Russia now. So, I'm not denying the USSR did a lot of good for the average citizen in terms of standards of living and modernization. However, Social-Democracy provides a lot of the things the USSR did and that isn't socialism. Of course there is no real way for either of us to prove who is right here, I don't believe they built socialism, because I don't think the working class held power in the USSR. The very fact that workers were punished for striking proves that, at least to me. So the U.S. the U.S. has punished strikers as well during its history, but shouldn't a socialist state strive to do better than a capitalist one?

[joshcryer]

68. I'm tired of dealing with a highly antagonistic person like yourself.

I would be banned from this forum if I allowed myself to talk about the virtues of your stated belief system. I'm content knowing I am right. Autonomous stateless socialist communities are the only way to emancipate ones self from capitalism. Do it within a capitalist state with any sort of sovereign claim over you, and you lose. Every time.

edit: I do wonder if the mods here see your seeming admiration for Stalin as baiting or if it's only baiting if someone responds to those false statements. I don't know.

[white_wolf]

74. About your mod question:

I've been wondering if I should issue a warning as this thread is getting close to violating some rules of our group T.O.S. The Trotsky V Stalin debate. Since I did engage in that one I don't feel its fair for me to make any judgement, but I probably will bring it up to the others. I'll ask them about responding to claims regarding Stalin as well. My general view would be if you want to criticize Stalin's rule while being respectful of the views of others I would say it should be allowed, but I'm not the only host here. I will say this, I think some posters, are breaking the unspoken rule regarding respect so I'm going to ask everyone to keep that in mind as the thread continues. Be resepctful.

[Starry Messenger]

75. I'd vote for locking the thread.

Post #4 started the debate, imo and things ran a predictable course. I was hoping the OP would come back to the thread more and direct conversation, but he seems to have moved on. As it is now, I think it's just going to provoke arguments that never get resolved.

[white_wolf]

76. Yeah I think that's a good call. I'll second your vote for locking it.

I really don't think this thread will result in anything, but people being mad at each other.

[joshcryer]

79. Post #40 is where the antagonism started.

Post #4 is mild and the subthread died.

Good to know if you want to close a thread just start praising Stalin and if anyone objects...

edit: for what it's worth since Taverner "left the building" so to speak, I have no problem with whatever you do. I don't like it when an OP bails like that.

[white_wolf]

27. Central control in the hands of a Vanguard isn't the only means of control.

Even some left communists such as Council Communists reject the need for a central party and seek to grant all power to local councils who could handle organizing. There could still be control and organizing,but it would be firmly in the hands of the workers.

[Starry Messenger]

29. Well, as a worker, I've had experience with councils and committees.

Their input is certainly valuable. And it is usually sought out in Socialist countries too.

But worker's orgs. I've been involved in can take months to develop their decisions. That's fine if you're not talking life and death immediate issues. But as a worker, I'm not hearing any solutions to what happens when our country is under direct threat from Capitalist enemies.

[LooseWilly]

43. firmly in the hands of the workers IS THE THEORY...

The only time I've ever heard argument against that is... when threats of invasions (or fact of invasions) from abroad have forced a more decisively capable organizing system upon a state.

A state perpetually threatened with (and repeatedly exposed to the reality of) armed invasions from without, can not be criticized for centralizing it's control/governmental structures (thus eliminating the possibility of disruptions stemming from disagreements that are not democratically solvable in a prompt manner in all the localities involved.. in time of crisis).

In a time of relative peace power would obviously be devolved to local councils (or soviets, as they were called in the USSR)... and consensus or majority rule would be the deciding factor.

On the other hand... if there's an extremely large country with a lot of locally idiosyncratic facts and so on to be factored in... the idea of each of the local councils having, collectively, full control when the local councils have no way of knowing the "big picture" is.. kind of idiotic.

Managing and running a large "organization" requires a bureaucracy... whether that "organization" is a corporation, an NGO, a charity, or a country. The idea of "doing away with" the bureaucracy, in order to solve some anarchistic wet-dream, is simply un-workable... even a county of 2500 people in the US has a bureaucracy, the idea of a nation, or planet, without is just ridiculous...

