KARL: Hi RIchard!
RICHARD:These are rantings one would rightly associate with a
Stalinist. Socialism without democracy is simply another form of
tyranny, and democracy without free speech is an oxymoron.
KARL: I never suggested nor implies anywhere or anytime that
communism can exist in the absence of direct popular substantive
democracy. Indeed I have written messages which criticised the
Bolsheviks for decapitating the Russian revolution by eliminating
democracy and introducing a totalitarian political system.
RICHARD: Socialism is not simply the fairer distribution of bread, but
a vision of government responsive to people's needs and desires - it
is the inevitable economic system in any truly democratic society.
By socialism I don't refer exclusively to state ownership, but to
whatever pragmatic mechanisms achieve an economy which serves the
people, including private enterprise or even corporations where
appropriate.
KARL: The above comments of yours provide evidence that, if anything,
it is you that are advocating an impoverished form of socialism.
It is the people who in effect constitute the government in the
sense that by means of direct democratic procedures they appoint it
on the condition that it is essentially subject to recall at any time.
Furthermore the government will be a bottom/up structure which means
that government has a continuous character proceeding from the popular
base to the apex. In this way centralisation of power is maintained at
a necessary minimum. Consequently the government begins and ends at no
particualr place. Instead it is society that constitutes the
government rather than the reverse.
This being so it is not, as you state, a mere matter of "a vision of
government responsive to people's needs and desires". Rather it is a
matter of people directly determining the degree and way in which
their "needs and desires" are to be met. Furthermore it is a matter of
people determining and developing their "needs and desires". You seem
to believe that under socialism a political institution in the form of
the state will invariably exist. Communists, like myself, seek the
establishemnt of a state free society.
RICHARD: Socialist revolution in a modern state can only come about by
peaceful means, through political organization. Violent revolution,
even if it were feasible, which it is not, would be much more likely
to lead to totalitarianism (ala French Revolution) than to democracy.
KARL: Your preceeding observations are rather naive. There is no
possibility of the capitalist class, in general, surrendering their
wealth without violent struggle. There exists a state system that
exists to protect their wealth in the form of capital. This state
includes in its apparatii a vast ideological machinery together with a
massive security system involving armaments.
Greetings,
Karl
Yours etc.,
Karl