The Establishment of Socialism (1972)

From the September 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism is a society in which all social affairs, including the production and distribution of wealth will be democratically controlled by the people as a whole. There will be no ruling class nor any permanent administrative élite but rather the active participation of all the people, at all levels and in all fields, in the planning and running of their various common affairs.

This is why Socialism can only be established democratically, both in the sense of being what the vast majority want and in the sense of being established by their own democratically-organised action. Any attempt by a minority to establish Socialism is bound to fail because, without a population who want to participate in social decision-making themselves and not leave it to an élite, the minority would be forced to become the exclusive decision-makers and eventually a new ruling class. The very fact that only a minority wanted Socialism would be a sign that Socialism was not yet possible. Indeed, the fact that a minority should think it could establish Socialism before a majority wanted it would show that they didn’t understand the full implication of Socialism themselves and so were not really Socialists.

A look at the various theories of minority, or minority-led, action to establish ‘socialism’ — essentially Lenin’s Bolshevism and its various offshoots, Stalinism, Trotskyism, Maoism, Castroism, etc. — confirms that in practice these were the ideologies of would-be national ruling classes aiming to industrialize economically backward parts of the world through a policy of state capitalism, mistakenly called ‘socialism’. Their tactics — vanguard party, violent insurrection, ruthless measures against the old rulers and all opponents — are thus quite irrelevant for a genuine Socialist movement, though superficially attractive to those who want radical social change yet despair of ever winning over a currently indifferent or conservative-minded working class. In the unlikely event of them being successful in some highly industrialised country the outcome would be some form of state capitalism, certainly not Socialism.

Any adequate theory as to how to establish Socialism must have as its basic premise that this must be the work of a democratically-organised, socialist-minded working class majority. That the socialist revolution, in other words, must be a majority revolution. Let us follow through the implications of this.

The State machine, being both the public power of coercion and the centre of social administration, must be taken over before capitalism can be abolished and Socialism established, first to prevent it being used to resist this change and, secondly, in order to centrally co-ordinate it. This would not be denied by many of those who advocate minority action. But from here on a basic difference emerges. They repudiate the policy of trying to convince, by peaceful persuasion, a majority to join them in their struggle; in short, they reject democratic methods. Instead they favour minority action, first to disrupt society and undermine the majority-supported government and, then, to take advantage of the resulting social and political instability to seize government power themselves in an armed uprising.

Those who realise that the Socialist revolution can only be a majority revolution have no need to consider such a method of winning State power (which would almost certainly fail anyway with the loss of many innocent working class lives). Once capitalist conditions, including the persuasive efforts of a one-time Socialist minority, have created a Socialist majority the question is: What is the easiest method of winning control of the State?

In the most advanced capitalist parts of the world, such as Britain, where economic circumstances and working class pressure have forced the ruling class to grant a certain degree of political democracy, the answer is obvious. Use the existing political institutions which provide for members of parliament, local councillors and other public offices to be elected by universal suffrage, limited and incomplete as these institutions are from the point of view of democratic theory.

This would involve the Socialist majority organising themselves as a political party, but one completely different both from existing parliamentary parties and from Leninist vanguard parties. The workers’ socialist party must be democratic through and through: its policy and all its activities must be under the complete control of its members and it must have no leader or leaders. Being the actual movement of the working class to establish Socialism it must reflect, as far as is possible under capitalism, the organisational forms of Socialism, namely, democratic control and popular participation. And far from being a vanguard party seeking to lead the working class with attractive slogans, is would merely be the instrument they can use to win political power once a majority of them have become Socialists.

Naturally, such a party would have to appoint candidates to contest the elections for public offices. But those appointed would simply be mandated delegates from the working-class Socialist majority. The position would be the exact reverse of that in existing, parliamentary parties. Instead of the party outside Parliament being essentially only vote-catchers for the parliamentary leadership, Socialist MPs and councillors would merely be the messenger boys of the Socialist working class outside Parliament, democratically-organised in their Socialist political party. And, of course, the aim of sending Socialist delegates to Parliament would not be to form a ‘socialist government’ (a contradiction in terms) but to abolish capitalism as smoothly and peaceably as possible.

Once in control of State power the Socialist majority can abolish the capitalist class’s monopoly over the means of production by making them the common property of the whole community under the democratic control of all the people. And the State machine — as a public power of coercion — would be abolished by its coercive institutions (the armed forces, police, law courts, jails) being dismantled. The remaining administrative institutions (health, education, the State-run industries) would be fully democratised and extended to cover all industries. This done, the centre of social administration has ceased to be a ‘State’, properly so-called, and become simply an unarmed clearing-house for democratically settling social affairs.

Socialism will have been established.

Adam Buick

How did we get stuck? (2022)

Book Review from the May 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Dawn of Everything. A New History of Humanity. By David Graeber and David Wengrow. Penguin. 2022. 720 pages.

This is the last book written by the anthropologist David Graeber, in conjunction with the archaeologist David Wengrow. It aims to set out a new theory for the pre-history of humanity, and in particular, takes aim at theories of the ‘origin of inequality’. The authors claim to be bringing together facts and ideas that have been coming out of their respective disciplines, and bringing them together to see what the new picture is.

They take aim at unidirectional ideas of social evolution: such as band to tribe to kingdom to empire. They also claim to rebut any notion that scale and social complexity inevitably lead to domination. The central strand of their narrative is that the idea of a lapsarian fall from original equality itself stems from attempts to rebut critiques of European civilisation made by North Americans, for example, the Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia, who are reported as saying of the French in 1608: ‘you are always fighting and quarrelling among yourselves; we live peacefully. You are envious and all the time slandering each other; you are thieves and deceivers; you are covetous, and are neither generous nor kind; as for us, if we have a morsel of bread we share it with our neighbour.’ The authors argue it was through debates with American interlocutors that Europeans began to grapple with the notion of inequality in the first place.

Their argument runs that these critiques stung, to the extent that, by the mid 18th century, European writers had to recuperate them, and the strategy was to invent the idea of the noble savage: that free and equal societies were a sign of inferiority, where everyone is equally poor. The evolution of society and social complexity brings forth the differentiation and inequality, inevitably.

This book argues that, in fact, there is no basis for such an assumption. The authors cite the emerging archaeology from Ukraine and its environs to show how millennia before the first cities known to history, regular mega sites can be identified where thousands of humans would gather, and build together. They conjecture that these may have been seasonal gatherings (such as the evidence suggests happened at Stonehenge), bringing together people from vast areas.

The argument runs that people could cycle through different political structures, depending on the time of year, gathering in winter, in conditions where some would hold authority, to scatter in the summer to looser organisations. The authors present evidence within recorded history of some groups doing something like this, up to the point where people took up different names and identities within each season. They suggest that these ‘hospitality zones’ would have been the probable pre-condition for the emergence of the first cities

They note the absence of indicators of status and authority in Neolithic city formations (and the fact that it seems that the neighbouring tribes, in fact, developed aristocratic traits before the cities). They examine the notion of schismogenesis (something which people on the left would be quite familiar with) wherein groups of people define themselves in opposition to other groups. They note, for example, in North West America, some groups of foragers value wasteful and spectacular consumption, whereas their neighbours consciously espouse frugality.

They argue, that despite a similar mode of production, their cultures are different, because they oppose each other, although it is arguable that if one of those groups is using slaves, then that constitutes a different mode of production: but then, their central point stands that in that case it is still a conscious choice of the other tribe to not adopt slave taking as a way of living.

Likewise, they note that the invention agriculture, which in some people’s arguments leads to social stratification does not in fact seem to have in fact done so. They note that the agricultural revolution itself took thousands of years, with societies ‘play farming’: cultivating crops as part of a broader strategy of hunting and foraging, without becoming entirely dependent on their crops for survival. Agriculture remained a choice, and the relative social arrangements around it likewise for millennia. Agriculturalists and non-agriculturalists lived side by side in that time.

