The Council in the Sky and the State on the Ground
1) Two different things called “socialism”
People argue past each other because the word socialism routinely refers to two very different objects:
- An ethical promise and organizational hope: ordinary people collectively governing production and society, flattening hierarchy, sharing wealth fairly, ending exploitation, ending imperialism. In its most idealized form, it imagines bottom-up councils of workers and citizens coordinating social life without coercive domination.
- A regime form: a state that declares itself socialist (often Marxist-Leninist), builds a one-party apparatus, monopolizes coercion, manages the economy through bureaucracy, and treats “counterrevolution” as an internal security category. Once such a state exists, it enters the same geopolitical arena as every other state—and faces the same incentives to control, extract, and expand.
The gap between these is fundamental: “Councils decide peacefully who gets what job” so often turns into “the Party assigns, the bureaucracy allocates, and the police enforce.”
“Anti-imperialism” so often turns into “sphere of influence, intervention, and expansion.”
A clean way to frame it is architectural:
- Theoretical socialism (in its most optimistic form) treats politics as a coordination problem: if we remove private property and organize production democratically, people will cooperate for mutual benefit.
- Real socialist regimes treat politics as a control problem: if we don’t monopolize authority, the revolution will be overthrown, production will fracture, enemies will infiltrate, and the state will be strangled from outside.
The tragedy (or inevitability, depending on your temperament) is that the moment you build a revolutionary state to secure the dream, you create the machine that can permanently replace the dream.
2) The “council promise”: peaceful job assignment and bottom-up authority
The most “pie in the sky” socialist imaginary isn’t a five-year plan; it’s council rule: workers’ councils and local councils elect delegates, delegates are recallable, workplaces and municipalities govern themselves, and the economy is managed by democratic bodies rather than owners or a permanent state bureaucracy. That idea is explicit in council communist traditions and broader workers’ council theory: governance by elected, recallable delegates from workplaces. Wikipedia+1
This model implies several optimistic assumptions at once:
- People will participate consistently and competently in collective decision-making.
- Groups will remain functional as they scale.
- Delegates will stay accountable rather than becoming a new elite.
- Allocation of jobs, authority, and resources can be agreed peacefully without entrenched power blocs.
- The coercive state will become unnecessary over time—often expressed in Marxist language as the “withering away of the state.” Wikipedia
In the utopian register, councils are presented almost like a moral solvent: dissolve private power, dissolve domination, dissolve imperial war, dissolve class privilege—replace all that with democratic administration.
But the hard question is: what happens when these assumptions collide with organizational reality?
3) Why even small groups often don’t “self-organize” the way the dream requires
Average people can’t organize themselves well even in small groups; they become dysfunctional and break apart. People try to self-organize in various trivial fields all the time—but political science and organizational sociology explain why large-scale “council governance” faces recurring structural headwinds.
3.1 Collective action isn’t automatic (free riding and minority capture)
Mancur Olson’s classic argument is that shared interests don’t automatically produce coordinated action: when benefits are diffuse and costs are concentrated, individuals have incentives to free ride—to let others do the work of organizing while still enjoying the gains. Wikipedia+1
Councils require a lot of boring labor: meetings, agendas, information gathering, conflict mediation, enforcement of decisions, long-term planning. The free-rider problem doesn’t just threaten “revolutionary mobilization”; it threatens the day-to-day governance that councils would need to perform for decades.
And when participation becomes uneven, the active minority tends to dominate—not necessarily because they’re evil, but because they’re present.
3.2 “Who says organization, says oligarchy” (leadership drift)
Robert Michels’ “iron law of oligarchy” is basically a warning label for every democratic organization: once you need specialists, administrators, spokespeople, and routines, leadership becomes professionalized and entrenched, and the organization drifts toward elite rule—even if it began with egalitarian ideals. Encyclopedia Britannica+1
This matters directly to your council scenario. A council system that grows beyond a neighborhood or a single factory requires:
- permanent record-keeping,
- coordination across units,
- conflict arbitration,
- technical planning capacity,
- and continuity over time.
Those requirements generate positions—and positions generate career incentives. Over time, the people who live inside the organizational machine gain informational advantage over the people who merely vote occasionally.
So the “council promise” is fighting gravity: the gravity of complexity.
