- 07 Nov 2018 17:59
#14960713
Thanks, OD.
By 'compartmentalization', I *don't* mean 'decentralization'. I mean that we live in a social world that varies by *scale*, so our personal lives are not *necessarily* communicating political content as we live our lives. And the nation-state 'logistics' over how society functions are not necessarily 'personal' ('lifestyle'), *or* necessarily directly 'political', either.
I'll suggest that 'centralization' doesn't necessarily mean 'an individual's dictatorship over people's personal lives and all of civil society' -- rather, as I've been explaining, what's at-stake is how society produces things that we all need, and how those things are *distributed* to various individuals. Unfortunately society *currently* uses 'exchange values' to indicate relative pricing, for the sake of conferring *ownership*, but the means of production itself -- factories and equipment -- are themselves owned privately, for private benefit, instead of for producing to fulfill all human need for life and living.
Note that I'm not arguing for centralization of 'governing' power, as over people's lives, but rather for the empowerment of the *working class*, *collectively*, over all social production.
I'll refer you to the following thread that I started, in which I specify that 'centralization' (over social production, particularly tangible goods), can take place at *many* various scales, per-item produced, all the way up to a *global* scale, and/or any *lesser* scale:
global syndicalist currency
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=174857
---
This illustration may help the reader to *visualize* how various magnitudes of geographical scale could take place simultaneously, over a range of goods and services:
Multi-Tiered System of Productive and Consumptive Zones for a Post-Capitalist Political Economy
---
I'll contend that ideology and structure are complementary since each tends to implicitly describe the other.
You're noting that the large-scale structure / scale necessarily has to reconcile with various included *small-scale* operations, meaning local on-the-ground ones. This is an astute observation and I happen to agree with this political-economy concern.
If workers are going to be operating the actual implements of mass industrial production *on the ground*, then each of those is a particular workplace / locality / grouping. Objectively-needed *centralization* over several workplaces would still have to *acknowledge* and reconcile-with this empirically-necessary local control, so neither localism nor centralization can be casually dismissed. (Lack of centralization implies duplication-of-effort on the ground, instead of *coordinating* over those various local efforts.)
Given today's existing technologies I don't think that *everyone* would necessarily have to contribute work-effort, but I *do* think that in the shorter-term there *should* be a near-unanimity of *political* agreement to support the proletariat in its ongoing class struggle against the continued ruling-class rule of the bourgeoisie.
One Degree wrote:
@ckaihatsu
Thank you for your very thorough response. I was aware of the ‘natural progression’ and actually agree with it theoretically. I also agree compartmentalism (decentralization) would offset some dangers. However, I don’t see how either can work in practice when a ‘pyramid stucture’ is always the chosen method of governing. Historically, this always results in assumption of more and more power at the top and increased centralization.
Thanks, OD.
By 'compartmentalization', I *don't* mean 'decentralization'. I mean that we live in a social world that varies by *scale*, so our personal lives are not *necessarily* communicating political content as we live our lives. And the nation-state 'logistics' over how society functions are not necessarily 'personal' ('lifestyle'), *or* necessarily directly 'political', either.
I'll suggest that 'centralization' doesn't necessarily mean 'an individual's dictatorship over people's personal lives and all of civil society' -- rather, as I've been explaining, what's at-stake is how society produces things that we all need, and how those things are *distributed* to various individuals. Unfortunately society *currently* uses 'exchange values' to indicate relative pricing, for the sake of conferring *ownership*, but the means of production itself -- factories and equipment -- are themselves owned privately, for private benefit, instead of for producing to fulfill all human need for life and living.
Note that I'm not arguing for centralization of 'governing' power, as over people's lives, but rather for the empowerment of the *working class*, *collectively*, over all social production.
I'll refer you to the following thread that I started, in which I specify that 'centralization' (over social production, particularly tangible goods), can take place at *many* various scales, per-item produced, all the way up to a *global* scale, and/or any *lesser* scale:
global syndicalist currency
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=174857
---
This illustration may help the reader to *visualize* how various magnitudes of geographical scale could take place simultaneously, over a range of goods and services:
Multi-Tiered System of Productive and Consumptive Zones for a Post-Capitalist Political Economy
Spoiler: show
---
One Degree wrote:
This structure seems much more important than the ideology in practice reflecting theory. It is designed to convert any ideology to authoritarianism. I don’t know how you can prevent this without many totally autonomous communities cooperating by choice.
I'll contend that ideology and structure are complementary since each tends to implicitly describe the other.
You're noting that the large-scale structure / scale necessarily has to reconcile with various included *small-scale* operations, meaning local on-the-ground ones. This is an astute observation and I happen to agree with this political-economy concern.
If workers are going to be operating the actual implements of mass industrial production *on the ground*, then each of those is a particular workplace / locality / grouping. Objectively-needed *centralization* over several workplaces would still have to *acknowledge* and reconcile-with this empirically-necessary local control, so neither localism nor centralization can be casually dismissed. (Lack of centralization implies duplication-of-effort on the ground, instead of *coordinating* over those various local efforts.)
Given today's existing technologies I don't think that *everyone* would necessarily have to contribute work-effort, but I *do* think that in the shorter-term there *should* be a near-unanimity of *political* agreement to support the proletariat in its ongoing class struggle against the continued ruling-class rule of the bourgeoisie.