| Theory |
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Reformist Folly Revisited December 19, 2005 by RedStar2000 |
"When will they ever learn?" ran the refrain of a "protest song" back in the 1960s. It's a line that often comes to mind when I read the posts of those young "lefties" who combine good intentions with an abysmal ignorance of the history of class struggle.
So it's "back to work again" against all forms of reformist folly.
And to my "dream" of a revolutionary left that would no more bother with "discussing" reformism than it would concern itself with any other dumbass superstition.
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quote:
As long as many workers see electoralism as the only option for expressing political views, it would be a mistake to boycott elections in general.
Oh?
As long as many workers are members of churches, it would be a mistake for us not to join a church.
As long as many workers are homophobic, it would be a mistake for us not to support anti-gay political initiatives.
As long as many workers are hostile to immigration, it would be a mistake for us not to join initiatives for persecuting immigrants.
And so on.
What we should do is directly attack bourgeois "elections" as total fakes.
Demonstrate Against Fake "Elections"!
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First posted at RevLeft on December 7, 2005
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At least in the U.S., we do not have the luxury of only working with other revolutionaries. Most of the movements I have to engage in are overrun with bourgeois liberals.
No doubt. I would respond with two questions.
Do you really "have" to work in a movement that is overrun with bourgeois liberals? Sometimes one does...but often it's unnecessary and even counter-productive.
And, if you decide that it "must be done", what then is your response to the ideas that bourgeois liberals put forward?
My experience is that radicals show a marked tendency to accommodate themselves to bourgeois ideology rather than confronting it.
During the second half of the 1930s, for example, the American Communist Party plunged into many enthusiastic efforts to support President Roosevelt and his "New Deal". But instead of "radicalizing" the bourgeois "new dealers", the CPUSA became the most ardent and consistent "new dealers" themselves.
In other words, radicals within bourgeois liberal groups assume that these liberals "are not ready" to hear communist ideas...and so mostly "keep quiet" about those ideas. Consequently, the liberals are not "radicalized" but quite the contrary: the radicals are "liberalized".
My recommendation therefore is that radicals should "work" with bourgeois liberals only in the most extraordinary circumstances -- such as the movement against whatever imperialist war may be going on at the moment. And even then -- or especially then -- it is absolutely necessary to openly confront bourgeois liberal illusions about the nature of modern imperialist politics.
When it comes to other reformist groups, radicals must constantly "pound away" on the issue of class. This risks "alienating" some bourgeois liberals, but that can't be helped.
On the whole, I think those who consider themselves radically anti-capitalist (communist, anarchist, etc.) are better off creating their own autonomous groups to struggle on whatever issues and in whatever ways they themselves consider most useful.
At least that's been my experience.
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First posted at RevLeft on December 8, 2005
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So you suggest that being even critically involved in elections, is catering to backwards ideas in the working class?
Absolutely!
At least half, if not more, of the working class has already rejected the "electoral" circus as completely irrelevant to their real lives.
That's the right decision!
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Workers wanting to change things is backward?
Any worker who still thinks that electing this or that politician -- no matter what he calls himself -- is actually going to "change things" has simply demonstrated his/her gross ignorance of current realities.
Indeed, a contemporary worker who "believes in elections" is like a Russian worker who "believed in petitions to the Czar" after 1905.
The only thing that we could legitimately say to such a worker is quit doing that dumbass shit!
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If you have other strategies for rebuilding a left in the US, I would love to hear them.
You can't "rebuild a left" with right-wing ideas...like "critical participation in bourgeois elections".
The political trajectory of the German Green Party shows what would happen if the American Green Party became a "mass left party".
The same old shit!
History has likewise demonstrated the direction that any strategy to "rebuild the left" must take.
Only direct action by the masses -- in the streets, the workplaces, the neighborhoods, the schools, etc. -- has any potential for effecting progressive change in late capitalist societies.
As a matter of fact, I don't think that late capitalism is even able to grant substantive reforms any more...suggesting that some "reform struggles" may be forced by events in a revolutionary direction.
But that can happen only when those struggles consist of large numbers of people "in the streets".
Bourgeois "elections" are a diversion from real struggle...like the Superbowl or any other spectacle.
As I noted before, we should be publicly attacking this charade...not participating in it.
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First posted at RevLeft on December 9, 2005
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quote:
You are correct that most workers already do not vote in the US, but you are mistaken if you think it is because they have drawn radical conclusions. Workers don't vote in the U.S. because they feel demoralized and that it doesn't matter; not because capitalist elections are a fraud, but because they don't feel that any change can actually happen.
Well, this trend of abandoning bourgeois elections is taking place in all the bourgeois "democracies". Participation and even interest continues to decline.
I would not contest that, generally speaking, the working class is very demoralized in the present era. Not only does any kind of "positive social change" appear to be "impossible" but things are actually getting worse.
But your thesis that getting them "interested" in electoral politics again will "raise their hopes" and "inspire more action" does not make any sense to me at all.
