>A proletarian democracy would see democratic control of the social product of
>labour exercised by the producers themselves, legitimated and enforced by the
>workers' State. Capitalists could still own the means of production here and
>there; but the proles would control where the wealth they produced would be
>allocated because they would have control of the State and by extension the
>legal system.
Bill asked:
In what sense would they "have control of the state"? ****** MB)
In the same sense that the capitalist class now has control of the State, through workers' control and social ownership of the means of production. ***************** Bill:
By voting for representatives? They have that now. ************* Mike B)
The overwhelming majority of politicians elected to represent the body politic in a bourgeois democracy are beholden to the capitalist and landlord classes, not to a class conscious proletariat, one which controls and socially owns substantial portions, if not most of the productive apparatus of society. You can see this power relation reflected now in Australia where even the more or less class neutral Greens cannot win government. Even though Labor may win the election on November 24th, still they will be most beholden to the capitalist class. Bourgeois politics tends, largely to be an image game. ********************
Bill:
As you indicated earlier, the real power of the capitalist class is independent of and largely untroubled by existing political democracy. Their power is direct and economic. Their economic power trumps the political power of the working class, because it trumps the power of the state. The only kind of political state that threatens capital is the totalitarian state, which is even more of a threat to the working class and even that is ultimately only a threat to individual capitalists, in the sense of being a loose cannon, rather than a threat to the capitalist system itself.
Mike B)
The capitalist economy is a political-economy, Bill. The capitalists are not troubled by bourgeois democracy because they control the politicians who are elected to run the capitalist State. Again, the capitalists politically control the State because they own the means of production and by extension, most of the wealth which the workers create.
A proletarian democracy would be more, not less democratic than a bourgeois democracy because the producers themselves would socially own and control the means of production and what they collectively create using Nature and the productive apparatus of society.
*********** Bill:
Whoever wields the tyrannical economic power of capital, the power to direct what workers will work, what work they will do, how much they can earn if anything, it matter not. Because as long as someone has that power over you, you are a slave. Your vote is a sop. Not because, as you claim, you cannot get media attention for a radical message, but more directly because you preach your radical message at the peril of being severely punished economically. ************************
Mike B)
If workers control production, as opposed to merely going to work to make the production of wealth happen for the benefit of capitalists, then they have power over the collective product of their labour. They are not ruled over. On the contrary, they rule themselves--democratic, self-management, fellow worker.
************
Bill:
Haven't we just been hearing from people on this very list who have suffered this fate? Surely it hasn't escaped your notice that a great number of people even on this list live in such fear of economic reprisals by the ruling class that they don't even dare to post under their own name. What's more, its over a hundred years since the capitalist democracies were forced to bring in the secret ballot for exactly the same reason, to provide some measure of protection for the working class against reprisals from their employers for voting even for the wrong pro-capitalist politicians. ***********
Mike B)
I agree with you here above, Bill.
****************** How the buggery do you imagine a radical political opposition could ever be organised under such oppressive conditions?
********** For example, by openly organising One Big Union to back up their political will. A couple of examples: a strong classwide union would be catered to when it demanded an end to anti-union organising legislation and more funding for public health care and no government funding for private health care. You see Bill, the way things are, the control over the social product of labour is in the hands of capitalists and *their* State. The social product of labour is what the class struggle is focused on. Who wins the class battles over the surplus value the workers produce--the social product of labour--is the political point of these struggles. It's a question of how the surplus, we produce will be divided--left to workers, right to capitalists and their landlord buddies. Part and parcel of this fight is the fight over our rights to organise our power, speak freely and associate with whom we wish. Victories and losses are measured by the organised power of the classes. *************************** Bill:
By definition it could only be organised along the lines of a secret conspiracy, which is hardly likely to inspire much electoral confidence. Would you vote for a nameless masked candidate?
***********
Mike B)
You mean like the Lone Ranger? ;p
I'm for a non-conspiratorial organisation, a classwide movement of proles who know that their interests and those of the capitalist and landlord classes are opposed. If this cannot be accomplished because of the abandonment of civil liberties by the ruling class, then another option will have to be pursued.
*********** Bill:
That sort of absolute economic power isn't just going to "wither away". Don't make me laugh! *********** Mike B)
Okay, I won't. I'm just saying that, if the workers were able to organise say, 50% of their sisters and brothers in One Big Union, they could bring some power to bear on the decisions being made in a government where capitalists still owned some of the means of production and landlords still had the legal right to own land/buildings and rent them out to the rest of us. Dare I say a situation of "dual power" would become a reality. Such a union would be able to short circuit the influence of the capitalist and landlord classes on politics and ensure that more and more of the social product of labour would be legally diverted back to serving the proles interests and away from our class opposition. This is the meaning of "progressive" and "left" to me as I explain at greater length here:
http://iamawobbly.multiply.com/journal/item/1/Politics_101
Mike B)
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