I'm curious though, why you don't seem to consider the "bureaucrats" handling things in a bureaucratic system.... to be, themselves, "workers"?

Why would you think that they wouldn't be responsive to the queries and concerns of the (real?) "workers"? And,if they are responsive... then what's the problem again?

[white_wolf]

12. Here is my biggest problem with Marxism...

How does centralizing power lead to the withering away of the State? That seems counter intuitive to me.

[Taverner]

13. And one of the reasons I am for a decentralized system

[joshcryer]

18. Same. In a centralized system corruption can be at the top, and you can't get rid of it.

In a decentralized system corruption can be everywhere and it may not affect you and you can at least help others disassociate from the corrupt.

You can't disassociate from a central authority.

[joshcryer]

16. It could, in theory, if power didn't corrupt.

But power does undeniably corrupt, and the uncorruptable, if they exist, are taken out by it.

[BOG PERSON]

26. did you ever look up the guy who came up w/ that saying?

lord acton? i wanted to find more about him so i checked his wikipedia page. it turns out he supported the confederacy in the american civil war (i.e. the slaveholders rebellion) and thought irish ppl were an inferior race.

[joshcryer]

31. So what? Heinlein has the worst politics ever...

...but he had some really amazing quotes.

[BOG PERSON]

22. what about the soviet union (RIP)

there's a state that withered away. and now most of the post-soviet republics are sad, alcoholic places that are incompetently run by gangsters and/or stooges of the USA. except for belarus and (i assume) the ones that got admitted into the EU

[Starry Messenger]

24. Or Somalia.

Which actually used to be Socialist until the collapse of the USSR.

[BOG PERSON]

25. its seem to me that

in the absence of central authority to coordinate shit, warlordism is what's going to develop, instead of a new, superior mode of production. i dont say this out of a lack of strategic confidence in the masses, that's just how things seem to work in this wonderful world of oppressed and oppressor nations that we live in.

[Starry Messenger]

28. Yeah, that's how I see it too.

I work in a union and hell, it can take months even coordinating the folks to do what we want to accomplish. I don't see any way that we'd spontaneously do anything very swiftly without some kind of decision-making body.

[joshcryer]

34. Ethio-Somali War

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethio-Somali_War

Somalia was supported by the USSR until the conflict began, at which point there was a typical power play where the US and USSR changed sides simply for convenience.

[Starry Messenger]

35. I didn't mean to imply that the Soviets supported Somalia at that time, sorry about that.

A lot of Socialists think of 1991 as a year of general disaster for world Socialism, so I was linking them mentally and didn't think about what that would look like. A lot of dominos went down when the Soviet Union went down too, is what I was thinking.

Yes, I think the split was part of the fallout of the Sino-Soviet split. But I believe that Somalia had a government that was functionally Socialist in some manner before it became a failed state.

[joshcryer]

36. I know what you're saying. I remember a good source for that.

But I can't find it now. Basically Somalia was doing really well and they were completely shocked when they were cut off. It's weird because their desire to take back Ogaden was merely an extension of the USSR taking the Eastern Bloc, in theory. But Ethiopia was a much stronger force and the USSR had more to gain by dumping the Somali's.

[LooseWilly]

44. If power is "centralized" in the hands of the workers, then the state, as an apparatus of oppress-

ion (of workers by the owner class) will wither.

That is the theory.

Will a new "state" which is an organization for the bringing to fruition the will/ policy of the workers come to exist? Probably yes.

Is that a state that is interchangeable with the "state" as it exists now? Not so much.

Is this all theory? Yes.

By the way, when did Marxism mention "centralizing power"? as such? I've only ever seen reference to empowering workers and a "dictatorship of the proletariat", which sounds curiously like the idea, if ever put into proper practice, of universal suffrage.

