Dragon

When I’m analyzing existing systems, I can do so theoretically or based on testimony. Testimony can be false, but if it meets ones theoretical expectations, should be considered. The notion that we should look to existing systems instead of inventing new ones is odd coming from a communist, as this is the most common basis for arguments I hear from proponents of political economy as it were. Transforming the social fabric is going to take a little creative problem solving. If you’re interested in a positive argument: https://lemmy.ml/post/46147233/25310663

A mechanic can loosen bolts and cause mass destruction. A nurse can administer lethal dosages of medicine.

Do you acknowledge at the very least that the potential for abuse in these positions is less than the position of administrator?

Whether a political class exists in North Korea aside, do you really not think such a class could exist? Of course administrators don’t inherently have outsized power, given proper restraints. But to claim that administrative authority cannot be abused contradicts common sense.

Do you have a reason to claim that there is no such thing as a political class?

My argument:

If we look in history, we see major changes in class antagonisms and productive forms following breakthroughs in physical and social technology. The end of the trans-atlantic slave trade and guild economies coincided with the first industrial revolution. The Roman Licinio-Sextian laws that saw a gain in political power for Plebians came after great increase in transportation capacity, connecting members of that class, such as the completion of the Appian Way. Feudalism collapsed with the rise of corporations. The french revolution was possible partly due to the printing press.

The shared interest of the Proletariat or any large class exist only in a latent form, unless the capacity exists to collaborate in its realization. No amount of pressure or destitution will force a group into collaborative action; political capacities are necessary. Existing representative democracies succeed in mobilizing groups, but fail in mobilizing toward their collective interest. Any representative put in a position of power over others loses a personal material interest in pursuing class solidarity.

What are the actual mechanisms here?

Democracy by design. A method of organizing that provides large groups with the ability to reach broad consensus and act upon it. There is a growing body of research coming from Chinese universities about LSGDM (Large Scale Group Decision Making), which is very relevant. I propose that leftists pursue this kind of research. More crucially, a horizontal solution to the collective action problem is needed.

What institutions would embody this horizontal collaboration

All institutions.

how would they be built

Their invention can be done by anyone, and their application can be seen in any institution, capitalist or not. The availability of these tools will spread if they are effective, and eventually provide the masses with the tools for their emancipation.

how would they survive internal and external threats?

The increase in productive power scales exponentially with the size of a collaborating group. If a majority of people participate in such a system they will overpower their opposition in collective intelligence, manpower, etc.

Why should this model be preferred to Marxism-Leninism as it has existed in practice in countries like Vietnam, Cuba, and China?

Because those projects dubiously represent the collective interests of their citizens, and economic achievements aside, have failed to move convincingly toward communism. The use of delegation and vanguardism create the conditions for the development of a Red Bourgeoisie, which appears to be exactly what emerged.

In the case of the DPRK, how would it be workable, and why would it be preferable to Juche given the country’s political and economic position as a state under siege?

As you have seen, I am still learning about North Korea, and I agree with the sentiment that every country’s transition toward communism will look different. With that in mind, I will not speculate on how this would work in that country.

Newton identified and documented a mechanism already operative in nature.

Just wait until you learn about relativity.

Marxism is not an a priori prophecy about the future. It is a scientific account of the real tendencies and antagonisms internal to class society.

Marx provides theories about reality that may or may not be true. He also implies values, which are not scientific. OP absolutely implies values. To determine whether North Korea is “bad”, we cannot just apply scientific analysis.

you keep answering a question about why you might want communism when I am asking you how class power, state power, and transition are to be understood

The core question is why one should support North Korea.

You have not explained how the class character of a revolution can be primary while the class character of the state that issues from it is treated as secondary or even irrelevant.

The class character of the state that issues from the revolution must necessarily change, as soon as the revolutionary class actually gains power over the means of production. If class is defined by orientation to production, that changes when the class gains power. If only a portion of the class gains power, than that portion will have exited its original class, and a new class will have formed that has power over the original.

You have not explained how class ceases to be class once it rules without dissolving the entire concept.

Class ceases to be if all members of a society are given equally distributed control over the means of production.

you have not shown that differences in administrative function amount to a distinct class relation in the absence of distinct ownership and appropriation.

Ownership is only a legal term. What matters is control. In a capitalist society, ownership grants the majority of control. If an administration retains practical control over the means of production, then it fulfills a distinct class relation.

I am also very concerned with

• A ban on propaganda against the nation
• A ban on fleeing the country to seek asylum
• A ban on political trickery
• A dubious nomination process for political officials

Together, this doesn’t give me confidence that the Proletariat has seized power, but instead there has emerged some kind of Platonic state with a permanent political class.

