<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">Dante-Gabryell Monson</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:dante.monson@gmail.com">dante.monson@gmail.com</a>></span><br>
Date: Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 3:15 PM<br>Subject: Fwd: Workers control, the state and its ending<br>To: <a href="mailto:econowmix@googlegroups.com">econowmix@googlegroups.com</a><br><br><br>interesting thread, on the same old topic ...<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">david bangs</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:dave.bangs@virgin.net" target="_blank">dave.bangs@virgin.net</a>></span><br>
Date: Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 12:58 AM<br>Subject: [TheLandIsOurs] Workers control, the state and its ending<br>To: <a href="mailto:TheLandIsOurs@yahoogroups.com" target="_blank">TheLandIsOurs@yahoogroups.com</a><br><br><br>
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<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Hiya Brendan,<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">I’m commenting on your last mailing re: the
state and property & the market...Quotes from you in <b>bold.</b> <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">“What
is a state?”<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">The state is an institution designed to act as
the <i>final, overarching, guarantor for a
ruling class</i>. Its core function, therefore, is to have a <i>monopoly of violence</i> over its territory.
It is, in its essentials, <i>“armed bodies
of men”</i>. The modern capitalist state may have many other economic,
regulatory, administrative, and ownership functions, and many of these may be
ameliorative....but they are ultimately measures of social control...the velvet
glove on the iron fist.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">The ideology of the capitalist state (unlike
previous feudal and slave states) is that of neutrality between
classes...universal rights...and its ameliorative functions and use of its
monopoly of violence to enforce civil peace give credence to this. Miners on the
picket lines in ’84-’85, students occupying the Tory Party HQ last year, rioters
in Hackney, and insurgents in Afghanistan and Vietnam know better, though, wot
the reality of the modern capitalist state is... <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">“Given that a movement sufficient to overthrow a nation state would
involve millions, how do you avoid turning back into a de facto state with a
professional, political elite from which most people are distanced and
effectively disenfranchised?”<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></b></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Democracy is at the very core of the fight for
socialism and in its building after the overthrow of capitalism. It is not some
add-on. You cannot build the comradeship, build the alliances, and the correct
strategic direction unless your practice is that of thorough going democracy.
You need all the guarantees...rights of recall, rotation of office, employment
on an average workers wage , annual elections (at least), assemblies and
decision making at the lowest level possible for each issue, compensatory
measures for those suffering double oppressions...all that and
more.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">The self-activity of the mass of the class and
its allies is the greatest guarantee that leaderships will not develop private
interests over and against their base...and the prospects for that solidity
against bureaucratic regression get better as our cultural level rises over
time. The descent into stalinism’s barbarities was helped greatly by the
cultures of deference, patriarchy, feudal ranking and kow towing, that
characterised the largely peasant countries where the biggest 20th century
revolutions took place. <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">You must have faced some very bad experiences,
Brendan, to damn socialists in the way that you do (end paragraph...<b>“but then I do trust ordinary people, I'm
not a socialist”). </b>I sympathise, and have struggled with the same bitter
feelings myself over the years against the sectarian and manipulative behaviour
of some other ‘socialists’. Many of them have internalised the practices of the
stalinists they denounce (just as, in earlier times, the stalinists internalised
the oppressive practices of the monarchies they overthrew). On the other hand,
the socialists I have met include many of the best people in my life...who I
would trust with my life.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 253, 242); color: black;" lang="EN-GB">“The Arab spring has been
wonderful to behold (particularly the tortured hypocrisy of the US/Israeli
axis) and the Greek workers may yet burn the temples of power, but do you
actually think there will be a permanent overthrow of the state in either of
these arenas?”<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 253, 242); color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></b></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 253, 242); color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Not now, and not soon, of
course. The huge defeats that the workers and socialist movements have suffered
globally over the last thirty years mean that we are at the beginning of a
protracted process of rebuilding our movement. <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 253, 242); color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 253, 242); color: black;" lang="EN-GB">The arab revolutions have
not passed beyond the stage of <i>political</i> revolutions (that is,
revolutions overthrowing particular governments) to that of <i>social </i>revolutions (that is, revolutions
overthrowing whole ruling classes), though there are major elements within them
who are fighting on a class basis - for free trade unions, for militant action
against the employers and the state.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 253, 242); color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 253, 242); color: black;" lang="EN-GB">I think we can be confident
that that revolutionary process will continue and
radicalise.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 253, 242); color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 253, 242); color: black;" lang="EN-GB">I don’t think, too, that I
was clear in my first posting to you on this issue. I do not think (as
anarchists do) that anti-capitalist revolutions can result in the immediate
abolition of the state. They result in the abolition of the <i>capitalist</i> state, of course. That <i>has</i> to be smashed in the course of the
revolution...And the new <i>workers’</i>
state will <i>wither away </i>as we build
socialism. But it cannot be abolished immediately post-revolution for the reason
that our newly victorious class needs its own monopoly of violence to prevent
the<span> </span>capitalist class from slugging
back into power....For the one thing we can be absolutely certain of is that the
global capitalist class will not relinquish its power peacefully. A class that
organised the overthrow of the democratically elected Marxist government of
Allende in Chile in 1973 and threatened annihilation so many times against the
tiny Cuban revolution will need to be surrounded and carefully disarmed with
great thought and tactical care...and it cannot be done without our class being
protected against their violence.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 253, 242); color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 253, 242); color: black;" lang="EN-GB">As I said earlier, though,
I do not think that the post-revolutionary withering away of the state will take
that long in the most developed countries, which have already reached a high
cultural level and a point when they can potentially provide for all basic
needs.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 253, 242); color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 253, 242); color: black;" lang="EN-GB">The functions of the state,
as it withers, will reduce to <i>administrative</i> functions, as all its
separateness dissolves into civil society. Thus, for instance, its legal
functions will both change and dissolve. I believe about <i>90% </i>of all bourgeois state law is <i>property </i>law (which confirms beautifully
the class character of the state). Thus, with the withering away of private
property, this huge and ramshackle apparatus of legal bunkum will become
redundant, too.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 253, 242); color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 253, 242); color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">“The
horror of socialism is that it claims to be on the side of the workers but will
not, under any circumstances, trust them with direct control of resources.
