What's your kind of revolution?

[ymu]

I've been struggling for a while to define my politics, and Urban has helped a great deal in that. There are some great minds here, and I am constantly awed by the sheer depth of knowledge and insight on offer here.

I still don't know what my label should be. I'm not scholarly enough for Marx or imaginative enough for Kropotkin. But I guess I'm a sort of syndicalist social democrat. I want a revolution, but I want it to be a gentle one. I'm such a wet liberal at heart ...

I'd like to see the end of political parties. Elected representatives to be chosen by broad-based unions and associations representing all essential sectors, with community representatives making up the other half of parliament. Elected technocrats to take non-voting seats and act as advisers and referees on law-drafting sub-committees, with a President acting as facilitator in plenary, with a duty to become well-informed about the technocratic fine-print of every bill, interjecting only where a point of information or key argument has been missed by the floor.

MPs would spend half their time in their local constituencies or workplaces, integrated into the elected technocratic bureaucracies running local affairs and presiding over each key sector. Their task is to gather ideas and petitions from their constituents and take them to parliament where they submit them to the relevant committee and then sit on their own committee to debate the issues raised nationally for them.

All essential 'needs' would be available via state-owned or worker-owned non-profit enterprises, with taxation levied on prices to the extent that prices needed to be artificially inflated (eg on petrol). Essential needs include housing (the state will buy any home at market price in return for a guaranteed tenancy at a reasonable rent-to-income ratio for life, with state-owned acquired and new-build housing being distributed via estate agents), food (non-profit no-frills supermarkets and local corner-shops), utilities, transport, phone and internet, retail and business banking, health, education & training, pensions and compulsory insurance.

The private sector would be free to cater for 'wants', and to compete for 'needs' if it so desired. No public sector subsidy will be available to any profit-making enterprise without a proportionate share-holding being handed over to the state-owned pension fund, with the proportion of shares to be negotiated by the relevant parliamentary committee with elected technocratic advice and agreed by parliament after open public consultation (real-time publication of all input received and provided). These shares could not be bought back by the private sector without the agreement of parliament after an open public consultation.

There would be no stock-market. Existing stock-holders may continue to hold what they have and be taxed as rentiers. Investment for new profit-making enterprise would be available via pension funds (state-owned or otherwise) and the state banks. Individuals are free to invest their own accumulated capital in new enterprises as they so desire.

Everyone would be entitled to free education and training, which would be made available (within reason) to everyone throughout their lives, paid through for by general taxation.

Taxation revenue to come from:

Income tax, with all income being treated equally, whether earned, unearned or capital gains and taxed progressively according to use value of income with an aim to establish an effective maximum wage at no more than four times the living (=minimum) wage, with regional variations in the cost of living factored in; and

a land tax levied on all rentiers, according to the accruing value and income-generating ability of their estates.

No VAT, but selective sales taxes would be imposed where higher prices are a social good (some fuels, tobacco, alcohol and the formerly illicit but now legally regulated drugs formerly known as Classes A, B and C).

Income would be taxed progressively (no tax-free threshold, minimum tax rate 5%, maximum 95%) to pay for a citizen's income (set at 75% of the living wage, defined regionally and adjusted proportionately for children and those with disabilities and other minority needs) to be paid to every adult and child to replace the benefits and pensions system. The remainder of the monies required to fund this would be provided by the state-owned pensions system, which distributes the returns it makes from investing in existing industry. There would be no equivalent of the DWP as this could be administered entirely by the tax authority and the pensions fund.

Rentiers would be on the same regime as income tax, with a 50% penalty for any rents derived from properties against which no debt is secured (ie they pay half again as much tax as if the income had been earned).

Profits from the state-owned banks, made from providing retail banking and investing in new enterprises (worker-owned non-profit and private sector), would be used to supplement tax revenues.

That's my kind of revolution.

What's yours?

 

[Pickman's model]

I'd like to see the end of political parties. Elected representatives to be chosen by broad-based unions and associations representing all essential sectors, with community representatives making up the other half of parliament. Elected technocrats to take non-voting seats and act as advisers and referees on law-drafting sub-committees, with a President acting as facilitator in plenary, with a duty to become well-informed about the technocratic fine-print of every bill, interjecting only where a point of information or key argument has been missed by the floor.

