Young Master Smeet
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Also, I'll add there is an element of Slipepry Slope Fallacy going on in the dabte;http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/slippery-slope.html
Quote:The Slippery Slope is a fallacy in which a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any argument for the inevitability of the event in question.The immediate and direct results of leaving the EU are difficult to see, not least because there is no policy document (nor a government) coming forward to say what will take it's place, the leave document that came out earlier this week is airy stuff (the ambiguity has been a deliberate part of the remain strategy).
Or even Hampxit;http://www.camdennewjournal.com/hampstead-hampxitShould workers vote for the Parish Commune?* *(c) Eddie Grant.
It's not a commitment to vote for pro-working class reforms, it's a commitment to vote on a case by case basis. If, say, our delegate were called to vote specifically on these regulations, or there were a referendum on these working rights, we may hold a vote of our members and decide to call for a vote in favour, as it is, the issue of the specific membership of the EU isn't a direct matter on these particular rights, we're talking hypothetical repeal here.Many years ago, Yarm had a vote to leave Cleveland County Council and join North Yorkshire. Now, maybe there would be all sorts of contingencies and personal interests (The Poll Tax, I told you it was a long time ago, was lower in north Yorkshire, but Clveland provided all sorts of services that may have been lost to certain individuals). I can't imagine a Socialist living in Yarm (well, I can't imagine a socialist living in yarm, you should see the place), who would have tried to pretend that Clveland or North Yorkshire was a working class issue.
I don't think leaving the EU will see a bonfire of workers' rights, no matter how much Labour Remain likes to say so; the truce in class struggle these 'riughts' represent is in the interests of the masters, as much as the workers. Some international trade treaties, such as the deal between the EU and Canadia mandate ILO standards, so there's no reason why future trade deals might not do the same. Also, there is the element of democracy, that relying on supranational bodies to inhibit government action is not healthy, it's likely that any government that does go for a bonfire of employment rights will find itself heavily voted out. Further, it's most likely the UK will remain within the EEA, which will also mandate worker's rights.Our position of calling for an active refusal to settle disputes within the ruling class is to my mind the right one.
In his latest novel Ken MacLoed posits a model of state capitalism that could be compatible with basic income: esentially, all corporations are AI entities which are ultimately owned by a single beneficial trust, so all profits from all firms are distributed equally, people are then free to work, trade, accumulate through their own endevours. Now, this (uinlike, say, co-operative based capitalism) is theoretically workable, since it overcomes the differences in organic composition of capitals, each firm would make a profit off it's own capital, but this would then be spread out to all citizens.Effectively, this is UBI with a 100% coporation tax, capital gains tax and dividend tax.Of course,t here would be the iequality of highly remunerated directors, but they would have to be driven by shareholder value.
http://www.squareonelaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/60065-KH-SQ1-Law-EU-Referendum-800x800px-HR.pdfVery interesting chart that shows how little changes across the different options.
KAZ wrote:I have been following this thread for some time and have been quite as appalled by YMS's "practical steps" as by Robbo's free access fetishism. So I was overjoyed to see the mention of "workers' and community councils" by AJJ (to which the correct Party response should have been a vigorous and merciless attack rather than yet another 'practical step').But you'll note in my 'practical steps' the central government does little, the underlying assumption is that associated producers in the workplaces and communities actually carry out the changes on the ground, politiucal pwer jkust provides the framework in which they act. If large workplaces are co-operativised, and then begin to work out how to abolish commodity relations, that's just the same as calling for workers councils.
alanjjohnstone wrote:I see the rise of workers and community councils more as weapons in class war that do actively dispossess the ruling class than simply just an emerging means of administration and as we do have some empirical historical evidence to go by, these act as the "dictatorship of the proletariat" and begin the process of socialisation of production and consumption which in some cases abolished money and wages.One other thing we can do, other than ban wage labour contracts, is compel companies to have charters, constitutions, and social goals (essentially changing all of them into charities/social enterprises), and convert existing share holdings into mere debt, this could provide the framework for the rapid elminiation of commodity relations in the supply chain.