That's why we need to keep the guarantee of private ownership, (and I mean
ownership) moderated by regulation to prevent the accumulation of
excess.”<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></b></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">You are just extrapolating from the
20<sup>th</sup> century’s nightmare of stalinism, Brendan, and your “horror of
socialism” takes you in a bad direction if it just drives you back into the arms
of private property.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">There have been many experiences of workers
control within the militant labour movement over the past century, and many
socialist experiments in workers self management over the past century...many
quite small, but others very large. The revolutionary government of Tito, after
its victorious anti-nazi revolution in 1945 (the only other successful
anti-capitalist revolution in Europe apart from the Russian Bolshevik
revolution) instituted a nationwide programme of workers’ management in all
industry, which lasted right up to the fragmentation of Yugoslavia in the ‘90’s.
This was not one of the multitudinous manipulative shams that we all grew so
weary of in the stalinist states...it was a profound and real experiment in
workers self-management. You may remember that this issue did come up during the
fratricidal conflicts of the ‘90’s and one of the targets of the pan-European
‘Workers Aid to Bosnia’ convoys was to bring relief to one of the Bosnian towns
that still retained that self-management regime and was determined to defend it.
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">The great limitation of this self-management
experiment was that it did not extend beyond the level of individual plants to
plan at industry-wide, national, and federal state levels...and that was a
drastically weakening limitation. For all that, though, it was an experiment
well worth studying and disseminating widely. <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">The General Secretary of my own socialist
organisation was invited to Algeria after the success of their revolution
against French colonialism in 1962 to drive forward their experiment in workers
self-management in both their factories and the taken-over farms and vineyards.
Sadly, the socialist government of Ben Bella was overthrown after three years,
in 1965, by a right wing military coup. <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">If you do not know them already, Brendan, you
would really enjoy reading about the two experiments in workers control which
have most inspired me. <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">ONE was the Lucas Plan in the 1970’s when the
many unions (13, was it ?) in Lucas Aerospace combined to create a plan to
convert the whole combine to the production of socially useful products. Lucas
Aerospace (the predecessor of current British Aerospace) was a weapons
manufacturer, just as it is now, and the workers devised, and even made and
tested, a whole range of alternative socially useful products – kidney machines,
energy efficient vehicles, low-tech stuff for poor countries – and lobbied and
drove forward the plan against their management. With limited help from the
Labour government (Tony Benn was at the technology ministry) they even got, if I
remember rightly , the formal acceptance of the plan at the highest level. They
were undermined, in the end by the national<span> </span>trade union bureaucrats and the Labour
Party leadership.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">I don’t want to give the impression that this
was some small bit of fancy tinkering. It was actually a huge and detailed
effort by a very diverse workforce of many thousands, using their technological
and political skills to drive forward a major effort at industrial conversion by
the exercise of workers control...<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Read <u>‘The Lucas Plan, a new trade unionism in
the making’</u> by Hilary Wainwright and Dave Elliott. Allison and Busby (1982).
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">TWO was the Green Bans movement by the New South
Wales Builders Labourers Federation, again in the ’70’s. This trade union drove
forward an incredibly inspiring campaign of action for a socially responsible
building industry. They campaigned with middle class bush protection groups to
halt the bulldozing of virgin bush. They campaigned against the gentrification
of working class districts for up market malls and offices and posh houses. They
joined with students protesting against discriminatory building projects. They
campaigned against the Springbok tours. They campaigned against anti-gay and
anti-women projects. They campaigned against the bulldozing of ancient veteran
native trees near the Sydney Opera House development...and so on and on...and
their campaign went on for years... It was, like the Lucas Plan, not defeated by
the employers (who they very seriously damaged...to the extent of many millions
of dollars of lost profits) but by the stalinist bureaucrats of their own trade
unions. It is one of the most inspiring campaigns I know of (as an
eco-socialist). <u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">If you can get it, read <u>‘Green Bans, Red
Union, Environmental activism and the New South Wales Builders Labourers’
Federation’</u>, by Meredith and Verity Burgmann. UNSW Press (1998). <span> </span><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">“Even
posh people need somewhere to live, and if they're using their economic
advantage to nab ex-council houses, that's indicative of the general shortage of
housing rather than the fact that some of the stock has changed hands, albeit in
a deeply undesirable way from poor to rich, in wealthy
areas.”<u></u><u></u></span></b></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></b></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">I think that is only partly true, Brendan. I do
not think there is a general shortage of housing. The issue is one of <i>distribution</i>, not of an absolute lack of
supply. Development under capitalism is inevitably geographically and socially
uneven. That’s why there’s much less demand for housing in your neck of the
woods relative to mine. The answer is to end the geographical inequality of
capitalist development, so that all regions develop sustainably and equally.
