So what is it that people decide democartically when they get together? That machines should do thus and so? Machines,a las, won't do anything just because you tell them. But if the people direct, democratically, that people should use machines thus and so, they are directing people how to live their lives at least in that respect.
>
>What is significant is that this form of economic democracy would not
>require any violent methods of enforcement, the means of production is an
>interdependent web of supply and demand. Even if a group of people
>attempted to take control of parts of the system, to monopolise them for
>their private ends, it would be possible to prevent them with non-violent
>means. Merely by disconnecting the renegade plant from the supply chain.
Well, you don't want to cops to have guns, then? I don't have strong feelings about this, It strikes me as the sort of Owenite micromanagement of the future that helped maked Marx allergic to utopian socialism. But there has to be an enforcement mechanism. If the people decide that we are to build so many hospitals, but some folk divert resources to other ends--not necessarily selfish ones, maybe ones that they honestly albeit undemocratically think would be socially better--there has to be a means a means to stopping that behavior. In our society, a nonviolent court order usually does the trick. The court ulatimately has the power to call in the marshals or the sheriff, but it's extremely rare to use it. In four years on the appeals and district court, I've seen it used once. (A witness refused to show up and testiofy, and we had to have her arrested and produced.)
>
>The corrupting influence of a police force with special coercive powers
>would be unnecessary to defend the socially-necessary means of production
>from being usurped into private hands.
Well, maybe. But suppose someone decided to privately appropriate property?
>
>I believe it is important to avoid creating such political power if the aim
>is a truly free society. There risks of totalitarian power outweigh the
>supposed benefits.
Uh, who's talking about totalitaian powerr? I advocate democratic power.
>Though obviously there would be nothing to prevent local communities or
>other groups from organising however they saw necessary. But they would
>have no way of using economic coercion to build a power structure, only
>free association.
Yeah, right. So the Randroids set up a little capitalist community. You don't use the economic coercion of a boycott to destroy their experiment. You don't have cops to shut them down. What do you do?
>BTW, have you got an answer to me legal question about whether private
>prosecutions of criminal offenses is permitted in the US?
>
Yes I have an answer. It is abolutely not permitted in the US, or any other modern society as far as I know. I actually had to cite this principle in a case I drafted recently.
jks
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