Scenarios where socialists ought to support liberals? - Page 4 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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As either the transitional stage to communism or legitimate socio-economic ends in its own right.
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#14507075
Goldberk wrote:TIG: there is not much in your analysis I can disagree with, however whilst recognising that fighting against the Bolsheviks would have led to fascism or at best liberalism we should also recognise that not all the Bolsheviks 'excesses' were necessitated by the conditions of the time.


And so the equation becomes: The Bolsheviks weren't always perfect, but they demand and deserve the support of the working class and leftists everywhere.
#14507087
Any failure or "excess" on the Bolsheviks' end is immediately and fully mitigated by a cursory glance at any capitalist nation. Any genuine advocate of worker's liberation should be able to see that clearly.

Truly God smiled on man in October 1917, and then we turned our backs in 1991. The state of the world and its increasing rate of decline are the punishment I think.
#14507088
I had a great riposte to you, TiG but my session timed out on me and it was lost. How do you explain the fact that while NEP had several capitalist features such as private firms and profit making industry, the workers were not aided in taking over the workplace and rejuvenating the economy that way? It seems that it was purely to allow the Bolsheviks to restore War Communism at a later date as did happen under Stalin.
#14507109
Dagoth Ur wrote:Those who actually use the capital will be the final authority on it's usage (through a worker's Soviet).

Of course there are examples of where this kind of local autonomy would not be possible, like in the case of war, but socialism is presumed to be global and peaceful so this isn't really an issue. I'm sure that we will set up some kind of military hierarchy between the Soviets but that is a matter for policy-makers at the actual time.


So if there was a food shortage, and the farmers simply didn't want to work more to produce the extra food, could they just tell everyone else to fuck off?
#14507124
No it never stopped being effective at being a hole in global capitalism, but yes it did sometimes hinder other holes (sometimes appropriately like in Makhno's Ukraine). Just because the Soviet Union was something worthy of being defended during its entire lifespan doesn't mean I am blind to the flaws. Like the fact that Gorbachev and his liberal cadre could tear our dear motherland apart.

@Saeko: Why would they do that? They would be compensated for their labor accordingly.
#14507142
Dagoth Ur wrote:Then we'd take their land and use it responsibly instead of letting them refuse to do their jobs. Why would they choose to let people starve when they are farmers?

Solidarity isn't just some gag that we fool people into.


I agree with that 100%. But I'm still a little confused about who "we" are, and isn't it now the case that the people who use the capital do not have a final say on how that capital is used, but rather that "we" do?
#14507147
No they do have a final say up until they are criminally irresponsible. If a fire department won't go into a burning building then they aren't the fire department anymore, and it isn't their Firehouse anymore. All property belongs to the whole proletariat, those who work the individuals properties are the decision makers on-site as they have the best sense for the actual conditions they need to deal with. You do not have the right to not feed people with the land you work, you have a right to the full reward for your bounty. Distribution is a whole other Soviet entirely.
#14507150
Dagoth Ur wrote:No they do have a final say up until they are criminally irresponsible. If a fire department won't go into a burning building then they aren't the fire department anymore, and it isn't their Firehouse anymore. All property belongs to the whole proletariat, those who work the individuals properties are the decision makers on-site as they have the best sense for the actual conditions they need to deal with. You do not have the right to not feed people with the land you work, you have a right to the full reward for your bounty. Distribution is a whole other Soviet entirely.


So who determines what is and isn't criminal irresponsibility?

you have a right to the full reward for your bounty.


And how can you guarantee the "full reward for your bounty" when sometimes sacrifice by some will be necessary to preserve the whole?
#14507151
Saeko wrote:So who determines what is and isn't criminal irresponsibility?

I presume it would be the courts. I think it is safe to say that refusing to produce food while people are starving is criminal.

Saeko wrote:And how can you guarantee the "full reward for your bounty" when sometimes sacrifice by some will be necessary to preserve the whole?

You cannot guarantee anything. However there would surely be inter-soviet policies that would address these types of issues.

