I would go further than Gallin when he states “…the only form of politics which is an effective antidote to bureaucratism is the kind of socialist politics that contains a strong element of radical democracy…. Eugene Debs in the United States would be another example…” by saying that it is not simply concentrating on the issue of democracy but upon the whole concept of leadership and Debs was one union leader who indeed recognised this .
“I am not a labor leader. I don’t want you to follow me or anyone else. If you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of the capitalist wilderness you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into this promised land if I could, because if I could lead you in, someone else could lead you out.”
And elsewhere he says :-
“I never had much faith in leaders. I am willing to be charged with almost anything, rather than to be charged with being a leader. I am suspicious of leaders, and especially of the intellectual variety. Give me the rank and file every day in the week… I would be ashamed to admit that I had risen from the ranks. When I rise it will be with the ranks, and not from the ranks.”

Democracy must be the basic principle of both the movement to establish socialism and of socialist society itself. If a majority of workers really were as incapable of understanding socialism as many on the Left maintain , then socialism would be impossible since, by its very nature , as a society based on voluntary cooperation, it can only come into being and work with the conscious consent and participation of the majority. Socialism just cannot be imposed from above by an elite as envisaged by the Left . Political action must be taken by the conscious majority, without depending upon leadership. It is upon the working class that the working class must rely for their emancipation. Working class emancipation necessarily excludes the role of political leadership. Even if it could be conceived of a leader-ridden working class displacing the capitalist class from power such an immature class would be helpless to undertake the responsibilities of democratic socialist society.

Valuable work may be done by individuals, and this work may necessarily raise them to prominence, but it is not to individuals that the working class must look. The movement for freedom must be a working class movement. It must depend upon the working class vitality and intelligence and strength. Until the knowledge and experience of the working class are equal to the task of revolution there can be no emancipation for them.

For the Trotskyist-Lenininist Left, all union activity ( and community struggles etc) should be mediated by the Party , whereas , the Party should be seen as just one mode of activity available to the working class to use in their struggles i.e. a tail to be wagged by the dog. It is NOT the Party’s task to lead the workers in struggle or to instruct its members on what to do in trade unions, , because class conscious workers and socialists are quite capable of making decisions for themselves.

I don’t think there’s much point in thinking too seriously about economic restructuring (essential though it is), until political restructuring is achieved.

Our economic system is deliberately designed the way it is in order to benefit the tiny handful of elites who rule us. As far as they’re concerned, it works just fine. It’s not just that this particularly group of individuals need to be replaced, but the entire system that continually regenerates their kind. Until that happens hopes for significant economic reform is serious pie-in-the-sky.

Mike Misenti didn’t care what “his folks” were building, as long as they were building. That is my major complaint with Labor Unions, their need to self-perpetuate, and offer blind loyalty and complicity with less than optimal corporations/contractors and the latters’ self-interested profit motivated projects and industries that are sometimes, if not often, counter-productive to social/environmental goals..

Don’t get me wrong, I consider the interests of workers of all “stripes” and the poor to be of the utmost importance. However, in this era of post-peak oil, climate change, inequality and the tensions that such brings, and the perception of hopelessness that are held by and for youth and for the children, it is necessary that we allocate scarce resources in the most optimal ways and means possible.

We must recognize the fossil fuel age and the subsequent overshoot in automobile and airplane use as a historical exception that must be phased into perspective.

If we want to conserve precious fossil fuels for priority uses such as solar assisted heating, cooking, electricity generation, cooling, agricultural inputs, durable products, necessary industrial processes, inter-community and inter-regional transport within a paradigm of relocalization for all communities and regions (moving towards self-sufficiency), and preserve the luxury and convenience of occasional automobile and airplane travel in a manner that adjusts for economic disruption, then we must plan and implement.

We need to see the study and practice of Resource and Regional Planning beyond the historical complicity, and at best mitigation of, the irrational Capitalist growth paradigm that does not recognize and/or respect a finite planet whose limits that we are fast approaching. We must enter an era of Resource Allocation based on the explicit principles of meeting human needs, inclusion, equity, humanity, quality of life, environmental/public health and wellness, sustainability, economic democracy, and peace.

The key to a bountiful green building economy is the reversal of the thirty, fifty, one hundred year trend of sprawl development in the United States.

By rebuilding neighborhoods and reallocating goods and services to those renovated neighborhoods (made walkable, meaning that the great majority of Americans will be able to get what they need within walking distance of their homes), we can succeed.

Such a tremendous dedication of resources will be a boom to the building trades and will create the effect of reducing automobile usage by 80% in the next 20 to 40 years. Neighborhood commercial, community and work/telecommute centers will be centrally placed in what are now alienating, automobile dependent, strictly residential areas, alleviating the problems associated with post-peak oil and climate change and bringing with it the quality of life associated
with communities and neighborhoods, that most individuals and families currently lack.

If we do this, we can take the opportunity to retrofit for weatherization, passive solar design (heating and cooling),
electronic environmental controls, solar assisted hot water applications, limited PV and wind applications, etc.

Also, if done correctly, we can make changes in ownership arrangements that are much more fair and just, and work towards an equitable distribution of wealth among neighborhoods.

It is important that we fundamentally reassess our economic system and replace the current economic/finance system with one that targets the needs of the current residents, and not, for-profit speculation.

Because of the terrible inflation of real and capital assets that is a product of the speculative modus operandi of the Capitalist system, it will be fundamentally necessary to reform our economic/financial system by consolidating private (while rededicating them as quasi-public) real and capital assets and equity and writing way down the “market value” of those assets.

After completing that awesome task, we could proceed with a “plan and implement” economy dedicated to meeting the needs of the indigenous populations of all communities: inclusion, humanity, equity, quality of life, environmental/public health and wellness, sustainability, and peace.

Mike Morin
Eugene, OR, USA

The cancer of bureaucracy, wherever it exists, is a sympton of the problem and not the problem itself, which is decision making.

All bureacracies attempt to concentrate decision-making power in the hands of a tiny group of people, who then consolidate their power by means of rigid hierarchical structures – best exemplified by the bureaucracies of the military. The varioius junior and middle ranking ‘leaders’ who are employed to maintain discipline within the structure are chosen because of their all-consuming ambition and willingness to sell their own mothers for personal promotion. Democracy has no chance at all in these organisations.

You hit the nail on the head in the final paragraph with these words:

“The point is to nurture and strengthen the politics of radical democracy, the particular strand of socialist politics which I believe is the authentic Marxism, which insists that power, where it matters, always has to remain in the hands of the workers.”

Real DECISION-MAKING authority has to be in the hands of the ordinary worker, the ordinary citizen. This depends on two essential conditions: firstly, that the ordinary worker/citizen is properly informed; and secondly that the ordinary worker/citizen has a simple but trustworthy means of casting her vote.

Note also that this does not require leaders. Leaders are grossly overrated. It needs good administration and good information – neither of which require leaders.