The authors discuss the operation of a ”baseline communism’ which applies in all societies; a feeling that if another person’s needs are great enough […] and the cost of meeting them is modest enough […] then of course any decent person would comply’. This baseline is moveable, and they note, for example, the rights and hospitality of the ‘baseline communism’ of North American tribes, compared to that of French colonists which formed part of the debates mentioned above. Human societies for millennia have thus oscillated around those freedoms and baseline levels of communism, producing many and varied social forms, not ‘in conditions of their own choosing’, without being stuck with them.

The question for Graeber and Wengrow is, then, how did we end up stuck in one of them? They analyse three forms of domination: control of information, violence and charisma. They present evidence from ancient cultures which demonstrates that early domination was usually a combination of two of these three factors, and it was only later that elites could combine all three. They note evidence of some tribes, for instance, where the king was known to be highly dangerous, and could order anyone put to death, but pretty much only if they were in the same room as him, and a few miles away he could be safely ignored.

They note that there have been many discoveries of palaeolithic burials with highly valuable grave goods inside, with the bodies posed. They note, however, many of those bodies exhibited unusual physical characteristics (being unusually tall, or short, or deformed). These individuals were in the first place seen as unusual within the tribe. They describe how in known societies, such as that of the Nuer, highly eccentric characters were tolerated and respected within the tribe, “when calamities or unprecedented events occurred […] it was among this penumbra [of unusual people] that everyone looked for a charismatic leader appropriate to the occasion’. Prominent people could emerge without becoming a permanent part of the social logic of those early cultures.

They look for the process of getting stuck in the notion of care surrounding these unique individuals. They note that chiefs had a duty of care for the sick, the orphaned, the widowed or anyone else who had no-one to look after them. They could ‘take refuge in the chief’s residence’, this would form the nucleus of a paternalistic relationship, also providing the chief with henchmen and people outside the normal social structures to do their will. They note the culmination, which seems to be ubiquitous in societies with monumental kingship, of a point at which all of those expected to care for a king are entombed with him: slaughtered at his death.

They have an entire chapter dedicated to claiming ‘the state has no origins’, in which they argue that many different forms of human society can exist, with differing degrees and modes of domination, and it is just as futile to look for an origin of the state as for the origin of inequality. They expressly argue that humans have the political skills and wisdom to imagine their own societies, and not simply react to their circumstances. They suggest a sort of ‘play kingship’ might well have prefigured the emergence of the real thing.

They note that signs of bureaucracy actually predate the existence of cities, and record keeping (in the form of clay tablets and seals) may in fact have been part of an active attempt to prevent new emerging technologies from creating social hierarchies. As with the principle of care, above, this system was ripe for subverting, and the abstraction and equalisation involved became a powerful tool for later rulers to subvert the village organisation and subsume it into an empire.

The overall thrust of this book is hopeful, it allows us to think about how vast cities of humans could have been run without a state or a ruling bureaucracy. They note that human communities in America, during the Hopewell civilization, were able to live without any signs of warfare: ‘for a period of about five centuries or more, human remains across the whole of Eastern North America display remarkably little evidence of traumatic injuries, scalping or other forms of interpersonal violence’. That such evidence exists both before and after this period shows how humans at that time were capable of abolishing war.

Likewise, as they note: ‘slavery was most likely abolished multiple times in history in multiple places’. The whole thrust of the book is that the unexplored myth that there was some fall from grace, that size complexity leads to domination are simply ideological presuppositions that rob ancient humanity of agency, and create a straightjacket around trying to think of new ways of running our world today.

Pik Smeet

The State. (1924)

From the June 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

The popular view of Socialism is a bundle of misconceptions. One of the most common is that Socialism means nothing more than the control of everything and everybody by the State, swollen to huge dimensions and constituting in effect a distinct official class in opposition to the bulk of the people. Yet nothing is more certain than that the State, throughout its history, has been the weapon of the property-owning class (the means by which it has protected and upheld its property) and with the accomplishment of the social revolution and the disappearance of such a class, the State also will disappear.

What is the State? Those who talk most glibly about it seldom offer evidence of possessing a clear idea of its nature. They usually express themselves in vague idealistic language which serves to hide either their ignorance or their real meaning.

In brief, the State is that central body which by coercion induces the rest of society either to do things which they have no desire to do or to refrain from acts which are dictated by their desires. It is thus the element of organised force operating on a comprehensive scale which forms the essential feature of the State.

The actual organisation of the State has varied with the changes in the social order, but that feature has remained unchanged. The first form of private (as distinct from common) property was the chattel form. Domestic animals, women and children, and finally enslaved debtors and captives became chattels in turn and the State developed in the first place in order to preserve the chattel relationship. The ancient empires, centred in the city-states (such as Rome, Athens and Babylon) were gigantic chattel procuring and tribute levying machines. In these States the freemen (i.e., the non-chattels) were alone citizens, privileged to bear arms and control political affairs. They used their control to hold their chattels in subjection and to protect them from others who might covet and struggle for these principal sources of wealth.

The break up of these ancient empires was followed by the rise of feudalism, a system based on serfdom. The serfs were legally bound to the soil. The landholder was also the lord of the serfs and exploited their labour power accordingly. The land-holders as a class formed a hierarchy with the King at its head. Here we find another form of State, which, in turn, gave way to yet another form, as a new property-owning ruling-class rose to power.

The modern parasites, the Capitalist class (developed from the merchants, etc., of the cities), have brought the State to its present form. They acquired concessions from the monarch by means of their peculiar weapon, money, and finally curbed his authority along with the downfall of the feudal aristocrats by forcible revolution. In the place of the feudal State we now find representative bodies controlling affairs such as municipal councils and Parliament. The ruling classes of the ancient and medieval worlds ruled by their own right arms; the modern tyrants introduced the standing army as the mainstay of their sway. The military organisations of their predecessors gave way to the political parties of the Parliamentary arena, while the actual administration of the law was handed over to an ever-increasing professional bureaucracy.

The development of modern industry has brought to the front a new political element, i.e., the proletariat, the propertyless working class. For the first time in history the slaves are enfranchised and are openly recognised by their rulers to be the most important factor in the State. Only gradually, however, are they coming to realise the fact themselves.

The modern State, therefore, is a contradiction. It consists of a repressive machine supported by the very class which is repressed. It exists to protect private property in the means of life against the actual producers of those means. It is the political expression of the antagonism of economic interests in society.

Whence then arises the illusion that Socialism, a system of society involving a community of interests, will develop the State to a still greater extent? Partly, no doubt, from the confusing and ignorant propaganda of the so-called Socialist elements in the Labour Party ; but partly also from the fact that Socialism can only be established by means of the State in the hands of the working class. Where those who are afraid of bureaucracy make their mistake is in forgetting the phrase in italics.

Socialism cannot be established by the Capitalists. It cannot be established by the State as it exists at present. Only when the workers, organised consciously and politically, capture the State and convert it into the agent of emancipation will it be possible to convert the means of life (i.e., the land, factories, railways, etc.) into the common property of the whole people.

This revolution within the State, necessary as it is for the social revolution, so far from extending the bureaucracy will abolish it. The first act of the revolutionary administration will be to take direct control and responsibility from the hands of the officials in every department. The working class must itself become the State. As the revolution proceeds and the Capitalist class are stripped of their economic privileges, so the workers’ organisation will cease to be political and will become economic. It will be concerned, not with government of persons, but with the administration of the social means of production and distribution. Class distinctions having been abolished, class antagonism will disappear and with it the need for a repressive force.

