The Future of Socialism

socialist experiments of the past are both a major anchoring point for modern leftists and an issue of serious criticism in many radical circles it is unlikely that the debates concerning the nature of the Soviet experiment or Mao's China will ever be laid to rest however at the core of the disagreements is a large existential crisis for the left what not the new socialist projects look like outlining a better system is conceptually challenging work especially given the amount of time and resources that are spent engaging with liberal and conservative rhetoric while the latter activity is certainly worthwhile it often takes away from the left's ability to reimagine and involve its own vision of a better tomorrow it's likely not a matter of great controversy that the democratic systems of the West today leave much to be desired such sentiment is felt not only by the left but final arming the burgeoning reactionary tendency that has taken on a global scale the rise of neo-fascism in particular and right-wing ideology in general is a symptom of a decaying liberal world order Donald Trump's victory in 2016 the UK's brexit Fiasco the emergence of Germany's AFD party the return of neo-fascism with Brazil's bowls tomorrow and many other similar phenomena reveal the cracks in a system that the left has criticized relentlessly for centuries what then should left is presented with a solid alternative model for politics governance and the economy this video will deal with precisely this question it should be worth mentioning that there can be no such thing as an exhausted discussion of alternatives to capitalism and the purpose of this video is to facilitate a reinvention in the left of what socialism could look like in the future there are many proposed alternatives for the organizational and procedural structure of politics in a post revolutionary Society in this video we will take a look at a variation of Soviet democracy sometimes known as council democracy obviously this political model does not boast a universal applicability in fact no reasonable model could claim such an impossible characteristic nevertheless as will be explained below this approach might work especially well for larger socio-political entities to understand what Soviet democracy is first mean to rehabilitate the word Soviet itself many even within the left associate the terms strictly with the USSR and other analogous Marxist Leninist experiments in fact Soviet comes from the Russian word for counsel hence Soviet democracy is sometimes referred to as counsel democracy the foundation of framework of this political system is as follows one Soviets are organized in all aspects of life these councils can be arranged in the workplace a neighborhood a military barracks etc councils are directly elected bodies whose delegates are members of the organization or community associated with the council in other words workers of an enterprise in a workplace council residents of a neighborhood and a residential council and so on and so forth soviets operate under the principle of an imperative mandate as opposed to the free mandate of liberal democracies where elected representatives are bound by the conscious and a loose non verbal contract with their constituents the imperative mandate creates direct instructions from the constituency that the delegates and representatives must work towards failure to meet the objectives laid out by the imperative mandate can result in the immediate recall the elected official by his or her constituency this recall ability is effective at any point in time provided the voting base can amass a substantial enough vote to remove a person from the elected position emerging of legislative executive and judicial responsibilities for the elected body smaller elected bodies that represent localities can organize into a larger congregation at the regional national or multinational levels this system drastically redefines the democratic process in comparison to its liberal counterpart liberal democracies for example rely heavily on what is known as horizontal accountability which is what most Americans might understand today as a checks and balances system and a separation of powers indeed council democracy abandons horizontal accountability by eliminating the separation of powers the ability of distinct branches of government to hold each other accountable at face value this might seem to be an alarming change but let us consider what council democracy does to account for this loss instead of relying on horizontal accountability council democracy constructs vertical accountability points two and three are especially reflective of that the in period of mandate a powerful tool by which elected persons would be held accountable similarly the threat of recall alone ought to be sufficient in deterring divergence from adequate legislative or executive duties the selected individuals at any and all levels will be held accountable by the people who elected them directly and not by parallel government structures in such a context the separation of powers and the American system of checks and balances appears antiquated in the American status quo accountability works loosely like so most of the accountability is horizontal the public cannot directly influence the judicial system nor can it influence the executive branch to a large degree in fact the public can only elect the head of the executive branch but it cannot weigh in on the appointments made by the elected president what influence the masses do have is limited to the free mandate principle and the lack of recall power by comparison here's what a council democracy offers in terms of restructuring the government and redefining accountability what is