Indeed, were you actually able to do that, the consequence would be even further demoralization...since there is no conceivable way to "deliver on your promise" (implied or explicit) of "positive change".
Fortunately, you can't "do that"...because no one will listen.
To be precise, almost no one will listen. There may be a few minority communities where "the vote" still has something of an iconic image...and it may be possible to con an increased number of people to the polls for a little while longer.
But not much longer.
A "confident left" must actually organize people to resist the despotism of capital. If it can't do that, then there is no reason for it to be "confident".
How best to accomplish the goal of organizing resistance to capitalist despotism is highly controversial...and debated here and throughout the left. We are much in need of "new ideas" in that regard.
But to advise people that what we need to do is "organize" a new version of social democracy -- a course of action proposed by many Leninist parties -- is a counsel of utter futility.
Not only will that not work...but things would be even worse if it "could work".
Imagine having to listen to all that old 2nd International crap again!
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First posted at RevLeft on December 9, 2005
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Forgive me if I do not take up your imaginary scenarios and proceed instead to the heart of the matter.
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The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, for instance, is an example of revolution through reform backed up by the threat of revolutionary violence.
Quite so...but it's not a relevant example for us.
Although there's some "socialist rhetoric" currently in use and, if you went to certain neighborhoods in Caracas, things might "feel revolutionary"...we are supposed to see beneath appearances.
The facts of the matter are...
1. There are no organs of working class power...no "soviets" or anything even resembling them.
2. The relations of production have not changed and show no signs of changing to any significant degree.
Chavez is not the "Lenin" of Venezuela; he's the "Franklin D. Roosevelt". He does not seek to "end capitalism" there but instead to bring it up to date!
This will, no doubt, make Venezuela a less wretched place to live for poor people...but it is not a "revolution" in any sense of the word.
There has been no transfer of political power from one class to another...nor is such a thing even contemplated -- except, perhaps, by a small number of urban Trotskyists without any political significance there.
The task of "modernizing capitalism" is taking place all the time in every country where capitalism exists...capitalism is a "high maintenance" form of class society.
But it would be incredibly foolish to consider any of this "revolutionary" -- any more than we consider the replacement of a lethargic monarch by an energetic one a "revolution against feudalism".
During the period of Napoleonic victories in Europe, a whole load of feudal crap was demolished or heavily modified -- but, in practice, Napoleon created a fresh aristocracy...he did not bring the bourgeoisie to power.
Likewise, we have a whole history of reformism to examine in Europe and North America. In no case has it ever proven to be "revolutionary"...not even a little bit.
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My point is, that capitalists will have no choice but to reform themselves out of existence if backed up by sufficient threat of violence...
That might be true...should such a situation ever arise.
But it hasn't...nor can I imagine it ever becoming a realistic possibility.
Why not? Well, one of the "great appeals" of reformism is that "it's nonviolent" -- it's the "peaceful road" to whatever.
This makes it sound "a lot easier" than popular insurrection.
So your "threat of revolutionary violence" is an empty one...like that of the 2nd International.
Yeah, they used to say that stuff in the decades before World War I. "When we win a majority in parliament, the capitalists will have to submit to our will. If they don't, they will face the fury of those who elected us."
The message of reformism is that the working class doesn't have to do "the hard stuff"...insurrection. Instead, it can take the "easy way".
History does not validate that message; it falsifies it.
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First posted at RevLeft on December 14, 2005
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It is indeed depressing to read the dreary parade of posts in this thread that take bourgeois "democracy" seriously...and think that some form of participation in it will really "get us somewhere".
We have the whole 20th century history of reformist parties to look it...and all of it never amounted to a warm puddle of piss!
It might be interesting to speculate why we've had a flood of such posts recently. A lot of "new kids" coming to the board...bringing all the crap they learned in high school with them?
If that's the explanation, then I have bad news for you. Everything they taught you about capitalist "democracy" there is a LIE!
It is "democracy" in words and despotism in practice!
The sooner you learn this, the less time and energy you will waste in pursuit of reformist mirages.
Revolutionaries cannot "stop" people from making sucker bets...but we can at least warn you that capitalist "democracy" is a sucker bet.
And we also have to concede the fact that some people here really don't want a revolution at all...it's "too extreme" and "goes too far".
Those of you who really want "capitalism with a human face" are going to find yourselves in an increasingly untenable position on this board. As more and more people here grasp the folly of reformism, your views will meet with an increasingly hostile response.
It's even been suggested that reformists should be restricted to Opposing Ideologies...and while that's not going to happen any time "soon", I expect that eventually it will happen.
We try as best we can to be "patient" with people who are "new to the left"...but our patience is not infinite.
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First posted at RevLeft on December 14, 2005
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quote:
I wouldn't vote for any Democrat or any Republican but I might vote for a socialist or a communist; what's wrong with that?
