Talk:Council communism

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I find this article a little bit POV. Could there not be a section for Marxist critiques of council communism or something?Lebob 02:20, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

There's probably space for something like that, if the critiques are encyclopedically notable in themself, much like Lenin's Infantile Communism which is in the article.Fifelfoo 03:21, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think you should make a difference between left communism and council communism. I think KAPD was a party organisation, something council communist groups such as GIC criticized after KAPD's demise. Left communism was a historical link between Zimmerwald and council communism. AnttiR.

[edit] External links

I'm going to remove the two external links that have recently been added because, although the sites look interesting, they are not specifically council communist. The first one seems to be influenced by a whole range of left currents but is probably more anarchist/situationist than council communist. Certainly, there is no prominent exposition of specifically council communist ideas. The second site notes that it will endorse all leftists, from Trotsky to Stalin, so not very council communist at all... Mattley 12:27, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Personal rant

I cannot help but express my opinion that Council communism would be just as doomed as the Bolshevik communism, judging what happens with trade unions: whatever democratic arganization you take, inevetably any coordination of activities requires a certain centralization, which immediately attracts people for whom power is narcotics. Further, once an organization is large enough, there comes a significant part of people with, say, less that strong political convictions, hence, easily manipulable. And voila, we have "democracy" of American kind... So the only options are either anarchism or progress of mass mankind towards something elusively good and brotherhoodish. Any kind of organization obeys to Parkinson's Law.

Concluding, it is really strange that there is no criticism of this equally utopic idea. Explanations are either heavy bias of editors of this page or marginality of this tendency, so that no one bothered to criticize. `'mikka 16:46, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Your critique is really based on unprovable and simplistic assertions which have long been levelled at anarchism and received due response by anarchist writers. If you can come up with something more concrete and nuanced than "organizations inevitably get corrupt" then maybe you can put it in the article. TheEvilPanda 17:27, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I second Panda's remarks, and also think you should read some anarchist literature. Anarchists believe in a direct democracy, meaning that powerhungry types would also have to work as a laborer like anyone else. Also, any council would be composed of temporary delegates, who only govern on the council for a period, and only part-time at that. After deliberations, they would go back to work. Even while on the council, they would submit many decisions to a general vote of all workers. They would never become representative politicians, but only sub-commitee members like in the US congress, except the "Congress" would be every worker. Also, there would be no "apolitical" types since all workers would be part-time managers. Even if they spearhead policies as trivial as "more selections in the vending machine now!", they would still be active, not passive.72.78.177.33 (talk) 08:26, 6 May 2008 (UTC)