Steve Wallis <revolutionarysocialiststeve@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> May Day is now over, on which local elections took place in England
> and Wales (which I prefered not to affect). The following text is from
> the international edition of a newsletter of my Foundation for PR-
> based Socialism (where PR stands for pro****tional representation):
>
> Foundation for PR-based Socialism Website: www.PRsocialism.org Forum:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PRsociali=
sm Newsletter 3 (1/5/2008),
> international edition
>
> Workers of the world unite - with the middle class!
>
> May Day is the international workers' day, when there are many events
> around the world celebrating struggles of the working class. This
> year, it's the 40th anniversary of working class people challenging
> for power in France.
>
> Capitalist economies throughout the world are in crisis - with the
> "credit crunch" resulting from sub-prime mortgages sold to people
> with poor credit records in the USA, escalating levels of government
> debts and massive increases in food and fuel prices. In the so-called
> third world, food inflation is so high that millions of poor people
> are literally starving to death once more.
>
> In recent years, parties calling themselves "socialist" have taken
> power in many countries in Latin America. However, in the West,
> prospects for workers taking power seem more remote now than ever
> before in the history of capitalism! Most left-wing activists,
> including supposed revolutionaries, concentrate on putting forward
> reformist demands. In Britain, for example, they demand more money
> for public services and oppose cuts, at a time when the government
> is already borrowing about 340 billion a year!
>
> It is im****tant, particularly at a time of economic crisis, for
> revolutionary socialists to talk about the need for revolution and say
> how we would organise society better than capitalists do.
http://www.jhwh.be/law
4 main points:
- democratic government (but then real)
- trade economy
- distribution of power, that is: economic owner****p of natural resources
more or less
- socialized non-profit politically motivated investment mechanism
- division of the world in many sovereign nations, none too large.
That's 5 points, but 4 points describe the economic model.
Please visit my site to read rationality behind it, and why the
plan-economy is bad, and why the trade-fundamentalism of the capitalists
is also bad.
> But what
> sort of socialist society do we advocate? Marxist parties like the
> British Socialist Workers Party (SWP) stand for a form of socialism
> sometimes called "the dictator****p of the proletariat" in which only
> the working class is in control - via hierarchies of committees based
> on workplaces, with a "workers' militia" to try to prevent such a
> society from being overthrown. Hierarchical structures, including
> those in the SWP itself, make it easy for infiltrators from hostile
> organisations to reach positions of power and stay there, because
> it is generally only those on such committees who know who the dodgy
> people are and what they are up to. Furthermore, in these days of a
> burgeoning middle class, when there is overwhelming sup****t for some
> sort of pro****tional electoral system, such forms of socialism are
> outdated and stand no chance of receiving popular sup****t.
It does not matter whether something will receive popular sup****t or
not, what matters is whether the system is correct or wrong. What is
correct and true should eventually win the day, be that now or in
10 centuries, and only the truth will actually work.
These marxist socialists you mentioned make mistakes, but your
critique sells them short. The mistake of the marxists is that they
do away with free trade markets, this is a catastrophic mistake.
However their electoral system was supposed to be representative:
a relatively small group of people (a few hundred typically) elect
someone they know & trust, and a group of such elected people form
a body of power. The thing was that people would know their
representative, and have the power to replace that representative
any moment. This is a type of organization that apparently spontaneously
erupted. Note that it is a relatively natural form of organization:
you work together in some company, society has awoken from its
centuries long sleep to think about society itself. Then debating
erupts all over society, and people say "ok, Frits, we have heard
there is a debate organized there/then, why don't you go there and
tell us what we all think here, because you represent our ideas and
we trust you, and you can talk well." Then Frits goes there, and
if other groups of people have done the same thing, you have simply
ended up with a block-vote committee with actual democratic credibility.
It is a representative system, it is also natural, and potentially
superior to the National balloting of personalities that the capitalist
system is currently proposing as a form of democracy. The national
balloting is also a form that gives mass media a lot of power, mass
media which is owned by banking, media is a business and therefore
in need of credit, and it is owned by those advertising in it, etc etc,
the whole media bias problem.
So although the marxists make catastrophic mistakes, so that their
solutions may actually make society worse rather then better, I would
a lot of stock in the vote-block voting system. I think that it is
probably superior, more natural, less easy to manipulate, etc.