I’m not concerned with imperfection. What I know about North Korea that concerns me goes far beyond imperfection.

You haven’t given me the opportunity to propose a positive argument for anything. I believe that the primary goal of the Left should be to develop radical new forms of horizontal collaboration, in order to promote class solidarity and revolutionize forms of production in a democratic manner.

I’m not holding my breath to wait for global communism before I see a movement toward class abolition within any country.

I really am just concerned about whether collective ownership is really achieved. Something can look collectivized just because it is controlled by the state, but without a radical democratic apparatus you will never see the dissolution of class.

Class dissolves alongside collectivization of production and distribution.

I guess I’ll have to take your word for it.

You provide a lot to respond to.

Your reply also shifts from class analysis to normative preference.

Fundamentally everyone bases their political inclinations on some kind of preference. My preference is for the maximal utility to be realized for humanity. Democracy isn’t an end goal, but I view it as necessary for any kind of communist society to emerge.

It is ridiculous to proceed by asking whether a development feels persuasive at the level of personal intuition.

If you think that you are able to predict future history based on a priori scientific truths, you are sorely misguided. Personal intuition isn’t sufficient to understanding, but neither is adherence to arbitrary scientific laws that someone made up.

Class is defined by a group’s place within the social relations of production…Administrator is not a class category.

An administrator could certainly hold a different place within the social relations of production, and could have different material interests than, say, a factory worker. It would depend on how much social power they hold as administrator.

The problem is that you have tossed aside the core of the theoretical framework and replaced it with an eclectic mix of idealism and materialism, despite the fact that the two are incompatible as methods.

I’m not sure they are completely incompatible, but that’s beside the point. I’m not making an idealistic argument. I’m just speculating on the possible material interests of given social constructions.

political power judged by external moral-democratic criteria rather than by its material class content

If I am not to apply personal preferences, moral convictions, or political ideals, on what basis am I to embrace communist goals?

Some books

I have read 1, 2 and 6. Out of the rest, which would you most recommend to persuade me of your position or fill a gap in my understanding?

Totally, but I might also expect to see continued development toward the disillusion of class and state. Simply industrializing doesn’t give me much hope on its own.

Isn’t that a bit of a tautology? If working class ownership is desired only as a means to communism, and communism is assumed to be the eventual result of working class ownership, you would never be able to falsify your theory.

trolling is unbecoming once you mature past 12.

Excellent point, Qin Shi Huang’s Shlong

maintaining socialism, or if the entire thing needs to be scrapped and restarted

That’s really a pragmatic evaluation. I think in theory that any state can be changed either through reform or sudden revolution, including Bourgeois ones.

socialism is a system of continuous improvements

Out of curiosity, do you see an indication of a continuing progression toward communism over time in North Korea?

obviously you can’t move to a hostile power during wartime that’s called defecting.

I’m not trolling. This is what people claim when they say people can’t leave the country. Debunking this claim without acknowledging that the core idea is true is dishonest.

No country on Earth currently or has ever allowed that.

I am pretty sure that people traveled between the US and the USSR in both directions during the cold war. Indians and Pakistanis can travel back and forth. Heck, Americans can go to Iran right now if they can figure out a way to.

Can you clarify how you understand the relationship between the revolutionary moment and the state form that follows?

The revolution of a desolate majority underclass creates the material conditions that are, at least in theory, conducive to the development of a democratic state apparatus that distributes political power. The mutual interest of the members of that class should make the development of such a state likely. By the nature of their having collaborated effectively enough to effectuate such a revolution, we can assume that they have developed the capacity to organize in such a way as to realize that collective interest.

This is not about likelihood or moral inclination. It is about material interest.

I don’t consider moral inclination to be relevant to this analysis, but I do use probabilistic terminology, because I don’t view social theory as a hard science.

The direction of transformation follows from which class commands the levers.

One must be careful about the loss of information when labeling and subsequently using those labels. People can move between classes, or their material interests can change. A group of people who are members of the Proletariat can easily lose class solidarity if given outsized political power. I would only consider a class to have gained power if they succeed in doing so in a democratic context. Also, once they gain that power, I would not consider them to be the same class that they were before doing so.

It just feels like your grasp of communist theory and the history of socialist practice is shallow to put it mildly.

Maybe. But I suspect this impression may be due less to my lack of familiarity as much as a lack of orthodoxy. I don’t take much issue with picking and choosing ideas or reinterpreting them in a way that I think makes sense.

I can give you some book recommendations

Give me your top 3?

The core question isn’t whether they can study in China, it is whether they can freely cross the border into South Korea to seek asylum.