MPs would spend half their time in their local constituencies or workplaces, integrated into the elected technocratic bureaucracies running local affairs and presiding over each key sector. Their task is to gather ideas and petitions from their constituents and take them to parliament where they submit them to the relevant committee and then sit on their own committee to debate the issues raised nationally for them.

'elected representatives to be chosen by broad-based unions': very democratic that. just as democratic to have unelected community representatives in parliament.

you're not really one for having a revolution democratise things are you?

 

[ymu]

Just because I didn't include the adjective again, it doesn't mean they wouldn't be elected. Communities would be free to determine their own means of selecting representatives. Economic sectors would have to adhere to common rules to prevent capture by special interests.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Squat the planet, resist the banker takeover and stop killing the animals

 

[LLETSA]

I've been struggling for a while to define my politics, and Urban has helped a great deal in that. There are some great minds here, and I am constantly awed by the sheer depth of knowledge and insight on offer here.

I still don't know what my label should be. I'm not scholarly enough for Marx or imaginative enough for Kropotkin. But I guess I'm a sort of syndicalist social democrat. I want a revolution, but I want it to be a gentle one. I'm such a wet liberal at heart ...

I'd like to see the end of political parties. Elected representatives to be chosen by broad-based unions and associations representing all essential sectors, with community representatives making up the other half of parliament. Elected technocrats to take non-voting seats and act as advisers and referees on law-drafting sub-committees, with a President acting as facilitator in plenary, with a duty to become well-informed about the technocratic fine-print of every bill, interjecting only where a point of information or key argument has been missed by the floor.

MPs would spend half their time in their local constituencies or workplaces, integrated into the elected technocratic bureaucracies running local affairs and presiding over each key sector. Their task is to gather ideas and petitions from their constituents and take them to parliament where they submit them to the relevant committee and then sit on their own committee to debate the issues raised nationally for them.

All essential 'needs' would be available via state-owned or worker-owned non-profit enterprises, with taxation levied on prices to the extent that prices needed to be artificially inflated (eg on petrol). Essential needs include housing (the state will buy any home at market price in return for a guaranteed tenancy at a reasonable rent-to-income ratio for life, with state-owned acquired and new-build housing being distributed via estate agents), food (non-profit no-frills supermarkets and local corner-shops), utilities, transport, phone and internet, retail and business banking, health, education & training, pensions and compulsory insurance.

The private sector would be free to cater for 'wants', and to compete for 'needs' if it so desired. No public sector subsidy will be available to any profit-making enterprise without a proportionate share-holding being handed over to the state-owned pension fund, with the proportion of shares to be negotiated by the relevant parliamentary committee with elected technocratic advice and agreed by parliament after open public consultation (real-time publication of all input received and provided). These shares could not be bought back by the private sector without the agreement of parliament after an open public consultation.

There would be no stock-market. Existing stock-holders may continue to hold what they have and be taxed as rentiers. Investment for new profit-making enterprise would be available via pension funds (state-owned or otherwise) and the state banks. Individuals are free to invest their own accumulated capital in new enterprises as they so desire.

Everyone would be entitled to free education and training, which would be made available (within reason) to everyone throughout their lives, paid through for by general taxation.

Taxation revenue to come from:

Income tax, with all income being treated equally, whether earned, unearned or capital gains and taxed progressively according to use value of income with an aim to establish an effective maximum wage at no more than four times the living (=minimum) wage, with regional variations in the cost of living factored in; and

a land tax levied on all rentiers, according to the accruing value and income-generating ability of their estates.

No VAT, but selective sales taxes would be imposed where higher prices are a social good (some fuels, tobacco, alcohol and the formerly illicit but now legally regulated drugs formerly known as Classes A, B and C).

Income would be taxed progressively (no tax-free threshold, minimum tax rate 5%, maximum 95%) to pay for a citizen's income (set at 75% of the living wage, defined regionally and adjusted proportionately for children and those with disabilities and other minority needs) to be paid to every adult and child to replace the benefits and pensions system. The remainder of the monies required to fund this would be provided by the state-owned pensions system, which distributes the returns it makes from investing in existing industry. There would be no equivalent of the DWP as this could be administered entirely by the tax authority and the pensions fund.