Anyone found "running for office" in a bourgeois "election" and claiming to be a "socialist" or a "communist" is lying.
What they would do, if elected, is just what every politician always does...do I have to spell that out?
Our task as revolutionaries is not to grant, even indirectly, any legitimacy to the institutional forms of capitalist despotism.
On the contrary, we need to be relentlessly hostile to them on every public occasion.
They are not something "we can use"...they exist for the purpose of using us.
They were invented for the purpose of conferring "democratic" legitimacy to what is, in fact, despotism.
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First posted at RevLeft on December 14, 2005
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Using reforms before or as part of a revolutionary process does not turn revolutionaries into reformists...
Um...actually that is what happens.
It may even be one of those "iron laws" of history.
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...they are smart enough to see the current conditions of the class struggle and the level of consciousness.
Revolutionaries have an often justifiably "high opinion" of their intellectual talents.
This sometimes leads them to imagine they can "outmaneuver" the ruling class by thinking up "revolutionary reforms"...reforms so "drastic" that they will "generate" a "revolutionary situation".
It doesn't work. Professional reformism is one of the "established departments" of capitalist despotism. The people who work "that side of the racket" have decades of experience at it.
Any lefty who thinks s/he can "outsmart" those bastards "at their own game" should just take up casino gambling instead.
At least in a casino, the suckers occasionally win.
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First posted at RevLeft on December 15, 2005
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That means you disapprove of virtually every leftist in the world, since even Marxist Leninist parties run candidates.
Yes!
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Is it only Maoists you approve of?
Only in the "third" world and only when they actually take up arms against imperialism.
In the "west" they are irrelevant.
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It must get lonely there being so few people YOU consider socialists.
Well, somebody has to be the first to point out that the emperor is naked...and if the task has fallen to me, then I'm willing to shoulder it.
I am not afraid of "being in a minority"...I only fear being wrong.
About the fraud of bourgeois "democracy", I am not wrong.
And I have 40% to 50% or even more of the working class in every advanced capitalist country who, at least in practice, agree with me.
They don't vote or even pay any attention to bourgeois "elections" at all.
Thus demonstrating a good deal more "common sense" than all those "socialists" who imagine that they can use a car to go sailing.
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First posted at RevLeft on December 15, 2005
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Revolutions usually fail and the government following a revolutionary attempt to overthrow the government is usually an oppressive fascist dictatorship.
All too true.
It's very important to do "everything" we can to win. As the old French revolutionary said, "those who make the revolution half-way have signed their own death warrants".
The great danger that revolutionaries always face is not "going too far" but rather "not going far enough".
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When western nations established pensions, welfare, socialized medicine, rent controls, and necessity price regulations, these have usually improved the lives of the proletariat without worsening their situation.
This is, as I have noted before, a genuine distinction between coherent reformism and the revolutionary perspective.
Reformism is politicized social work...and even charity. It posits that the purpose of political activity is to improve the situation of the workers.
By contrast, the revolutionary perspective is the emancipation of the working class from wage-slavery.
It's as if some people in the 19th century though that the abolition of chattel slavery "was too difficult" or "too risky" and instead chose to advocate "lighter metal chains" and "shaded auction blocks".
Revolutionaries rightly reject such reforms...regardless of their nominal effects on the "well-being of slaves".
We are for the abolition of wage-slavery...and see everything "through that lens".
And no matter how small a minority we are now, we are convinced that we shall prevail.
Like chattel slavery, wage-slavery shall fall!
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First posted at RevLeft on December 15, 2005
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...look at Iraq. Here, arguing for a left candidate would be a restraint on worker's actions. Most people there who are not voting are doing so because they see the government and elections as illegitimate.
Isn't that what we want working people in the advanced capitalist countries to think?
If it is, then how do we encourage that sentiment by acting otherwise?
People notice what we do much more than what we say.
If we act as if capitalist "elections" are legitimate, then our "revolutionary words" will fall on deaf ears.
As they should. We would be showing that we were no different than any other group of political hustlers.
Worthy only of contempt.
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First posted at RevLeft on December 15, 2005
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Working people care about the things that affect their daily lives.
And chattel slaves didn't?
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The trick to both be in solidarity with their everyday concerns, but attempting to link that with a much wider struggle.
"Trick" was a remarkably apt choice of words here. It was widely believed in last century's Leninist parties that the "trick" for winning the "confidence" of the working class was, first, to be the most consistent reformists.
And while they were very bad at "revolution" in the "west", they turned out to be really good at reformism.
Especially in France and Italy.
You will be too.
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First posted at RevLeft on December 15, 2005
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Therefore, it is inevitable that workers will demand 'reforms', whilst still situating themselves within the dominant ideological structure.
What seems to be actually happening is that most workers no longer think there is much point in "demanding" reforms...as late capitalist regimes become increasingly unresponsive to such "demands".
The only people who still fuss and fume about reforms are professional reformists...those who actually make their livings from NGOs, trade union bureaucracies, and "left" political parties.
