Young Master Smeet
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Alan,1) It is established constitutional principle that the Parliament can remopve the monarch – the 1688 Bill of Rights establishes that…(http://www.legislation.gov.uk/aep/WillandMarSess2/1/2/introduction ) (Much more important than Magna Farta),2) In any event the Prime Minister, in effect, wields all the power of the Crown (the Monarch is obliged to accept advice).3) Thus control of the Commons is sufficient to control the Privy Council, and abolish it and give its functions to various democratic bodies.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Vin, your position is that socialists should sit on their hands and do nothing until (in the UK) we achieve politcal supremacy at the polling booth. (apologies for stripping your argument down to the bare bones)No, it's that if we try to take over our workplaces now, we'll be sacked (and this remains so until we have practical control of the machinery of state to prevent that, including having the police and army around). Don't forget, De Leon swapped around which bit was the sword and which the shielf, for us political action is the sword with the shield of union action to back it up.
Just having a wee William Morris weekend…
Quote:Will Parliament help us towards the accomplishment of this aim? Take another question as an answer to that first question. What is the aim of Parliament? The upholding of privilege; the society of rich and poor; the society of inequality, and the consequent misery of the workers and the degradation of all classes.Clearly if this is its aim, its reason for existence, it will only exchange its aim for ours if it be compelled to do so, or deluded into doing so.Can it be forced? Well, Parliament is the master of the Executive; that is to say, of the brute force which compels the useful classes to live miserably; it will use that brute force to compel those classes into submission as long as it dares. When it no longer dares, it will practically no longer exist. Now I, for my part, say as I have always said, that in the last act of the Revolution the Socialists may be obliged to use the form of parliament in order to cripple the resistance of the reactionists by making it formally illegal and so destroying the power of the armed men on whom the power of the parliament and the law-courts really rests. But this can only come in the last act; when the Socialists are strong enough to capture the parliament in order to put an end to it, and the privilege whose protection is its object, the revolution will have come, or all but come. Meantime, it is clear that we cannot compel parliament to put an end to its own existence; or, indeed, to do anything which it does not believe will conduce to the stability of Privilege, or the slavery of the workers.https://www.marxists.org/archive/morris/works/1890/commonweal/06-antiparliamentary.htm
I argue for the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community. I don't feel I need to be any clearer than that.
It seems, no matter how many times I say that I want the mass self-organised working class to take control of state institutions and run them through direct democracy, you still insist that secretly I'm planning for the technocratic élite under King Smeet. You keep knocking down Aunt Sallies, it's a really effective way of persuading people to change their minds…
I may have to change my handle to Aunt Sally, but, I admit defeat, I cannot argue against the positions you have made up for me.
Small changes have big effects, the simple fact of opening up the decision making to public scrutiny would transform decision making radically.And, of course, my election as Socialist King would see the self activity of theworking class realised through a true Kojeveian process…
Who cares where an institution emerged? The monarchy didn't emerge from the capitalist class but now serves their ends: our democratic self activity can take control of the physical structures and processes of state administration and transform them into the agency of emancipation.
Maybe the question isn't "Do we have to?" but "Wouldn't it be easier to?" yes, we could, possibly ignore the state, but it's making a rod for our own backs (and leaves the recalcitrant minority an opportunity for organising against us). Once we accept that we're going to lop off the coercive role, why object to taking over the administrative mechanisms that already exist?
Sorry, been short of time today.This discussion is conflating three things: coercion, co-ordination and authorisation.The state exercises all three, and the routes for the first two are the same. Individual capitalists cannot trust their rivals with the powers of coercion and co-ordination (for the latter, see the LIBOR scandal). Even where public utilities are run by a private firm, it is as a franchise, and under the auspices and control of the co-ordinating function of the state, backed up by the coercive power. Authority exists because sometimes someone or something has to call time on debate and say: make it so.The state contains systems of co-ordination we can use, and also the use values of data (area plans, details of sewage systems, demographic data, etc.) we will need much of that. Yes, freedom of information makes much of thast stuff available, but we need to secure it if we are to plan. The workers in quasi state bodies may be able to take control of their own departments, but they will still need to co-ordinate (and particularly, need to co-ordinate how to take over their departments, and when).Of course, we will continue to have authorities in socialism. A ship's captain at sea will still be implicitly obeyed, health and safety instructions at work will be obeyed, we'll still have to comply with building regulations and fire regulations (I for one am allergic to burning to death).
