What's your kind of revolution?

[DotCommunist]

I know why it will work though, because once the profit motive is removed, once the need to accumulate capital, to hoard from a limited supply to ensure the well-being of you and yours, is extinguished, then there will be no benefit to such actions. Over-consumption and hoarding will cease to be problems in a society in which there is neither individual and societal gain from such actions.

the desire for wealth accumulation as an end to itself won't leave the human spirit with a click of the fingers. We'll be rounding up dissidents for 60 odd years- when money and things are of no object the drive to status still remains. Also there is no room for bookies in your post-scarcity society (((ladbrokes)))

 

[Proper Tidy]

Ah the petty politics, rivalry, backstabbing and score-settling of the street council. Gotta love it.

Busy-body cunts butting into my business. Have street councils for sure, but don't give them power over everyday stuff like that. No thankyouverymuch.

Aren't you an anarchist?

You have been arguing the case up-thread of the need to significantly reduce the numbers of vehicles, yet here you dismiss the whimsical purchase of a car as 'everyday'.

What alternative would you propose? Some individualist wank-fantasy where nobody can prevent you buying a car on a whim (so long as you can afford it that is)? In any sort of collective society there will need to be democratic bodies of people, to plan production and to assign commodities, goods and services on the basis of need. If you disagree with this then you may as well give up anti-capitalism of any tradition.

 

[ymu]

why would you do that unless you were extremely anti social and wasteful? or deliberately trying to destroy the planet?

If I can justify it in my head when I'm feeling a bit flush, how would I not be able to justify it if everything was free? I don't go out much, don't do much alcohol or drugs, don't go on holiday (we live in our holiday home ).

I want mechanisms whereby people don't just give into the impulse to take what they don't really need because it makes life a bit easier and pleasanter right now.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Aren't you an anarchist?

I'm also a realist. In particular, I am realistic about the nature of street councils and the political wrangling that goes on in such things. I would not give street councils the power over any decision that related to an individual member of the street – they would only decide on communal matters. People need to work together with their neighbours, but they also need protection from the arbitrary whim of their neighbours so that they can live their lives how they see fit as long as that does not impinge on others.

Basically, the protection of communal interests is something that needs to be done as locally as possible, but the protection of individual interests is something that must be done at a higher, impersonal level. Otherwise you can never even hope for any kind of justice.

 

[Proper Tidy]

But under capitalism there is an instinctive (that is to say, socially driven) need to accumulate goods, products, wealth, capital. I think you are underestimating the impact upon human behaviour of breaking with capitalism, ymu. Once people live in a collective and participatory society, free from the need to adopt a worldview of 'me and mine, we come first' caused by a society based upon competition and exploitation, and invested instead of a worldview very much of 'we are all in this together' then people's attitudes and behaviour wrt consumption would be very different.

 

[ymu]

I can't see how guaranteeing a reasonable income, secure housing at a reasonable rent relative to income (capped at 30% of household income), and cost-price essentials, whilst allowing people to accrue some additional rewards for their tangible contribution is so problematic. Those who cannot work will have additional support via the citizen's wage in recognition that they cannot, and should not need to, contribute in terms of productive work in order to live a dignified life.

People and workers will have sufficient power, that if they want incomes to equalise, they will achieve that via democratic consensus.

It may not be perfect, but it's a roadmap. I want to know how we get to nirvana, not just what it looks like. I'd love to live in a world without money where it was simply a given that no one took more than they needed and no one gave less than they are able, but I am less than convinced that this can be achieved by anything other than coercion. It's a mirror image of Ayn Rand's voluntary-tax state, as far as I can see, and the same rebuttal applies.

 

[discokermit]

It may not be perfect, but it's a roadmap.

it isn't though. how is your manifesto going to be implemented? is it going to be like the chartists charter? are you going to form a party? or stand in elections? how are you going to persuade the rich to give up some of what they own?

