>>> Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> 09/02/99 06:53PM >
Another question, which is not the same as the above, is one between
leaders and the rank & file (a huge problem in _any_ organization of more
than a handful of members).
((((((((((((
Charles: Democratic centralism ( a paradoxical term) is meant to deal with this contradiction. However, this is really the old contradiction that republican or representative form of government is meant to deal with. With a large group, direct democracy for every decision becomes unweldy, and so long before Lenin and democratic centralism, republics with representative government were established. All republican government is democratic centralist. All of bourgeoisdom , government and corporate, today is riddled with excess centralization and not enough direct democracy.
The liberal criticism of socialist practice of democratic centralism fails to consider the extreme topdown control of liberal republican government
Corporate structure, the government of the bourgeois economy and , really, polity too, doesn't even pretend to be democratic or republican. It is totally centralized, open dictatorship of the corporate bosses. Yet socialist countries' economic governing structure is criticized by bourgeois ideologists as if democracy reined in economic decisionmaking in capitalism.
((((((((((((((
Further, it doesn't appear that sectarianism exists because of a particular type of organization. It can and does exist in non-Leninist social movements as well, as far as I can see. I think it is wishful-thinking to imagine that a technological solution -- conceiving a proper organizational mode in abstraction from social & political conditions -- would solve the fundamental question of balancing organizational efficiency/effectiveness and democratic participation just like that. And the question is democracy, isn't it?
((((((((((((
Charles: I agree with this too. The contradiction of organizational efficiency/effectiveness versus democratic participation has not been solved better than Leninists by bourgeois nations/economies or non-Leninist left groups.
Charles Brown