But this whole thing is a non-issue. The Farmer's Soviet would not have voted to starve their neighbors, the farmers wouldn't have to work harder because other workers would be shifted to the fields, and sacrifice is repaid in basically all systems.
#14507155
Goldberk wrote:I agree that the Bolsheviks deserved unquestioned support during the civil war, but I'm less sure after. And for me dag's comment underlines the problem, the false black and white absolutism, some circumstances allow a more nuanced approach.


I did attempt to qualify the support of the USSR by citing Trotsky, who had every right to not only oppose it on the grounds his friends and family were executed, but on the more serious grounds it was being run by a complete idiot that couldn't even make an analysis deep enough to stop him from encouraging people to vote for Hitler in 1931; an illiterate that, in my decade in a half of posting, I've never seen anybody be able to cite because of his profound failure at everything he ever tried.

But, that being so, it does not mitigate the fact that the Soviet Union had gone a lot further than anyone else in establishing a workers' democracy. Yes, there were problems. But, and it's worth underlining again, the two big problems ecost because we refuse to learn the basic truths that even Trotsky laid out in his final analysis of Stalin and the Soviet Union:

1. People that think that since everything wasn't completely perfect and so abandon the movement are hacks. There will never be a flawless movement of pure hippy love that will do everything perfectly. This is true of almost every Trotskyist party today, and really the vast majority of leftist groups.

2. People that do not acknowledge the problems with the Soviet Union are hypocrites and liars that are also useless to us. These are mostly Stalinists, and it's why their anaylsis sounds like somebody just talking loudly; while Stalin reads like it was written with a crayon between masturbation sessions; and why we keep making the same stupid mistakes over and over again, as the left.

You must acknowledge the errors, but also accept that there will be errors. The Soviet Union deserved our support. Not unquestioned childish support, but our support as mature adults.
#14507161
Dagoth Ur wrote:I presume it would be the courts. I think it is safe to say that refusing to produce food while people are starving is criminal.

You cannot guarantee anything. However there would surely be inter-soviet policies that would address these types of issues.

But this whole thing is a non-issue. The Farmer's Soviet would not have voted to starve their neighbors, the farmers wouldn't have to work harder because other workers would be shifted to the fields, and sacrifice is repaid in basically all systems.


So there is a system of courts which can overrule the soviets? Are there law-making and executive bodies as well?

But this whole thing is a non-issue. The Farmer's Soviet would not have voted to stave their neighbors, the farmers wouldn't have to work harder because other workers would be shifted to the fields, and sacrifice is repaid in basically all systems.


Why does this remind me of the right-libertarian argument that no one would starve under laissez-faire capitalism because free market competition would reduce the price of food and because people would always voluntarily donate enough to charities?

Sacrifice is repaid in no systems, that's why they call it "sacrifice". That some have to lose so that the rest can gain is simply a material necessity, and no amount of dancing around the issue will ever make it go away.
#14507165
Saeko wrote:So there is a system of courts which can overrule the soviets? Are there law-making and executive bodies as well?

Are you serious right now? Do you think the Soviet system is just people voting on shit? It is a hierarchy of Soviets, culminating in a Supreme Soviet (this would be your national legislative body), and what else was Stalin but an executive?

Saeko wrote::lol: Why does this remind me of the right-libertarian argument that no one would starve under laissez-faire capitalism because free market competition would reduce the price of food and because people would always voluntarily donate enough to charities?

I don't know since that is an insane idea. A system that operates on the premise of capital ownership being the ultimate good would never accept giving away the means to gathering more capital. Socialism is about interdependence. A farmer already owes everything he has to his comrades in transport, and his comrades at the power company, and his various other comrades who help him actually farm. Getting rid of the stupid Ubermensh mythos, where some superman did all the Farming by himself with his bare hands, will go a long ways in this effect. Constant propaganda tends to work (hence why there are so many damn liberals).

