Thank you for your patience in answering. I read your text in full, and I think that, incidentally, after this answer, our disagreement has become clearer than before. My impression is that you have not yet answered my specific questions but rather have explained more clearly why these questions should not be raised at this stage in principle. So, our disagreement is no longer just about the Council economy; it is about whether asking about the mechanisms of a proposed system is a legitimate question in principle or not. I did not say from the beginning that you should design a complete map of the future society in all its details from today. Such an expectation is neither possible nor reasonable. But there is a very big gap between “providing a complete map of the next thousand years” and “having no explainable mechanism for governing a complex society”. My question remains the same. You say that the Council movement will find the ability to resolve these issues in the course of its struggle and evolution. Very well; I also agree that no society can predetermine all the details of the future. But this statement is not the answer itself; it simply postpones the answer to the future.
If someone today defends capitalism and, in response to a question about banks, taxes, the budget, transportation, or trade, says, “People will solve these problems in the future,” we do not consider this an economic answer. We ask him to explain how his proposed mechanism works. That’s exactly why I’m asking the synodical society for co-operation, not a heavenly map. Regarding the ratio of change and interpretation, a large part of your answer is based on this dichotomy, as if I am looking for “interpretation” and you are looking for “change”. To be honest, I do not accept this dichotomy. The fact that a person wants to change the world has no contradiction with asking about the mechanism of change and the management of the future society. Incidentally, historical experience has shown that neglecting the issue of power, organization, planning, institutions, and concentration of authority can later create the same problems that a movement was originally formed to combat. Asking “How is power controlled?”, “How is conflict resolved?” or “How are resources allocated?” It is not a sign of indifference to poverty and hunger. This is a conclusion about the motivation of the questioner, not an answer to the argument itself. I may be wrong in my analysis; But if my question is wrong, it needs to be argued why, not attributed to me having a motive for asking it. Regarding scarcity and surplus, you devoted a significant portion of your answer to empty houses, wasted food, surplus steel, and surplus clothing. I’m not denying the point of this argument, and I agree that capitalism wastes huge amounts of resources irrationally. But my question was something else. I did not say why there is a shortage in the world today; I asked, if in a council society, at a certain point, there is really less than the need of a vital commodity, what is the decision criteria?
Suppose due to an earthquake, war, drought or production disruption, for a while medicine is only available for a thousand people and five thousand people need it. Or five thousand families really need housing, but there are currently only one thousand habitable units. Referring to the fact that a lot of food is wasted in the capitalist world is not the answer; Because these two questions are different. My question was not about the “structural deficiency of capitalism”; It was about “resource allocation criteria in real shortage conditions”. Is the criterion pre-defined? Is the severity of the need decisive? The possibility of salvation? Expert opinion? Council decision? Lottery? Or a combination of these? Either may be defensible, but ultimately there must be a mechanism. To say that “the council decides” only answers one step of the question; Because the council itself must make decisions based on criteria and methods. Regarding councils and coordination, you have written that I am looking for an institution above the councils, and you have considered this as a kind of provincialism. I think this interpretation of my question is not accurate.
I did not say that there must be a centralized government or a leader above the councils. My question is, if thousands of councils of production, consumption, transport, energy, health, etc. operate in a country, how is coordination between them achieved? Coordination does not necessarily equal concentration of power. Your answer may be a federation of councils, removable representatives, multi-level decision-making, planning and information systems, or a combination of these. I am not saying which model is correct for now; I am asking which principles and mechanisms you consider defensible and why. The more important point is that you yourself have explicitly stated that you do not deny the differences between the councils and that you do not deny the existence of a mechanism for resolving the conflict. So, I think our disagreement is not about the principle of the existence of the problem; you yourself have accepted the existence of the problem. The disagreement is about whether it is possible and necessary to think about the principles of its solution starting today. If we accept the existence of a dispute resolution mechanism, asking what features this mechanism should have is no longer a metaphysical question; it is an institutional question.
If you still say that this question cannot be answered as of today, I accept that you say that your theory does not yet provide a specific model at this point. That is a more honest answer for me than to consider the question as metaphysical in nature.