3.3 Information is not evenly distributed, and modern economies are information-hungry
The council imaginary often assumes that democratic will is enough. But modern production is an information ecosystem: inventories, logistics, substitution, engineering constraints, price signals (or their equivalents), consumer preference discovery, maintenance cycles, quality control, and a million local tradeoffs.
When information is uneven, decision-making centralizes around those who have it—or those who can credibly claim they do.
That is one of the first quiet pathways from “workers decide” to “experts decide,” and from “experts decide” to “bureaucrats decide,” and from “bureaucrats decide” to “the security apparatus decides.”
4) The first great contradiction: socialism abolishes hierarchy… by building a hierarchy
The council dream is anti-hierarchical. Real socialist regimes, especially Marxist-Leninist ones, repeatedly built pyramidal authority structures that were justified as necessary for unity, speed, defense, and ideological discipline.
A key conceptual bridge is democratic centralism: debate inside designated organs, then binding unity in action once a decision is made—implemented top-down through a pyramid of bodies. Encyclopedia Britannica+1
In practice, democratic centralism tends to resolve ambiguity in favor of central control, because the leadership can always claim that dissent “disrupts unity of action” and therefore threatens the revolution.
The council system, even where it exists on paper, becomes subordinate to:
- the party apparatus,
- the planning apparatus,
- and the security apparatus.
4.1 Why regimes do this: the control logic of revolutionary survival
A socialist regime that has seized power faces three immediate fears:
- Internal pluralism becomes counterrevolution
If multiple factions control newspapers, unions, local councils, or militias, the center cannot guarantee survival. - Economic fracture becomes political fracture
If production stalls, rationing fails, or sabotage spreads, legitimacy collapses. - External enemies will exploit division
Revolutionary regimes typically believe (often with some justification) that hostile states will fund opponents, back insurgencies, and use embargoes to strangle them.
Under this fear structure, the leadership interprets decentralization not as “democracy,” but as “vulnerability.”
So the regime builds hierarchy—not as a betrayal (in its self-justification), but as a defensive necessity. The dream is postponed. The emergency becomes permanent.
4.2 Nomenklatura: when “equal society” grows a vetted appointment class
One of the clearest institutional expressions of hierarchy in real socialist systems is the nomenklatura: a party-controlled appointment system that places “politically reliable” people into key roles. Britannica describes it as appointments via a list of politically reliable people. Encyclopedia Britannica
Whatever one thinks of the moral intent, this structure means that:
- key jobs are not primarily allocated by open council deliberation,
- they’re allocated through party vetting,
- and career advancement becomes a political loyalty market.
Ideological bureaucrats assign who gets what. Nomenklatura is a direct example of how that becomes institutionalized: the regime doesn’t merely administer; it filters who is allowed to administer.
And once an appointment class exists, it tends to reproduce itself, because loyalty and patronage become the safest hiring criteria in a high-stakes political environment.
4.3 The “new class” problem: bureaucracy as an interest group
Milovan Djilas famously argued that communist systems generate a “new class”—a bureaucratic elite with special privileges and control over society. ia800704.us.archive.org+1
Even if one doesn’t accept every element of Djilas’ thesis, the structural point is powerful: once a bureaucracy controls jobs, housing, education pathways, and access to goods, it becomes a class-like formation because it controls life chances.
So the socialist regime can abolish private capitalists and still generate a new stratification system—one based on administrative power rather than ownership.
5) The second great contradiction: socialism promises anti-imperialism… but a socialist state still plays power politics
In theory, socialism often positions itself as the moral opposite of imperialism. Lenin’s analysis of imperialism frames it as a stage of capitalism driven by monopolies and finance capital; anti-imperialism becomes part of socialist identity. marxists.org+1
But once a socialist movement becomes a state, it inherits the strategic logic of states:
- borders are insecure,
- buffers are valuable,
- allies matter,
- enemies probe,
- and ideology becomes a tool of influence as well as belief.
So the “anti-imperial” promise collides with a reality: a socialist regime that wants to survive tends to seek a sphere of control. And if it believes history is on its side, it may seek expansion not only for security but for mission.
5.1 The Comintern logic: revolution as foreign policy instrument
The Communist International (Comintern) explicitly advocated world communism and operated as an international political organization. Wikipedia+1 Scholarly discussion also notes that it served not only revolutionary aims but Soviet security interests. Cambridge University Press & Assessment
This is the first pivot from “international solidarity” to “state strategy”: the same international networks that look like liberation movements can also function as foreign policy instruments.