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">For that you need to democratically control and
plan the productive forces. It is (to go full circle) the market and concomitant
private ownership of production that inevitably creates these regional
inequalities.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Enough from me now...I’m going to
bed<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Take care<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Dave Bangs</span><span style="color: black;"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></p></div>
<blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(0, 0, 0);" dir="ltr">
<div style="font: 10pt arial;">----- Original Message ----- </div>
<div style="font: 10pt arial; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(228, 228, 228);"><b>From:</b>
<a title="b_m_boal@yahoo.com" href="mailto:b_m_boal@yahoo.com" target="_blank">Brendan Boal</a>
</div>
<div style="font: 10pt arial;"><b>To:</b> <a title="TheLandIsOurs@yahoogroups.com" href="mailto:TheLandIsOurs@yahoogroups.com" target="_blank">TheLandIsOurs@yahoogroups.com</a>
</div>
<div style="font: 10pt arial;"><b>Sent:</b> Monday, November 07, 2011 3:22
PM</div>
<div style="font: 10pt arial;"><b>Subject:</b> Re: [TheLandIsOurs] The RSI:
Will Robin Hood make the wealthy richer or poorer?</div>
<div><br></div>
<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12pt;">
<div><span>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">
<div><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><span>Hi again
Dave,</span></font></font></font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><span><br>Yes this is
good fun. </span></font></font></font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><span><br></span></font></font></font></div>
<div>
<div><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><span>Your response
implies that if a revolution can be fomented and sustained then a stateless
condition can be attained, but this begs the question: What is a state? In
autonomous, anarchist collectives we are able, usually, to do things by direct
consensus because we are few in number. The numbers involved are still
insignificantly small once direct consensus is no longer possible and a
delegate system is needed . I have experienced such systems on big actions
like the G8 and Climate Camp and even when it involves only a couple of
thousand people and those people are politically astute radicals, there is
already the beginnings of a sense of disconnect from the centre of power.
Given that a movement sufficient to overthrow a nation state would
involve millions, how do you avoid turning back into a de facto state with a
professional, political elite from which most people are distanced and
effectively disenfranchised? </span></font></font></font></div>
<div><br></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div><a name="1338c8befa707bff_1338ac532ad97efb_yui_3_2_0_16_13205844860331227"></a><a name="1338c8befa707bff_1338ac532ad97efb_yui_3_2_0_16_13205844860331238"></a><a name="1338c8befa707bff_1338ac532ad97efb_yui_3_2_0_16_13205844860331215"></a><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 253, 242);">Your explanation of why the state didn't go away
after the Russian revolution is interesting, but surely the key point is that
it </span><i><span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 253, 242);">didn't</span></i><span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 253, 242);"> go away! The Arab spring has been
wonderful to behold (particularly the tortured hypocrisy of the
US/Israeli axis) and the Greek workers may yet burn the temples of power, but
do you actually think there will be a permanent overthrow of the state in
either of these arenas?</span></font></font></font></div>
<div><br></div>
<div><a name="1338c8befa707bff_1338ac532ad97efb_yui_3_2_0_16_13205844860331172"></a><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><span>Once you've had
your revolution you have to put something into the </span>state shaped
hole you've made, even if it's only to keep the lights switched on, there has
to be an administrative body and it has to be accountable. So whether you call
it a state, a worker's state, a commune, a co-op, collective or a politburo,
the real question is: How do we make it work for the general good and stop the
thieves from taking it over. </font></font></font></div>
<div><br></div></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div><a name="1338c8befa707bff_1338ac532ad97efb_yiv951651975yui_3_2_0_15_1320527467970485"></a><a name="1338c8befa707bff_1338ac532ad97efb_yui_3_2_0_16_13205844860331262"></a><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">I agree that it's a long shot,
getting the state or whatever replaces it (choose your euphemism) to be a fair
administrator, a kind of super facilitator and not just a corrupted adjunct of
monopoly capital, but it seems more likely than some improbable
vacuum. </font></font></font></div>
<div><br></div></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div><a name="1338c8befa707bff_1338ac532ad97efb_yiv951651975yui_3_2_0_15_1320527467970486"></a><a name="1338c8befa707bff_1338ac532ad97efb_yui_3_2_0_16_13205844860331267"></a><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 253, 242);">I
think all nation states can be located somewhere on a theoretical scale of
freedom, with perfect, unattainable democracy at one extreme and similarly
unrealisable tyranny at the other. They can be pulled in either direction by
the forces acting on them but cannot be destroyed (except perhaps by
absorption into another state). These forces can be reforming or
revolutionary but the struggle between them will never cease. Coming to
such a realisation is not pessimism; Ceasing to believe in future utopias is
rather like realising that God doesn't exist, you stop hoping for pie in the
sky and get on with what's possible.
</span></font></font></font></div></div>
<div><br></div></div><font color="#000000"><span>I certainly do
not “</span></font><font color="#000000"><span lang="en-GB"><span>confuse ownership
of productive resources (factories, farms, forests) and ownership of domestic
space”. I am quite clear that people can own their homes
</span></span></font><font color="#000000"><span lang="en-GB"><i><span>and</span></i></span></font><font color="#000000"><span lang="en-GB"><span> their place of
work. Nor do I “talk as though the smallholding is the typical productive unit
in our society.” What I actually said is: “There is something profound
and good about the sense of security that ownership brings, it might be a
small-holding, it might be the house you need to live in or a share of some
larger co-operative enterprise.” I think people who work in large and complex
enterprises are likely to be the most able to form co-ops to own and run them.
Anyway, if we've created a stateless utopia and hanged the capitalists,
who</span></span></font><font color="#000000"><span lang="en-GB"><i><span>
is</span></i></span></font><font color="#000000"><span lang="en-GB"><span> going to own the
factories? </span></span></font></font></font></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;" lang="en-GB"><br></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;" lang="en-GB"><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><span>The horror of
socialism is that it claims to be on the side of the workers but will not,
under any circumstances, trust them with direct control of resources. That's
why we need to keep the guarantee of private ownership, (and I mean ownership)
moderated by regulation to prevent the accumulation of excess. Consumer
capitalism infantilises people, socialism turns then into vassals of the
party/state. It is central to our development as full human beings that we
stand on our own feet, form relationships and create economic activity in the
million and one clever, useful, creative and fulfilling ways we're capable of.