The reader may object, “But what of the law which depends on the State, is that to go, too? How will you preserve order among individuals?” Supporters of Capitalism among the workers seldom realise how much institutions such as “the law” are part of the social system existing at a particular time and are not eternal necessities of nature. “The law” has changed along with the State that made it. The laws of the ancient patricians, the laws of the medieval barons, have followed the customs of prehistoric barbarians; the laws of the last of the exploiting classes will do likewise and there will thus be an end of laws and the beginning of social freedom.

The civil law regulates contracts and implies private property and the production of commodities. When society consciously regulates production and distribution, contracts will become meaningless. The individual will depend for the satisfaction of his economic wants, not upon some other individual or group, but upon society as a whole ; consequently, he will have no motive for entering into bargains or seeking the aid of the law to enforce their terms.

Turning to the criminal law, that also will become meaningless in a society of equals. Time was when, in the interests of Capitalism, the idea was spread that there existed a distinct criminal type with marked physical and psychological characteristics. To-day that idea is discredited even among Capitalist authorities themselves. Crime is the effect of social conditions. Crimes against property such as theft, arson, etc., are directly traceable to economic causes which will disappear along with poverty and the fear of poverty. Crimes against persons are also in the majority of cases bound up with these same economic causes; while even the so-called “crimes of passion” arise largely from the unwholesome conditions, moral as well as physical, which are inevitably engendered by Capitalism.

Socialists do not pretend that violent anti-social acts will entirely cease to occur, but that they will, undoubtedly, dwindle to such proportions as to render the existing legal methods of dealing with offenders obsolete. The concern of society under Socialism will not be repression but the development of a physical environment and mental atmosphere which will allow for the full evolution of the individual and thus secure his voluntary co-operation with his fellows. Comradeship will take the place of coercion and for the first time since the dawn of history the legal State will give way to a moral society.

Eric Boden

The Workers and the State (1946)

From the February 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

The world’s workers have been conscripted, categorised, rationed and regimented by the power of the State, ruthlessly should they live in dictatorship countries, by their “consent” in the democracies. In spite of this the Socialist view that the State is “the executive committee of the ruling class” is contested by many. Let us therefore take a swift survey of the evidence of history.

The Social institution called the State had its genesis in the advent of private property, and its beginning took place after thousands of years in man’s history, during which he had no concept of private property as such. From these misty eons of time we find that man, and the word includes woman, in the unequal fights against the forces of nature, banded together in tribes or clans in which all implements and provisions were the common property of the whole community, and no trace has been found by philologists of the words mine and thine in use during this immense period of primitive communism.

The tribes practised complete economic and social equality, there being therefore no classes, no law or state, only the observance of the tribal rites and customs; everyone took part in the common tasks of the day and had an equal voice in the election of officers. An injury to one was an injury to all in this democracy where the social relation was that of kinship, and the greatest punishment, banishment to the world of terrors outside the tribe.

Writers on this period of man’s development (Engels' “Origin of the Family”) describe how the “means of production” evolved and changed man from the savage hunting the animals for food armed only with crude weapons, to that of barbarian who now domesticated the animals and became a pastoralist, the period which ushers in the dawn of civilisation, and private property.

So close was man always to the edge of famine that the need for moving to new hunting grounds inevitably brought him into conflict with other occupants and during these forays captives were taken and killed; sometimes they were eaten. Man later learned that the captives could provide many meals if put to attend the pastures and cattle he had acquired.

So the enslavement of man by man aided by the increasing knowledge of agriculture begun the private ownership of the means of life.

This new method of production gave rise to wealthy families and poor families and in place of the communal family group there came the inferiority of woman as the mere “help meet” of her lord and master, for only through him could their issue inherit the family property, now protected by the law and force of the State.

The age-old tribal communism had been broken down by the needs and institutions that were set up and given the sanctity of authority by the class which owned and controlled land, cattle, money and slaves. The city states which eventually arose in the congenial Mediterranean area were based on this class ownership and were the scene of the violent class-struggles which fill the history books, and it is a sobering thought that the philosophy, architecture, and oratory of Rome and Athens were only made possible by the labours of a slave class whose toil gave the owners the comfort and leisure to pursue those studies.

The republic of Rome was organised on a military basis and had a constitution drawn up which divided the population into six classes, each class holding votes according to its property strength, whilst for defence each vote in the legislature carried the duty of providing a centurion or officer over a hundred men drawn from the populace It is a commentary on modern war that the poorest of the proletariat, having no property, were not asked to defend their “way of life”; they being classified as mere breeders by the Roman state.

Thus the possessing class held political power during the time of Rome battling against its Italian tribal neighbours and later as the centre of an empire holding the greater part of Europe and Africa in its grip. The slave system ate into the heart of the Roman state and brought ruin and decadence in its train; the slave taken in war. or made so by debt, was considered a chattel that had no legal right to properly, to marry or enter into a contract. Slaves often provided a Roman holiday as gladiators trained to fight each other in the arena, a training which served them in good stead in one of the several Servile Wars that broke out. Spartacus, joined by the gladiators' school, roused the slaves, trained them and inflicted defeats on the Roman army for four years, the revolt being finally crushed and its supporters brutally burnt or crucified in thousands by the victors.

Reform in the late days of the Empire allowed the slave to buy his freedom, or as a serf to farm a plot of the broken up estates, for work had become a degradation in the eyes of the Romans, and by now the large landowners had ruined the small owners by estates run entirely by slaves brought from the imperial wars by a paid proletarian army. Rome became filled with discharged soldiery, freed men and proletarians, demanding bread and land from a ruling class replete with the plunder and tribute of the wars and colonies. No the state gave them doles, circuses, and more wars. Furthermore, the state declared the “public ownership" of the slave's religion, Christianity, long persecuted for hinting that the slave was as good as his owner—in heaven. Yet nothing could allay the rot of such a slave economy, and Rome offered little resistance when beset by the Teutonic hordes from outside.

The fall of Rome's military power saw the splitting up of Europe into many principalities and kingdoms which owed their existence to the usurping of the tribe and clan system by the warrior and land owning class, assisted now by the spiritual inheritor of Rome's power, the Roman Church, headed by the Pope. This epoch called Feudalism was one of chronic warfare over land in which the remnants of communal society were stamped out by the lauded chiefs, and where the Church as an arbiter became a great land-owning and political force used in bemusing and enforcing class rule on the enslaved class, the serfs. The theory of the state was one of service, and pyramidic in structure; the. king holding all land in his realm and granting its ownership to his subjects under bis protection, they swearing loyalty to him and his law while providing him with arms and soldiery according to their status. The serfs farmed their lord's land not as the uneconomical slaves of Rome but with the added interest of raising their own keep on strips of land granted them by the lord of the manor. Revolts, but more the need of the state for money, later gave the serfs the liberty to rent small plots, notably in England, as peasants.

Meanwhile another class was growing, that of the merchants and manufacturers, who resented the king’s power to tax and squander money on wars whilst they had no voice in the council of barons and king, and thus arose in England the Parliament of Commoners which the king summoned as he thought fit, generally for money, or as a lever in his quarrels with the barons. The townsmen or burghers grew more insistent against the church and king as the latter were fettering their ever-growing commerce by state restrictions and the ban on usury. This clash of interests found expression in religion, and Protestantism was adopted by the merchant class from the anti-Pope doctrines of Luther of Germany. Tactically they backed Henry VIII in his quarrel with the Pope over the breaking of his marriage vows, sacred to the feudal church, a schism whereby the crown “requisitioned” the church lands and wealth, thus severing its power.

The class struggle of the rising capitalist class went on through the reigns, and finally culminated in a civil war in which the Parliamentarians recruiting the yeomanry and townsmen ended absolute monarchy by defeating the Royalists and beheading their king, Charles I, in Whitehall.

