What's your kind of revolution?

[discokermit]

You're a skilled worker and you don't want to be paid more than some cunt sitting behind a desk in a cushy air-conditioned office?

no. i've always argued for equality of wages where ever i've worked. i'm also against percentage rises in wages rather than a set amount rise for everyone.

 

[discokermit]

It's also very important to give people the option of not working

fuck that. we'll all be in it together. if you're not going to do your share, you're not going to eat. you can't have the 'to each' bit without the 'from each' bit.

 

[discokermit]

Yeah. We'll be giving tax breaks to companies that buy up great cars with their profits, on condition that they get handed over to worker-owned enterprises within three years.


It's also what Lenin reckoned was about right.

tax breaks for companies? for second hand cars? this is sounding shitter and shitter. i'm not going to risk my life so we can give companies any kind of break for anything.

we take their fucking companies with no compensation and we do what the fuck we like with them. if the owners/directors don't like it we just kill them.

 

[discokermit]

nationalise everything.

 

[ymu]

I want a worker-run state, not a bureaucratic state. Been tried. Not that great.

 

[DotCommunist]

first man in space, defeated the nazis and checked US imperial aggression for thirty years

 

[littlebabyjesus]

fuck that. we'll all be in it together. if you're not going to do your share, you're not going to eat. you can't have the 'to each' bit without the 'from each' bit.

That's the same shit we have now, though. Coercion via the potential for violence of the state to make everyone conform. Fuck that.

The point is that you need a situation where most people will want to do their share. A life on the dole is profoundly depressing for most people – they want a purpose, they want to be doing stuff. And if a few choose not to, well let them – a few choose not to now, but they are forced to play a stupid, futile and hugely wasteful game with the state where they pretend to look for work and the state pretends to believe them. And you also have the added enrichment to society from those odd individuals who end up producing something remarkable out of their time out of work.

 

[ymu]

first man in space, defeated the nazis and checked US imperial aggression for thirty years

I'm not saying it wasn't good. I'm saying it wasn't great. I don't want a degenerated workers' state, I want a workers' state that is sustainable, and that includes the ability of workers to choose to go it alone and run their own businesses, not rely on a state-appointed bureaucrat to hand them a job and tell them what to do.

Anarchy is in the space between social democratic capitalism and bureaucratic state capitalism, I reckon. This is as close to an anarchic state as I can imagine without going to primitivism and highly inefficient means of exchange, such as barter.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I'm not saying it wasn't good. I'm saying it wasn't great. I don't want a degenerated workers' state, I want a workers' state that is sustainable, and that includes the ability of workers to choose to go it alone and run their own businesses, not rely on a state bureaucrat to hand them a job and tell them what to do.

I agree. I think it is important that this space should be there. Otherwise you end up with top-down totalitarianism of one kind or another. Even benevolent totalitarianism is a shit state of affairs.

 

[frogwoman]

the probem (and im not having a go at you ymu) is that if this was to happen then how would you stop these businesses from growing larger and larger? all companies started as small businesses once, even things like tescos etc. there would have to be some kind of thing in place to stop them growing larger and if shopkeepers etc are working extremely long hours for little reward (or at least little reward that they actually get to see, because they're working all the time and have no life) then that would be a massive incentive for them to try and be ruthless in their business practices etc. wouldn't you eventually end up with the same thing/?

 

[frogwoman]

I think in the situation we're describing a lot of companies would probably ask to be nationalised anyway.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I think shops are one aspect that needs serious looking at. The current system makes it profitable for there to be a massive amount of pointless duplication. There's scope for sensible, temperate planning to sort that out. There already is a system in place that is supposed to plan shopping centres, balancing the different kinds of shop. A more rational approach to this would wheedle out waste. With a system of citizen's wage in place there would be no need for anyone to work massively long hours in any case.

 

[ymu]

I don't have a problem with big business. Dense urban populations are more efficient than scattered rural ones and big conglomerate farms and distributors are more efficient than small ones. That's carbon efficient too. If we want a sustainable economic structure without genocidal elements, big is beautiful.

As long as the workers get their fair share of the profits, the companies pay their taxes, and non-profit worker-owned competitors get a fair shot at setting up, and smaller local shops are supported to make sure that all sections of the population have access to good value food, where's the problem.

We have a maximum wage and a tax system which covers all forms of income generation and wealth accrual. There won't be any loopholes, come the revolution.

 

[frogwoman]

I think shops are one aspect that needs serious looking at. The current system makes it profitable for there to be a massive amount of pointless duplication. There's scope for sensible, temperate planning to sort that out. There already is a system in place that is supposed to plan shopping centres, balancing the different kinds of shop. A more rational approach to this would wheedle out waste. With a system of citizen's wage in place there would be no need for anyone to work massively long hours in any case.