[white_wolf]

45. Fair point. Perhaps I should have rephrasied my subject title to say something like:

my problem with centralizing power in the hands of a Vanguard Party as was done in the USSR. I often make the mistake of forgetting that there are other types of Marxist such as Left Communists who strongly disagree with the various types of Leninism. Just to be clear, I'm not utterly opposed to Marxism, I think Marx's analysis of capitalism is brilliant, I guess my problem is with Leninism, moreso than with Marxism. Furthermore, the issue of whether or not the workers were no longer oppressed in the USSR is extremely debatable which is my main concern with a Vanguard party in the Marxist-Leninist sense of the word.

[LooseWilly]

52. What part of Leninism has you hung up?

I think of Leninism as mostly the clarification of some points of Marxism, as well as the additional analysis of imperialism.

Anti-Leninism smacks of Trotskyite notions that there should somehow be no leadership of the workers, no organization... that one should wait for the workers to... organize themselves?... (though, if one with organizational skills and an idea of a goal, especially a Marxist-Leninist, or even Stalinist, goal... demures from leading for some sort of Trotskyite fear of a "vanguard party leading workers"... then who will ever lead/organize?... by Trotskyite reasoning anyone who sees the goal is barred from leading... it is ridiculous when you think about it... a forced waiting until the most uncertain amongst the workers finally decides to lead all the others who already know what to do.)

And as to the idea that the workers in the USSR were "still oppressed"... I guess you'll need to define oppression in your sense of the word, because they weren't by the Marxist definition of the word. Even the "monster" Stalin was reputed to listen to the notions voiced by the soviets, and even attended meetings himself sometimes. The idea of a worker at McDonald's having a representative to speak at something like a soviet is enough to give some idea of the difference... let alone having someone(s) who could actually regulate the workplace sit in on the meeting themselves. No member of the president's cabinet will ever sit in on a union negotiation. The USSR's central committee, on the other hand, especially in the '30s through the '50s, were potentially liable to.

Did the workers have to work? Yes. Were the dissidents apt to be treated harshly? Yes. (Were US strikers apt to be treated harshly during WWII? Yes.) Does this mean the workers were "oppressed" still?... I'm inclined to say no.

If the vanguard party of the USSR had tried to do what it did without the support of the majority of the people/workers/ex-serfs... then they wouldn't've been able to fight off the White Russian armies of the West, let alone the Nazis. There would've been too many opportunists and defectors and double agents and surrenders... but there weren't. There just weren't.

[white_wolf]

54. Your views on Trotskyism are rather inaccurate.

Trotsky was a Leninist. His ideology was called Bolshevik-Leninism. He was opposed to Stalin version of Leninism, Marxist-Leninism, but no Trotskyist (not Trotskyite which is a pejorative term, though I'm sure you know that)would consider themselves anti-Leninism. Trotsky still called for a Vanguard, though he claimed to want a more open democratic form of a Vanguard. I say claim because his early actions don't really match up with his later writings. (Seriously, though, where is Socialist_N_TN? He is the Trotskyist, not me, and could explain this so much better.)

Though, for the record my views on the USSR and Leninism are probably much closer to Luxemburg's than Trotsky's if you want to lump me in with any "anti-Leninist" theorist.

[LooseWilly]

58. I was hoping to have you enlighten me on Trotskyism... but alas you present merely platitudes...

I was not aware that Trotskyite was a pejorative term, actually... though I must admit that it has been one for me for some time. I suppose I'll use Trotskyist instead, to be polite... though that will also be a pejorative coming out of my "mouth".

Near as I can tell, Trotsky had strange views on Marxism... and viewed the Kulaks as "ok", despite the fact that they were looking to exploit the ex-serfs by means of their control of local capital and the means of grinding grain before bringing it to market. He only felt that industrial capitalists were a problem (?)

I'm not even sure if that's exactly right. I've been to the office where he was executed, but I'm not exactly sure what he espoused (aside from what I can deduce by the fact that he was opposed to Stalin), and Trotskyist thinkers and groups tend to be even less clear in expounding their message.

I wonder why that is.