different in this system for one we have democratized not only geographically bound identities but workplaces as well a key feature you're missing in liberal capitalist democracies in the council democracy system the imperative mandate applies from level to level we may no longer have horizontal accountability but all functions of the government whether they be executive legislative or judicial are subject to public consideration dissatisfaction with how an elected factory council member is handling his or her tasks would result in a recall or a threat of one the smaller council can vote to recall the larger council members this can be effective going up the chain all the way to the federal or international levels even though it is now several steps remove larger councils and dissatisfied constituents they can still vote at any point in time to recall council members or entire local councils if those elected bodies are not holding the larger ones accountable in general council democracy greatly expands public input into the political process it attacks the environment in which career politicians thrive by establishing a constant state of vigilance enforced by a regular public participation in politics and the economy we will now turn to yet another modification of the electoral process that will make vertical accountability in such a system even more one the above council system still has imperfections though it is already more democratic than its liberal counterpart council democracy is far more direct than representative democracy in which candidates for election are not required to follow through on any policy proposals moreover representative democracies as is often seen in the United States present the voting public with a lesser of two evils dilemma that greatly limits social potential how can counsel democracy be improved using the council democracy graphic let us suppose a larger Council voted on a policy that ended up being too unpopular among the general public in response the public puts together a referendum including all affected constituencies in other words if it is a national policy then the entire national population of the country participates in the referendum the referendum results would necessarily have legal precedent over the council's decisions the power of the direct vote in various policy matters effectively reinforces the imperative mandate by giving citizens the ability to override their elected representatives decisions as is the case with the recall power exercising this right will likely not be necessary most of the time as the threat of its use alone ought to incentivize policymaking that reflects the interests of the public whatever combination of radical and new democratic ideas manifests in the post-revolutionary society an extremely important aspect of the transformation will be the computerization of the democratic process the information revolution of the last few decades has unlocked remarkable potential for organizing our social lives to a large extent we have seen this developed quickly in the form of social media internet forums increased access to personal technology and so on even in our political and economic lives computers have begun to play an increasingly important role the adoption of some form of council democracy would therefore greatly benefit from the integration of new technology into the political process one area that is likely already achievable with our current capabilities is the establishment of Community Council centers for facilitating frequent participation in liquid democracy individuals could have an installed application reminding them that at such-and-such time there will be national regional or local votes an X or Y policy the application could provide regular notifications on voting opportunities and offer directions to the nearest consul centers the consul centers be very easily repurposed voting centers but with installed devices that are intricately connected to a massive circuit of electoral technology liquid democracy may have been too complicated for a significantly less educated and less technologically savvy public 50 years ago but today's technology opens the doors for an explosion of civic engagement moreover previously disillusioned citizens of voting age would be greatly incentivized to keep up with various policy issues knowing that their participation in referendums or council elections will be strictly reinforced by a vertical accountability system consoles can be installed in neighborhoods workplaces schools retirement homes and any other democratically relevant locations already existing voter identification methods could easily be incorporated into a scanning mechanism at a local council center and newer identification methods would always be preferred and implemented as they became available for wide use in general a complete reinvention of the democratic process coupled with the integration of the latest technologies into the political system would result in substantially greater public participation in politics this new system would be able to more accurately reflect the interests of the people while still drawing on the competence and expertise of individuals who the public would trust their political power with though many left us defend the planned economic model as it existed in the Soviet Union that were undoubtedly several drawbacks to this organisation of production and distribution the biggest disadvantages rested on the fact that a planned economy would forever remain imperfect if it was controlled directly by people corruption greed or simple human error always played an undeniable role in the history of the Soviet economy this was especially the case as party control matured and a bureaucratic class