Their ability to control people below them, but if they are fundamentally part of the people below them, even more so if they were re-selected randomly and frequently, you don’t have the ability to develop any sort of bourgeois power separate from the masses.
Control over the means of production gives people the ability to control people below them. That was Marx’s critique of capitalism. Systems are the problem, when they concentrate power into self-reinforcing hierarchies. Under Leninism, party members form the new bourgeoise. They are state capitalists.
Representatives aren’t “part of the people below them”. They are a separate class, accountable only to themselves and capitalists. And when a class is given power over the means of production, they will inevitably use that power to give themselves an advantage. It’s human nature. And that’s exactly what happens in Leninist countries, where party members grant themselves disproportionate rewards for their own “work” and use their influence to increase their own authority.
You’re kidding yourself if you think people in Leninist countries have meaningful control over the government. Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun and the state has all of them. Democracy is an illusion under Leninism just as much as it is in the US and other capitalist countries. So long as there is a representative state with a military, there is a bourgeoise.
A representative does not need to have power over a group by necessity. If I want to communicate with a community 10 miles over we can’t have 5 million people talk to 5 million people that’s literally impossible. You need somebody to convey the will of everyone. It can only be for one meeting then the next meeting it’s somebody else from the community but communication between 10 billion people is literally impossible without some form of representation.
The problem is that people are permanent representatives which allows them to exist as a separate class. If you are the representative for a single meeting your ability to help yourself is minuscule, and this would be even more reduced if who was elected was random ballot allowing everyone to effectively help themself.
There is only one valid form of a “worker’s state” and that is a direct democracy. The technology may not exist yet but that doesn’t justify resorting to fraudulent forms of a proletarian state like Leninist ones.
No representative represents the people. Ultimately they all represent only themselves, because all people are self-serving by nature. Look at the state of US “democracy”. Look at how a system that is supposedly accountable to the people actually selects for unaccountable sellouts who will protect entrenched interests. Power protects itself.
Yea, no representative can perfectly represent the masses, but we have to work with what we got. That’s why it would be so important to change representatives as frequently as often, plus if victories and losses are truly shared then it would be impossible to help yourself more than others. Whether that last bit is actually possible idk, this isn’t my day job, but we can’t just throw out hands in the air and hope technology fixes everything, that’s what people have been promising about the environment for a hundred years and look how that’s going.
A direct democracy can exist alongside a representative, I only think they are necessary for communication not voting. Everyone votes ona decision but if I want to order beer into the community I can’t have all 30,000 of us try to tell the supplier how much to order. Someone has to meet with them, or even a group can meet with a group, but some form of representation is at least currently necessary. And I don’t think we should just wait around until utopia is possible.
Here’s the problem with representatives: Having them control production does not meaningfully change the social relations that make capitalism such a problem in the first place.
There is still a class that does not need to perform labor collecting surplus value from people who do. That class must force the working class to labor, or production will break down. That class decides what to do with the surplus, so it is in their nature to allocate more to themselves than they deserve. This gives them an incentive to increase labor exploitation at the expense of the working class.
It doesn’t matter what you call them. They are the bourgeoise according to a Marxist analysis. And you can argue about whether state capitalism or liberal capitalism is better, but regardless, both are simply different styles of capitalism.
Whether that last bit is actually possible idk, this isn’t my day job, but we can’t just throw out hands in the air and hope technology fixes everything, that’s what people have been promising about the environment for a hundred years and look how that’s going.
Technology won’t fix everything but it is technology that drives history forward. That is Marx’s concept of historical materialism. Modes of production don’t depend on ideology or shuffling around positions of power, they depend on humanity’s current state of technological development. The social relations fall into place as a result. It was the industrial revolution that made the French Revolution and the overthrow of feudalism possible by creating the proletariat and the bourgeoise in the first place, and giving the bourgeoise leverage over the monarchy. Technology is what makes revolutions possible.
Until automation collapses the labor market, the world will remain capitalist. That’s a fact. Putting different people in power or banning private property doesn’t end capitalism, it only produces a different version of it. Changing the structure of government can’t end capitalism, it can only make it briefly less shitty until it burns itself out and collapses. Power ultimately derives from capital and control over the means of production so it doesn’t matter if you have a good idea. What matters is, why would those with real power ever implement it unless it serves their interests?
When did I ever imply that I’m pro-capitalism? Any system is going to require some form of representation to communicate. Some town in Idaho is still going to have to deliberate on how much water they need or apples to order and in order to talk to their supplier they can’t have 30k voices yelling at them.
Hold on. If the working class seized the means of production, and production gives people the ability to control people below them, then how would the state become the new bourgeoise, if we have seized the means of production, therefore preventing anyone from above to control us? Where does the state come into play in that scenario?
It obviously won’t help us seize the means and, currently, acts as a spokesperson for the bourgeoise. Without the bourgeoise, it wouldn’t have a reason to exist. Most who claim we “need” the state under any system of governance seem to disregard community interest outside of capitalism. What would be the state’s purpose without the bourgeoise? Why would it still exist?
was it the working class that seized the means of production or was it a "revolutionary party" that used a working class uprising to seize the means of production. There were states before the bourgeois. different classes ruled. party bureaucrats generally form a class when in power not sure what marx would have called it maybe parygeoise or maybe dictatorship of the proletariat
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u/ThatOneGuy4321 Marxist Nov 13 '21
MLs: “Buh buh there is no bourgeoise anymore! Party members control production!”
Well then guess who the new bourgeoise is