Ask the Socialist candidate for the European Parliament election

Great Debates
101

Nope. Collective decision-making can be done locally as well as globally. Secondly, collective decision-making would be oriented more towards production and distribution of goods (what to make and where to send it) rather than consumption (who gets to use it).

Captain Amazing - OK, thanks for the additional source material. I actually found this source last night but didn’t check it at all; turns out I should have because it actually has some more background detail to it than either Wikipedia or Brovkin:

Emphasis mine.

Against the background of the Russian Civil War, the phrases “conquered over opponents” and “strategic military positions” take on quite a bit of importance. The Mensheviks and Social-Revolutionaries weren’t just verbally opposed to the Bolsheviks; they refused to participate in the revolutionary government and once the war was on, actively took up arms against it. Losing strategically important cities like Astrakhan to the counterrevolutionary forces in the heat of war would have been a major blow to the revolution. Only the most naive or foolish of political and military leaders would let potential defeats like that go completely unchecked.

Petrograd, as St. Petersburg was known at the time, was pretty close to the front as well, as noted by the blue line on the map I linked to earlier. Not only was it of military strategic importance - the Kronstadt fortress had a firm command of that stretch of the Gulf of Finland and the shores of the city - but it was also the seat of the revolutionary government. If Petrograd fell it was all over. In the middle of all this you have one of the biggest and most important factories in Petersburg going on strike

when pretty much every other party in the country wanted the revolution crushed;

when, as I understand it, speculation and black marketeering were rampant - and more food taken by the workers (for private profit and not for consumption) meant less food left for the peasants that grew it;

in other words, releasing the same individuals who were advocating armed resistance against the revolution.

Moreover, when Lenin himself went to the factory to talk with the strikers

Little wonder the revolutionary government sent the Cheka in to break the strike!

So the incidents at Astrakhan and the Putilov works in Petrograd, once understood in their proper historical context, do nothing to illustrate the assertion that the Bolsheviks simply shot striking workers for no good reason other than sheer bloody-mindedness; in fact they support the argument that the Bolsheviks broke the strikes out of political and military necessity.

Not that I agree completely with the way they handled all of it - drowning people with stones around their necks is pretty barbaric. Barbarism, however, is not the sole provenance of revolutionary socialism, nor is it the logical outcome thereof. But it is a logical outcome of war; a political philosophy and its adherents cannot be judged solely by their actions in what were arguably very extraordinary circumstances.

102

I don’t understand how the OP can be in politics and not realize how many people just want power for power’s sake.

103

This is just handwaving which goes no way towards addressing the actual problem.

We are discussing a global decision, not a local decision. The world has only one Lamborghini factory How do you propose to decide which 200 individuals in the entire world gets a Lamborghini? How do you propose that everyone gets a say in how the commodity gets distributed?

Does everyone get a vote? How is that practical?

And if eveyone does get a vote how can people form different continent decide on which if the millions of candidates for a new Lamborghini is going to put it to best use?

How are these in any way separate issues? They are at the very least inextricably linked, and in all practical respects they are the same issue.

How do you decide where to send the Lamborghini if you you haven’t decided who gets to use it?

It’s turtles all the way down Olentzero. If you can’t decide who gets to use how can you decide where to send? And if you can’t decide who gets to use how can you decide how many to make?

This sort of response is so typical of Socialists. Rather than actually adressing the problems they attempt to they try to explain that they don’t actually exists.

But at some point someone has to decide how many Lamborginis to make, and that can only be done if we know how many are going to be used. So how do we make a collective decision about how many are going to be used?

Does everyone in the world get a new Lamborghini each year? Do we continue to make just 200 Lamborghinis each year and have some sort of ballot to decide who gets them?

What is your proposed mechanism to make these decisions?

104

Put it this way, then - do you believe that workers have the right to go on strike? Or, if that strike is unpopular, does the government have the duty to force the workers to end their strike?

And, since socialists necessarily must oppose the death penalty, shouldn’t the Chekists have shrunk from killing the kulaks?

