Communism and Syndicalism

howdy.I'll be brief:the platform good or bad?

Why don't you read it thoroughly, read other writings on the subject, and then make up your own mind, we can't do that for you.

and now we've run into a problem that plagues the left. some people like being told what to do.

It has it's moments, but I wouldn't take it as a blue print.

Sam:
"Money doesn't tell you what to produce in the first instance. You just make stuff and see if people buy or not. Then in future yo use information about what people bought in the past."

If you have an interactive process of people being required to keep their requests for production within a finite budget, so that they will have to pare down their requests for production to what they most prefer, you can measure the strength of desire for particular things by a numeric value, expressed in an accounting unit -- social accounting money. So, in that sense money does provide information about what to produce. If you imagine allowing production groups to produce whatever they want, how do you ensure they produce what people most prefer? Sending things to shops to see what sells is the method of the market. That has a lot of problems like externalities, and it works to the degree it does because people have finite budgets and must make hard choices. If you say, let everyone take whatever they like, you'll have no information at all on what is important to people, and you'll have massive waste. You won't be able to ensure that the production system produces what people most prefer. If people can just request whatever they want without limit, you have no assurances that all the things people might ask for couuld be produced with existing resources, or without requiring 14 hour days, 7 days a week, to produce it.

t.

Those same people often don't take sensible advice when offered though

Tim you'd ve well off reading Arshinov's "The Makhnovist Movement" and Skirda's "Anarchy's Cossack" to put it n some context, and because both of those books are a lot more interesting than discussions on whether the platform is good or not.

Hi

No doubt. However, it is not economic to produce enough for us all to consume as we wish, because you can’t generate free energy and we would run out of world.

Individual consumption demands regulation for the sake of equality and sustainability. Unless one considers the current basis of human desire to be degenerate or evil, then the satisfaction of our myriad specialised requirements within the context of social reason requires individual private property, in all but name at least.

Even though this assertion doesn’t counter mine, it’s worthwhile pointing out that people would do these things. I would anyway. Besides, if my house is too small, I can just build another floor. If I’ve got too much food, I can throw a party.

People compete with each other for a variety of reasons. The need to be compensated for the alienating effect of hierarchy is a uniquely leftist requirement. Victims, welcome to your comfort zone.

I was saying something along the same lines to one of my lovers the other day. So much petty personal drama, not to mention consumption, is caused by a slightly repressed sexual unhappiness or substitute for “strange pussy”. This is the wrong thread isn’t it. Sorry. Um, I tell you what though, there is a connection between being a communist and not getting enough sex.

Love

LR

very true, but
1: my (not "the") issue with hierarchy is why i spend time with left libertarians, yet
2: the fact that i said "my (not "the")" is why i still spend time with right libertarians. they seem to have a keener sense that you shouldn't have to substitute for strange pussy if you don't want to.

Hi

In a desperate attempt to put this back on track, communists seem to require a profound reconfiguration of people's individual philosophical outlook on life, whereas Syndicalists are more ready to accept that our greedy little self-interest is a positive force.

Love

LR

yup
not that things were off track, tho'

oh happy happy joy joy, my argument is rubbished by none other than revol68! a joy that's happened to most posters on these forums! my claims aren't ahistorical, more like i know lots about the historical French CGT and not enuf about the CNT, and needed to make a better case than the CNT was modelled on the CGT. I'll swot up on the CNT then and come loaded back with anti-anarcho-syndicalist ammo at a later date.

ho de ho, a great caricature of the ultra-left view of Spain, 10 out of 10 for that one. Yes, all ultra-leftists want is to abolish work, abandon the munitions factories, and have parties on the beach while the fascists roll into town in tanks.

i could say lots here, but i'll give it a miss, too busy at the mo. except to say the CNT found itself in a revolutionary situation, and blew it.

i think lots of anarcho-syndicalists do. it would be naive to think a mass based anarcho syndicalist union would magically disappear overnight when revolution broke out, and would dissolve itself into workers councils and neighbourhood assemblies or whatever.

anyways, i will bow out of this discussion, got too much work on, except to say my attempt to ruffle the creeping anarcho-syndicalist and syndicalist orthodoxy on libcom has been interesting.

Hi

That's not a good thing.

I'd use less if I was on a meter. A bit like taking longer journeys if travel had a flat fee.

Love

LR

Says Sam: "But communism would encourage the less consumeristic mentality." Depends on what you mean by "communism." if there is no money or social accounting, and people can just take whatever they want, there's likely to be far more consumerism, if people aren't limited in their consumption by a budget. And people cannot be spontaneously socially responsible, even if they want to be, if they don't know what the social costs are of the things they are consuming.

