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| (notes for this file:) this document is part of "Anti-Joseph and the S.O.M.E. Hypothesis" | ||||
The Confabulator Has No Clothes:
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Contents: TIP: Clicking on any of the paragraph numbers
--------- along the left margin
will take you back and forth
between the body of the article
and the table of contents.
paragraph
number chapters sections subheads
--------------------------------------------------------------
3a I. Is Communism Possible ?
5a Agitation with its Heart Cut Out
12a Would-be Thought Police in Action
15a II. Joseph's Red Sweater
19a "Anarchy of Production"
33a "Cooperative Anarchy"
38a How Charlatans Play with Names
47a III. How the Hand and Brain Work Together
49a Joseph -- the Royal Inquisitor
53a Joseph's Questions:
55a Ben's Answers (preface):
59a Ben's Answers (content):
65a Example #1: "Our Children Are Our Future!"
67a The Real Respect Accorded a Tribal Elder
70a Joseph and Mark Declare War On Bottom-up Methods
83a Joseph's Problem is with "Distributed
Intelligence"
92a The Sectarian Struggle Against Revisionism is A
STINKING CORPSE
95a How Would A Communist Economy Actually Work ?
98a Every Thought, Word and Action
104a The Only Good Society is a Dead Society
107a Complex Struggles within the Communist Society
and Economy
130a Who Tells People What to Think ?
135a Concert for Bangladesh
153a Environmental Clean-up
167a The Mother of All Poisons
172a Permission to Go to the Bathroom
176a How Charlatans and Demagogues Select Examples
179a The Mother of the Mother of All Poisons
182a A Mockery of the Struggle Against Anarchism
186a IV. Joseph's Theory in Action: Ray's 1988
Letter
195a A Message to my Opponents
205a Notes:
a1 Appendix: "J. Edgar Hoover" or
"Information Theory" -- You Decide
a3 What is parallelity ?
a6 Parallelity in Nature
a9 Parallelity in Computers
a12 Parallelity in the Party
a14 Von Neumann Party Architecture
a18 Massively Parallel Processing Party Architecture
a21 Which Architecture is Better ?
a25 Parallelity and the conscious activation of the
party's base
a30 Joseph von Neumann
|
| The epic struggle of Marxism against revisionism has acquired momentum with the release of Joseph's latest outburst against the concept that the masses will ever be able to manage their own affairs and economy without a central directing authority to tell them what to do. |
| Joseph is correct in attaching decisive importance to understanding and being able to clarify the distinction in theory between Marxism and revisionism. And Joseph has made a powerful contribution to this clarification, even if inadvertently. By taking a stand manifesting such marked fear and hostility to the initiative and consciousness of the masses, Joseph has actually succeeded in illuminating this theoretical distinction with startling clarity. Unfortunately Joseph has cast himself in the role of revisionist as he attempts to block forward progress on the most important theoretical issue of our time. |
| The central theoretical question which will dominate the twenty first century and around which will revolve all other theoretical questions of profound social import is whether communism is possible. There is a profound skepticism on this question among the masses. This skepticism is not merely the result of the bourgeois world-view as saturates the mass media -- but is also a product of the failures of the Soviet and Chinese revolutions. |
| Workers who hear our claim that a society better than capitalism, without all the attendant ills of capitalism, is possible -- would like to believe us. But they want to hear more than nice words and fairy tales. They want us to be able to answer their questions and explain to them how such a society would actually function in practice. This does not mean that the masses somehow expect us to provide all sorts of details which no one could possibly predict in advance. Rather it means that they want some picture of how such a society would be organized. They want to have some kind of grasp of the organizational principles that would allow a society to function in the real world and create more wealth than is created by capitalism and not require a special class of exploiters. |
| These kinds of issues are indirectly raised in the agitation produced by the Detroit-Chicago axis. Let's consider two examples: |
| LA # 20 reports that leading chief executives were paid an average of 139 times the pay of an average worker. This is up from a ratio of 35 in 1973. Do the folks in LA call for reducing this ratio as a means of reforming capitalism ? No. This is fine with me. But what do the LA comrades say ? They say the workers should "organize with their fellow workers ... FOR WORLD SOCIALIST REVOLUTION!" |
| Now I have nothing against calls for a world socialist revolution. But if we want workers to take our agitation to heart, shouldn't we be able to give them a clue as to what this world socialist revolution would consist of ? For example, would this revolution maintain capitalism but roll back the ratio to 35 ? The LA leaflet strongly implies that this socialist revolution would eliminate unemployment. Ok, that's a little better. But many of the leaflet's readers are likely to wonder: "How would you do it ?" Or they might wonder whether eliminating unemployment would require a system that creates less wealth than capitalism. What assurance can we give readers that a system that can create more wealth than capitalism is possible ? |
| Detroit # 71 suggests that if Governor Wilson is worried about balancing the budget that he should go after the fortunes of the exploiters and the other wealthy parasites. Now I have nothing against calls for "making the rich pay" but the fact remains that the rich do not have enough wealth to solve social problems simply by confiscating and redistributing it. |
| The leaflet notes that "800,000 jobs were eliminated in California over the last few years and ... Pete Wilson has accompanied this with severe cuts in social services. ... It's the giant monopolies and the wealthy who are eliminating jobs and who are profiting off the misery of workers both inside the U.S. and around the world." Many readers may wonder what we propose to actually do about this. We may talk of building a society free of exploitation where 800,000 additional unemployed would not be created and in fact everyone would have a job. But how would we do it ? |
| Many readers conclude that our talk of a society without exploitation that can create more wealth than capitalism is -- blowing smoke. And this is why it is important to sort out such questions. Otherwise our position amounts to: "we will cross that bridge when we come to it". Otherwise, the workers will conclude, quite correctly, that we are nothing but idle dreamers. They may support us on various struggles for partial demands, but all our talk of a fundamentally better society will correctly be seen as self-deception and wishful thinking. |
| But when any motion towards sorting out these questions arises, our self-appointed earnest would-be thought police swing into action to nip such dangers in the bud. |
| In Seattle # 72 ("How Mark Uses Stalin's Theory ...") I discussed a number of useful ideas concerning how such a communist society might function. This was done to refute the titan of tough talk, Mark, who had put on his reflector sunglasses and little tin badge and laid down the law: any talk of a communist economy being a complex system of "independent, conflicting, wealth-creating processes" was equivalent to worshipping capitalism. In order to advance our theory it is necessary that we disrespect Mark's authority and to use his cop's hat as a frisbee. |
| And this is precisely what I did. But rather than our Keystone Cops admitting their blunder and losing face and credibility, Joseph, the King of Spam, has come out to defend and compound the blunder by his loyal flunky. Fine Joseph. Demonstrate how erudite you are. Demonstrate to the world how you will shamelessly distort the scientific socialism of Marx and Engels in order to defend the organizational theories codified by Stalin and to maintain the organization stability of your trend which is kept together by such sectarian hype-glue. |
| But in the meantime, Joseph, other may want to hear about the organizational principles that might guide such a complex system of conflicting wealth-creating processes. This question is emerging as the principal one of our era and it will not go away. And your frantic antics to frighten off comrades within your grouping from thinking about this -- by equating (a) the investigation of the likely forms which will manifest the initiative and consciousness of the masses with (b) the neo-conservative worship of the capitalist market -- will only show the utter distrust and fear with which you view the masses. |
| In the 1950's and early 60's some of the guardians of bourgeois morality opposed sex education as a threat to the purity of the morals of our youth. After all, if you teach them stuff like that -- who knows ? Eventually the youth might grow up to become godless atheistic communists ! Better to keep the youth ignorant ! A typical argument of the time was that sex education would lead not only to sex but to sex crime. This kind of argumentation could only survive in a very uptight, repressed atmosphere. If someone objected that there was a distinction between sex education and sex crime the uptight reactionary would typically respond that showing diagrams of reproductive organs to youth still amounted to "smut". |
| A similar uptight, repressed and unthinking atmosphere exists amongst comrades of the Detroit-Chicago sectarian grouping. Comrades in this grouping should give careful consideration to what Joseph, their unofficial spokesman, is saying in their name. Joseph's argument that the relations of production popularly described by the phrase "Cooperative Anarchy" equals the "Anarchy of Production" under capitalism -- amounts to confabulation. Joseph is telling us stories. How nice of Joseph to provide our evening's entertainment. Let's examine Joseph's stories. |
| Joseph says that both terms contain the word "anarchy". Joseph says "What about the concept of anarchy ?" If "cooperative anarchy" describes the relations among production units, then it must refer to a kind of "anarchy" amongst "production units" and therefore must be the same as "anarchy of production". This is precisely what Joseph says. He finally sums up: "Isn't a red sweater the same as a sweater that is red ?" |
| But we should be careful. Joseph's red sweater is a "red" straitjacket -- carefully designed to restrict thought. Once again, it will be necessary to examine what these similar sounding terms actually mean in the world as they are actually used by real people. Words refer to concepts, as Joseph says. Such is the nature of language. So let's consider the concepts involved. I don't know if this exercise will actually help in any way any of the comrades in the Detroit-Chicago grouping. I consider these comrades as being either corrupt or not-too-bright. And I do not have the time or the ability to help comrades who have decided to let Joseph do their theoretical thinking for them. But I will endeavor to give them a fighting chance to grasp the methods used by the word-chopping charlatan in their midst who imagines he owns all the world's dictionaries and can assign any meaning he wants to any idea which threatens to bring sunlight into his dark and gloomy realm. |
| The real person I will use to illustrate the meaning of the term anarchy of production will be Engels. Presumably Joseph will consider Engels to be a real person. |
| In Anti-Duhring, (Section II "Theoretical" of Part III "Socialism") Engels describes "two phenomenal forms" of organization immanent in the capitalist mode of production. My summation here may be a little rough and approximate but I trust that comrades will be able to follow. |
| The first form is the organization of production within (ie: inside) a factory. Engels considered such organization to be relatively rational and well-ordered. |
| The second form (ie: Adam Smith's "invisible hand") was the organization of production between factories in society as a whole. This form of organization had some problems. Factories were connected by the market. This worked, more or less, except when it didn't. When it didn't there were problems. Big problems. |
| Roughly every ten years (in Engels time) the industrial economy came to a crashing halt because the productive forces were capable of expanding far more rapidly than the market for the commodities created could absorb. Extreme hardship and misery resulted. Side by side with starvation and poverty existed, unused and idle, both (a) massive labor power and (b) the means of production to use it. But these two elements (labor power and the means of production) could not be combined to create wealth because under capitalism this can only happen when the means of production and subsistence are first converted into capital. |
| The second form of organization not only resulted in severe crisis periodically but also suffered a related problem. Because the means of production could not be converted into capital in the absence of suitable markets, the creation of wealth was in general severely restricted. With suitable organization, Engels noted, the elements of production existed to create "practically unlimited growth of production itself" (ie: the creation of virtually unlimited wealth). |
