A Programme To Address The Everyday Concerns Of The Great Mass Of People

1) First, the long term programme:

1) Remove the right of shareholders to elect corporate boards of management or receive dividends: instead transfer those rights to the workers in each corporation, one worker, one vote (and one share of profits).

2) Absolve borrowers of any requirement to repay loan principal or interest to private banks or other creditors: that is, write off all debt.

3) Absolve tenants of any requirement to pay rent, and remove the right of landowners to evict.

4) Create public banks (possibly using some of the structure of the old private banks, which will have just been bankrupted by the above reforms) and give them a mandate to issue unsecured loans to worker owned businesses as required to ensure full employment.

5) Implement democratising/‘anarchist’ reforms to political structures: decentralise as much as possible to community neighbourhood councils, replace elected ‘representatives’ with instantly recallable mandated delegates, have jury run courts, and so on.

And that’s it – those reforms constitute the revolution. Actually, for completeness, a change to property law would also be required – occupier-owners of land would no longer have the right of alienation, and nor would worker-owners of businesses (any capital gains or land value increase would be retained by the community), and anyone hired as a wage-labourer could (and would) ask a court to grant him full worker-owner rights, and similarly anyone taken on as a tenant could demand full occupier-owner rights. Also, at the risk of stating the obvious, elimination of the gigantic wealth/wage differences between 1st and 3rd world would be required at the worldwide level.

But not, you will notice, an unimaginable set of reforms, not a utopian system. Everything, economically as well as politically, goes on after the revolution much as it did before – the same corporations produce the same goods, market them through the same networks, in the same political jurisdictions – it is just that capitalist tyranny has vanished. There are no capitalists, financiers, landlords, or bosses; and no profit, interest, rent, or wage labour. People go about their daily business as free people, exploited by no one.

Also, notice all these reforms are potentially popular, right now.

[above from http://afraser.com/beyond_an_ideal.htm]

2) The extra-long term programme:

Let’s say the above doesn’t go far enough for you, that you want complete marketless, moneyless, communism. That is, I think, much too great a change to be included in any programme to address the everyday concerns of the great mass of people, but still you would want to be sure that the everyday programme was compatible with communism in the longer term.

A great many economic functions – housing, healthcare provision, education, services, retailing – can be, even should be, provided at a very local level, by neighbourhood community councils. These councils can organise those functions in a communist fashion, at least some functions should be organised in that way - education is already provided that way in developed countries, and so, outside the US and to a lesser extent Ireland, is healthcare. It would be easy to see at least basic housing, food, clothing needs also being met by neighbourhood communities, without charging money at point of provision, and that being preferable to the means tested bureaucratic benefit systems of today.

That is a substantial step towards communism, could it serve as the first in a series of steps? The neighbourhood community councils would be in a position, if their citizens wished it, to gradually extend the extent of communism, limiting the use of money to an ever shortening list of luxuries. Worker owned firms would be able to eliminate internal wage differentials. Federations of communities would be able to co-ordinate these actions, and first encourage, and later enforce, acts of co-operation and solidarity between their member firms and communities. Eventually the market and money are of so little importance they can be phased out altogether. Substantial problems in running a complex economy without money trading would remain, but at any rate this a more reasonable scenario than some big bang replacement of capitalism with communism overnight.

3) The medium term programme:

The long term programme in (1) above is unachievable without the support of a mass popular movement, and such things do not appear overnight or without the prospect of tactical achievements in the short-medium term.

1) Establish Workers co-operatives and community owned businesses, encourage custom of those firms before capitalist firms.

2) Extend rights of workers within existing corporations – require worker elected representatives on boards of management as in Germany, require consultation with workers, restrict dismissals, require profit sharing, encourage unions, and so on. Require that workers have the right of participation (consultation and veto power) in significant corporate decisions such as takeovers and relocations. These would all, it is hoped, pave the way for ultimate worker takeover.

3) Create public banks for the purpose of financing worker owned firms, especially startup firms (lack of access to capital is the main factor preventing worker owned startups). Seek provision of state funds (perhaps from central bank loan guarantees more than from grants from taxation revenue) to start the process off.

4) Require that central banks pursue a policy of full employment – even if at the expense of inflation (unemployment is largely a deliberate creation of government and central bank policy). (For Europeans, this means initially just bringing ourselves up to the same level as the US, where the Federal Reserve Bank is still mandated to consider unemployment as well as inflation when making its decisions, unlike the European Central Bank or the Bank of England.)