With the state in the hands of the capitalist class we enter the era of industrial capitalism, where abroad the capitalists grab colonies and roam the world for markets and raw materials, while at home their allies the capitalist landlords drive the peasants off the land and into the towns where, as "free'’ men, they enter the factories to a new slavery, wage-dom, a revolution still pursued with variations in India and Russia to-day. The new mode of production, the hiring of labour power to operate power-driven machinery, places the whole wage class in subjection to the owners by virtue of the monopoly of the means of production in their hands. Furthermore, over and above the total wage bill it leaves in their possession enormous surpluses of commodities which they must trade abroad, therefore the state increases and jealously guards the spheres of influence and foreign markets for this overplus, for out of its sale comes the new capital to repeat the process of profit making. Should an actual threat by rivals arise the state invokes its power over propaganda, arms the wage workers and with many patriotic slogans urges them to annihilate the enemy of the national interests. These wars, local at first, have increasingly involved all in misery and destruction while with the advance of science the technique of war is revolutionised by new equipment and weapons.

To-day the state, with two world wars to its credit, becomes more authoritarian by the needs of modern total war, and must even in the "peace” retain in its hands the power to regiment workers and direct industry in readiness for a possible world war 3. Hence the long view of some capitalists in favouring nationalisation plans so beloved by the "left.”

We have made a case for the class and military nature of the state. Yet is it possible to end the state and the exploitation of man by man ?

The wars and poverty of capitalism are an unnecessary contradiction which grown-up mankind should not now tolerate, in view of the titanic output of wealth possible if society was freed from profit and class rule.

Socialists advocate the democratic social ownership of all means of wealth production, a return in fact to man's earlier practice, but on a mach higher plane, his forays for example were caused by hunger, not by surpluses.

The owning class is not fitted mentally to accomplish this great social change, it must be the work of the majority the now enfranchised workers, and they must not waste precious time reforming their masters' system but grasp the need for ending it before capitalism hurls us all into another conflagration which will leave surviving mankind the inheritor of mere dust and rabble.

Frank Dawe

Democratic Organisation

The following piece, written by the late Pieter Lawrence, is the fifth chapter of his 2006 work, 'Practical Socialism - Its Principles and Methods'. 

Link to Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Democratic Organisation

Democracy can be discussed in many ways but as with the question of “needs” we are seeking neither a comprehensive definition nor democratic procedures that will be valid in all circumstances for all time.  In approaching the subject of democracy our method remains one of proposing arrangements that could work best in the light of the principles of socialism and the practical need to solve existing problems.  We may assume that any useful means of social decision making, already in place, would be adapted and developed.  Any practice that is incompatible with the principles of democracy would be abolished. This sets out a working framework within which we can propose what could be a system of democratic administration in socialism.  

Again, we may anticipate that in due course, as communities in socialism succeed in solving problems, and as this pressure of necessity is lifted, the need for decision making will be reduced.  The outcome would be that arrangements for democratic organisation will alter in ways corresponding with the different circumstances. But that is far beyond the existing state of things and we cannot therefore take this into account. The only reason for mentioning it is to emphasise that at any point in time the question of democracy should be considered not so much in pursuit of absolute truths but what would be practical within a given social context.

However, some constant principles should apply.  Democracy should enable every person to participate on equal terms with others in deciding the policies that may affect that individual. A fully democratic society is only possible where there is social equality about the means of life.  Great differences in social privilege or economic power inevitably corrupt the practice of democracy.  

The principle of voluntary co-operation must also apply.  Whilst majority decisions may shape the direction of social policy every person should retain control over his or her involvement in any activity arising from those decisions. Activity must be self determined activity. Whilst no person, except in a democratic manner, may act against the decisions of a majority, participation in programmes of action must rest on voluntary association.

Democracy also means that we should live in a completely open society with unrestricted access to all information relevant to public issues. The records of all decision making bodies both in production and administration should be posted publicly and in socialism this would be aided by electronic means of storing and accessing information.

Continuity means that development is an adaptation of existing institutions to new conditions. The same principle that applies to production where all useful features would be retained also applies to administration. This would mean the conversion of the useful machinery of Government into a system of democratic civil society. Unlike the capitalist state, democracy in socialism must avoid an hierarchical, authoritarian system with its concentrations of centralised power.

It would be straight forward enough to draw up a list of decision making procedures that would in practice be more democratic than those in the present state system but in themselves procedures for making decisions are useless unless accompanied by powers of action.  This reveals one reason, and there are many, why the capitalist state can never be fully democratic. Even governments do not have powers to act on policies except within the narrow options determined mainly by economic circumstances. A key reason why political principle has been drained from political practice is that Governments are compelled, and indeed spend most of their time, reacting to economic pressures over which they have no control. Mostly, their actions are limited by a lack of money resources. Politics in developed capitalist states has now narrowed to arguments about different ways of raising government funds through various taxes and the distribution of government money. Mainstream political debate is mostly about which party would be most efficient in doing this.  In this way, politics has now yielded to domination by market forces and because economic constraints have no respect for the alleged differences of principle or philosophy of parties, these economic forces tend to cast all governments in the same mould. For this reason there is some truth in the popular view that all politics is the same.

Perhaps the best kind of democracy that can be achieved within a capitalist state is a system of “liberal democracy.” This grants legal rights of expression, organisation and action to the various lobbies and interest groups and individuals which make up a class divided society. Even so, we should not hesitate to say that liberal democracy, compared with dictatorship, a bureaucratic elite or theocracy, is to be greatly preferred.  Anyone who is not sure of this should test their doubts by living for a year in Iran or North Korea. However, even in the best systems of liberal democracy, administration cannot escape being a battleground for competing economic interests groups with winners and losers.  It can never be a democracy of common interests.  This is not to say that in socialism public life will be of perfect accord.  It is likely for example that a green lobby would be active in curbing excessive production made possible by increased powers of production but such disputes would not arise from conflicting economic interests.  

Central to democratic practice are powers of action.  Parties may issue a manifesto, setting out a policy; voters may support that party only to find in practice that the policy was unrealistic.  There is no doubt that parties exploit the false expectations they create but this tends to make democratic practice a charade. This marks a great difference between capitalism and socialism where as a result of the change, the removal of all economic constraints from social action will give to communities expanded powers of democratic control.  This will be direct control over all available material resources of production. Thus, people will be able to make their decisions about priorities of action, and having done so, will then be free to  organise all the resources of labour, materials, land, means of production and distribution for the work of achieving their goals. It is these powers of direct control that communities in socialism will have over their own powers of production, that will provide the basis of democratic organisation in socialism.

Local, Regional and World Scales

Because the subject is extensive and because we should anticipate that in socialism arrangements will vary from country to country according to geography, tradition and for other reasons, any proposals suggested here will be based on structures in Britain. Having said this, we may assume that the principles behind the proposals will generally apply. In origin, the means of administration which operate in Britain pre-date the capitalist state, beginning in feudal times and perhaps going back even earlier to anglo-saxon village society. As a structure, it could be readily adapted for the needs of socialist society.

As it has evolved, it gives us a parish, district, county, urban, regional and national structure. This could be continued in Socialism not because it is ancient but because it has grown                                                             

organically, providing for various scales of social organisation. These different scales are simply a means of organising dispersed populations as a single whole through successive levels of organisation. In combination a number of parishes make up a district, whilst a number of districts make up a county which then add up to the national structure. Though they are not administrative units, over 600 constituency areas provide for representation in Parliament. Moving up in scale we   have the countries of the European Union represented at the European Parliament. Finally, there is world organisation through the United Nations Organisation and its specialist bodies.

