[Marxism] Direct and indirect democracy (was Marx was right?)

["Len Walsingham" <lha.walsingham@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

        The principle of delegates being subject to re-election and
recall is fine but I would baulk at so much indirect democracy: tiers
electing the tiers above them. In Britain a number of unions do this,
with District or Regional committees electing delegates to national
conferences and nominating to the union's executive. The problem is the
'delegates' only report back and are accountable to the bodies that
elected them and become removed from the rank and file. When you get
more than one tier between the base and the top then I would think
effective control has gone.

        I think it best to retain direct elections as far as possible.
Before the Tory anti-union laws, local branches in my old union used to
elect Annual Conference delegates. These in turn, elected the Executive
at that Conference. This meant the conference had a lot more vitality
and purpose than today as anyone who wanted to get elected had to speak
and put themselves about. This did not stop the right-wing trying to fix
things through the union's regional structure but it was a lot better
situation than what happens now.

        But I see nothing wrong in regional and specialist bodies, like
Ethnic and Gay Advisories, having delegates with the right to speak but
not to vote.

        Also I am in favour of the Jesuitic principle of putting a limit
on the number of years people can serve in various functions (generally
five years). I meet too many trade union veterans who are tired;
complacent and stale. Some have been 'there' so long they start to sound
like managers and start to tell you about the need for the company to
maintain 'competitive' and things like that. They have been removed from
the workplace too long. In today's fast changing working environment you
need current knowledge and the 'prod' of how bad things are to motivate
people.

        A characteristic of many Marxist-Leninist style groups is that
the central leaders become like Popes, where only death can remove them.
Think about Tony Cliff; Gerry Healey; Ted Grant; Chris Harman; Alex
Callinicos and CP leaders like McClellan and Gollan (remember them?)

Len

Ken Ranney said:

"My chapter in (Cohen, Ruth ed. Alien Invasion: How the Harris Tories
Mismanaged Ontario) is called BASIC Democracy. Rather than leave you
hanging, I include an excerpt:
"BASIC democracy would be a pyramidal system with direct democracy at
the bottom and delegated democracy at every level above that.
Thus one would start with direct democracy at the neighbourhood level -
actual face-to-face discussion and decision by consensus or majority,
and election of a council who would make up the next level... The
delegates would have to be sufficiently instructed by, and accountable
to, those who elected them, to make the decisions at the council level
reasonably democratic. 

So it would go on up to the top level, which would be a national council
for matters of national concern, and local and regional councils for
matters of less than national concern... I think it is the best we can
do. 

What is needed, to make the system democratic, is that the
decision-makers and issue-formulators elected from below be held
responsible to those below by being subject to re-election or even
recall. What is proposed consists of small groups electing, with no
expenses, delegates to higher levels of small groups who in turn elect
delegates to still higher groups. In 5 steps with a group size of 10
there would be about 188 people to advise and lobby the government of
Canada. (If groups were to be 50 in size, there would be just 3 steps.)
Before reaching the highest levels, there could be split-off's to local
consensus groups, and to municipal and provincial governments. The
system is based only on people, not on states, so it can go on to
include the US. In just 6 steps with a group size of 10 there would be
about 159 people to set the agendas for the governments of Canada and
the US. In 8 steps, 35 people could represent the whole world."



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