> It's not just that it's unpredictable, it's that planning things out
> in the detailed way people expect --- like those dudes you don't like
> but Gar does -- puts too many restrictions on your ability to think on
> the ground, quickly, and adapt to exigencies.
I keep getting hung up on this "planning things out" concept. No one is trying to write a plan to be voted on and adopted by an Official Committee of the Left and included in the bylaws and annual resolutions. This is about discussing ideas that people can think about and debate. Always the opponents of talking about socialism refer to it as "predicting," "deciding in advance," "planning," "pre-determined." That has nothing to do with it.
Another question I have: You say people in the movement will work out these issues as they come up, so we shouldn't talk about it now. Okay - how will we know when the issue has come up? At what point exactly does talking about socialism stop being tyrannical "deciding in advance" and start being "responding to issues as they come up." Because clearly the issue has *already* come up - it seems to come up every single time people on the left get together - yet you *still* don't want anybody to talk about it.
SA *****************************
What I'm proposing to those who ask what socialism is:
The wage-system is based on selling labour power, making it a commodity which the workers sell to the boss. In exchange, the worker gives up ownership and control of the product of labour which he or she has produced during their hours of labour time. I think this is a rip off. Wages in no way come close to equaling the the wealth created over the time labour is employed. That social relation has to be broken down, at first by a movement based on shortening the work week and curbing petty authoritarian power trips which bosses bully workers into obeying. The whip they carry is the power they have been given, to dismiss/fire/layoff. Shortening the work week will not only free workers for more time to do with as they please. It will also shrink the labour power available for purchase at any given moment thus, putting upward pressure on wages. It will also strengthen labor's hand in the workplace in relation to hired wage-slave drivers aka, managment.
In a saner set up, there should be no classes; but a free association of producers who democratically decide what to produce, within the bounds of living in harmony with the Earth. Whether labour vouchers might be used to keep track of the socially necessary labour time expended would be up to democratic vote. But essentially, if used, the formula would be four hours in gets you four hours of goods and services out of the social store of socially produced wealth.
Hi-ho, Mike B) *********************************************************************** In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality. Karl Marx
http://wobblytimes.blogspot.com/
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