Stalin was perfectly clear, and is still revered as a hero by many in Russia. Trotsky has a bullet riddled museum in Mexico City.

And you have evolved from the opacity of Trotskyism to... "Luxemburgian anti-Leninism"? (Despite the realization that the USSR was beset by invaders until the end of WWII...)

You'll forgive me if I'm not convinced?

[white_wolf]

60. You know if you actually want to know what Trotsky's views were...

why not read them? He wrote a lot about his views. As for spouting platitudes, I feel the same way. I was hoping you could enlighten me on Marxist-Leninism and yet I still remain unconvinced.

[LooseWilly]

67. Unfortunately I'm a prole myself.. and I have to be at work in 4 1/2 hours...

So I'll have to excuse myself and take a short nap... maybe later.

[limpyhobbler]

57. It seems like maybe oppression in the USSR was not so much against

people in their capacity as workers, but in their capacity as human beings. It was the basic human rights such as speech, freedom of conscience, freedom from arbitrary unfair decisions by bureaucrats, no real say over their own government for most people, freedom of the press. In short, the USSR was a human rights abuser.

One can give examples of human rights abuses in the USA, Britain or France during the same era. But I have never met a reasonable person who would claim that the USA, Britain or France could equal the USSR for human rights abuse.

Unless you count their colonies and dependencies in Africa and Asia. In which case they were just as bad. So the USSR was at least as bad as the capitalist empires, I guess.

[white_wolf]

61. +100. I don't know why no one said any of that before.

Sometimes I feel like we spend too much time arguing theory in this forum and lose sight of other important issues.

[limpyhobbler]

63. probably Noam Chomsky said that

Sounds like him. I was out of town for a couple days and came back to find this 50+ post thread. Laughed when I saw it for some reason. I guess we all must enjoy theories or something.

[LooseWilly]

62. I am perplexed. Do you feel like you aren't subject to "arbitrary unfair decisions by bureaucrats.."

Do you feel like you have a "real say over" your "own government"? Do you feel like you have "freedom of conscience"?

I don't.

I work regularly helping to sell still occupied houses in the process of foreclosure by various banks and "trustees". If the houses sell then people are evicted and they are encouraged to then "go fuck themselves" (not in so many words obviously... the new owners would be afraid to say anything so bluntly, for fear that the newly evicted might think to steal all the copper wiring and the pipes and other fixtures on their way out... which I wouldn't blame them for doing).

Is this the "freedom of conscience" that you think the USSR lacked and the West/US "blesses" its citizens with? Really?

Do you feel like you have a "real say over" your own government? You can bet that there were similar percentages in the USSR who felt that way... just as there were those who, like me, didn't/don't.

I've written books about "arbitrary unfair decisions by bureaucrats"... if you think that is something peculiar to the USSR, you must know all your local bureaucrats... because otherwise their decisions are always "arbitrary", and usually "unfair" (favoring the local "players" that they know over the blue collar schmucks they couldn't give a shit about).

So I ask you... if the citizens weren't "oppressed in their capacity as workers"... but only "in their capacity as citizens", and all such "oppression" was in the name of security in the face of Western pressure/aggression... and the West does the same to its workers... would you say that you are oppressed as a citizen?

I know I'd say I'm oppressed as a worker in 2 of my 4 jobs (not to mention by the fact that I need to juggle 4 jobs to pay for rent and sub-standard benefits and on-sale foodstuffs). I think I'd say I'm oppressed as a citizen, too, by the metrics you set up in your post... so— Does that make me more oppressed than workers in the USSR were??

[limpyhobbler]

64. oppression,

Yes we are oppressed. I agreed with most of the description you gave of how US people are oppressed.

In my opinion the Soviet Union was no better. I'm not saying they did nothing good or positive. They had many good impacts globally. But on basic human rights they were lacking. We can learn from their successes and their failures.

For example people should be able to start a fanzine with a printing press in their garage and say things like "wow our government sucks". You couldn't do that in the USSR. They had a crappy human rights record. As does the USA, UK, France, Exxon, Shell, Haliburton, etc. Just as bad.