Yep

 

[frogwoman]

I don't have a problem with big business. Dense urban populations are more efficient than scattered rural ones and big conglomerate farms and distributors are more efficient than small ones. That's carbon efficient too. If we want a sustainable economic structure without genocidal elements, big is beautiful.

As long as the workers get their fair share of the profits, the companies pay their taxes, and non-profit worker-owned competitors get a fair shot at setting up, and smaller local shops are supported to make sure that all sections of the population have access to good value food, where's the problem.

We have a maximum wage and a tax system which covers all forms of income generation and wealth accrual. There won't be any loopholes, come the revolution.

What's to stop large corporations behaving as they currently do? And if the laws are too tight in one country they can just go to another one.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Hmm. Big conglomerate farms have been responsible for some of the worst forms of ecological degradation of the last 60 years. Small, mixed farms are actually more efficient and sustainable in the long run. We need to get away from the idea that we can eat anything we like whenever we like and get back to eating seasonal, local produce from small mixed farms. You can't have this kind of change in society and leave old systems in place that don't serve. While I agree that there needs to be space for response to 'consumer demand', that space needs to be more circumscribed than it is now, and to do that, new structures are needed.

Another thing that needs looking at is advertising. Advertising is mostly an example of game theory gone wrong – a waste of effort, in other words. And worse than that, advertising works by creating a need, a desire, a sense of lack that can be filled by buying this or that good. You can't have that in any new society in which money serves people and not vice-versa.

 

[frogwoman]

we need to get away from the idea that we can eat anything we like whenever we like

A lot of people still can't.

 

[DotCommunist]

the inevitable post revolutionary yogurt weaving begins. The whales.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

A lot of people still can't.

True. But it is an expectation nonetheless. Another expectation is that we should be able to drive anywhere whenever we like. Again, this is an expectation that needs to be changed. It's a tricky balance – to balance the freedom of the individual against the good of the collective that ultimately makes any freedom meaningful. But you can't just leave that balance to a market, even a maket run on fair terms.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

the inevitable post revolutionary yogurt weaving begins. The whales.

It would be nice if it were just yogurt weaving. In reality, it is the biggest challenge any society faces – how to sustain itself without destroying the means of sustenance, and what kinds of freedom can be maintained within that balance. There's no final answer to this – it is a never-ending problem that needs constant monitoring and alteration.

 

[frogwoman]

True. But it is an expectation nonetheless.

Really? Does someone who has (say) a pound to last them two days on food have that expectation?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Really? Does someone who has (say) a pound to last them two days on food have that expectation?

yep. I'm guilty of it. I buy Egyptian strawberries in winter sometimes. Some fruit and veg, I would not even be able to tell you with a great deal of certainty when their season is, I'm ashamed to say. I'm sure I'd get a few wrong if you gave me a list.

Ah, you edited. Of course, someone who is skint doesn't think like this – but the truth is there to see: the vast majority of people in the uk buy food that is out of season and has been imported or grown in an unsustainable way. Most of us don't even think about it, and I very much include myself in this –*and that is why this is something that can't just be left to consumer choice. It's too important for that.

 

[frogwoman]

Another expectation is that we should be able to drive anywhere whenever we like. Again, this is an expectation that needs to be changed.

Are you serious?

 

[discokermit]

I want a worker-run state, not a bureaucratic state. Been tried. Not that great.

your idea leaves the workers on a quarter of their bosses wage and no control. if the workers run the state and the state owns everything then the workers own everything.

it was tried but britain now is not post civil war russia of nearly a hundred years ago, with a large peasant population and barely any working class.

 

[frogwoman]

yep. I'm guilty of it. I buy Egyptian strawberries in winter sometimes. Some fruit and veg, I would not even be able to tell you with a great deal of certainty when their season is, I'm ashamed to say. I'm sure I'd get a few wrong if you gave me a list.

That's not the same as "being able to buy whatever whenever you like" though.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Are you serious?

Yes. Most people who own cars expect to be able to drive whenever and wherever they choose. This is something else that isn't sustainable.

 

[frogwoman]

Yes. Most people who own cars expect to be able to drive whenever and wherever they choose. This is something else that isn't sustainable.

Do they really expect this?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

That's not the same as "being able to buy whatever whenever you like" though.

Expectation, froggy. Expectation.

 

[discokermit]

That's the same shit we have now, though.

except now we own nothing. in that situation we'll own everything. refusing to work after a revolution is not the same as refusing to work now. if you shared a house with someone who refused to do their share of cooking and washing up, you'd soon stop feeding them and cleaning up after them.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Do they really expect this?

Yes, I would say that most people do. It's changing a bit – Central London is an exception.