Communists generally agree that during a revolution, the working-class must create organizations to self-manage and self-govern the revolutionary movement. This may take the form of workers councils or something similar.
During this period, what relationship should these organizations have with *former* members of the capitalist class who are willing to accept the revolution without resistance?
For those of them who are willing to drop hostilities, what level of participation should they be allowed in workers organizations? (i.e. Should they be given full participation rights as any other worker? Should they be able to stand for election as a delegate to a workers council?)
I know people here aren't up for writing recipes for the cooks of the future, so I'm not asking what "should" be done in the prescriptive sense. Just wondering what your personal opinion is.
The same question could also be asked of those who, though they were not capitalists, are former managers / former bosses.
"Capitalist" is an economic
"Capitalist" is an economic category to do with a person's relation to the means of production, nothing more and nothing less. Some major figures in the history of socialism and communism have been capitalists, Engels and William Morris for starters. I think it's too simplistic to think that initially all people that earn (or have earned) their living through returns on invested capital are going to be hostile and all workers are going to be receptive to socialism.
Workplace and assembly / council elections would / could act as a filtering mechanism without there being a need to pass any kind of moral purity test beforehand.
Very good question, there is
Very good question, there is nothing wrong with imagination. Let me speculate too.
I think they will have no choice but to be like all of us. Nobody will tell them not to be part of the workers councils. If they chose not, they won’t participate in forming the shape of their social life.
In my opinion, all political institution must be abolished and there should be only workplace councils and community councils, and all for self-management. This idea that there should be an organization in charge of the entire society, is a very very bad idea. Most likely, ex-capitalists like to join that organization to convert it to a place to rule.
A profession called politics must be abolished at the same time that wage slavery is abolished. My preference is that we should solve these issues before dismantling states. It is not a good idea to remove power of state before knowing what we exactly want to do. Otherwise, because those who have skills in deception will win and everything will go back to where it was.
The most important preparation for revolution, in my opinion, is to build an anti-authoritarian culture through revolutionary eduction, criticism and action. Revolution is like climbing a mountain, we need to be really prepared, because we we are going to an area of life in which nobody has ever been before. We will be at the beginning of a newly evolved Homo sapiens. Yes, by suppressing authoritarianism we step in a new path of evolution.
noslavery wrote: In my
noslavery
I generally agree, with a couple quibbles.
In my opinion, workplace councils and community councils *are* political institutions, as I define politics as having to do with social decision making. This is in contrast to the definition of politics as exclusively relating to the professionalization of social decision making and the monopolization of these decisions by said professionals, i.e. the politics of the state, its politicians and its bureaucrats.
Also, although I agree that there should be no organization in charge of the entire society, it's important to have organizations that are beyond the local level, at the level of a municipality, a region, or even nationally or internationally. Not as organizations in charge of society, but organizations that enable local communities or local producer organizations to coordinate, administrate, and negotiate issues regarding their coexistence and cooperation. In other words, federations, just as anarchists and other libertarian-socialists have always advocated.
noslavery
On this I absolutely agree.
Thanks Lucky Black Cat, I
Thanks Lucky Black Cat, I feel pleased that you see the issue almost the same way that I do.