Theses for partyism (part 2)
Tonight there was an interesting debate on ##marxism on irc.freenode.net of which I was a contestant. The subject of the debate was "the party" and saw 5 debaters (one of which humble little me) explain their viewpoints and question others. The overall atmosphere was very comradely and is something many revlefters could take an example of.
You can find the complete log of the debate here.
I was also enabled to put up an introductory text before the debate happened, so I'll crosspost that here:
You can find the complete log of the debate here.
I was also enabled to put up an introductory text before the debate happened, so I'll crosspost that here:
Quote:
An introductory post made for the upcoming debate on the party on ##marxism.
A few basic theses:
A few basic theses:
- Capitalism, by virtue of the way it operates, creates the working class. The working class is the only consistently revolutionary class in the sense that it is the only class that benefits from a radical break with the past and propel humanity forward to communism, an end of its misery.
- Under class society, the state is an instrument of the ruling class. Thus, under capitalism we see a very specific form of state as opposed to, for example, feudalism. We see a state that is designed for the interests of a tiny minority and as a result is design in a very vertical way: Professional bureaucrats, an army/police apparatus, the “rule of law”, the concept of elections (which is anti-democratic!) and the international financial markets are all key institutions of the state. States do not exist in a vacuum, but are part of an international state system, which reflects the global tendencies of capitalism. In the last analysis the international state system represents the interets of the capitalist class-collective.
- If the working class is to perform its historic task of revolutionary transforming society to communism – a society of free producers – it has to be transformed from a mere slave class, to a class-collective of its own, with its own political agenda of revolutionary emancipation. This is not a spontaneous process, nor something that happens through mere labour struggles. What is needed is a political agenda that has basically three tasks: a) The weakening of the capitalist state, undermining its rule, with the evental aim of toppling the contitutional order of the capitalist state; b) forcing concessions that enable the working to politically be free to organise and lift the heavy burden of economic exploitation by the capitalists as much as possible; c) to organise a counter-culture opposed to capitalist society in the form of cooperatives, unions, cultural societies, educational collectives, community centers, etc.
- These three tasks come together under the political banner of a party-movement. Since “party-movement” is somewhat of a neologism, I’ll shortly explain it: It is the living embodiment of the working class constituted as a class-collective that aims and works towards socialism, or working class rule. It builds a “society with the society” as a longterm task, which can take decades. But the eventual goal is to be ready to topple the capitalist constitutional order and wipe away all state institutions mentioned in point 2 and replace them with institutions that fit majoritarian rule.
- The binding factor, really the alpha and omega, in all this is the question of democracy. It is through the fight for democracy that we can point out the lies and hypocrisy of the capitalist class, it is through democracy that we can build a genuine mass movement of millions where there can exist “unity in disagreement”, it is through democracy that the working class can be lifted out of its slave status and be educated as a potential ruling class and it is only through democracy that the working class can seize power and build towards a communist future.
5a. The true democratic form has, as an aside, nothing to do with elections (which is an oligarchic form of rule, not a democratic one), but has everything to do with ancientAthens, where lottery decided which people ruled for a short amount of time. This was the form Aristotle once despiced as the “rule of the poor”, since it was the masses that swayed the scepter. This is nowadays more commonly known as demarchy (as it would just confuse everyone if we kept the name of “democracy”, despite the bourgeois lie).
5b. Since the actual “revolutionary moment” is the toppling of the capitalist constitutional order and since the party-movement is the actual constituded working class as a class-collective, this implies that the party-movement comes to power as a whole. So, demarchy has to be an integral part of the party-movement. Every party member has to be able to rule and be ruled. - Since capitalism is a global system (with its own contradictions), the working class is also a global class and the alternative to capitalism can only happen on a global basis. This implies, at the very least, that if we want to build communism we need the capitalist core: North-America, Europe, Japan, China (not exactly a core-country just yet, but extremely important given its position as “factory of the world”). Once we won these, the rest can only follow.