On expertise and majority One of my questions was deliberately very specific. Suppose a factory council makes a decision about the safety of a power plant, but expert engineers warn that the decision is technically dangerous. Who has the final say here? If you say the majority of the council, expertise may be sacrificed to the majority vote. If you say experts, we need to explain how expert and technocratic power is controlled. If you say a combination of both, it needs to be made clear how this combination works. These questions are not academic fantasies; they are real questions of running a complex society. I happen to believe that respect for expertise and democracy must be maintained at the same time, and that is precisely why I asked about the relationship between the two. As for foreign trade, I don’t think your answer has yet reached the heart of the question. A society that has abandoned money and markets at home, but lives in a world where other countries still trade on the basis of money, currency, and markets, is forced to make decisions about imports and exports. This question has nothing to do with defending capitalism; it is, incidentally, related to the same periodization that you yourself are raising. If a country needs foreign exchange to import chips, medical equipment, machinery, or raw materials, it needs to be made clear: what is being exported? How much is being exported? How much of the domestic production is being kept for people to consume? What institution determines the priority of imports? And how is this decision subject to public scrutiny? These are issues that any society, regardless of ideology, will face in the circumstances under discussion. What is more important to me is that I have not said anywhere in my writings that the people are incapable of governing society. On the contrary; my whole question is: If the people are to govern society, by what institutions and rules will they do so? These two propositions are different:
1 – The people must take power
2 -. Since the people take power, there is no need to talk about the mechanism for exercising and controlling this power. I agree with the first, but I do not consider the second to be a logical consequence of the first. Incidentally, the more we believe in the potential of humans, the more we must think about institutions that allow this potential to flourish without turning into bureaucracy, concentration of power, or chaos. Conclusion: I am still interested in continuing this conversation, and my goal is not to reject the ideal of a council society. My disagreement is that the ideal, without answers to institutional, economic, and administrative issues, is not enough for me.
So instead of a general discussion about whether the questions are “metaphysical” or “earthly,” I propose to focus the discussion on a few specific questions: What is the mechanism for coordinating multiple councils on a country scale? What is the criterion for prioritizing resources in conditions of real scarcity? How are coordinating institutions selected, dismissed, and controlled so that they do not become independent centres of power? In the conflict between majority opinion and expert opinion, what mechanism determines the final decision?
How is foreign trade conducted in an era when the outside world is still based on markets and currencies? If your answer is that the details of these issues can only be clarified in the course of the formation and evolution of the movement, I have no problem with this proposition. But in that case, it is better to accept this as a limitation or a theoretical open point, rather than to consider the principle of asking these questions as a sign of callousness, metaphysics, or hostility to change. It seems to me that a friendly dialogue begins precisely where we criticize the arguments themselves, rather than attributing intentions to each other. I am also ready, if you have answers, or even possible and incomplete answers, to these five questions, to put them right on the table and discuss them one by one.
Continued answers (3)
Dear friend!
The more we know each other, the more certain and obvious it becomes to us that the basis of the difference between us is not so much planning and the economic structure of the future society as two opposing views on man, history, class struggle and the liberation of mankind. There is no doubt about this, but the problem is that you do not view even this difference as earthly, real, materialistic, but as scholastic and ideological. You think that you yourself attach the utmost importance to awareness, a clear vision, strategy, roadmap, correctness of actions, but your interlocutor and interlocutor does not care about any of these!! He is a promoter and admirer of wandering in the dark!!
