Freedom to bear arms under Libertarian Communism?

My assumption is that this is everyone's position, my contention has always been that the arguments laid out in this thread do not necessarily lead to that conclusion.

LBird, do you realize the implication of your response in this post?

Given that there's a big if at the beginning of the question, you, Pikel, and anyone else with any thoughts on the situation have failed to address a major concern I've had with the general idea that democratic processes by themselves are sufficient. Namely, that you have implied that with a straight democratic majority vote, assemblies can recreate class society and rob workers of their labor by way of demanding the same input from a class of people that it restricts privileges to.

There has not been one response addressing this concern that I raised here, here, and here.

My entire point, this entire time, is that process is meaningless without consciousness, and consciousness is not just an agreement to go along with process.

Now, do you have an answer to how assemblies that have the power to strip sections of society from their privileges are reconcilable with libertarian communism, or do you have more process fetishization?

Don't you think, that the notion of not lying around of the children is also an ideological chaff? If your kids are growing up with you and the rest of the commune, educated from day 0 who tools, and weapons are used responsibly and safely than your children aren't in danger?

In many native cultures of in South America, you can see bows in the hand of children (10-12 years old) and and most of them have these bows on them if they venture out of their habitat. And for a good reason. Now firearms are of course could be more dangerous for accidents, but this is just a technical thing. Accidents could happen with democratically handed out weapons.

I'm not primitivist, but I can imagine that a post-revolutionary period will eventually lead to increased amount of wild life, thus a growth in the wild animal population, along with predators. I can imagine therefore that we will need some weapons to protect ourselves in case of danger. It doesn't have to be a fire arm of course, but that's completely up to those specific communities how to deal with these issues and what sort of weaponry would be practical to use (perhaps it makes sense not to use the most efficient weapons in the long term).

LBird: I can't share your view on how a Communist world system would actually look like. This is the reason why I refuse the democratic conception of communistic world. Democracy has strong element of relying on coercion. Let's say that your Communist World Congress decides on banning all weapons, because that majority of the world would not deal day-to-day threats of big predators. In this case, those communities who are in this situation should obey blindly to this decision? They obviously won't. There can not be a single overarching decision body, no matter how refined the decision making process is. I could imagine a world forum where communes are regularly discuss their ideas, sharing interest and set up wider communities for more global projects but not an global decision body that decides the actions of all individuals on the planet.

Nah, sorry mate. No matter how you dress it up with kids from 'native cultures' using bows and arrows, I really don't want to see three year olds playing with loaded guns. It's not ideological, it's about sensible housekeeping and not getting young kids shot for the clearly ideological principle of the 'individual's right to bear arms' (I understand kiddie deaths after finding a parent's gun is not that uncommon in the US).

Although at what age, kids should have access to commune weapons is completely different question... at what age would kids be seen as responsible for whatever...

Never mind. Of course what I didn't mean to literally leave the weapons in places where it could cause accidents. The same goes for everything, literally. I won't leave the uncoated electric cables lying around. So that goes without saying. What I meant is, that there are a lot of arguing about to deny the right to bear arms today in the USA on the basis that what if your kid would find it. I thought you argue something like that, but it was clearly misplaced.

I'm not sure whether it is the question of age. People, who teach and guide children to use all sorts of equipment if the child grown to be a responsible user of the tool/weapon. After all, it is a communal living we talking about.

Yes, 'democratic majority vote' does imply that.

But when we add in, not just 'assemblies', but 'Communist, class conscious, proletarian' assemblies, it changes the picture. Well, it does for Communists.

Why would that form of assembly reintroduce 'class society'?

I think now we're getting closer to the truth. You have a fear of democracy, the 'mass', as conservative philosophers have it. 'Fear of the mob' is an essential component of anti-democratic ideologies. For them, the 'majority' is always to be feared. It's a class ideology, mate. I wonder where you've picked it up, eh?

Well, I admire your honesty, soc, to admit you're opposed to democratic decision-making by the proletariat.

But now, the balls in your court. Who decides? Individuals? A party of professional revolutionaries, who know better than us workers? A dictator? A parliament? Lottery? Blind chance? Pin the tail on the policy?

If not democracy, BP and soc, what method?

bit of a cheap strawman to charge soc with implying a party of professional revolutionaries should make decisions.