What Leninists call "cynicism" -- namely "expecting the worst" from all existing authority -- seems to be a growing sentiment among workers...a necessary prelude to the development of a revolutionary consciousness.
This is distressing to those in the "reformist racket" (or those who hope to be)...as illustrated by some of the posts in this thread.
They piss and moan like old-fashioned horse-shoe makers...while people were switching to cars in the early years of the last century.
With the same consequences. *laughs*
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...however using elections as platforms for protest votes exposes all the criticisms of elections you have correctly cited...
This makes no more sense than going into a bar to preach total abstention from alcohol...while having a few beers because "preaching is thirsty work".
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First posted at RevLeft on December 16, 2005
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Despite the OPINIONS of several members, voting [in capitalist elections] does not make you a "reformist".
Quite true...no one cares what you do in private.
It is the public advocacy of the "utility" of voting in their fake "elections" that stinks of reformism.
It all goes downhill from there. Once you tell people that voting in capitalist elections is "ok" or even "a good thing", then you start telling them who to vote for...on the specious grounds that this smiling bastard is "really better" than that one.
As the rot "sets in", you start entertaining the idea that you should "run for office" as a "public platform" for your ideas.
Then, you actually want to win...and are increasingly willing to "do whatever it takes" to make that happen.
And, sure enough, the next step comes when you join a coalition of capitalist parties and join in the effort to build "capitalism with a human face".
It is a sad and dreary tale. First demonstrated by the history of the ill-fated "2nd International" and repeated countless times since.
It always begins with the same naive illusions and always ends in catastrophe...personal if not even more than that.
I will be blunt on the subject and advise those of you who really take reformism seriously to join your local police force.
Metaphorically speaking, that's where you're going to end up anyway and it would save all of us a lot of hassle if you'd just piss off and do it now!
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First posted at RevLeft on December 16, 2005
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I have a friend who worked a really shitty textile factory job for a long time. Then, the company started talking about shutting them down.
I suppose supporting them in their fight for wages, hours and conditions, and to keep their jobs, is not revolutionary?
Not a bit.
We support your heroic struggle to stay in the shit!
Of course, people will always like you when you support them. So if you're just "trying to make friends", that's a good way to do it.
But it has nothing to do with revolution at all...not even remotely.
Now, if you were in a position to tell those people why that factory was closing down...you might communicate to them a useful message about how capitalism works.
That would be, in a very small way, a revolutionary act. At this point in time, anything that reinforces proletarian cynicism about their masters is helpful.
And that factory is going to close...and nothing you nor any of those workers say or do is going to change that.
Indeed, telling people these days to "mobilize" for a "great struggle" to "save their jobs" is just setting them up for a big disappointment.
Instead, tell them the truth. Capitalism is going to fuck you!
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Pushing for free education and healthcare, while making it clear that we don't think it's possible under Capitalism for example.
That's called talking out of both sides of your mouth at the same time.
People will conclude, at best, that you are simply confused...if they can make any sense out of such a "mixed message" at all.
Either "free education" is possible under capitalism today or it's not.
If it is possible, then go ahead and fight for it -- though it's certainly a reformist demand...and is entirely irrelevant to any revolutionary perspective.
If it's not possible (which it isn't, in my opinion), then tell people that.
Tell them not to waste their time and energy fighting for something that is not possible.
Tell them that the "age of reform" is over.
The bitter truth is far more revolutionary than the pleasant lie.
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First posted at RevLeft on December 22, 2005
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Jees...Have you ever heard of a transitional programme?
Sure. It's the Trotskyist "magic wand" that turns reformism into revolution. Unfortunately, no "working model" has ever been demonstrated. But Trotskyists really believe that someday they will actually come up with a list of "demands" that workers will enthusiastically embrace...and, as a consequence, magically become revolutionary.
It's the same old Leninist "primacy of ideas" crap.
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What you are saying is so sectarian!
Why? I'm not saying that he should run out and attack other left groups or deliver an erudite lecture on the history of the 3rd International or anything else that would normally be associated with sectarianism.
I'm suggesting that he tell people at that factory the truth about their situation.
Is the truth "sectarian"?
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Together with the struggle to safeguard and improve the position and living conditions of workers conscious marxists put forward transitional demands, such as re-nationalisation of big companies under workers' control in the form of committees with elected representatives who are subject to permanent recall and who receive an average workers wage.
You're not "Marxists", you're just reformists full of big promises that you'll never deliver on.
The only thing you ever accomplish with all that hot air is to make workers cynical about Marxism.
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Your strategy is screaming " revolution" when and as loud as you can...
It is not necessary to "scream"...it's just necessary to tell people the truth about the situation that they're in. Indeed, a rational "matter-of-fact" tone might be most suitable in the present period...might stimulate more interest than Leninist hyperbole.
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...without keeping in mind that consciousness is something that needs to be cultivated...