The reality is contrary to your imagination. In previous notes, it was clarified, we explained with strong emphasis that the approach of abolishing wage labour four decades ago did not come from within professional beliefs but as the seething wounds of a movement inherited from historical failures with a sense of responsibility, according to its ability, to find the roots of failures, discover Achilles’ heels, and find the right path of the campaign, making it a new chapter of its efforts. Above all, it asked itself: How has the labour movement seen the future horizon of its struggle, “socialism”, so far? What fundamental flaw did it have in this vision? What could be the right alternative to what it saw wrong? Before it wanted to start this work, it realized that this was not possible without dissecting capitalism, because the society after wage slavery is built on the ruins of the current mode of production and dominant relations. Whatever it could struggle in the latter realm, with whatever amount of struggle it achieved a deeper understanding. The dissection, labour understanding of capital, opened the eyes of this approach not only to political economy but also to the hidden corners of the entire capitalist society, economy, politics, civilization, law, state, culture, ideology, everything. In this way, it explored more consciously, with firmer certainty, the definition of work in socialism, the voluntariness of work, socialist distribution, the dismantling of the market and money, the elimination of housework, education, the unity of intellectual and physical work, the elimination of wage labour, the council structure of socialism, the elimination of the state and classes, the family in socialism, gender equality and the elimination of all types of discrimination, socialism and the environment, a society that guarantees the ultimate liberation of man. In the process of this instructive, critical analysis, it was the worker who saw the real secret of the continuous and disastrous failures and suffered, becoming certain that his class movement everywhere, throughout the twentieth century, had gone astray, falling from one error to another, each period worse than the last. The only thing it had not done was the class struggle against capitalism. By understanding this secret, finding a guiding light, he searched for the right alternative to the errors, he understood that the masses of his class could and should change their demands, solutions, the basis of their strategy, their current daily struggles in all areas of livelihood, welfare, health, the environment, anti-apartheid, achieving political freedoms, human rights, the demand for overthrow, etc., and become truly anti-capitalist, anti-wage labour. He did not hesitate to do this; he shouted to the chained workers: What should replace the existing hell is not a “maximum program,” not an ideological utopia, not a handful of distant ideas and expectations, but a living, conscious, growing, and well-built movement of the working masses with a clear head against wage labour. He shouted that: by fighting for a few tomans more wages, parliamentarism, law reform, changing governments, changing government models, changing the form of capital ownership, we will not get anywhere, we will only wear ourselves out. Let’s raise the flag with iron determination and strong will to establish a nationwide Soviet anti-capitalist movement. Under this flag, we declare that:
Food, clothing, housing, medicine, treatment, education, water, electricity, gas, internet, transportation, the necessities of human life should be removed from the control of monetary transactions, and all of these should be made available to all individuals. Any kind of government interference in every aspect of human life, from clothing, cohabitation, relationships between men and women or between girls and boys to belief, culture, and political activity, should be prohibited. Domestic work should be abolished and replaced with services outside of monetary transactions. All prisoners should be released, and the death penalty should be absolutely prohibited.
We expect that, unlike the previous times in the explanations above, you will pay some attention to the connection between the points, their common and coherent message, the reason for their proposal, we hate irrelevant repetition of words. If we repeat something, it is only because you did not pay attention to its essence and content. We started by carefully understanding the goal, the campaign vision, socialism, the definition of work, the voluntariness of work, socialist distribution, the abolition of the market and money, the elimination of domestic work, the family, the environment, gender equality, the elimination of all forms of apartheid, the unity of intellectual and physical work, the structure of socialist society, we went through a radical critique of all the dominant approaches within the labour movement in the last hundred years and several decades, we looked for the right alternatives, what should be done? What should be said, which demands should be put forward, the solutions to achieve them, we reached all the issues of the class struggle against wage slavery. We shared this entire process with them in a multitude of books, articles, analysis, criticism, and substitution in the context of the current campaign of the chained mass. Take a look at the websites that portray socialism against capital, and you will see some of them, not all of them.
Very dear, valuable and precious friend!
It is a gross mistake, a naivety, that you think that the difference in our professions is your concern for understanding the engineering problems of the future society, our disregard for this necessity!!! At the very moment when we were seeking to understand the future society, we made the result of our understanding a critique of false socialism, an armed critique of the reformist critiques of wage-labour socialism, we made this understanding, critique the beacon of the living and present struggle of the masses of our class, we shouted: by seeking to overthrow without the burden of anti-capitalism, syndicalism, the hanging law, involvement in the capitalist state, civil struggle, democracy, populist’s anti-imperialism, you are only eroding yourself, you are grounding yourself. To the extent of our means, we would make their eyes stare at their history-making power, we would pave the way for the establishment of a nationwide anti-wage labour council movement before their feet, but a narrative of the councils and council socialization that was the radical critique of all socialization up to now.
Dear friend, fighter, protester, seeker of the way!
