The Best Form of Government Thread - Communism Discussions

hodj · Aug 2, 2016

Preach it brotha!

MikhailBakunin · Aug 2, 2016

jihodj said:
Preach it brotha!

I don't know how to interpret that. I don't remember which one you are or what you think.

hodj · Aug 2, 2016

This is a time for new beginnings, buried hatchets, and most importantly, good rigorous discussions to draw new and old into the fold.

The only way to interpret that in this light is simply at its face value.

Let's get this party started my man

MikhailBakunin · Aug 2, 2016

Push-back would have let me run at the mouth more. Oh well.

Harshaw · Aug 2, 2016

I say we move to the Necromonger way of life. "You keep what you kill."

Mario Speedwagon · Aug 2, 2016

Can we get some custom trophies made for people who actually read the shitshow this thread is about to become?

hodj · Aug 2, 2016

MikhailBakunin said:
Push-back would have let me run at the mouth more. Oh well.

Well you claim that state capitalism is to blame for Venezuela's failure.

I interpret this to mean one of two things

a. The state which is seeking to transition to communism must already be in a post capitalist state in order to succeed

or

b. Any state which attempts to transition to communism in a world where many/most/all other states are capitalist is doomed to failure

In both cases, we reach an impasse of how to get from where we are at, aka state capitalism, to where you would like us to be, the I dunno anarcho-communism of the Spanish Civil War era or whatever, Tito. I can't remember which was your favorite go to example.

So how do you bridge that gap when it would require either all states to already be in a post capitalism environment, or at least, the state attempting to transition to communism must already be in a post capitalist situation?

MikhailBakunin · Aug 2, 2016

jihodj said:
So how do you bridge that gap when it would require either all states to already be in a post capitalism environment, or at least, the state attempting to transition to communism must already be in a post capitalist situation?

What I mean is that Venezuela (despite a few tiny overtures to socialism made by the Bolivarian movement), was still essentially a capitalist system with government bureaucrats serving the function of capitalists. Nationalization and socialization are not the same thing. Even when the government isn't completely hobbled by corruption like Venzuela has been, central planning just never works well and always ends up leaving in place the same power structures that are at the core of the socialist critique in the first place.

hodj · Aug 2, 2016

See, I think people would already start disagreeing with your claim that there were merely "tiny overtures to socialism made by the Bolivarian government" when they were providing food, clothing, shelter, stipends, guaranteed work, etc. and also nationalizing major industries in the state like the oil industry. I know you say nationalization and socialization are not the same thing, but to many, myself included, this seems like a distinction without a difference or just a no true scotsman cry.

Then I also still have to question what you replace those power structures with and why that new system isn't open to simply being usurped and or corrupted from within, just as any other system would be.

Its good we both agree central planning of the economy doesn't work, because it clearly doesn't. Production and price and wage controls and trying to predict how much demand there will be for what products as some sort of intelligentsia rather than subject to the forces of the market place never seems to work, and it seems to be what is tried every damn time that we get one of these failed states like Venezuela/North Korea/what have you.

MikhailBakunin · Aug 2, 2016

jihodj said:
See, I think people would already start disagreeing with your claim that there were merely "tiny overtures to socialism made by the Bolivarian government" when they were providing food, clothing, shelter, stipends, guaranteed work, etc. and also nationalizing major industries in the state like the oil industry. I know you say nationalization and socialization are not the same thing, but to many, myself included, this seems like a distinction without a difference or just a no true scotsman cry.

Imagine a country with a dictator that literally owns everything in the country. It's a system of maximal inequality. Do you think that's compatible with any sensible conception of socialism?

jihodj said:
Then I also still have to question what you replace those power structures with and why that new system isn't open to simply being usurped and or corrupted from within, just as any other system would be.

I think you give capital over to its users.

hodj · Aug 2, 2016

MikhailBakunin said:
Imagine a country with a dictator that literally owns everything in the country. It's a system of maximal inequality. Do you think that's compatible with any sensible conception of socialism?

Socialism? No. Communism? That's what it always seems to turn into.

I think you give capital over to its users.

I mean this feels like an empty statement. Its not entirely, but it doesn't really answer the question of how society is structured and organized to function in such a situation, and how it could work without the inherent drawbacks. A vacuum in power will be filled by something.

In my opinion.

MikhailBakunin · Aug 2, 2016

jihodj said:
Socialism? No. Communism? That's what it always seems to turn into.