| It was problems in the second form of organization that were constraining humanity's ability to create wealth. Engels calls this form of organization "anarchy of production". |
| Now we should sometimes be careful about names because if we are not we can confuse ourselves. Engels could have called the forms of organization outside and between factories "xyz". It would still be the same concept. It would still represent the problem that humanity would need to overcome in order to truly realize the wealth creating potential which surrounded it. I do not know if it was actually Marx or Engels or whomever who choose the phrase "anarchy of production" to describe this phenomena. I personally believe this name was well chosen. But it is clear from Engels' description that the phenomena referenced is to a system of organization whereby the means of production must be converted into capital before they might be combined with labor to create wealth. |
| If charlatans like Joseph attempt to divorce the meaning of the phrase "anarchy of production" from its root as a phrase describing what happens when the means of production must constantly be converted into capital and can know only the rule of the market -- then this only shows how Joseph and Mark are attempting to revise the views of Marx and Engels in order to fit the economic and political architecture they have inherited from Stalin and are attempting to defend for their sectarian purposes. |
| The essential point to grasp here is that Engels divided the forms of organization within capitalist society into these two general categories and Engels contrasted these categories. Engels noted that the form of organization inside a factory was far more rational and less wasteful than the form of organization between factories. And Engels noted that the two forms would eventually coalesce and that the entire economy would function as efficiently as a single factory and that this would allow creation of sufficient wealth that no one would ever again have to struggle merely to survive. |
| Now I have doubtlessly oversimplified this somewhat and I do not have the time to go into various subtleties (of which there are a few) but I will add a few comments. |
| As far as the confusion that can be created by names -- this can be sometimes humorous. When the Seattle Branch of the COUSML was organizing in the shipyards in the late 70's some of our comrades for a while thought that the term "anarchy of production" was a description that applied to the production process within the shipyard (ie: because it was an incredibly confused, incredibly chaotic mess and few people knew what they were doing). |
| When we organized at Boeing, we encountered interesting phenomena. Capitalism has developed from the days of Engels and the neat division into two categories does not, in every case, seem to be so simple. Boeing is a reasonable model of state capitalism. Boeing is a single company. Yet at the same time it is a system of companies. And the relations between the various companies, and between the departments of various companies, could in many cases hardly be described as being very cooperative. Probably everyone who has worked at Boeing has secretly wondered if the cartoonist who draws "Dilbert" actually works there. And in fact, many large companies are considering and experimenting with ways to make their internal sub-units more "entrepreneurial" in their relations with one another since this would in many cases be an improvement over the empire-building turf wars which make anything actually produced seem like a accidental by-product. (note: I on wrote a bit on this in Seattle # 7, paragraphs 84 - 92 "How Our Lack of Theory Acts to Limit Our Boeing Agitation") |
| But without trying to solve all the theoretical problems of the universe, including what names to attach to what particular phenomena, I think we can generalize to one important conclusion of Engels. It is the system of organization of economic activity that is holding humanity back and before we can release the vast potential of the immense productive forces that surround us -- we must solve the organizational problem. And this requires that we find a way to create wealth by combining labor and the means of production without the necessity of first transforming them into capital. Or, in simpler terms, we need to investigate and discover how an economy can function without capital, without money and without production for the sake of the market. |
| Now, does the term "cooperative anarchy" refer to a system whereby the means of production must be converted into capital in order to be used ? No. Not at all. It describes a system of people working together without a formal central authority. This is clear to anyone who looks at the matter and who does not have his head up his artificial stupidity system. Consider the example that I gave. A number of interested parties, largely unpaid volunteers, met and ironed out the next generation of protocols for the internet. Was the action of these people mediated by the market ? No, it was not. |
| This is not to say that the market, or economic considerations played no role whatever, or that the internet is totally divorced from the market or from economic considerations. It means that those who acted did so from a standpoint that was larger than private economic interest. |
| In general, the parties who worked on the next generation protocols acted as representatives of all internet users, present and future (and note: in the future this means all humanity). The methods under which they worked were contrasted to the methods used to create another set of protocols, OSI, which involved negotiations between individuals who were paid employees and who represented specific economic interests of various corporations. The people who worked on the next generation protocols and who described their work methods placed particular stress on the fact that they believed their methods were superior to the methods used in creating OSI and would create standards that were more truly functional in the real world. |
| The term "cooperative anarchy" would also well describe the work methods that created a free unix operating system known as Linux. This is described in my TCE documents. People from all over the world worked to create a powerful commercial quality product. People worked for nothing and the product is distributed free. There was never a central authority that made everything happen and was indispensable in coordinating it all. Was money exchanged ? Well, one of the people involved most heavily was using very outdated equipment and a fund was set up so he could buy a less antiquated PC. So there you have it: from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. A successful implementation in miniature of the communist method of production. What made this possible ? A very powerful factor here was the internet itself. People coordinated the project by advertising their abilities and needs to one another on the net and spontaneously forming small temporary "production units". But to Joseph this is the capitalist marketplace in action. |
| One more point on the issue of names. This term "cooperative anarchy" could have been called "abc" by the people who used it and it would still be the same concept. It is not a bad name. The problem is not a bad name but bad charlatans who use good names to fool comrades who want to be fooled. A biologist, for example, could study an ecosystem and call it an "anarchy of plants and animals" but only to Joseph would this mean that the interactions of the many plants and animals were all mediated via conversion into capital. |
| It is instructive to note that charlatans have always played with names. And this means that it is our responsibility to think matters like this over carefully and not simply make assumptions about what something means. Shortly after the turn of the century, idealist critics of materialism attempted to refute materialism by taking advantage of the recent discovery in physics that matter was a form of energy. "Haw!" they said, "Marxism holds that everything in the universe is made up of matter -- but we now know that matter is only a form of energy." Lenin corrected these simpletons in Materialism and Empirio-Criticism. It is irrelevant whether the stuff is called matter or energy, Lenin noted, the point is that materialism holds that this stuff existed independently of the mind, that mind could only exist on the basis of this stuff and not the other way around. Joseph's cheap parlor trick in equating "Cooperative Anarchy" with "Anarchy of Production" is of a similar level of stupidity as the critics that Lenin corrected. |
| Similarly, in "Joseph in Wonderland", I showed how Joseph played with the names of concepts like "trends" and "factions" and other similar tricks. Comrades who fall for these charlatan maneuvers do so for the same fundamental reason that an alcoholic drinks -- to relieve their pain and sense of shame. They are addicted to Joseph's spam. They can believe Joseph's confabulations and feel better about themselves and what they do for a while. They can believe they are being effective in building a working class political organization that will assist in overthrowing the capitalist economic order. Have another dose of spam and wash it down with a drink. It feels great ! Don't worry about a hangover. Joseph can always supply you with more spam ! |
| Comrades believe Joseph because they want to believe Joseph. Reality is too harsh for them and they seek refuge in a system of mutual addiction and denial. Such a system has evolved over time because of objective material phenomena. But comrades should consider that this path involves the corruption of their revolutionary courage and integrity. |
| Comrades act this way because they are demoralized and are afraid to face their internal contradictions. They do not see any way out. They are trying to persist in their present trajectory, even if blindfolded, because they are afraid of what they might see if they open their eyes. |
| There is an alternative. Comrades should consider their responsibilities to the workers and peoples of the work and attempt to sober up and stay clean. We can do it together. There is no shame in admitting that we have been addicted to spam. And in fact, once we admit it, the feelings of shame lose their power over us. |
| In the meantime I wish to make a comment directed to those comrades who believe that I and not Joseph is the real charlatan. You know who you are. I love you guys. I believe that you have real potential to serve the proletariat. If I didn't think so I wouldn't be wasting my time trying to help you to help yourselves. I love you guys so much that I nurture fond hopes that one fine day I will suddenly hear a "pop" sound and I will see that your heads are popping out of your Artificial Stupidity Systems. But ultimately it is up to you. You can bring a sectarian to proletarian politics, but you can't make him put aside his addiction to spam for the sake of the proletarian interest. That is up to him. |
| But I have done my best. I have written and explained things to you pathetic losers to the point where I have diverted desperately needed time from my own life affairs and from other political priorities. I have stretched my life to the point of personal catastrophe. Why ? Because I believe in you more than you believe in yourselves. And I have also diverted time from the creation of a data base for media abstracts that would serve us all far better than these silly polemics. I have gotten no respect from you guys for my efforts and I don't expect to get respect and I don't even need it. But I want it and I believe I will get it eventually and the better of you will one day thank me for my efforts. But in the meantime, this poem's for you. |
|
| Bon appetit comrades ! |
"If man was meant to fly,
the good lord would have given him wings"
- the "common wisdom" of the late 19th century
|
| In any era there is always a section which sees the shape of emerging future events before others. Similarly, there are always sections which cling fearfully to the past. Joseph looks at the future and he becomes afraid. What is he afraid of ? He is afraid of communism. Joseph is afraid of the unfettered energy, initiative and consciousness of the masses. And why is this ? Because Joseph is the ideological heir of Leninism -- as it evolved under the guidance of its enemies. |
| Joseph reads a brief description of how the masses will exercise their initiative and consciousness in the future and he becomes the voice of eternal reason. How can the masses possibly "do the right thing" without some centralized formal authority telling them what to do? Why it must be impossible. "Where is your proof ?", he thunders. It is all around you Joseph. Just open your eyes. |
| Joseph asks a series of questions. He then, in the self-same document, accuses me of evading his questions which I have never had an opportunity to answer. I hope our spam addicts note Joseph's method. He uses this all the time. This is an extremely corrupt method. If this method is not corrupt then what is ? Joseph raises a host of questions and accuses his opponents of not answering every question. Presumably I should have simply anticipated every one of the questions that Joseph might possibly ask and answered them ALL before I dared say anything that might annoy his royal highness the King of Spam. Further, Joseph has made clear that I must not only answer in advance all his questions but must do so in the particular paragraphs that suit his fancy (see folks, our most high Great Confabulator has a short attention span). |
