Strange Famous

Since my politics informs my view on many world issues, I react to much of what is discussed here from the perspective of what I believe in, which is demoractic communism. It seems that in half the threads I post in however, it becomes me defending communism and my communist ideas, rather than talking about th issue which the thread was intended for.

Consequently, I want to say what I believe in, the reasons I believe in it, and let us use this thread to debate communism, its desirability and its possibility and so on.

The first thing I have to say, because we seem to have struggled with this... communism is not Stalin's Russia, it is not Mao, it is not Pol Pot, it is not even Castro or Tito or Allende...

When I talk about communism, I talk about the idea's of Karl Marx and other thinkers who have followed him. I do not mean Lenin's Russia - Leninism is not Marxism or communism, it is Leninism.

If we cannot get past this then any argument about communism becomes rather dull, because someone says "Communism killed 30 million people under Stalin", I say "Russia was not a communist state" someone else says "Communism killed 5 million people under Pol Pot"... and it just goes on forever.

By the Marxist definition, there has never been a communist nation state, and when I talk about communism, and when other communists talk about it, we do not talk about a system of government that is anything like the USSR, the People's republic of China, or any existing state. What people call the communist revolution in Russia was in fact a capitalist revolution - that transfered Russia from a feudalist society into a capitalist one. Russia was state capitalist while America and most of Europe were market capitalist countries.

Market capitalism is preferable to state capitalim, although state capitalism can create far quicker advances in technology and massive industrial achievments, it requires an undemocratic government, which leads in nearly all cases to opression, and in many cases mass murder carried out by the state. While in the market capitalist state, the government may well commit murder against the working people (using police as strike breakers or to assasinate union leaders for example) this is far less common and the state does not have the power to commit mass atrocities on a systematic basis, because it is replacable - there is also a greater freedom of labour. this exposes the working class more vulnarably to the violence of the invisible hands (and although we know that a very small percentage of peopel are starving in modern America or France or England, we must compare the state of Russia with 19th century industrial Europe or America - were there was indeed partial and actual starvation, and awful poverty - which killed many people and shorterned many lives.)

When we talk about the murders carried out by Stalin, we must never shrink from saying this was an evil of the greatest magnitude. We must also never shrink from admitting the huge waste of human life caused by early industrial capitalism in Europe and the New World.

if we can admit, or at least humour as communists, that what WE talk about when we say communism is not the same as any existing state, whether that state has caused itself communism or not, then what DO we mean?

Communism first and foremost is an extension of democracy. It is extended the political democracy which the ideal liberal state offers to the economic world. Put simply, if you own a great deal of money, if you control the means of production, this gives you power, but power without accountability... what communism means to do is for the means of production to be owned by the people. Not by a state body which is not elected or accountable or controlled by the people - but by the mass of the people themselves.

What communism means is that in each workplace, worker democracy exists. Managerial decisions are taken by vote, technical decisions by vote or by a committee of experts, which all members of the enterprise will sit on in turn at different times.

The greatest objection people have to communism is to say "well, uou know its a fantastic dream, but it just wouldnt work... people just are not able to live in that way"

The capitalist today will tell us... the workers are too lazy. if you have worker democracy that will all just vote for 4 hour lunch breaks and never do any of the rotten work...

What communism means, to me, is believing in people enough to say we can make it work. Under a capitalist society, human nature may be a certain way, or may seem to be that way. people may seem sometimes to be lazy, they may only be motivated by self interest (ie - they will only work harder if they are scared of being sacked or motivated by getting more money or promotion by doing it) I see a world where people are motivated by pride. pride in themselves and pride in the enterprise, and pride in the society that they have created, and these people WILL work, and they will be working to protect a government of the people BY the people - (liberal capitalism can only say government of the people for the people at best) - because if we cant do it, if we are so poor a species, so poor a race, that the only things that can motivate us is our own self interest, is more money in our pockets, is the acceptance that yes we are exploited (that some of the value of our labour is profit, is dividend for the shareholder, is taxation for an inefficient government, is going to buy your Chairman a new Mercedes) - but if we work hard we can make a good living and maybe we can become an exploiter, a profit maker... if we cannot find a higher motivation, if we cannot make a better society, then let the exploiters come back, lets sign ourselves our for the Brave New World and our Soma and sex games and whatever else, because if we cannot do there is no hope, there is nothing more to aspire to and no better world other than a world like this when we have more technology or a little less war, or better video games.

But it isnt just worker democracy, it is worker control, it is the ownership of economic power by the people as a whole. There will not be privately owned means of production in the communist world, all means of production simply exist, simply are. The society is organised by a committee, formed of representaves of each area, which is answerable to representatives of each town, which is answerable to representatives of each street or housing unit.

People may own private possessions (such as clothes, technology, jewelry, and so on), they will live in houses allocated to them by the local housing department, houses will be allocated by need. People will be able to move if they wish to, they will be able to move job if they wish to. Enterprises will not sell for profit and loss, they will be judged by the demand of the goods that they produce. If the enterprise produces something which is not demanded, then they will either have reduced funding or be encouraged to supply other goods. People will interview for jobs, and be given jobs according to ability, they will be free to find any job they wish - if they cannot find a job the state will give them one, each enterprise will have a quote of jobs it must make open to state employee's of this nature.

People will not be paid wages, they will have credits given to them according to need - need is assessed both by the individual and by a board that is designed to do this, appeals can always be made to a democratic town hall meeting on any issue like this - if the individual believes he is not allocated suffiicient to his needs. The individual, or family may use credits however they wish - there will be no homelessness and no hunger, people will always be protected from falling below a certain level, even if they misuse their credits, although they may be made to give back certain things if necessary.

There will be a degree of crime, committed by lunatics, these people will be arrested, tried democratically, they will be rehabilitated into society and if they cannot be they will be imprisoned.

All decisions made the the ruling committee of the country can be challenged and over turned by referendum. All major decisions of organistation are made by the people anyway, every week they will vote via television on the major issues - of which they will be fully informed by a totally free and unbias (as in not bias to any faction of state or bias towards the ownership of means of production) media.

Day to day, peoples lives will be similar to today, and yet vastly different... there is no exploitation of the value of labour - all of the work you do benefits the social unit, and all of the rewards you get are allocated by the social unit according to need.

The motivation to work hard is no longer to get more reward, you work hard out of pride, out of creativity, and because human nature of 99% of people is to do well and want to do a good job. If there are people who just want to bum around, they will probably find themselves doing jobs that arent very interesting, the manual work - but we will always make sure there is a chance to improve for everyone, that no one is stuck anywhere.

Obviously, I have left a lot unsaid, but the government and formation of a future society is a big subject! I'm also going to post something about why I believe capitalism will fail, and I will be happy to debate any points related to anything to do with the subject - in this thread

__________________
"Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate,
for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing
hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain
without being uncovered."

The Gospel of Thomas