What authority is justified?

[the]

Totally an ISTJ answer.

Do you really think so?

 

[Satya]

Do you really think so?

I've yet to meet an intuitive who believed in a "right" to power over others.

 

[Satya]

Pending such action, I will IP ban you and all who agree with you.


Your call.

Man, I seriously hope you guys are kidding.

 

[Silently Honest]

Man, I seriously hope you guys are kidding.

:ban:

 

[TheLastMohican]

Man, I seriously hope you guys are kidding.

I hereby announce my authority to justify my own authority, and the elimination of all those who dispute that authority. You got a problem with that? :director:

 

[the]

I hereby announce my authority to justify my own authority, and the elimination of all those who dispute that authority. You got a problem with that? :director:

As long as your own interests are not involved. =p

 

[TheLastMohican]

As long as your own interests are not involved. =p

But of course, my authority is for your own good. :mod:

 

[Koba]

Okay, interesting topic. You can take authority a lot of different ways. Most people seem to be thinking of "state" (or government) when they say authority. This is a great way to look at the state. In fact, I'd say the state is, at root, an instrument of coercion. Trying to reform the state when, for all of human history, it has been an instrument of coercion, makes no sense. The more we talk about freedom, the less we should be talking about a state.

There's a great quote...
"You have the emergence in human society of this thing that's called the State.What is the State? The State is this organized bureaucracy. It is the police department. It is the Army, the Navy. It is the prison system, the courts, and what have you. This is the State; it is a repressive organization. But the state- and gee, well, you know, you've got to have the police, cause if there were no police, look at what you'd be doing to yourselves! You'd be killing each other if there were no police! But the reality is the police become necessary in human society only at that junction in human society where there is split between those who have and those who ain't got."

I'm not an anarchist, mind you. I do think the state is necessary... now. But at the same time we have to look at what groups are wielding coercion, what groups are benefiting from coercion, and what groups are getting coerced. My conclusion is that it is the vast majority of the world that is being coerced, and that exploiters use the state to retain their position via said coercion.

The best thing for people to do is to seize the state, smash it, and build something that will represent the majority's interests as best as is possible, and coerce the exploiters as much as is necessary to defend the state.

Once there, we can start to work on making the state unnecessary and building the interconnected nature of people. When Huey Newton and some of the other Black Panther Party members visited China under Mao, the Chinese officials told them that their job was to make their job unnecessary, much to the surprise of some of the Black Panthers.

To the Chinese, that was the point of their state- to represent the majority, stop the majority from losing their political power, and then to work towards not needing a state at all, through building a society based on mutual needs and cooperation, through building a society where it is not even in someone's interests to try exploit another person.

Some people mentioned consent. Consent is hardly real in our society. I mean think about it- how many things really just involve one or two people? Even things that seemingly only impact a small number of people at least have ripples that other people felt, and this can become very significant in conjunction with everyone else's ripples. We don't consent to that.

But even in forming our opinions individually, we don't really consent. We're bombarded with influences and, may I say, coercion. When I go back and watch old cartoons, I realize that they're really very political/ideological, but I didn't realize it at the time. A lot of people still don't and laugh at me when I point it out. They suck up the ideology of the status quo so much that they can't imagine anything else. How can you talk about consent in the midst of such brainwashing?

I just mention cartoons to emphasize how young conditioning starts. It doesn't stop there and it's certainly not the main way. It continues through the news, school, music, movies, holidays and other cultural practices (can you believe we're still celebrating columbus day?), etc. So with all this "psychological" conditioning, it doesn't make sense to talk about true consent to anyone, especially the state.

I think some people are hit harder than others. I see the omnipresence of pornography in US society as coercion against women in practice and probably in theory too. That's the main reason I'm opposed to pornography- not because of the "actors," not because it violates some moral fiber, but because it gets in the heads of both men and women and influences how people see women. I use a broad definition of pornography- "Cosmos" is pornography for women, to me.

I don't like to feel like I'm attached to strings, but I am whether I like it or not. When we realize it and start to notice the signs in ourselves, it can be quite disconcerting. It's like being in a tolerable amount of pain constantly. At the same time, this empowers us. We begin to move just a bit closer to reality. We can look at things in a systematic way, and so even when we're wrong, we'll learn something from it if our methods and ideology are basically right.