Anything that knowingly prevents this is evil. Given the single proviso that
we must not take more than our share of resources, each of us has the right to
direct our own lives unmediated by authority, however benevolent it claims to
be. I am genuinely affronted by the notion that anyone has the right to
inflict organisation anyone else, government should share out and then butt
out. The true brilliance of humanity is only realised through true freedom, if
we accept anything less we're just cattle.</span></font></font></font></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;" lang="en-GB"><br></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;" lang="en-GB"><br></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><font color="#000000"><span lang="en-GB"><span>I take your point
about gentrification of former council houses in the south, that
</span></span></font><font color="#000000"><span lang="en-GB"><i><span>is</span></i></span></font><font color="#000000"><span lang="en-GB"><span> different to
where I live. But even posh people need somewhere to live, and if they're
using their economic advantage to nab ex-council houses, that's indicative of
the general shortage of housing rather than the fact that some of the stock
has changed hands, albeit in a deeply undesirable way from poor to rich, in
wealthy areas. </span></span></font></font></font></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;" lang="en-GB"><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><span>My solution is as
follows: </span></font></font></font></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;" lang="en-GB"><br></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;" lang="en-GB"><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><span>1. Allow, and if
necessary, require local councils to tax second homes and empty properties
onto the market. This measure alone will yield a million + extra homes.
</span></font></font></font></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;" lang="en-GB"><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><span>2. Require the
big monopoly builders to yield up their unused land banks for self-builders
rather than allowing them to continue using the De-beers method of
drip-feeding the market to keep prices high.</span></font></font></font></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;" lang="en-GB"><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><span>3. Allow a
planning exception for rural dwellings based on Simon Fairle's criteria of
sustainable development. This would, I think, be more popular than most people
realise. Simon himself remarked at our recent gathering that the people we
know about who want to live on the land are probably just the tip of a very
large iceberg (sorry if that's not verbatim Simon). This measure would also
have the desirable effects of re-connecting people to the land, giving them
extra income options and, therefore, a greater degree of control over their
own destiny.</span></font></font></font></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;" lang="en-GB"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">4. Extend the right-to-buy into the private rented
sector on the same terms, i.e., you get it cheaper if you've paid rent (yes, I
know Thatcher didn't invent this to be nice to the working class – but so
what). Although this will not add to the stock because these houses are
already occupied, it will, together with the above measures, cause a big
reduction in the artificially high price of houses, thus removing much of the
need for council housing in the first place.</span><br></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;" lang="en-GB"><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><span>Finally, design
property taxes so that big houses with hardly anybody in them are too
expensive to sustain.</span></font></font></font></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;" lang="en-GB"><br></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;" lang="en-GB"><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><span>I think it's
worth emphasising that control of real property goes right to the heart of
monopoly capitalism and not just in relation to domestic property Virtually
every business on the high street or industrial estate is paying rent. This
means that pretty well every good and service we purchase has some element of
rent in it. For this reason I would allow businesses also to have the right to
buy the premises where they operate, with the same kind of discount based on
previous rent paid. </span></font></font></font></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;" lang="en-GB"><br></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;" lang="en-GB"><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><span>Taking the hidden
hand of the landlord out of all our pockets would be of universal benefit.
It's all about breaking the capitalist monopoly, and we won't achieve that by
allowing the state to take it over and herd people into council
estates.</span></font></font></font></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;" lang="en-GB"><br></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><font color="#000000"><span lang="en-GB"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span>A free market is
simply a means of exchange unencumbered by monopolists, state or
private</span></span></span></font><font color="#000000"><span style="text-decoration: none;">.</span></font><font color="#000000"><span style="text-decoration: none;"> A true free market must, therefore, be divested
of all corporate entities, their entire viability in the market place being
based on their ability to monopolise. </span></font><font color="#000000"><span lang="en-GB"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span>It follows from
this that the free market does not have to be red in tooth and claw, on the
contrary, by breaking corporate monopoly we greatly strengthen the hand of the
many decent human beings who might wish to direct their share of market
resources for the universal good, and to do so in the myriad of clever,
inventive and original ways that socialism
disallows. </span></span></span></font></font></font><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">I think
our kind of people find it hard to take this idea on board because the very
phrase “The free market” causes such a visceral reaction that they tend to
stop thinking and start compiling lists of reasons why it's crap.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16px;"> </span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16px;"><br></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><font color="#000000"><span lang="en-GB"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span>Selfish
materialism, what Depak Chopra rather nicely refers to as:“the superstition of
materialism” is largely a product the domination of culture by corporate
capitalism. If this horror was removed from our midst by disseminating real
property to the grass roots, I believe we would see a renaissance in human
conciseness and a general tendency towards fair trade rather than it being a
marginal activity, tolerated by our corporate master because it has no
significant effect on the size of their profits. At least lets give it a try,
after all, it's not as though socialism hasn't had a fair go in the
20</span></span></span></font><font color="#000000"><sup><span lang="en-GB"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span>th</span></span></span></sup></font><font color="#000000"><span lang="en-GB"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span> century - and
been found wanting! Yes, I know you'll say that we haven't seen real
Socialism and if only the Stalinists hadn't taken over etc, etc... But isn't
it a perennial problem of all hierarchical systems that they tend naturally to
select the most ruthless and unprincipled leaders?
