The Cibcom Collective argues that Communist society will require an overcoming of political representation in favor of forms of direct democracy like sortition and referendum. Read by: Will

“The first step of the workers’ revolution is the elevation of the proletariat to a ruling class, the conquest of democracy.”¹

This sentence expresses one of the most important slogans of the Communist Manifesto, and yet it often goes unnoticed. Some think that it is simply because it is obsolete; that Marx and Engels said this in the face of the monarchies of their time, but that democracy is already widespread throughout the world today. But were the founders of modern communism really so naive as to consider that in such regimes – which already existed in countries like the USA – the workers constituted the “ruling class”? Obviously not. “Democracy” had another meaning for the socialists of those times. A meaning that needs to be remembered and rethought.

Marx envisioned the post-capitalist future, broadly speaking, as a self-governing society of free and equal individuals. That is, a society without exploitation, bondage, or oppression of any kind, where no one has more decision-making power than anyone else so that decisions and their implementation are taken by those who are affected by them. Although he did not go into too much detail on this, he did make it clear that this project would require two basic conditions, which are mutually implied: i) economic planning: the institutional device capable of making operational the communist principle of conscious and rational regulation of productive activity, overcoming the atomized decision-making process characteristic of market production through the integration of the bulk of production into a general economic plan; and ii) a democratic republic: which is the legal-political framework based on the universality of collective decisions, equality, and unrestricted individual freedoms.

It is easy to understand why these two institutional conditions imply each other. On the one hand, without society’s conscious control over the general economic process – a control which in turn demands social ownership of the means of production as well as collective disposal of the surplus – there can never be true democracy and civil independence of citizens, but simply subjection of individuals and society to a blind mercantile-capitalist power, an autocratic power that imposes its internal needs of reproduction on an ever-increasing scale over the needs of the population. Without the means to carry out its designs – because these means are private – democracy and the general will are empty, not operative in any meaningful sense and de facto do not exist as such. 

Let us remember that modern political philosophy never separates the legal question of rights and freedoms from the material conditions for their exercise. Rights and freedoms are conditional principles, as they always require resources in order to be exercised. For example, even if the right of expression could be formally recognized for all, it would only be a real right for those who have the means of communication. In this sense, and insofar as democracy is the system of public decision-making that derives from equal rights and universal freedom, in order to be operative – as with any right – it logically requires the availability of the general means of society: the means of production. 

Likewise, without democracy and full freedoms of communication, assembly, and information, there can be no genuine planning of the economy, understood as a permanent and general process of communication, deliberation, and collective decision-making. If the ultimate goal is to ensure that our social metabolism is consciously oriented towards the satisfaction of citizens’ needs, without the mediation of distortions such as money, capitalists or profits, we must replace the capitalist feedback mechanism, the market, with one in which workers express their desires and concerns directly. The only mechanisms capable of generating such information flows with sufficient agility and precision are those associated today with so-called “direct democracy”. We need these procedures and a regulatory framework which, by its very definition, can only be established in a coherent (i.e. effective) way in strictly universal terms. Freedom of communication is a freedom that everyone has vis-à-vis others. So if you prevent someone from expressing his opinion (whatever it may be), you are at the same time violating the right of everyone else to be able to hear it (“if you block one mouth you are automatically blocking the ears of everyone else”). The quality of information flows depends on free deliberation in which opinions are contrasted and critical thinking is developed.

The communist program of the socialization of production would not represent just another political option (among many others), but the material and institutional condition of democracy itself, understood as the revolutionary dissolution of the divisions that hierarchize the social body: rulers and ruled, workers and owners, people and professional army, etc. Only in this way could we speak of self-government, of the real and general possibility of deliberating and doing things in the public sphere.

Political representation in the capitalist mode of production

“The free choice of masters suppresses neither masters nor slaves.“²

So, if democracy is not possible in a system of competition between private producers, with restrictions on freedoms and the dissemination of information, what is it that exists today? What is the political form of capitalism today?