This is the only way to more freedom. Coming from a purely psychological point and trying to convince oneself that we're free via Liberal individualism, religious false consciousness, etc might make us feel better, but it won't change how the world works or the fact that quite a lot of people who basically have shared interests are getting screwed over.

To answer the question- when is authority justified? State authority is justified when it empowers the people and brings forth progress. The chinese government was justified in the past because they were trying to empower the people and make the state eventually be unnecessary. The US government was justified when it ended slavery and moved towards an industrial economy, because capitalist social relations empowered the people just a bit more, but now it's not justified at all, because it stands in the way of progress. The US state should be replaced.

On an individual level, it's important to remember that we're all connected. Right now, we definitely need teachers to have authority in the classroom. Maybe one day people will be able to come and go as they please from schools and the teachers will be more organizers and facilitators than strong authority figures. That would imply a very different society than our present one though. We gotta focus on the society we've got and figure out how to move forward, rather than picking out the principles that would make a nice society and trying to apply those. That second one will just schism us from reality.

Above all, authority is justified when it leads to progress.

 

[the]

[SIZE=Default]When Huey Newton and some of the other Black Panther Party members visited China under Mao, the Chinese officials told them that their job was to make their job unnecessary, much to the surprise of some of the Black Panthers.

Do you happen to have a reference to this on hand?

[SIZE=Default]When I go back and watch old cartoons, I realize that they're really very political/ideological, but I didn't realize it at the time. A lot of people still don't and laugh at me when I point it out. They suck up the ideology of the status quo so much that they can't imagine anything else. How can you talk about consent in the midst of such brainwashing?

I think this is interesting and would like to see some examples. Mostly because I already believe this and would like more evidence to back myself up.

Above all, authority is justified when it leads to progress.

Sheer madness. Whos to say what is going to progress, and at what (who's) cost?

 

[acd]

But the reality is the police become necessary in human society only at that junction in human society where there is split between those who have and those who ain't got.

YES! But..

The US government was justified when it ended slavery and moved towards an industrial economy, because capitalist social relations empowered the people just a bit more, but now it's not justified at all, because it stands in the way of progress. The US state should be replaced.

Why do you say that now capitalism stands in the way of progress? In order for capitalism to work, ever--even in the beginning there had to be haves and have-nots. A necessary economic caste of "untouchable" people on the bottom are necessary in order to support the haves at the top. What progress are you talking about exactly, that makes capitalism now unjustified?

The best thing for people to do is to seize the state, smash it, and build something that will represent the majority's interests as best as is possible, and coerce the exploiters as much as is necessary to defend the state.

Smash..how? As in a violent uprising? An overthrow? What does revolution in history have to show for violent overthrows? The people who smash their exploiters wind up (after a period of social chaos) establishing themselves as the exploiters by becoming paranoid that any hint of dissent threatens their power.. so they begin to persecute those they sought to free. I'm just thinking off the top of my head.. French Revolution, American Revolution (well, they had the slaves to take their aggression out on and unite over for a time) The Russian and the Chinese Communist revolution (which led to that witchhunt Cultural Revolution.)

You start out with violence to achieve your goal but once it's achieved, you've still got that violent energy.. (The metaphor of driving 75 mph down an interstate and having a hard time slowing down on the exit because anything lower than 50 at that point feels like crawling..)

Consent is impossible due to "brainwashing" by the media? Well, I won't disagree that the media seeks to keep people sedentary cattle and happy as pigs in filth with the current establishment.. But I don't think it is hopeless to achieve a public consensus through ensuring education for everyone to see through the bullshit.. Educate people to empower them and allow them to form a consensus and there is no need to smash. (I heard an interesting theory that if nobody voted, we'd elimate the two party system by their own doing. How funny and righteous that would be!)

So, in order to seize, smash, and rebuild the state, do you mean it should be done by an empowered few who know what is best for all of us hopeless brainwashed folk? I don't think that is any better than living in the current establishment we're in. What's the difference?

On an individual level, it's important to remember that we're all connected. Right now, we definitely need teachers to have authority in the classroom. Maybe one day people will be able to come and go as they please from schools and the teachers will be more organizers and facilitators than strong authority figures. That would imply a very different society than our present one though. We gotta focus on the society we've got and figure out how to move forward, rather than picking out the principles that would make a nice society and trying to apply those. That second one will just schism us from reality.