The examples you're calling "communism" are actually state-capitalist. Communism is a classless society. What the Bolsheviks (and the Maoist and every other right-wing "socialist" movement) did was put themselves in the same seats of power whose very existence was the at core of their criticism. If anything the switch increases the power of capital over labor because now there is no organization with even a *pretense* of trying to mediate the conflict. The government and capital are the same thing and have the power of both. That's exactly why there was shit like the Kronstadt rebellion. Those motherfuckers weren't demanding capitalism. They were demanding socialism...and the Soviets rolled over those motherfuckers with tanks.

jihodj said:
I mean this feels like an empty statement. Its not entirely, but it doesn't really answer the question of how society is structured and organized to function in such a situation

There are plenty of potential solutions within the anarchist milieu but I think that any blanket prescription is doomed.

jihodj said:
and how it could work without the inherent drawbacks. A vacuum in power will be filled by something. In my opinion.

What inherent drawbacks and what power vacuum?

hodj · Aug 2, 2016

MikhailBakunin said:
The examples you're calling "communism" are actually state-capitalist. Communism is a classless society. What the Bolsheviks (and the Maoist and every other right-wing "socialist" movement) did was put themselves in the same seats of power whose very existence was the at core of their criticism. If anything the switch increases the power of capital over labor because now there is no organization with even a *pretense* of trying to mediate the conflict. The government and capital are the same thing and have the power of both. That's exactly why there was shit like the Kronstadt rebellion. Those motherfuckers weren't demanding capitalism. They were demanding socialism...and the Soviets rolled over those motherfuckers with tanks.

The crux of the issue to me with this line of reasoning is that it still does not explain how this transition happens without being corrupted by the interests of the people who lead the process. The inherent drawback in any attempt to knock down the old institutions of power is that they will either be simply usurped by the people leading and organizing the revolution, or they will be replaced by those people. How do the users seize the capital, without falling prey to the same stratification of society that has plagued human society since its inception?

See, those guys who got run over with tanks for calling for more socialism? They had fellas leading them.

And had their dreams not died under the bloodied treads of the Soviet military's war machines, had, instead, their revolt lead to widespread revolution, someone, some group of people who are politically connected within that revolution, would have been in charge of leading it. And those men are going to be faced, on the eve of the final victory, with a series of choices:

1. Do we usurp the reins of the old order?
or
2. Do we replace the reins of the old order with a new order constructed in our image?
or
3. Do we throw down the reins of the old order and leave a vacuum of power in its place?

And also, finally

4. How do we return the capital to the users properly and fairly in the wake of making any of the prior decisions?

And that's where the transition always seems to fall apart.

MikhailBakunin · Aug 2, 2016

jihodj said:
The crux of the issue to me with this line of reasoning is that it still does not explain how this transition happens without being corrupted by the interests of the people who lead the process. The inherent drawback in any attempt to knock down the old institutions of power is that they will either be simply usurped by the people leading and organizing the revolution, or they will be replaced by those people.

lol

Well despite your fatalism on the matter, I think history says this isn't actually a necessary outcome.

jihodj said:
How do the users seize the capital, without falling prey to the same stratification of society

You have it backwards I think. The issue is that the users are prevented by the state from seizing capital.

jihodj said:
See, those guys who got run over with tanks for calling for more socialism? They had fellas leading them.

And had their dreams not died under the bloodied treads of the Soviet military's war machines, had, instead, their revolt lead to widespread revolution, someone, some group of people who are politically connected within that revolution, would have been in charge of leading it. And those men are going to be faced, on the eve of the final victory, with a series of choices:

1. Do we usurp the reins of the old order?
or
2. Do we replace the reins of the old order with a new order constructed in our image?
or
3. Do we throw down the reins of the old order and leave a vacuum of power in its place?

Throwing down the reins of the old order doesn't leave a vacuum of power. That's a nonsense phrase in my opinion. Did the elimination of chattel slavery in the United States create a "vacuum of power?" The issue is the presence of power, not its absence.

jihodj said:
4. How do we return the capital to the users properly and fairly in the wake of making any of the prior decisions?

And that's where the transition always seems to fall apart.

You say the transition always seems to fall apart but the only examples you seem interested in talking about didn't really even try. The fact is though, you can look at the foundations of those movements which did make the attempt and those that didn't and see the difference (the vanguardist tendency specifically).