</span></span></span></font></font></font></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><font color="#000000"><span style="text-decoration: none;">You refer to successful
cooperative enterprises as thought their success negates my argument for free
markets, but don't you see, the opportunity to choose ethical methods of
exchange is a function of freedom in the marketplace, based on the ability to
freely and independently acquire the means of production, I just want to
expand the opportunity to do so. Did you know that the Radical Roots co-op is
effectively it's own bank, lending only to those whose business plan is based
on sustainability and pro-active social engagement, and they've never had a
default – how fantastic is that! These clever, agile, small scale grouping are
so much better in every way than the dead hand of monolithic socialism or the
depredations of big capital. </span></font><font color="#000000">Independent, grass-roots action is at the heart of everything I
believe in most strongly. The large and increasing number of co-ops are the
backbone of much of the practical radicalism in this country and around the
world. They are a direct result of people working independently to acquire the
economic means to reduce and ultimately escape completely from dependence on
rapacious corporations. By contrast, m</font></font></font><font style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;" color="#000000"><span lang="en-GB"><span>uch of the
brutality of the existing market</span></span></font><font style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 16px;" color="#000000"> is caused by the (literally) inhuman nature of those very
corporations. If all property, and therefore production, was disseminated to
actual humans I trust that they will behave better than, Krupps, Bayer,
Monsanto or for that matter Stalin, but then I do trust ordinary people, I'm
not a socialist.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">Brendan.</font></font></font></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">P.S. The notion that this discussion is a function of the free market
is based on my belief that corporate capitalism insinuates it's values into
the general consciousness through it's monopolisation of economic activity and
that, therefore, publicly articulating an opposing view must be a function of
the free market. Feel free to disagree. </font></font></font></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br></div></span></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br></div>
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<div style="font-family: 'times new roman','new york',times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font face="Arial" size="2">
<hr size="1">
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> david bangs
<<a href="mailto:dave.bangs@virgin.net" target="_blank">dave.bangs@virgin.net</a>><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b>
<a href="mailto:TheLandIsOurs@yahoogroups.com" target="_blank">TheLandIsOurs@yahoogroups.com</a><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Saturday, 5 November 2011,
2:10<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re:
[TheLandIsOurs] The RSI: Will Robin Hood make the wealthy richer or
poorer?<br></font><br>
<div>
<div><br><br>
<div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Hiya
Brendan, </span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><span> </span>You’ve provoked an excellent exchange !! I know
other contributors have made great points, but I’d like to take up points from
your reply, please.</span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><b><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">“As an anarchist (not a socialist) I am
instinctively attracted to your stateless utopia, I just can't see how it can
be brought about”.</span></b></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><b><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></b></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">You don’t have to be so
pessimistic.</span></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">It can be brought about by the same social
agents – all those of us who sell our labour power and our allies – who have
led previous revolutionary waves. We’re both old enough to have seen the
latter part of one HUGE wave of anti-capitalist revolutions from 1917 right
through to the success of the Vietnamese revolution in 1975. Since then we
have seen a long counter-revolutionary wave right up to this year, which has
seen the stalinist tyrannies revert to capitalism and the terrible weakening
of the workers’ movement in the metropolitan countries.</span></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">...But that counter-revolutionary wave has now
been stalled...and this spring of 2011 we have seen what we can hope is the
birth of a new revolutionary wave, with the arab revolution sweeping North
Africa and the Middle East, and now the move to a pre-revolutionary stage in
Greece... </span></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">The reason the state didn’t go away after the
Russian bolshevik revolution was because that revolution took place in a
largely-feudal society pressed on all sides by the imperialist powers and
weakened almost mortally by civil war and imperialist intervention. That
near-defeat was then compounded by the capture of the weakened workers state
by a bureaucratic strata, led by Stalin, which was only able to secure its
rule by a gigantic strengthening of the repressive state that later reached
the level of genocide...As always, though, that necessity to rule by violence
was a sign of <i>weakness</i>, not of strength...weakness, because the
totalitarian Stalinists were ruling a state which had been founded on an
ideology of equality and workers’ democracy ! </span></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">The Stalinist bureaucracy had none of the
strengths of a <i>ruling</i> <i>class</i> (that has its own ideology, mode of
production and deep social roots). It was, rather, just a parasitic layer on
the working class....a parasitic layer that showed the bankruptcy of its own
rule by ultimately choosing to deliver Russia back to the capitalist world
fully and completely.</span></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">You cannot extrapolate from that
counter-revolution to say that all revolutions are similarly doomed to
failure.</span></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">To look at it very schematically...revolutions
in the under-developed world are relatively easy (!!!) to make but very
difficult to maintain, but revolutions in the advanced capitalist world are
very difficult to make but will be much easier to maintain because of our much
more advanced cultural and productive level.</span></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><b><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></b></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">I don’t think the vision I laid out is utopian
because I think we can identify the social agents...the class forces...that
will bring it about. I think, though, that your vision of a neutral state IS
utopian...and, in fact, is ultimately the same vision that bourgeois democracy
pumps out at us all the time...that the law serves us all...that the armed
forces are OUR armed forces and defend us...and that the institutions of the
parliamentary state can be class-neutral and open to control by all tendencies
within society.<span> </span></span></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><b><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">“I don’t think ownership is theft, owning too
much is”.</span></b></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><b><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></b></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">You confuse ownership of productive resources
(factories, farms, forests) and ownership of domestic space. I love shutting
my door on the world as much as anyone does. That right to private space is
crucial to socialism...that’s partly why we fight, for instance, for decent
housing for all.</span></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Furthermore, you talk as though the
smallholding is the typical productive unit in our society....But it aint.
Most of us work in huge corporations with highly complex social divisions of
labour...Smallholdings or homes are a different kettle of fish from giant
chemical, electrical, engineering, or energy plants, or a complex transport
system or service provider...like hospitals or
universities...</span></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">We live with the paradox that the whole mode
of capitalist production is hugely <b><i>social</i>,</b> but the appropriation
of its surplus (profit) is <b><i>private</i></b>. We work in a
<b><i>collective</i></b> world, but the wealth we create is appropriated
<b><i>privately</i></b>...by the class of owners. </span></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Furthermore, you confuse a right of ownership
with a right to use. They are very different things, though. It may be that
large sectors of a sustainable agriculture are best managed by small
producers. That is not the same as ownership, though. It does not imply a
right to sell the asset or to pass it on to others without collective consent.
