Join the new world

“Time is an enormous, long river, and I’m standing in it, just as you’re standing in it. My elders are the tributaries, and everything they thought and every struggle they went through and everything they gave their lives to, and every song they created, and every poem that they laid down flows down to me – and if I take the time to ask, and if I take the time to see, and if I take the time to reach out, I can build that bridge between my world and theirs. I can reach down into that river and take out what I need to get through this world”
― Utah Phillips


Preface:

Comrades and friends of the eternal communist revolution being conducted by the Socialist Freedom Party have likely read my magnum opus series “A Cooperative Society” that quickly became a seminole component to our great struggle. In it, in a very long winded and convoluted way, I tried to develop a political theory that could be used in eRepublik that I felt best reflected the real life principles of a Cooperative Economy and Market Socialism.

In truth, with all of the many limitations of eRepubliks game mechanics; I came to realize that there would be no way to abolish the use of currency, which is a presupposition of the development of a communist or anarchist society in the real world.



At the time I had not fully developed my own political ideas outside of the game either, had not read into some of the theory that I have as of late, and certainly did not take the time to develop the series of articles into something more systematic and comprehensive.

The result of this work was an absolute success in terms of developing a set of working institutions from the principles and analysis that were expounded, but a total failure in actually explaining what the principles and analysis meant to anyone who wanted to be able to understand them clearly.



Since my views and understanding of leftist political theory have changed since the time of writing the series; I’ve decided to create a revision of my work as the first action of the resurrection of my account.

Hopefully, this one article can serve as the ultimate explanation of this crucial component to our revolution of the social and economic aspects of the party, and of all of eRepublik.



So what’s been going on? Why did Max Planck die?

This is a question that I assume is lurking in the minds of many of my comrades. I spent the past 4 months working with other real life comrades to help unite the activist community in my region under one large coalition. It’s composed of over 20 different organizations and activist groups and the work we do has been essential over the last half of the year. We are working to establish an independent civilian review-board with subpoena power in our region, attempting to establish a joint coalition with another coalition in Chicago, organizing and running security for protests, infiltrating right-wing organizations and militias, conducting mutual aid projects, and doing trash clean-ups in the cities within the region.

On top of that work, I have recently gotten engaged and am moving in with my future wife. And lastly I have a full-time job as a construction worker. So I hope that explains my absence.









The Means


My revolutionary methodology comes out of the Anarcho-Communist traditions, it also includes a hodgepodge of other methods and ideas from Marxist-Lenist-Maoism. Some of these ideas, as you may imagine, can be considered in contradiction with each other; And I have been criticized by my Comrades on that point in real life. I have been told that I am wildly utopian in some circles, and in others I can’t seem to find anyone who disagrees with what I have to say. So pardon me if some of these ideas and methods come off as unorthodox, contradictory, etc.



The first thing that our revolution should consider is the development of a mass line. We must as a party, reach out to- motivate- inspire- the citizens of eUSA. We must develop a chain of communication, not just within our party, but outside of it. Thereby creating a network of active players and comrades in which their concerns about the economy, government, and party organizations can be fed into. We then will tailor our development of new cooperatives, party organization, programs, and government policy that we support, according to our mass line and the needs of the individuals that make it up.



Not only will this create an organized structure, but it will create an effective way to have the voices of the eUS community be heard by a revolutionary organization. This organization should compete with the eUS government for power over our eRepublik and should receive its funding from Cooperatives and Cooperative Federations.



Once this organization is developed we will have a dual power structure developed within eUSA where the Socialist Freedom Party and allied parties run candidates formally in the eUS government, while also maintaining and building a Revolutionary Organization outside of it, composed of Producers, Cooperatives, and Cooperative Federations that can begin to compete with it. Never to Compromise to it. And never to work with it except; when to implement policy put forward by our elected comrades in government.

This Dual Power structure and Mass Line should be based solely on a direct democratic system, wherein there will be no representatives in decision making. The actions of this revolutionary body must reflect the needs and concerns of the citizens of this eRepublic collectively and should not be co opted by the Socialist Freedom Party. It should be a hotbed of dissenters from all walks of eLife, and a place where discourse; however dangerous, provocative, anti-establishment, or rhetorical can be voiced and acted on by revolutionaries from all parties. The goal? Take no s***, Take action, Drive out the oppressive eUS government, abolish the eUS forum, and replace it with an entirely new system to in turn revolutionize our eRepublic

-They will tell you that my ideas are dangerous, I will tell you they are necessary to remove the power from our oppressors-





The Ends


You might ask, “what’s the goal? What are the ends?” The end goal of this is to replicate the process described above, internationally. By working with comrades and friends of the revolution around the eWorld, we can develop these dual power structures and mass lines into eRepublic specific organizations that take into account the material and social concerns in each eRepublic that then turn those concerns against the power players and governments across the eWorld. These organizations, again composed of party members, producers, cooperatives, and cooperative federations, can then begin to compete with their governments and then overthrow, or co-opt them for their own use toward a worldwide, decentralized, cooperative system. The goal, comrades and friends, is a worldwide, interconnected, cooperative system, based on the voluntary association of organizations and the total abolition of the eRepublic and hierarchy it entails; to be replaced by direct democratic bodies and divorced from the powers of the buttons granted by assuming the in-game political positions.