Knowing the perspective, understanding the architecture of the future society meant this for us, articulation. The approach to the abolition of wage labour, in its critical analysis, realized that socialism is a movement to abolish wage labour for workers, to eliminate production for profit, a movement for the domination of humans over the fate of work and life, the creator of a society of free, equal, conscious humans, free from any power above them, a movement that must pave the way for the advancement of the working masses to such a society in the process of the campaign against wage slavery, with its demands, strategies, solutions, action plans, and trainings, and must do so right now, it should have done so a hundred years ago. If it does not do so now, it will fall into a quagmire and will not achieve any real victory. A movement that does not consider “this world and the hereafter” does not occupy its mind with determining the number of grape trees and the number of milking cows in the promised paradise. It shouts: Brick by brick the future society is built by struggles, demands, alignments, strategies, power arrangements, and solutions of our day. The approach to abolishing wage labour explained with these insights that when we “take food, clothing, housing, medicine, treatment, education, water, electricity, internet, transportation, the necessities of human life out of control and replace the capitalist monetary instrument with the struggle for wages locked in the inflation rate, practically and on earth, right now, in the burning hell of wage slavery, we are taking the foundation of production for profit under the whip of our campaign. We are fighting the first paragraph of the manifesto of the death of capitalism as the current content. This movement does not need to sit down and write hypotheses about the appointment of arbitration courts between the soviets or how to solve the problems of earthquakes and floods during the socialist era!! Right now, with all its might, it is working on the comprehensive challenge of the earthquake that capitalism has thrown at humanity. It is in the campaign with all the effects and consequences of this earthquake. At every step of this struggle, it increases its ability, wisdom, knowledge, and fighting capacity. It changes itself and changes the existing objectivity. It rushes forward with the greatest insight and creativity, all its attention is focused on making its struggle as much as possible soviet, anti-capitalist, and radical. It sees the real equality of humans in the future society as dependent on their more informed, freer, and more capable involvement in resolving the current problems of the campaign. The more intellectually it overcomes the problems after the possible earthquake or unwanted deficiencies, the more thoughtfully it seeks a corner of the era of establishing socialism in the knowledge-gathering, the ability to find solutions, and the more thoughtfully the role played by the vast mass of workers involved in the daily struggle. Science, history, materialism, and material dialectics also say the same.
Very dear and precious friend!
We hope that it has become even a little clearer that the difference between the anti-capitalist approach and you is not in any way your concern for understanding the problems of engineering the future society and this approach’s disregard for such a necessity!! This is the worst, most distorted, unrealistic, selfish, and self-deceptive illusion. The difference is that you have made the customer-friendly decoration of the palace of assumptions your business and the coloured box of this decoration in your pocket, “Women, Life, Freedom” ascension to the throne of freedom and the end of the dark days, shadow by shadow, you are neighbouring beings who, in the ultimate in audacity, the height of shamelessness, utter the ominous cry “Pahlavi is returning” and are waiting for the miracle of the most hated genocidalists’ in history, the Netanyahu’s and the Trumps. Your last flight is to say death to Khamenei, to formally replace the governance model of the wage slavery system, to edit and trim and dress up the system to the core of the humanity-burning, predatory, warmongering, Holocaust-creating capitalism. The approach to abolishing wage labour makes every cell of its existence a flame-throwing torch for a movement whose every breath is a real axe, a ground-breaking attack on the roots of capitalism and the laying of bricks upon bricks to build a society of free, equal human beings, free from the existence of classes, the state, and class exploitation. The difference lies here, why do you invert and distort reality? Contrary to your imagination, we were not at all looking for motivation, digging into your motivation for asking questions; we pointed to the crude, essential, class distinctions of the approaches.
Our not-so-weird expectation is that you will take some time to consider what we have said before wrapping up and sending out ready-made rebuttals. We have never seen this kind of attention before. The time interval between receiving our notes and responses and receiving your solid, detailed rebuttal is usually no more than a few hours. We absolutely do not allow ourselves to do this. Although we have a mountain of work, thoughts, analyses, criticisms, and lifetimes as a solid support for our words, we still think about you before writing each answer, we consult and brainstorm, we weigh all aspects, and we deeply and wholeheartedly respect the truth behind even the most incorrect statements. We have a question. In the first answers, we recommended reviewing a small book and a few short articles from among the multitude of books and articles. Did you even take a look? We think it is very unlikely. It is truly regrettable that a group of the younger generation truly believes: “The unschooled are the library of seven nations, and the omniscient are the seas and oceans.” We hope you do not take the harshness of the words to heart. What is important is the pain hidden within them. We are still ready for dialogue with great enthusiasm, do not forget, we are not looking for consensus, we are not recruiting party members, we are trying to find companions, fellow fighters in the stormy campaign against wage slavery, against every government above us. Workers Against Capitalism August 30, 2026