Pretty thought. The only way to empower people to that point would be to give quality education. Education has to be reformed in order for there to be any social reform whatsoever.
(And quality education, for the most part, I don't think we have. I think our education system serves to keep people in a hierarchal frame of mind and prepare the future haves to be haves and have-nots to accept their lot.. but that's a whole 'nother thread..)

 

[the]

But the reality is the police become necessary in human society only at that junction in human society where there is split between those who have and those who ain't got.

The police become necessary when people become too lazy/ incompetant/ unable to fight thier own battles. I underlined the most problematic one.

 

[acd]

The police become necessary when people become too lazy/ incompetant/ unable to fight thier own battles. I underlined the most problematic one.

What makes them lazy?

 

[the]

What makes them lazy?

I suppose if I was to imagine the beginning of things, I would say that when the farmer transitions into a person who would rather sell his crops and let other people defend his lands and products for him, this is the beginning of the police/military. What is lazy about it is that it is the farmers responsibility to defend is own stuff and it is the guards responsibility to portect thier own stuff, not other peoples. So maybe it is a laziness/greed combo - I think they both grow from the same roots.

 

[acd]

Are you talking about feudalism? Sounds like it to me.
I stand by, authority is necessary when there exists an economic hierarchy in a society as a means to protect the haves from the have-nots. Educate people, elimate the hierarchy, establish collectivism.. NO authority!But I am a dreamer

 

[KingOfSpades]

Smash..how? As in a violent uprising? An overthrow? What does revolution in history have to show for violent overthrows? The people who smash their exploiters wind up (after a period of social chaos) establishing themselves as the exploiters by becoming paranoid that any hint of dissent threatens their power.. so they begin to persecute those they sought to free. I'm just thinking off the top of my head.. French Revolution, American Revolution (well, they had the slaves to take their aggression out on and unite over for a time) The Russian and the Chinese Communist revolution (which led to that witchhunt Cultural Revolution.)

totally agree....there has yet to be a violent revolution that has led to a peaceful society. I think cuba might come close but there have been lot of dissidents have been tortured and killed to support it. of course, we torture and kill loads of people in the US as well.

the way is the goal. if you want a peaceful society you have to use peaceful methods. if you're just looking to seize power for yourself, then i suppose you can use any means necessary.

Pretty thought. The only way to empower people to that point would be to give quality education. Education has to be reformed in order for there to be any social reform whatsoever.
(And quality education, for the most part, I don't think we have. I think our education system serves to keep people in a hierarchal frame of mind and prepare the future haves to be haves and have-nots to accept their lot.. but that's a whole 'nother thread..)

i think this is right. education is our only hope. you have to have hope that parents will educate their kids better than they've been raised, and the kids will do so, etc etc, until you get a generation that wakes up and realizes what a sham it is to serve creditors and get into debt (the essence of our modern economic system). in doing so you expand consciousness and lead to free-thinking...free-thinking is the work of our mind at its most creative, its most powerful.

agreed as wel that our modern education system is meant only to produce cogs in the system. as Foucault pointed out, schools look an awful lot like prisons these days. and with lockdowns and what not, where you actually have armed guards on campus, the parallels are even more striking.

the real revolution is in the mind of a child.

 

[alcyone]

Well, capitalism itself isn't a bad system. Except for the human failing of greed.

Besides, the US society isn't a republic, or democratic.

Everyone assumes it is because thats what we are told. Truth is, this country has made the shift to oligarchy. The richest people in the country run the show, and us low tier people don't matter to them. There will always be more of us to replace those who fail. And so, there is no incentive to make our lives better, or to make it easier for us to make our own lives better.

 

[alcyone]

As for a violent overthrow....

There is always a first time!

 

[Koba]

Do you happen to have a reference to this on hand?

Yep, I do. I can quote him for you. I'm taking this from a "in conversation with William F. Buckley" in The Huey P Newton Reader.

"... BUCKLEY: The rules of democracy are that the art of persuasion has to be practiced short of assassination.

HUEY: I understand that. There is also the same principle operating in socialist or communist countries.

BUCKLEY: Give me an example, where?

HUEY: Well, let's choose the People's Republic of China.