Evidently "like a garden"...with the generous application of reformist manure.
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Such a strategy is gonna leave you nothing but being isolated.
In a period of reaction, even reformists like yourself are "isolated".
Isolation does not relieve revolutionaries of the obligation to tell people the truth.
Reformists wouldn't know the truth if it ran up and bit them in the ass.
Which is what usually happens. *laughs*
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First posted at RevLeft on December 22, 2005
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A Marxist who can't do anything for people in the here and now, can't even bring themselves to support workers in their most basic day to day struggle for their needs, is worth nothing at all.
So...go open a soup kitchen.
Like all reformists, you would have us here believe that "Marxism" is social work.
Nothing wrong with social work for those who like that sort of thing...you get to feel good about yourself because you're "really helping people".
It just doesn't have anything to do with Marxism or revolution at all. You may deny that unpleasant truth...but it's still true.
As you will learn, no doubt.
Leninists have been following your "recipe" for some seven or eight decades in the "west"...and it's been a long time since your ideological "soup kitchen" actually served any soup.
Even at McDonald's, people eat better. *laughs*
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First posted at RevLeft on December 22, 2005
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Union organizing is soup kitchen work?
It depends on the organizing campaign, the organizers, the union, and the "ideological framework" that "sets the tone" of the campaign.
I rather strongly suspect that most union work these days does have a "soup kitchen" stink about it.
There may be some exceptions to this...but probably few in number.
Recall that the trade union was the very first form of organization that workers developed to struggle against their capitalist masters. It goes all the way back to the 1830s, if I'm not mistaken.
For a hundred years or so, it "looked revolutionary". Indeed, the "syndicalist tradition" in Europe was explicitly revolutionary up to, at least, World War II. Even today in France or Italy (or Quebec?), trade union work may still be far more explicitly revolutionary than it is in other countries.
But in the rest of North America?
Perhaps it's time for something "more advanced" than trade unions.
Evidently workers must think so...as the number of unionized workers continues to decline.
A lot of young workers don't see trade unions as "their organizations" anymore -- they see them as just another alien bureaucracy that seeks to fuck them over in one way or another.
Not without justification.
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What I'm saying is that people only come to revolutionary conclusions through increasingly intensified and radical conflicts.
Yes, that has long been the traditional "theory" of "class consciousness" in the left.
Is it true?
Are workers "inherently incapable" of "abstract reflection" on their class position? Do they really need to "crawl" before they can "walk"?
And what is the role of those who tell them that they "should only crawl" and that walking is "too ultra-left"?
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But what you're calling for is a flat out rejection of class war in favour of nothing but a fight for ideas disconnected from material reality. Ideas need to spread from experience. It is the conflict which will lead to revolution, and to decry the conflict is to destroy any hope of change.
It is hyperbolic to call the ritual dance of "capital and labor" class war.
What's really needed are new forms for waging real class war...and new ideas to match that.
What Leninism offers, as usual, is just the same old dreary shit.
The working class yawns.
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You are the one arguing that revolutionaries should "tell the truth" instead of partaking [in] working class struggles.
Not every "working class struggle" is useful to revolutionaries.
We should participate in the ones that actually show potential for advancing revolutionary ideas.
The remainder are, historically speaking, trivial.
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The "truth" is, wages are always "unfair", but $2.00 is more than $1.00, and workers that do not organise for a wage raise will never organise for putting an end to "wage slavery".
I'm not so sure about that one.
Did all the slaves who "ran away" do so only after first humbly petitioning their masters for a modest increase in their food rations?
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And the belief that we "know" the "truth" is even more sectarian.
As you wish. If you think that we are "hopelessly ignorant" or perhaps that the truth is "unknowable", then I find it difficult to understand how you manage to find your way to work every morning...much less ask for a raise.
I think humans learn the truth about their objective reality over time...and then communicate what they've learned to other humans.
Of course, we are often mistaken...but outright lying is held in universal contempt.
Telling people that "something good can be done" about a situation that we know will only get worse is lying.
Sincere reformists really believe what they're saying...so they're just wrong, not liars.
"Marxists" who echo reformism are indeed liars. Or, if you prefer, they are reformists who just have a sentimental attachment to "Marxist" terminology.
Either way, they're not worth the attention of revolutionaries...except to attack whatever their latest fashionable nonsense might be.
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First posted at RevLeft on December 23, 2005
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If it was just a matter of them being exposed to the ideas, then the revolution would have been won long ago.
Is that true?
Well, first of all, how many working class people have ever been exposed at all to the idea that workers are a class who could rule?
I mean this excludes all the Leninist parties, for example. All they ever tell working people these days is follow me and I'll set you free.
They invite working people to choose them for their new bosses because they'll be "better" than the bosses that exist now.
Not exactly a "sexy" appeal. *laughs*
The groups that have advocated working class revolution in a clear and unmistakable way are few in number, very small, and probably have not reached any significant numbers of workers even with a single leaflet or poster.
