What is the Most Efficient Decision Making Process?
We return to the most basic of the former proposals, the Central Committee and its decision making process. A decision based on a vote more than 50% is ludicrous and a potential tyranny of the majority. Consensus democracy, while very ideal, is very difficult to operate with, a single opposing vote would mean that a decision can’t be reached. Therefore, in order to mediate these two faults, a majority vote that is much larger than 50%, (65-85% majority vote depending on the conditions of the committee) is the most practical solution, at least in most scenarios. However since the conditions vary, consensus democracy might be more effective. In the central committee it may be that the delegates chosen by the workers’ councils are very experienced, trusted, and represent workers’ councils that may have conflicting demands; for that reason consensus democracy would be a better option since the delegates would be expected to reach a consensus with few problems while satisfying more demands and solving more problems. Meanwhile the workers’ councils would have a majority vote that is greater than 50% (65-85%) to elect a delegate into the central committee because this method is quicker and a delegate could be replaced at will if he/she becomes corrupted, problematic, ineffective, etc. Yet it could also be the other way round, the workers’ councils, because they are based locally would likely have many of its members to think alike; so in this case consensus democracy is also very useful for united action, in which the workers’ councils have concrete demands, suggestions or concerns to be taken to the central committee by the delegate they all agreed to elect. Meanwhile, the central committee may be too large with delegates from workers’ councils that are much more disconnected in their ideas, so it may be too difficult to operate with consensus democracy.
According to the societal conditions the workers’ councils may or may not be so autonomous. If building socialism in a society after the revolution is problematic enough, then the logical result is the necessity of less autonomy in the lower regions of the state (the workers’ councils), the necessity of a more significant and higher central committee, and a more visible hierarchy. However hierarchy can be so problematic and it is very easy for the people who sit in the higher seats to stop acting in the interests of the masses by swaying into egotism and self-alienation from society. Therefore, as I have said before, it is important for the workers’ councils to be able to remove and instill the delegates that exist in the government. In less problematic societies where socialist mentality is stronger, the society is healthier and more cooperative, hierarchy would be less visible, less necessary, the centralized aspects would be weaker and the workers’ councils would be more autonomous. What exactly is the manifestation of this autonomy? Considering the advantages given by some sort of hierarchy that is kept in check by the workers’ councils, as well as the importance of the workers’ councils to avoid feeling like a semi-autonomous body working for their own interests, the workers’ councils would be able to make their own decisions that apply to their area of administration. However they must also comply with the laws decided by the central committee. They may make decisions such as how resources will be distributed, what buildings should be worked on, how to regulate water supply and so on. However, this semi-autonomy could be weaker in more problematic societies that require more centralization. The word autonomy in this sense, I suppose, might as well be placed in quotation marks, because it typically is less centralization rather than semi-autonomy.
Time be taken to say this again, the workers’ councils must be emphasized as the main controllers of the state and that they are the ones who will elect the delegates into power, and they are the ones who in essence truly hold state power; this is because they have the capabilities of getting anyone they want into the central committee for as long as they want while reserving the ability to immediately pull them out. We can further manifest this grab of state power by the people when we consider that the best thing to do is to model this society so that the members of the central committee live absolutely normally among normal people with normal salaries, with no special residence. The workers’ control of the state by means of their councils would also mean that deviation from the laws of socialist society can also be dealt with by the workers in cooperation with the cadres who must not be treated as an entirely separate layer of people from the masses, they are simply the leaders of society overall. In order for the government to function properly and respond to changes around the world or inside society as effectively as possible, should there be an executive branch in the government? This entirely depends on the society’s conditions however I think that overall, there should be an executive branch that is always able to respond and does not require mass sessions like the Central Committee does. If this is indeed the main purpose an executive branch of government is required then it should be said that executive power would be enacted only when the Central Committee is not in session, the Central Committee should have the power to be able to lead to an adjustment or utter removal of the decision made by the executive branch. Perhaps the decisions made by the Central Committee should be done in cooperation with that of the Executive branch, which would almost certainly have to be consistent of elected professional cadres? This may or may not indeed be the case, I cannot describe what would happen as it entirely depends on the material conditions of society.
It is quite important however, that in any decision making process, to have the power of the masses going in ties with the leadership which would have to be consistent of professional revolutionaries accepted by the people with open arms. It is this point that all of the never-ending talks about how to form the government structure should be based on.



Features of the Proletarian State
As of now we have discussed the various elements of the proletarian state, primarily by examining its possible inner workings that make the workers’ state actually possessed by the workers. These inner workings may differ from each workers’ state although the inner workings that were described above are my preferred ideals of a proletarian state.  However there are conditions in a workers’ state that, by logical socialist expectation, must exist in order for a proletarian state to have at least the minimal features of a workers’ state.