5) Establish community land trusts and housing co-ops, as opposed to both private alienable ownership of land and to undemocratic housing authorities. Extend rights of tenants within existing rented housing – rent control, secure tenancy, heritability of tenure, restrictions on right of eviction for non payment of rent – hopefully paving the way for eventual tenant takeover.

6) Decentralise political power to the lowest level possible, to neighbourhood community councils, with as much direct democracy as possible - mass citizen meetings, mandatable and recallable delegates, rotation, selection by lot, referenda. Have self-policing communities.

it might work, sounds like ol' proudhon to me, by the way, did you read the article in the herald about common good legislation and how the people own one half of scotland? Tis groovy no?

Hi

afraser, you know you’ll get nothing but support from me, but there’s a couple of things which worry me slightly…

For this to be worthwhile, these firms will need to be doing something useful. We’ll have to incorporate measures to regenerate primary industrial activity, agriculture and energy production. Given our plans for the banks, we’re going to have to do this anyway otherwise we’ll suffer poverty due to capital flight. Our currency will tank, by the way, so imported goods will not be an option in the early stages of this plan without solidarity from overseas. I hope our Norwegian comrades are listening.

Indeed. Arguing the toss between reformist and revolutionary measures is a red herring belonging a bygone age when liberal democracy was an aspiration rather than a reality.

Easier said than done. Can’t say I’ve been too impressed by, say, the Green Party’s success along these lines. Is it a problem with the politics or a question of approach? Building and sustaining the project is the hardest part. Media stunts anyone?

Love

LR

there's some really good ideas here 8)

these would be my points one and two, we need to create a situation where the collection of rents and the enforcement of all debt is impossible, this would be a two point program that by it's vey nature would be revolutionary in that the solidarity required to carry it out would by itself be enough to bring about a sweeping change in society - you could then start looking at the rest

if you could just bring 10% of the population behind you on this it would cause massive ructions in society

Hi

How do we get 1 in 10 behind this programme? Sell ringtones of each decree as performed by your fav. celeb. “Little Britain” impersonators, stand ready.

Love

LR

What on Earth is the point of thie "programme"?

Almost all those things require either a: being in government, and bringing in socialism by decree (and if you believe that then sorry you can fuck off the Second International), or b: the forces of capital and the state have been defeated already, so they're largely meaningless anyway.

Hi

It increases my economic security and political liberty at acceptable levels of risk.

Love

LR

Hi

Stay calm. I think it should have been kept as well.

That’s got to be an exaggeration. Are you to Proudhon what afraser is to Marx? Seriously, Proudhon is a bit fluffy, so I’m going to side with you there.

You don’t come over as a very happy person. What track record of success backs up your advice?

Now, this is very interesting, well done. You should have started the post here. We should develop the idea that it isn’t as simple as afraser makes out. Thankyou.

Who are you taking to? afraser's perspective resounds with more authenticity than yours.

Middle Class People.

What do you think is wrong with capitalism, and what is its negation? Describe it using examples of human experience as is and as projected under “capitalism’s negation”.

What do you mean “our”? What makes you so sure we have the same interests?

Longbridge. Pensions. I suggest a stint in a firm of corgi registered plumbers or electrical sub contractors might open your mind up there. Besides, I can assure you, some very poorly paid workers are anxious about their firm’s financial performance. But you’re right about afraser’s whip-cracking work ethic. I can’t seem to talk him out of it.

Come on then revol68, apart from “plotting Capital's trajectories” and other bunk, what is to be done?

Love

LR

I'm not a big fan of co-ops (housing and workers co-ops) but I think this is a valuable set of ideas. However it needs developing into a programme. At the moment it's just ideas about what should happen. How to get there is the hard part.

Hi

That's right. It's a no-brainer designing economies and political structures, how to implement them is another matter. Mutualist counter-economics is as unconvincing as electoralism. As cph_shawarma posted on “Democratic Alternative – Sweden”…

Setting the poetry of dialectical negation to one side, however you cut it, the concrete tasks required to implement the libertarian project continue to elude us.

Love

LR

The similarities with Proudhon are actually coincidental, all this is from Marxist David Schweickart [http://www.chicagodsa.org/ngarchive/ng89.html#anchor650664], in turn from Yaroslav Vanek and ultimately Edvard Kardelj and the Yugoslav Communist Party. Closer to Council Communism and Anarcho Syndicalism than Mutualism, although it could be said that Proudhon personally was to the left of later Mutualists.

I didn't see that article, but thanks for brininging it to my attention. Will I think buy a copy of the report http://www.caledonia.org.uk/commonweal/docs/flier.pdf, was very impressed with Andy Wightman's earlier Scotland: Land and Power, The Agenda for Land Reform, a lot of stuff there relevant to anarchists - maybe worth a separate thread. I see his website now has stuff on co-ops too.