Saeko wrote:Sacrifice is repaid in no systems, that's why they call it "sacrifice". That some have to lose so that the rest can gain is simply a material necessity, and no amount of dancing around the issue will ever make it go away.

If you die in war, we pay your family. If you die to save people from a burning building, we pay your family. If you live from either of these you get low-celebrity status. How are these not repayments? Sacrifice is repaid because no one would sacrifice for nothing.

@TIG: I don't know any Stalinists who leave the USSR unquestioned (outside of RedAlert "Stalinists"). In fact most of them rehash Trotsky's argument against Stalin but put the blame on Khrushchev instead (which led to the hilarious Bizzaro-Trotskyism called Hoxhaism). Greggers was the last Stalinist I remember with a ridiculous blindspot for the USSR. Is there someone specific that you are thinking of?

The Trotsky vs Stalin issue is a great example of where people need to swallow their egos and work together.
#14507176
Dagoth Ur wrote:Are you serious right now? Do you think the Soviet system is just people voting on shit? It is a hierarchy of Soviets, culminating in a Supreme Soviet (this would be your national legislative body), and what else was Stalin but an executive?

I don't know since that is an insane idea. A system that operates on the premise of capital ownership being the ultimate good would never accept giving away the means to gathering more capital. Socialism is about interdependence. A farmer already owes everything he has to his comrades in transport, and his comrades at the power company, and his various other comrades who help him actually farm. Getting rid of the stupid Ubermensh mythos, where some superman did all the Farming by himself with his bare hands, will go a long ways in this effect. Constant propaganda tends to work (hence why there are so many damn liberals).

If you die in war, we pay your family. If you die to save people from a burning building, we pay your family. If you live from either of these you get low-celebrity status. How are these not repayments? Sacrifice is repaid because no one would sacrifice for nothing.


Now I'm even more confused. I thought socialism was supposed to be a stateless system of local autonomous soviets where all decisions are made by people just voting on shit, but now you're talking about a hierarchically organized "Supreme Soviet" which can make and enforce laws and overrule the worker's soviets and compel people to work against their will for the good of the proletariat?

Also, who decides what is and isn't in the interest of the proletariat? Is it the stat-- uh--- I mean, Supreme Soviet?

EDIT:

If you die in war, we pay your family. If you die to save people from a burning building, we pay your family. If you live from either of these you get low-celebrity status. How are these not repayments? Sacrifice is repaid because no one would sacrifice for nothing.


Repaying a sacrifice is nice. But sacrifices aren't made with the expectation of repayment. It is done solely for the sake of achieving some goal which is more valuable or important than the thing sacrificed, such as one's life.
#14507187
Saeko wrote:Now I'm even more confused. I thought socialism was supposed to be a stateless

Gonna stop you here and point out the difference between communism and socialism. Socialism is a Proletarian Dictatorship (ie a state).

Saeko wrote:system of local autonomous soviets where all decisions are made by people just voting on shit,

I don't agree that direct democracy is a workable premise outside of local affairs.

Saeko wrote:but now you're talking about a hierarchically organized "Supreme Soviet" which can make and enforce laws and overrule the worker's soviets and compel people to work against their will for the good of the proletariat?

The Supreme Soviet is made of of representatives from local soviets (all recallable), who meet to discuss and vote on issues that effect several Soviets. There needs to be some central organ that is capable of binding us together while we are still at war with the capitalists.

Saeko wrote:Also, who decides what is and isn't in the interest of the proletariat? Is it the stat-- uh--- I mean, Supreme Soviet?

The local soviets would ideally do most of the heavy lifting in the decision making process. The less stable the socialist state the less ideal the circumstances obviously.

Saeko wrote:Repaying a sacrifice is nice. But sacrifices aren't made with the expectation of repayment. It is done solely for the sake of achieving some goal which is more valuable or important than the thing sacrificed, such as one's life.

How is giving your life for something you care about not a vain reward? Dying for the nation, dying for the cause, dying for your family. Even talking about them gets people excited.

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