BUCKLEY: Tell me one authority on--

HUEY: We could start with Chou En-lai. I spoke with him in the People's Republic of China. I had six hours of private talks with him, and I had many hours of talks with responsible members of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. I was shocked. I suddenly realized how brainwashed I had been by Western thought. As I sat there, it was said that all the state administrations are opressive to someone. And he started to explain that the cpaitlaist state, that the people who own the capital, are a minority; they oppress the majoirty thorugh explitation. He said that in the national state, sometimes a whole nation will oppress the rest of the world with their state national administration, so they're still a minoirty oppressing hte majority of the world's people, the way the Hilter regime attempted to do, and the way this [American] regime attempts to do. What I thought was so shocking was that he said, "While you have the state administration, we expropriate form the people. If the people in this country earn ten dollars an hour, we only give them eight. The difference bewteen us and the capitalist class is that our exporpiration is different. We don't have private owenrship, so we would give the dollars that expropirated form the people back for their own welfare. The capitalist state gives it tothemeslves, into their pockets. Therefore, the people are still not free as we would like. However, we work for the dissolution of a state---for our own disapppearance."

When he said that, I reialized that he was saying that he is working for the end of the communist regime in China. I thoguht that was very honest. That was a statement htat led me to believe that if he's working for the dissolution of the state, then opposition could arise to work to wither away territorial boundary lines.

BUCKLEY: I'm attempitng to pin down a point and I'm losing track of it. I said, "Who agrees with you?" and you said "Chou En-lai." And then you proceeded to tell me what Chou En-lai said to you.

HUEY: I can tell you of other people: Comrade Tung, Comrade Li, you wouldn't know the difference. I named a person that you're probably familiar with. They say that you're well read and you are concious of world events, so I only named one of the officials in China so that you could identify him. I doubt if you've been to the villages, the countryside of China. Have you?

BUCKEY: Yes, I did go..."

I'll stop there so I'm not quoting the whole thing.

I think this is interesting and would like to see some examples. Mostly because I already believe this and would like more evidence to back myself up.

I will tell you to find them yourself. I don't watch TV much anymore, let alone old cartoons, so I don't have a list drawn up. I could go to youtube and find something, but so could you. I did have less objections to some shows than others. Not too long ago I went through some of the episodes of Pinky and the Brain, and they were really much better than I had realized as a child. But go through Tom and Jerry or Looney Toons and ask yourself:
What kind of connections does this cartoon make people seem to have?
Whats kind of stereotypes are represented?
What values are pushed?
etc

Well really, do this with anything and everything. Awareness is good. This doesn't replace enjoying something, but I've found that whether I enjoy something subjectively or not doesn't necessarily have a lot do with its political and ideology basis.

If you really want, I can go look for some examples still though.

Sheer madness. Whos to say what is going to progress, and at what (who's) cost?

When I say progress, I mean material progress. I mean both producing more and the standard of life rising (lifespan, health during life, infant mortality, etc). This isn't to exclude "spiritual" progress from the whole thing, and in fact I think people's mindset and education is very important, but that's not so measurable and goes along with the first one.

Who's to say? I'm to say. You're to say. We're all to say. At what cost? At any cost that is necessary, and at as little cost as possible that is not necessary. At who's cost? At the cost of the sacrifices of the people (read into the repression and killings of the Black Panthers for something directly relevant to US) which will be much smaller than the gains of the people.

The great thing about socialism is that it gives everyone a chance to make the right choice. A capitalist can give up his or her capital, get a job, and be fine. This capitalist can even be a supporter of the revolution, although most of them will oppose and have to be fought. The US army, among other forces, was sent into the USSR after the revolution. So it came at the cost of the soldiers on both sides too, but the US didn't have to send those soldiers in and those soldiers didn't have to go along with the US.

"Liquidating ___ as a class" just means getting them to interact with people in a new way to the point where they cease to be a part of their old class. People mostly act in their class interests, so if there is opposition that has to be dealt with, that is an unfortunate reality until their class has been removed.

Why do you say that now capitalism stands in the way of progress? In order for capitalism to work, ever--even in the beginning there had to be haves and have-nots. A necessary economic caste of "untouchable" people on the bottom are necessary in order to support the haves at the top. What progress are you talking about exactly, that makes capitalism now unjustified?

Well, capitalism is now impeding development of the world economy. Countries that are still feudal would stand to benefit from capitalism, but they're being held in an artificial state of backwardness. How did this happen?

Well let's step back a minute, and say we're a factory owner. We get people to make planks. These planks cost, say, 2 dollars in materials, and we sell them for 6 dollars a plank (these are all arbitrary numbers to make a point, by the way). Now let's say we have a worker who can produce 100 planks in a 12 hours. We're pulling in $400 from this workers efforts combined with our raw wood and machinery.