Rentiers would be on the same regime as income tax, with a 50% penalty for any rents derived from properties against which no debt is secured (ie they pay half again as much tax as if the income had been earned).

Profits from the state-owned banks, made from providing retail banking and investing in new enterprises (worker-owned non-profit and private sector), would be used to supplement tax revenues.

That's my kind of revolution.

What's yours?

In a situation where the dwindling numbers who are interested in challenging the capitalist system have never been so disorientated (with no end to this disorientation in sight), this would come about how exactly?

 

[ymu]

In a situation where the dwindling numbers who are interested in challenging the capitalist system have never been so disorientated (with no end to this disorientation in sight), this would come about how exactly?

I don't think reform is a contradiction to revolution, so I would go with trying to change the dominant ideas. Economics is the method and the object is to change hearts and minds. (Two can play at that game, Maggie, you self-defeating old bitch). People need to uinderstand how badly they're being screwed before we can widen the debate over where we want to be heading to. Revolutionary language is inaccessible to most, and off-putting to many. I think a wedge strategy is more effective.

Right now, I'm focusing on pretty mainstream Keynesian arguments against the unholy nightmare being unleashed on us all. The right's arguments don't make sense on their own terms, so why not take them on on their own territory?

With apologies for posting this twice, here's summat I wrote to my dad which might help explain what I mean:

It was interesting that you referred to my politics as 'anarchist', because that's pretty much what Evan Harris, the Lib Dem MP that lost his supposedly safe seat in Oxford last May, said to me. The thing is, what I'm talking about economically is Keynes, the man who tried to save capitalism from itself and achieved a pretty good measure of success for 40 years, before it all got torn down and we started careering down a very bumpy, recession-ridden, downhill slope to the inevitable repeat of 1929.

Keynes is the father of Liberalism, and a Lib Dem MP couldn't recognise his ideas (as expressed to him via articles written by several Nobel Laureates in Economics) as anything other than my "extreme ideology". I find that quite alarming. The sheer extent of the shift in attitudes over just 75% of my lifetime. Keynes said that when the private sector isn't spending, the government has to. And that when the boom comes, the government must recuperate those costs from the businesses that are benefiting from a well managed and stable economy. If no one is spending, no one is working and no one is paying taxes and the debt gets worse, not better.

Keynes also said we needed more equal incomes because crashes come when the workers can't afford to buy the things that they make. The least quoted tenet of Fordism is that you pay your workers well because there's no other way to shift mass-produced cheap consumer goods (he refused to use more robots because "robots don't buy cars").

I can go further to the right than Ford and wonder why the hero of the right, Adam Smith, is so rarely quoted by them on his thoughts about having a land tax as a means of financing government, on the grounds that rentiers are not producing anything, they will pass as much of the tax onto their tenants as they can afford to pay, and they in turn will pass on as much of the cost to their customers as they can afford to pay. It is a self-balancing tax system, based on an easily valued asset that cannot be hidden or expatriated. It's funny how that idea of his never gets mentioned by those who have bastardised his legacy, eh?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I did a thread a while ago on a citizen's wage. I agree with you that administering it could be done entirely through the tax system – I would do it as a form of negative income tax. Tax rates for earned income would have to be higher than you set them, though, I think. Also, administering it through the tax system would allow for the sticky topic of immigrants' entitlement – basically, new immigrants would not be entitled to it straight away, but would instead receive an equivalent income tax personal allowance.

I agree that as a minimum, all banking has to be either nationalised or run on a cooperative basis. By law, I would not allow anybody else to lend money at interest. We've missed the boat this time, I think, but the periodic meltdowns in the capitalist banking system actually give an opportunity to do this – there really is a realistic way to get from here to there. These state-backed or cooperative banks would lend money to businesses, but only to businesses that are incorporated to be fully worker-owned. Again, this would be a way to get from here to there realistically. It would not involve the disbanding of current shareholder-owned businesses, although some form of restriction on the flow of money across the border would need to be reinstituted (such restrictions were in place as late as the 1970s, so there's no reason they can't come in again). But over the years and decades, such capitalist businesses would become increasingly anachronistic. Cut off from bank loans and in any case at an inherent competitive disadvantage as they have to service the leeching shareholding class whereas worker-owned businesses do not. Such a banking system would also encourage the longer-term investment that is crucial to a successful economy and is sadly lacking in the UK.

