Forum Post: The Transition Phase: The Road To Freedom (stage III)

(Today’s Society And How To Improve It - part IX)

Stage III: Majority support - Direct action, responsibility and awareness of threats.

Stage III starts when the majority of a nation either supports and or have actively joined the struggle for freedom. Now, I want to point out that stage III is also a growing stage, our goal should be to convince as many people as possible to support and/or join the struggle. However, by being the majority one can focus on lots of other things as well: Increased direct action; getting major things done! One important factor in this stage is in my view worker’s takeover of the economic institutions, but I want to again stress that the right time for specific actions might vary from community to community. The frequency of worker’s takeover of institutions and any other direct act in local areas may vary from place to place depending on community support. If the vast majority in a community and the nation in general, supports these initiatives, then there’s no doubt as to what should be done: take action! Carry the owners and CEOs out of their offices if necessary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jRy5ZIYZok

Now, as I mentioned earlier violent opposition is very likely to increase more and more as the movement grows, and in stage I and II brutality and violence from state and the establishment must be fought with non-violent means in most cases (maybe some exceptions can be made at the end of phase II though). However, in stage III, the movement and its supporters can now start fighting back with violence if necessary. There’s really nothing controversial about that - It’s only self defense. It’s just defending democracy. There will most certainly be owners and wealthy people who desperately want to fight violently in an attemt to maintain their wealth and power. It will then be necessary to use force, and if necessary violent self defense in order to maintain the course that the majority wants. The use of violent self defense agianst the ones who violently want to fight the will of the people, the vast majority, must be as humane as possible on the movement’s behalf. Absolute prevention of disruption with as less rough treatment and violence as possible should be the norm.

We also know from past attempts to achieve changes that not just police, but also military force has been used by the powerful to crush movements wanting change. A Coup d'état for example, is something many people have experienced and had to suffer the consequences from. We must have that in mind all thru this transition from today’s society to freedom and democracy. The movement should discuss and consider thoroughly how it can avoid attempts like this. There might come attempts like this from powerful people in the future and we must watch out for them and do anything within our power to avoid this. What the movement has to do if a situation like this would accrue, I think is hard to sketch out in detail here, but I would hope, and strongly believe, that the entire population would rise up together with the movement in order to stop it. After all, the people have the potential to successfully fight any type of tyranny and oppression.

But how should we handle the established state and government institutions in general in the IIIrd stage? Well, remember that in stage I and II changes would have accrued gradually in these government and state structures like parliament, congress etc. As the movement grew the attitudes of the people would change. The awful politicians running things today would be replaced with less awful ones. The organization of these institutions would be changed for the better, from focus on working for the rich and powerful to more focus on what’s best for the population. Central government decision making would be weakened as the movement would reject taking direct part in established state and government institutions, and instead working by itself. Power would gradually have spread more and more to communities, unions, workplaces etc. There will of course be some tasks that just have to do be done centrally. I think in general that this should be handled by the movement organizing a system of representation based on the movement’s common platform where instead of politicians and bureaucrats doing this work, recallable delegates would be elected by the different organizations and people participating in the movement. I don’t think it’s necessary to work out all the details on how this would be executed; it should be up to the movement to decide the exact organization based on its principles and consensus building.

In stage III the movement should focus a lot on how police and military should be handled and run. I have now just described how we should handle central institutions and tasks in general. Central tasks would of course also include handling military, and to a certain degree, police. I feel however that I have to address this specific issue more thoroughly. The people and organizations now in majority must take special responsibility on handling these institutions correctly. We can’t take these issues lightly, if we do than powerful and wealthy people could find ways to take over, and we’d be an easy target for the people, both domestic and from abroad who want to crush our struggle for democracy and freedom. It is very important that the movement and its supporters just before entering stage III and after entering it, establish arenas for thoroughly, well organized constructive discussions on how this institutions should be handled. As I mentioned we’ve seen lots of coups in the past, so we need to have a well thought out plan to prevent this from happening again. We also know that there have been examples of individuals within movements wanting change who have gained power in the state and military apparatus and by that gained increasing, often despotic power dragging society back into tyranny, hierarchy and oppression. Now, the chances of this happening to a movement with well established principles and structures of the flat non-hierarchical type, with frequent use of consensus-building, and recallable delegates etc, is very slim, but It’s important to not take this lightly. Police and military institutions are used to conduct legal force and violence, they’re power centers in nature; it’s therefore important that these institutions are handled in a correct and safe matter. I think that by using the same methods described above on how to handle the central tasks in general with the use of recallable delegates and consensus etc within the framework of an egalitarian flat organized movement structure it would be pretty safe. Police institutions will also be handled more locally, so the danger of things getting out of hand in regards to police is much smaller than military institutions, but both should be handled safely based on a well thought out plan.

Now let’s look at stage III more broadly. As I mentioned, worker’s takeover of economic institutions should be one of the main factors and should be carried out as much as possible depending on community support. This should of course be done alongside of in general building strong, engaged, enlightened, solidaric, just and democratic communities working together with other communities. As these tendencies are becoming increasingly established thruout a large geographic area, like a nation, we will gradually enter stage IV.

Further readings:

Part I - “Our Democratic Deficit”

Part II - “Human Nature”

Part III - “Dehumanization”

Part IV - "The Free Ride Society"

Part V - "Capitalism, Exploitation and Involuntary Agreements"

Part VI - "Property Rights"

Part VII - "The Transition Phase: The Road To Freedom" (stage I)

Part VII - "The Transition Phase: The Road To Freedom" (stage II)

Part X - "The Transition Phase: The Road To Freedom" (stage IV)