DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Racist remy martin
What's your kind of revolution?
- Thread starter ymu
- Start date
Racist remy martin
Proper Tidy
Arsed
But it's brown
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
No wait, I was thinking of cristal. That is racist champagne.
Remmy is still allowed.
Remmy is still allowed.
Proper Tidy
Arsed
Phew
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Good, well at least we're agreed on Cuba. That's a start.
It is far from the world's most horrible place, but it is not a model I would want to follow at all, and there are some people who have unrealistic ideas about what life is like in Cuba. The higher levels, that go all the way up to a world council, build on the levels below them, basically. But the higher levels do have some power of veto over those below them. They simply have to – you building your road here fucks us up over there; you making a factory here kills our plants over there, etc. And I think it has to be that the rights and freedoms of individuals should be guaranteed at a level that is above the personal. Otherwise, you have arbitrary tyranny.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
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.
Being clear, if your roadmap has traction, it will be undermined from within and without.
Also sooner or later it will be constant attack from the internal and external economic elites who've correctly identified as enemies. Their internal allies include police forces, police community support officers, armies, navies, private security companies, illegal drug sectors, other organised crime sectors, organised white nationalists, lone wolf nationalists, loyalist paramilitaries and militant Islamists. The foreign ones could be worse.
Their tactics include media ridicule, disinformation-black propaganda, surveillance and infiltration, cooptation with lies to divide and rule, restriction of media access, censorship and stripping citizens of citizenship.
If it carries on : restriction of economic needs to supporters, targeted plans for unemployment in sectors where your support is strong, blacklists across all sectors, framings, imprisonment and solitary confinement, sexual molestation of males and females, beatings, torture, re-education of your children by others, reoccupation of your houses and destruction of your property, secret assassinations, counter-revolutionary civil war and possibly mini-nukes.
Proper Tidy
Arsed
Good, well at least we're agreed on Cuba. That's a start.
The higher levels, that go all the way up to a world council, build on the levels below them, basically. But the higher levels do have some power of veto over those below them. They simply have to – you building your road here fucks us up over there; you making a factory here kills our plants over there, etc. And I think it has to be that the rights and freedoms of individuals should be guaranteed at a level that is above the personal. Otherwise, you have arbitrary tyranny.
I agree actually, although this ascending system of democratic control would still need to be conducted through the street council or whatever democratic community body is in place at base. Otherwise the system works down not up. So should ymu require a new car to ferry her home then such a request would still need to be conducted through the street council, which would, if necessary, consult other democratic bodies about the viability of ymu having a new car or not.
And on Cuba, being a damnable trotskyite and all, it was always likely I would have a view of Cuba in which the social and economic gains were defended whilst the political and social repression criticised. I've got no time for the romantic view of Cuba.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
So there are massive areas where your model is silent? Who makes these laws? Who makes the system of laws? What happens when people in one area want one set of laws and others in another area want a different set of laws?
If all this social change has happened, why are the national and world laws needed? Who enforces the national laws if not the street committees? If the street committees do not agree with the laws of the national committee and cannot change those laws for their own street, how can they possibly have any credibility when deciding things for the street?
It's all coming back into theoretical-hypothetical, not much clarity.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Because people are imperfect and always will be. And societies will always be imperfect too. What you agree on is good old-fashioned boring division of responsibilities – this is the concern of a street committee; that matter is the concern of a national law-making body. All laid out explicitly in a constitution that has been thrashed out through a democratic process. It's messy, it's imperfect, and you wouldn't expect it to be any other way. But such constitutional guarantees mean that, for instance, a national govt can't just scrap a regional council or circumscribe its powers, as Thatcher was wont to do. The powers of the higher-level bodies are clearly and firmly circumscribed. The USA's structure actually has some merit in this regard. There's a lot to be said for federal structures.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
Fuck's sake, this is basic stuff. Apart from the need to defend the state from attack by the financial elites, coercion is necessary for civil liberty, and that is where the state is necessary, with its job being no more, necessarily, than enforcing the will of the people.
Ayn Rand argues that a voluntary tax will suffice for running a small government which provides only military and criminal justice services (ie protects property), and that truly self-interested individuals will gladly pay this because it directly benefits them and they cannot purchase the services from anyone else. The obvious rebuttal is that the truly self-interested individual won't pay, even if they know that this means no protection for their property rights can be provided, because no other self-interested individual will pay either, and why chuck money away for no reason?
