Bijou Drains
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Going back to your original question, my view is that some things need to be administered centrally, even on a global level, for instance, movement of some foodstuffs, some energy production, long distance travel, and other areas. Other decisions will be better suited to more local solutions, be they continental, “national”, regional, district or even street and neighborhood level.
I think that that perfect way of dividing between what is decided within which spheres will, under a socialist system, be part of the ongoing democratic debate. I doubt a perfect way of dividing things up administratively could be achieved, and even if it was, changes in on going life style, production methods, the way we live our life, etc. will mean that any perfect way, would be transient.
The point, however would be that it would be done through democratic decision making processes. The kinds of processes that take place all over the world in different ways, expanded to meet the expanded nature of democracy.
For instance I am a member of a local bridge club, there are no leaders within the club, we elect committee members to sort out premises issues, who is on the tea rota, when there are bridge nights, what level of bridge will be played during different sessions and another myriad of administrative tasks. Believe me, the club is not in any way formed by ardent communists, but they all manage to work along democratically. Committee secretaries are not set up as leaders or decision makers, just administrators for decisions. Do they sometimes, fall out? Yes. Do trivial matters get heated? On occasion. Has the perfect form of organising a bridge club been created? definitely no. However, everything seems to go along ok, and the club has been running since 1932.
This is similar to a whole load of mutual organisations throughout the world, local sporting clubs, allotment societies, agricultural shows, brass band clubs, community centre organisations, etc, etc.
Take this up to a “national” or even global level, democratic decision making can be scaled up. I very much doubt that there will be complete agreement about the whole way that a commonly owned society. I am also pretty sure that someone will become self important and think that they shit chocolate truffles and piss champagne, the democratic process will put them back in their box.
Also in terms of decision making, I can’t see people who are not involved in a situation local to the decision, troubling themselves about the decisions being made in that area. I would not trouble myself in getting involved about what colour the railings in a South African Kindergarten are painted, any more than someone from Johannesburg is going to be interested where a railway station is sited in Northumberland.
It is important to remember that the small number Socialists who are currently arguing for a Socialist society will necessarily become a minority if socialism becomes a majority view.
How the specific ways in which that society, based on common ownership and democratic control, decide upon the “administration of things”, to quote Engels, will be decided by that majority, not us. We can make suggestions about how it might work, talk about the possibilities and when the number of socialists rises closer to a majority, we can put in place more developed plans, however we are not a vanguard, not a set of leaders and the final decisions will be made by the majority.
I think there is a bit of a difference between what you view as Socialism/Communism and what we view those terms as meaning. It seems that you think that state ownership of the means of production is what defines a socialist/communist society, we don’t.
Our aim is to achieve a society based on common ownership, which necessarily means that there will be free access to all goods and services, the abolition of the wages system and the end of the capitalist state. Engels said:
“The society which organizes production anew on the basis of free and equal association of the producers will put the whole state machinery where it will then belong—into the museum of antiquities, next to the spinning wheel and the bronze axe.”
You might find the following website useful in understanding our case for a classless society based on common ownership:
https://www.worldsocialist.org/?mtm_campaign=forum
Hope this helps
Hi McDonald, welcome to the forum. I hope you become a regular contributor.
My view on this is that in a Socialist Society, issues such as big v small (which is effectively what you are asking about) will probably have some of the same debate that Capitalist society. That is to say there will be an ongoing debate between different view points about what decisions were made.
Taking the example you have been used, there will be some members of society that highlight the large strategic advantages of bigger road planning, and that others will see more localised planning as being the most important thing. Administrative structures will move and change to adapt to different majority view and that they will then change as different systems are used and are found wanting. I have no doubt there will be high levels of “heat” in the debate, just as there are now.
The big difference will be that the decisions and the planning will not be influenced and distorted by the current system on vested interests. Democratic changes will be made about how we organise our lives, I hope that we will acknowledge that mistakes can be made and that the system of democratic planning is a multifaceted thing.
In the current society, if you have wealth and own the means of production, you have far more influence that those who don’t. So for example, Elon Musk’s view on what is appropriate regarding mineral extraction in Greenland, is far more influential than some poor bugger that lives next to the proposed Greenlandic mineral mine
It may be that in the debate distinct parties will form where individual groups join together to support a particular view point or strategy. For example some citizens might be more environmentally inclined, whilst other groups may have slightly more varying viewpoints. I would imagine that these groupings would be much more issue by issue based, that the current political party system which has its basis on sectional class issues. Perhaps they would be loose confederations a bit like the parliamentary parties that emerged in the late 18 and early 19th Centuries (without the vested interests)
I have often thought that the way the Socialist Party organises our party is an example of how democracy would act in a socialist society. I have seen over many years the ways in which we organise ourselves change and adapt democratically. We might not agree with each other, however we recognise that all members (even though they have different views in terms of what might be best) are taking the best view of what they think will create the most effective outcome.