Regards,
Shodan

105

I can’t say - that’sthe whole point. Any speculation on my part would be pure Sci-Fi. But I would *hope *it would include virtual physical immortality, near-costless energy, ubiquitous molecular fabrication at will, subliminal consensus governance on anarchist lines, an end to war and suffering, interstellar travel, AIs…

The Culture, basically.

106

Do the words “extraordinary circumstances” mean nothing to you, or did you choose to consciously ignore them, like your sources did?

This was a war situation, one in which even people who said they were allies right up until the revolution were now taking up arms against the government. The strikes weren’t just ‘unpopular’, in that situation they were downright dangerous - not only because of the strategic value of the cities where they occurred but because of the potential outcome - the fall the Bolshevik government, the crushing of the revolution, and either a restoration of the monarchy or a military dictatorship.

Wars are extreme situations. Wars bring people to do things they’d never even dream of doing in peacetime. You cannot condemn a political philosophy or its adherents simply for doing what it became necessary to do in an extraordinary context. To elaborate an example briefly alluded to in Trotsky’s Their Morals and Ours, you cannot condemn a man for killing a dog and removing its brain if you know he’s a veterinarian testing for rabies. It’s unfortunate and sad, but necessary if transmission is suspected. If he’s doing it for a laugh, then moral condemnation is definitely in order.

The Bolsheviks didn’t break these strikes for a laugh or out of some abstract theoretical principle to which they tried to make reality conform. They did it as an unfortunate but necessary measure to attempt to ensure the survival of the revolution so it could spread.

Which is, again, not to say I agree with all the methods. The veterinarian doesn’t need to smear the dog’s blood on his face, set the dog on fire, and dance naked around the blazing corpse to verify the presence of rabies. Neither did the Bolsheviks actually need to tie rocks to people’s necks and drown them in order to break the strike. (If they did; Communist-bashing is such an easy and popular sport it’s hard to take everything written against the Russian Revolution as established gospel.)

Oh, and as for the kulaks - that was much later, in the late 1920s and 1930s, and was a result of Stalinism which (as I’ve said before) I reject completely as a crime against socialism.

107

So let me see if I have this straight.

You think that functioning in extraordinary circumstances meant that Russia at this time that it was incapable of functioning as a “true” socialist would operate?

108

Let’s try that in English:
You think that functioning in extraordinary circumstances meant that Russia at this time was incapable of functioning as a “true” socialist state would operate?

Or that some individuals were unwilling to operate as they would in a true socialist state?

Or is there some third option?

109

They mean that during the period you held up as the best example of the flowering of socialism, the Bolsheviks engaged in mass murder.

Oh yes - God forbid we should allow the workers to go on strike, the way socialists generally assert they have a right to do. Why, if we had done that, then the Bolshevik government might have fallen, and then Stalin would never have been able to become the second greatest mass murderer in history!

Regards,
Shodan

110

These are matters that would have to be democratically decided by the community, and it would be undemocratic for us to set up a blueprint now. We can, though, emphasise some general principles:
[ul]
[li]Lamborghinis are primarily a wealth/status symbol (after all, I understand that they’re unsuitable for normal in-town driving). If you remove that aspect, the question becomes why would you want to drive one?[/li][li]You probably wouldn’t “own” a Lamborghini, or indeed any car—most of the time privately owned cars sit idle, which is a horrible waste. However you would likely have access to one, and you might take one from the common store when needed.[/li][li]Socialism means responsibility—you and your fellows would be responsible for deciding on how to protect the common good, including deciding on what goods to produce. By the same token, you wouldn’t, when producing, want to skimp yourselves with shoddy goods—time and care could be put into the production. After all, if no one is being paid to work, then their motive must be to express themselves through their work.[/li][/ul]

111

We justify it democratically, in terms of the common good. Capitalism, on the other hand, routinely engages in theft of the means of production from the community without any justification whatsoever. If there is, say, a natural spring from which people freely drink, it is not unhead of for some “entrepreneurs” to come and build a bottled water factory over it, turning what was once a public resource into a private one, in the interests of selling that resource for profit.

How could evil men band together if there are no means (a state, army, etc.) for them to enforce their will over the majority? If a bunch of people try to band together, they would be met by the opposition their fellows. Who in their right mind would want to place themselves under a tyranny?

