One member, one vote and ‘atomisation’

[jondwhite]

I thought I would start a new discussion about one member, one vote and 'atomisation' which has begun in the discussion about Report of the Proceedings of ADM.

One of the more well known examples is the Labour party's moves to one member, one vote over the decades. The criticism of this is that it causes 'atomisation' something I take with a pinch of salt when Trots make this criticism. e.g. http://www.workersliberty.org/node/27249

Is 'atomisation' something that necessarily precludes one member, one vote being the most democratic way of decisions? Is the Labour party one member, one vote compromised by the agenda being set by the leadership? Or is 'atomisation' something that can be mitigated? It is a shame September EC refused to have ADM livestreamed as this is something that could at least mitigate 'atomisation'.

Here's a quote from the Labour party website on its History page

Quote:

At the 1993 Party Conference Smith won the vote on One Member One Vote (OMOV), removing direct union representation in parliamentary selections, by the smallest of margins, and largely due to the last-minute speech by John Prescott.

and from Wikipedia

Quote:

For the 2015 leadership election, a true one-member, one-vote system (as originally proposed by John Smith) was used for the first time.

What is a true OMOV?

[Young Master Smeet]

Prior to 2015 you had voting by sections, MPs, Unions, Members+affiliates.  So an MP would have three votes, once as an MP, once as a trade unionist and once  as a member.

[LBird]

jondwhite wrote:

I thought I would start a new discussion about one member, one vote and 'atomisation' which has begun in the discussion about Report of the Proceedings of ADM.One of the more well known examples is the Labour party's moves to one member, one vote over the decades. The criticism of this is that it causes 'atomisation' something I take with a pinch of salt when Trots make this criticism. e.g. http://www.workersliberty.org/node/27249Is 'atomisation' something that necessarily precludes one member, one vote being the most democratic way of decisions? Is the Labour party one member, one vote compromised by the agenda being set by the leadership? Or is 'atomisation' something that can be mitigated?

The real issue, jdw, is the wider context of just what 'democracy' means.Is it simply an individual act of 'voting'?Or is 'democracy' a collective process of discussion, which is concluded by a 'vote'?The former leaves the 'voters' at the mercy of where real power lies in the process, which is with those who shape the ideas of the isolated individual 'voter', and thus leaves the 'act' of 'voting' as an afterthought.The latter ensures that the whole process is under the control of all who participate in it, so that there is no separation of 'voters' and 'those who control the process'.In these two contexts, OMOV is an entirely different proposition.So, OMOV is 'atomising' in one political context, but not in another.Regarding the Labour Party, it all depends on the faction's power as to whether it will support OMOV or not.Whilst the unions appeared to have political power, and the Blairites didn't, the former were opposed to OMOV (and wanted to keep the block vote), whereas the latter wanted to 'Thatcherise' the party into isolated individuals (whereupon the Blairites would determine things).Does any faction (including the Corbynistas) really want OMOV, in the latter 'democratic process' sense? I'd say not, because that would be a revolutionary step.

[ALB]

Here's the quote from yesterday Times that has sparked this discussion:

Quote:

The split at the top of the organiation is over whether it should move towards using a delegate system or a "one member one vote" system. The former would see the organisation rely on selected individuals to convene and make key decisions, while the latter could allow all its actovists to take part in decision-making via online ballots. Jon Lansmann, the founder of the group and a veteran Bennite, is understood to have promoted the second option, arguing that it offers direct democracy. but some members claim online voting has only the veneer of democracy and leaves people 'atomised'.

It went on to say that this 'atomisation' criticism came from "The Labour Party Marxists". Just looked at their website and see they are a front organisation for the Weekly Worker mob, practising Lenin's entryist tactic of supporting the Labour Party (and no doubt Momentum too and last year Left Unity)  like the rope supports a hanged man.p.s the report also said that Paul Mason had joined Momentum (and so the Labour Party).

[jondwhite]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Prior to 2015 you had voting by sections, MPs, Unions, Members+affiliates.  So an MP would have three votes, once as an MP, once as a trade unionist and once  as a member.

So what changed in 1993?

[Young Master Smeet]

Previously union executives could weild block votes: so the T&G (as was) General Secretary would cast 1,000,000 votes on behalf of members.

[jondwhite]

Blimey! Did anyone find this rather undemocratic? Or did 'the left' really support single TU gen secs wielding massive block votes?