I agree with you about housing. I would have it written into any constitution that all citizens have a right to a secure long-term tenancy, and also to completely free education. The Greek constitution guarantees free university education – again, it is hardly advocating a full-scale revolution to demand the same here.

As for the structure of democratic institutions, I'm not a great fan of elections. They have their place, and I would still have an elected lower chamber of full-time representatives who run the government, but I would also have an upper house chosen entirely by lot to oversee the lower chamber and with the right to veto legislation. I would also – along with a new constitution – have a layer that provides constitutional protection: including an elected president whose sole responsibility would be to ensure that the constitution is observed by all layers of government.

Importantly, I think this kind of social settlement could be sold to people. Most people would be better off under such a system. It makes sense economically as well as in terms of social justice. It is a kinder way to run a society. The task is to reclaim society from capital – so that money serves us rather than us serving money. It is a big task, but not an impossible one, I don't think. Capitalism will melt down again at some point. We need not to let it off the hook next time.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

In a situation where the dwindling numbers who are interested in challenging the capitalist system have never been so disorientated (with no end to this disorientation in sight), this would come about how exactly?

I don't recognise that situation.

 

[Pickman's model]

I don't think reform is a contradiction to revolution, so I would go with trying to change the dominant ideas. Economics is the method and the object is to change hearts and minds. (Two can play at that game, Maggie, you self-defeating old bitch). People need to uinderstand how badly they're being screwed before we can widen the debate over where we want to be heading to. Revolutionary language is inaccessible to most, and off-putting to many. I think a wedge strategy is more effective.

Right now, I'm focusing on pretty mainstream Keynesian arguments against the unholy nightmare being unleashed on us all. The right's arguments don't make sense on their own terms, so why not take them on on their own territory?

With apologies for posting this twice, here's summat I wrote to my dad which might help explain what I mean:

i thought you wanted to achieve all this by educating people in their 40s and 50s.

 

[Stoat Boy]

A new Holy Roman Empire. With the whole world speaking Latin.

 

[ymu]

i thought you wanted to achieve all this by educating people in their 40s and 50s.

You appear to be cross-threading to a suggestion I made on a completely different topic. Well, not completely different - we will, of course, have to overthrow this, or a future, government to achieve an economically democratic society, but I'm talking here about what we do next. I'm not a fan of dogma, but if we don't have a broad idea of where we want to be heading, how can we ever get there?

Hmm, I like that "economically democratic idea". Social democracy is a cop out. I'm a syndicalist economic democrat.

 

[LLETSA]

I don't recognise that situation.

Where is the challenge to capitalism coming from in your world then?

 

[ymu]

Where is the challenge to capitalism coming from in your world then?

May 5th. We should be able to do an Egypt and have all this in place in time to fully nationalise the Olympics. This lot's fatal weakness is that they've pissed off all their security services, so I reckon we could have a busy summer ahead.

 

[Kizmet]

Democracy is like fools gold. The revolution will be when the majority of people are marginalized enough to see that...

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Where is the challenge to capitalism coming from in your world then?

Most people now understand that the banks are screwing us all over. Five years ago, most people did not understand this. For instance.

Half a million people on the streets the other week demanding, basically, that money should serve us, not us serve money.

And as the cuts start to bite, I would expect more and more people to realise that they are being taken for mugs. Ymu's made the point elsewhere that the vast majority of people are not well served by the current system. I think more and more of that majority are starting to realise that too. And I think that is important, personally. I don't want a bloody revolution. It would be self-defeating, I think. Any new social settlement has to carry the majority with it – it has to make the middle classes feel that it is for them too. Hence universality of provision is crucial – the idea that the welfare state is not just for the poor, but for everyone. And also convincing people that the current economic model is dysfunctional. It clearly is dysfunctional, and again, I think more people are starting to realise that: for instance, only now is it becoming clear for many exactly the economic damage Thatcher inflicted on Britain. Thatcher wasn't just a disaster socially, but also economically. Knowing a bit of Marx helps you understand exactly how, but the lies are increasingly impossible to sustain even to those who know nothing of Marx, Keynes or anybody else.

 

[ymu]

Democracy is like fools gold. The revolution will be when the majority of people are marginalized enough to see that...

