Instead of finding some contentious issue or event and posting my thoguhts about it, this time I'll leave it to my readers, however many there may be. I'm curious: What end are you working for? If you had your way, what's your vision of a better world, and in what way do you believe your chosen ideology (be it neo-conservativism, liberalism, socialism, etc.) is the best way to achieve this?
I don't want some vague answer such as 'more democracy' or 'more freedom' or 'more equality'. I want to know why you think those goals are worth achieving, what they would look like in the real world, and how your ideals lead to those things. Be as detailed as possible.
I'll leave off on my own Utopia for now; at least until I can articulate it in less than 10 pages.
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An important value for me is compassion for others.To this end I have chosen an ideology which optimisticaly believes that humans are capable of cooperatively creating a sustainable, radically democratic and egalitarian society. To do this power,resources, and capacity must be distributed and constantly re-distributed as equally as possible, decision making (citizenship)should replace production as the most valued task of each worker and the means of production should have common ownership so that class antagonisims are eliminated and workers are emancipated.
I was born in 1953(the day the peace agreement was signed in Korea) but of course did not know yet of the 2 million who died in the war.I was raised on WW11 movies and TV (our games as children involved killing many "jerries" and "japs").Living in the Bay Area I hid under my desk in drills during the Cuban missle crisis,watched Blacks in Selma sprayed by fire hoses and set upon by dogs, was swept up in the protest movement against the VietNam war and had trouble understanding our use of atomic weapons on civilian population centers.(Hiroshima,Nagasaki)I truly did not expect the earth to survive the cold war but worked anyway on various environmental campaigns. I tried to make people aware of US intervention in Central and Latin America but people prefered to believe the NY Times.My point is,all this death and destruction and injustice (I didnt mention WW1 or Ghandi or apartheid)in just one century, the end of which I was living through,pointed to some serious problems in the structures and systems in which societies were organized.
For me, Marxism is a framework through which these issues can be addressed(and have been by many brilliant theorists) and a coherent analysis of historical developement.Its belief in universal human agency,it's selfless commitment to justice and it's pointed critique of capitalism and it's contradictions is the foundation for a modern project and revolutionary movement.
When the over-accumulation of capital expresses itself in imperialism the result is not only bloody but incredibly inefficient in terms of use of finite natural resources.When commodity consumption becomes the paramount expression of individuality, incredible amounts of human creative potential are wasted. The inevitable trauma of a fiercly competitive,collective existence manifests itself in a culture of perversion and violence.Ive rambled far to long,but this is Big.
No other serious takers,not surprising. People are generally better at criticizing others than laying out their own ideas.
With Marxism the critiques tend towards the "it already failed" or "human nature opposes it" modes.Both valid,if somewhat tired objections I have taken on in my blog.
As to how this desired change comes about,Marxists believe that capitalism contains within itself contradictions which undermine it's continued viability.Like the Christians with their Rapture, we generally believe their will occur a rupture, a point where the working class has more to gain than to lose,where appeals to justice outweigh nationalism,or race or other impediments to international solidarity.Unlike Christians this belief springs not from faith in an ancient text, but from a study of hisory.Some have argued this historical development as scientific,others believe change centers on the vagaries of human agency, but socialists see their role as one of agitating, educating and organizing (hence the funky little papers they try to hand you)as well as critique and adjustment of our own theory as conditions change, a modernizing ,if you will.
I would be interested in the short version of your ideology Loyal one.
I would like to go back to the days when the Constitution actually mattered, but this isn't quite practical.
No, I'm not bailing on Jeffersonian Democracy, only being practical. No sooner would we restore the order of old then we would revert to the way things are now. Perhaps we may stay Jeffersonian for some time, but within a few years, the courts would start handing down orders of all sorts as they do today.
So, for my Utopia, I would only enact a few changes. First, I would abolish political parties and ensure that the Constitution allows no such parties. Today's partisanship has led to a stagnation of ideas. My hope it that sans parties, we may actually see some good ideas come out of Washington.
I would also amend the Constitution to disallow the federal income tax. Without a federal income tax, the people will be much more angry about tax increases as they would all be paying--via some for of sales tax--rendering the government more responsible (that is, frugal).
I would also mandate--again with the Constitution--that budgets are to be balanced. A balanced budget ensures that today's decision's don't hurt tomorrow's children. "The earth belongs to the living" - Jefferson.
Also, I would impose term limits on representatives. Three two year terms for Congresspeople, two six year ones for Senators.
I would amend the Constitution further--though this shouldn't be necessary--to proclaim that the Constitution does not apply to the states. All decisions pertaining to the States would be null and void.
The system, with these minor adaptations, should flourish stronger, at least for a while. In due time, corruption will eat away at the system until it is need of reform again.
When it comes down to it, the Founder's did a pretty good job.
I would have weighed in on this sooner, but the annoying reality of impending joblessness has kept me busy.
Like Wiser Man, the starting point is fixing the system we have.
The "vision" is simply Locke's Enlightenment-era premise that Man is entitled to life, liberty and property.
These are attainable through a state which provides these three services.
