Coito ergo sum wrote:There's the rub. Every individual CAN'T be self-governing, because even people who have been "taught" (query: who has this knowledge to impart?) will always have a myriad different ideas what is best for "society," and very often what a person things is best for the society as a whole just so happens to also be pretty good for themselves as well. Self governing proles was promised, but how can that be anything other than a red herring? How - in actual practice - can every single prole be left to his own self-governing devices? How are laws made? How is economic, agricultural and industrial policy set? ...if all proles are self governing, then those questions still remain to be answered.
Some vague bollocks about collective will. That's the other inherent flaw in Marx's theory: he does bugger all to actually outline any of this in detail, hence the offshoots of Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism etc, with all greatly differing results. Ho Chi Minh's Vietnam was much different to Leninist Russia but they both claimed Marx as the basis of their political ideas. In other words critiquing Marx is like punching holes in Swiss cheese.
Not only that, but there must be "agreement." Everyone could be flat out geniuses, educated in all the major disciplines, and yet there will be a myriad differing opinions on what to do economically, agriculturally, industrially and in every other aspect of society. And, how can there be a "stateless" society when even people with "above a certain level of knowledge commit crimes?" Whatever organization makes and imposes laws is a State. Isn't it? Therefore, not "stateless."
The first thing to do is define what a state actually is. Everyone has different ideas of what does and does not constitute a state. A truly anarchist group, collective or nation would have to ensure there was no scarcity of products, which is currently impossible. From a philosophical point of view, what exactly is a crime? Is it an action deemed unjustifiable by the majority? In which case that would be tyranny of the majority. Some would argue that crime does not exist if the crime (or act) can be justified in the mind of the perpetrator.
Nobody has total control over one's actions, and nobody can have total control over one's actions. Nobody can have knowledge of all areas of running a country. Not even the most seasoned politician in the world today, not a single elected leader, not a single economist, philosopher, professor, journalist, polemic, or any other person on the face of the earth has knowledge of all areas of running a country.
Which is another reason why a stateless society cannot currently exist without descending into anarchy. Even anarchies such as Somalia end up having their populations form small groups and factions, it's human nature. I honestly believe the concept of stateless societies are impossible to realise; they contradict the human instinct for forming collective groups.
What's more, even if EVERYONE had total control over their own actions and knowledge of all areas of running a country, a stateless society could not come to be. Even person with that control and knowledge will differ markedly, dramatically and in a myriad ways, as to what should be done communally and individually. Any mechanism for resolving those disputes and opting for one person's view over another person's view is what? Isn't it a State? If you put things up to a majority vote, then you have a legislature. Once you have a legislature, you need a mechanism to administer the decisions of the legislature and enforce the legislation. Once you have those things, you have a government and a State.
Yep. It doesn't need to go that far; once you have a group of any kind or any number hierarchy will establish itself and therefore it cannot be anarchy. Someone will always dominate in decision making.
Technology can allow every individual to participate in government, but that doesn't mean there is no State. It just means there are 7 billion legislators in Congress or Parliament.
And it only takes one dissenter to throw a spanner in the works.
Sure, because we would have traded with them more (i.e. engaged in capitalism).
But, in any case, before we jump off the cliff and say "let's make the whole world communist, because that's the only way we can have it tried without interference" we ought to have an example of a test case that works or even comes close to working. If North Korea can't communally run its country and manage its population so everyone in it can be fed and housed and cared for, what makes anyone in the world think that we could do the same thing globally?
North Korea represents a total failure of the state to manage anything other than the military and the cult based around the Kim family.. It's more an illustration of what would happen if Scientology ran a nation. Besides, nation states are too numerous to run communally. There's too much anonymity and disconnect. Plus, more components, i.e. citizens, the more potential for a breakdown somewhere.
Sure, but even the speculation is opaque at best. Other than "it will be a society where people live in harmony, and all do what's best for the community, and everyone is cared for and nobody is poor" - what exactly IS a stateless society? How are laws made? Are there laws at all? Are there cops? Are there prisons? Is there a stock exchange and banking system? How? Is it privately arranged by those who want to participate? Or, is their a bureau or ministry? If so, whither statelessness? Do private individuals run businesses? How? The list of basic questions that I would think anyone advancing the idea of communism as a good thing would need to have an answer to goes on and on....
The means of production would fall into public ownership. A factory would be run by the workers there, for example. 'The state' would not need to exist as people would have been de-programmed from their capitalist indoctrination to became altruistic and sharing people with no desire for personal greed and therefore acquisitive crimes such as theft would disappear. If there were laws and agents to enforce them, the laws would need to be agreed upon by majority consensus and the agents of enforcement would attain, and lose, their posts by majority consensus. That's one interpretation I've read, there are many others.
Or, when they are lined up against the wall and shot because they have stolen from the proletariat their whole lives. The average westerner is equivalent to the haute bourgiosie of Marx's time. Even most of "the poor" in the evil western capitalist countries live at a level worlds superior to what the proletariat in Marx's day lived. They were slaves, living in huts, digging with their hands daily, and having what little they did produce stolen from them. Today, the poor have cars, houses, heat, electricity, running water, and free health care. Communism offers the poor in the west greater poverty, in the name of equalization with those that still live in abject servility in China, India, Africa, and elsewhere.
The assumption amongst western communists (remember that the vast majority are liberal, educated, middle class and bourgeois themselves, following in the tradition of all great liberators of us poor proles. Like Marx, Lenin, Tony Benn . . . ) is that the poor would be elevated to the status and standards of living as the middle class, rather than the middle and upper class reduced to the status of proles. The intention has always been to raise standards of living. But that's impossible when farms get collectivised and there's no bread.
