Young Master Smeet
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I was always absurdly pleased that this article had been picked up by Cuban Social Democrat dissidents:https://web.archive.org/web/20080102151255/http://www.psrdc.org/archivo/notas75.htm
Lets not forget that voting was mandatory in the SU. Thee have been plenty of dictatorships that had lots of lovely votes, democracy means much more than voting, voting is just one means of assisting democracy along.You're reading some sort of unelected determining minority, it's more likely that after a vote a lightly held majority would back down if the minority loudly and vociferously continue to hold their position, for example.Lets take the example of a cultural/racial minority in a given area, that would lose every single vote, there might be a matter important to them which, perhaps unknowingly, a mjaority might vote against, the minority has to have the right to protest the result, demonstrate the strength of their feeling, and ask the majority to think again. A vote does not end the matter (vide Brexit).ISTR Otto Neurath who described the difference of democracy between enemies and democracy between friends.Democracy between enemies is like bandits holding up a stage coah, and the occupants and the bandits counting which side has the most guns, and surrenderign according.Between friends it's like a trip to the cinema: you all want to go together, and agree to go together, and while, say, you might not like rom-coms, another friend has screaming nightmares if they see blood-splatter gore movies. You might fancy the gore movie, the majority might fancy it, but that would mean going without the friend.On some points, I demand my right to be outvoted, I'm against strict consensus, but democracy always has the presupposition that we want to be together.
LBird wrote:And, of course 'democracy is about more than voting', but 'voting' is at the heart of it.I'd argue freedom of information, expression and association come well above voting, and the right for minorities to try and become majorities (and for majorities to not enforce their will unless necessary): voting is just a means to assist the discursive process. Sometimes we need to weight the strngth as well as quantity on a question: a minority that strongly holds it's opinion compared to a lightly held majority needs to be taken into account. The conversation never ends.
Beside the poin, communists are workers too, communists are part of how the working class enlightens itself. However, the "Communist confession of faith" does kind of destroy Lenin's idea that a government should create "socialism" in order to enlighten the working class, but that it won't happen until the working class is conscious and unified.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/06/09.htm"The development of the masses cannot he ordered by decree."
LBird wrote:So, why won't you allow a vote on 'truth'?It's not up to me, or any socialist to say how socialism will be democratically be run, I just don't see what the earthly use is, and I note that democracy is about more than voting.
LBird wrote:You really, really don't understand any of this, do you, YMS? This is Engels' 'Materialism', 'that day' and every day, and is nothing whatsoever to do with Marx's ideas about 'social production'.So, according to you, if the majority of humans, at any point in history had just wanted communism, they could have had it?The quote I used was an adjunct to this section:
Quote:Question 6: How do you wish to prepare the way for your community of property?Answer: By enlightening and uniting the proletariat.I eman, what you are arguing for is Lenin's position, that by force of will alone humanity can reach communism. Why do you support Stalin so?
LBird wrote:'Materialism' argues that 'Truth equals Matter', and that only a minority of specialists have access to this 'matter', and that it therefore is not a political issue for workers.But that isn't true, and doesn't follow, thorough materialism says the world is available for access to all. And that is how we differ from Leninists, we think that each human, not an amorphous mass, has access to reality, and can freely shape their own world by interacting with it.
Actually, I was wrong, it was Engels who wrote that, clearly something was wrong with his materialism that day. He also wrote this:
Quote:Answer: We are convinced not only of the uselessness but even of the harmfulness of all conspiracies. We are also aware that revolutions are not made deliberately and arbitrarily but that everywhere and at all times they are the necessary consequence of circumstances which are not in any way whatever dependent either on the will or on the leadership of individual parties or of whole classes. But we also see that the development of the proletariat in almost all countries of the world is forcibly repressed by the possessing classes and that thus a revolution is being forcibly worked for by the opponents of communism. If, in the end, the oppressed proletariat is thus driven into a revolution, then we will defend the cause of the proletariat just as well by our deeds as now by our words.Wasn't it Marx who wrote:
Quote:Today the entire German proletariat has to be placed under exceptional laws, merely in order to slow down a little the process of its development to full consciousness of its position as an oppressed class. At that time the few persons whose minds had penetrated to the realization of the historical role of the proletariat had to forgather in secret, to assemble clandestinely in small communities of 3 to 20 persons. Today the German proletariat no longer needs any official organization, either public or secret. The simple self-evident interconnection of like-minded class comrades suffices, without any rules, boards, resolutions or other tangible forms, to shake the whole German Empire to its foundations.?
If a conversation drifts that's one thing, but if someone starts totally off-topic posts, and essentially derail the discusion, that does get in the way of free debate, it's very easy for two people havng a ding-dong to kill a conversation. Rule 11 is the best rule there, and shouldn't need conflict, just an occasional nag from the mods.
LBird wrote:It's probably clearer to say that Marx thought the class should be organised in a democratic way.Considering I was discussing his specific amenments to a specific political party, no, that is not clearer.
LBird wrote:YMS wrote:But, it's clear that the congress of the league that retained supreme authority.This is not 'clear' at all.Marx argued that the proletariat as a class was the 'supreme authority'.As is usual with materialists (like you), the emphasis is always upon 'party', and not 'class'. That's why you're following Lenin, and not Marx.
Well, it is clear, it's in the ruddy rules. Considering Marx spent his life organising political parties, it's a bit rich to say we're fllowing Lonny'un in that regard. It seems some think that comparisons to Lenin are like garlic of us Neo-endogenous Exophagist Neo-Heebredianists, but it's not, especially whent he comparissons are foolish.
ALB wrote:1. The theory of the need for a top-down, hierarchical vanguard party to lead the workers and seize power supposedly on their behalf.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/index.htmWe can see how Marx actually thought a party should be organised. He did seek to centralise to some extent, but it's clear that that was in part a process of democratising and mofving away from the conspiratorial version of the rules:http://marxists.catbull.com/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/rules_draft.htmhttp://marxists.catbull.com/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/rules.htmBut, it's clear that the congress of the league that retained supreme authority.
Sorry, my hatred of poor argumentation has kicked in.Vin owned the password to two accounts simultaneously without consulting the administrators. That one of those accounts was under sanction dos not change the fact that his name was associated with it, and he was in control through poocessing the password. Please, please stop insulting our intelligence with your bilge and water weak sophistry.
LBird wrote:Another Leninist tactic.Pretend that there is no slippery slope from 'Materialism' to 'Leninism'.Hang on: you admit that you are employing a slippery slope argument?