Today, if you do not pay your rent, you are evicted by officials enforcing a court order, if necessary assisted by the police and even the army. If you are a home "owner" and fail to make your debt re-payments, you will suffer "re-possession", carried out in the same way, and by the same people. Those actions – throwing families out of their homes and onto the street – are not being done by heavies of the landlords and loan companies (or at least not alone by them – if they were we could successfully mount resistance campaigns). Instead they are being done by, or with assistance from, government power. Some people are more than happy to be in government and enforce capitalism by decree (decree to evict, decree to repossess). We will make collection of rents and enforcement of debt impossible, when (and only when) we make evictions and repossessions impossible; which is, when security forces will no longer be used in any such actions; which is, when governments will, to the extent that they exist at all, refuse to sanction such operations; which is, when we have dismantled capitalist government (but not necessarily all government). No other way is apparent to me.

Not making it impossible, but making it a lot harder:

http://libcom.org/news/article.php?story=broadway-market

Rent strikes, mass non-payment - all of these are a long way off, but they make rent and debt unenforceable directly.

Well done with the occupation in Hackney, although the (correct) decision to complement direct action occupation with invocation of judicial, police, planning authorities are illuminating for future tactics. Similarly Zanon/FaSinPat used decisions of (rather nervous) judges to win. Also the Crofters’ War and Land War, although those were no easy victories.

Everything is unconvincing when there is little will to actually expend the required effort. An effective mass movement would I think have four wings working together: 1) propaganda, 2) community/political, 3) workplace/industrial, 4) paramilitary. One of the tasks open to the second wing, although never a primary task, would be involving itself in electoral politics. One of the tasks open to the third wing, although I think never as important as industrial struggle within existing firms, would be starting and running co-operatives and credit unions (mutualist counter economics).

Hi

Electoralism, counter-economics, and now, paramilitarism? You missed out entryism, it’s got to be worth resurrecting that strategy. Cameron’s Tories look ripe, I’m sure covert infiltration of that institution would bring significant rewards.

afraser, your short term programme looks like a bit like the Green Party’s manifesto. If we imagine that the similarity is not a problem in itself, how do you propose we would succeed where they’ve failed?

Love

LR

pssh, we're anarchists, we don't talk about success...

Sounds like a call for the study of Green political activity, something I have not previously felt called to.

The Green Party of England and Wales are maybe (or maybe not) more radical than their sister parties elsewhere. But for the Scottish Green Party, my short term program sounds nothing like them, they focus on environmental issues instead of (but not as well as) economic/socio-political issues, and they even favour environmental issues over socialist issues - supporting energy, fuel, and pollution taxes, that would be more regressive than current taxation. So not much to learn from them. The Green Party of the United States seems similar.

The German Greens may be the ones to study: large, relatively influential, and (at least initially) anarchist influenced as they are. But I am afraid that is not something I have spent too much of my life on so far. Were they ever really serious about economic and socialist issues (and were co-opted away by their electoralism)? Or were they from the start environmentalists only (or mostly)? If the latter, then we can hardly fault them for being failures (they are not); but if the former, then they have failed and my short term programme could, you are right, be in trouble.

Hi

Citizens income? Comrade, they’re to the left of you there. But not of me, of course, that’s totally impossible.

Agreed. The failure of the German Red/Green alliance is a political albatross around your programme’s neck. I’m sticking to my guns on strategic economic self-sufficiency and citizen’s income, by the way.

Excellent question. I think the English/Welsh Greens took their economics from Cohn-Bendit’s Franco-Teutonic Euro Greens. Cohn-Bendit, Socialism or Barbarism, Castoriadis, Solidarity, Brinton. That’s my drug addled take on a philosophical thread. Looks like it was instrumental in Solidarity’s fracturing, but it’s not a comfortable topic for discussion.

Well, there are bound to be some difficulties along the road towards its full development comrade. Nevertheless, it remains an excellent effort and a very useful device.

Love

LR

spinning scenarios which assume that humans are automata and will/can be made to/ought to act in a certain way is what i call leftism, to which i say bollocks. all talk of long-term, much less extra-long-term, programs is pure time-passing. short-term and medium-term programs are all anyone can reasonably propose.

that said, to afraser's suggestions:

i say yes, yes, yes, yes, maybe, yes. here in the states (1) and (3) already exist, and where they exist they thrive, though of course you'd scarcely know that from reading the business pages. in fact apart from (5) all these ideas would gain ready acceptance among the mass of the people. but denying alienability would be an impossible sell, and i can't get to it myself either.