Of course we don't get to keep all of it. Let's say 100 goes maintenance. Let's pay our worker 5 dollars an hour (decent wage internationally) and give him 60 dollars. We're able to pocket 240 without really having done much at all, and we can use the 240 both to sustain ourselves and to repeat the same process on a bigger scale. In fact, we want to produce as much as we can and do this on as big a scale as possible, so we can rake in more money. Things are looking good here, because we have far more planks than we ever did in the past. More is being produced and so people have more, and the quality of life is improving for the industrial worker as compared to the feudal peasant. Things are getting better, so I call this progress.

A strange thing comes up though... Our worker, who's paid a decent amount, can only afford 7 planks. Where are all these buyers coming from?

So a luxury market starts up. Factory owners can buy planks, whittle them, piss on them, whatever. They got some extra cash so it works out for a while. But eventually, more is produced than is needed even with the luxury market, because there's a contradiction here. The individual factory owner wants to produce as much as possible,, but people can only buy so much. When the society produces more than it can buy, this is called the "crisis of overproduction" and is one of the biggest things that leads to depressions. During the Great Depression in the US, there was still plenty of production going on, but no one was buying and things just spiraled out of control.

The next solution was the imperial age. Industrial countries would go into countries, take their stuff, produce things, and sell the things to the industrial countries. The biggest motivation for the imperial age wasn't to get other people's stuff but to get buyers. That worked for a while, too, but crises overproduction still occurred. At the same time, colonial nations had a higher consciousness thrust upon them through their exploitation, and we began to see more and more rebellions.

Now let's skip to modern day capitalism. It's no longer just a factory owner, but huge corporations, which imperialize the rest of the world and try to buy off exploiting nations. Despite what the libertarians say, this is the natural way of things. Laissez faire capitalism will grow into monopoly capitalism and imperialism as capitalists attempt to align the state to themselves and to exploit other nations.

Strangely enough, in the US we don't produce a lot of what we buy, but we aren't a Chinese colony. (Actually, the US isn't a single nation either. The various native groups that we've mostly exterminated but still exist to some degree, Blacks, Hawaii, etc have the traditional qualities of nations and are exploiting, while there is a main, predominantly white group that exploits these nations and others) We've managed the trick of not even producing what we buy and having a "service" economy. What does our service economy look like?

It looks a lot like a mall, to use another group's metaphor. Actually, I'm just going to come out and quote this group. I disagree with them quite strongly about many things, but what I'm about to quote expresses is still very relevant.

"Amerika’s economy is like a giant mall. The majority of 'workers,' instead of actually producing things, have jobs distributing things. This includes tasks like moving things around, repackaging them, designing advertising campaigns, standing behind cash registers, etc. Inevitably, you have the people whose jobs are to merely account for all these financial and labor transactions, an army of private security guards [and police] and a few people who clean up the mess at the end of the day. This is essentially what Amerika’s service-based economy looks like."
-Parasitism: The Economics of Imperialism by RAIM Denver

So in the non oppressed communities of the US, we benefit from capital in the third world through taking some people's stuff, getting some people to produce stuff, and then using inflated wages, made possible through exploitation of other communities, to be able to afford it. This is the latest response to the crisis of overproduction. It has every interest in holding the majority of the world in an artificially backwards state. So, I say it's non-progressive.

Smash..how? As in a violent uprising? An overthrow? What does revolution in history have to show for violent overthrows? The people who smash their exploiters wind up (after a period of social chaos) establishing themselves as the exploiters by becoming paranoid that any hint of dissent threatens their power.. so they begin to persecute those they sought to free. I'm just thinking off the top of my head.. French Revolution, American Revolution (well, they had the slaves to take their aggression out on and unite over for a time) The Russian and the Chinese Communist revolution (which led to that witchhunt Cultural Revolution.)

You start out with violence to achieve your goal but once it's achieved, you've still got that violent energy.. (The metaphor of driving 75 mph down an interstate and having a hard time slowing down on the exit because anything lower than 50 at that point feels like crawling..)

Well, first off, I said smash the state. I never said to "smash" exploiters. The point, of course, would be to eventually stop such groups from being able to exist, but this is still a very important distinction. It's not a matter of removing "bad people"; I leave that to the fascists.