[ALB]

Only when from the 70s on these votes were cast in their favour. In the 50s and 60s when they were cast in favour of "the rightwing leadersjip" the left were against the system.Here's the front page of the October 1960 Socialist Standard showing Bill Carron, the leader of the AEU, casting 908,000 votes at the TUC Congress that year against unilateral nuclear disarmament:Later he became Sir William Carron, a knight of the round table installed at the TUC headquarters in Congress House.

[lindanesocialist]

'One member one vote'!!  On what? A vote on who will control the online discussion and who will decide who can take part for the next 12 months? I would remind members that while you are discussing 'democracy' , a party member has been excluded from party discussions for 8 months and not via 'one member one vote' but by committee. A committee which was not elected via 'one member one vote' either.One 'member one vote' is meaningless if a committee has the power to exclude who it chooses to exclude.Indeed if it wasn't for me using my account to help Vin  air his views, he would be invisible. What does the party intend to do about that? Leave it as it stands? 

[Anonymous]

lindanesocialist wrote:

Leave it as it stands?

I strongly recommend you desist from further commenting on this matter until the Executive Committee has had an opportunity to consider the ADM's floor resolution.

[ALB]

There's a letter in this week's Weekly Worker which has some relevance to the discussion here.

Quote:

Comrade Eric Blanc, in his otherwise excellent article, 'The roots of 1917' (October 27), makes the throwaway remark that “the soviets represented a more direct form of democracy than envisioned even by the early Kautsky” – which (as he notes earlier) was that “a parliament based on universal suffrage would be a central component of the dictatorship of the proletariat”.This is a fallacy, albeit commonly held by revolutionary Marxists and anarchists. In a sense, the opposite is the case. Except at the very lowest tier – that of the workplace or geographical neighbourhood – council democracy is extremely indirect. A national parliament is directly elected by the citizenry. A central (or ‘supreme’) council, which is the national decision-making body in the council model, consists of delegates elected by regional councils, which in turn consist of delegates elected by city or county councils, which in turn … etc. In this pyramidal structure several tiers separate the national decision-makers from the grass roots.

Moshe Machover refers to another, comparatively recent article making this point as "ground breaking", but an article in the July 1920 Socialist Standard had already made the point:

Quote:

The word "Soviet" is used by many supporters of the Bolsheviks as though it denoted some newly discovered magical power. When one is told that it merely means "Council" the magic vanishes.At the base of this system are the Urban and Rural Councils, directly elected by the sections qualified to vote. The delegates are elected in the proportion of one delegate to every 1,000 members in the towns (up to a maximum of 1,000 councillors), and one delegate to every 100 in the country.Above this comes the Volost Congress. A Volost is a group of villages, and the Congress is composed of delegates from the Councils of these village groups.Next above in the order is the District Congress composed of representatives from the Village Councils.Still higher is the County Congress consisting of representatives from the Urban Councils and the Volost Congresses.Overriding all these bodies is the Regional Congress made up of delegates from the Urban Councils and Congresses of the County Districts.At the apex of the system is the All Russia Congress of Councils which is the supreme authority of the Russian Republic. This is formed of delegates from the Urban Councils and the Congresses of County Councils.We have, then, six grades of authority in the Russian system. But note how they are elected.The "labouring masses" vote once – namely, at the local councils, urban and village. This is their one and only vote. All the other grades are elected by the delegates of the Congress immediately below it.This the Volost Congress is elected by the Village Group Councils; the District Congress by the general Village Councils; the County Congress by the Urban Councils and Volost Congresses; the Regional Congress by the Urban Councils and Congresses of County Districts; and the All Russia Congress by Urban Councils and Congresses of County Councils.We see, then, that "the supreme authority of the Russian Council Republic" is removed five stages beyond the vote, reach, or control of the workers.

[moderator2]

The moderators have agreed that in regards to Rules 1 and 15, despite a 3rd and final warning, plus a PM Lindanesocilist  continued to breach the rules and has now had posting rights suspended for 7 days. Those who wish to comment on this action by ourselves can do so in the appropriate manner by PMing the moderators.  

[jondwhite]

A good article hherehttp://howiescorner.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/momentum-left-never-learns.html?m=1

[ALB]

He seems to think that OMOV means "One Man One Vote" not "One Member One Vote"

[ALB]

I see from an article in today's Times about someone who tried to stand as an independent candidate that China still uses the indirect system of election where the individual only gets one vote as favoured by Council Communists and others:

Quote:

Once every five years urban residents may vote for grassroots "people's deputies", the lowest level of the toothless "people's congress" system that extends all the way to the parliament in Beijing. It is also the only level directly elected by the public, at least in theory.

[Author]

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