Communist abolition of money ideas are the flip side of Rand's proposal for me. If self-interested individuals are allowed to take what they desire, regardless of the needs of others and the destructiveness of their action, then the system collapses. Coercion and monitoring of input and output are conditions of success.
I asked before, why we would be happy to let the self-same self-interested, selfish, unproductive individuals that have exploited us to the point of ruin for hundreds of years continue helping themselves to more than they need whilst the average responsible citizen of necessity gets less as a result of their greed and idleness?
Proper Tidy
Arsed
Why would they help themselves to more than they need when there is no social or economic imperative to do this?
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
Why would someone want a playstation and a Wii and an XBox, you mean? Why would I want a low-power consumption laptop for everyday use and a fucking power house of a thing for running simulations and playing games, and another one that I can just slip into my pocket for days out and a phone which synchs with all of them online. And a nice car to shift them all about in, to more restrained mates who didn't just fill their boots, which you don't need to look after because you can pick another one up tomorrow, no questions asked. No parking? No problem, leave it to get towed, grab a taxi home and pick up a new car tomorrow. And if I want to go skiing three times a year then, dammit, I will.
I want to know how it will come about. How you are going to eliminate psycho/sociopathic personality types and avoid enabling the exact same leeches that are currently sucking us dry?
How are you going to abolish scarcity?
I want to know how it will come about. How you are going to eliminate psycho/sociopathic personality types and avoid enabling the exact same leeches that are currently sucking us dry?
How are you going to abolish scarcity?
Proper Tidy
Arsed
Accumulation of goods and capital has very little to do with 'psyco/sociopathic personality types'. It has a lot more to do with accumulation of such things being in ones own interests under capitalism.
Why don't we see people running around with plastic boxes collecting air to hoard? Because it is free, universally available, and nobody can use more than they need. And because it has no economic value as a consequence. There is no benefit to hoarding it.
Scarcity of what? Of diminished natural resources, not much save reducing waste and finding alternatives. Of food, goods and commodities? By producing enough to fulfill need, directly and explicitly, not via mechanisms such as markets which may at times fulfill need and at other times under-fulfill or over-fulfill need.
If people choose to unnecessarily over-consume, by hoarding consoles or laptops or whatever, and this over-consumption is having a detrimental effect on our ability to produce enough to fulfill the needs of others - ie it is having a detrimental effect on society - then this will have to be dealt with by the democratic structures in place - by your neighbours and workmates saying 'no, you can't have this'. But I think you are underestimating the effect of capitalism, of a system based upon competition, on human behaviour, and underestimating the effect a cooperative society will have on human behaviour.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
What does this have to do with anything?
I haven't used the term Communist or Ayn Rand - what is their relevance? None. I don't know whether money should be abolished or not, but I haven't claimed that it should.
To rephrase the point
Why is national or world law needed? What's wrong with street law enforced at the street level? Or neighbourhood law at the neighbourhood level?
That's how revolutions have proceeded in the past. In Russia people took over the estates and people enforced the people's will themselves on a local level independent of any political party. Within Communard Paris, law and order was left to the local assemblies. In the liberated zones of the Mexican revolution there were no lawyers just local bodies. In Spain the agrarian and industrial collectives disciplined themselves and coordinated with each other etc etc.
One could argue the higher the levels of law the more the appointments, the more the corruption, the less the economic democracy.
Laws don't particularly defend the state from "attack by the financial elites either". Older Chileans understand this, they had laws defending their legal revolution but it didn't work.
Laws don't stop this either.
ymu answer previous points, please
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
To the specific point: Why are national and international laws still needed, the answer is simple. There are 7 billion people who all live on one planet and all of whose actions have consequences for others. In such a situation, certain kinds of decisions have to be taken at a higher level than others.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
Do you give in then? You accept your points about law and the national law making body are a-historical/meaningless given what 'revolution' (your thread title) would actually involve?
The ones in this post amongst others
http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/th...revolution?p=11710236&viewfull=1#post11710236
Who is your road map aimed at?
Also, why AV? Wasn't it established on the other thread that AV 'sucked'.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
You've just tried to turn laws into decisions in one stroke, it won't wash.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
You accept your points about law and the national law making body are a-historical/meaningless given what 'revolution' (your thread title) would actually involve?