LiquidDeath · Aug 2, 2016

khalid said:

Possibly the greatest sketch comedy clip ever.

hodj · Aug 2, 2016

MikhailBakunin said:
lol

Well despite your fatalism on the matter, I think history says this isn't actually a necessary outcome.

Well, but I'm kinda not saying it is a necessary outcome, rather quite the opposite.

I implicitly accept that there may be some plausible pathway towards achieving that goal.

The issue is that, thus far, no one seems to have provided one that is plausible.

That's my question, you see. What is the pathway to reach from Point A (State Capitalism) to Point B (Re-allocating the capital to the users) that will allow us to cross that gap?

You have it backwards I think. The issue is that the users are prevented by the state from seizing capital.

Throwing down the reins of the old order doesn't leave a vacuum of power. That's a nonsense phrase in my opinion. Did the elimination of chattel slavery in the United States create a "vacuum of power?" The issue is the presence of power, not its absence.

Well, it kinda did, especially in the South, but the thing was that the North (INCLUDING KENTUCKY! THATS RIGHT I SAID IT Z!) was there already waiting in place to replace that power vacuum with themselves.

You say the transition always seems to fall apart but the only examples you seem interested in talking about didn't really even try[i/]. The fact is though, you can look at the foundations of those movements which did make the attempt and those that didn't and see the difference (the vanguardist tendency specifically).

I'm not trying to be a dick by saying this, but I do think that places like Venezuela, North Korea, China and the Soviet Union did really try, according to the model pathways that they built. I mean, I know we're back right where we left off years ago, but its not like Mao wasn't, at least as far as we can reasonably tell without pretending to be mind readers, an honest to goodness "Communist" who really wanted to see Communism flourish, in the same way I trust Adolf Hitler at his words when he said things like "I'm a Catholic" and "I really really don't like them Jews".

Ya dig?

I think part of the disagreement between people outside socialism and inside it is that there is a tendency to see more distinction amongst our in-group that amongst our out-group. See, I understand that you perceive that there is a difference at the foundations of these movements, and I can respect that that is the way that the communist leaning person perceives the world. They are inside, engaging in an emic perspective, and they perceive these differences quite strongly.

From the etic perspecitve, outside looking in, however, the distinction simply does not seem to be there. Do you see what I'm saying? Maybe it is, but its very hard to judge in my view.

MikhailBakunin · Aug 2, 2016

jihodj said:
That's my question, you see. What is the pathway to reach from Point A (State Capitalism) to Point B (Re-allocating the capital to the users) that will allow us to cross that gap?

Do we have to go through state-capitalism or are you claiming that's what we have now (sort of true given the way the government primes the pump)?

jihodj said:
Well, it kinda did, especially in the South, but the thing was that the North (INCLUDING KENTUCKY! THATS RIGHT I SAID IT Z!) was there already waiting in place to replace that power vacuum with themselves.

That's the collapse of the confederacy under the military weight of the North, not just the elimination of chattel slavery as a legally enforceable mode of human interaction. The reason I invoked it is that we're talking about here (ending the legal enforcement of a particular class human relations).

jihodj said:
I'm not trying to be a dick by saying this, but I do think that places like Venezuela, North Korea, China and the Soviet Union did really try, according to the model pathways that they built. I mean, I know we're back right where we left off years ago, but its not like Mao wasn't, at least as far as we can reasonably tell without pretending to be mind readers, an honest to goodness "Communist" who really wanted to see Communism flourish, in the same way I trust Adolf Hitler at his words when he said things like "I'm a Catholic" and "I really really don't like them Jews".

Ya dig?

I think part of the disagreement between people outside socialism and inside it is that there is a tendency to see more distinction amongst our in-group that amongst our out-group. See, I understand that you perceive that there is a difference at the foundations of these movements, and I can respect that that is the way that the communist leaning person perceives the world. They are inside, engaging in an emic perspective, and they perceive these differences quite strongly.

From the etic perspecitve, outside looking in, however, the distinction simply does not seem to be there. Do you see what I'm saying? Maybe it is, but its very hard to judge in my view.

