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Ben, you have said the following in part five of the Anarchist Leninist debate:

"What I assert is that even in the most general terms, the progressive movement has not come up with any alternative at all that is suitable in any way, shape or form for anyone who has not received a lobotomy." "This is why all activists who are serious about a fundamental change to the status quo--need to also be serious about overcoming the crisis of theory." "Eventually the progressive movement will mobilize the majority of humanity for the purpose of overthrowing the rule of the rich. This mobilization will only take place once the progressive movement works out at least an outline of the principles that will guide an alternative to bourgeois rule that is suitable for people who are adults and who have not had a lobotomy--an alternative that actually makes sense--that does not insult the intelligence of activists and workers alike."

"Industrial Unionism is the socialist republic in the making; and, the goal once reached, the Industrial Union is the socialist republic in operation. Accordingly, the Industrial Union is at once the battering ram with which to pound down the fortress of capitalism, and the successor of the capitalist social structure itself." source: INDUSTRIAL UNIONISM (The Daily People Jan. 20, 1913)

This is how DeLeon put it in his Industrial Unionism editorial:

"Industrial Unionism, free from optical illusions, is clear upon the goal the substitution of the political State with the Industrial Government. Clearness of vision renders Industrial Unionism immune both to the Anarch self-deceit of the "No government!" slogan, together with all the mischief that flows therefrom, and to the politician's "parliamentary idiocy" of looking to legislation for the overthrow of class rule. The Industrial Union grasps the principle: ‘No government, no organization; no organization, no co-operative labor; no co-operative labor, no abundance for all without arduous toil, hence, no freedom.’ -- Hence, the Industrial Union aims at a democratically centralized government, accompanied by the democratically requisite "local self-rule." The Industrial Union grasps the principle of the political State -- central and local authorities disconnected from productive activity; and it grasps the requirement of the government of freedom -- the central and local administrative authorities of the productive capabilities of the people. The Industrial Union hearkens to the command of social evolution to cast the nation, and, with the nation, its government, in a mold different from the mold in which class rule casts nations and existing governments. While class rule casts the nation, and, with the nation, its government, in the mold of territory, Industrial Unionism casts the nation in the mold of useful occupations, and transforms the nation's government into the representations from these. Accordingly, Industrial Unionism organizes the useful occupations of the land into constituencies of future society. In performing this all-embracing function, Industrial Unionism, the legitimate offspring of civilization, comes equipped with all the experience of the age. Without indulging in the delusion that its progress will be a "dress parade"; and, knowing that its program carries in its fold that acute stage of all evolutionary processes known as revolution, the Industrial Union connects with the achievements of the revolutionary fathers of the country, the first to frame a constitution that denies the perpetuity of their own social system, and that, by its amendment clause, legalizes revolution. Connecting with that great achievement of the American revolution, fully aware that the revolution, which it is big with, being one that concerns the masses and that needs the masses for its execution, excludes the bare idea of conspiracy, and imperatively commands an open and above board agitational, educational and organizing activity; finally, its path lighted by the beacon tenet of Marx that none but the bona fide Union can set on foot the true political party of labor; Industrial Unionism bends its efforts to unite the working class upon the political as well as the industrial field, -- on the industrial field because, without the integrally organized union of the working class, the revolutionary act is impossible; on the political field, because on none other can be proclaimed the revolutionary purpose, without consciousness of which the Union is a rope of sand." source: INDUSTRIAL UNIONISM (The Daily People Jan. 20, 1913)

"The mission of unionism is to organize and drill the working class for final victory - to take and hold the machinery of production, which means the administration of the country." • source: "Socialist Reconstruction of Society"