Secondly, you reduce things to personal qualities without any evidence. It's basically a guess that amounts to the "human nature" cop out, only we don't really know what human nature is under oppressive and free settings.

Before the Russian Revolution, I do not think any revolutions truly based themselves in the masses. During the French Revolution, the masses (peasantry and what proletariat there was) stood to benefit through destroying feudalism, so the bourgeoisie enlisted their aid in fighting the feudal monarchist state. What was formed, however, was a bourgeoisie state, and not a peasant state or even a proletariat state. On the other hand, Lenin said the point of the Soviet Union was to form a "dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry," an alliance where these two groups would take the government into their own hands and exclude the bourgeoisie and aristocracy until the bourgeoisie and aristocracy no longer existed.

I see the states that based themselves among the masses as being extremely successful. Life expectancy doubled under Stalin's leadership, faster than ever before in history. Unless you think people can be free when they're dead, this should be very exciting for you.

http://www.archive.org/details/sovietsocietyabo012070mbp

(Vestnik Statistiki was something roughly like a census bureau in the USSR.)

I see things as improving quickly in the USSR, although not without error, up until some time around where Stalin died and Kruschev took power. Then things began to change. People began to interact with each other in a capitalist way, and the state just mediated it. Now we see the same thing happening in China, despite Mao's attempt to prevent this with the cultural revolution. "State capitalism," or capitalist social relations mediated through the state, was instated after a person's death.

Now, I've just been sitting here telling you that personal qualities isn't the way to explain things, and I've just gone and said that a single person dying changed the whole country. What gives here? I think it was personal qualities that were actually preventing the natural thing from happening, and personal qualities just aren't enough in the long run. Since I'm a materialist, I think we need to look at several things.

The first I'll just start with by saying Mao was onto the truth but obviously not the whole truth. In addition to emphasizing the remnants of the old culture, Mao told people to question the bureaucracy and administration. He also encouraged people to think, try to understand things, and to lead the government. He is responsible for the "mass line" theory, which. to simplify involved both guiding and taking guidance from the masses. The mass line theory is the theory of revolutions but also of socialist states.

Here is an old Chinese propaganda poster.

"Thoroughly engage in great revolutionary criticism"

But China still left socialism in favor of an authoritarian state capitalism. This is an infinite improvement over China 100 years ago, when it was divided among the world's imperialist powers, but China is no longer socialist. What else is there to look at?

An idea of mine is that the political structure itself may be susceptible to being hijacked as a way to influence people with resources, in a sort of neopatrimonialist way. If that's the case, the traditional Marxist-Leninist power structure may be faulted in some way. That does NOT mean socialist countries should just adopt a western style government; they would need to do something new. The idea here is that a Stalin or a Mao might be capable of not using the power structure that way, but if that's how it's set up someone eventually will.

An idea of another political group is that capitalist restoration is the result of international influences and the sustained attempt of capitalists to "buy out" leaders of socialist countries. The idea here is that a Stalin or a Mao might be capable of resisting these forces, but someone will eventually give in if that's the easiest thing to do.

What all these things suggest, though, is that it's not that the ball of violence just keeps rolling. Hell, socialists didn't start violence. The imperialists did. They went out, brought their armies around the world, and enforced a very negative way of things. The bourgeoisie state uses violence to suppress anyone who challenges its authority outside a very particular framework.

I'm sorry to say it, but pacifism won't stop violence or exploitation. Mao said "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." Note that he didn't say the gun was political power itself, just the beginning of it, a tool. Mao famously said "We are advocates of the abolition of war, we do not want war; but war can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun."

Anyone who would shun violence on principle while others are hurt just to feel "clean" is acting selfishly, in their own interests to the exclusion of others. I can't necessarily blame them, but I don't have any illusions about what's going on. That's not to say violence is always the best option immediately, because it's not, but outright and absolute pacifism over the long term amounts to the support of those who use violence.

Consent is impossible due to "brainwashing" by the media? Well, I won't disagree that the media seeks to keep people sedentary cattle and happy as pigs in filth with the current establishment.. But I don't think it is hopeless to achieve a public consensus through ensuring education for everyone to see through the bullshit.. Educate people to empower them and allow them to form a consensus and there is no need to smash. (I heard an interesting theory that if nobody voted, we'd elimate the two party system by their own doing. How funny and righteous that would be!)

But see, education is one of the biggest sources of indoctrination! The system isn't going to give that up. Public schools are part of the state, just like the prisons. School is a prison, really.