> In contrast, the Foundation for PR-based Socialism stands for a form
> of socialism based on pro****tional representation (PR) by single
> transferable vote (STV). Under STV, voters can specify preferences for
> different candidates so that votes are transferred to second and later
> preferences, if the first choice is eliminated or gets more votes than
> necessary. It is the fairest form of PR because it removes the need
> for tactical voting and allows voters to choose between candidates
> of the same party.
Points for being creative, but I don't see this work. Is this a
variation on national balloting with a new algorithm, and if so
why would it be better then people simply voting for whom they
think they like best ? As far as I can see this is merely fiddling
with the details. You want people to submit a list of their most
popular candidates, and when one has already a majority ... ??? you
know if you can't explain it to someone who spends lots of time
on voting ideas and systems, I wonder how many normal people will
be able to understand your system. Better work a little on the PR
side of it, at least.
> What sort of party/network do we need? Join the debate
We need a great variety of minority parties, who are small scale
enough so as to keep management straight, and who then cooperate
horizontally while never merging their managements. This is what
we already have, but it can work once we know exactly what we want,
which is: http://www.jhwh.be/law
as far as I am concerned.
I devised this scheme, which allows parties to split and such,
so that we can combat the internal corruption problem:
http://www.jhwh.be/party/nl/david-we
Please consider setting up
such an organization, I have some webspace ready to donate to it.
http://www.jhwh.be/party/en/david-you
Would be wonderful to have
a sister party in the UK (by the way, my own party has only one
member at the moment ;-). I figure it be best if such parties are
ruled by absolute member democracy, even a vote-block internal
election system if feasible, to get away from the personality cult
problems. Once everyone agrees exactly what kind of economic system
we need, we can become a swarm of small organizations all aiming
at the known goal. That will be virtually impossible for the ruling
elites to manipulate and defeat, IMHO. Without a known goal this does
not work, hence it is dependent on people understanding economics.
> There has been a tendency in recent years to form broad socialist
> parties, uniting revolutionary socialists and reformists around mainly
> reformist programmes. This strategy has sometimes resulted in such
> parties joining ruling coalitions (such as Rifondazione Communista in
> Italy and Die Linke on the Berlin council) and losing sup****t when
> those coalitions implemented cuts. In some countries, particularly
> Britain, there have been splits on peripheral issues after the parties
> lost momentum - the Tommy Sheridan defamation trial in Scotland and a
> change of tack by the SWP in Respect in England and Wales (away from
> encouraging Muslim businessmen to stand as candidates and limiting
> the programme to avoid alienating them). It is a good time for a
> realignment of the left in many countries. But what sort of party (or
> "network" if the term "party" seems off-putting or too hierarchical)
> can best lead to socialism?
>
> - A broad socialist party, but better reflecting the views
> of revolutionaries within it?
No, even if that socialist party got its ideology correct, it will
be such a big ball that it is easy to affect by the various forces
of the ruling elite.
> - An openly revolutionary socialist party?
I suppose that is possible, why not. Provided it is not terrorist
but constructive. Not aimed at overthrow of this/that and "we will
solve our problems after we have destroyed everything that is
standing," (typical anarchist pipe dream) but aimed at setting up
of such/such.
> - A revolutionary anti-capitalist party, uniting revolutionary
> socialists with others opposed to capitalism, like the party being
> launched by the French LCR? Anarchists could join and ignore its
> electoral activities if they so wish.
Any party that understands economics is inherently anti-capitalist
(not implying anti-trade).
> - An ethical capitalist party, which forces rich people and
> companies to pay their fair share of tax?
As long as a party understands economics, that is they want at least
a variation of the DAVID economy model, the parties can disagree about
a wide variety of issues, but still get that essential task done.
You can have parties for rich people that want rich people not to pay
their fair share working together to correct the law with parties for
poor people that want the rich to pay their fair share. As long as
all understand the basics about the economy, we can at least get that
part right before resolving those other issues.
> - A libertarian party? The UK Libertarian Party, which was
> formed this year, wants a very free capitalist society under which a
> voluntary socialist mini-state could be created. It currently has a
> right-wing programme, on many issues apart from civil liberties and the
> STV voting system, but if it adopts a position of redistributing wealth
> at the start of a libertarian society or increasing the minimum wage,
> both of which Foundation founder Steve Wallis suggested on their forum,
> their policy of aboli****ng income tax could be both good and popular.
As usual they don't understand the first thing about economics. Any
party which fails at such basic a task is thoroughly useless. By the
way: my DAVID system as I see it at least implies the aboli****ng of
income taxation. Not because that is popular, but because a head-tax
is a better system that brings out the informal economy between people.