And it constrains that private usage by a socially determined collective
framework.</span></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Usage is not the same as
ownership.</span></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Let me take one small example from the issue
of forests (which I’ve been involved with)....</span></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><span>-<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';">
</span></span></span></span><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">On the one side you have a vision of public
ownership which wants to see small wood and timber contractors paid well for
their trade and given the autonomy and status they deserve (rather than being
elbowed out by the big timber contractors like Tilhill and Fountains). It
wants to see the small operators’ woodland <b><i>usage</i></b>
respected...</span></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><span>-<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';">
</span></span></span></span><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">On the other side you have a developing trend
in woodland ownership called ‘woodlotting’ which encourages <b><i>atomised
ownership</i></b> of our woods for a range of private, mostly recreational,
purposes, and stymies public access, systematic nature conservation, and wood
production. It is damaging many woods. It counterposes atomised private
ownership to the general public good.</span></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><b><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">“A favourite bete-noire of the left is
Thatcher's right to buy council houses, yet those houses have not ceased to
exist, nor have they ceased to be occupied by working class
people”.</span></b></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><b><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></b></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Maybe it’s like that where you are, Brendan,
but it aint like that down here on the south coast !!! In my area entire huge
council estates have been gentrified...I can think of one estate where the new
owners are so universally well off and up-market that I didn’t realise for
years that it was an ex-council estate !! Just up the road from me 3 bedroom
ex-council houses that - if they were still council - would be rented now for
£90pw, are being rented to students for <b><i>£1000 pm</i></b>...and are
re-selling at £280-290 grand and more. Whole suburbs of family housing are now
being lost to working class families and are just being used to super-exploit
students. </span></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">It has been a major local election issue for
years...</span></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">In another working class seaside town not far
away I know one council estate where 80-90% of the stock has been
right-to-buy’d, and yet the number of needy families living there is just the
same as it was when it was all council...because these private sector sharks
have bought up all the houses and are now re-letting them at exhorbitant rents
to housing associations or even back to the council. The difference for the
residents is that they now live in grossly under-maintained properties at
greatly inflated rents...and without secure tenancies. </span></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">And, by contrast, in those estates which are
at present unattractive to the sharks and gentrifiers, needy families and
singles are crammed in cheek by jowl in unmaintained blocks with lifts and
doors that don’t work, broken windows and mess.</span></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">The right to buy has been an unmitigated
social tragedy for many hundreds of thousands of needy
folk.</span></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">...And I only partially recognise your picture
of nicely improved right-to-buy’d homes...One other good way of telling RTB’d
properties is by their tatty neglect, not by their improvement...If they still
don’t have double glazing, have peeling wood work and ancient front doors,
that means that some family was conned into buying their council home and
never could afford to do it up !! <span> </span></span></span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><b><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">“Why should working class people be forever
condemned to pay rent?</span></b><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"> <b>My
objection to the right to buy is solely that it is not extended into the
private rented sector on exactly the same terms”.</b></span></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><b><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></b></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Good question...and I agree. Even in the old
days when council rents were much lower they were STILL much higher than they
needed to be, because the ultimate source of finance for council house
building was the private banking sector. If we were to rid ourselves of the
interest on that credit then public sector housing rents could be reduced to
not much more than a service charge...for repairs and administration.
</span></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">...But your cavil that the right to buy should
be extended to the private sector is no small matter of just amending a bit of
law...It is much more than that...The right to buy is a dagger aimed at the
public sector...the owning class have no interest in losing their own
factories, fields and houses.</span></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div style="text-indent: 0in;"><span><b><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">“Now for the really incendiary bit:
</span></b></span><b><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;" lang="EN-GB">I'm in favour of the free market!”</span></b></div>
<div style="text-indent: 0in;"><b><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;" lang="EN-GB"></span></b> </div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Incendiary, yes, but not a surprise, Brendan. The wave of
pro-capitalist ideas has penetrated deep into many erstwhile secure places of
rebellion.</span></span></div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">You
write, again, as though we live in a world of craft and peasant producers, not
in a world of a global division of labour, with hugely ramified production of
even the simplest items...a piece of clothing or a food item...Your implied
vision of small and cooperative production is, again,
utopian.</span></span></div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Let
me be clear...<i>It is theoretically possible to imagine a capitalism in which
ALL production is done by cooperatives or worker-managed enterprises</i>...yet
it would <i>still</i> be subject to all the nonsense of the capitalist
market...competition for market share, the<span> </span>cycles of
over-production, followed by collapse, mass unemployment, and social
misery.</span></span></div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">There
was a huge cooperative enterprise with many branches of production in northern
Spain. Perhaps it’s still there. It developed as a response to the Franco
dictatorship and had very wide roots...yet, when a major slump hit in the
‘70’s it had to sack its workers and close its plants just as if it had been
Ford or Bayer or Krupps or the Bank of Scotland.</span></span></div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">They
could talk about cooperation as much as they wanted...but they lived under a
capitalist market...and sunk under it.</span></span></div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">We
live in a world, Brendan, where we have the ability to make <i>democratic,</i>
<i>social </i>decisions about all important matters. We do not have to rely on
the market to make post-facto choices – blindly- for us. With all the
potential of technology we can make real social decisions about what and how
much to produce, how long to work, and for what. We can properly take all the
external costs into account. We have the ability to collectively plan. And
that is a better way of doing things than endlessly competing for market share
in our own private units of production.<span>
</span></span></span></div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div><span><b><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">“Monopoly capitalism can be state or private, both are
objectionable though of the two, state capitalism is the worse. This is
because, ghastly as liberal capitalism is, it is not totalitarian and there is
some room for manoeuvre in the gaps, which people like us
exploit”.</span></b></span></div>
<div><span><b><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></b></span> </div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Try
telling that to the ghosts of the hundreds of thousands of victims of the
restoration of capitalism in Russia...sent to early graves as the age of
mortality dramatically fell after that restoration, which saw unemployment and
destitution spread like diseases, and homelessness, and the collapse of the
state education system, and all the environmental protections that existed
even under stalinism unravelled, and now see nature doubly pillaged,.