In the first instance, we’d pity the lazy folk, and be glad that the active folk are enjoying their jobs so much. How do we reward hobbyists now? The lazy would get bored, and find something useful to do. People are naturally active.

Keep in mind also that even under capitalism there are some people who have the luxury of choosing not to work, or at least not as much as most other people. Their existence has miraculously not led to the downfall of civilized society.

112

The residents in each district would be able to communicate their needs through their local democratic body; across broader, say, city wide areas, we may democratically agree a set of priority criteria. But, this is just the basics of how any democratic organisation works, and can be seen in a million bodies now.

Our contention is that the abolition of poverty, class, and alienation will abolish the need for police and policing—humans have existed for most of their history without police forces; we can democratically protect and control our own communities without police nor mob rule. A previous post of mine in this thread dealt with the issue of how most types of crime would no longer exist in socialism.

113

I think this is actually a question about democracy. There are two sorts of democracy: democracy between enemies, and democracies between friends. In the former, the votes are like counting up how many members each gang has, and deciding that the biggest gang would win (and so not bothering to have the fight). Democracy between friends is more like when you’re going on a night out, and a majority want to go to the cinema, even though you don’t; you go along because you want to stick with your friends.

In a society where democracy isn’t backed by guns and states, this latter sort is what would prevail, so voting to force a group to do anything would be a waste of time.

114

Never said it was the flowering of socialism, Shodan. Never have, never will. What I have said is that Russia’s the only country to have had a genuinely socialist revolution and the only legitimate attempt to build socialism so far. Calling that the “flowering of socialism” would be like pointing to Paleolithic society and calling that the “flowering of the human race”. Or pointing to you as an infant and saying that in the flowering of your life, you engaged in pissing your pants on a daily basis and crying a lot.

Strikes are weapons, just like guns and knives. Supporting the right to use it doesn’t let people off the hook for critically examining the reason why. Your thinking along these lines (and I use the term very loosely here, since it’s pretty clear you’re after rhetorical points rather than a serious discussion) would condemn a supporter of the Second Amendment for trying to disarm someone robbing them at gunpoint.

115

Well, there are only two options: the tyranny of the minority, or of the majority; one or the other must get their way. No system on Earth can prevent oppression, no set of rules. All we would have is the common sense not to do such things, and the self-interest of preserving a system of free co-operation from which we all benefit. In a society of equals, there couldn’t be permenant majorities or minorities, just various different points of view on various topics.

One of the memes of the American revolution was the “Because men are not Angels”—Hamilton used it to justify government (the populace cannot be trusted to govern themselves); Jefferson to say that government can’t be trusted (the men put over us aren’t angels). Sadly, in the end there is only us. If we remove the means and the incentives for domination, then that means people will have to co-operate to achieve any given end.

116

The more you post, the more my eyes roll. I’m sorry, you are espousing theories that have no evidence for their accuracy. I have a very hard time figuring out by what mechanism laziness, theft, power-hunger, the desire to bully, etc. will suddenly disappear if the world suddenly went socialist.

And may I say, as a member of several minorities, that I no more trust the majority to be fair and/or tolerant without laws and government to make them that way than I trust a shark to spare my bleeding, thrashing body. There are too many incidents in U.S. history (and relatively recent U.S. history at that) of mobs of white men destroying whole black towns and killing every black resident they could find. There are too many incidents of race riots (and we’re talking about white men rioting against black people here) in the interwar period of the early 20th century for me to think that socialism will mystically produce a sea-change in mob mindset that will keep me, as an atheist/agnostic gay man, safe in your brave new world.

117

Well, since socialism isn’t a detailed blueprint of future society, exactly what apparatus future socialists will use for conflict resolution will be up to them to devise and implement. It seems reasonable to me, though, that disputes between large groups of people could be settled democratically (e.g., through a vote), and between individuals by debate, mediation, conciliation, or arbitration. Much dispute resolution in our current society is carried out through these processes. What would not be necessary in socialism is the use of organized violence to resolve disputes.

Violent crime between individuals I addressed in a previous post. Organized violence, such as war, is always economic in nature; it involves rival sections of the capitalist class attempting to asserting control over each other’s resources. Without states, armed forces, and artificial scarcity, there would be no need for any one group of people to organize violence against another group.