The ones in this post amongst others
http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/th...revolution?p=11710236&viewfull=1#post11710236
Who is your road map aimed at?
Also, why AV? Wasn't it established on the other thread that AV 'sucked'.
Depends what AV is used for. You don't need proportionate representation of electoral systems, you just want each sub-division of the electorate to decide which system they will use. AV is good at finding the consensus compromise.
I don't get the rest of your post. I may have missed one of yours.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Kind of. The larger-level structures do need to have the power of veto on certain matters, though. This works both ways in that the smaller-level structures will have constitutionally guaranteed areas of concern, but you can't avoid the fact that the larger-level has a power to veto that the smaller level does not.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Same thing, ultimately. Setting the rules for what can and can't be done – taking responsibility for certain kinds of planning. It's quite simple, really – if a decision taken at a local level has any implications for the lives of people in other areas, that decision cannot just be taken at local level entirely independently. This kind of hierarchy of institution is there to guarantee real, proper freedom, not circumscribe it – there are two kinds of freedom: freedom to act and freedom not to be acted upon, and balancing the two, which are often in a state of tension with each other, is the very business of wider society.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
Yes, of course. The lookout is at the top of the mast to get the best view. But that doesn't mean that technocratic direction automatically means an authoritarian workplace.
Each economic sector would have its own de facto pan-national union, with every citizen registered with one and allowed to register as a non-voting supporters with as many others as they wished. The currently low-paid support roles sector (cleaners, security, reception, low level admin and IT support) would have a lot of power in their workplaces to enforce a much fairer share of the profits than they currently get, because a national strike, or boycott of unfair collectives would be hugely effective, and illustrate how critical their roles really are, just as important as those who write their own cheques.
Low-paid workers would dominate technocratic by some margin in many workplaces, and they would have enormous power in any workplace with full employment and efficient worker boycott procedures.
And these things would become as obvious as capitalism seems now to some. It makes sense to ensure that all things we cannot live a modern, civilised and safe life without are available at cost price with maximum purchasing power and efficiency savings by using a national purchasing collective for: housing, food, telephone & internet, clothing, fuel, transport, police & criminal justice, banking, compulsory insurance and anything else that people tick the box as a "thing none of us should have to do without or pay more than necessary for".
The degree of meta-ness in your overview of, and role in directing, the organisation. Do you put widgets together, or do you oversee the production of all widgets? The features that normally define a hierarchy, translated to a non-hierarchical management system.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but I think your objection is trivial. There is nothing contradictory about what I have been saying. The guaranteeing of certain rights is best done at the very highest level of all – to be enshrined in international law. That doesn't mean you have to have top-down power structures, though, because everyone is involved in setting that very highest level. Collective decisions are not impositions from above, they are, if done well, impositions from sideways.
Where I agree with ymu is that we need to get away from the idea that we are ruled from above. No. At the level of the street committee, say, the individual is one voice out of 50. At the town level, maybe one voice out of 50,000. At the national level, one voice out of 50 million. That is all.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
So the people who get quadruple salaries have much meta-ness in their organisation. Is that it?
You need to break this down.
Those who can point to a bottom line associated with their skills can influence their incomes. Top footballers aren't literally worth ten times as much as their lower league counterparts, but they affect income to such a degree that a never-ending arms race exists in attracting the very best players.
The difference between top and bottom incomes is mitigated through the tax system, so the purchasing power is nowhere near as different as a 4:1 ratio suggests. I think I got the figures wrong in the manifesto document - I need to do some more work on it. But look at it this way:
The citizen's income is paid for by income tax. It guarantees every adult £10k and every child £5k, with additional allowances in £1k increments for those who are unable to work or have expensive complications to their lives. No one will be poor, and the proposal is that every x thousand is taxed at base tax + x%:
£1k : 25% + 1% tax (with £10k citizen's income as a tax rebate)
£10k: 25% +10% tax on the 10th k, +9% on the 9th k
and so on
The difference between the minimum possible income for many configurations of income would reduce inequality compared to high earning and highly taxed individuals. Just a token bonus for effort, is all. 75% of GDP will be distributed as income, compared to 50% now, so we would all have payrises of 50%, reduce our hours by 25%, eliminate employment, and end up with a 15% payrise for a much shorter working week and a thriving economy because everyone is participating in it. Everyone is guaranteed a non-profit rental for no more than 30% of household income, with subsidised utilities and no local taxation.
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