Sam: "Its like people don't horde water when you can just get it out of the tap when you want it." People are more likely to waste water if they don't have to pay anything for doing so. Like in Aragon in the 1936 revolution, bread was wasted by being fed to animals, because it was free.
Same thing happened in the USSR when bread was subsidized at a very low price.

in regard to water, I think it would be reasonable to figure out what an average residential household consumes, and use that to set a baseline "subsistence water budget" and guarantee that amount to every household without requiring payment. This means that the cost of doing this is carried at social expense as part of the community's overall social budget. But for any household or entity consuming more than the baseline amount, charge them. Water is scarce, and is likely to become even scarcer as time goes on. Using it for certain things is more important than using it for other things. Like using it to grow grass for golfing or just as an ornament in the front of your house is less important than other uses. If it has a price, it is less likely to be used for things that are not important, and is likely to be wasted.

t.

knightrose: No way to evaluate what you say about "workers councils" til you tell us how you define this term, and maybe give us some concrete examples.

t.

Hi

Or Marx's or for Buddhists. I love it though. The chase is as good as the kill I say.

Love

LR

Hi

It's everyday life Jim, but not as we know it.

Love

LR

Same writes:
"Then goods should be labelled with information! It could say the amount of labour hours it took to make and have perhaps a star system for other things i.e. (5 being the best)

Working conditions: *****
Environmental friendliness: ***

and so on. Or something else. In any case, a price does not tell you the social cost. There are many cheap things that are made in terrible conditions and are environmentally unsound."

Here you are talking about prices as generated by a market system. I'm not talking about a market system. Prices don't have to be generated by a market system.

Sam:
"Prices would have to be socially decided if they are top serve the function you wish them to. But then since the price of every single good cannot be decided democratically, it sounds like that would end up being a source of creeping centralisation. Better just make it free, or have a proper market, rather than some sort of central planning. We've been there before, and it was not pretty."

This is a fallacious argument. You're assuming that a market or central planning are the only alternatives. They're not. There is also participatory planning. In participatory planning, people make requests, including communities making requests for public goods, and production organizations make proposals for what they are prepared to produce. We add up the total of requests and offers and it is likely there will be a mismatch. This information is then provided to the people making requests.
People then change their proposals in light of their own priorities. Among the info we provide to them are the environmental and working conditions. People can request environmental conditions also, such as such-and-such reduction in pollutant X. That is also an item that is "consumed." If people and communities are limited to a finite budget, they must reveal their priorities by changing their requests to fit in their budgets. This is how this process reveals strength of desire for different things. This can be measured by having rules that alter prices up or down from previous prices based on increase or decrease in demand. This measures importance to people in general of this resource or good or service or environmental condition, whatever. Prices are not "decided" by some central group, but fall out of the interactions between worker groups and the communities they are supplying. I'm not talking a monetary qantity that is "paid" to the production collective. This is not a proposal for a market economy, but a planning system.

Moreover, you seem to believe, falsely, that you can evade the alternative "market or central planning" by not having money or prices. That is a mirage. You still must have a way to plan what is to be produced, how, and how much etc.
And you must do this in a way that respects both the self-management of those who consume as well as the self-management of those who produce.

t.

The fundamental difference is that communists want to oppress people and syndicalists want to liberate them!

Makaira wrote:

and now we've run into a problem that plagues the left. some people like being condescending jerks and get off on being insulting and dismissive.

I seem to have hit a nerve. I didn't mean to be either insulting or dismissive, just pointing out something I see in everyday life. I'm no psychologist, so I don't know what causes it, but I know quite a few people (all women, coincidentally) that either like being told what to do, or think they like being told what to do. But, as I said, I'm no psychologist.

so are you saying you need a psychologist to tell you what to think or atleast confirm it?

Sam:
"I'm not arguing against all planning, just against unneccessary planning. Of course, there would still be communally decided investment and production priorities, but I don't see why everything should be planned down to the last pin. This would leave no room for the creative autonomy of individual workers and enterprises - a force we should encourage, not fetter."

The issue isn't about degree of specificity but the nature of social planning. It's not clear what you mean by "communally decided investment and production priorities." Do you mean the whole community is brought into one big meeting to create the whole plan? If so, that would violate self-management in a number of ways: 1. a community assembly or community body is only appropriate for making decisions about priorities for public goods for that community. what about the private consumption of individuals? only they should plan that. 2. does this mean the community makes all the decisions about your workplace? where is the scope for self-management of work then? 3. What about people in other communities? What if your community makes things used elsewhere. don't they need to have some say in that character of the product they are receiving?

t.

this is well profound, thanks for sharing.

maybe you could shed light on Paris 68 too, I mean i've read some books but i've not seen the film ending yet.

As for carciatures of ultra left criticisms, well no many ultra leftist criticisms are much more reasonable, looking to the Friends of Durruti and other groups within the CNT that opposed collaboration, the militarisation of the militias and the anchor put on the social revolution. Seidmans book is not however one of them, it's a series of unconnected sources showing that some workers were unhappy under self management, it gives no context, it doesn't specify whether these workers were revolutionaries pissed off at collaboration or just lumpen "i'm alright jack" fucks who resented collectization or where just anti social. this might piss off liberals but i'm afraid i don't have any problem with pressure being asserted by the organised working class to ensure production is maintained at the necessary level. I mean you'll not find a lazier fucker than me, but in a revolutionary situation i'd like to think if i started slacking a comrade would give me a kick in the fucking arse.

That's the best reason for a revolution I've heard yet.