alanjjohnstone wrote:The mom and pop corner-shop, i think, as YMS does, can be ignored as having no or little impact on the social changes taking place. But in the developing world, it is not the industrial-scale farms that provide food as it is in the UK and elsewhere but small family-owned farms the mom and pop small-holdings catering for the immediate market of the district.Exactly, so, they stay around, using part of the dwindling money supply, until such time as they can form co-operatives of their own, or are outcompeted by co-operatives: but, lets not forget the massive lands of the co-operations fall into our hands through the process described above, they are not broken up, but used collaboratively.Engels on peasants:https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/peasant-question/
I am arguing common ownership will happen through political action, but not by a simple declaration of common ownership, but repeated pratical steps. Podemos is just one example, the Eastern Bloc is another, these things come quick, there may be many years of gettign 10% of the votes or something, but breakthrough would be a relativly short processes.Bob could turn to terrorism, or simply obstructionism, sabotage, etc. from a position of strength. The worst thing Bob could do is force us to use force against her.Lets not forget we're looking for an orderly transfer.As for where people would get money from: I've listed a few, but the main one would be workplaces transformed from contracts of service into partnership agreements.
1) It's your legislative fiat, not mine. I wouldn't propose any such thing, I'd only suggest making wage-labour contracts illegal.2) Lets assume Bob the Greengrocer doesn't welcome socialism, and is part of the 40% of voters, lets be optimistic, who oppose socialism.3) I'm talking about a sudden emergence of a strong socialist movement, at Podemos like speed, so eight year time frame.
Quote:We'll use the expertise of the socialists within Walmart, Tesco, Tyson and all the other transnationals. And the obvious place will be at the bottom of the pyramid – the distribution warehouses and the ordering departmentsYes, Bob the Greengrocer would soon find herself in direct competition with Supermarket supply chains where we could quickly move over to free access, but there still may be some farmers, small holders, orchards willing to supply her, and she still may be able to find some sort of luxury niche to survive a while longer until money itself actually dies out. As the monetary architecture dies out, and the means of legal redress for markets get closed down, she could stay in business quite a while.It would have to be a purposeful process.
A legislative fiat declaring common property doesn't become a reality until structures on the ground exist to make common ownership a reality, and small proprietors and such firms as wouldn't be immediately changed by the Abolition of the wage-contracts would still exist: or would you send troops round to storm Bob's Greengrocers? So, for some weeks or months, the easiest thing to do is leave money circulating, while supply chain, decision making and infrastructural changes are made to create practical distribution for needs. Since hte bureacuracy for markets exists already, lets use that, rather than making a new one.So, those things that can quickly be made free access will be, housing, transport, etc. those things that are less important or more niche would continue to circulate with a dwindling supply of pretend-money tokens or somesuch. That way, the obstinate resistors have fewer places to resist obstinately.
robbo203 wrote:Sorry but I still don't get this.So the socialist movement captures political power through the ballot box, The means of production are formally brought into common ownership, Yet you are still envisaging a role for profit sharing as a transitional measure.. How is that possible on the basis of common ownership?Because we can do what we want with out common property. Like a family Monopoly set.
robbo203 wrote:Not quite sure what 1) is about. "State rules" may well continue to exist up until the democratic capture of political power but how would this prevent the expansion of non-market activities/relationships any more than it would or could prevent the expansion of the socialist movement itself? Such activities exist and LETS type arrangements which people seem to go on about are only a tiny fraction of this divrse non market sector. The idea behind the Road to Socialism circular (1986/7?) to which you allude is that this sector is likely to expand in lockstep with the expansion of the socialist movement itself and that, moreover, it would likely become more and more explicitly influenced by the latter and in turn reciprocally feed into and facilitate the further growth of this movement – a point that some critics of the circular back then completely overlooked and probably still continue to overlook. But ever mind!Landlords can still evict, fiduciary duty will still dominate directors of firms, pension firms will be regulated by the government, LETS would still be taxed in pounds, steel firms would still be run by the market sector, not and non-market sector. Yes, we'd have all the free wicker baskets we could ever want from the non-market sector, but the farmers wouldn't be giving over their food for nowt.
robbo203 wrote:My main criticism, however, is with your 3). I just cannot see how this could happen. You talk about continuing to use money for those parts of the economy we can't immediately make free. But where is this money going to come from? How are workers to acquire the wherewithal to purchase goods that remain for the time being in the money economy?. Are you envisaging the retention of wage labour in the short term much like Lenin did in his outline of "socialism" in which all workers would be employees of the state?Savings, UBI, dole, lottery, although profit sharing is more likely. As also said, this is very much a transitional measure as we cut down on the market parts of the economy, we'd leave people free to trade.
robbo203 wrote:As other people have also pointed out , labour vouchers and money are not the the only two conceivable means by which scarce goods can be rationed. There are other ways of rationing and I have outlined one myself – the compensation model of rationing based on housing qualityThat woiuld require a hideous bureaucracy.