Even now, there are many thousands of men and women throughout the country who work voluntarily on these various councils doing the best job they can for the benefit of their communities. The re-organisation brought in by the Local Government Act 1972 created in England 7,200 Parish Councils with 70,000 Councillors; 333 non Metropolitan District Councils with 13,510 District Councillors; And 39 County Councils. A persistent frustration of these public spirited men and women is caused by having to work with scarce money resources and the amount of time taken up by arguments about the allocation of money. In socialism they would be free of these constraints. 

But overriding this entire structure is National Government. Despite many developments that have taken place, the basic means of administering the capitalist state have not significantly changed over the past two hundred years. Whilst there has been economic development, growth of towns and cities, institutions, local government, means of communication, extension of voting rights and more rights of expression and political organisation, control remains concentrated in the hands of central government.  As the centre of the state machine, government enacts law and imposes this on the entire structure. In Britain it devolves limited powers down to County, Borough, District and Parish levels and also to regional Parliaments.  It is also represented upwards at the European Parliament and the United Nations Organisation.  But in all these cases the ultimate centre of control remains the national government. Even within a government there is a further concentration of power in the office of Prime Minister.  In this office resides powers of arbitrary patronage and appointment to a cabinet that meets in secret and with no right of public access to its agenda, the discussions that take place nor any decisions made.  This centralised, hierarchical, authoritarian system, imprisoned by tight economic constraints, is incompatible with a truly democratic system. 

On major issues, procedures in socialism should allow decisions to flow from the broadest possible social base to represent the views of the whole community. There need be no single point of power.  We can envisage an integrated system that would be adaptable and could be used for decision making and action on any local, national, regional or world scale. 

Delegation.

Some recent discussions on democratic practice have compared the merits of representative democracy with direct, participatory democracy. It would appear that participation by the maximum number of people in decision making is the most democratic way.  This has been partly prompted by electronic communications which could enable many thousands of people to instantly record their votes. Certainly this is technically possible. If populations can record by telephone their votes on which song should go forward to represent Britain in the European Song Contest, then surely they could vote on social policies. Yes, but even so, the idea that all people 

affected by a decision should be included in making that decision is both impractical and unnecessary.  When we consider the wide range of useful functions administered by elected bodies with their civil service staffs and at the local level their technical officers, it is inconceivable that communities could dispense with the practice of delegated decision making; this being the practice of electing members to the various decision making bodies and allowing them to get on with their work.

Even at the local level of district councils this work ranges across protective services such as fire, health care, disease of animals and police: environmental services such as highways, transport, environmental health and planning: personal services such as education, career development, housing and social care: recreational services such as sports facilities, museums, galleries, libraries and theatres, distribution services such as shops and department stores. Many of the decisions that arise from the provision and development of these services are connected with related matters, can therefore be complex and are often made against a background of on-going disputes. In total, the sheer number of decisions is daunting and no one should doubt that they are best made through consideration of all relevant factors. In view of this, the idea that every person within a parish, district or county should vote on every proposal for change or development would place a burden of every day decision making on citizens that would be impossible to carry. People would want to get on with their personal lives, and with great chunks of time allocated to decision making, even with the benefit of electronic voting, what may appear to be a democratic ideal would  in practice be a democratic nightmare.

This is not to say that on all issues representatives on councils or Parliament would be free to act on their personal views.   Where policy is decided by the majority votes of communities, representatives would be bound to set personal views aside and act on those decisions. What is necessary is that procedures should provide for accountability and an appropriate system of checks and balances. Where there might be dissatisfaction with decisions of an elected body there would be no difficulty in conducting a poll or referendum. Rules could be made for conducting a poll of all voters where this might be requested perhaps by a given number of voters in a parish, district or county or where it was requested by any council within a given area of administration.

In addition, with a comprehensive framework of constitutional law, citizens, interest groups or public bodies would be enabled to complain or appeal to the courts where they might feel that  a body has transgressed the rules and procedures of democratic practice. An independent constitutional court could then arbitrate and this judgement would be binding on all parties.

 Whatever the case, the point is well made that the basic structure of social organisation and administration, as it operates in Britain, suitably adapted and fully democratised, would be adequate for democratic practice in socialism.

Democracy and Necessity.

We envisage that democratic practice in socialism will involve a count of votes for determining social policy and this would initiate action. But in the first instance, the major policy decisions of a socialist society could not be arbitrary because  action would be a response by the community to definite social needs.  This question does not await future democratic decisions. Policy, in the early days of socialism, is given now by the nature of social problems.  As we have emphasised, these problems are self evident.

To feed the millions of hungry people throughout the world should not be a contentious issue requiring a democratic decision. Nor need the housing of the desperately poor living in the squalor of shanty towns and other sub-standard conditions be put to any vote. Equally, the urgent need to stop polluting the atmosphere should be a self evident priority of action for any sane society in control of its energy production methods. Seen in this light, the policies that will determine world action in socialism can be taken as already given. The question then arises, how could the existing means of organisation and administration be adapted as an integrated democratic system able to carry out these great projects?

The development of global capitalism means that it operates through a world wide structure of production. Even a simple commodity with few components is produced by labour that is dispersed throughout a world wide network of productive links. This is the modern division of labour which, in the way it is dispersed, corresponds closely with social administration at local, regional and national levels. World action to solve some problems would require agencies operating on a world scale.   Already, there is one outstanding example of a world body that could be immediately brought into an active role as part of the work to increase world food production. This is the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations. Chapter 6 will examine more closely the possible ways that world bodies such as the FAO could be integrated with regional and local production. This indicates that such problems as constructing a safe, ecologically benign system of energy production, and the problems of providing decent housing for all people would require the creation of similar world bodies.

Socialism and the State

Discussion on Socialism and the State tends to be circular or can quickly become lost in a fog of semantic confusion.  From this point on sensible dialogue is usually replaced by the repetition of slogans. It appears that few people at the radical end of politics can agree on what is meant by the “State.” 

For some groups on the “left” the state is something to be “smashed”.  If they were to succeed they would no doubt replace it with their own state system. These are groups who act under the illusion that smashing the windows of McDonalds’ restaurants has got something to do with socialism.  In fact the only result is broken glass which is immediately replaced. No doubt, in the unlikely event of them smashing the state they would replace it with something a lot nastier than the liberal democracy we have got. 

As a product of its alienated relationships, nihilistic protest has long been an institutionalised feature of the capitalist system.  In this sense it tends to perpetuate the system and is part of the status quo.  What is generally known as “the far left” diverts discontent into futile activities and through its ideas provides a common identity for individuals who are dissociated from, and who live in negative defiance of society at large.  In this way association in these groups provides therapy for a social neurosis. From time to time the capitalist state has to pick up the bill for their destructive activities (I do not include here the more justifiable outbursts of anger), but these costs are easily absorbed within the general costs of running the system. In no way do such groups, who base their activities on violence, represent any progressive tendency.

The word “state” is frequently used by anarchists and for them it is defined narrowly as the operation of “public powers of coercion”.   For anarchists the abolition of the state means the abolition of all law, police, judiciary, prisons etc.  This subject will be covered in the chapter “Socialism and Law.”   Suffice it to say here that this anarchist view of the state is useless for the purpose of either understanding the state or proposing a system of democratic administration.   It is inconceivable that a society organised for the needs of the community would allow licence for any person or group to act in a dangerous or anti social manner.  It is therefore a requirement of a democratic society that it should maintain a system of law supported by public powers of restraint.  However, in socialism, the administration of such law would be humanised and aimed at the solution of problems in the interests of all people, this would include the interests of the transgressors themselves.

To define the state merely as “public powers of coercion” tells us nothing about the state.  Much more useful is the Marxian view which understands the state as part of a theory of history. This view explains how state systems developed as successive phases of propertied society from early neolithic society to modern capitalism.  An example is the classic work by Engels, “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.”  Some may have reservations about Engels’ method of extrapolating from present day undeveloped communities and attributing their relationships to history for the purpose of describing social organisation before state systems appeared. Nevertheless, the point is well made that state systems emerged with propertied, class based society.

