I am personally for radical direct democracy, nothing less, nothing more, because I view the political as trumping the economic, feel free to purge me once the revolution is there but I am interested if there are other “alternative” takes

  • ssjmarx [he/him]
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    edit-2
    4 years ago

    I consider myself an ML, but in the organization of a socialist state post-revolution I would be all in on radical direct democracy. I'm imagining a system vaguely similar to the ones we have now, but where the legislative branch is defined as "all citizens". I imagine people would want to delegate a ton of power to representatives (and for that I'm thinking a system similar to China) to avoid visiting the voting booth on a daily basis, but the point is that legally every single political decision should flow from referendum, so that at any time if the actions of the government and the will of the people are desynchronized the process to correct it is obvious and can't be usurped.

    The real tricky thing is balancing the power of local democracies with the national one, and I honestly don't think that any coherent system can be created to this end. If the national vote is supreme to local votes, then the majority could pass racist or outright fascist BS and there's not much for the minority to do about it. If on the other hand you stipulate that the local trumps the national, then how do you prevent reactionary forces from setting up enclaves within your society and making everything worse for everyone else. To this end I think that a vanguard party, rigorous socialist education, and a cultural revolution are all necessary - if you just enshrine minority rights into a constitution or whatever then then the reactionary forces will use your process against you, they must be actively suppressed until society outgrows the need for reaction.