 

[sihhi]

I think there are jobs I would do for less money than others. I charge the NHS less than non-profits, and both of them less than I charge drug companies. If I had my pick of ideal jobs, I'd be working behind a bar (not running it). But I'm kind of handy as a medical researcher, and I'd never have known that if there was no good reason to want a better job than the one I had at 18, when I had cheap rent and no responsibilities and didn't need to earn more than £2.20/hour.

There are so many assumptions packed within this. You're saying because you, in the capitalist world, didn't want to train for medical research at age 18, job roles, in a socialist world, that are require less scientific knowledge should have workers that are weaker and poorer than others in different roles. What choices you made are irrelevant

Why should the cleaners in the street not get their fare share - their labour helps make the medical researcher just as much as the .

What's to say in the future once society is reordered people will value medical research in the same fashion, perhaps people will use what medicines there are but no longer seek new ways to ward off the effects of old age, or perhaps attitudes to children will change - who knows.


Being blunt, your model is wedded to status quo individualism - it's a plan that seems made by a coven of economists and other professionals and so exults wage differentials for the good of humanity.

In the real world of social organisation, when the military are attacking you from all sides, everyone being equal is much simpler

They help by outlining an economically democratic society which doesn't look a whole lot different from our current one with most of the bad bits removed and progressive economic structures encouraged to prove their worth on the free market of public opinion and lived experience.

Who do they help though? Who in the here and now?

PS There is this thread for economic democracy discussions

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/threads/336013-IWCA-Economic-Democracy-Part-Two

because 'revolution' is never going to be as you describe, people will have to stick together not worry about 'immigrants', whose children are whose, about who did what for whom. They won't, if they want to win, divide themselves into people who will earn a quarter of what others do - as a way to attract new support when under attack.

 

[Proper Tidy]

I'm also a realist. In particular, I am realistic about the nature of street councils and the political wrangling that goes on in such things. I would not give street councils the power over any decision that related to an individual member of the street – they would only decide on communal matters. People need to work together with their neighbours, but they also need protection from the arbitrary whim of their neighbours so that they can live their lives how they see fit as long as that does not impinge on others.

Basically, the protection of communal interests is something that needs to be done as locally as possible, but the protection of individual interests is something that must be done at a higher, impersonal level. Otherwise you can never even hope for any kind of justice.

So what 'higher level' of bureaucracy do your propose? How would it be democratic and accountable? How would it avoid corruption, nepotism, and so on?

Using the street councils of Cuba - a state with a centralised bureaucracy wholly unaccountable to the Cuban people, which enforces its will semi-covertly by permitted corruption and by the inevitable, poisonous and corrupting influence of a one-party state, and nakedly in the form of its police and armed forces, and where there is not an overabundance of but a lack of goods and commodities, and at times in the recent past necessities - as a benchmark for a street council under democratic rule is flawed btw. Because how a community council relates to the state is going to be very different under a bureaucracy than under a workers' democracy.

 

[sihhi]

I'm also a realist. In particular, I am realistic about the nature of street councils and the political wrangling that goes on in such things. I would not give street councils the power over any decision that related to an individual member of the street – they would only decide on communal matters. People need to work together with their neighbours, but they also need protection from the arbitrary whim of their neighbours so that they can live their lives how they see fit as long as that does not impinge on others.

Basically, the protection of communal interests is something that needs to be done as locally as possible, but the protection of individual interests is something that must be done at a higher, impersonal level. Otherwise you can never even hope for any kind of justice.

How can you get a higher, impersonal level without cooperation at a street level (not today's society)? Where do these 'levels' just come from?

I don't claim to be an anarchist, how can you be anarchist if your ultimate structures are so top down!

 

[ViolentPanda]

well, this is why I mentioned the quality of produce. Because if imported whiskey from outside the USSB is of better quality than the free stuff you can bet your last penny that someone will make a sideline selling it.