It is good for the economy, good for people who want to do more informal
work. To make that work you need a strong minimum-wage law to prevent
abuses. Income taxation is very profitable for the banking-industry,
because it crushes informal person to person trade; so much for the
current elites to favor a trade economy. By cru****ng informal trade
(services, like cleaning another person its home etc), people are forced
into the orbit of established larger companies into which the banks have
thrust in their nefarious feeding tubes, run by their heavily compensated
and bossy front men.
> We may also need to consider setting up some sort of grouping of
> like- minded people, officially recognised or otherwise, within such
> a party. Our enemies are organised so we need to be too.
Exactly. Our enemies are highly organized, and have all day long, and
have billions to fund their parties and what not. Our enemies in
organized crime are also very well organized. I believe we should be
organized in relatively small groups.
By the way politics is not the only way: http://www.jhwh.be/fund/een
We can change the system by paying for Justice directly, setting up
an alternative social banking system, hopefully sufficiently defended
from abuses by splitting the investment-money stream and the income
stream of those doing the investments.
http://www.jhwh.be/~joshb/soundinvestment.html
> You can debate these issues on the Foundation's internet forum
> at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PRsocialism.
You may go to the
> Libertarian Party forum at www.lpuk.org/forum (request access to the
> main boards - you don't need to join the party).
>
> For more information, including details of a Glasgow meeting on
> Thursday the 8th of May at which you can discuss such issues, or to
> print off copies of the newsletter, go to the Foundation for PR-based
> Socialism home page at www.PRsocialism.org.
Please learn economics first, otherwise all effort is useless anyway.
I don't mean university economics, they don't understand economics
either. If they do they don't teach it. Figure it out, then launch
a program to change the economic system to something that works.
Once you understand economics you will realize there is only one
answer possible to the question, much like 1 + 1 = 2 and not -15.
It is a matter of understanding and knowledge, rather then party or
class affiliation.
http://www.jhwh.be/party/nl/david-we/chart.en.html
= quick political
position
overview of competing
economic models.
My model for Government representation, by the way:
http://www.jhwh.be/law.html#3
Laws describing a vote-block Government.
http://www.jhwh.be/~joshb/representative.html
Drawings of that model.
http://www.jhwh.be/~joshb/aksie/training.txt
How to train for it.
I expect that with this system in operation society will feel completely
different. There is some threat that cohesion is lost, that is what the
head-of-state (King/Queen) position is for.
But if there is 1 issue in all of it that I am most unsure of:
the organization of local Government within multi-million inhabitant
cities. A city like London will almost certainly end up under multiple
local Governments, because that city is too large to have just one
local government body under my suggested system. Such problems can
be combatted though in various ways, but those things will need doing
so that puts some additional stresses there.
Solutions are:
- There should at least be one office in a fixed location that all
Londeners know, that office will know where all the local Government
are and what their territories are.
- All the local Government can make the decision to set up an Advice
Council which can have the job of providing some sort of connection
between the various local Governments in that city.
- On the National level the National Government (which is a single 50
person chamber) it can be decided that there will be a ministry set
up for the city of London. Since that ministry resides under the
National Government, it gives the National Government more practical
control over London. The power of the National Government is greater
then that of the local Governments: it has the power to decide whether
and where local governments are allowed to make laws.
It is an option to unite all local Governments into one single one,
that is perfectly legal because there is no limit on the amount of
delegates in one Govermnent body and it is legal to group in 50
groups of delegates to elect a "further body" (further removed from
voters). However the multi-million people cities are so tremendously
large that I think this becomes somewhat impractical in practice.
Another solution is to change the Constitution so that more people
group under one delegate, however I think that reduces the connection
voter-delegate sufficiently to give op****tunity to lying populists.
IMHO, by the way: why is London so large to begin with ? Maybe it has
to do with the propensity of stationary (elitist/capitalist) Governments
to
spend most of the money in their own backyard. I'd like the Government
to move around through the entire Country, ideally in each 50th sector
(based on population density, so that means London is 6 or 7 sectors)
an equally long time. Say each sector about 1 week, for instance using
a moving Government meeting hall so they can really set up camp
everywhere.
A traveling National Government. With computers you don't need much
in terms of paper luggage. The King or Queen is stationary, presumably,
so that is the back-bone for stability. One idea is that there is always
someone at the palace who knows where the National Government is
exactly. With a traveling Government it is less likely that super
large cities balloon as quickly as the backyard-spending problem
(a form of corruption) is reduced.
--
_ _ /_\ _ _ http://www.jhwh.be
sign petition for Democratic
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