</span></span></div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Liberal capitalism might not be totalitarian in Britain, Brendan,
for we live in the privileged imperialist heartland...but try telling suicidal
farmers in the plains of India controlled by Monsanto’s GM products that they
should “manoeuvre in the gaps” of the system, or try telling the victims of
our inperialist wars for oil in the moslem world that they should have
manoeuvred in the system’s gaps...</span></span></div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div><span><b><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">“A
free market in ideas and communications is vital to democracy - this exchange
is a small example of it”.</span></b></span></div>
<div><span><b><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></b></span> </div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">That’s rubbish, Brendan. You and me are just
<i>communicating</i>...exchanging information to our mutual gain...we are not
<i>selling</i> anything...no <i>commodities</i> are involved...Talking with
your mates is not participating in a “free market”...it’s just being wot we
are...<i>social</i> human beings who are dependant on each other for support
and information...</span></span></div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">I
like hearing your ideas, Brendan, but I don’t want to <i>buy </i>them !!!...I
want ‘em for free !!</span></span></div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span></span></div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">All
my stuff above is about <i>differences</i>...But I can really see how much we
agree on...masses...That’s why I’m enjoying debating with
you...</span></span></div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">comradely</span></span></div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Dave
Bangs</span></span></div>
<div><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Hi
Dave,</span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><a name="1338c8befa707bff_1338ac532ad97efb_yiv53291945yui_3_2_0_15_1320314274425314" rel="nofollow"></a><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">As an anarchist (not a socialist) I am
instinctively attracted to your stateless utopia, I just can't see how it can
be brought about. When humanity moved from hunter gathering to sedentary
agrarianism, people organised themselves politically and the state came into
being. Even when people get so sick of the status-quo that they prefer a
blood-soaked revolution, the thing doesn't go away, it can't, it's a
function of our ability to organise and communicate. The question, therefore,
is how to make it serve the the general good, rather than being subverted by
sectional interests. </span></span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><a name="1338c8befa707bff_1338ac532ad97efb_yiv53291945yui_3_2_0_15_1320314274425482" rel="nofollow"></a><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">I don;t think ownership is theft, owning too
much is. There is something profound and good about the sense of security that
ownership brings, it might be a small-holding, it might be the house you need
to live in or a share of some larger co-operative enterprise. The right to
close your door and say to authority: "No, you may not fuck with me" is
central to our freedom and does not have to be contingent upon others being
excluded from similar freedom in ownership. A favourite bete-noire of the left
is Thatcher's right to buy council houses, yet those houses have not ceased to
exist, nor have they ceased to be occupied by working class people. If you go
round any council estate you can spot the owned houses by the way they have
been individualised and are generally in better condition. There is a pride
and a pleasure in modest ownership that is too easily dismissed by
middle-class lefties. Why should working class people be forever condemned to
pay rent? My objection to the right to buy is solely that it is not extended
into the private rented sector on exactly the same terms. I'd love to see the
buy-to-let crew out of business and out of pocket, along with the
state-created ghettos that so dis empower working class people. And
while we're at it, shall we confiscate the unused land-banks of the monopoly
builders and distribute them to self-builders, thus providing much needed
housing without cost to the public purse whilst giving people control of their
own destinies and reducing the artificially high cost of housing for
everyone? </span></span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><a name="1338c8befa707bff_1338ac532ad97efb_yiv53291945yui_3_2_0_15_1320314274425484" rel="nofollow"></a><span><b><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Now for the really incendiary bit:
</span></b></span><b><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;" lang="EN-GB">I'm in favour of the free market!</span></b><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"> How can anyone who believes in freedom, justice and
equality say such a thing? Well I'll tell you: The term 'free market' is
the most traduced in modern English, it is generally taken to mean the removal
or non-existence of regulations, thus enabling corporate monopolists to steal
everything. That is not the free market and I'm not in favour of it. A
free market is where anybody is free become a provider or purchaser of goods
or services and to succeed/fail/make their choice, solely on the price and
quality of those goods or services. It could equally mean people choosing to
use their share of resources to take part in co-operative trade arrangements
(I think I'd be one of them). For this to come about requires the
destruction of monopoly capitalism. <b>Monopoly capitalism can be state
or private, both are objectionable though of the two, state capitalism is the
worse. This is because, ghastly as liberal capitalism is, it is not
totalitarian and there is some room for manoeuvre in the gaps, which people
like us exploit.</b> The free market is not just economic either. <b>A
free market in ideas and communications is vital to democracy - this exchange
is a small example of it. </b>A true free market would exclude corporate
thieves and share out resources so we can organise our lives in any way we
damn well please, and isn't that the point of being alive?</span></span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><a name="1338c8befa707bff_1338ac532ad97efb_yiv53291945yui_3_2_0_15_1320314274425486" rel="nofollow"></a><span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Brendan.</span></span><span><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB"> </span></span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" align="center"><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">
<hr size="1" width="100%" align="center">
</span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><b><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">From:</span></b><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">
david bangs <<a href="mailto:dave.bangs@virgin.net" target="_blank">dave.bangs@virgin.net</a>><br><b>To:</b>
TheLandIsOurs@yahoogroups.<br><b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, 2 November 2011,
22:06<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [TheLandIsOurs] The RSI: Will Robin Hood make the
wealthy richer or poor of her?</span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">heft.</span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">OOPS..sent the last one before I'd proof-read it to the
end...here's the version with my proper ending...</span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">Dave
Bangs</span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">No,
Brendan, state ownership is not the only alternative to private
ownership...and, furthermore, it is possible to envisage not just the
disappearance of private property, but of the state as well !</span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">Indeed, I would argue that the exact opposite of your
proposition is true....That is, that as long as private property exists the
state will exist....and the disappearance of the one will go in tandem with
the disappearance of the other...</span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">Thus...</span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">As
long as <b>private property</b> exists <b>market exchange</b> and
<b>production for profit </b>(ie commodity production ) will exist. Those 3
hang together. Private property functions as the tenurial framework
for the market exchange of products for private profit. The inherent tendency
of this market exchange is to generate ever greater inequality. The
market naturally drives both the aggregation of market share and property for
some sectors and and the loss of market share and property for
others...</span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">...And the owners of these unequally large shares of resources
will be continually reproducing various forms of state to defend their
enlarged private shares. The state is their guarantor of ownership. At its
root it is "armed bodies of men" who exist to defend the ruling class...which
in our time is the capitalist class of owners.</span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">Paradoxically, though, under capitalism, state ownership does