I wager the next few posts will be trying to discern what exactly is meant by this mysterious word "democracy".

What is democracy?

I did nothing of the sort - I provided a possible list, from which soc can either choose, or ignore entirely and provide their own answer.

If soc needs your help to think, why not provide an answer yourself?

Furthermore, why enter the discussion with nothing to contribute, other than to sling shit about strawmanning?

If the meaning of 'democracy' is mysterious to you, mate, as well as to soc and Birthday Pony, I think I'll give up.

I know, I know, 'politics won't exist after the revolution'. Fuckin' laughable. 7 billion isolated individuals all just doing as they all please...

Exactly .

I don't have the blueprint of how exactly a communistic world could function, but I try to cast some light on what is my problem of the democratic concept of anarchy/communism.

Democracy from my point of view is not only method but a concept that recognizes the individuals strictly separated. It is the social product of the commodity exchange, where individuals (or body of individuals represented as actual individual) confront each other in terms of interest. The method of decision making is the formalisation of process, how these contradictory interests are resolved. Democracy, as a historical process appears specifically in societies, where the private property became dominant form of social interaction. The compulsory nature of democracy lies exactly in this: one must recognise the same social authority as her counterparts. This social authority relies therefore on violence, and derived from this violence, other coercive methods, like strip someone from here commodities, life-supporting possessions, to be able move freely etc. Without this coercive power, democracy would stop functioning.

Democracy not only the proper social structure for commodity societies, but also reproduce relations of the private property. The most direct democratic decision making method is still nothing else but decide between individual interest against an other. If the individual could leave the ranks of the group without any retortion the whole process of making decisions over individual interests becomes actually meaningless. I understand by the "communist, class conscious, proletarian" assemblies you mean that none of the members of the assembly is pursuing of her narrow minded, strictly individual interest, but bears the social context in mind, and because of this, the decisions could not clash the social interest of the rest of the assembly. If it does, "fear the majority".

But: If you can just leave, without retortion, you won't fear the majority. If you are NOT free to leave the community, or not without punishment, you're just as good to re-build the State.

I think there's a lot of option how people choose to settle issues between each other, where voting for majority could be a potential tool, but personally I don't think it actually fits to a "communist, class conscious, proletariat". For one, perhaps it won't be a "communist, class conscious", as there would be no class, and no capitalism any more to fight against, and to be a communist (there won't be communist movement any more, it would be just human race, or call it whatever). The incentive of communism is cooperation, create together, and enjoy together IMO. If one needs tomato and the rest of the people around her don't want to eat tomato, he is still free to produce tomato or move to an area where people produce and enjoy the tomatoes together. It is not just a freedom to break away from your previous social context, but it is actually good merge and split according to the current goals that one considers beneficial for herself and for people who she loves. The propagation of internationalism, or in the lack of nations, the territoriality and the separation of groups, the world communistic thinking, must be self-reproducing otherwise it would end in alienation. So communes would not constitute readily set circles of neighbourhoods, instead a temporarily cohesive cell. These communes could actually employ voting if the nature of their goals fits to it, or their relationships are too loose at the present time, but I see democratic methods of decision making as also temporary, rather informative than coercive possibilities.

So democracy is voting delegates every few years to represent me in a parliament even if I totally disagree with the decision they are voting on my behalf for? Your not a silly sausage you know (I hope) that 'democracy' needs some sort of qualification. It seems to me you and soc are having a disagreement over the form of democracy. I could be wrong.

@ Serge, What is democracy?

Yeah, just jump on the bus to Mars and get away from nasty Earth politics... FFS

Arbeiten, mate, are you takin' the piss or what?

Have you never read the endless threads on here about what 'democracy' means to Libertarian Communists? We've had ... oh, I give up.

Yeah, parliament democracy. 'FFS' seems so, well...

If you prefer so... but one of those few issues that needs a really "Earth politics" would be probably to resolve issues like space travel.

The problem here, that we actually dug deep in to the case for democracy and its relation to a communistic society, so it isn't the right place to take it as evident. It is hard to argue like this on any thing.

