Which doesn’t address the point I made. This is not self-discipline. It’s discipline imposed by others.
That’s just ridiculous. Words have meanings. You cannot self-discipline somebody else.
As for your obfuscation between the good of the individual and the good of the group, if you throw that out, you might as well be a capitalist. Capitalism benefits plenty of people who live in a capitalist society. Sure the workers may not benefit - but they should just accept this as price of making the system work. After all if the workers are sacrificing their individual interests for the benefit of some greater good, what difference does it make to them who collects on that greater good? The workers are still coming out short either way.
Yeah, I read that. That’s the post where you said the Bolsheviks led the Revolution. And I read your other post where you said there was no group that lead the revolution. I can see where you’d want to avoid this issue.
I never meant it as such proof; if you’ll read the thread I linked you’ll see I regard the Spanish Revolution as a tragically lost opportunity, perhaps. We’ll never know how well it could have worked, economically, in the long run, but in the very short run it seemed to work better than capitalism.
But, N.B., it was an Anarcho-Syndicalist revolution, very different from the Leninist model. No centralized state or party control over the collectives. Kind of like if, when Lenin declared, “All power to the soviets!” – “soviets” being Russia’s self-organized workers’ councils, independent of management, independent of the state, and independent of any political party – it had actually worked out that way, instead of the soviets being reduced to instruments of Bolshevik/Communist Party rule.
On that note, I repeat my earlier question to you. which you still haven’t answered: If you believe the real-deal social revolution is yet to come, what is to come after? I mean, nuts and bolts. How are the results you describe to be achieved? A centralized state-run economy, or a federation of autonomous collectives, or what?
If I agreed that these examples were communism, then you’d have a point. But I don’t. It doesn’t boil down to “no true Scotsman” because I have provided explanations and analysis as to why these countries are not communist rather than simply asserting they’re not; obviously you don’t buy those arguments but that’s not good enough reason to start dressing everything in kilts.
No I did not. NTS avoids the use of reasoned argument altogether. I’ve done quite the opposite. Same for your hypothetical Protestant. His arguments may be wrong, but the fact that he’s trying to use reason and argument to bolster his position removes the ground for NTS. Your personal incredulity regarding my arguments doesn’t bring it back into play, either.
The Scotsman is dead. Try coming up with some reasoned arguments of your own now.
So what it comes down to is that no matter how a communist revolution begins, it results in something other than communism, and this something other than communism is most often truly horrendous.
That indicates that the communist model is profoundly flawed, for it causes its own abortion each and every time.
A community that agrees on a plan and the steps necessary to put that plan into action understands what they need to do and how they need to go about it. Sticking to the plan and understanding everyone’s role in it is self-discipline, both on the inividual and the group level. It’s where the principle of democratic centralism comes in - freedom in discussion and debate, firm unity in action.
Why?
If it ain’t them directly, it makes all the difference in the world.
I said no such thing. I said who the revolution was made by. Saying that the Russian Revolution was not made by a group or elite on behalf of the working class is not the same thing as saying there was no leadership within the working class.
Yeah, answering your question directly and referring you to my earlier posts is clearly avoiding the issue.:rolleyes:
BG, it’s not for socialists to plan everything out in detail before the revolution happens - seriously, did Adam Smith plan out Goldman Sachs? - but in general, it would be similar to what’s come out of sharp worker’s struggles before, like the Paris Commune, the Petrograd Soviet, the Seattle General Strike of 1919, and the Spanish Revolution. The workers form councils based in the workplace, democratically discuss what action is to be taken and how it is to be achieved, and link up with other similar councils to coordinate. Democratic planning that takes everything possible into account so as to make work easier, more fulfilling, and less time-consuming so people have more leisure time to pursue their own interests. That’s all that really can be said this side of the overthrow.
That’s like asking the Wright Brothers to prove heavier-than-air powered flight works… in 1897. We’re still trying to get to the point where theory can be put into practice. Kitty Hawk wasn’t within the reach of human potential throughout human history. Nor was capitalism, nor is communism. There wasn’t a modern working class with nothing to sell but its ability to work until the 1850s, so there was no possibility of a workers’ government anywhere before then. And I’ve gone over what happened since then many times on the boards.
Well, you’ve had over 150 years since 1850. What’s stopping you? When in recent times has communism not led to brutality? I’ll propose a system of economics/government called Bryanism, which has never been successfully demonstrated, either. Therefore, Bryanism has exactly as much validity as communism.
That sounds awfully time-consuming for the workers – to do the productive work all day and attend all those meetings to decide questions of administrative policy (a task that is quite efficiently, if not quite beneficently, left to specialized executives at present). As Oscar Wilde (may have) said, “The problem with socialism is that it takes too many evenings.”
Bryanism has better odds of succeeding than communism, for communism has proven itself to be a dead end, whereas at least with Bryanism there is the knowledge that whatever it does, it should not mimic communism.
Perhaps it wasn’t crystal clear to you when I said “making work less time-consuming” a couple posts ago. Reducing the working day is something socialists want to achieve (and not just so the rest of the day can be filled with meetings).
That having been said, your patronizing concern for their valuable time irritates me no end.
Think about it, BG. Nobody had achieved heavier-than-air flight in 1897; all they had was ideas and theories they were using to work their way towards Kitty Hawk in 1903. You lot would be the ones sitting there saying “It hasn’t worked yet so what makes you think you two are gonna get it right?” without giving any thought to the work being done to get there. It is intellectually lazy to assume that just because something hasn’t succeeded yet means it won’t succeed in the future, especially when you sit down and give serious thought to what went wrong the last time around instead of smugly assuming you know everything already.
We’ve all pointed out examples of self-identified Communist systems that have failed. One conclusion to be drawn from this evidence is that Communism is not a workable system. That any system which tries to practice Communism will run into its inherent contradictions and will fail.
You’ve rebutted by arguing that they were not real Communist systems and a real Communist system would work. Can you provide any evidence to support your conclusion? Or is your conclusion non-falsifiable - that no matter how many hundreds of times a Communist system fails, you can simply dismiss the failures as proof the systems weren’t Communist enough and real Communism will work?
I could self-identify as Amelia Earhart but that doesn’t mean I am. Self-identification is not proof positive of anything.
Or critical thinking skills could be further engaged to investigate whether or not the systems that self-identify as communist actually are.
Well, in this very thread I provided an argument about the one indispensable element for establishing a communist society. Go find that and get back to me.