"Now just so that no one gets the wrong idea, I should make clear that I do not have the slightest doubt that humanity will eventually function just fine without money. It is clear to me that such a moneyless economy is inevitable. What I assert (and this is hardly rocket science) is that such a development cannot take place overnite. On the contrary, the development of a moneyless economy will almost certainly require several decades of trial and error and experiment during which experience will be accumulated and during which hundreds of millions of people will learn new habits and ways of getting things done. These things take time ... just like it takes time to grow a tree. You cannot cheat the learning curve. And this is precisely what Daniel is advocating. Do you believe in magic? Daniel has been confronted with the reality that is expressed in Ben's third law. If, on the morning after bourgeois rule is overthrown, workers are to coordinate a complex economy without making use of either a state or the existing known methods--they will need: (a1) to have developed (ahead of time, under bourgeois rule) an amazing amount of experience, and (a2) amazing abilities to coordinate their actions after they wipe out the banks and other financial infrastructure that maintains the circuit of capital. Daniel attempts to make use of "magic" to dig himself out of the hole in which he has found himself. This magic consists of wildly exaggerated descriptions of: (b1) the organizational and economic experience the working class will accumulate under bourgeois rule, and (b2) the abilities (on the day after bourgeois rule is overthrown) of hundreds of millions of workers to coordinate the smooth functioning of hundreds of thousands of economic enterprises without the use of either a national market or command economy (both of which require a state to regulate them and back them up)."

"The majority of the voters are workingmen. But even if this majority were to sweep the political field on a classconscious, that is, a bona fide labor or socialist ticket, they would find the capitalist able to throw the country into the chaos of a panic and to famine unless they, the workingmen, were so well organized in the shops that they could laugh at all shut-down orders, and carry on production." source: "From The Burning Question of Trades Unionism", Daniel DeLeon

"No alternative to bourgeois rule deserves to be taken seriously if it cannot explain how the working class will stop bourgeois apologists from saturating the mass media with their garbage." -Ben

Ben asks:

in your economy-without-a-state: (a) do you plan to use money to regulate relations between the different economic enterprises, co-ops and so forth? (b) Or do you plan to use some kind of trade or barter system? (c) Or some kind of labor hour certificate? (d) Or will you make use of some other kind of exchange-based system? (e) Or do have in mind some kind of central planning system that will not make use of state authority? (f) Or are you thinking of a "gift economy" (ie: as I assert is the inevitable destination of human economies). (g) Or are these questions something that you prefer, like the famous Scarlet O'Hara, not to think about today?

People who were left out of the system at the beginning, could go to industrial union locals to get temporary cards, and to get integrated into the system either through work or study.

As far as factories, stores, farms, and the like, as long as they were integrated into the industrial union system, they would just put in orders to their regular suppliers, just like they had always done, and those orders would be filled but without any need for money to be exchanged. Any shortages that might be encountered could be dealt with quickly by changing some priorities of production, or by input of labor, and this would be facilitated by the information coming up from the rank and file and being communicated through the inter-industrial councils.

There should be no problem with letting people consume as much as they want. As Marx pointed out in Value Price and Profit, workers suffer not because of lack of soup in the bowl(total of national production) from which they eat, but from the narrowness of the spoons with which they fetch that soup (in other words, their wages). At least there should be no problem from a production point of view. There may indeed be problems from an environmental point of view. That is an important question, but it is a different question.

This Socialist Industrial Union program also makes it possible to immediately abolish the state if the socialist industrial unions are in existence at the hour of political victory. The question then becomes, how do we build socialist industrial unions? And of course, that is not easily answered, although I do have some ideas relevant to that as well.

Try as I might, I can’t think of any approach to post-capitalist rule that would be very different from socialist industrial union administration, and still put the working class in the drivers seat. This is a far cry from Ben’s take-over in stages which would leave workers in the situation of having to work for wages, and therefore continue to be exploited for a long period of time before the emergence of a gift economy. Exploitation breeds resentment.

It also rejects the idea that competition is necessary to develop the most efficient products. Competition means waste, and we can develop high quality products efficiently without competition, but rather through cooperation. It is in our best interests to produce what we need and want in the least amount of time possible, so we can spend the rest of our time enjoying our leisure. Methods of production are obsolete when new methods appear that can do the job faster, and even though we will want to continually upgrade production facilities, there will be less rush than there was under capitalism. But these will basically become engineering problems that have mathematical solutions.