Among the first condition that would have to exist in a workers’ state is the importance of no to weak wealth disparities between a common citizen and the state officials or delegates. As a workers’ state is of course one that is socialist and controlled by the proletariat we cannot even consider creating privilege for merely holding a position. It may be argued that state officials in higher regions of the state need more pay to compensate for the large amount of work and duties they must attend to. Therefore, it is possible for an increase in wages to be considered in such cases, but merely for the sake of some kind of compensation/aid/good work. Yet again the point remains, visible wealth disparities between the state officials and the rest of the population must not exist. There is yet another strong point to back the necessity of this condition, the necessity to eliminate corruption. If a workers’ state is to be genuinely a state that serves the masses, we cannot have people becomes state officials in order to simply accumulate more wealth and not serve the masses. When one wishes to become a delegate, his aim must be to put his skills into useful effect, not to accumulate wealth. This importance cannot be stressed enough, wealth disparities between state officials and the citizens must be eliminated or we will see a proletarian state become a state run by greedy officials who will butcher socialism off its ideals.
The second condition is the union and lack of separation between the state monopoly on the use of force and the masses. This means that the police and the military for example, are to consist of the working masses themselves; the police and the military would not stand on their own. If this condition is not met, it would mean that the monopoly on the use of force would be handled by the proletarian state in the same way the bourgeois state holds it. The bourgeois state holds it as a weapon to be used against the masses in order to preserve the social order; the proletarian state would have this monopoly held by the masses against the bourgeoisie, not the other way round. Therefore, the workers must hold this monopoly of force with their own state and the logical consequence is the inseparable union of this monopoly and the workers, because this monopoly consists of the proletariat and is controlled by the proletariat. In the workers’ state, the people and army are one.
The third condition that needs to be met is the ability of the common people of the working class to influence the direction of the workers’ government. This would mean, that whether with workers’ councils or not, the workers must have some means to influence the direction of the state, which may simply exist through the ability of common working men to be elected into the government and actually being able to have power. That enough would mean that working men have the ability to influence the direction of the state, the reason as to why I find the workers’ councils important to this condition is not because the condition necessitates workers’ councils to exist, but because the workers’ councils can actually make this condition practical, safe and long-lasting.
The final condition is the necessity of the existence of active participation of the working masses in the direction of the state. I will not simply say that the working masses must participate, they must actively participate as a whole, proletarian politics must become something that all the masses are able to participate in on a state-level. This means that the delegates selected by the working masses to administrate the state must not be alienated from the working masses themselves. They are merely the narrowed embodiment of the working masses.
These conditions, in order to consider if something is a proletarian state would have to exist, if some conditions do not exist in a state, or only partially exist, then the state spoken of would be either hardly be a healthy workers’ state, perhaps a deformed workers’ state (A Trotskyist term), perhaps a workers’ state that is somewhat healthy, or not a workers’ state at all. It is more than likely that is not the perfect criteria, but frankly, how can anyone give a perfect answer over something as vague as “What does it mean to truly empower the workers?” as a solid list of criteria? Dogmatism for this reason, is something that must be highly discourage when trying to understand most political conditions. We must analyse these situations outside the Marxist lens, but through an objective lens, trying to understand the scenario, and hence formulating the best course of action with the goal of benefiting the working masses in the best way possible.
There is another reason as to why we advocate for the existence of workers’ councils, direct democracy, a mass party, and professional cadres at the same time, obviously the main reason is to empower the working class to the point in which they truly do possess not only the political power of the state, but the efficiency of the state along with the leadership of the Vanguard Party. However this other reason follows suit with the first, one would advocate such a state structure in order to actually almost guarantee the eventual withering away of the state by the power of the masses under the leadership of the Party and professional revolutionaries. The empowerment of the masses is necessary for the proletariat to develop management skills and bonding with between the workers while the Party paves the way for socialism and prevents reactionary measures from rising as they inevitably will after a recent revolution. Such a provided condition is likely to drive the state towards withering away, especially when the proletarian revolutions have gone completely global and the last remnants of the bourgeois forces have had their last breath. Why is this the case? Quite simply, this is due to the state losing its purpose, becoming more and more useless until the state has withered away completely. The state becomes useless as the masses learn to form mass-organizations, manage society better without the state’s aid, plan the economy with more decentralized methods, become capable of being more autonomous in their workers’ councils because the forces of production have been developed well enough with prior state economic centralization.