The Reconstructivist Manifesto

[Dead Flag]

I was asked and so I shall reveal all;

Almost 20 years ago, a dream died, in Europe and across the globe. The insanity of a state-capitalist economy collapsed within a historical heartbeat, and very few now are sorry to see it gone. The ashes of Stalinist Marxism-Leninism lay scattered as dust, whilst lonely and desperate souls struggle in vain to piece them back together. This is not the future.

In countries such as America, Iran and elsewhere, a new old cancer has taken hold of the people. Religious fanatics seek to plunge their countries into the chaos of witch-burning and superstition, desperate to destroy any chance for progress or change to occur. This is not the future.

The social-Darwinist capitalists, elated from their moment of triumph, continue to spout their propaganda. They claim that the downfall of their enemies was due to their superior system. They work continuously against those who try to improve the living standards of the vast majority of the world, while basking in the glory of the riches they have amassed for themselves. This is not the future!

Even in darkness, a light still shines. The truth cannot be concealed so readily. All over the world, people are opening their eyes to the answers that lie before them. We do not recognise the authority of our governments and we do not accept the chains of the men who control them!

We cannot stand against them purely democratically and hope to win. They control the media inside and out. The concept of National Democracy holds the world's poor back from claiming what should rightfully be theirs. Our only option is to fight the reactionaries with whatever means are necessary. Heroes of the 21st century, do your duty! Britain, and the world, needs your strength and your courage now, because only with all the might in the world can we hope to land a death-blow to the forces of reaction and superstition!

We must say no unjust peace! Say no to unjust authority!

Say no to injustice, anywhere, ever!



This is obviously not finished because I need to go on to explain all of the actual theories. Haven't got around to fleshing them out fully yet.

 

[Leif]

Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist? Seriously?

Explain why you call it Reconstructivism.

 

[GarretSidzaka]

yeah, go ahead dead flag. i want to hear where you are going with this. but less rhetoric and more theory plz

and i agree with Leif: whats up with the marxism leninism stuff?

 

[Dead Flag]

Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist? Seriously?

Explain why you call it Reconstructivism.

Already have done, my friend, but I'll do it again:

I've named it 'Reconstructivism' which is a virtually non-existent word. I define this as the theory that the socio-political-economic structure of modern society should be completely overhauled and then constantly improved; 're' because of the need to erase the existing order, 'construct' because of the emphasis on progression, and 'ive' because it's a continuous process, not a single event, as 'reconstructionism' might imply (it doesn't help that this is a term used by religious fundamentalists).

And, yes, Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist; I don't believe that Stalinists should be allowed to claim sole inheritance of Lenin's theories, but there's no denying that Stalin's own viewpoints were a perversion and corruption of Lenin's. Supporters of the old Soviet Union may not claim to follow Stalin, may even oppose him like Khrushchev, but let's face it in practice it was exactly the same style of government.

I don't agree with all of Lenin's points but there's a lot that's worth paying attention to. In fact, you could say I'm more Leninist than I am Marxist.

I prefer rhetoric to theory, it's more exciting. However it obviously doesn't help much in the understanding of concepts so I'll continue. I'll post up some theories once I've arranged them in a logical manner. Please bear with me.

 

[Dead Flag]

Here is a collection of concepts and theories I have been working on, combined with some of my responses to questions I've been asked. Please remember that these are in their very early stages of development, and any glaring errors will not be an intentional insult to anyone else's point of view.

Given that the division of labour is taken to be the most efficient allocation of work, the following organisation of society is proposed;

Collective Working
All members of the population belong to an industry. An industry should be focused on the production of a single good or several related goods or services. Industries will resemble corporations, with the main difference being that shareholders will represent, in equal proportions, the workers within an industry, the receivers of the goods or services, and the state itself. These should be elected directly by the workers, with the exception of the state representatives, who should be appointed directly by the government.