The point is that, for instance, local government has the plans of the towns, real material objects we'll need in order to make our transition; they have the telephone lists and the ermergency procedure points that we will need. Some workers in the GMC may well become active socialists, but others may not, but will refrain from sabotage as long as ccertain structures remain. the Privy council isn't a rubber stamp but a part of governance and co-ordination of many Chartered Societies (which often are backed up by legislation and regulation), it will simply be much easier to work with the grain of such structrues than against.
Alan,at present the state, including local health boads, holds the information and physical means of controlling co-ordination of those activities: yes, yes in socialism largely self organising groups will run affairs, but we ned the physical offices, documents, etc. as well as the current systems as they stand (controlled and regulated by the state) to fall into our hands, we don't need to set up a parrallel system. yes, those systems are run by workers now, but co-ordinated through the state machine.And a Royal Charter isn't a red herring, itr has a very direct link to the Privy Council system and the organisation of such bodies, backed up by statute.
The GMC has a Royal Charter, so it is a quasi state body, and it operates in a state controlled regulatory environment. The railways in most countries did have state co-ordination (if only to steal the land). I hate to point this out, but the UN is a state body, established under treaty between governments…In the final analysis we will ned some sort of world body as a final court of appeal over any decision, that world body, of course, being everybody.
SocialistPunk wrote:The issue I have in what you say YMS is you seem to identify "the state" with social organisation, as well as coercion. I on the other hand don't recognise the social organisation aspect of "the state" and see it only as a coercive body that can only exist in a class based, minority owned society.The co-ordinating features/functions are currently carried out by the state: they could be carried out privately, but then we would have private tyranny. What makes them state functions is currently they must obeyed under the threat of villence, remove that threat and they cease to be state bodies. I don't se why we should build parrallel versions when the bodies and their offices and information are in place already to be used.
SocialistPunk wrote:I also accept the complexity of organising and running a socialist society. But I don't see why some kind of central control would be required. As I've said before many services are owned and controlled by private companies, there are also many NGOs. While there will be certain regulations they must comply with to operate within "the state" they have their own logistic teams and managers. Such systems would be used by the socialist society.There will be authorities, even if we cantonised the world, the cantons would be centrally controlled. But we in fact will need a worldwide body, that would look like a parliament of delegates, to set worldwide plans into action. We'll need some sort of sea authority, transport links like railways will need global authorities. You can't have a railway where each branch and each train does its own thing. We'd need resources boards, and worldwide food planning. These will all need democratic control. We'd need a global human rights and democracy commission, to help ensure that local majorities don't try and oppress local minorities. etc. etc. What none of these would have would be guns to back them up. In the first days of the revolution, though, we will need the guns, at the very least safely where we can see them and no-one else has them.
SocialistPunk wrote:This is my essential point. The heart of "the state" is undemocratic, so I don't see how it can be transformed. Why would a democratic, socialist revolutionary movement have any need of undemocratic machinery. I just don't get it. Perhaps something is being lost in translation. Perhaps we haven't succeeded in pinning down what "the state" actually is.Well, one thing the state is is administrative skill and expertise, which we will need to utilise, but, you're right, the undemocratic aspects would have to be lopped off, the cabinet ministers meeting in secret would go, the office of Prime Minister would go, the Monarch and the House of Lords would go, etc. and business would be conducted in public.The bottom line is, whatever administrative units we divide the world up into (and, as I say, there's no reason why for different purposes different units could not overlap) there will need to be a co-ordinating body that would look for all the world like a parliament, after all, delegates would be frequently given free hands on many issues.