So...there were socialists (anarchists, but that's splitting hairs) that more or less perfectly predicted the progression of the Soviet Union that very much pre-dated it AND laid it precisely at those distinctions you perceive as minor:

Works of Mikhail Bakunin 1873

Mikhail Bakunin -1873 said:
The theory of statism as well as that of so-called ‘revolutionary dictatorship’ is based on the idea that a ‘privileged elite,’ consisting of those scientists and ‘doctrinaire revolutionists’ who believe that ‘theory is prior to social experience,’ should impose their preconceived scheme of social organization on the people. The dictatorial power of this learned minority is concealed by the fiction of a pseudo-representative government which presumes to express the will of the people.

I think that's a very accurate assessment laid down by someone right in the middle of the development of the socialist movement. More than that, I think you can find examples of societies based more on his ideas that I think did better in terms of what you claim is inevitable about stratification. If there is a legitimate criticism to be made of my preferences in history, it's that their implementation has not come with sufficient military might to survive (including surviving the Soviet Union).

ZyyzYzzy · Aug 2, 2016

Tje good old notrue communism argument. And fuck you hodj. Kentucky is southern.

MikhailBakunin · Aug 2, 2016

ZyyzYzzy said:
Tje good old notrue communism argument. And fuck you hodj. Kentucky is southern.

The problem with the invocation of the No-True-Scotsman fallacy is that there are people who aren't Scotsmen. The fact of the matter is there were socialists who understood the conflict between statism and eliminating classes. Their ideas produced societies that, while they may not have had the military might to survive, didn't have these issues of repression and the re-establishing of capital relations. Either those criticisms can't be said to hold in a blanket way for "socialism" or "socialism" as a critique of capitalism excludes the type of human relations that it criticizes as endemic to capitalism. You pick.

hodj · Aug 2, 2016

MikhailBakunin said:
Do we have to go through state-capitalism or are you claiming that's what we have now (sort of true given the way the government primes the pump)?

Naw, it just seems to usually start in that general vicinity.

That's the collapse of the confederacy under the military weight of the North, not just the elimination of chattel slavery as a legally enforceable mode of human interaction. The reason I invoked it is that we're talking about here (ending the legal enforcement of a particular class human relations).

I dig, the thing is that its all kinda intertwined to a point I'm not sure how we can look at one facet of that separate from the larger context, but its kinda besides the point. I dig where you're getting at with the analogy though, for sure.

So...there were socialists (anarchists, but that's splitting hairs) that more or less perfectly predicted the progression of the Soviet Union that very much pre-dated it AND laid it precisely at those distinctions you perceive as minor:

Works of Mikhail Bakunin 1873

Oh, I know. Bakunin saw that shit coming down the pike. He's also the communist philosophical leader from that era I respect, because he was the one down in the streets fighting while, as I like to put it, Marx was jacking off Engels in his wife's house. But, honestly, I just kinda think that's irrelevant. Bakunin did predict that the model pathway that the more academically minded communist came up with would fail, but at the same time, that doesn't mean that those models aren't correctly placed under the umbrella of socialism/communism. I dunno. It does feel like a no true scotsman at some point, man.

I think that's a very accurate assessment laid down by someone right in the middle of the development of the socialist movement. More than that, I think you can find examples of societies based more on his ideas that I think did better in terms of what you claim is inevitable about stratification. If there is a legitimate criticism to be made of my preferences in history, it's that their implementation has not come with sufficient military might to survive (including surviving the Soviet Union).

I don't disagree with anything necessarily in this paragraph

Now, you also said while I was typing this

The problem with the invocation of the No-True-Scotsman fallacy is that there are people who aren't Scotsmen. The fact of the matter is there were socialists who understood the conflict between statism and eliminating classes. Their ideas produced societies that, while they may not have had the military might to survive, didn't have these issues of repression and the re-establishing of capital relations. Either those criticisms can't be said to hold in a blanket way for "socialism" or "socialism" as a critique of capitalism excludes the type of human relations that it criticizes as endemic to capitalism. You pick.

The problem is that these people who you are claiming aren't really Scotsman are labeling themselves that way, dressing in kilts and running around munching on haggis and playing golf. They just aren't playing the bagpipes. Whether there is another group of Scotsman who are labeling themselves Scotsman, dressing in kilts and running around munching haggis as well as playing the bagpipes, or not, does not mean that the first group are not Scotsman.

You want them to not be Scotsman, but the differences, from the outside looking in, between the two groups is literally just that one group is comprised of more enthusiastic musicians than the other. But they're all still Scotsmen to us.

That analogy really got a lot of work out there!

The Best Form of Government Thread - Communism Discussions

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