Collective Dwelling
My proposal is that we be allowed to choose our own family. All workers within an industry should reside in a single building, or a collection of buildings depending upon the industry and style of building. These buildings should encourage a sense of community and camaraderie amongst colleagues through communal eating areas and communal activity centres. Each person should be allocated a room to themselves, with a bed large enough to accommodate two persons if necessary, and an en-suite bathroom. This should for all intents and purposes be considered ‘their’ room; they should be allowed to decorate as they see fit, providing for legislation that their industry may elect to uphold. Living under one house doesn't seem to cause major problems for biological families, and so it should not for adoptive families.

Collective Education and Child-Rearing
My system aims to eliminate many of the great injustices in society and bring us one step closer to allocative efficiency. The system of the family, in its current form, is horribly wasteful and inefficient. Inequality of upbringing causes great problems and greater social division.

Children should be brought up in dedicated centres run by an education and child-rearing industry. Throughout the education of a child, co-operation and compassion must be reinforced, but critical thinking and questioning should also be encouraged. Living conditions should be no lesser than that of the adult workers, allowing for the specific needs of children.

The child-rearing that I advocate is calculated to improve the quality of life for all children. Being brought up by trained individuals whose job is to ensure that you are looked after in the most encouraging manner possible is surely a better environment than being placed with two random people who have plenty of other things on their mind apart from their children.

In this way, marriage will become obsolete. No legal binding will be necessary and people will be free to pursue relationships in the manner that they choose.

I advocate encouraging the natural talents and abilities of our youths, and because of the overall focus on the division of labour, individuality, in my opinion, will become more pronounced. The difference is that the sense of community, which is missing from capitalist society, and is filled by political and religious groups instead, will now become the norm.


Collective Elderly Care (In response to the question of what we would do with the elderly)
There would be an industry in place dedicated to looking after the elderly, but they would be encouraged to keep their minds and bodies active, and not just for productivity's sake but because it will keep them happier and healthier.

Collective Bargaining
The system of resource allocation through representative tokens (for example, money) is not something that can be abolished lightly, if it is even necessary and desirable to do so. However, the current form of money is inefficient and open to abuse. Therefore it is recommended that the purchasing of goods and services be transferred to a digital format only, and that all monetary transitions should be available for all to see, though the purchases themselves will remain undisclosed. It is also recommended that income equality be heavily enforced, with all workers entitled to a similar wage. Incentives, if necessary, should be reduced to minor amounts; in time, with such a system, the possession of even a 5% higher than average income would become seen as highly desirable.

In such a system, it will become necessary to constantly battle social parasitism. This is not an impossible goal, because in a communal and open society, peer pressure alone may be enough to encourage greater effort. Nevertheless, industries may be called upon to reduce wages for those individuals who show little interest in working to the best of their ability. Again, the humiliation if nothing else may encourage harder work. In the event of this occurring, an outside observer or group of observers should be appointed by the state to ensure that this is done fairly and reasonably.

It is recommended that the supply of goods should be done over a period of time, in order to allow for collective organisations to function properly, with effective consumer representation. Subscriptions should become the norm and one-offs should instead be available from a store within the worker's industry itself. If possible, most purchases should be done in bulk by the industry in order to increase efficiency of supply.

If this is successful, and altruism becomes expected, then eventually all forms of money will become obsolete and the simple exchange of services will become the dominant form of cooperation.

My theories may seem cold at times, but I truly believe that this system will ensure the happiest and most fulfilling environment for everyone, and individuality, far from being destroyed, will be allowed to grow at its own pace instead of being forced upon a person by outside influences.

 

[Bahmo]

I am very pleased to see that another person sees fit to abolish parental tyranny. While I believe people should not dissolve all knowledge of who spawned them, children should be afforded constitutional rights granted to all citizens, and parents forbidden from taking them away.

 

[Dead Flag]

Hooray, a response! And positive, too! Thanks!

Parents, in a way, are the last illegitimate authority (because not many seek to replace them with anything better), and there's no reason to suggest why it should be the natural or best way to bring up a child.

I'm still working on a lot of theories at the moment, I hope people don't mind if I post them up here when I'm trying to get them sorted out.