Secondly, a historical materialist approach to revolution yields the inescapable conclusion that workers make revolution only when they perceive it is in their material interests to do so.
Insofar as capitalism still "works" for most working people, revolution is not "on the table" in our era.
This clearly enhances the "appeal" of reformism to the well-meaning. It's something "we can do right now".
And we "all know" that the "struggle" for reforms "leads to" revolutionary class consciousness.
Well no, I don't "know that" at all.
In fact, history suggests rather the opposite. The "struggle" for reforms leads to the corruption of the reformers and the demoralization of the working class as a whole.
This is especially the case over the last few decades or so. In my opinion, the "age of reform" is over. In fact, the existing reforms will be severely weakened or entirely dismantled over the next half-century...at least everything points in that direction.
If we look at "reform struggles" in the "western" world, we can't help but notice their defensive character.
A sense of "impending defeat" is not going to do much for revolutionary class consciousness, in my opinion.
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While sectarians declare the struggles of the working class to be unworthy of their attention, the working class is on the move across the world, with a revolution in Venezuela where workers have created a South American federation of "reclaimed factories" and have put workers' control firmly on the agenda yet again.
"Workers' control" in capitalist Venezuela?
Since "Marxist" reformists are no longer capable of achieving any real victories, they must perforce cloak whatever they do manage to accomplish in the costumes of "victory".
Thus the Venezuelan "New Deal" is "dialectically transformed" into "a revolution".
Without all that tedious stuff involving proletarian insurrection, smashing the old bourgeois state, building up organs of proletarian power, etc.
Just locate a "Napoleonic" ex-general and put him in charge...and things will work out "just fine".
Break out the champaign! *laughs*
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What have the sectarians achieved?
Nothing of any significance. We're still trying to figure out what is worth "achieving" under the despotism of capital.
And our numbers are still so small that practical activity is perforce quite marginal at this point.
Making us an "easy target" for our critics.
On the other hand, we haven't lied to anyone.
We have never told people that they could "achieve" things that cannot be achieved under late capitalism. We've never promised them a "benevolent" despotism. We've never suggested that parliamentary cretinism is the "road to liberation"...or that superstition can be "progressive".
In short, we have not added to the sum total of bullshit that pollutes the planet.
In fact, we've even done a tiny bit to subtract from that total.
And we "ultra-left sectarians" will do more in the coming decades...always with the explicit purpose of encouraging proletarian resistance to the despotism of capital and always with the explicit goal of proletarian revolution.
But you can't do that!
Yes we can.
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First posted at RevLeft on December 25, 2005
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quote:
Red Star almost has me convinced but he's not yet been willing to condemn working with other leftists on issues of shared concern, since that gives us the opportunity to influence other leftists to be more revolutionary.
I think you mistake my meaning...or I yours.
A few weeks ago, someone posted a message about taking part in the RCP's "World Can't Wait" campaign.
My reply was: if you think it's useful, go right ahead...but make your own sign.
I am not, in other words, "opposed in principle" to the idea of working with groups that don't necessarily agree with me.
It depends a lot on what the issue is -- does it point in the direction that I think things ought to go?
And it depends on how free I am to put forward my own "line"? Can I say what I really think?
And this is my advice to all of you. By all means work with different groups if you think the issue in and of itself will radicalize people -- move them towards a revolutionary perspective -- and if you are free to actually articulate a revolutionary perspective.
For example, I think that police brutality and prison conditions are "good issues" for the "ultra-left" to work on. True, they are "reformist" in the sense that little real improvement can be reasonably expected.
But they expose people to the harsh realities of capitalist despotism.
And I think that has the potential to profoundly radicalize people. It may not necessarily "make" people into revolutionaries...but it will hopefully nurture a bitter contempt for the prevailing social order -- one that will be passed on to children and grandchildren.
quote:
I do support bourgeois organizations such as the ACLU that attempt to prevent capitalism from regressing rather than progressing (although some of their assertions are frankly ridiculous).
I don't think that's necessarily harmful...as long as you don't spread the illusion (or fall victim to it yourself) that the ACLU can "stop fascism" in the "courts".
The truth is, they're actually "not very good" at what they purport to "do"...I've actually seen some ACLU legal briefs and they are "wimpy" if not downright "lame".
You might want to have a look at these folks...
Center for Constitutional Rights
They seem to be considerably more aggressive than the ACLU.
quote:
I also support groups that affect the direction of technology and the means of production, such as linux workshops; while these might at first don't seem at all to be political organizations, we should all know by now that political interests pervade all parties, especially those concerned with production.
This kind of work could actually turn out to be revolutionary without a single "revolutionary word" ever being spoken.
If the people working on linux ever developed a genuinely "user friendly" version of their operating system, it could have a very dramatic effect on the global capitalist system.