I agree. And the countdown to that point officially begun with the new tax year.

Tick tock, tick tock. We're coming.

 

[Random]

[...]Profits from the state-owned banks, made from providing retail banking and investing in new enterprises (worker-owned non-profit and private sector), would be used to supplement tax revenues.

That's my kind of revolution.

What's yours?

Rather than focusing on what I want as an end set-up, 'my kind of revolution is about the process, how the changes are achieved and how they are defended. Which makes this a question of what we do in the here and now, rather than a series of demands, or a programme for a future society.

WRT final goals, I think it's unlikely I'd ever see a political system I entirely endorse established, but hopefully something that I'm ok with, and that's open to change.

 

[LLETSA]

I don't think reform is a contradiction to revolution, so I would go with trying to change the dominant ideas. Economics is the method and the object is to change hearts and minds. (Two can play at that game, Maggie, you self-defeating old bitch). People need to uinderstand how badly they're being screwed before we can widen the debate over where we want to be heading to. Revolutionary language is inaccessible to most, and off-putting to many. I think a wedge strategy is more effective.

Right now, I'm focusing on pretty mainstream Keynesian arguments against the unholy nightmare being unleashed on us all. The right's arguments don't make sense on their own terms, so why not take them on on their own territory?

With apologies for posting this twice, here's summat I wrote to my dad which might help explain what I mean:

You can talk about changing hearts and minds, but the example of Thatcher is misplaced. Thatcher had pretty much the entire corporate media on her side. In contrast, we have a handful of tiny, declining radical left organisations, who seem to hate each other more than capitalism, and a few thousand non-aligned individuals, who, like the left groups, seem mainly interested in what the SWP is up to. And then we have the Labour Party, which, as we know, can sometimes talk left at times like this, in full confidence that everybody who is pissed off will vote for them as the lesser evil.

And the thing is, what's being unleashed on us isn't an unholy nightmare. It's a further attempt to make us more like the US, a society which is still ticking along fairly smoothly despite the vast and ever-growing disparities in wealth. The past few decades have seen the same process happening here, and far from it galvanising opposition, it's almost erased it (in terms of political alternatives and not mere protest), and fractured society. There is no reason why a substantial portion of the middle class and the better-off end of the working class can't ride this out; and the working class has no independent organisation anyway. An unholy nightmare is coming, however (energy crisis and climate change, and the resulting permanent state of crisis), but by that time they'll have us exactly where they want us.

 

[ymu]

Rather than focusing on what I want as an end set-up, 'my kind of revolution is about the process, how the changes are achieved and how they are defended. Which makes this a question of what we do in the here and now, rather than a series of demands, or a programme for a future society.

WRT final goals, I think it's unlikely I'd ever see a political system I entirely endorse established, but hopefully something that I'm ok with, and that's open to change.

I think that's exactly right (see my response to LLETSA ^^ there). But there's no contradiction in offering tantalising glimpses of the future whilst also looking at practical means to change the present.

I think there is too much abstract revolutionary rhetoric, and too much that is not abstract is mired in history. I like concrete, real ideas that tell me how me and mine would live after the revolution. Would we be better off, how many would be better off and (strongly correlated to that), how much popular support it would have and (strongly correlated to that) how much ammunition and/or how many lamp-posts would be required to bring it about.

So yeah, let's work to change the here and now, but it doesn't stop us debating the future and inviting as many people as possible to contribute to that debate, by couching it in terms that everyone can relate to.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Hmmm. The current Labour party is useless. Entirely useless and hopelessly compromised by the Blair/Brown years still. It certianly needs to renew itself and that renewal won't come from Milliband. But, as a fairly modest thought, do you think it beyond the bounds of possibility that a Willy Brandt-style figure, promising social democratic reform that effectively returns what has been taken away in the last three decades, but does so while outlining convincing reasons why this would make economic sense, could not emerge? I see a great space for such a leader to emerge because the arguments are so strong and there are so many people to whom the arguments could be made. I'm not a pessimist like you. I see no inevitability to the continuation of the slide towards ever-greater inequality.

 

[Random]

I see a great space for such a leader to emerge because the arguments are so strong and there are so many people to whom the arguments could be made. I'm not a pessimist like you. I see no inevitability to the continuation of the slide towards ever-greater inequality.