settled in to be sure the accusations mounted by liberal critics of the Soviet economic system are mostly outlandish and steeped in ideology nevertheless there were inefficiencies in the Soviet economy and the Soviets themselves acknowledged that the advent of computer technology in the USSR in the late 50s began to interest a number of Soviet specialists could computers eliminate the issue of human corruption and error as computers of all that a rapid pace would to be able to take on logistical and economic tak that were entirely impossible for people to comprehend on their own thus began the cult of cybernetics which ardently advocated for the automation of planning and management processes in the economy Viktor Gustav a leading figure in these projects advocated for something called a gas algas was the blueprint for our nationwide computer network that would hold massive amounts of economic and logistical data the system was going to be a means for computers to communicate with themselves from one production center to another as well as to central facilities that would then relay data back to individual enterprises not only that bogus computers could use available data to optimize production quotas and account for changes in localized production points the idea of automating economic planning was powerful enough to turn heads even in Washington the CIA set up an agency to monitor Soviet progress in cybernetics and multiple US presidents were briefed on the danger of an automated Soviet economy a report sent to President Kennedy made it clear that Soviet success would give them a tremendous advantage over the United States unfortunately the introduction of the gas told Soviet leadership came at a time when the party was already too entrenched in their own bureaucracy though there was some support for the project most party leaders rightfully saw gas as a direct threat to their own professions the successful implementation of a gossip would have greatly curtailed corruption and essentially rendered many positions in the government obsolete the structure of a gas as outlined by Khrushchev and his colleagues relied on a nationwide information network where computers were available at even the smallest production points these production centers connected to a larger central computing hub that would be programmed to process data and optimize production plans according to inputs it received not only could optimization affect the production of a single facility but it could also take the information from multiple connected facilities to account for the bigger picture for example changes in steel and iron production could be translated in modified plans for construction sites or machine factories the smarter and more integrated the computerized economy would be the less errors and shortcomings would be expected Glushko throughout much of his work at a time when the frontier in computers was basic visual inputs he dreamed of a time when computers could register audio inputs and produce a response based on the interpretation of information he had no idea that by 20 19 we would have handheld computers in our pockets whose total computing power would exceed that of any produced in the best laboratories of the 70s and 80s we can draw on these devices exchange information from person to person in a fraction of a second and even dictate with our own words what we want our devices to do whoosh coughs vision was at least one computer in every production point in the country today we could have a computer in the hands of every single person involved in any kind of work of production the implications for the implementation of something like a gas are even greater in the modern context than they could have been during Glushko time this form of automation is different from what most leftists generally talk about which is automation of the production process while that is certainly a scenario we are rapidly approaching its value in a socialist economy will only be considerable through the frameworks of an automated organization and planning process what leftist need to be actively doing is reimagining what a post-capitalist society might look like in the future running left-leaning activists and individuals are caught up with the centralizing old socialist experiments forgetting that we have progressed considerably in terms of what we can feasibly construct on a larger scale we now have tools at our disposal that the Soviets and the Chinese could not even imagine and probably even coveted as they struggle to create effective political and economic models instead of taking these modern advantages for granted we should rigorously attempt to incorporate them into our theories and visions of course certain policies of the past could still be salvaged and reshaped into appropriate and effective courses of action in true dialectical fashion the future will be shaped to some degree by the past but will also be fused with something unique ultimately the system's laid out above are not polished blueprints but rather platforms from which more ideas could develop [Music]

Channel: The Marxist Project

Views: 11,967

Rating: 4.9076924 out of 5

Keywords: democracy, socialism, marxism, leninism, automation, society, innovation, politics, economics, economy, political economy, marx, OGAS, soviet, soviet union, futurism

Id: byqOHE-37og

Length: 14min 41sec (881 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 18 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Maegaranthelas]

Interesting! I live in a country where we still vote and count votes by hand, because we deem digital votes as unsafe. Tom Scott did a numberphile video on electronic voting four years ago, and I'm not sure how much more secure our current tech is.