It would be an actual living example that we could all point to and say: see...communism works better!
quote:
I think clarification needs to be made between those reformists that assert capitalism can be molded into a worker-friendly world and those who reject capitalism but find it necessary to influence it in degrees that are most agreeable to the establishment of a communist, socialist, anarchist or otherwise left-based society.
The problem here is always (or nearly always) trying to see "inside someone's head".
There are still all too many people around who "know all the revolutionary buzz words" and can easily summon them up on appropriate (ceremonial) occasions.
Indeed, the Leninist parties in the last century developed a massive vocabulary to cloak reformism in "revolutionary" costumes.
One way to "solve" this dilemma is to pay careful attention to what these people say to the general public (instead of just what they say when they're arguing with other lefties).
Sure, they can tell us that they "support revolution" in the "long run". But if you look at what they're telling ordinary working people, you'll discover their real "outlook" on things.
Reformism!
What they really want is not revolution; they want to be popular. And they ain't real "picky" about what they're willing to say to "be more popular" either.
Consider the various proponents of "market socialism", for example. The "utility" of the "free market" is presently fashionable in the bourgeois media and among bourgeois academics...so these "socialists" just jump right on the bandwagon.
If pressed by their "ultra-left" critics, they can always quote Lenin on the "New Economic Policy". *laughs*
And so it goes and may well continue to go for quite a while. We who want to develop a real revolutionary perspective in this century "have our work cut out for us."
Nobody said this stuff would be "easy".
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First posted at RevLeft on December 26, 2005
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quote:
So, the rhetorical expression "wage slavery" is very useful: it may open people's eyes to the fact that the conditions in our modern, civilised, post-historical capitalist world are not those parroted by the capital apologists.
When Marx first used this phrase, was he just "being rhetorical"...in a period during which the infamy of chattel slavery in the western hemisphere was widely publicized.
Or did he really mean it?...that wage slavery was the "modern form" of slave (class) society?
What the two concepts have in common is obvious. Both the chattel slave and the wage slave must labor to enrich their master. They have no choice.
I think this is what Marx was "getting at" when he coined the phrase. A free person may labor or not as s/he wishes, may choose what s/he labors at, and may labor either for her/his benefit or that of another as s/he wishes.
A slave (chattel or wage) must labor whenever commanded, at whatever task set by the master, and solely for the benefit of the master.
In both cases, their entire lives are "at the mercy" of their master.
This is the reality that lies beneath all the banalities about "free labor" under capitalism...which Marx clearly wanted to draw attention to.
quote:
Which is to say, tactics that may work for those who need to fight chattel slavery might not be useful for those who have to fight wage slavery.
It seems to me that the main difference between chattel slavery and wage slavery is subjective...wage-slavery doesn't "feel like slavery" to the wage-slave. They "think they are free"...even though they are not.
They imagine that they are "legal persons" with "legal rights"...that they "cannot" be treated as mere property.
The truth, in my opinion, is otherwise. One could find plenty of historical evidence of the treatment of wage-slaves that hardly differs in any significant way from the treatment of chattel slaves.
From a revolutionary standpoint, I think it is necessary to overcome the "illusion of freedom" that most wage-slaves cling to. I think that it's when we realize our objective situation that we learn "in our guts" to hate the master class!
Granted, that's not an "easy" message to communicate.
It sounds "unreasonable", "intolerant", "dogmatic"...even "sectarian".
Thus I invoke one of my favorite historical parallels...the very beginnings of American abolitionism in the early 1830s.
Hear the words of William Lloyd Garrison...
I will be as harsh as truth, and uncompromising as justice...I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard.
I feel the same way about wage-slavery that Garrison felt about chattel slavery.
It must be totally abolished, period!
I think that is the core revolutionary message now.
And any reformist here is free to call me any "names" they like.
I will not retreat a single inch! *laughs*
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First posted at RevLeft on December 26, 2005
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Defining reformism in the context of a specific issue could be a "thorny problem".
In the examples mentioned...
It would be better for revolutionaries to advocate that New York's anti-union laws be defied rather than "repealed".
It would be better for revolutionaries in Kansas to attack superstition there "head-on" rather than simply advocate a change in school board policy -- by, for example, distributing explicitly pro-evolution and anti-religious literature.
The whole point of the revolutionary perspective is to get people's discontent outside of the "official channels".
We don't want people to "use the system" -- we want people to overthrow it.
Reformism is always based on the (usually unstated) premise that we can "use the system" to "improve our lives".
I think that was always a dubious assumption...but in the present era it simply makes no sense at all.
You cannot make an increasingly reactionary system "act progressive".
As to who will someday be banished, well, that's still a "long way away".
I think it will probably work out to an examination of someone's views to see if they systematically defend the reformist position on all or nearly all issues that arise.
Any of us could make a mistaken analysis of a particular struggle now and then...and, when criticized for it, return to a more revolutionary perspective.
The serious reformist won't do that. And that's how we'll "figure out where they're really at".