 

[GarretSidzaka]

I agree as well. i am a parent, and i want to raise my son differently than i was raised. it is important to instill good core values in a child, i think, rather that resort to tyranny later, when your child seeks independance.

 

[DVS]

I was with you through the first post.

I do agree that all present governments are completely illegitimate, and that the capitalist system is inherently unjust, as was the soviet system.

The first (mammoth) steps are eliminating any sort of hierarchy, nationalizing all natural resources and banks, and running only worker controlled factories. Private, unaccountable corporations should be disbanded. Some forms of private business should be allowed and encouraged, with strict monopoly laws and wealth limits. Business owners should be directly civilly and criminally liable for the actions of their companies. The idea of 6 people controlling all of the world's media should sound absolutely absurd to our grandchildren. Governments should be run from the bottom up, not the other way around. Workers councils should have the most power, the representatives at the federal level should have none. The words President, King, Queen, and Prime Minister should be eradicated from our vocabulary (not literally).

Collective working, I'm with you on that. Obviously the specifics of how such a system could be best implemented and maintained is a subject for very wide debate.



Here's where you lost me:


Collective Dwelling. I'm in favour of encouraging communal living, but it sounds to me like you're talking about some form of social engineering, forcing people to live in certain places. I completely disagree with you there. People should be allowed to live wherever they want. I don't think there should be a power system anywhere, that even has the right to make such rules. It sounds to me like you're talking about replacing one tyranny with another. No matter how noble your power system starts, it will be corrupted in time. The idea is removing any and all power systems. Any system of authority, meaning anything that infringes in any way on the absolute freedom of any person on earth, should have to constantly justify itself. Chomsky's law, I think that's called. Well if it isn't, I just coined it that.


"they should be allowed to decorate as they see fit, providing for legislation that their industry may elect to uphold"

- again, personally, I don't think there should be any authority capable of telling people what to do, including (especially?) basic things like decoration of personal space. I suppose you could say I'm anti-authoritarian. I always thought if I were Russian or something I would support the anti-fascist movement. Here in north America there can't be anti-fascists, because that would involve recognizing fascism for what it is. Impossible to anyone who has been raised by the American media. Freedom is slavery here at this point in a terrifyingly real way.

I don't think any government, or any other power system, should have the right to infringe on any action taken by any other person. As mentioned before, there should only be slight limits on this rule, which must be constantly and publicly justified. In other words, there will still be prisons for murderers, rapists, and thieves, but no government or group will even have the ability to make or enforce laws or regulations concerning things like personal behavior, religion, sexual orientation, drug use, etc. The only things any person should be limited from doing involve harming someone else, or destroying/stealing someone else's property. This would apply to all people and naturally, all businesses, factories, etc would be governed by the same laws. Well, it would be natural in a just society, in our culture we have the opposite of that. Individuals have very limited rights, our personal behaviour and movements are heavily regulated and controlled from on high, while unaccountable corporations commit countless crimes and acts of mass violence on a daily basis that go completely unpunished.

Collective Education and Child-Rearing
My system aims to eliminate many of the great injustices in society and bring us one step closer to allocative efficiency. The system of the family, in its current form, is horribly wasteful and inefficient.

Inequality of upbringing causes great problems and greater social division.

Children should be brought up in dedicated centres run by an education and child-rearing industry. Throughout the education of a child, co-operation and compassion must be reinforced, but critical thinking

and questioning should also be encouraged. Living conditions should be no lesser than that of the adult workers, allowing for the specific needs of children.

The child-rearing that I advocate is calculated to improve the quality of life for all children. Being brought up by trained individuals whose job is to ensure that you are looked after in the most

encouraging manner possible is surely a better environment than being placed with two random people who have plenty of other things on their mind apart from their children.

In this way, marriage will become obsolete. No legal binding will be necessary and people will be free to pursue relationships in the manner that they choose.

I advocate encouraging the natural talents and abilities of our youths, and because of the overall focus on the division of labour, individuality, in my opinion, will become more pronounced. The difference

is that the sense of community, which is missing from capitalist society, and is filled by political and religious groups instead, will now become the norm.