6a. To start building towards a positive alternative to capitalism (though not establishing communism just yet), the best target is Europe. So, what we need a Europe-wide movement that starts fighting for democratic concessions vis-a-vis the EU/ECB/member states. This as opposed to nationalist demands to break away from the EU. We can only start building a positive alternative if we seize power on a continental scale at once. This implies a continental party-movement. Thus, the EU wannabe-state is our obvious target in this fight. - As mentioned earlier, the working class-collective is not a spontaneous product of capitalist society, it just creates the possibility. It is up to communists to start the long-haul task of building the working class-collective and, as a result, the party-movement. For this to happen communists have to overcome their hopelessly backward and splintered position and unite, not around a common set of pet ideas, theories or a whole row of historical documents, but instead around a simple document that describes where we are today to where we want to go. I’m talking of course of a programme. The programme has two obvious basic parts: a) a part that describes demands that lead up to working class power and the toppling of the capitalist constitutional order and b) a part that describes the happenings from the seizure of power to the building of communism. Also, as opposed to unity on agreement we need unity of acceptance of the programme: You may disagree with it and organise to change it, as long as you comply by it as it is in force. What we need to agree on however is a much smaller (yet vital) set of principles: a) the independence of the working class, from the state and from other classes; b) internationalism as there are no viable national ways out of the system; c) democracy as the organising principle of now and for the future.
- So, that leaves us to where we are now: To start the battle for democracy, we need to start today and within the already constituted left. Because as much as the left is currently part of the problem in our fight to communism, its many committed militants are also the solution. Thus, we need to rebel against the status quo and revolutionise the revolutionary left!
Total Comments 26
Comments
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5a seems really weird. It's like you're just trying to create chaos.Posted 25th June 2012 at 15:33 by Vorchev 
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Create chaos? I'm not really sure how you could to that conclusion. Q is advocating the creation of a mass revolutionary, democratic party based on programmatic unity. It's difficult to get further away from anarchy and "chaos".
Posted 25th June 2012 at 16:29 by Grenzer
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I'm not sure how delegation can be more chaotic than through lottery. It's literal randomness.
Posted 25th June 2012 at 17:00 by Vorchev
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Oh, you're talking about demarchy. I agree with you there, and I personally am not a fan of demarchy at all.
Posted 25th June 2012 at 18:33 by Grenzer
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Thank you. :)
Posted 25th June 2012 at 18:46 by Vorchev
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Demarchy has little to do with "chaos". Historical precedence can be found in Athens itself where demarchy was not only preventing chaos, but actively contributed in creating a prosperous city-state for about two centuries.
Demarchy is the only form of politics, as far as I can see, where the working class can rule as a class and is the only form of governance where the semi-state can actually "wither away" without relying on some good deed on the part of the government to dissolve itself.Posted 26th June 2012 at 04:31 by Q
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Ghost, I have to agree with comrade Q here (inspired by comrade Cockshott, too). I myself argued in my work that random selection over elections is only way to achieve even, at minimum, genuine representation of working-class interests. Engels argued that the "democratic republic" was the "specific form of the DOTP." I argue that the Demarchic Commonwealth (also closer economically to the "res publica" and "Commons" concepts than liberal "republicanism") is the same but for today's circumstances.
However, it is also true that random selection isn't a panacea, per my blog on the Demarchic Commonwealth. Various other political measures updated from the Paris Commune apply, too.Posted 26th June 2012 at 13:48 by Die Neue Zeit
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What happens when you end up with idiots in power?
Posted 26th June 2012 at 22:54 by Vorchev
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If you took a statistics class before, you wouldn't be asking that question. Stratified and cluster sampling would certainly help. Ironically, such non-simplistic but still random sampling satisfies both the demokratia and aristoi ("the best") concepts.
Posted 27th June 2012 at 01:41 by Die Neue Zeit
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I actually studied economics when at university, thanks.
Would you like to explain what you meant by "stratified"? I thought socialism was supposed to overcome class conflict.Posted 27th June 2012 at 02:19 by Vorchev
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For a more simple, yet effective answer, have a look at this thread.Quote:Originally Posted by Vorchev
What happens when you end up with idiots in power?Posted 27th June 2012 at 07:52 by Q
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Oh, I'm not denying the ineffectiveness of democracy.