No I am not taking the piss. That was just one example of what democracy could mean and where the disagreement may lie. I laid down a wager and soc's last post seems to have proven that an astute observation. It was an observation, nothing more nothing less. I have read the endless threads on democracy (and, indeed, participated in a few) and felt like this thread was going to go that way too. Which it has.....

*HEAD. HITS. KEYBOARD.*

And what criteria have you given for a conscious society? One that abides by straight democratic majority votes of course! But not only that, they just realize there's no other solution.

LBird, you have implied that your idea of "Communist, class conscious, proletarian," society can and probably will recreate a class society through the examples you have given. (Added for clarity): "Why would that society reintroduce class structure?" is basically the question I've been asking you.

Maybe you don't remember the beginning of this thread, but I want 'the mass' to have friggin' guns. And you think I'm afraid of it?

Jesus, maybe you could answer a question instead of straw-manning. For the record, from over here it looks like you're okay with a reinvented class society as long as it's nominally communist and the underclass is 'okay' with it, and you're just side-stepping the question every time I directly ask you it. You tell me which one of us is anti-democratic.

A dictator of course. I mean, shit! Oh no! You've caught me!

^Totally ruined my ability to take the rest of this thread seriously. Tussled scrawny bear arms proudly held out at every mention of the words bear and arms...

I think there's something very important in this comment I don't know how to use it but it seems to me there are lots of threads around that are ass backwards.

A way of responding to discussions/questions that flips them back to a mode that reflects our politics would be seriously useful. It's as if the whole discussion proves that we aren't aware of our politics or at least not able to switch from the standard patterns to libcom patterns when discussing. The conceptual framing of the whole discussion (not by the OP) is "wrong".

Me too

I aint got the hang of this quote in quote thing

Watch out for the nesting. Think russian doll.

A quote (in brackets) starts the container a /quote (in brackets) ends the container. Note the slash.

    
Quote:

           
Quote:

                 
Quote:

                 
           
    

You've just got to match them. Quote me to see.

Maybe I'm missing something, I'm not that well versed in libcom theory but I have read about federated worker's councils and mandated, recallable delegates etc. I don't think anyone really understands "representative, parliamentary democracy like we have now" when a communist talks of democracy do they?

In any case I think the form democracy takes will have to be decided democratically! Bit of a chicken and egg situation there but it can be resolved by starting somewhere, trying it and changing it if there is a will.

For those who think democracy is anti-anarchist/anti-communist, it's incumbent on them to describe a means of group decision making which does not involve all the people making group decisions - i.e. (real) democracy

And to answer the OP:

I imagine they might be needed for any of those things you mention, but hopefully increasingly less of the first two as humanity learns to live with itself civilly.

I take on board Serge's comments about kids injuring themselves though. Parents should not be allowed guns...

well, as my post that you quoted said, i thought this is what soc was getting at, and soc's posts afterwards sort of proved this is what i was getting at.it was on observation in how i saw the debate going.

OK but I felt the issue remained unresolved so I thought I'd have a go at resolving it or prompting it's resolution

EDIT

I don't really understand Birthday Pony's characterisation of (real) democracy reproducing class relations. What gives rise to class relations is, I think, chiefly, capitalist accumulation. Accumulation permits the formation of a power imbalance. Power imbalances give rise to classes, those with power and those without.

The form that "democracy" currently takes, i.e. election every few years of a supposed representative who in fact serves capital, is a product of those class relations, not a cause of them (although yes, representative democracy does reproduce those relations). In the absence of capital, democratic processes will be quite different and not involve class relations, because everyone will have the opportunity to be involved, continuously, in the democratic process.

I know this is really small point (pedantic even), but i want to pick up on it. 'In the absence of capital' is quite sinister to me. Forgive me for treading the theory/praxis divide that some hold dearly, but this sort of periodization I find highly problematic. This is what we need to be doing now, in our organizations, not when the revolution comes. There will not be a time when the concept of a substantive democracy realizes itself, it has to be realized in praxis (bit of a derail I know, apologize again, but I think it has to be said. especially in a stale discussion on the 'form' of democracy).

Space:

I think in a post revolutionary libertarian society whether that be communist or otherwise people will be free to move around. I can imagine that some communities will try and enforce some kind of democratic rule on this issue, others will be less concerned and more relaxed about it. Lots of different factors will contribute to the varying degrees of the attempts to put controls or an absense of controls on the use and access to tools whose sole purpose is causing injury and/or death.