Even as workers, I'm not sure how free they really were. Whether they were able to have a choice of where they worked. And did workers actually have a voice on the job? Was there any democratic control over the workplaces? What was the labor organizing situation there? I'm not too sure about that. I was giving them the benefit of the doubt on the whole "oppression of workers" thing. Even though they really don't deserve it.

How many socialists say "Wow we really need to re-create a USSR-style system?" I guess not many. If you talk to people that lived in those countries under "Communism", they always say it was horrible.

I don't have a problem saying western capitalism is oppression of the human spirit and dignity. I'm not defending it. But can you say USSR Communism was oppression of human spirit and dignity in a slightly different way?

[LooseWilly]

66. I can't say that USSR Communism was oppression with any certainty, no.

I've heard people rave about how bad it was... but it's usually people who were there (or in satellite states) as children of parents that managed to get to the US... which usually means some sort of money or connection or something... not to mention enough hankering after Western Style Wealth that... well, I can't help but judge the children to be likely to have been raised not-so-non-partisan on the subject.

Everyone I've run into who left as an adult says that communism wasn't so bad... they often kind of miss it.

The Russian mail-order-brides I've run across are generally so disturbed that I can only try to guess at how traumatic the selling-off of socialized/government assets in the name of privatization could've been for the general population. No one I've met who grew up, in whole or in part, under Communism has ever been as disturbed as some of the mail-order-brides who seem to have grown up under new-capitalism were.

Maybe USSR Communism was oppression of the human spirit in some way... but maybe all civilization is oppression of the human spirit in some way... I'll certainly say that it didn't seem to work out quite as brilliantly as foretold by Marx.... but it didn't go global, and it always had security concerns... and threats of war justify all sorts of otherwise unjustifiable behaviors in one's own paranoid mind...

[joshcryer]

71. Rosa Luexmburg

I will simply post a link to an old post I made here.

[limpyhobbler]

83. Cool thanks.

I have a book by her around here somewhere but have not got around to reading it yet. Revolution or Reform I think it's called? Will get there eventually next time my internet service cuts out.

[pnwmom]

53. A contradiction in terms. n/t

[earthside]

77. Good for you!

That's interesting ... because for the past six months or so I have been investigating the philosophy of anarchism.

There is a fairly good book out called "Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism" by Peter Marshall -- it is a synopsis/anthology of the history and various schools of anarchist thought.

My interest arises out of a growing believe that because of climate change, overpopulation, Peak Oil, resource depletion, wealth inequality, etc., that we are approaching a time when decentralization is going to be thrust upon us whether we like it or not.

I am also quite intrigued right now with the anarchist strain in the history of the Industrial Workers of the World, the Wobblies, and in my estimation I wonder if this isn't the model that the Occupy movement should be emulating.

[zzaapp]

78. Under this plan, would everyone receive the same ammount

of annual income?

[joshcryer]

80. Depends. The OP has 3 plans.

Anarcho-Syndicalism if using the banks of exchange would indeed give all beings a stipend.

Anarcho-Communism could be anti-monetarist and thus there is no money (and therefore no need to pay for anything; I am an anarcho-communist, btw).

Collectivized Mutualism would merely equalize labor-value on the marketplace and therefore no human beings labor would be substantially more valuable than another (I don't think mutualism works without communism here or there, however, I do like to argue from a mutualist perspective since many capitalists can be convinced of the system that way). But it would not give anyone an annual income.

[Taverner]

81. Thanks for the clarifications.

I am relatively new to Marxist and Anarchist thought...

But I know a mix of the two is needed

[zzaapp]

82. Thanks Josh, I'm a little new to this sort of thinking

So please bear with me.

"Anarcho-Communism could be anti-monetarist and thus there is no money (and therefore no need to pay for anything; I am an anarcho-communist, btw)."

If I needed a loaf of bread. Who would produce it, and how would I obtain it?

[Starry Messenger]

84. Please feel free to start a new OP on this.

This thread will be closed.