5.2 The Brezhnev Doctrine: sovereignty constrained by “socialism” defined from the center
The Brezhnev Doctrine is practically a case study in how an “anti-imperial” bloc can enforce a hierarchical empire-like order. It asserted that a threat to socialist rule in one socialist state was a threat to all, justifying intervention; it was used to justify the 1968 occupation of Czechoslovakia. Wikipedia+1
The key imperial feature is hidden in a sentence: the center reserves the right to define what counts as “socialism,” and therefore what counts as a “threat.” That converts ideology into a sovereignty-limiting doctrine.
The U.S. State Department’s historical milestone summary notes that after the 1968 invasion, Soviet leadership justified the use of force under what became known as the Brezhnev Doctrine, claiming Moscow had the right to intervene when communist government was threatened. Historiker des Außenministeriums
That is not the antithesis of imperialism; it is the classic imperial pattern of limited autonomy for satellites enforced by the threat of intervention—just draped in different rhetoric.
5.3 Hungary 1956 and Czechoslovakia 1968: “workers’ councils” meet tanks
Hungary 1956 is particularly relevant to your council theme because, among other things, the uprising included demands and movements that threatened one-party monopoly—exactly the kind of pluralism a revolutionary state reads as existential. Standard historical summaries describe the uprising being crushed by Soviet military intervention. Wikipedia
In Czechoslovakia 1968, reform attempts (the Prague Spring) were ended by Warsaw Pact invasion; afterwards, Soviet leadership justified intervention through the sovereignty-limiting logic described above. Historiker des Außenministeriums+1
So the theory says: councils and popular participation are the foundation of socialist democracy. The regime reality says: popular participation is tolerated only within strict boundaries—because it may generate plural centers of legitimacy.
5.4 Afghanistan 1979: internationalism becomes occupation logic
Britannica summarizes the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in late December 1979 as intervention to support the Afghan communist government, remaining until 1989. Encyclopedia Britannica The U.S. State Department milestone similarly describes the USSR sending thousands of troops and assuming military and political control of Kabul and large portions of the country. Historiker des Außenministeriums
The ideological justification can be phrased as “supporting a friendly socialist government.” The strategic reality looks like classic intervention: secure a border, prevent a hostile regime, maintain influence.
Again, the imperial logic doesn’t require capitalist ownership; it requires a state with interests and coercive capacity.
6) The third great contradiction: socialism promises fair sharing… but allocation by bureaucracy is structurally inefficient
The theoretical promise is a moral economy: resources shared fairly, exploitation ended, production directed toward human need rather than profit.
The regime reality is that “need” must be operationalized through a planning apparatus, and planners face information constraints, incentive problems, and perverse feedback loops.
6.1 Kornai’s shortage economy: chronic scarcity as systemic, not accidental
Economist János Kornai coined “shortage economy” to describe centrally planned communist economies with chronic shortages and argued that these shortages were not merely planning errors but systemic flaws. Wikipedia+1
The mechanism is not mysterious:
- If prices are politically constrained and production targets are centrally set, supply and demand coordination becomes bureaucratic rather than adaptive.
- Enterprises have incentives to understate capacity, hoard inputs, and game targets.
- Planners respond with more rules, more reporting, more controls—often worsening distortion.
Shortages then become political: who gets access, who waits, who can use connections, who can trade favors.
In that environment, “fair sharing” becomes less about abstract justice and more about administrative power.
6.2 Soft budget constraints: why inefficiency persists
Kornai’s “soft budget constraint” describes a pattern where inefficient projects or enterprises keep operating because losses are covered by an external authority, typically the state—weakening the discipline that hard constraints impose. IDEAS/RePEc+1
When bankruptcy is politically unacceptable (because it implies unemployment, unrest, or ideological failure), the system tends to subsidize failure. Over time, this encourages:
- waste,
- low innovation pressure,
- and a culture of meeting quotas rather than meeting needs.
In other words, the bureaucracy doesn’t just allocate goods; it allocates survival, and that changes incentives all the way down.