I grew up in the Blue Mountains in Australia. Its a really awesome place and its breathtakingly beautiful. Yet primarily for social reasons I moved away. Social motivations to move to a new place to live will still probably exist in a libertarian communist situation. One of these might be the communal practices surrounding weapons in a certain area. People might choose to move to communities that are relaxed about weaponry if this is important to them. Others might move to communities who have some systems of control surrounding the use of weaponry if this is important to them.

I imagine these social and cultural practices will grow organically out of the needs and desires of the people who make up communities and these desires and needs will vary from vary from community to community. The cohesion of community relations born out of the poularity of peoples indicvidual relationships with these questions is something that will fluctuate with the ever changing poulation of the communities which brings me to;

Time:

Individual communities (haha) will transform themselves over time and a community that was once gun relaxed 50 years ago (or 1) might now have established some socially constructed controls over this only to evolve through time again into a more weapons freedoms tolerant community in another 50 years (or 1).

The thing is that most people will not be so sociopathic to stick around and try and create any semi-permanent or long term community ties in a community that doesn't gel with issues that are really important to them. Of course there will probably still be the odd sociopath who hangs around in a situation that doesn't really suit their needs or with which they aren't cohesive (the Hunter S Thompson's up on the hill in liberal paradise shooting their canons at the stars or anything else that appears almost too beautiful to be real - another example is the lone anti-weapons campaigner toilling away in a completely functional and safe weapons relaxed community based on some ideological fervour that they've been shooting up with doses of gaia, wheatgrass and sound recordings of whales fucking... although these guys generally love the fuck out of their shotties.... shotties are good ay..).

But generally most people will form and maintain communities based on the many issues which people see as being fundamental to the kind of social situation they want to be in.

This will vary heaps and communities will and should have the opportunity to be "individual" haha. If they didn't then it wouldn't be libertarian.

No need to apologise, you're right. What I should have said is something like: democratic processes which do not serve capital but instead serve the proletariat, destroying itself as a class, will be quite different etc. Does that sound better?

EDIT

And @LaForce

I agree substantially; there will be things which communes and federations thereof find worthwhile promoting or attacking depending on the will of the members of those communes. Necessarily this will mean that over time distinct communes will be able to experiment to whatever extent with different priorities in terms of what's acceptable social behaviour - on a pragmatic basis, rather than a political one. So, pragmatically, if your commune wishes to experiment with rules about gun ownership which differ from global norms, that is likely to be accepted if there are good reasons for it and it does not present a threat to other communes.

Exactly, and I can't imagine community A attacking community B or its practices when these don't have any substantially negative effects on the members of A or B; and just because they don't think its a "good idea" haha.

Catering to the unevolved is so pre-rev!!

My position is that democracy* is necessary, but not sufficient.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessary_and_sufficient_condition

My main contention at this point is that a directly democratic, 100% participatory assembly can easily guarantee privileges to some, deny them to others, and still demand equal labor from those whom it does not grant the same standards. To use your wording, it could make decisions that effectively create haves and have-nots in regards to arms, luxury items, freedom to travel, quality of housing, even responsibilities and abilities within the process itself.

No one here has answered to that, and it's not a hard thing to answer. It seems like everyone is stuck talking in ideals, ("well it's libertarian communism, so how could that happen?") rather than getting down to the specifics--or even something simply less vague--of how we build such a society. The only other added criteria has been "class consciousness" which, as the users here define it, simply means a willingness to go along with the democratic process, which doesn't stop labor from being robbed in the first place.

*democracy as we understand it, not parliamentary bullshit.
Edited and expanded for a little more clarity

So come on, what is your alternative?

I've laid it out, as best as I can, a number of times on this thread and others. Basically it requires a revolutionary culture, or general ethos, as well. There needs to be a massive cultural shift in the way people view their interaction with each other and their environment for any democracy to be meaningful. Cultures and relationships dictate the structure of institutions, and the inverse of that is only true of authoritarian societies.

Can I read from that, that historical process decide the cultural shift which takes place? Because I think that is a rephrasing of the notion that people will decide the shift, to whatever form of democracy they choose to use. Maybe we have less to argue about than was immediately apparent.