| If Joseph's supporters can't see how corrupt this method is they are beyond all hope and are worthless to the working class. Furthermore, by swallowing Joseph's royal spam with such delight they are encouraging Joseph to produce more. Hey -- as long as you consume it with such glee he will produce it ! What do I have to say to these comrades ? Well I sure hope you enjoy eating those little balls of shit -- because you are going to be doing so for a very long time. Yum, yum! |
| On the other hand when I ask Joseph a question he is content to ignore it forever. Before everyone at the MLP's final congress I asked Joseph about the suppression of the concerns that comrade Ray raised in 1988. I raised this question innumerable times between then and now. Only now, and only as a result of considerable pressure and embarrassment does Joseph even mention this letter -- and then only to deny that the suppression of this letter was in any way related to Joseph's conception, inherited from Stalin, of a super-centralized party architecture. Meanwhile, when I publicly call on Joseph to explain to all the nature of the supposed "outrageous lies" he claimed were contained in "Joseph in Wonderland" -- he is silent for eleven months and counting. |
| However one thing that stands out in considering Joseph's questions is that they really are most excellent questions. It is only Joseph's demogogical and opportunist methods of presenting them for sectarian purposes that is a problem. This shows that Joseph actually has theoretical abilities that could serve the proletariat should we help him to wake up and take a stand against his own internal corruption and decay. |
|
| Because Joseph's questions may provoke some interest in the subject, I will touch on some of them. It would, of course, be foolish for me to attempt to answer everything in detail. Rather, I will simply try to sketch out some ideas. I have opted for speed rather than thoroughness because by striking while Joseph is still in the midst of his neo-conservative series, there is a better chance that some of this may actually be read. Should any readers be curious about my opinions or would like me to sketch out my ideas in more detail, they should write to me and I will try to respond. In this regard I should note, however, that my time is not "mine" to waste. I am quite busy and want to make my time, which belongs to the peoples of the world, productive. |
| What this means in practice as far as my answering letters is that EVERYONE gets priority over Joseph and Mark, who, until they publicly renounce their ugly and corrupt practices, are convicted charlatans and spam slingers in my book. They have zero interest in sorting out any of these questions and look at every exchange in terms of shoring up their sectarian grouping and their wallowing in the mud of denial. |
| Furthermore, I reserve the right to only reply to letters that are serious and show respect for the scientific process. This more or less excludes LA, since the comrades there are confused on the distinction between political discussion and mutual masturbation. Finally, I would hope that anyone who writes might show at least a tinge of firmness against spam slinging, which undermines the unity of our "information community" and degrades the quality of the scientific process by which we sort out questions that are of vital interest to the proletariat. It is hoped that comrades who consider themselves communists might show a flicker of recognition of the necessity to fight the corruption that is eating at the soul of the Detroit-Chicago sectarian axis. |
| And finally, I will note that I deal with a number of these questions in somewhat greater depth in both TCE and DIPR and comrades who would genuinely like to see these documents distributed are most welcome to assist me in getting a campaign underway to get at least two comrades from each city to send in a reply to a poll. I think that passivity as regards using our e-mail system is one of the things that has hurt us the most deeply. Such passivity shows a very low level of culture, hurts everyone, and we should strive to overcome it so that we can have an e-mail system with greater participation by all. |
| I should start by pointing out that several of Joseph's questions are based on mistaken assumptions. Maybe I can clear some of these up. |
| Joseph assumes that social planning requires a centralized and formal administrative apparatus. Let's explore some of the differences. These definitions are approximate but comrades can probably get a sense of the basic ideas here. |
| Central planning, involves decisions being made by a small group of people who act, in a formal sense, as representatives of the masses. Hence on complex questions, under Joseph's world-view, there is little need for the masses to actually have their pretty little heads bothered with knowing too much of the details of the complex issues involved. There is little actual need for the information that is involved in sorting out the issues to travel into the masses' consciousness. |
| Formal planning involves a group which makes a set of rules that are binding on all. There is inherently little room for deviation, much less defiance, of these rules by groups or parties which may believe they may know better. |
| Social Planning involves methods by which the masses affect and control the overall direction and thrust of economic development. This may include approximate (sometimes fuzzy) agreements negotiated by various involved parties or groups. Such groups may be acting out of their differing (and sometimes distorted) conceptions of the general interest. |
| Only to Joseph and those with similar prejudices does social planning require central or formal planning. Let's consider a hypothetical situation: |
| There might be a number of organizations of different types which revolve around analysis of the economy and the making of recommendations. The majority of these groups may reach a loose consensus on some issue. Such a consensus as might be reached might even include agreement on a slogan and the general outline of a popular campaign. For example there might be general agreement that the priorities of economic development and society's resources need to be shifted in the direction of greater emphasize on the education of the very young. This would include a variety of types of projects that would focus on developing the abilities and all-round consciousness of very young children. Such a shift in priorities might take place as a form of long-term investment since the return to society might take 30 or more years to mature. |
| Now how would such a consensus be implemented ? The economy would be made up of a large number of groups or units, independent or semi-independent from one another. Each group would follow the economic and social debates and make a decision as to whether, and to what degree, to align its own activity with the various recommendations which are making the headlines (or whatever form of media replaces "the headlines"). In such a situation, when the general consensus in society is for a shift in a certain direction, such a shift might be implemented, in a very complex way, without the need for a single, authoritative, formal center. |
| There are a number of theoretical issues that might be related to this but the one that most strikes me involves a passage from Engels (probably in Origin of the Family) relating how the most lowly cop, in a modern society, possessed more formal authority than the respected elder in the primitive communal society -- while at the same time the wise elder in such a primitive society might command far more real respect than the most fearsome dictator in a modern society. I only remember this quote approximately but I have always found it very thought-provoking. |
| The issue, as I see it, as we consider, theorize and speculate about forms and relations of production in a communist society, is to grasp that there would be no formal authority, no binding laws, no regulations that could not be disregarded by anyone who felt it was better and "made more sense" to disagree with such regulations. |
| Such formal authority corresponds, more or less, with what I described in Seattle # 69 as "top down" organizational methods. I said that while top-down methods are sometimes necessary, that we should consider ways of accomplishing as much as possible without resort to top-down methods. Where possible, we should place greater reliance, I said, on "bottom-up" methods. Bottom-up methods are inherently more democratic and involve the masses to a greater degree than top-down methods in a wide variety of situations. Bottom-up methods are inherently "more parallel". By this I mean that greater brainpower is applied to a problem, more knowledge and experience are gained, etc. |
| Mark and now Joseph are reacting to this as if I had spit in their soup. They think it a theoretical abomination to rely on bottom- up methods. But the theoretical abomination, rooted in the theories of J.V. Stalin, is theirs. Excuuuuse me most esteemed would-be thought cops but your heads are up your artificial stupidity systems and I am not the least bit impressed. |
| Communist society will be based on bottom-up methods. Hence how bottom-up methods come into the world and function must be taken seriously. |
| Hence we can answer the first three questions from his most esteemed highness of the Kingdom of Spam. |
|
| By relying on conscious social planning, consensus, persuasion and the kind of respect attained by a tribal elder in primitive communal society. By relying on the individual and group decisions of the masses who would be highly educated and informed and would figure out "the right thing to do" without need for a special class of administrators. |
|
| Actually centralized planning bodies may play a useful role. How much they are used might depend on their track record and competence. There is no reason to rule out the possibility that a central planning body might emerge to play a powerful and useful role in the direction of the overall economy. In fact there are reasons to expect this. But even then, its authority would not need to be formal. And the situation would likely be far more fluid than Joseph seems to imagine. For example, if the central planning body made serious errors, this might lead to its breaking up, or being replacing by a competing body or system of bodies. Or there might be a period in which competing bodies operate independently or semi-independently from one another. Or the competing bodies might resolve their contradictions and unite. Or the contradictions in such a united central body might lead it to break up again. |
| In general, we should be careful here about making too many assumptions. If comrades believe that I am making too many assumptions, then they should write and state what they are. That's what e-mail is for. I am not adverse to being corrected. But I hope that comrades who write can make an effort to put on the shelf their sectarian passions because these obstruct their ability to reason clearly. |
| Are there reasons to believe that central planning bodies would NOT play a leading role in directing the economy or major portions of it ? Yes. Because other methods might do far better at promoting mass initiative. Joseph reveals his prejudice here. Joseph says that the central planning bodies are "either compatible with mass initiative and promote it ... or they aren't." Note Joseph's formulation: "either ... or". Joseph sees the question of promoting mass initiative as a binary flag, up or down, yes or no, black or white. This is the stand of a bureaucrat who is being asked if he has "promoted mass initiative". "Yes comrade!" he replies, "We have accomplished zee task efficiently!" But, we may ask, what is Joseph's conception of "promoting mass initiative" ? Well we have an example drawn from real life. We all know how well the central planning body of the MLP (ie: the CC) promoted the initiative of the comrades at the base of the party to take an active role in sorting out the concerns that Ray raised in his 1988 letter which warned that we were heading into the rocks. The CC did nothing to share Ray's accurate and timely concerns with the base of the party. And this was "business as usual". And Joseph still sees nothing wrong with this. |
| Joseph does not have a clue that by relying on the direct actions of the masses -- vastly greater amounts of initiative may be released. More on this below. |
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| No. I am not. Adam Smith's "invisible hand" referred precisely to a system by which actions were coordinated via turning the means of production into capital. This is the most elementary Marxism. The production of goods in a communist society will be for direct distribution. There will be no capital. And the "intelligence" that guides the actions of all will be "distributed" without there necessarily being a need of a central authority and certainly not of a market. If Joseph has a problem with the most elementary Marxism then maybe someone else can either try to explain it to him or explain to me the nature of Joseph's problem (note: Mark does not count as "someone else"). |
