Ownership means control. If you own something, that means that you have control over it. Obviously with something as large as a country, most of what that asset produces will go into sustaining said asset. A factory owner doesn’t invest the full revenue of his enterprise into personal luxuries, he has to first pay all the running expenses.
And even then, that person doesn’t need to be fond of luxuries in order to still be an owner. I haven’t looked into what luxuries Stalin enjoyed and I don’t much care. My point is that he had power over everything in the country, and the proletariat had little power over the supposed “dictatorship of the proletariat”.
Less centralized control. Lenin sowed the seeds for Stalinism when he centralized the political system after the revolution. Selfish actors seek power, and the selfless find themselves corrupted by it. The position being open for everyone just means that anyone can become a tyrant.
Well, the obvious solution would be to appoint a temporary supreme leader who, wait a second, he just abolished the republic and appointed himself emperor for life. Nevermind.
Centralized decision making is more efficient than its decentralized alternative, but that would be race to the bottom, the culmination of which would be a society of drones controlled by the central authority in every regard. So decentralization may be a losing position, but I still consider it worth it. The means are the ends.
Also worth noting that asymmetric warfare and guerrilla tactics benefit from the agility afforded by decentralization.
Do they extract the same fraction of resources for their own pleasure? Did Stalin or others have car collections, horse stables or private islands?
Ownership means control. If you own something, that means that you have control over it. Obviously with something as large as a country, most of what that asset produces will go into sustaining said asset. A factory owner doesn’t invest the full revenue of his enterprise into personal luxuries, he has to first pay all the running expenses.
And even then, that person doesn’t need to be fond of luxuries in order to still be an owner. I haven’t looked into what luxuries Stalin enjoyed and I don’t much care. My point is that he had power over everything in the country, and the proletariat had little power over the supposed “dictatorship of the proletariat”.
How else would you do it? As long as everybody can join the party and rise in ranks I would say that it can’t be more open.
Less centralized control. Lenin sowed the seeds for Stalinism when he centralized the political system after the revolution. Selfish actors seek power, and the selfless find themselves corrupted by it. The position being open for everyone just means that anyone can become a tyrant.
How do you want to deal with the overhead of decentralization in case of war?
Well, the obvious solution would be to appoint a temporary supreme leader who, wait a second, he just abolished the republic and appointed himself emperor for life. Nevermind.
Centralized decision making is more efficient than its decentralized alternative, but that would be race to the bottom, the culmination of which would be a society of drones controlled by the central authority in every regard. So decentralization may be a losing position, but I still consider it worth it. The means are the ends.
Also worth noting that asymmetric warfare and guerrilla tactics benefit from the agility afforded by decentralization.