You'll drink your Victory whiskey and you'll like it, prole!

 

[ymu]

it isn't though. how is your manifesto going to be implemented? is it going to be like the chartists charter? are you going to form a party? or stand in elections? how are you going to persuade the rich to give up some of what they own?

Roadmap

 

[ymu]

There are so many assumptions packed within this. You're saying because you, in the capitalist world, didn't want to train for medical research at age 18, job roles, in a socialist world, that are require less scientific knowledge should have workers that are weaker and poorer than others in different roles. What choices you made are irrelevant

Why should the cleaners in the street not get their fare share - their labour helps make the medical researcher just as much as the .

What's to say in the future once society is reordered people will value medical research in the same fashion, perhaps people will use what medicines there are but no longer seek new ways to ward off the effects of old age, or perhaps attitudes to children will change - who knows.


Being blunt, your model is wedded to status quo individualism - it's a plan that seems made by a coven of economists and other professionals and so exults wage differentials for the good of humanity.

In the real world of social organisation, when the military are attacking you from all sides, everyone being equal is much simpler



Who do they help though? Who in the here and now?

PS There is this thread for economic democracy discussions

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/threads/336013-IWCA-Economic-Democracy-Part-Two

because 'revolution' is never going to be as you describe, people will have to stick together not worry about 'immigrants', whose children are whose, about who did what for whom. They won't, if they want to win, divide themselves into people who will earn a quarter of what others do - as a way to attract new support when under attack.

Because when cleaners have the same power in a company as technocratic managers and meta-bureaucrats, they will vote themselves lower wages?

I'm using the tax system to impose a maximum wage, and encouraging an economic business structure which will optimise productivity whilst encouraging ever more equal pay because the only other place profits can go is into investment or the Treasury.

 

[discokermit]

Roadmap

i read it last night. you've obviously put a lot of effort in which is admirable but it's basically just a letter to father christmas.

even if it was fair (it isn't) and workable (it isn't), how are you going to get it implemented?

 

[ymu]

By sheer force of numbers and the abundant supply of lamp-posts for those who try to buy the revolution back.

 

[weltweit]

I'm using the tax system to impose a maximum wage, and encouraging an economic business structure which will optimise productivity whilst encouraging ever more equal pay because the only other place profits can go is into investment or the Treasury.

I don't see how it will, what motivation will workers have to optimise productivity when they may feel that they are already doing all right jack thank you very much?

And what exactly do you mean by "optimise productivity" anyhow?

 

[discokermit]

By sheer force of numbers and the abundant supply of lamp-posts for those who try to buy the revolution back.

they don't need to buy it back. they control the army as well as everything else.

 

[Proper Tidy]

I don't claim to be an anarchist, how can you be anarchist if your ultimate structures are so top down!

My thoughts exactly.

 

[sihhi]

Roadmap

ymu are you trying to take urban75 for a ride, when AV is being ridiculed across the country?

There will then be a national referendum, using AV, to determine:
1. Which common electoral system will be used to select the economic sector representatives
2. Which common electoral system will be used to select the local representatives
3. Which common electoral system will be used to select national technocratic advisers
4. Which common electoral system will be used to select local technocratic advisers

Are you 'trolling'?

 

[ymu]

I don't see how it will, what motivation will workers have to optimise productivity when they may feel that they are already doing all right jack thank you very much?

And what exactly do you mean by "optimise productivity" anyhow?

Do workers work for their wage packet, or because they want the boss to get rich?

Does a senior manager sit down and think "how can I make the boss richer today" or does s/he think "how can I make the boss think I'm worth more money/benefits/promotion" today?

What, precisely would be different if the profits were shared amongst the workers? There would be exactly the same incentive to do well - more money in your pay packet - but now it would apply to every single worker because they all get to share in the profits. And they get a say in how they manage the business. So the cashiers at Tesco would get the same chance to say how pointless the self-checkout tills are because they don't work, require constant supervision, facilitate thieves, cause log-jams when they are busy and can't cope with a full trolley load of items. And they'd get more of a say than meta-management because there are more of them.