None of us are trying to manipulate the organisation to get the best outcomes for ourselves, or to foster our own career pathways, as is the case in other Party Organisations. As we have no leaders we effectively have a collective leadership of all members. None has more power that the other. In some circumstances individuals have more knowledge of a particular issue than others. So if our Head Office needs a new central heating system, the views of a member who was a central heating engineer might have more influence around the decisions than members who didn’t have that knowledge, but that position of influence is transient and specific.
As the way we work is completely open to examination (all of our executive committees are open to observation to anyone who cares to watch the meeting or read our minutes) nothing generally secret (there are one or two occasions where personal information about party members, etc, which we do keep things confidential), debate is open, democratic and task focused.
I think you overestimate the number of people who have read “News from Nowhere” and “The Soul of Man Under Socialism” and underestimate the number of people who read our publications or those who are members/agree with our view about Socialism. To be fair, in terms of percentage of the people in the whole world, it is not really important
According to Frank “ You were expected to do a lot of intellectual work, otherwise you wouldn’t be in the RCP”
They obviously relaxed that rule for their Newcastle members. The ones I used to encounter could barely string a sentence together.
They were usually more interested in discussing New Romantic music than politics.
The RCP were more of a fashion statement than a political movement
Isiah said “Anyway, this is why decomposition is linked to phenomenon like Trump. The naked idiocy, amoralism and nihilism as well as the decline in the ability of any bourgeois faction to put forward anything like a coherent plan are all an expression of this underlying crisis of capitalism”
Why is Trump a phenomenon linked to decomposition anymore than any raft of capitalist politicians from any period of the capitalist system. Is Trump any more of amoral idiot than James Buchanan, Calvin Coolidge, Warren Harding or even Richard Nixon?
You also imply that there has really ever been a “coherent plan” for capitalism. If you could let me know details of this plan and when it was put together, I’m sure we would all be fascinated.
Unfortunately there he been a long line of Trotskyists and Leninist who have been trying their hand at some kind of political soothsaying, I remember “leading member” of the then then Militant Tendency explaining that Roy Hattersley winning the Labour Party Deputy Leadership election over Tony Benn, would be “the high water mark of the Labour Right wing”. Yeah and that worked out well, didn’t it.
The Left Communists and their fellow travellers are like a third rate version of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, prophesying the “end is near”
Moo – “That reminds me of something someone said about Bob Hope: ‘Some say Bob Hope was a bad comedian because he didn’t write his jokes. However, Elvis didn’t write his songs & nobody says he was a bad singer’.”
To be fair Pavarotti and Marie Callas didn’t write many of their songs either
But that’s not what I want.
I have thousands of books, my house and garage are both filled with books.
I adore my books and I read and reread many of them.
However I don’t feel the necessity to bang on about it all of tge time or the need to look down my nose or decry the choices of other people who prefer to use other forms of literature/media, or speak scornfully about people who don’t love books.
TM – “Use the word bibliophile here and people sneer “f*****g pervert!””
To be honest TM, the only person I see regularly sneering at other people on this forum is you. Sports fans are either barbarians or philistines, people who don’t use reported English are ill educated brutes, those who prefer to read online are to be condemned.
The Socialist world that TM strives for is one where everyone conforms with the world of TM! People have other tastes than you get over yourself.
As you say, “except for two, there are no more bookshops in the combined two where I live”, so what you are saying is that actually there are bookshops near where you live, there are two, by your own admission.
You say “were I a teenager or in my twenties I would be distraught at their disappearance (which doesn’t bother people on this forum). Fortunately, I’ll be dead before books disappear, and I have hundreds, and can still obtain those I want.”, so you aren’t a teenager, you are not be alive when (or) books disappear, what have you got to worry about? Is it that you are distraught that people live after you are dead and buried won’t be forced to conform with you view of how a life must be lived? Very strange.
Interesting point about the possibility of “taking back” the Panama Canal.
I would doubt Trump is aware of the long history of canals and waterways shaping the ends of empires, but as well as the obvious link to The British and French failure at Suez in 1956, leading to the end of Britain and France being viewed as World Powers. The Goths cut the canals and waterways of Rome, leading to the successful siege and sacking of Rome in 537AD, and arguably the fall of the Roman Empire, the breaking of the canals in Alkmaar was pivotal, to the Dutch winning the Siege of Alkmaar, which, in 1573, was the first success for the Dutch in the 80 Years’ War, which led to the eclipse of the Spanish Empire, and the Battle of St Quentin Canal in Sept 1918, was the start of the 100 day offensive that ended the 1st world war and set off the collapse of the German Empire.
Perhaps the future battle of the Panama Canal will be the final act of the collapse of the US empire?
RJ7’s view flies against all of the evidence
There are hundreds, if not thousands of organisations in the UK alone that have more than 100 people organising themselves and working voluntarily already.
There are over 5,200 volunteer lifeboat crew volunteers, with an additional 4,000 shore crew an other volunteers, there are 850 Scottish Volunteer mountain rescue workers. Add to that the number of people in unions who carry out extra volunteer work, those in political parties of all hue, the numbers are astronomical. about 16.5% of the population are involved in some form of voluntary work, many on them in organisations that are over 100 strong and many that are entirely voluntary. That’s what is possible within the constraints of a capitalist society, what would be possible with those constraints removed?