| Joseph has a very simple way of looking at things. Society is either run via a centralized formal command-and-control center or it is run by Adam Smith's "invisible hand". Joseph's fevered brain has ruled out all other options. It appears impossible to Joseph that something as complex as the economy of a communist world could "run itself" without the command-and-control center telling it what to do. I think Joseph should give himself a break. Joseph has worked hard and I think he should allow himself a day's break from politics and go visit a zoo or maybe rent some videos from "National Geographic" or "Nature" which describe the workings of a complex ecosystem. In fact I think that Joseph should consider doing this once a month for a year. I think it will assist Joseph in understanding how complex systems "run themselves". Just think of it: something as complex as an ecosystem running without the help of a centralized formal command-and-control center. Why according to Joseph the ecosystem must govern itself via the intervention of Adam Smith's "invisible hand" and all the little birds and fishes must be either capitalists or representatives of the petty bourgeois who "believe that the special conditions of their emancipation are the general conditions within the frame of which alone modern society can be saved and the class struggle avoided". |
| There is a profound theoretical issue here and Joseph is not only wrong -- he is refusing to treat the theoretical issue involved with respect -- he is refusing to take the stand of a scientist who attempts to study phenomena objectively. This is why Joseph ends up looking silly and is surrounded by little singing capitalist birds and little swimming petty bourgeois fish. |
| I have been raising these issues for more than a year now. The issues I raise are real and will not go away. Joseph says that Ben is engaging in J. Edgar Hoover-style "Stalin-baiting". But to my knowledge J. Edgar Hoover never approached any question from the point of view of information theory. In "Joseph in Wonderland" I not only showed that Joseph's organizational views were inherited from Stalin -- I looked at the issue from the point of view of information science and discussed the differences between "von Neumann" and "massively parallel" architectures. I said that Joseph is wedded to "von Neumann" methods and that what we need is "massively parallel". What was Joseph's response ? Joseph never bothered to respond. Like W. C. Fields, Joseph simply said "Go away kid, you're bothering me". Both Joseph and the Chicago Workers' Voice took the position that there was nothing in "Wonderland" other than lies -- that no response was necessary -- and that comrades would be wasting their time to even read it. |
| So here we see how sectarianism works in action. In order to defend their interests the sectarians discourage comrades from reading "Wonderland". They tell themselves that it contains nothing of value. This is called the "What you don't know can't hurt you" style of investigating the world. But who loses as a result ? In order to gain temporary advantage in a debate they urge their followers to keep their eyes shut. But by keeping their eyes closed, the sectarians are hurting themselves. The world is moving around them and they are giving up the very real opportunity to play a role of real value to the working class. |
| Joseph's problem, on the level of theory, is with a phenomena known as "distributed intelligence". What would be an example of "distributed intelligence" ? Let's start with the brain. The brain contains a very large number of relatively "dumb" elements. The "dumb" elements are called neurons, or brain cells. These "dumb" elements "talk" to one another (hopefully it is not necessary to be any more technical than this). What "emerges" from the process is an intelligence of vastly higher order. Where is the central formalized command-and-control-center that tells the brain cells what to do ? There is none. Hence, according to Joseph-logic, the neurons must be governed by Adam Smith's "invisible hand" and all of us are walking around with capitalist brains. And then Joseph has the nerve to say that it is Ben who is the neo-conservative ! |
| Poor Joseph. He goes to sleep at night and because his brain, like all human brains, lacks a formal, centralized command-and- control-center -- Joseph knows that it will be Adam Smith who controls his dreams. |
| Of course there does appear to be a section of the brain that is somewhat specialized in certain command-and-control functions. Many researchers believe that the pre-frontal cortex (more or less the area under your forehead) plays a special role in areas like will, volition, determination and other attributes that are typically associated with a person's "character". But even in the pre-frontal cortex, the same principle of distributed intelligence applies because this area of the cortex is itself made up of hundreds of millions or billions of "dumb" elements and the intelligence emerges from the complex collective interworkings of these elements. Joseph may not understand this process and it is unlikely that anyone actually understands this very well -- but the point is that this phenomena actually exists in the world, has been created by the processes of nature and is responsible for you, the reader, being able to understand these words. If the processes of nature, which are not conscious, can create such systems as the brain and the mind from the workings of simpler and dumber elements, how can Joseph assert that it is impossible for humanity, which is conscious, to create a communist economy that will function beautifully without the intervention of a formal centralized command-and-control-center ? |
| These kinds of questions are being widely discussed in a great many spheres of activity in society. The concepts of "distributed intelligence" and "emergent phenomena" (ie: the complex behavior of a system emerging out of the interaction of the simpler units or sub- systems from which it is made) are increasingly being recognized as profound and important to the study of all systems, whether in nature or created by man. |
| A flock of birds or a school of fish can be observed to arc from right to left almost simultaneously and with such precision and grace that it would appear to be choreographed. Is there a "leader" in this flock or school that communicates to all the others what they must do ? No. There is not. The phenomena emerges from the collective and parallel action of the participants. We have all been part of such phenomena. When an audience claps in appreciation for a performance, the clapping is at first random and chaotic. But within a few seconds the clapping has become synchronized, without appreciable effort. Each member of the audience, consciously or not, slightly speeds up or slows down the tempo of his clapping to adjust to the perceived average rhythm. And this process, which has a degree of complexity, feels so simple and natural that we generally never give it a second thought. Of course Joseph has another explanation: the audience is clapping to the rhythm of Adam Smith's invisible hands ! |
| Is it any wonder that Joseph, and his loyal flunky Mark, accuse me of believing that capitalism will be eternal ? |
is A STINKING CORPSE |
| In the absence of active intervention it can be safely predicted that Joseph now and until the end of time will prostitute the struggle against revisionism and sacrifice it for his own sectarian ends. Can it be seen now how the struggle of Marxism against revisionism is dead in the water as long as the revisionist Joseph is allowed to set the limits of legitimate discussion and debate ? |
| I would like to hope that among the supporters of the Detroit Chicago grouping, there are at least some who still possess enough of their integrity as revolutionaries to consider this and to recognize that the very real possibilities of serving the proletariat and the oppressed of this country and the world will be forever blocked off unless a clear, open and PUBLIC stand is taken against this corruption and self-deception. The theoretical issues involved are not actually so complicated. What complicates matters is the corrupt sectarianism that hides itself behind the theoretical blunders which are actually necessary to provide the hype-glue to hold together your mutual system of denial. I must say that there are extremely few signs of intelligent life on the Detroit-Chicago sectarian planet. |
| I am not one who believes that it was the objective factor which destroyed our party. Consistently and from the very beginning I have made clear my stand that the main issue for us is the subjective factor -- that our main enemy is: ourselves. But to really carry out our class mission, to really avoid recoiling from our historic responsibilities requires both intelligence and courage. A public stand against the corruption and filth that is eating at the heart of the Detroit-Chicago sectarian grouping is called for. I must say that I have not seen anyone from this grouping exhibit this necessary intelligence and courage. I am unpopular amongst this grouping for the same reason that an alarm is unpopular. You folks would rather sleep. But your house is on fire. Your house is burning. I am an alarm but I can't ring any louder than this. I ring to communicate to you the interests of the struggle of the proletariat and peoples that you believe yourself to be serving. I know that you hear me. If you continue to sleep then this proves that you are demoralized and that your commitment to the struggling peoples of the world is only a shadow of what it used to be -- is no longer powerful and real -- that you would rather sleep with visions of dancing sugar-plums in your head. |
| In "How Mark Attempts to Extinguish the Living Flame of Marxism" I outlined four features which would be characteristic of the role of the masses in a communist economy: |
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| How would these four elements work together on a mass basis ? |
| If we combine the first two elements together so that we have three elements, then the elements correspond, roughly, to (a) what people do, (b) what people say, and (c) what people think. There are, of course, various complications. One is that many of these actions would likely be mediated either by mass organizations or the activity of groups of people, political parties and cultural trends which can overcome the isolation of the individual. Another complication is that there would be no clear dividing line between what people say and what they do. A production unit that deals with media, for example, creates a product that consists, essentially, of what people say. When people read, watch or listen to such a product, there are consuming the product. Finally, we all know that what people think influences everything else, just as everything else influences what people think. |
| Let's consider an analogy. All analogies are, of course, imperfect -- but if readers bear with me we may be able to form a crude picture. Let's consider the masses as if they were a single entity. |
| The first two elements above are somewhat like muscles. They are effectors. Let's consider them to be like a pair of hands. Joseph sneers, by the way, at the role that the masses might play as consumers. Why is this ? Well Engels notes (same section of Anti- Duhring as above) that appropriation (ie: consumption) is predominantly "the acts of individuals" under capitalism. This is not necessarily true, however, under communism. Under communism, consumption will have much more of a mass or social character than it does under capitalism. Unfortunately our far-sighted anti-revisionist fighter Joseph seems to have his head stuck in capitalism. |
| Continuing our analogy: The third element in our list is somewhat like the nervous system and brain. Via this vehicle, the masses are mobilized and become conscious. |
| And finally, the fourth element is analogous to the mind. |
| So we can form a crude picture of how these four highly interactive elements might work together on a mass basis. Just as the mind is a product of the functioning of the brain (and, for that matter, the rest of the body) so will the consciousness of the masses be a product of the functioning of the first three elements. Just as the mind and brain propel into action the hands, so will the consciousness of the masses and the struggle for public opinion motivate the masses to make their production and consumption decisions on the basis of politics. |
| Whoops ! I just said a forbidden word ! Joseph assures us that economic decisions under communism will NOT have a political character. Joseph assures us that under communism, politics will cease to exist. How does Joseph know this ? Joseph says that Engels told him so. Well if Engels said such a thing -- then Engels would be wrong. But guess what folks ? Engels never said anything of the sort. Joseph is confabulating once again. Joseph is equating politics with the need for repression [1 (comment)]. |
| This last point is very central. Politics will continue to exist under communism and will play an increasing role in all the actions of the masses. Differing views will continue to exist as to what the priorities should be for social resources and in what directions society and the economy should be developed. |