From this Marxian point of view we may define the state as “the regulation, administration and enforcement of class based society.”   The logic of this definition is that with the establishment of socialism, the state would be abolished.  As a classless society socialism would replace the state with a system of democratically organised civil society.

The language of socialism is rooted in economic and historical theory and this raises some problems.  For popular communication it carries the disadvantage of using specialised terms such as the “state” which have to be learned.  As against this the “state” is more commonly thought of as a system of government over a given national area or even more loosely as the administration of public affairs.  Moreover, what is meant by these terms has changed.   For example "feudal autocracy" and "liberal democracy" refer to very different state systems.  Anticipating continued change in the common use of these terms we should adopt a meaning of “government” or “the state” which sets out how these could operate in a more democratic manner.   With this approach we can propose how the operation of “the state” or “government” can be altered in ways that satisfy the requirements of what we mean by a fully democratic system. I make no apology for there being a strong element of pragmatism in a method that uses the test of social usefulness in proposing how the state system could be converted into a fully democratic system. What is meant by social usefulness is clear; it is those means which can contribute to the organisation of a society based on common ownership, voluntary co-operation and production solely for need.  In using this test of usefulness for the purpose of setting out our proposals, we rely less on the higher abstractions of theory and more on practical description.

Democratising the State.

Assuming in Britain an unlikely continuation of the Monarchy up to the eve of socialism, a first step in democratising the state system would be to liberate the royal family from the anti-democratic constraints imposed upon its members.  In socialism it would be unacceptable that any person should be denied the vote or the freedom to express a political view in public. There may be some with a sentimental attachment to history who feel that some tradition should be continued and that in socialism the monarchy could continue as a constitutional ornament without compromising the integrity of democratic practice. 

Against that we now see the indignity of a family, who, having long since been stripped of any political powers, functions as a company of overpaid actors in the theatre of state ceremony, now running its own soap opera.  Its role as a symbol of elitism when this has lost most of its mystique becomes more and more anachronistic. Its main use is as print fodder for gossip and scandal, either true or invented, in the press.  Democracy in socialism means that the royal family would be integrated with the whole community, enabling its members to participate in public affairs on equal terms with other citizens. 

It hardly needs saying that the work of the House of Lords is incompatible with the principles of democracy.   Setting aside the fact that it is a bastion of privilege or perhaps just as bad, members placed there by Prime Ministerial appointment, some arguments attempt justify its existence by claiming that it has a practical use.   It is said to provide a review chamber for legislation or a restraint on House of Commons excess.

Scrutiny of the actions of the House of Commons does not need a House of Lords.  As has been emphasised, in a socialist system, Members of Parliament would do their jobs under the terms of delegated function.  The House of Commons could be a centre of national debate reflecting opinion throughout the country.  No doubt there would be latitude for personal views on many issues, but major policy would be decided by the wider community and this would be binding on MPs.  In any circumstances in which the trust placed in representatives may be betrayed, a rigorous system of accountability, including the work of independent constitutional courts, could call the offenders to account.

The Prime Minister

A further affront to the concept of democracy is the office of Prime Minister. It may be said that an incumbent has been elected as leader by his or her party but this does not alter the case.   Firstly, the practice of leadership, which by definition is authoritarian, cannot be reconciled with fully democratic practice. Finally, in any case, in a fully democratic system the job of Prime Minister would be simply unnecessary; it would be redundant.

It could be argued that a Prime Minister works within a framework of consent, which is ultimately the electorate and more immediately, colleagues in government and party. It is true that politics is littered with cases of Prime Ministers having been booted out of office or forced to resign.  Nevertheless, as a key part of the state system a Prime Minister wields great powers of patronage and appointment.  These include appointment of Ministers as heads of departments.  Through this power of  selection, which is also a  power over the careers of politicians,  the Prime Minister creates a cabinet which meets in secret; he or she dominates its decisions with the public having no access either to the minutes of meetings nor even to the subjects under discussion. A Prime Minister may create a cabal or what has come to be known as a “kitchen cabinet”, an inner circle of favoured colleagues who reduce the work of making policy to three or four individuals.  Not withstanding open debates in Parliament, the Prime Minister is the powerful head of secret government, exerting disproportionate influence over the lives of citizens.  

We could well take a lesson from the Athenian system.   Referring to the influence of Pericles, A. R. Burn, in his book, “A Travellers History of Greece”, says, “But it is important to remember that he was not a Prime Minister or the head of a government. The Assembly was its own government.  The Council, chosen by lot and changing annually, prepared its business and looked after routine matters;  the Generals, in war and foreign affairs, carried out its policy, but did not make it.  Pericles was often one of them; but in policy making he had no special power, only influence;  he had the right, which he was proud to say was shared by the obscurest citizen, to address that formidable assembly, and to persuade it if he could.”

We should expect that public affairs in socialism will include the influence of some prominent personalities with a talent for speech or organisation, but in decision making they will have no more powers than any other citizen.

The Cabinet

Given the problems that communities in socialism would face and the organisation required to solve them, in Britain, the work of a cabinet would be most useful. In socialism a cabinet, together with its associated departments or ministries, could function as a centre of national co-ordination.   This could link the policy decisions of communities with the administrative organisation (civil service), necessary for carrying out those decisions as programmes of action.  In socialism this network of organisational links within a country would extend to world organisation.

Useful departments that would continue in socialism include those of Agriculture, Housing, Energy, Transport, Education, Health, Aviation, Technology, Planning and the Environment. Instead of a single minister acting as a  head of such a national department, perhaps a more democratic arrangement could be taken up from the committee system as it at present operates in 

Conversion of the State into an integrated system of democratic 

Local Government.   For example, at the level of District Council the elected members of a council appoint district committees.  These committees oversee the work of various departments, for example, housing, highways, recreation and planning.   A committee may also form sub committees to oversee particular parts of a department’s work.   For example a housing committee may appoint sub committees to oversee repairs and maintenance and development of sites and buildings.   Part of the job of a committee chair person is one of liaison between a committee, the permanent officers of a department and the Council.   The Committee system of Local Government is a more democratic system of administration than Central Government and could be adopted as a model for use at the national level.

Similarly, in socialism, in place of a Prime Minister appointing ministers, MPs could elect committees to oversee the work of national departments. For example, instead of a single Minister of Agriculture, in line with the committee system of local government, there could be an Agricultural Committee, which could be represented in cabinet by its chairperson. In this way a cabinet would comprise representatives from all Ministries. This could be part of an integrated structure providing for both policy making and action to carry out policy.  This would be in a sequence from public decisions to delegated members of Parliament, then to a cabinet representing the various department committees and on to the civil service, technical officers and department staffs. It would include a two way flow of information with lines of communication keeping the public fully informed of a department’s activities. 

At every stage of the sequence democracy must mean that all public business would be fully open to the public, (except perhaps where intrusion into personal lives may require confidentiality).  This would present no difficulties.   All business proceedings together with their discussions could be recorded and published.  The capitalist state cannot function without secrecy; in a democratic administration secrecy could have no place. 

It should again be emphasised that the conduct of all meetings would be entirely free of the  limitations on action imposed by economic constraints.   Especially in the early days of socialism, with so much to do, material resources would no doubt have to be allocated in an order of priorities.   

This could impose some practical constraints but the great advantage would be that in the cabinet that has been proposed, the Treasury would not just be absent, it would not exist.    The “spending round” would be a thing of the past and would be replaced by the “administration of things”.