The Abolition of eRepublics


Is such a eWorldwide system possible? Let us think of a special case that quite rarely happens in this game, but that could be made to happen if an eGovernment is seized. When a player is elected Country President, they may choose to resign their position. If there is no Prime Minister or if the Prime Minister were to also resign, the executive buttons cannot be accessed by any citizens- creating a headless government.

If all cabinet members resign there is no executive body at all.

If all congressmen resign there is no congressional body.

At this point there is no government in an eRepublic at all and the hierarchy has been abolished in all but the parties that exist within the eRepublic.

If a dual power structure were to seize the government over a sustained period of agitation, and consolidation it can engineer this special case.

If these structures were developed all over the eWorld the structure that is the eRepublic can be abolished and then replaced by non-hierarchical power structures that renounce the use of the in-game political positions.

-This would abolish War

-Create economic stability,

-Abolish hierarchy
-Abolish eRepublics

-Create cooperative economies eWorldwide

-And promote the voluntary association of players and organizations worldwide


(An eRepublic should make all the necessary changes it want’s after being taken over before doing this otherwise a new government will need to be elected to change laws.)






Producers


Producers are players who have companies and work them, thus expending energy and resources.






Cooperatives


A cooperative has five components:

A group of Producers

A document called the By-Laws which layout the day to day operations and voting procedure

An elected Treasurer

A Group Message

A Treasury Ledger

-A cooperative is a group of producers who form a Group Message together.

-In it they create a document (article, google doc, etc) that outlines how voting should work within the Group Message.

-The producers elect a Treasurer.

-The Treasurer then creates a Treasury Ledger. (excel spreadsheet, or google spreadsheet)

-When the Ledger is completed, the producers can then sell their products on the marketplace and then send a cut of their profits when they want, to the treasurer.

-The treasurer tracks each deposit in the ledger, which every producer has access to.

-Whenever a producer needs currency for gold conversion, new companies, supplies, or resources, the producers all hold a vote.

-If it passes the treasurer then sends currency from the pool of profits to the producer in question and then tracks the outgoing currency in the ledger.


-These Cooperatives operate via profit sharing with a trusted, elected treasurer overseeing the funds. Funding is sent based on a direct vote of the producers.

*A cooperative can be created by a government*






Cooperative Federations


A Cooperative Federation is composed of

Two or more Cooperatives

Three or more Group Messages (one group message for each cooperative, and one group messaged used by every producer in all of the constituent cooperatives)

Three or more By-Laws (one set of by-laws for each cooperative, and one set of by-laws uniting them all)

Three or more elected treasurers (one treasurer for each cooperative, and one treasurer handling the federations treasury)

Three or more Ledgers (one ledger for each cooperative, and one ledger for the federation)


-A cooperative federation is a body of cooperatives and all the producers from each cooperative, that create a joint-Group Message.

-In it they create a document (article, google doc, etc) that outlines how voting should work within the Group Message.

-The producers elect a Treasurer.

-The Treasurer then creates a Treasury Ledger. (excel spreadsheet, or google spreadsheet)

-Producers from each cooperative vote to send funds from their cooperative to the treasurer of the federation

-Producers in every cooperative vote when sending funds to a specific cooperative, a producer, external organization, or for the creation of a federation sponsored program.

*A federation of government cooperatives from multiple eRepublics is called an International Cooperative Federation*







An Example of By-Laws:
https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-sfpom-proposal-sfp-cooperative-2713965/1/20

An Example of a Ledger: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vR-Jkhq90BiV5ZQoVc_glQ8-04TOA_x3h7pk_Wxqr0uFhqw79hiAVIYV16ErLZtI5Fl5l_lqBYjjRzv/pubhtml




References:

[SFPOM] A Cooperative eSociety
https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-sfpom-a-cooperative-esociety-2718727/1/20

[SFPOM] A Cooperative eSociety II
https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-sfpom-a-cooperative-esociety-ii-2720082/1/20

[SFPOM] A Cooperative Manifesto
https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-sfpom-a-cooperative-manifesto-2717020/1/20

[SFPOM] A Cooperative Manifesto II
https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-sfpom-a-cooperative-manifesto-ii-2718208/1/20

[SFPOM] Proposal: SFP Cooperative
https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-sfpom-proposal-sfp-cooperative-2713965/1/20

[SFPOM] Proposal: eInternationale Cooperative Federation
https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-sfpom-einternationale-cooperative-federation-proposal-2714702/1/20

[DoCA] Proposal: By-Laws of the eUS National Cooperative
https://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-doca-proposal-by-laws-of-the-eus-national-cooperative-2717403/1/20

SFP Producer Cooperative Ledger
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vR-Jkhq90BiV5ZQoVc_glQ8-04TOA_x3h7pk_Wxqr0uFhqw79hiAVIYV16ErLZtI5Fl5l_lqBYjjRzv/pubhtml

eUS National Cooperative Ledger
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YPgM4i2S-tb5kXxJYsa2wnlbfkwoKw5ZOzn9wzQAWkk/edit#gid=0