| Politics will lose its character as an expression of the political clash of antagonistic classes. The struggle for class domination and the struggle for individual existence will be unknown. Politics will be different than we know them at present. But clashes, rooted not in the battle of classes with conflicting material interests but in differing views on "what should be done", will continue. Politics is the social manifestation of the struggle to resolve social contradictions. As long as there are contradictions, there will be politics. Joseph and Mark, the self-styled experts in dialectical materialism, are haunted by Stalin's fear of political life amongst the Soviet peoples -- and they have accordingly presenting us a picture of a future world and society that has no contradictions -- that is DEAD. |
the Communist Society and Economy |
| Of interest then, is how the four elements in the above analogy would work together to give shape to the very complex economic- political struggles in a communist society/economy that would be more complex than any of us can imagine -- like an ecosystem of ecosystems. |
| Keeping all this in mind, let's examine two more of our Grand Inquisitor's questions: |
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| We can begin with question # 4. The consciousness of the masses expresses itself thru the actions of the masses. The actions of the masses include their activity as it relates to: (a) the production of wealth, (b) the consumption of wealth, and (c) the struggle for public opinion. This would seem somewhat straightforward, although this kind of thing apparently confuses Joseph. |
| It can also be seen that the struggle for public opinion, in its turn, affects: (a) the activity of the masses in the production of wealth, (b) the masses' activity in the consumption of wealth, and (c) the consciousness of the masses. In addition, the first two elements (ie: the role of the masses in production and consumption) also affect the struggle for public opinion and the consciousness of the masses. So everything affects everything else. It can be seen here that we have a system that is highly recursive. This means that everything affects everything else and does so along a near infinite number of pathways in a way that becomes extremely complex. So at this point, not only is Joseph confused, but we have a system that might confuse the rest of us also. |
| And this brings us to Joseph's fifth question: What happens when there is a clash ? |
| Actually the answer is kind of simple: the various sides fight it out. This would kind of be like a war except that, generally speaking, there is little real destruction, no real causalities and, in the long run, everybody wins. Everybody wins because all sides are fighting for the general interest, not their own private interests. Everybody wins because the main weapons in this war are public support and the support, consciousness and passion of workers and consumers -- and this creates an environment and a dynamic where the side which has positions most closely corresponding to the general interest has the ultimate advantage. |
| Let's see if we can get a clearer picture: |
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| There are many possibilities, many scenarios. Let's consider: |
| Another factory could be set up to do things the way that the majority public opinion wants. If there is enough support it might not be difficult to set up a competing factory that better serves the public interest. In a communist economy a factory would NOT be set up on the basis of capital from the capital markets which would then be used to purchase means of production. Rather, the means of production would simply be supplied from production units sympathetic to the cause. Similarly a labor force might simply volunteer to help out. Maybe the workers would work a little less at their other job (or jobs) in order to have the time to support the new factory. |
| Another possibility is that long-term work could be done to win over the workers at the iconoclast factory. Or -- to persuade some portion of the workers to stage a labor action (possibly similar to a strike or a slowdown or at the least a dampening of enthusiasm) in order to put pressure on the rest of the workers to rethink their positions. Naturally this might involve mobilizing other workers, not in the factory, to refrain from supporting the iconoclast factory. |
| Now suppose the iconoclast factory were producing in a way that was harmful to the public ? Suppose, for example, the factory was a polluter, either polluting the natural environment with chemical poisons or the social-mental environment with bad culture ? Then stronger action could be taken. A boycott of the factory's products could be organized. This would certainly tend to demoralize the factory's workers and make them think twice about their position. After all, they are only working there in the first place because they get satisfaction from serving the general interest. |
| Or, more severely, the factory's suppliers could refuse to supply the factory with the goods it needs to produce. It should be kept in mind that in a communist economy there are no commodities nor money to buy them with. Hence the renegade factory would have to find other production units that would freely supply it with what it needs. If it can't -- the renegade factory loses the struggle. Game over. It is shut down. But what if the renegade factory does find a supplier ? Then the factory's opponents could initiate action against the factory ally that is supplying it with goods -- attempt to target it via the organization of producer or consumer actions (strikes, slowdowns, boycotts). And on and on it goes. Most struggles might be minor and end in simple compromise. More important issues would tend to escalate and on occasion the most important issues might quickly convulse the whole of society. |
| It can be seen that all these action are highly dependent on the consciousness of the public -- who are all producers and consumers and who all will interact with the struggle based on the strength of their consciousness, convictions and passion about the rightness of the cause and their confidence in the various combatants. |
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| Similar to the case of the renegade factory, the answer, most esteemed Joseph, is that the various sides may fight it out. Or they may negotiate a compromise. Or, as in other kinds of war, they may do a little of both, engaging in skirmishes of various kinds in order to gauge their own strength and support and the strength and support of their adversaries. The outcome would depend on the strength of the convictions of the combatants, the correlation of forces and their ability to mobilize "troops" (ie: producers, consumers and the mass consciousness) for their "war". |
| A further complication is that the production units are not "fixed" as are factories, but would likely come into being and pass out of existence frequently, as needs develop and dissipate. It would be a very fluid situation and human labor and the physical means of production might very frequently be recycled from one project to another. Furthermore, production units would contain and be made up of other production units, which in turn would contain others, and so on and the various production units would exist in a variety of relationships, or negotiated agreements, with one another. Engels' prediction that the organization of production within a unit would approach and eventually meet the organization of production between units would be fulfilled. All the earth (we won't talk about other planets since these speculations doubtlessly sound enough like science fiction already) and all humanity would constitute, in this sense, a single production unit. |
| So what do we have ? Producers and consumers organizing work actions and boycotts, for and against various types of production and consumption units, targeting or aiding their allies and enemies. Meanwhile all sides endeavoring to raise the public consciousness as part of an effort to mobilize larger and larger numbers of people into the support of their cause. And all of this taking place in a world without money, without wages, without capital and without a market. Yes this can be confusing. |
| But it is ok to get confused. We will sort matters out gradually if we can come up with one or two good examples of how things might interact. We should keep in mind that in any ecosystem everything affects everything. And this means that the effects of human intervention can be quite difficult to calculate. |
| I will give one example, from the "Tuesday Science Section" of yesterday's New York Times (1-31-95). Wildlife research biologists are scheduled to soon release into Yellowstone National Park a group of wolves. The aim is to restore the ecosystem. What would the result be? One scientist interviewed sketched out a single hypothetical chain of cause and effect: |
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| It should be noted that there are likely innumerable other chains of cause and effect. All the same, biologists appear to have a consensus that the net result will be a stronger and more interesting ecosystem in Yellowstone. |
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| The short answer here is that people will talk to each other and after a while it becomes relatively clear who thinks what and what views predominate. |
| Embedded within Joseph's question is the view that the media will need to be controlled by some authority. I guess Joseph is hoping that the authority will be him and not me. |
| Actually, however, the media will not be controlled by anyone. Whatever cyberspace equivalent of newspapers, magazines or BBS's will evolve -- these outlets will be production units. Media workers (writers, movie makers, programmers) will write what they want, make films about what they think is important, and report on public opinion as they see fit. Similarly consumers of media will read, listen to and participate in whatever they want. There will be no "intellectual property" in information protected by law but restrictions on the use of information might be negotiated among production units and there will be protection of personal privacy. |
| Two points are of interest here: (1) in an age of highly interactive computer-mediated communications the distinction between "active" producer and "passive" consumer will tend to rapidly erode, (2) despite the volume and complexity of material to read, watch or listen to, information consumers will find what they want when they want it. |
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| I was saving this one for last. |
| For a supposed communist, Joseph sure doesn't seem to have much confidence in the masses. |
| Joseph argues that an administrative apparatus will always be necessary because there will always be some portion of the population that is too selfish and too stubborn and too close-minded to be persuaded to do the right thing. |
| Consider the example Joseph gives. Some factory makes a product that poisons and kills hundreds of thousands of people in Bangladesh. But what happens if nobody cares ? What happens if only 10% of the consumers of the product can be persuaded to boycott it or to choose another competing product ? What happens if not enough people really give a shit or have the political consciousness and maturity to make the various remedies described above effective in shutting the factory down or making it change its methods of production ? Doesn't this prove, argues Joseph, that you will always need an administrative apparatus with the authority to shut down the poisoners ? |
| Can anyone figure out what is wrong with Joseph's logic ? |
| Joseph's first error is that he appears to be confusing a lower form of economic development and social order with communism. |
| Yes Joseph, in the scenario you sketch out, an administrative apparatus with coercive power would clearly be required. And to make this coercement tangible (ie: something more than an idle threat) a military or police force to provide enforcement would also be required. And to manage it all would be required an apparatus to manage the police. And so on. Joseph is describing a situation where a government is required. By convention, we usually talk of the period where a government, a state and a state apparatus are required as being not communism, but either capitalism or the dictatorship of the proletariat. |
| So during the period that a government is required ... Joseph has proven that a government is required. |
| But a question of greater interest to us (and, probably, to many others) is whether such an administrative apparatus, formal or informal, will always be required. Will there always be some portion of the population that is too selfish and too stubborn and too close-minded to be persuaded to "do the right thing" ? |
| Engels' views may be of interest here. What did he say ? |
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| Now Engels' comments can be interpreted in various ways and in any event he was only a man and statements by him do not necessarily prove anything. After all, we are more than Talmudic scholars. But Engels' comments suggest something to me and perhaps readers will follow this logic. |
