The conventional view of the communist movement was that after the revolutionary forces won political power, the period of consolidation would be relatively brief and new forms of popular power would emerge to replace our hopelessly corrupted political institutions.
We also assumed that the state would acquire more functions and extend its reach into new areas of social, cultural, and civic life, including control of the mass media.
Our skies would be blue and pollution free. Our neighborhoods would become places of rest, leisure, culture, and green space. The whole panoply of oppressions that scare our people and nation would be on the wane. Human sexuality and sexual orientation would be enjoyed and celebrated. The audiences at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall would look as diverse as the people of our city.
Another assumption was that market relations would quickly give way to centralized planning and a completely socialized economy.
Finally, we were of the opinion that socialist state property would be clearly dominant and would eventually become the singular form of ownership.
These assumptions have to be revisited and revised in view of experience and new theoretical insights. I would like to briefly turn to these questions.
To begin with, I don’t think that the people of our country will agree to dismantle the political structures that currently exist and have existed for over 200 years. Nor do I think that they will jettison the Bill of Rights or the Constitution or a system of checks and balances on concentrated political power. More likely, they will want to extend, deepen and modify them based on the unfulfilled promises of our democracy, new democratic desires, and the needs of socialist construction.
At the same time, I suspect – and more importantly historical experience would strongly suggest – that new popular institutions will emerge somewhere in this process. Today millions of people feel alienated from our government. Nearly one-half of the people don’t vote. Many people see government as disconnected from their day-to-day life, even an obstacle to their aspirations.
To overcome this, an energized and rapidly growing movement will likely create new institutional forms that draw millions into struggle and devolve political power to the grassroots and workplace. Or to put it differently, socialism will be empowered by people and be empowering of people.
With regard to the role of the state, the experience in other socialist countries suggest that functions that in the past we assumed would be the province of a socialist state might be done better by either non-governmental organizations or lower levels of government. Federal power would have a role to be sure, but I also think that we have to keep in mind that such power is distant and beyond the reach of the very masses of people who are supposed to be authors and architects of this new society.
As for the economy, the main issue is not whether we would employ market mechanisms, but rather the issue is to what extent and for how long? In the past, there was a tendency to think market relations would disappear almost overnight. I’m unconvinced that that’s an accurate reading of the classical literature or a lesson that we should draw from the experience of socialist construction in the 20th century.
I would expect that the economy would be a mixed one, combining different forms of socialist and cooperative property as well as space, within clear limits, for private enterprise. While democratic planning would begin to play a role in organizing economic life, market mechanisms would probably operate over sectors of the socialized economy for much longer than I thought years ago.
At the same time, I would envision a guaranteed income and the decommodification of some sectors of the economy like health care, food and nutrition, education, child and elder care, and so forth. In other words, the costs of the reproduction of labor power would be socialized as much as possible.
The federal budget would be overhauled and its priorities radically changed. The economy would be de-militarized and restructured. A social fund would be established to compensate for racial oppression, gender discrimination and other injustices. The narrowing of economic equalities would be a paramount goal of a socialist society. And forms of participatory decision-making would be instituted from the workplace and community up.
One of the most complex tasks of a socialist society will be achieving a sustainable economy. It will, according to Marxist economists and ecologists, require major changes in our production methods and consumption patterns.
It is hard to imagine how this challenge, not to mention challenges like overcoming racial and gender inequality, demilitarization, urban and rural revitalization, and so forth, can be successfully tackled without planning. Market mechanisms can play a useful role in economic coordination as I said, but the redirection of the economy along fundamentally new lines requires a planning process at every level.
A final challenge on the morrow of the revolution is to re-imagine our nation’s role on a global level. Without going into detail, we will immediately remove our uniform of global cop and exploiter and take our place along side other members of the world community and demand no special privileges. There is much to love about our country, but the image of a city on a shining hill and arrogantly wielding its sword does the American people as well as the world’s people enormous harm. In fact, if the city shines at all, it is in no small measure because our imperialism, often with the use of military force, has structured international relations between the capitalist core and its periphery so that astronomical wealth at one pole is combined with unspeakable deprivation and immiseration at the other. Eight million people die each year because of poverty and ten million from AIDS. Hundreds of millions of human beings are living in slums on nearly every continent. This has to change for all of humanity’s sake, but it won’t until we rethink and restructure our relationships with the global community.
I have confined myself to the day after the revolution, but extending the time frame a bit further into the future brings additional images and possibilities. Homelessness and joblessness would be eradicated. Toxic dumps would be cleaned up and replaced with gardens and playgrounds.
Our skies would be blue and pollution free. Our neighborhoods would become places of rest, leisure, culture, and green space. The whole panoply of oppressions that scare our people and nation would be on the wane. Human sexuality and sexual orientation would be enjoyed and celebrated. The audiences at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall would look as diverse as the people of our city.
The prisons systems would be emptied and the borders demilitarized and opened. Women would be regularly receiving Nobel prizes in the sciences. The Pentagon would be padlocked and the swords of war would be turned into plowshares and we would study war no more. And, finally, the full development of each would be the condition for the full development of all.
--Sam Webb is the chair of the Commuist Party USA.