OK, a Christmas research assignment for me on the history of Die Grünen . But for the way they are now, I looked at their manifesto for this years election, and that is a million miles away from anything I've proposed above. It reads like a New Labour policy document, could be accepted more or less in its entirety by any centrist political party. No mention of workers co-ops, just this:

The new NEFAC position paper comes close to poll option 3 (= is maybe OK, for now)

Hi

You'd be better off looking at the UK Green Party...

http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/mfss/industry.html

http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/mfss/economy.html

I hate the Green Party, but these reformists are already to your left.

Love

LR

NewYawka: thanks for that feedback. Yes, long term programs are of little use in themselves, but they are useful as a guide for making conscious consistent decisions on short term programs and tactics (because you have to know what way you are ultimately headed in order to know what way to turn right now).

I hadn’t heard of the public bank until Ralph Nader wrote about it http://www.counterpunch.org/nader10182005.html (4) also exists, in a very limited form, in the US. The Federal Reserve Bank is mandated to give equal weighting to unemployment and inflation when making its decisions – although in reality it tends to care infinitely more about the second. But, by contrast, both the Bank of England and the European Central Bank are officially meant to only consider inflation. Unemployment tends to be higher in those two currency zones than in the US.

On alienability: (i) Denying private rent should not I think be too hard a sell (especially if their was partial compensation to former landlords), and (ii) giving tenants, including housing authority tenants, rights of heritability, security of tenure, and so on, without going as far as to give them alienable land ownership (such as with a community land trust) should not be too hard a sell either. That takes care of the real housing/land problem, (iii) owner-occupiers are by contrast something I think everyone should learn to live with.

They (owner-occupiers) only present a problem to the socialist project when there are rising land prices – admittedly those are skyrocketing in a bubble right now – because the price rise is ultimately funded from the backs of workers. Were land prices to be stable in real terms, I would be relaxed about alienable land ownership. But in fact, where there is a growing economy (and who would expect a socialist economy to be anything other than a growing economy), land prices will tend to rise at the same rate as the economy grows. Buying land is then much the same as investing in stocks or loans – it produces unearned income. You cannot consistently deplore the one and not the other.

There is, however, a way of ensuring (after tax) land prices are stable, even with alienable land: by the use of land value taxation, coupled with the taxation of realised capital/land assets growth as income, as in Taiwan. Such taxation would not be popular, but it would be fair.

It should also be remembered that what is good for individuals who already own houses and land is not so good for those, typically grown up children of the first, who find themselves priced out of the house owner market. In Scotland, insane plans are being drawn up to allow the government to pay part – often half – of such peoples mortgages. It would be no hard sell to have those schemes replaced with community land trusts, where the new prospective homeowners need only borrow money for the building – often half the total price of the building plus the land – albeit at the cost of loosing future land alienability rights. It is possible to imagine private land ownership withering away within a generation or two of such government direction, and to do so without any great controversy or loss of rights. For example, imagine as aging homeowners passed on, the local community land trusts could buy, perhaps even through compulsory purchase, the alienable land rights to their property, while allowing the building to be inhabited, as of right, by the former owners heritors.

In summary, tenants and private landlords are the primary issue, owner-occupiers a much more minor issue – one that could be dealt with over time in a non controversial, non confrontational way.

Lazy Riser: Perhaps you could elaborate on your views on the Green Party of England and Wales? I don’t know much about them other than their website as you linked it in, which is all good stuff, as a first step. But do they mean any of that, or it just Clause Four (old Labour Party) style bullshit?

I do know the US and Scottish Green Parties – they would not involve themselves in those kind of issues, interested in environmental issues primarily.

Hi

I’m instinctively against them. They don’t centre stage their economic platform. If I was in the security services, I’d shut them down if they did. Seeing as their environmental platform is a load of twaddle, I like to give them a wide berth.

They really mean it, but I suspect most don’t understand the consequences of People’s Banks and Universal Incomes. It certainly renders them unelectable to parliament. Clause Four was a State Capitalist proposal, I don’t see it as being desirable. I’m against public ownership, like Redtwister is “against” the working class.

Well, it’s a funny old game. I wouldn’t dream of contending with you on this point. I’d look into the connection between Castoriadis, Socialism or Barbarism, Cohn-Bendit and the Euro-Greens, although I’m tired peddling that angle.

Love

LR

afraser- ta for the detailed response 2 posts up. must run now, will come back anon for a good close look