| I will argue that the need for coercion of any sort, the need for a special body with powers above that of ordinary individuals, a special body that makes rules, laws and regulations that others must obey, even when they disagree, will eventually become superfluous in one sphere after another. |
| Joseph raises the question of what is to be done with recalcitrant individuals. Here, for purposes of discussion, I use the term "recalcitrant" to indicate those people who can not be persuaded not to take actions that would result in the poisoning of others. Hence we are talking about those who may have various problems in their thinking and who as a result are selfish, self-centered, ignorant and don't give a shit about others. Such people are typically suckers for every trend that holds society back and their actions will need to be fought constantly. |
| Capitalist culture and society will leave us with a fair number of such people and such attitudes. What will be done with these people ? We should not simply say that such people and attitudes will die out quickly because these attitudes may persist for a while and to a certain extent reproduce themselves (ie: when people treat other people like shit, sometimes the social dysfunction spreads to the victim who goes on to become an abuser -- we experience this today on a major scale as a "kick-the-dog society"). |
| Will the recalcitrant poisoners and abusers need to be suppressed until the end of time ? Or if such people and attitudes are destined to die out -- what proof is there of this ? Or would society be able to expedite the disintegration and dispersal of the recalcitrant dysfunction ? |
| I would like to share my thinking on this question. The question is of interest and if others eventually see the need to have intelligent discussion for other than sectarian purposes -- together we may be able to sort a few things out. |
| We might view this issue as being analogous to the problem of the environmental clean-up of all the chemical pollutions and toxins that capitalism will leave us. Cleaning up chemical toxins will be a big issue. There will always be some traces of chemical pollution left. However the chemical pollution left will, over time, grow smaller and less significant. This is because (1) humanity's abilities to clean up old pollution will be constantly increasing, and (2) new pollution will be drastically cut down and soon enough stopped altogether or reduced to an insignificant amount. |
| Similarly we will deal with the residue left of many of the dysfunctional attitudes that capitalism will leave us. Capitalism (and all the class divided societies that preceded it) has severely polluted the mental-emotional environment of everyone. I believe that the clean-up of this environment will eventually become the primary priority for a society that understands the need to eliminate the necessity for coercion. |
| People's consciousness is not really subject to coercion. Of course capitalist ideology, culture and conditions of life do frequently condition people's minds to be dominated by fear, hatred and alienation. But while coercion may create such attitudes -- it cannot uncreate them. |
| Hence cleaning up the residue of the mental-emotional pollution and dysfunction left by class-divided society will require an enormous mobilization of society's resources. Why would such an enormous mobilization be undertaken in order to help people "clean up" their consciousness ? |
| For economic reasons. |
| At a certain point it becomes not only "cost effective" to mobilize wealth and resources to raise people's consciousness -- but it becomes the most powerful of all economic investments -- with the greatest ratio of wealth produced to wealth consumed. |
| In the section above which discuses the "economic warfare" that would take place in a communist economy, we can see that the main factor in the creation of an outcome favorable to the general interest is -- people's consciousness. Just as during a strike intense discussion might take place to raise a worker's consciousness on why he should not be a scab (sometimes of course this requires more than "talk" but this is more the exception) -- so in the "economic warfare" in a communist society -- the struggle for consciousness will become key. And raising the consciousness of all, of the masses, and the recalcitrants -- will have economic value of sufficient magnitude to be worth whatever effort it takes. Ultimately it becomes vastly "cheaper" to re-educate the recalcitrants than to fight them and suppress them constantly. |
| I believe the tendency would be for the toxic residue to tend toward zero -- and the need for coercion would tend toward zero with it. |
| Another point must be made here also. The "recalcitrants" are in principle no different than the rest of us. They are only a little further along the bell-shaped curve of social dysfunction than everyone else. When we examine, understand and treat their dysfunction so that they gain something beautiful in their consciousness for each thing ugly that they give up -- we also advance the solutions to the dysfunctions that trouble us all and we work to, so to speak, raise the mass consciousness. |
| And there are immensely powerful returns from all work to raise the level of the mass consciousness. It is the constant dialectical flow back and forth from matter to consciousness to matter again which creates wealth and this is one reason why consciousness is the highest and the ultimate form of wealth -- because it is the source of wealth -- it is what makes possible the transformation of the raw materials given to us by nature into something of a higher order. As our economy becomes more complex, as the relationship of consciousness to the productivity of labor becomes more clear and obvious it will increasingly be seen that consciousness itself is a product of labor just as labor is a product of consciousness. |
| Joseph, by the way, sneers at this concept. He compares my statement on consciousness being the ultimate form of wealth to Churchgoers who believe the church is above mere material concerns. Joseph appears to be arguing that consciousness is not a product of the material world. Such a stand is equivalent to idealism. But Joseph doesn't actually give a damn as to whether his positions are idealist. His alpha and omega are sectarian considerations. |
| Central to all this is the recognition that the root (the origin, the source) of all the social dysfunctions is the class divided society. This is why Engels pointed out the role of "class domination and the struggle for individual existence and all the collisions and excesses resulting from them". |
| To use an analogy: If the rivers are polluting the ocean and we stop the rivers from polluting we have achieved the first and decisive step in the clean-up of the ocean. Foremost among these rivers is the great river of insincerity -- a gargantuan open sewer that has poisoned the water from which we all must drink. Isn't it ironic that Joseph, who more than anyone, has lectured us about the evils of class divided society should overlook the simple fact that once humanity no longer suffers from a class divided society -- the rivers of insincerity, ignorance, selfishness, self-centeredness, arrogance, fear, mistrust and alienation will begin to dry up ? |
| But let's pick some better examples. Joseph wants to talk about poison. Let's talk about two different kinds of poison. |
| First let's talk about the mother of all poisons -- heroin. In a society where there is no government, there would be no laws. And without laws, heroin could not be illegal (because nothing would, or could, be illegal). What would prevent people from using heroin ? |
| The answer is their consciousness. In the conditions of today people start using heroin for a variety of reasons. (1) They may be desperate to relieve the pain they feel. (2) They may be unable to understand what it will do to them. (3) Or they may have given up on themselves and on life. |
| Various attempts to eradicate drug addiction via "top-down methods" have never been completely successful. Illegality has restricted and slowed down the spread of narcotic addiction but it can never eliminate it. |
| What would happen if someone, in a society with no government, no laws and no institutions with coercive powers were to somehow get caught up in heroin addiction ? I do not believe that addiction would be a significant problem in an advanced society. But since we are speculating let's consider how such a problem might be handled were it to emerge. What force would best intervene to help an addict ? I would suggest that the most likely answer would be either competent people who actually knew the addict and cared for him and/or groups for the purpose of assisting addicts to recover. But there would be little need for these groups to be formal or require legal authority. Such people would be able to know more about the circumstances and the consciousness of the addict than would an institution. |
| Joseph is very big on institutions. Joseph believes that consciousness can only be expressed via institutions. In his "devastating" criticism of me he says that I believe that "you don't need institutions to express this consciousness". Well sometimes institutions are useful and sometimes they are necessary. But it also depends on the circumstances, including the historical era one is in. I am working to build an organization of communists. It would be an institution of sorts. I have different conceptions of how this organization would function as a party, and how it would cooperate with non-communists, than Joseph. Unfortunately Joseph has dodged, and will continue to dodge, serious discussion of these differences. Unfortunately he will likely go passive before he discusses them because he is too steeped in corruption at this point. |
| Joseph believes, however, that institutions are ALWAYS necessary. Before consciousness can complete its cycle back to matter, it must express itself thru an institution. Having consciousness transform matter without an official institution is to Joseph like the original sin. Joseph has a problem with things that are too easy and natural. Joseph can't conceive of the participation of the masses in the coordination of economic decisions and activity as being as simple as eating a meal or going to the bathroom. I hope readers think about this the next time they decide to execute one of these natural functions -- because according to Joseph's logic you should coordinate such matters thru an institution. |
| Let's consider how Joseph would handle the problem of poisoning. He says we need an agency with the power to ban stuff that is bad. Joseph gives the example of hundreds of thousands of people in Bangladesh being poisoned and dying. He gives a second example of lead- based paint. There are actually two separate but related problems with Joseph's reasoning. |
| (1) We have already discussed Joseph's fear and distrust of the masses, even in a society that is not class divided. "People will always be selfish and stupid and need some outside force to tell them what to do -- until the end of time". This complements Fred's apparent view that "Money will make the world go 'round -- until the end of time" quite nicely. |
| (2) Joseph's agency would do fine with issues that are simple but would become increasingly inefficient as the issues grew more complex. |
| This second point is particularly important as a society and economy become more complex. The examples that Joseph has chosen, while of a certain value -- are in general very poor examples of economic decision-making. One of the ways that charlatans and demagogues operate is in how they pick examples. The key method here is to pick an example which is not representative of the phenomena that it is supposedly being chosen to represent. |
| The selection of atypical examples has a long history and there have always been fools to eat the spam up. Bush, in his campaign against Dukaksis, used the image of Willy Horton to represent a program that would grant early parole to convicts. Rush Limbaugh and the right- wing is notorious for this kind of thing. Or in the current crusade against welfare -- a black woman with eight kids will be interviewed on TV as if she were a typical welfare mother. She will say that her mother and grandmother were both on welfare. Meanwhile, the fact that the average welfare recipient is on the rolls 18 months is ignored. [3 (comment)] |
| The problem with Joseph's examples is that they are highly unrepresentative of the real trade-offs involved in economic decision-making. Real issues are rarely so simple. Banning a poison that kills hundreds of thousands of people in Bangladesh is a simple decision. Banning the use of lead in house paints hardly takes a rocket scientist. Banning the use of heroin is not hard to figure out. And all these bans could be accomplished by some agency and the absolute need for the masses to play a larger role is hidden. |
| So let's talk of more typical kinds of poison. Let's talk about a kind of poison that does far more damage than chemical poisons or narcotics. Let's talk about poison in our culture. The pollution of the the mental-emotional environment -- the poisoning of the mass consciousness via toxic culture and ideology -- is an immense assault on the interests of the masses. The amount of damage done is difficult to calculate. Many people are left ignorant of their most basic nature or the nature of those that they love. The most crippling and debilitating anti-people ideas and concepts are promoted on a mass basis and with ferocious intensity. But at the same time the nature of the problem is intractably complex. Should "Married with Children" be banned ? There are certainly lots of anti-people outlooks promoted on that show. Then again some might say it was satire. Or should "The Simpsons" be banned? You know that it teaches children to be disrespectful of their parents ? |