6.3 Ideological bureaucracy and the problem of “who decides who gets what”
Real-world socialism is too inefficient because it is run by ideological bureaucrats who assign who gets what.
There are two layers to this:
- Any large allocation system becomes bureaucratic
Even a council-based system needs administration once it scales. - A one-party socialist regime adds ideological filtering
Positions are not only technical; they are political. The system selects for loyalty and conformity because leadership fears sabotage, deviation, and factional capture.
That ideological filter is part of why the allocation apparatus often becomes rigid: it’s not only solving economic problems; it’s solving regime security problems.
And once you’re allocating through political channels, a black market of favors and informal privilege tends to emerge—because humans respond to scarcity by creating alternative allocation pathways.
7) Why the state doesn’t “wither away” in practice: coercion is sticky
Marxist theory often imagines the state becoming obsolete once class antagonisms dissolve—“withering away of the state.” Wikipedia
But a socialist regime in the real world confronts conditions that make the opposite outcome likely:
- internal dissent (real or imagined),
- external threat (real or imagined),
- economic disruption (often real),
- and elite competition inside the revolutionary coalition (very real).
In that environment, the coercive state doesn’t wither; it hardens, because coercion becomes the universal tool for:
- enforcing plan targets,
- suppressing opposition,
- disciplining internal factions,
- and controlling information.
The regime may describe these as temporary necessities. But “temporary” coercive institutions tend to create constituencies: security agencies, informant networks, prosecutors, ideological departments—people whose careers depend on the continuation of the emergency frame.
So the revolution becomes a permanent security regime.
8) “Imperialism” isn’t only about capitalism; it’s about state capacity plus motive
One reason theoretical socialism imagines it can abolish imperialism is that it equates imperialism with capitalist profit-seeking and colonial exploitation. That’s a real historical driver, and Lenin’s work explicitly frames imperialism as capitalist monopoly dynamics. marxists.org+1
But a socialist regime can reproduce imperial behavior for other reasons:
- security (buffers, border control),
- prestige (status competition),
- ideological mission (export revolution),
- resource strategy (influence over pipelines, ports, minerals),
- elite politics (proving strength to internal hardliners).
So the regime ends up “playing the old imperialism game,” even if it tells itself it’s playing a different game.
And because ideology is involved, it often becomes more moralized: interventions are framed as liberation, not conquest; repression is framed as antifascism, not domination.
That moralization can make self-correction harder, because admitting imperial behavior would be admitting ideological betrayal.
9) The deeper engine: hierarchy solves coordination fast, and regimes prefer speed to fairness
A council system is slow. It has to be slow, because it is inclusive and deliberative.
But regimes under pressure—real or perceived—prefer speed:
- speed in command,
- speed in mobilization,
- speed in punishment,
- speed in resource reallocation.
Hierarchy is the fastest coordination technology humans have ever invented. It is also the easiest to weaponize.
So even if a revolutionary movement begins with council dreams, once it becomes responsible for:
- feeding cities,
- staffing factories,
- defending borders,
- controlling money,
- and preventing plots,
it reaches for hierarchy the way drowning people reach for air.
And once hierarchy exists, it begins to justify itself. It becomes the “adult” in the room. The council becomes the poster on the wall.
Conclusion: the dream’s hidden dependency is human nature under scarcity plus the logic of the state
The “pie in the sky” socialist promise depends on a high-trust, high-capacity civic culture: people who can deliberate, cooperate, and coordinate at scale without generating oligarchies; and an external environment that lets them do so without constant siege.
Real socialist regimes rarely get that environment. They emerge from war, collapse, or revolutionary crisis; they inherit scarcity; they face enemies; and they interpret pluralism as mortal danger. Under those pressures, they do what states do:
- build hierarchies,
- monopolize force,
- bureaucratize allocation,
- and treat expansion or buffer control as security.
Political science doesn’t need to claim that humans are incapable of cooperation to explain this. It only needs two observations:
- complex organization tends to generate elites and oligarchies (Michels’ warning) Encyclopedia Britannica+1
- states, once formed, pursue survival in a competitive arena, and survival incentives reward centralized control—often producing empire-like behavior even under anti-imperial rhetoric (as seen in doctrines and interventions like 1968 and 1979). Wikipedia+2Historiker des Außenministeriums+2
That’s the structural reason the council in the sky so often becomes the state on the ground.