The rising bourgeoisie of the 18th century abhorred democracy as a decision-making mechanism, since, with the risk of demagogy, they argued that it was impossible for the working class to decide what were the legitimate legal frameworks for the reproduction of capital. On the one hand, in the sphere of production, decision-making remained the exclusive domain of the owners of the means of production (first individuals, later boards of directors and shareholders’ meetings). On the other hand, most intellectuals, with honorable exceptions (starting with Marsilius of Padua and going as far as Babeuf), advocated the political representation of the nation in a sovereign body. That is to say, they sought to create an institution that would speak for the nation in public affairs, beyond production, assuming that the interests of its members would be equated with the ones of the citizens as a whole, when in fact they would only be so with those of the faction of the bourgeoisie to which they belonged. The main idea was to establish a situation of more or less explicit consent between the rulers and the ruled, justified on the grounds that in the Ancien Régime such consent did not exist. However, the very difference between rulers and ruled already embodies a regime of inequality, where collective decisions are taken by a few. ³⁴⁵

The mechanism for establishing consent between rulers and ruled was that of elections, which inherently implies a separation between electors and elected and creates the conditions for the elected to be the most privileged, those who can monopolize the time, money, information, and merit in order to position themselves as politicians. Aristotle already identified elections as the ideal method for aristocracy, since only the best can be elected, while the lottery would be the best method for democracy, since it does not distinguish between better or worse or between rulers and ruled, but anyone can be elected.⁶ In this sense, the expansion of suffrage cannot properly be understood as an “increase” or a “rapprochement” to democracy, but merely a greater number of electors, which results in greater competition among the potentially elected. This is undoubtedly good for the electors, just as a more competitive market is usually more favorable for consumers. In fact, in the same way as the governed, non-owners do not have the right to decide what and how to produce, they can only indirectly influence it as consumers, so that when they buy, they place their trust in a specific producer, similar to voting in an election.

Political representation in the communist movement

“The soviets of workers’ deputies are the only possible form of revolutionary government.”⁷

The communist movement has historically had a predilection for a particular form of political organization of post-revolutionary society: the workers’ councils or soviets, as opposed to social democracy, which has usually advocated parliamentary representation.⁸⁹ However, is this the best way for a society of free producers to make collective decisions, and is the council system really democratic?

The main theoretical innovation of the councils as opposed to parliamentarism is that they are based on the imperative mandate, i.e. constant accountability to their constituents, which also implies the recall of delegates who do not fulfill their mandate. The main debate within the communist movement has been whether the organization of the councils (or organs, etc.) should be led by the party, under the supposed motto of democratic centralism, as advocated by Marxism-Leninism and applied in the countries under actually existing socialism, or whether it should be independent of a single communist party, as advocated by the council communists and built, for a short time, in some revolutions, such as the Spanish revolution of 1936, the Hungarian revolution or the Bavarian revolution in 1919. Ultimately, however, both currents advocate the existence of a pyramid of councils, from the base of local bodies to an assembly for the whole nation, which is, curiously enough and despite the supposed differences, how the Soviet Union was structured. The apparent lack of democracy in the country, according to the council communists, was due to the party’s tight control over candidates, which prevented a pluralism of opinion and concentrated power in a bureaucratic elite.¹⁰¹¹ Some advocates of economic planning have followed the council communist current in order to elaborate their proposals for the conscious organisation of future society.¹²¹³

Council communists are partly right in their critique. Democratic centralism was based de facto on a dictatorship of party members, for although there were non-party politicians, they were a minority whose capacity for action was co-opted when they did not follow party guidelines, and they were obviously not eligible for positions in higher bodies, only at the grassroot elections. Its obvious result was that the Soviet citizenry was indifferent to elections and official statistics were systematically falsified.¹⁴ However, there is no guarantee that no-party council communism would mean greater participation and more democracy than real socialism, since it falls into the same logic of political representation. The councils would elect the best leaders, who the population would see as superior to the others because of certain qualities, and these leaders would in turn elect others they would also consider better, and so on, depending on the number of levels of the council pyramid. This poses two fundamental problems: 1) the difference between rulers and ruled remains; 2) representation, by being tiered over several levels, can make the ability of the grassroots electorate to influence the final decision even less and even more indirect than in parliamentary representation.¹⁵¹⁶