| Joseph's logic would have us set up a "Ministry of Culture" which would decide which items of culture were wholesome enough for mass consumption. Joseph's Ministry of Culture would doubtlessly coordinate its activities with the "Ministry of Truth" which would insure that no one could be deceived about politics or history. And subversive books like 1984 would certainly be banned. This is why the Workers' Advocate supported the decision of the Soviet book censors in protecting the good citizens of that state from the pernicious ideas it contained. |
| When we deal with truly complex questions -- like how to raise the general level of culture -- we can see that there is no substitute for the active participation of the masses themselves. They can organize boycotts or labor actions against units that manufacture toxic culture. Whether the boycott or labor action would be successful is in direct proportion to the actual offensiveness and harmfulness of the cultural product. The masses might even organize to make a particular cultural product better via altering aspects of it, even something as minor as altering the ending of a soap opera or intervening to affect the selection of an actor or actress if for some reason they believe that important (although I refuse to speculate on whether soap operas will still exist under communism). What stands out -- is that the involvement of the masses in these kinds of questions, the debate that ensues in the process of sorting matters out -- might not infrequently play as large or larger a role in raising the public consciousness as the outcome of a particular struggle itself. |
| Joseph calls my conceptions of how a communist society might function an "anarchist-technocratic utopia". Let's see: we are talking of a society with no antagonist classes and, in fact, no classes whatsoever, that functions without using money, wages, capital or a market. In this society there is no need for and consequently no existence of the exploitation of man by man. In this society everyone works and uses all the resources at hand, including available technology, to solve problems. And the problems do get solved. This society runs according to the principle: "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs". All that is potentially missing is the Joseph's supreme authority that coordinates everything and tells everyone what to do. |
| Well I guess to many people this would be utopia. I call it communism. |
| So who is the anti-communist ? Among other things, Mark and Joseph's views are a gross distortion of the way that communists have traditionally dealt with anarchism. For example, Engels, in Anti- Duhring, ridicules anarchists who want to abolish the state "overnight". Usually criticism of anarchism has been directed at their failure to recognize the need for class struggle or that this struggle must necessarily lead to a period of the dictatorship of the proletariat -- a period during which the proletariat uses organization to suppress the attempts of the bourgeoisie to regrab the reins of society. Usually anarchists are criticized for their failure to recognize the need for a state during that period. But this is not the content of Joseph's criticism. Joseph, on the contrary, wants to keep, if not a formal state, then a central administrative authority that can tell recalcitrant people (who might, he notes, make up as much as 90% of the population) what to do -- until the end of time. |
| Mark and Joseph are "communists" that have shut the door on the future. Those who follow them are giving up on their principles and themselves. |
| Joseph has said that my criticisms of him have been nothing but "J. Edgar Hoover style 'Stalin-Baiting'". Joseph says that Ben's "real definition of Stalinism" is that Joseph doesn't agree with Ben. There is one grain of truth in this. But what Joseph fails to mention is the content of the disagreement: that Joseph is wedded to the organizational theories used by Stalin ! Attached therefore as an appendix are excerpts from my criticism of him eleven months ago -- on the basis of information theory. Readers can judge for themselves. These are criticisms to which Joseph has yet to respond. |
| What this shows is that Joseph welcomes real discussion of these decisive issues about as much as he would welcome a hemorrhoid. How to build a party such that the base CANNOT be left in the dark about important issues is of zero concern to him. He does not see this as a problem. Joseph's sole preoccupation and priority in what he writes is summed up by his cardinal principle and motto: "Better to look good than to be good" (ie: how to defend the stability of a grouping held together by hype-glue). On the other hand, I welcome all discussion that may contribute to our understanding of these issues, whether or not such discussion is critical of me. This is because I am convinced that we must develop a rock solid grasp of these issues or be useless to the proletariat. I simply point out, for the hundreth time, that when comrades make "proving Ben wrong" a higher priority than developing theoretical clarity -- that they end up putting on a sectarian blindfold and sacrificing theoretical clarity for the sake of their "fix" of spam. |
| It has taken me a campaign of fourteen months and more than a megabyte of words to compel Joseph to make even the slightest response to my inquiry regarding the fate of comrade Ray's 1988 letter which the CC hid from the base of the party. And Joseph has only brought the matter up to deny that there was anything wrong with the way the CC handled a correct and far-sighted warning that the party was neglecting necessary theoretical work and as a result was heading straight for the rocks. |
| The party was heading toward the rocks. Comrade Ray issued a warning. No one at the base of the party heard of the warning. Who or what is responsible for this ? According to Joseph, the responsibility falls on ... Ray. Ray was supposed to simply make his letter known to one and all. |
| Joseph is quite the hypocrite. Joseph talks constantly about how our party "put great stress on the local initiative of its branches and the consciousness of its members". Right. How much initiative was displayed by the local branches in discussing Ray's 1988 letter ? None. They never heard anything about it until five years later. How much was the consciousness of the party's members raised by discussion of Ray's 1988 letter ? You guessed it. None. No one knew about it. |
| How did Joseph justify a party architecture in which it was business as usual for the CC to keep the membership in the dark ? He said this was necessary to conform to "the idea of parties whose base was more active". But this active base was kept in the dark because "consultation with the party membership would be something of a facade"! And why would it have been a facade ? Because "the underlying issues behind such fast changes wouldn't yet be clear" (Seattle # 22, Nov'93). |
| But Joseph is too quick to place the blame on Ray. Yes it would have been better had Ray taken his letter to the membership. Ray did not do so, among other reasons, because he was afraid it would lead to a civil war that could destroy the party. But it would have been better to start the war sooner, when the party was stronger, and the wrong course it was on had taken less of a toll on the determination and enthusiasm of its membership. |
| What was the party's tradition of resolving disputes and concerns like Ray's out in the open ? Well it turns out that we didn't have much of a tradition of this. We had pretty much close to zero precedent in resolving our disputes openly. So Ray made an error because he wanted to avoid a civil war. And apparently NOTHING ELSE WAS WRONG -- according to Joseph. The fact that for Ray to bring his letter to the base of the party might have plunged it into civil war -- well hey -- that's normal -- according to Joseph. The idea that we should build an organization where it was normal and natural to conduct disputes and differences in the open -- and organize our efforts around the priorities and platforms that appear to make the most sense -- is social-democracy -- according to Joseph. |
| Joseph uses as an excuse the fact that open discussion began in 1991. But that was three years later. And the issues Ray raised in 1988 were still not raised. Is there a problem here that is larger than Ray or not ? The fact is that Joseph is the foremost champion of consciousness expressing itself in institutions -- except when the institution in question is the CC of the party. Then the expression of consciousness is the responsibility of individuals who get to decide if making an expression of consciousness is worth risking the existence of the party. |
| Folks, I am going to bring this to a close. If I had more time to edit this, I might have made it shorter, tighter, crisper and easier to read. Some of what I say is on the speculative side. Some of the formulations could have been improved. But guess what ? I have lots to do and, further, I think it important to get this off as early as I can. I think that you folks have short attention spans and I am gambling that a response to Joseph's latest spam attack might gain me a reader or two only if I act quickly. And it will be harder for Joseph to ignore me if I respond to him in the midst of his multi-part series. |
| Marxism is a partisan science. More than any other science it directly affects the interests of antagonistic classes. Hence there is always a need, in developing it, for a certain sharpness. Corruption of this science is the story of this century and we must strive to keep this sword free from rust and corrosion. For this reason I have been quite sharp with Joseph and Mark. (But they will be ok. I have not really hurt them. I am actually assisting them.) All the same, however, we must keep in mind that Marxism, while a partisan science, is also still a SCIENCE. And we must develop it as a science. This means that we need to have a certain room for comrades' thinking to develop. Comrades require a certain amount of room to be wrong. Comrades need a certain amount of room to try out their thinking -- to say "this seems reasonable to me -- am I overlooking anything ?". Comrades need room for hypothesis, speculation and to be agnostic on those questions for which they believe the evidence is short of compelling. Those who oppose these necessities are not friends of science. Joseph and Mark have launched a crusade against those who were agnostic about Leninism. But it is becoming more clear with every passing month that the kind of Leninism that Joseph and Mark were defending was Leninism as it had evolved in the hands of its enemies. |
| I have been sharp with Joseph and Mark not because they have made mistakes and blunders. I have been sharp because their errors were made in the service of sectarianism -- because their errors are in the service of an effort directed against critical thought. Their criticisms of me, that I believe in "eternal capitalism" and so forth are not "honest mistakes" in this important sense -- they are mistakes by people who have placed the struggle for theoretical clarity in the pile of things to do "tomorrow" while the sectarian struggle takes place "today". We all know about people who promise to do things "tomorrow". |
| Every time that I have read this document from start to finish I have encountered one or two blunders. I fix them as I find them. It is time for this document to be sent and it is reasonable to assume that there may be a few blunders left. Hopefully they are not too major. But whether major or minor, you, the reader, can play a role in helping to develop a body of living ideas that can help us to evolve a better picture of how communist society might actually function and operate. It would be very useful, and eventually it will be necessary, to present to the world some picture of a society that is not based on the capitalist marketplace. The picture people have today is of Soviet or Chinese revisionism and I think we need to give them a better one. Before there can be a popular revolution people need to have some conception of what the revolution is for. The platitudes that we have been giving people (ie: "we work for a classless society free of exploitation") are very important but most people consider them to be stale -- as if we were promoting "Mom" and "apple pie". People want something that is in accord with the experience of this century and also their own observations and life experience. |
| No one in the Detroit-Chicago camp has made any intelligent comments on the subjects I have brought up with the sole exception of a single article by Julie which noted, correctly, that the communications revolution will not be a smooth ride and that whatever it will bring in the long term, in the short term some of its effects will bring great hardship and suffering to many. |