What progressively minded people CAN do is set up independent media and education of their own. Political groups have recognized the need to do this and set up newspapers for a long time. The more advanced political groups went beyond reporting facts to purposefully educating and building a certain way of thinking.

The Black Panthers, finding that they were shunned at public schools, actually set up their own "Liberation Schools." (Edit: That's Huey Newton blowing the bubble, by the way!)

Education will be very important under socialism too, though.

"As I have already said, in moments of great peril it is easy to muster a powerful response with moral incentives. Retaining their effectiveness, however, requires the development of a consciousness in which there is a new scale of values. Society as a whole must be converted into a gigantic school."
-Socialism and man in Cuba by Che Guavara

I make these references not only because they've been said so well, but to emphasize how much is really going on and how connected all this stuff is.

So, in order to seize, smash, and rebuild the state, do you mean it should be done by an empowered few who know what is best for all of us hopeless brainwashed folk? I don't think that is any better than living in the current establishment we're in. What's the difference?

It can only be done by the masses. The masses need to be led though, or else violence will be disorganized, like the recent race riots we had over the police murder of Oscar Grant, who was unarmed and on the ground at the time. Blacks know something's wrong, they know that whether or not they like it things are violent, but they don't have the disciplined leadership to make something happen. When the Black Panthers picked up weapons and patrolled the police, they were having that leadership, and they saved countless lives.

If the vanguard does not stay in touch with the masses, they will never lead a revolution. If socialism is established, losing touch with the masses means losing socialism too, which unfortunately has happened in most or all socialist countries. Keeping people involved and in touch is highly important, but they need to be empowered to be able to do so... and in turn empower those who truly represent them.

Pretty thought. The only way to empower people to that point would be to give quality education. Education has to be reformed in order for there to be any social reform whatsoever.
(And quality education, for the most part, I don't think we have. I think our education system serves to keep people in a hierarchal frame of mind and prepare the future haves to be haves and have-nots to accept their lot.. but that's a whole 'nother thread..)

You are absolutely right. Organization without education is meaningless. But education without organization is meaningless too.

The police become necessary when people become too lazy/ incompetant/ unable to fight thier own battles. I underlined the most problematic one.

I don't think that's it. I don't see much difference at all from the state sending police into Black communities and the state sending the army into Iraqi communities. It's not a matter of people fighting their own battles. If that were all it was, the police would probably be private.

 

[Koba]

I think cuba might come close but there have been lot of dissidents have been tortured and killed to support it. of course, we torture and kill loads of people in the US as well.

I think I mostly addressed what you said in the post I was writing while you posted that, but one thing about Cuba being peaceful...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba_in_Angola

"Because they had it all planned. And the history is well known. Since many years ago, the imperialists knew that these colonies will liberate themselves. They started organizing their movements. Cabinda has huge oil reserves. That's one of the reasons the imperialists want to own Angola. They organized the F.N.L.A. with people from the CIA.

Some imperialists ask themselves why Cubans help Angolans? What interest do we have there? They think that when a country does something, it is because they want oil, diamonds, copper or some other natural resource.

No, we are not looking for material benefits and it's logical that the imperialists don't understand that. Because they are guided by chauvinistic, nationalistic, and egotistic criteria. We are carrying out our basic internationalist duty by helping Angolans!

(crowd applauds loudly)"
- Speech by Fidel Castro, starts at about 5:24.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB5gtr7DTrI

And Cuba doesn't torture anyone. There's no real evidence for that.

 

[the]

Are you talking about feudalism? Sounds like it to me.
I stand by, authority is necessary when there exists an economic hierarchy in a society as a means to protect the haves from the have-nots. Educate people, elimate the hierarchy, establish collectivism.. NO authority!But I am a dreamer

Right off the bat the people who are educating are going to be in a position to gain more than the people who are being educated.

1. They already know more

2. They will need to be compensated for teaching instead of working thier own resources.

3. If they dont teach the whole plan goes down the drain so they are "essential"

4. Teaching is inherently hierarchal.



Anyway I think that people who can collect more should be able to do what they want with it, and shouldnt be regulated just because they "owe" something to society. Just because I pay people to help me sell my carrots doesnt mean I owe them a lifetime of employment or that I am obliged in all cases to pay thier medical bills, or even owe them a decent wage. I only owe them what we agreed upon.