one absolutely crucial thing...it takes the state owned resource
out of the orbit of the market...and thus erodes the
market's destructive power. That is not to say that state ownership under
capitalism is <b>people's</b> ownership...for it plainly is not. Thus, the
nationalisation of steel, coal, and rail industries by the post-war Attleee
Labour Gov't was plainly in the interests of one section of the owning
class ...but their state ownership, like that of the NHS, state education,
public housing, and social welfare services DID constitute great gains for the
working class movement, becos it enabled the elimination of some of the
worst results of the market...appalling working conditions, widespread
preventable ill health, bad housing, lack of universal education
etc...(And I take the working class</span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"> </span><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">to
include the great majority of the middle class as well as the underclass of
unemployed...that is, more than 90% of us all).</span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">We
can see this progressive potential of state ownership under capitalism
particularly sharply with public forests, where the modern Forestry Commission
is vastly more efficient than the private sector, not just in terms of timber
and wood production, but in terms of providing public values like statutory
access, nature conservation, and so on.</span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">As
socialists we do not argue for bourgeois nationalisation as a solution (for we
all know how progressive the just-nationalised banks have been !!) but as
a <b>pre-condition for a solution</b>...which will lie
in publicly/socially owned </span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"> </span><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">resources being managed by and for us all...a democracy of social
self-management from the street and the factory and office and farm and
forest right up to the nation state and the planet... </span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">Under socialism, however, (that is, when a revolution has
overthrown the class power of the capitalist/owning class) we should look to
the rapid and simultaneous dismantlement of both the state (the guarantor of
private property), the market (the perpetual generator of inequality) and
private property in productive resources, and their replacement with a
host of different experiments in collective social management of
resources.</span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">There was nothing inevitable about the victory of stalinist tyranny
over the young Russian revolution...any more than there is anything inevitable
about the control of my trade union by a bunch of self-serving
bureaucrats...or of any new political party of our class, for that matter.
</span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">We
can all be in control if we have the ideas and collective organisation to
take the power and keep it...</span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">Dave
Bangs</span><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">----- Original Message ----- </span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(228, 228, 228);"><b><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">From:</span></b><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB"> <a title="b_m_boal@yahoo.com" href="mailto:b_m_boal@yahoo.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></font><font color="#0000ff">Brendan
Boal</a> </span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><b><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">To:</span></b><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB"> <a title="TheLandIsOurs@yahoogroups.com" href="mailto:TheLandIsOurs@yahoogroups.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></font><font color="#0000ff">TheLandIsOurs@yahoogroups.com</a> </span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><b><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">Sent:</span></b><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">
Wednesday, November 02, 2011 1:12 PM</span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><b><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">Subject:</span></b><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB"> Re:
[TheLandIsOurs] The RSI: Will Robin Hood make the wealthy richer or
poorer?</span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">
</span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Actually,
it's<i> monopoly</i> in land and the resultant ability to exploit the surplus
of other people's labour that is the problem. Abolishing all private
property in land means investing all power in the state. When you
concentrate that much power you simply attract the exploiter class to to to
take over the mechanism of the monopoly state instead. It's interesting
to note that when the former Soviet bloc changed from public to private
monopoly, many of the same faces that were previously running the 'communist'
system, simply re-emerged as the new robber-baron/oligarch class. The
real problem is how to limit the power of bosses, whatever clothes they
wear. </span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: center; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;" align="center"><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">
<hr size="1" width="100%" align="center">
</span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><b><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">From:</span></b><span style="font-family: sans-serif; color: black; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">
Robin Smith <<a href="mailto:robinsmith3@gmail.com" target="_blank">robinsmith3@gmail.com</a>><br><b>To:</b> <br><b>Sent:</b>
Wednesday, 2 November 2011, 10:39<br><b>Subject:</b> [TheLandIsOurs] The RSI:
Will Robin Hood make the wealthy richer or poorer?</span><span style="font-family: serif; color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: serif; color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: serif; color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><a href="http://gco2e.blogspot.com/2011/11/what-would-actually-be-effects-of-tobin.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></font><font color="#0000ff">http://gco2e.blogspot.com/2011/11/what-would-actually-be-effects-of-tobin.html</a>ke</span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: serif; color: black;" lang="EN-GB">What would actually be the effects of a Tobin tax?</span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: serif; color: black;" lang="EN-GB">A tax on trade and exchange always discourages exchanges.
Right?</span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: serif; color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Fewer transactions needs less labour. </span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: serif; color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Banking would become more efficient.</span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: serif; color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Productivity would increase in, general, in proportion.
</span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: serif; color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Land values would rise. Economic rents.</span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: serif; color: black;" lang="EN-GB">The tax would be used for public revenue. </span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: serif; color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Rents would increase even further.</span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: serif; color: black;" lang="EN-GB">In the end, who would benefit from Robin Hood's noble
work?</span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: serif; color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Workers?</span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: serif; color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Enterprise?</span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: serif; color: black;" lang="EN-GB">Land owners? </span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: serif; color: black;" lang="EN-GB">You know where I'm going with this right? </span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: serif; color: black;" lang="EN-GB"><a href="http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/George/grgPFT25.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></font><font color="#0000ff">The robber who takes all that
is left</a></span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: serif; color: black;" lang="EN-GB">READ MY LIPS: While private property in land persists.</span></div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: serif; color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span> </div>
<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="font-family: serif; color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span> </div>
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<div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white;"><span style="color: black;" lang="EN-GB"></span> </div>
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