Trotsky theorised the need for a national workers’ struggle to be supported by the working classes of other nation states. I say, the more support from abroad, the merrier. However, one should not wait for internationalist working class synchronicity before making a peaceable revolution on the back of working class organisation into workers’ councils and workplace and industry committees, and strengthening unions.
The other way forward for socialism is for a transition to market socialism through instigating profit-sharing for employees, en route to the abolition of the employee-employer distinction in the workplace or employee-employer economic productive relations with respect to the ownership or lack thereof of the means of production (the exchange of performing labour for wages paid by an owner of economic productive means).
Both methods, the building of working class workplace democracy, strengthening of unions, the building of decentralised workers’ councils and committees on the one hand, and progressive political party organising to institute profit-sharing on the other, can happen simultaneously.
The difference between the two methods is that profit sharing and market socialism can be skipped in favour of full workers’ control over production if the right principles and incentives for work are put into place in democratic workplaces.
These principles are largely provided for by the works of Albert and Hahnel in their approach to (economic) social justice called ‘participatory economics’ – wherein this special kind of workplace is called a ‘balanced job complex’. One principle is the right to vote on matters in proportion to the degree a worker is affected by a workplace decision, and a conscious effort to split the onerous and comparatively empowering labour more equitably. I think job rotationals is a good way to mitigate elitism, but still perhaps keeping a level of specialisation of job roles, especially in the transitionary stages between capitalism, social democratic capitalism (which can be skipped), market socialism (which can be skipped), socialism with strict and tight controls on income inequality – still allowing for job role specialisation, and libertarian communism and the ongoing revolution in the economy, continually selecting for more substantive equality between social agents.
I do not mean to conflate libertarian communism with the abolition of all forms of property – just the abolition of bourgeois forms of private property. I think that we should still retain a more personal type of property if fairly acquired, reflecting more a use-value than symbolic forms of hierarchical status we see in the exclusionary capitalist and bourgeois conceptions of private property. The right to indefeasibly own their own land freehold for all members of society, and to purchase goods and services in the economy is a progressive one. This – individual freehold ownership of a parcel of land – should be an economic right, and one that should be universalised, as it is from this foundation that people can better self-actualise with economic and social security. This means people will be able to contribute more fully to the culture, locally, nationally and globally.
National governments could purchase land from people and companies who own multiple properties at market value, and then award landed property to those without land ownership through submitting their preferences to a lottery based system of allocation.
This will facilitate a smooth transition to a more equitable land based allocation, without undercutting or misappropriating the landed assets of extant middle-class landlords or real estate companies/businesses, many of whom / which, currently provide affordable housing.
Henry Willoughby's Social Justice Blog 