Ok so you're a REAL social engineering kind of guy. I completely disagree with basically everything in that quote. Were you being ironic and I just failed to pick up on it? Did I misread the tone of your post? This isn't for a mod or something, is it?

We improve the quality of living for all people around the world, and the quality of living for all children will be improved. I am in favor of a lot of resources going towards caring for orphans and children who's parents can't care for them, but it should be done by at the family and community levels primarily, not by some sort of state sponsored child engineering firm. We need much less government intervention in family and community relationships than we have now. In my opinion, family and community are two of the key aspects of humanity. No offense buddy but to me the fact that people think like this scares me, way too Brave New World. Why not just sterilize everyone and make all the children we need in a lab? Are we going to condition them with hypnopaedia and dope them up with Soma while we're at it? 62,400 repetitions make one truth.

I think we need schools that educate children instead of indoctrinating them, and there should be a wide variety of options. The authoritative relationship between parents and children has to be examined. Like some other authority systems, it is legitimate to a degree, but it's full extents must be justified. Obviously a parent grabbing a child's hand so they don't run into traffic is a legitimate authority structure. However, children should be able to make more personal decisions on things such as education at a younger age. Children should be free like everyone else, to learn and develop as human begins. Not conditioned in some factory to be efficient workers.

It appears we're in totally opposite ends on this. You think community can be engineered by forcing people to live together and raising kids on an assembly line. I think community will improve once everyone is living in a more just world. Standards of living will improve, and people will have to work less. They will be much more involved in running and planning their communities, so they will take a much larger interest. The world would experience a cultural renaissance if all of a sudden every country instituted some form of truly democratic, free system. Personally the closest thing to a system I agree with is anarcho-syndicalism.

One of the big problem's with today's society is that the individual human being has been completely marginalized. The world is on the brink of really falling into some kind of corporate controlled nightmare. Compound debt and other forms of fiscal domination have brought the "middle class" of developed nations happily into indentured servitude. We're even letting them control our personal relationships now with things like facebook. That used to be the one aspect of humanity that the corporate world didn't have a stranglehold over; personal relationships. Now we've gladly handed them that as well. "[Human interaction: Brought to you by Nike]. People have to be freed to live their own lives and actually have control over the systems of authority, finance, and business that presently rule over us in much the same way kings and emperors did in years past. You should not be forced to follow any rule that you did not have a direct hand in creating. That would be real democracy.


The most egalitarian system in place in the 20th century was Spain during their civil war. Of course that government was crushed with violence, as the capitalists, communists, and fascists all worked together to make sure that real independent development didn't break out. The United States actually began with a lot of ideals that are still very valid. They have all obviously been crushed over the centuries by capital and the violence and repression that accompanies it.

You are right that "democracy" won't change anything, certainly not the democracy we have in place today. Voting for king between two people hand picked by the corporate community every four years is never going to change a thing, other than rhetoric. Non-violent social activism will bring about change, however. Every positive change in history, including our 40 hour work weeks and minimum wages, came about after decades of struggle, more often than not met with violent resistance from the ruling class. Real democracy, as in a system of government where the will of the people is actually followed, would be a world changing advancement.

There are many good people working this day for change in the world, we just don't hear about them because they are not human beings. They are poor, they are from the southern hemisphere, and they are usually not white, so as far as the way our media treats us, they are not really people and therefor not worth even listening to. We have to tell them how to live, because we are superior. The real people of the earth. Classic colonial attitude, and our ruling class and media still hold it today. These people are to be ignored, they are to be crushed by the military police on the orders of our future FUSSDIRAGs, they are to be assassinated, overthrown, or subverted with other types of violence. Frequently terrorism, as we have recently committed in Cuba, Haiti, Guatamala and many other places.