Some anarchists think that reducing councils to a local level could be a more democratic alternative to council communism. However, restricting citizens’ sovereignty to their specific territorial framework and atomizing the social metabolism, implies denying their decision-making power on issues that clearly affect them, since the production and distribution of goods and services are nowadays scattered and interconnected on a national and supranational scale. In other words, it is impossible to plan democratically and efficiently for the individual decisions of thousands of small councils, as their decisions may be contradictory and the outcome may not necessarily be the one chosen by the population as a whole. The same is true when economic activity is delegated to independent cooperatives: their interaction (re)generates market competition, as was the case in the former Yugoslavia. Ultimately, it is a problem of scale and aggregation.¹⁷

Socialist democracy versus political representation

“What concerns all must be approved by all.” – Roman Brocard

So, if councils are far from being truly democratic, what mechanisms do we believe will guarantee universal and equal collective decision-making? The referendum and sortition, the principal means of classical democracy. 

Referendums, also called direct democracy, are clearly the most direct form of collective decision-making. However, many may be sceptical of them as they can seem inefficient or impossible, so both arguments must be confronted. First, the Marquis de Condorcet proved that in a majority vote, if we assume that people can compare two or more options, then as the number of voters increases, the correct option will almost certainly be chosen. This theorem, which is ultimately nothing more than an application of the law of large numbers, is fundamental to understanding that plebiscites are, in many cases, the best mechanism for collective decision-making.¹⁸¹⁹  It is arguable that with more than two options the optimal outcome is not so obvious, but there are many methods to handle this situation, such as averaging or vector approximation.²⁰²¹ 

Some may think that the referendum cannot be implemented on a mass scale, either for technical reasons or because they do not believe that society can coordinate in this way. The first is rather naïve, as the almost universal access to the internet and the development of the blockchain make it possible to establish a secure and secret universal ballot, which is even more efficient than the current elections. The second deserves to be taken into account, but it can be assumed that in a society where information is also universally accessible, free time is guaranteed and the majority of individuals accept their role in the conscious organization of society, there are many more incentives to participate than in the current referendums in some countries, whose dissemination and implementation is very limited.²²²³

In this sense, we can highlight two fundamental issues that we assume when talking about direct democracy: 1) It is not necessary to vote on all public decisions, only those that have a significant impact on the population as a whole and whose details are not relevant. Direct democracy can also be exercised in specific population groups as long as their decisions do not affect the rest of the population in a relevant way. 2) More specific and technical issues that affect the population as a whole (e.g. proposing solutions to climate change) cannot be dealt with by referendum, as not all individuals are capable of specializing in these. It is reasonable to advocate in these cases an alternative and equally democratic mechanism: sortition.

Sortition guarantees equality for all because those selected are chosen randomly, without taking into account their qualities, unlike in elections. The formation of more or less extensive committees of people chosen by lot is relevant for technical issues, as they represent a cross-section of society, unlike a committee of technicians or a council chosen by vote, and it also guarantees deliberation among its members, as they will have to train together to deal with the issue they have to discuss, which has proven to be successful in the few occasions in which it has been implemented.²²²⁴ One might argue that the drawing of lots is also a form of representation, only more unfair, because the representatives are not chosen; nothing could be further from the truth. First of all, if the lottery is truly random and is repeated frequently and at different scales, again following the law of large numbers, the collective decisions taken in them are most likely to be close to the average of the general opinion. This is not guaranteed by elections, as they do not produce a random representation of society, but are biased towards individuals with certain qualities, so the outcome of elections will coincide with the average of the opinions of the selection of these individuals and not of the whole population. 

In short, we do not believe that post-capitalist society will be a paradise where everything is perfectly automated or where all people always agree, but it should be clear to anyone who is serious about socialism that there will be no domination by man over man, so we have no choice but to think about such democratic mechanisms for collective decision-making. We believe that “The suspicion with which many leftists view our suggestions for direct democracy makes us suspect that, in their imagination, they see themselves as part of a future political class. Although actually politically impotent, this imaginary consolation repels them from direct democracy. Comrade, it is better to admit that you will never be a commissar and that the leftist groupuscules will never be ruling parties like the CPSU-B. Forget your mistrust of the people, forget these ambitions to rule!“²⁵

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