It is also important to emphasise that such a national structure would not be hierarchical.  The different levels of organisation would be parts of an integrated system, adaptable for any purpose in any scale of life from the local to the national, regional and world scales. Neither are the proposals set out here in any way prescriptive.  It is clear that with the growth of the socialist movement the practical ways in which the state system could be converted into a system of democratic administration will be subject to continuing debate.  That the socialist movement must prepare its plans in advance of the capture of political control is unavoidable. However, the   main point here is to demonstrate how the methods of practical socialism can be applied to the question of how a socialist society could be organised.

World Organisation – The United Nations.

A united humanity, sharing a common world will require world organisation. Despite the fine rhetoric that accompanied the founding of UNO in 1945, since that time it has been little more than an extension of the various state machines that it represents. The work of its delegations is to serve national interests which are often in violent conflict with other member states.  It is now widely accepted that judged against the aims of its Charter, UNO is ineffective. In practice it is a forum for the intrigues, alliances, manoeuvres and power politics of rival capitalist governments. However, even though the rhetoric of the Charter of the United Nations may seem hollow or hypocritical, seen in its best light, it does represent a list of worthy aspirations. 

The preamble to the Charter states, “To save humanity from the scourge of war. and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.” Article 1 states, “ …  to co-operate in solving international economic, social, cultural and humanitarian problems: and in promoting respect for human rights: and to be a centre for harmonising the actions of nations to-wards these common goals.”

The fact that these aims cannot be realised within the present world capitalist system is not a reason for dismissing the entire organisation as useless. The United Nations Organisation could have a great future. As well as being critical we should set out some practical ways in which, on a different social basis, UNO could play an important part in serving all people. In 1992 UNO had 178 member countries. As there can be no doubt that socialism would require democratic organisation at a world level, UNO is a ready made organisation that could be adapted for that purpose. The General Assembly could become part of an integrated world system of democratic administration.

In their book, “The United Nations in the 1990s”, Peter Baehr and Leon Gordenker say, “As the most representative of the UN Organs, the General Assembly takes up an agenda that covers almost every international issue brought by the members or emerging from the work of the Secretariat and associated organisations.”  But they also say, “This always includes a lengthy general debate that in fact is neither a genuine debate nor a discussion, but rather a series of speeches by senior governmental representative who set out national positions.” These positions represent the conflicting interests of rival capitalist nations. At present it cannot be otherwise.

But in socialism the work of the General Assembly would be based on a common world wide interest.  With delegations from every country it could be a forum for debate and decision making with participation throughout the world, especially through electronic media. It could decide on allocation of resources in an order of priority. Its decisions could be implemented through its secretariat, technical officers and specialised bodies.  Examples of these potentially useful organisations are as follows - 

FAO - Food and Agricultural Organisation.

WFP – World Food Programme.

-      To raise levels of nutrition and standards of living; to improve the efficiency of the production and distribution of all food and agricultural products; and to improve the conditions of rural populations.

WHO – World Health Organisation.

-     The attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health (complete physical, mental and social well being); to stimulate the fight against epidemics and other infectious diseases; to disseminate information on the effect on human health of environmental pollutants; and set global standards for antibiotics, vaccines, etc.

 UNIDO – United Nations Industrial Development Organisation.

 - To promote and accelerate the industrialisation of the developing countries and to co-ordinate world industrial development activities.

 UNEP – United Nations Environment Programme.

 - To promote world co-operation in the field of the environment and to recommend policies to this end; to keep under review the world environment situation in order to ensure that emerging environmental problems of world wide significance receive appropriate and adequate consideration by all communities.

UNU – United Nations University.

       

UNICEF – United Nations Children’s Fund. 

 - Originally founded to provide aid to children after the 2nd World War, this organisation now specialises in research and the development of programmes for health improvement and social welfare for children, pregnant women and nursing mothers.

 UNESCO – UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.

- To promote collaboration among all people through education, science, culture and communications.

Further examples of organisations that could be important as parts of the organisation of socialism,  (which have been given before) are – 

ICAO – International Civil Aviation Organisation.

UPU – Universal Postal Union.

ITU – International Telecommunications Union.

WMO – World Meteorological Organisation.

IMO – International Maritime Organisation.

It is likely that other problems would require an increase in such world organisations. For example – 

WEO – World Energy Organisation.

To co-ordinate the construction of a safe world energy system; to provide advice and assistance for local energy projects; and to conduct research and develop appropriate technologies to that end.

WHCO - World Housing and Construction Organisation.

To co-ordinate a world construction programme to provide housing for all people together with appropriate services.

The conversion of UNO into a World Council would complete a structure of democratic organisation and administration operating from local through to regional and then on to world levels. Again it should be emphasised that this would not copy state structures with their concentration of centralised power in national government. It would be an integrated and flexible system that could be adapted for use in any local, regional or world scales. Local action to solve problems would be taken democratically by people  in the parish or in a District Council. Examples of these are local housing, farming, roads, transport, distribution through shops and services such as education and health care.  But facilities such as shipping and airports, road networks, large scale industrial and manufacturing units and specialised hospitals would serve regional populations and would thus be organised through regional organisation and administration. But regional activities would also be carried on in the context of world organisation through the specialised departments of a World Council.          

                                               

Relative Powers of Decision Making.

Whilst avoiding an hierarchical, authoritarian system there are some difficulties that a democratic constitution in socialism would have to overcome.  For example, these could arise from conflict between the interests of local communities and regional populations. One ongoing problem is the siting and expansion of airports. Whilst  regional populations like to enjoy convenient access to  airports for holidays and other purposes, understandably, as we have know  from the many protests and demonstrations in the past, local communities resist the expansion of airports in their own back yards.    There can be no doubt that with the absence of economic constraints on public works a socialist system would be better able to reduce the local nuisance of airports.  However, the question remains as to how the matter would be decided? 

At present, ultimately, after perhaps lengthy consultation and public enquiries, a decision is made centrally by a government minister.  This decision is then imposed on all parties.  It is difficult to accept that such an authoritarian practice would be compatible with democracy in socialism. At the same time, even with the use of a poll of all people in a region, it would not seem right for regional populations to impose their wishes on local communities. But then again it would be surely unacceptable that local communities would be free to obstruct the needs of regional populations.   One method of resolving such conflicts could be to work out a solution which takes into account the various needs of all the parties concerned.  As has been emphasised, communities in socialism would be in a much stronger position to do this but we should also accept that there can be no guarantee that such a solution will always be possible. In socialism, it would be a challenge for constitutional law to provide fully democratic means for settling disputes that may arise between different populations.  Whilst I put the problem I can only confess to having no immediate solution.

• World Administration through United Nations Organisation.

• Decision making by General Assembly in the context of policy decisions made in member countries.

• United Nations secretariat co-ordinating with UN specialist bodies.

• Specialist world bodies such as FAO working in association with National Ministries (in Britain, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.)

Democracy at Work

One of the proud boasts of the more advanced capitalist states is that they are “democratic.”  In fact, governments hardly ever stop going on about it. They sometimes go to war, allegedly to defend democracy or to bring its benefits to oppressed peoples.  We can certainly accept that in the more liberal countries, legal rights provide for some important freedoms such as rights of free expression and political organisation.  These were won after long, bitter struggles mostly against predecessors of some of the present main parties who resisted the growth of liberal democracy often with ruthless violence. But they will be the last to let the facts of history stain their present dedication to the democratic ideal. It appears that we are all democrats now - or are we?

Under the most liberal systems we can certainly promote free discussion, put up political candidates and vote whilst being reasonably sure that the results will not be rigged. But what about the many other   activities on which our lives vitally depend? These are decisions on what is to be produced and distributed for consumption; decisions on who gets what from what is produced; decisions that allocate resources to education and life or death services like health? If there is no democracy in any of these decisions can we really think of ourselves as a truly democratic society?