| Talk of the passivity of other sections of the xmlp is hypocritical if on important theoretical questions your sole voice in practice is Joseph and his trusty sidekick Mark. If there is any real life on your planet -- why don't you see if it can express itself via discussion of some of these issues in something other than a sectarian spirit aimed at proving yourselves right and me wrong (even if the search for theoretical clarity must be sacrificed in the process) ? These issues may seem small now, at least to some. But they will dominate the twenty-first century. |
| I brought up the subject of heroin addiction for a reason. I think there is a similar problem in your ranks. I think you folks are addicted to sectarianism. Why ? For the same reasons that a heroin addict gets caught up in heroin. (1) You use it to escape your pain (feelings of anxiety, frustration and powerlessness as we watch the bourgeoisie and imperialism causally destroy lives with what often seems to be impunity) -- by deluding yourselves that you are on the right track. (2) You don't seem to understand the danger of sectarianism. Your house is on fire and your principal theoreticians have closed the door on the future -- have presented to you a future world that is DEAD -- in which there are no politics -- just an administrative authority that tells people how to do the right thing -- because they can't figure out how or can't be trusted to do it on their own. (3) Because in your despair you have given up on the possibility that your efforts can play a significant role in the class struggle. |
| You will never earn the respect of a large section of the masses if you cannot overcome the internal lie that is draining you of your strength. The masses are very intelligent and can see the weaknesses which are reflected in your agitation and in everything you do. |
| In the final analysis a heroin addict hurts relatively few people. A heroin addict hurts only those he robs or kills or whose life he destroys in various other ways. This is small time stuff. But if it is true that the reasons for our party's implosion lie primarily in the subjective sphere -- then the damage from addiction to sectarianism, the addiction to the need to believe that you are on the right track -- is far greater. |
| As long as you view these polemics, these theoretical discussions, merely from the perspective of "Ben vs. us" you are caught in the sectarian trap. What must be seen is that by talking to one another -- by raising points with and asking questions of one another -- we can fulfill our responsibilities to the struggling peoples of the world. |
| Ben ----//-// |
| [1 (comment)] footnote: What Engels actually says is that as the state "withers away" -- the "government of persons will be replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the process of production". Does this mean that politics itself will cease to exist, as Joseph claims ? No -- it means that politics will continue to exist without need for a "government" or, as Engels also puts it, any "special repressive force" to push anyone around. Hence we see that to Joseph, politics is synonymous with the need for repression. |
| [2] (Anti-Duhring, Section II of Part III, emphasis added. Included in the portions I have not quoted is the phrase "based on the anarchy of production" which has been so misused by our comrades Joseph and Mark) |
| [3 (comment)] Mark also uses the atypical example. For example in his dispute with me, Mark denies the value and necessity of unproven ideas. In scientific practice such ideas are known as hypotheses. Mark wishes to ridicule the notion that hypotheses are useful and necessary. So he selects an example. Person "A" is trying to obtain skills necessary to obtain a job. Person "B" tells him to learn to whittle wood. See ? Unproven ideas are useless. But everyday experience tells us that hypotheses come in every shade, can turn out to be true or false or somewhere in between and that we have no choice but to deal with them according to circumstance. |
"Information Theory" -- You Decide |
| ("Parallelity and Joseph von Neumann" excerpts from "Joseph in Wonderland" -- March 10, 1994) |
| Parallelity is the tendency for things to develop independently (or side-by-side) of one another. I discuss this (in connection with economics) in an article that has not yet been distributed on e-mail nationally: |
|
| This tendency towards parallelity is found not just in relation to economics but everywhere in nature. For example, a molecule, in "deciding", so to speak, whether its collision with another molecule will result in a simple "bounce" or a more profound rearrangement of atoms, makes such a decision purely on the basis of local conditions. The molecule does not need to ask permission of some, so to speak, chemical equivalent of a Central Committee, to know what to do. Similarly, in an ecosystem, a coyote chasing a rabbit does not need the authority of any all-wise ecosystem processing center in order to know whether it is allowed to catch the rabbit. The coyote's brains and strength, that of the rabbit, and local conditions are all that matter. To give a further example of what should be an obvious point, a neuron (ie: brain cell) does not ask permission of some kind of central unit in the brain to know if it should fire (activate itself). The neuron acts on the basis of local conditions. |
| All systems in nature at any scale, from quark to quasar, conform to this general principle. To put it in other terms, systems in nature are all organized from "the bottom up" rather than "the top down". This means that complex systems evolve from the simultaneous local independent interactions of constituent elements. |
| One notable exception to the parallel simultaneous development of a large number of interacting local processes -- is a modern computer. Most computers have a central processing unit (cpu) which, in essence, makes all decisions. Nothing much happens without being routed thru the cpu. The speed at which the computer operates is hence entirely dependent on the speed of the cpu. Such a computer architecture is called "von Neumann architecture" after, of course, von Neumann, who helped design it. |
| The limitations of von Neumann architecture in computers (usually called the "von Neumann bottleneck") has been considered a problem for some time. One emerging alternative to the von Neumann bottleneck is what is called "massively parallel processing" (mpp). This employs very large numbers of processors which communicate with one another but still process information simultaneously. |
| How does this relate to how we organize the party ? Well there are two views of how we might organize our activity and interactions. These two views can be thought of as existing somewhat at opposite poles. To illustrate these two views in action, let's consider a concrete example. In September 1988, Ray wrote a ten page letter to the CC saying, essentially, that the party was on a course that would eventually lead to a shipwreck. Let's consider how, under two different methods of organization, comrade Ray's 1988 letter might be handled. |
| The party's cpu, represented by the CC, examines comrade Ray's letter and decides what should be done. The CC may or may not correctly conclude that the party was on a course towards shipwreck. The CC may or may not decide to inform the party membership and supporters that a concern exists that the party may be heading towards shipwreck. |
| Of course Ray might have insisted that the question be brought to the party membership -- if he didn't have to worry about a split developing or a civil war destroying the party -- or any other number of scenarios which made such a course of action difficult to contemplate. |
| Note that nearly everything depends on the wisdom of the CC. If the CC disregards comrade Ray's warning, browbeats Ray into compliance and neglects to informs the base of the party of a serious concern (so that discussion can take place and comrades can have their thinking stimulated and in an ongoing way consider their daily experience in the light of Ray's warning), then the result is that the party merrily keeps sailing towards its doom while the great majority of its members and supporters are kept completely in the dark about the rocks ahead. And what a pleasant surprise is in store for our happy sailors ! And this is precisely what happened. |
| Organized under the principle of "information wants to be free" and an ongoing, powerful and daily-reinforced tradition of airing most concerns and making them available to all, comrade Ray uploads his letter to the party e-mail system and everyone has a chance to read, comment on, discuss and so forth. Opinion on the matter has an opportunity for far more rapid development and -- as experience is accumulated which tends to support Ray's views -- this experience can be more quickly summed up and acted upon instead of being ignored by a party leadership which was in paralysis and denial. |
| Of course there is still no guarantee that a correct and timely decision will be made. But that is not the point. No form of party organization can guarantee that correct decisions will always be made. But if everyone is free to know the essential information and to share and combine their insights -- consciousness will develop more rapidly and the odds of a correct decision are far more favorable. |
| Many other examples could be given. There are a whole range of other questions that are better solved when everyone knows about them and is more free to discuss, become more conscious about and ultimately solve them. |
| I believe MPP architecture is far better than von Neumann architecture. I am not, unlike what Joseph says, expecting anyone to take my word for it. Rather, I would simply like to see discussion develop in an atmosphere which is open-minded. As discussion develops, as we accumulate experience, as our understanding becomes deeper, I believe the advantages of parallelity, the trend-of-trends concept, and the "information wants to be free" principle will emerge more strongly. |
| Of course this does not mean that I have some elaborate master plan or formula for how to do this but that I am confident that open-minded discussion and summation of experience (in an atmosphere free from wild charges, mindless abuse, baseless and empty accusations of liquidationism, social-democracy and attacking Marxism) will eventually develop the process of sorting matters out. |
| Joseph is very big on talk of the relationship of forms of party organization to "developing the initiative of the members", and the conscious "activation of its members on the economic, political and ideological fronts" (Detroit # 8, subhead "From social-democracy to communism"). Joseph talks of "the idea of parties whose base was more active" and said this is the "real content" that is "inevitably connected to what type of separate organization is or is not allowed in the party" (ibid, a few paragraphs later). Nice talk Joseph. |
| Let's see if any light may be shed on the matter of the conscious activation of the party base in relation to the two forms of organization we are considering. |
| The von Neumann method has been shown in practice. The good ship MLP sails merrily along its way toward its cheerful rendezvous with the rocks up ahead. The party base is oblivious to the danger until the ship is almost upon the rocks. This doesn't sound like conscious activation on the political, ideological or organization fronts to me. (But who am I to judge ? After all, according to Joseph and those who are in train to this windy nonsense, people like me are social- democratic liquidators.) The discussion that does eventually take place as the crisis becomes more difficult to deny -- is too little, too late and too hampered by an atmosphere of high stress and attempts to intimidate anyone who points out we are heading for the rocks. |
| The massively parallel method is, I assert, far more powerful. When everyone knows what the real issues are, when the tradition of open discussion, debate and general informational intercourse is firmly established -- everyone is in a better position to learn from and form opinion and play a conscious role in sorting out the party's course. No one is required, contrary to Joseph's claim, to take my word for it. But a calm atmosphere of discussion, guided by scientific methods and relatively free of bombardment by sphinctrons, shitons and morons would be an outstanding help. |
| Joseph's organizational ideas are precisely along the lines of von Neumann architecture. Joseph gives proof of this in the same document. Speaking of: |
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| he says that |
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| Hence we have the primary criteria for which items of information are to be allowed into the hands of the party base which needs to be consciously activated. The criteria is that Joseph or the CC believes the "underlying issues are clear". Hence the party base is to be treated like children too young and tender in years to be trusted to know what is good for them -- and in great need of the paternalistic tutelage of the all-wise, all-knowing father-figure Joseph who alone is able to discern the "underlying issues" (ie: social-democratic and liquidationist deviations) from the superficial appearance of matters that would so easily mislead the children. If this is not von Neumann architecture, if this is not a formula for keeping in ignorance and obstructing the conscious activation of the party base -- then what is ? |