WB was not a product of the right arguments, but of a compromise between labour and capital, which capital wanted in order to rebuild after the war.

 

[ymu]

The middle-classes of the formerly super-consumer countries won't be riding this out, LLETSA. They'll be chasing technocratic and financial sector jobs all the way to BRICS. And the working-class will be forced to choose between remaining in a low wage economy with no more cheap imports, or following the jobs all the way to ... BRICS.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

WB was not a product of the right arguments, but of a compromise between labour and capital, which capital wanted in order to rebuild after the war.

There is another way to characterise that, which is that it was a compromise between labour and capital that was forced on capital by labour. I would argue that the Attlee social settlement in the UK was the product of exactly the same process.

 

[Random]

There is another way to characterise that, which is that it was a compromise between labour and capital that was forced on capital by labour. I would argue that the Attlee social settlement in the UK was the product of exactly the same process.

Yes indeedy. And where is the armed and organised wc that will force a similar compromise now?

 

[LLETSA]

Most people now understand that the banks are screwing us all over. Five years ago, most people did not understand this. For instance.

Half a million people on the streets the other week demanding, basically, that money should serve us, not us serve money.

And as the cuts start to bite, I would expect more and more people to realise that they are being taken for mugs. Ymu's made the point elsewhere that the vast majority of people are not well served by the current system. I think more and more of that majority are starting to realise that too. And I think that is important, personally. I don't want a bloody revolution. It would be self-defeating, I think. Any new social settlement has to carry the majority with it – it has to make the middle classes feel that it is for them too. Hence universality of provision is crucial – the idea that the welfare state is not just for the poor, but for everyone. And also convincing people that the current economic model is dysfunctional. It clearly is dysfunctional, and again, I think more people are starting to realise that: for instance, only now is it becoming clear for many exactly the economic damage Thatcher inflicted on Britain. Thatcher wasn't just a disaster socially, but also economically. Knowing a bit of Marx helps you understand exactly how, but the lies are increasingly impossible to sustain even to those who know nothing of Marx, Keynes or anybody else.

Most people that you personally know may understand something about what the banks are doing, but the outcome of the first general election after the banks crashed the economy (and the lack of protest when it happened) suggests that the majority either don't understand it or don't much care.

Half a million people on the streets might be impressive, but generally represents the most politically committed part of the population (less than 1%). And people can take to the streets demanding what they want, but without avenues to political power it remains mere protest, which can be acknowledged and then dismissed, in full confidence that protest can only gain so much momentum before a big section of the activists get tired and go home.

People knew they were being taking for mugs under the Thatcher governments, but far from the selling off of the country's assests galvanising opposition, it decimated it and demoralised working class communities. Today's opposition rests on that vastly weakened basis.

I don't see where your challenge to capitalism lies.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Yes indeedy. And where is the armed and organised wc that will force a similar compromise now?

Not needed. When capitalism melts down again, we call its bluff and take over. It can be done – with the right political will, the entire banking system of the UK could have been nationalised a couple of years ago. Capitalists have their capital taken from them because of their own fucking stupidity.

And, crucially, it does not have to be just an organised working class either. In terms of our relations to capital, most of us are in fact working class. Take me – university educated, working in a job that most would call middle class, but in terms of my actual wage and my relation to capital, I am at exactly the same level as a skilled manual worker, that is where my rational class interest lies.

 

[Random]

It can be done – with the right political will, the entire banking system of the UK could have been nationalised a couple of years ago. Capitalists have their capital taken from them because of their own fucking stupidity.

By the current political class? Hardly.

 

[ymu]

For every one person on that march, there were several who couldn't make it. Getting 1% of the population to the streets of London is huge. At the time of the march against Iraq opinion polls were summat like 90% opposed. Current polls indicate a -25% government (dis)approval rating, and support stuck at a 30% hardcore, even though some who oppose their policies are still saying they see no other option than Tory.

 

[LLETSA]

Rather than focusing on what I want as an end set-up, 'my kind of revolution is about the process, how the changes are achieved and how they are defended.

Although I understand what you mean, this sounds like a society of permanent activism, and the trouble is, most people never have really wanted to be activists and likely never will.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

By the current political class? Hardly.

That's what I meant by 'with the right political will'.