-Rule of Law
-Protection of Private Property
-Education
Leave it to Loyal Achates to pose this question in such a bourgeois manner. I don’t blame him for his bias though. It was, of course, the same man made anti-bourgeois politics safe for the bourgeoisie who argued, in The German Ideology, that such bourgeois ideas as those offered by Loyal Achates are nearly inescapable when one is beset on all sides by a society in which the means of production are controlled by the most odious of contemporary classes. Achates goads us, saying, “I want to know why you think those goals are worth achieving, what they would look like in the real world, and how your ideals lead to those things.” But wasn’t it the friendly German quoted above who rightly lashed out at the bourgeois assumption that “ideals” will “lead” to some better world. I think troutsky’s response—I’m not sure whether or not it was a joke, but I’m assuming now that it was not—demonstrates the way the any anti-bourgeois vision is necessarily crushed by the bourgeois assumptions at the heart of the question. This is, I believe why Achates has not posted his own response to the question. Despite his obvious class background (perhaps his father was a landlord, probably a liberal humanitarian of some stature, but a landlord none the less) I believe Achates (and troutsky) are committed to an anti-bourgeois politics as I. But how will this be achieved?
I was once a follower of The German myself, and as a loyal follower of The German, the question of agency and history making—in short, how the new society would come into being—was completely unproblematic. I have a feeling that we can all hum that polka, so I won’t bother printing out the entire score. I will only say it had something to do with offspring (those of you unfirmiliar with The German’s writings may not get the joke, but rest assured the punch line is pretty much what you would imagine it to be.) Ever since I freed myself from the intellectual hegemony of The German, this question of history making has loomed large and uncomfortably over my political thinking. Some days I even thought that history might be “unmakeable” in our dire age. But then I realized (just as The German realized all those years ago) that this was an illusion created by the smothering confines of bourgeois ideology. So I set about to write down my plan for the new society (this was in late February) only to find that I had become anti-plan.
You see, if the horrors of 20th century totalitarianism have taught us anything it is that domination cannot be eliminated simply by handing over absolute power to “the right people,” “the workers’ vanguard,” or even “the dictatorship of the proletariat.” The idea that centralized power, held by the right people and administered in the right fashion, will transform and destroy domination and exploitation is the most bourgeois concept imaginable. All the important Anglophone and Francophone “enlightenment” political philosophers believed it (I am speaking here of Hobbes, Locke, Smith, Rousseau, Mill and the rest of that crowd.) The German took this concept, a both bourgeois and liberal concept, without argument and incorporated it in the most bourgeois idea of all time, “the dictatorship of the proletariat.” I know a lot of liberals will disagree with me about the classical liberals being proto-totalitarians, but as much as erudite scholars like Leonard Peikoff try to deny it, in terms of rhetoric, administration, and military ambition, Nazi Germany was the most “enlightened” country in the history of the world. That is why I feel the Enlightenment (by this I mean capitalism, bureaucracy, the nation-state, modern military establishments, government, prisons etc.) must be destroyed. The German will be helpful in this task, however, we must cast aside everything bourgeois and “enlightened” from his deeply Victorian philosophy. Chief among those ideas which must be tossed overboard is the idea that we must have a plan for how to proceed; nothing could be further from the truth. If we want to be anti-bourgeois, we need to be anti-ideal and anti-plan. The German realized this and that is why he seldom spoke of “after the revolution.”
That is why the only movements I associate myself with now are the anti-globalization movement and the anti-war movement. Both these movements are often reproached by bureaucrats, politicians, holders of capital, the media, etc. as not having any clear idea of what they would do differently from the current elites. I am tempted to exclaim, “That is exactly the point, you nebbische dolt.” We don’t have any idea what our goals are. Even if we did we would have no way to enact or to enforce these goals after our victory. The point is not to draw up some roadmap to the new society which we will enacted by soft force or hard force. We do not want to exile dissenters to the physical gulags of Siberia or to the intellectual gulags of the English department. We should instead create a world free of domination, where every individual can be sovereign over her or his own body (and I include with that the mind) and every community can decide for itself how to use its resources free from the intervention of governmental or corporate power. How can this be achieved, I refer you to Gustav Landauer.
“The state is a condition, a certain relationship among human beings, a mode of behavior between men; we destroy it by contracting other relationships, by behaving differently toward one another . . . We are the state, and we shall continue to be the state until we have created the institutions that form a real community and society of men. We are the state. We do it to ourselves, all of us, all the time, by obeying much and resisting little, by settling for a piece of the pie in exchange for our dignity, by accepting subordination in exchange for domination over the even less fortunate. If this ugly tangle of social relationships is the state, then all the gaudy regicides in the world can’t buy us our freedom.”
There you have it, it is not straightforward or easy, but the only way to my utopia i.e. the state in which every individual can create her or his own utopia, and every community can decide by its own consensus how to divide up its resources is by resisting much and obeying little. For me this resistance can be violent or peaceful, can be undertaken by masses or individuals, but the real mark of its ethicality is this: is this a resistance aimed for power or against power. Those who make a revolution for power are the budding totalitarians, and are not on my side. Those who make a revolution against power are all my sisters and brothers.
Der Deutsche ist tot. Lassen sie ihn sich ausruhen, zusammen mit seinen Ideen.
[The German is dead. Let him rest, along with his ideas.]
I fear The German. Colonel Klink was ruthless.
The German is dead, and not dead. That's the dialectic for you.
You people frighten me, like the secret police forging La Dialogue aux enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu for their own ends!!
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Anon; 'those who make a revolution against power are my brothers and sisters.' Yes!
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