The most inspiring movement today in my eyes is the World Social forum. Made up of generally what our media would ridiculously tell us are "anti-globalization protesters", while showing us pictures of undercover cops with bandannas on their faces smashing windows and throwing rocks in Seattle and Montebello. This represents a very large group of people committed to social justice around the world. There are a lot of movements right now, and that is how rights and freedoms are won. We're not going to have a revolutionary war. We are going to stand up for justice for however many generations have to get beaten down until no one on earth has domination over anyone else. This is human nature. Ask everyone on earth, and not one will say, "yes, I want to have someone else dominate my life". Even the most completely indoctrinated "neo-con" or PRC supporter won't answer yes to that question. This is why positive change will continue forever, sometimes in leaps, sometimes in trickles, until humanity is either truly free of domination from one another, or extinct.

There have also been several countries around the world who have managed to elect governments that are at least currently beginning to make moves towards equality and justice, always violently opposed by the west. Evo Morales is the most inspirational leader I have ever seen. Rafael Correa, Hugo Chavez, the soon to be elected Fernando Lugo, and others represent a movement towards justice and equality that is sweeping south America and parts of Africa right now. There is a very strong movement in India. These regions began to develop independently in the 60s and 70s, in other words
right after many of them were freed from open colonialism, but have been devastated for a generation by the combined tyranny of IMF forced "development" models and CIA subversion, violence, and terrorism. Sometimes all out war.

Now they are starting to pull themselves out of it and hopefully will successfully be able to forge new, independent development models. No one person is going to change the world all by themselves. There is a lot of room for change in this world, and a lot of people working towards it. If you want to dedicate yourself to changing the world, that is highly commendable, and there are many good causes you can involve yourself in. I'd recommend attending the next WSF if that's possible.


Well I guess I'll stop ranting at that. Hopefully our friendly law enforcement won't kick in my door for expressing my opinion today.

(Sad realization that a law abiding citizen actually has to stop and think about expressing political views in public for fear of government monitoring.)

 

[DVS]

wow that looks a lot longer on the screen than it did in my head.

 

[Dead Flag]

Thanks, DVS420, I appreciate the feedback!

My theories on lifestyle may seem a little cold, they were designed to be efficient, not necessarily moral. I don't advocate forcing anyone to do anything, and it was merely a suggested way for an industry to organise itself. Anyway, those theories were created after an analysis of trends led me to the startling conclusion that human civilisation could collapse entirely unless we underwent a complete restructuring. I probably should have mentioned that before, and I may type that out in full here at some point.

Interestingly though I do have a large amount of sympathy for the anarcho-syndicalist movement but I still feel attracted to social engineering and planning. It may appear patronising or elitist of me but I believe humanity in its current state would not be able to cope with a truly free society, and only after a few generations of reorganisation and education could we even begin to open things up properly. I also object to the idea that no authority is ever legitimate; if someone consents to being ruled, my only concern is that they do not consent for their children to inherit their position.

 

[DVS]

Yeah dude, thinking that you can personally engineer a perfect society is the definition of elitist.

Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree, with me desperately hoping you never come to power.


"I also object to the idea that no authority is ever legitimate;"

I didn't say that. I said that every authority system should have to constantly justify it's existence. Only 99.9% of authority systems are illegitimate.



"if someone consents to being ruled, my only concern is that they do not consent for their children to inherit their position"

So if a slave in 18th century America, having been raised and educated a slave, could not see his oppression, that means his oppression is legitimate? I completely disagree.

 

[Dead Flag]

You cannot force people to be free, as much as you or I might want to. First you have to educate them so that they want to be free.

 

[DVS]

I agree, and I'm not saying any of this will ever happen over night. The first step in freeing someone from oppression is getting them to understand that they are oppressed. This is a historical truism, from slavery to woman's liberation.

The Spanish revolution wasn't spontaneous. It stemmed from decades of anarchist education and activism. Totalitarian utopias are a pipe dream. You can't engineer a perfect society.

Humanity will save itself once it sheds its rulers, I have no doubt about that. People are up to the task of self governance, only centuries of elitist, racist propaganda make us think we need a group of rich white men run telling us how to live, "for our own good".