 

[sihhi]

Because when cleaners have the same power in a company as technocratic managers and meta-bureaucrats, they will vote themselves lower wages?

I'm using the tax system to impose a maximum wage, and encouraging an economic business structure which will optimise productivity whilst encouraging ever more equal pay because the only other place profits can go is into investment or the Treasury.

Then just come out and say 'I am for equality in all spheres of production'. You know you want to.

 

[weltweit]

Do workers work for their wage packet, or because they want the boss to get rich?

Does a senior manager sit down and think "how can I make the boss richer today" or does s/he think "how can I make the boss think I'm worth more money/benefits/promotion" today?

What, precisely would be different if the profits were shared amongst the workers? There would be exactly the same incentive to do well - more money in your pay packet - but now it would apply to every single worker because they all get to share in the profits. And they get a say in how they manage the business. So the cashiers at Tesco would get the same chance to say how pointless the self-checkout tills are because they don't work, require constant supervision, facilitate thieves, cause log-jams when they are busy and can't cope with a full trolley load of items. And they'd get more of a say than meta-management because there are more of them.

And what exactly do you mean by "optimise productivity" anyhow?


Further, I like the auto tills, they work fine for me.

 

[ymu]

Then just come out and say 'I am for equality in all spheres of production'. You know you want to.

I am. I am also for it coming about because people realise it works better for them than any other system. I want it to be stable, not under constant attack from economic elites. I want for it to domino around the world as a model for true democracy and universal prosperity, and for it to be impossible to mount any coups against it because no brave soldier will take your money to undermine the global citizen's revolution.

 

[DotCommunist]

You'll drink your Victory whiskey and you'll like it, prole!

course I will- but the greedy mans VP, the greedy mans are everywhere. They'll not be content with Victory spirits. they'll fight like demons for their henesse brandies and rare clarets.

 

[Proper Tidy]

Hennessy is shit. You want Remy Martin.

 

[discokermit]

course I will- but the greedy mans VP, the greedy mans are everywhere. They'll not be content with Victory spirits. they'll fight like demons for their henesse brandies and rare clarets.

i've got a bottle of hines cognac buried in the garden. be prepared!

 

[DotCommunist]

all VSOP to me- napolean is a reasonable taste for a bargain price

 

[_angel_]

And what exactly do you mean by "optimise productivity" anyhow?


Further, I like the auto tills, they work fine for me.

I don't like them. I feel like I should be getting paid to work in tesco!

 

[Proper Tidy]

Tescos actually do a decent own-brand cognac.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

How can you get a higher, impersonal level without cooperation at a street level (not today's society)? Where do these 'levels' just come from?

I don't claim to be an anarchist, how can you be anarchist if your ultimate structures are so top down!

You have cooperation at street level – in order to decide upon all those issues that concern the street. You have cooperation at work level – in order to decide upon all those issues that concern the workplace. You have cooperation at town/city level – in order to decide upon all those issues that concern the running of the whole town/city. You have cooperation at at the regional level, national level, world level.

Different problems require different levels of coordination. Complex industries or national transport systems require strategic planning at a large scale, for instance. Worldwide management of resources and environment requires strategic planning at a world level. All these things can be built from the bottom up – in that a street committee will, for example, deal with the town committee, which will deal with a national committee, etc. But certain universal rights/responsibilities (but here I'm more concerned with rights) need to be guaranteed at a higher level than the street. Each street cannot have its own set of laws. And I think it is unrealistic to believe that we can get along with each other in large societies without some kind of system of laws, although I would want that system to look very different from how it looks now.

I don't actually care too much for labels, personally. If that isn't what you would call anarchism then so be it. I don't define my ideas by someone else's idea about what they should be like.