I just don't see why randomness is a good idea. It's like you're saying, "We have no chance over there, but some chance over here, so let's go here instead of there."
It reeks of "either/or" fallacy.Posted 27th June 2012 at 12:29 by Vorchev
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"Docimasy" seems circular as well. How do people get appointed as judges in the first place to see who is insane or idiotic? That would just require another lottery, and it could be used to eliminate everyone but who's liked.
Posted 27th June 2012 at 12:45 by Vorchev
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Also, what good does it do to assume people are bad? That casts out all the good candidates who appear too good to be true, but really aren't. He seems to be cynical, self-destructive. I can imagine ostracism being used to cast him out for talking too fast and scaring people, haha.
Posted 27th June 2012 at 12:57 by Vorchev
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The chance of getting idiots appointed is small either way, however the chance is indeed not zero. Besides the many mechanisms that prevent idiots from being selected that are explained in the video I linked you (such as a mandatory test that excludes idiots), there is also the point that a proper demarchy would not select one-person posts (such as a judge or a minister), but instead select councils that are big enough to be statistically representative (25 is the smallest number in this regard).
Posted 27th June 2012 at 12:59 by Q
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One last thing. I won't bother you anymore after this.
He mentions that it's the people's fault for letting villains write constitutions. That's bonkers. Villains write broken constitutions on purpose because they like to be chased down and controlled.
He must be some sort of guilt ridden masochist. I don't know.Posted 27th June 2012 at 13:13 by Vorchev
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The guy giving the lecture is not a Marxist, so yeah, that limits his explanatory power somewhat. I agree with you on this.Quote:Originally Posted by Vorchev
One last thing. I won't bother you anymore after this.
He mentions that it's the people's fault for letting villains write constitutions. That's bonkers. Villains write broken constitutions on purpose because they like to be chased down and controlled.
He must be some sort of guilt ridden masochist. I don't know.Posted 27th June 2012 at 13:23 by Q
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Damn, comrade, maybe I'm three-quarters of the way there.Quote:Originally Posted by Q
The chance of getting idiots appointed is small either way, however the chance is indeed not zero. Besides the many mechanisms that prevent idiots from being selected that are explained in the video I linked you (such as a mandatory test that excludes idiots), there is also the point that a proper demarchy would not select one-person posts (such as a judge or a minister), but instead select councils that are big enough to be statistically representative (25 is the smallest number in this regard).
I'm not sure if a mandatory test is really a good thing. I presume here you're referring to on-the-spot tests right before selection, as opposed to qualifications being put in place and persons having met or not met them long before selection time.
Now, re. three-quarters: I don't believe in having judges, but I haven't dumped one-person posts altogether. In the files I sent you the most obvious randomly selected one-person posts are those of ministers (albeit supported by collegiums, but said collegiums can't override ministerial orders).
That was one of my implicit points in my History thread on the concept of a Revolutionary Provisional Government being similar to a war cabinet but with no parliamentary heckling (ahem, "oversight").Posted 28th June 2012 at 01:03 by Die Neue Zeit
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Good arguments Q.
Posted 29th June 2012 at 21:54 by Ostrinski
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I would think that some sort of mandatory test, with a pass/fail grade, would be beneficial if we are picking longer termed positions in a demarchy; also would the "bureaucrats" (for lack of a different term) not be instantly re-callable?
I also really liked the phrase: "Every party member will need to be able to rule and be ruled." While some may not believe such a system to be possible, buying into the belief that most people are indeed idiots, I think that fostered in an alternative culture as the one proposed, the majority of the people (currently intellectually stifled under capitalism) would rise to the occasion.
As far as 6a goes, does this mean Q, that you would propose individual states in the eurozone to not leave? I could have just mis-interpreted you, but would an example be SYRIZA in Greece at the moment? Would said party deserve our support, despite being a "bourgeois workers party," due to the fact that it would maintain the tightened relations among the eurozone thus making revolution spread faster among the individual nation states? Or did I completely mis-interpret?
I also loved the play on Marx's quote, its going in my sig.Posted 10th July 2012 at 19:03 by 9mm
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