That’s a question we have long struggled with. Fortunately, many of the vilest forms of oppressive superiority, such as racism and sexism, are already slowly but steadily dying out today.

Slee
[/QUOTE]

118

[quote=“psychonaut, post:110, topic:498252”]

[ul]
[li]Lamborghinis are primarily a wealth/status symbol (after all, I understand that they’re unsuitable for normal in-town driving). If you remove that aspect, the question becomes why would you want to drive one?[/ul][/li][/quote]
How exactly does one remove the desire for status from human nature?

[quote]
[ul]
[li]You probably wouldn’t “own” a Lamborghini, or indeed any car—most of the time privately owned cars sit idle, which is a horrible waste. However you would likely have access to one, and you might take one from the common store when needed.[/ul][/li][/quote]
I, and ten of my friends, have decided we need the car for the next year, or until it breaks down. Do you have any recourse if you decide you need it?

[quote]
[ul]
[li]Socialism means responsibility—you and your fellows would be responsible for deciding on how to protect the common good, including deciding on what goods to produce. [/ul][/li][/QUOTE]

Same question as before (more or less). I, and my friends, have decided “fuck the common good”. We also borrowed a lot of automatic weapons from the common store.

Is there anything to do about this?

This seems to be the problem of the commons. The lowest cost option for me is to grab the car, drive it until it breaks down, and then let someone else fix it. Unfortunately, this is also the lowest cost option for everyone else.

You seem (as Sarahfeena mentions) to be grossly over-estimating the amount of satisfaction I get from my job. It’s a good job, and I enjoy parts of it very much. But if I didn’t get paid for it, I wouldn’t do it. I would spend much more time surfing the Net and reading and generally goofing off. Imagining a universe where goods and services are free, generally available, and nobody has to work to produce them, then socialism works fine. But we don’t live in that kind of a universe, and we never will. Even in a Star Trek universe where you push a button and food comes out of the wall, someone has to maintain the food machines.

And it is always easier to have it be someone else.

Regards,
Shodan

119

I wouldn’t say that capitalists have no justification whatever. The most common justification they provide is that they created the means of production, and want to retain ownership of it so as to benefit from it.

It might clarify things if you think of it in terms of my job. I write software for a living. I don’t steal existing software from someone else; I write it from scratch. Then I, or rather my company, use it to make a profit.

It is in everybody’s best interest to keep people producing like that. If the government takes it away from me, and I don’t benefit from it any more than anyone else, then the disproportionate effort I put into creating it is not rewarded in anything like a proportionate scale. And therefore, I have no more motivation than the next guy to put forth any more effort than he did - namely, nothing.

It is much the same for other means as well. I want to build a shoe factory. It doesn’t exist now, and it will take a lot of effort and risk to build it. I have to assemble the raw materials, hire the workers, build the factory, buy or build the machines, and so forth. But when I am done, there is something there that wasn’t there before. I am not stealing the shoe factory from anyone. It wasn’t there, and now it is.

But now that I have built the factory, I am not going to benefit from it anymore than the clown down the road who didn’t lift a finger to help. So why should I bother in the first place?

As I mentioned, I have a whole bunch of automatic weapons - all the weapons, as it happens, in the common store. There aren’t any more.

So you can either run and hide while you make a whole bunch more automatic weapons, and hope I don’t catch you at it and shoot you, or you can do as you are told. You started off as socialists - now you are slaves. Get used to it.

Well, the tyrant and his friends, to name a few.

Regards,
Shodan

120

But democratic decisions are currently made by relatively small groups of people. In your system, a million different opinions will have to be heard before every single decision, no matter how small, is made. The inefficiency of this is mindboggling. Nothing would ever get done.

IMHO, many, if not most crimes have nothing to do with money.

Take traffic law - who will make I don’t drive drunk, or race at 100mph in the middle of town, or in general act like a bloody maniac on the road?

Or crimes of passion - say I learn that you slept with my girlfriend; I take a knife and stab you both to death. What happens now? What does society do to me, if anything?

Or say I enjoy raping my children. What then? Who will stop me?