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The Marxist, Communist, and Socialist Guild

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Formerly called the NCS, this is a place for communists and socialists to talk about communism and socialism. 

Tags: Marxism, Communism, Socialism, Political, Left 

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Reidmarr von Brugge

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PostPosted: Mon Nov 04, 2013 2:56 pm


I am a Syndicalist.

I regard the state as a profoundly anti-worker institution, ironically agreeing with James Madison that the primary function of government is to 'protect the minority of the opulent from the majority.' I view the primary purpose of the state as being the defense of private property and therefore of economic, social and political privilege, even when such defense denies its citizens the ability to enjoy material independence and the social autonomy which springs from it. In contrast to other bodies of thought (Marxism–Leninism being a prime example), I deny that there can be any kind of workers' state, or a state which acts in the interests of workers, as opposed to those of the powerful, and that any state with the intention of empowering the workers will inevitably work to empower itself or the existing elite at the expense of the workers. Power corrupts.

Economically, I propose confederations of collectivized trade unions or industrial unions. A form of socialist economic corporatism that advocates interest aggregation of multiple non-competitive categorized units to negotiate and manage an economy. For adherents, labor unions are the potential means of both overcoming economic aristocracy and running society fairly in the interest of the majority, through union democracy. Industry in a syndicalist system would be run through co-operative confederations and mutual aid. Local syndicates would communicate with other syndicates through the Bourse du Travail (labor exchange) which would manage and transfer commodities.

Syndicalist theory holds, on an ethical basis, that all participants in an organized trade internally share equal ownership of its production. By contrast, socialism emphasizes distributing output among trades as required by each trade, not necessarily considering how trades organize internally. Communism rejects government-sanctioned private ownership of the means of production in favor of ownership by the class of individuals who actually use such property (i.e., the workers or proletariat, who under most variants of communism would have control of the state as well, muddling the distinction between state and proletarian ownership). In syndicalism, unions exist independent of the state rather than needing the state's micromanagement and central planning. As with businesses in capitalism, labor unions in syndicalism would likely share a complicated relationship of co-operation and opposition with the state (with the obvious exception of anarcho-syndicalism, under which there would be no state). Syndicalists state that society is to be organized bottom-up based on direct democracy, confederation, workplace democracy and decentralized socialism, and that to get to such a society they may either initiate a general strike through direct action and workplace occupation or - in the case of reformist syndicalists - develop the syndicalist economics alongside the state, in competition to it. Syndicalists state that delegation - the use of proxy representation - will facilitate direct democracy and that each commune/region would be independent in the confederation.
PostPosted: Mon Nov 04, 2013 9:31 pm


When you talk about the state, what do you mean by that word? Anarcho- tendencies tend to be rather loose with their definition, in my experience, so I find it helps to start any discussion by clarifying that up first, so we both know what we are trying to say, rather than using the same words to talk past each other.

Le Pere Duchesne
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arbiter_51

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PostPosted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 10:46 pm


What do you think of a state capitalist system that uses it's profits to directly distribute to the people. If such a thing ever were to exist...
PostPosted: Thu Nov 07, 2013 2:55 am


arbiter_51
What do you think of a state capitalist system that uses it's profits to directly distribute to the people. If such a thing ever were to exist...
State capitalism/state socialism. Its all the same. The USSR showed us that it doesn't work.

Reidmarr von Brugge

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arbiter_51

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PostPosted: Thu Nov 07, 2013 11:57 am


Kozumuda
arbiter_51
What do you think of a state capitalist system that uses it's profits to directly distribute to the people. If such a thing ever were to exist...
State capitalism/state socialism. Its all the same. The USSR showed us that it doesn't work.


Ok fair enough if you are talking about the whole economy being run by the state, but what about a mixed economy in which there is state socialism and community level planning together?
PostPosted: Thu Nov 07, 2013 2:22 pm


arbiter_51
Kozumuda
arbiter_51
What do you think of a state capitalist system that uses it's profits to directly distribute to the people. If such a thing ever were to exist...
State capitalism/state socialism. Its all the same. The USSR showed us that it doesn't work.


Ok fair enough if you are talking about the whole economy being run by the state, but what about a mixed economy in which there is state socialism and community level planning together?
I think that would defeat the purpose. One cannot exist while the other survives. In the long run, the community-level planning would probably get smashed by the state.

Reidmarr von Brugge

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Le Pere Duchesne
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 07, 2013 9:51 pm


I'd like to repost my question about what you mean by 'the state' since this kind of discussion won't really go anywhere without that.
PostPosted: Thu Nov 07, 2013 10:09 pm


I too can use wikipedia.

Naiax Sidorenka


arbiter_51

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PostPosted: Fri Nov 08, 2013 11:14 am


Wait isn't the syndicalist economic and goverment organization pretty much the same as Lenin's soviet method. The community makes a soviet or a syndicate and they select a delegate and it continues until they reach the state or confederation.

Also, do you believe in the need for a vanguard party?
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MCS: Marxism, Communism, Socialism

 
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