Tim wrote:Anti-climactus: What use is collectivising the means of production, if workplaces still engage in competition, which wastes resources and creates animosity. Would it not be better to have the delegates direct economy, increasing efficiency? A good example of this kind of thing during the Spanish Revolution would be the situations described here
Sure, I think something
like the Spanish anarchist revolution is possible--I make many references to it on PoFo. Although, we'd also have to keep in mind that was not an authoritarian regime, as Truth To Power was suggesting all socialist regimes become. Rather it was an anarchist revolution. And reading your post above, I think we are somewhat on the same page with that and Truth To Power just misunderstood you.
However, I don't think it is something quite realistic for a place like the US, or really most of the advanced capitalistic nations of the world
today. There is much more mobility, and the economy is much more thoroughly globalized. On top of that the service sector in advanced capitalist nations have become the core of their economic production.
I don't necessarily see the cutthroat competition you envision simply by having markets, particularly if nobody is alienated from production. You also have to keep in mind that in a Federated system there can still be planning. For instance, I would assume that certain basic institutions, such as healthcare and education, would be guaranteed. Moreover there should be a commitment to full-employment and communal capital funds could be put towards those ends as well as investment in new syndicates, which individuals could apply for. In the workplace, however, there is no wage labor. Every member is a full voting member within a syndicate. In this system, in fact, competition exists but not nearly at the level of capitalist systems--neither is growth an endless monster that consumes all.
This, or something like it, seems to me to be one of the most conducive socialist prospects in advanced capitalist nations.
Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs 'pass,' so long as nothing challenges them, just as banknotes pass so long as nobody refuses them.
--William James