And then again, most of us spend most of our waking hours either at work, getting ready for work, or recovering from work. But how many of us have any say in how our jobs and the places where we work are organised?  Should the battle for democracy be content with a right to elect governments to rule over us? A truly democratic society would involve all people in the decisions about how we conduct our lives and what we do for the community.

In the past, radical activists and trade unionists looked to nationalisation as a means of creating democracy at work. This, as we have discussed has been a diversion that led nowhere.  Though the idea of nationalisation is now discredited it is worth noting that for example, coal miners once believed that under nationalisation, they would run the mines democratically in the interests of the community. In fact, in the post World War II period under a Labour Government, a National Coal Board did replace the mine owners but this was only a change of bosses under the same kind of authoritarian management. 

Many radical activists argue  that the world is now largely under the  anti-democratic control of  multi-national corporations who are able to move production to areas of cheaper labour, plunder natural resources and corrupt local politicians and officials. All this is true but the strength of such protests is mostly negated by a lack of practical ideas for bringing this corporate iniquity to an end. In fact, not just multi-national but the entire organisation of production and administrative is under the authoritarian control of either or boards of directors and their managers or state functionaries. These are the hierarchical structures from which the great mass of people who spend their lives working in them are excluded.

It is likely that with a significant growth of the socialist movement, people in their places of work would begin to prepare plans in anticipation of the enactment of common ownership. Such plans would become more detailed, possible problems would be anticipated and this would enable the change over to take place in as speedy, stable and safe a manner as possible.

With the enactment of common ownership, every part of production, distribution and administration would be brought under the democratic control of the whole community. The profit motivated operations of companies would stop and control by boards of directors through their corporate managers would cease. At this point control of all units engaged in production and distribution, the running of useful services such as schools and hospitals and all useful sections of the civil service and local administration would switch to management committees or councils elected by the workers running them. The people working throughout production, distribution and administration would already be in operating possession and their collective control would then b e authorised in law as a result of the enactment of common ownership. From this point they would carry on doing their jobs through their own democratic organisation.

Unlike corporate managers, in socialism, self regulating management committees would not be responding to the economic signals of the markets. As discussed earlier, these economic signals cannot, by their nature, be under the control of even capitalist companies let alone the democratic control of communities. In socialism, production units would be responding directly to the needs of the community. In this way the links connecting production units would be far more extensive than the economic signals that facilitate buying and selling and which connect capitalist units with their suppliers and market outlets. One immediate difference would be that with a common social interest between all parts of production access to information throughout world production would be unlimited. 

With a completely open society and there could be no industrial secrecy, copyright or patent protection. Discussion about design, materials or technique will be open with the results of research universally available. As well as having access to world information systems, production units will operate as a response to social policy decisions and in the first phase of socialism this would be about priorities of action. This could indicate how industrial and manufacturing units, etc., would need to expand or adapt their operations. This could require some units to take on more staff and this again could be administered through elected management committees in the usual way of advertising of jobs and interview etc. The main point is that all the socially useful functions of corporations in the organisation of production units would be taken over and would pass immediately under the control of management committees elected by the people running them.

Democratic Authority. 

Because we are proposing how real social problems could be solved by real people rather than inhabitants of a perfect world we should anticipate that in the running of any kind of work place, some individuals will cause problems of bad or unreliable behaviour that cause difficulties for fellow workers.  Very often, workers in capitalist units have to put up with this, especially where the perpetrator enjoys a position of power. Democratic organisation in the work place does not mean that such persons will enjoy unlimited licence to persist with destructive behaviour. It means that procedures for complaint, fair hearing and appeal would exist for solving any such problems.  Ultimately no doubt, this could mean expulsion from a work place, or what is normally meant by “the sack”.

Generally in the vocabulary of socialists the word “authority” has a bad name and is usually thought of only in its pejorative sense. But for the practicalities of democratic organisation it is useful to make distinctions between different kinds of authority. What we reject is authority that upholds economic power and authoritarian management.  These powers are property based and are used to enforce the disciplines of wage working and exploitation. This is the kind of power based structure that rules in capitalist production units.

Different to this is democratic authority. This arises from the majority decisions of people and will be appropriate for the general running of production units, services and institutions. Such decisions carry authority because they are binding on all the people in the organisation. It follows that no individual, except in a democratic manner, will be able to act against the decisions of the majority. But in socialism, different bodies and institutions of all kinds will work within a general framework of democratic administration. For example, a factory or workshop would be self regulating and would conduct its internal arrangements democratically; not in any arbitrary way but in the context of the rules and regulations of the wider community. 

Also, technical authority would apply in situations in which democracy in the work place would be inappropriate. For example, it would be unwise to accept treatment in any hospital surgery run on democratic lines. Much better to be treated by a surgeon with the authority to make decisions and instruct staff accordingly. The reason is obvious. The authority of a surgeon is not “authoritarian,” it is integral with the object of the work which is care; it is part of safe practice; it expresses his or her technical competence. So where institutions such as hospitals provide a service based on technical skill it follows that a large part of the way they are run must also be based on technical authority, as for example with recruitment of staff and promotion. This presents no difficulties for socialist organisation. Any authority based on technical competence would remain accountable to the wider community. The requirements of technical authority in such places as hospitals would still leave wide scope for democratic practice in the general running of the institution. In fact, with the removal of such constraints as lack of money, Hospital Management Committees in socialism would be better able to co-operate with medical staffs in providing the best possible care.

Trades Unions

For some years now the Trades Union Movement has seemed to have lost any radical zeal it may once have had. It now appears to languish in a role which provides little scope for action beyond the next wage claim. Unions have long since been on a treadmill going nowhere. They fight the same battles over and over again with each struggle setting the scene for the next same battle. They tend to be bogged down in bureaucracy, with a tendency to be run by careerists and time serving officials for whom the future means little more than their pensions. This does present itself as a sterile accommodation with the capitalist system. The Trades Union Movement has lost sight of an alternative society and has yet to realise it could progress to a more creative role.

Unions could play an important part in a growing socialist movement and would bring much experience to the question of how a new society could be democratically organised. In the developed countries they are present in the most important parts of production and administration; they run their affairs in a generally democratic manner and enjoy fraternal links across the world. Elected works committees already exist. This suggests a most useful part for trade union organisation in the formation of what could become management committees or councils in socialism. For this, they need to set their sights beyond the next wage claim which, whether they succeed or not, can only guarantee that corporate bosses will continue to rule their lives.  It would be sad indeed if the work of the trade unions was to end as being just another institutionalised part of the capitalist system. Surely, this would be a victory for the bosses that the founders of this great movement never intended.

Conclusion. 

The practical question of how production and administration could be democratically organised in socialism need not be made obscure by lofty abstraction or futuristic speculation. There is nothing new in voluntary co-operation; it has been a feature of life in all societies throughout history.  Indeed, we could never have arrived as a species without co-operation and development would have been impossible without it.  In the early days of pre-history, because it conferred vital survival advantages on the group, co-operation can be said to be our natural inheritance. 

Even the capitalist system depends upon voluntary co-operation. Especially in the caring services countless numbers of work hours are carried out voluntarily.   Many thousands of voluntary organisations, adding great richness to life, now run their affairs in a democratic manner. These include football, cricket, athletic and many other kinds of sports clubs; they include professional associations, residents committees, parish councils, trades unions and even political parties; they include choirs, amateur orchestras and dramatic societies.   Family life would be impossible if every job to be done had an economic value to be paid for with money; it is a huge part of our lives and depends mostly on co-operation. Therefore, to say that organisation in socialism would be the work of voluntary co-operation is argued essentially from experience. The point is to get democratic organisation and voluntary co-operation into where it matters most, that is, into the work of production and administration.  This is the prospect of a fully democratic society in which all people would be empowered in the self determination of their lives.

Pieter Lawrence

Link to Chapter 6.