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First posted at RevLeft on December 30, 2005
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quote:
I recall reading about Linda Averill, whom I believe was an FSP election candidate in Seattle, and the response she got from some on the left...
Notables such as anarchist editor of Eat the State, Geov Parrish, the Green Party of Seattle, Dorli Rainey with ANSWER, and Tom Warner of the Cuban Friendship Committee backed one of her opponents, Angel Bolanos, a Democrat.
I read the whole story...and I found it deeply disturbing.
It was nothing short of a celebration of bourgeois electoral politics!
It should have been called Reformism is Alive and Well in Seattle!
The entire premise was that electing a "socialist" to the Seattle City Council would be a "great leap forward" and a whole "cornucopia" of goodies would fall out of the sky into the laps of Seattle's workers.
What brazen bullshit!!!
I note, of course, that other prominent Seattle reformists -- including a self-described "anarchist" -- supported some other lying asshole...who probably had his own list of "wonderful promises" that will never be realized.
It's been a while since I've seen such an utterly wretched demonstration of reformism in action.
I can only hope that working people in Seattle have learned their lesson.
Don't listen to reformist liars!
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First posted at RevLeft on January 1, 2006
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quote:
"Change comes from mass movements," says Averill. "So now that the primary is over and voters are again stuck with no real choices, we need to roll up our sleeves and get to work on ideas that came up during the campaign such as forming a united front to fight poverty, racism, homelessness and social service cuts." She encourages her supporters to stay active, involved and part of the movement "to birth a better world."
As if this pathetic rhetoric "makes up" for her reformist servility to bourgeois electoral politics...or her naked ambition for a seat on the city council.
Wonder how much it pays? *laughs*
quote:
Please stop fabricating quotes, Redstar.
I was summarizing all the bullshit promises...not directly quoting this ambitious reformist.
Please stop dodging the issue.
quote:
As for the substance: by Redstar's standards, everyone who ever actually led a revolution was a reformist.
Don't know who you could be speaking of here...but I guess the words sound better to you if you avoid making them specific.
True, I do have a rather low opinion of "revolutionary leaders" -- their actual performance in office has been sooooo disappointing. *laughs*
quote:
Simon-pure ultralefts, the kind who reject all participation in elections and even any kind of mass action to demand a reform, never actually took power anywhere and don't really want to.
I suppose I should be grateful that you at least dimly grasp my perspective.
Yes, I do not want to "take power" and be a "benevolent despot" -- reformist or Leninist or both.
And though I would not wish to claim "purity", I guess I do look fairly clean compared to yourself.
quote (Rosa Luxemburg):
The daily struggle for reforms, for the amelioration of the condition of the workers within the framework of the existing social order, and for democratic institutions, offers to the Social-Democracy an indissoluble tie. The struggle for reforms is its means; the social revolution, its aim.
She wrote this before 1914, didn't she? *laughs*
In fact, I just looked it up. She wrote it in 1900, didn't she?
She was wrong...but she had a damn good excuse for being wrong.
That was when it was seriously thought by everyone in the 2nd International that a social democratic majority in a bourgeois parliament could reform its way from capitalism to socialism to communism.
After 106 years of parliamentary cretinism, you want to come here and say "hey, we should keep doing that".
It's worked so well! *laughs*
Of course, you do like to "have it both ways", don't you?
quote:
Progressive social change comes from mass action, not from who happens to be in office at the time.
Indeed it does. So why do you still defend parliamentary cretinism?
Because Trotsky liked the idea? *laughs*
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First posted at RevLeft on January 2, 2006
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quote:
This is false. Rosa Luxemburg didn't think like that, and if you had read her work, instead of just a quote, you would know that. On the contrary, Rosa had been fighting, earnestly and strongly, against such ideas. She very well knew that capitalism couldn't be reformed into socialism - much less through a majority in a bourgeois parliament. She knew a revolution was necessary. She knew, however, that a revolution can only be made by an overwhelming demonstration of strength by the proletariat; she knew that such strength isn't a god's gift nor [does] it come through natural processes, nor by the repetition of pious revolutionary "truths"; she knew that such strength must be built, and it can only be built through struggle, struggle which, by its own nature, does not directly challenge the bourgeois State.
-- emphasis added.
It seems to me that you are here "reading back" the views of Luxemburg in 1918 into what she thought in 1900.
She was not "always" a revolutionary -- that doesn't apply to any human. She learned from what happened in 1914...unlike most of her contemporaries.
And more than 90 years later, unlike some of the people on this board...who remain "in love" with parliamentary cretinism.
You are always free to disagree with me (and Marx) in your suggestion that the "natural processes" of capitalism "will not" generate revolutionary consciousness.
And neither I nor Marx ever suggested that revolutionary consciousness "comes from" the "gods" or as a consequence of the repetition of "pious revolutionary truths".
Indeed, had you limited your formula to something like "revolutionary consciousness comes from struggle that is not immediately and necessarily revolutionary in itself" -- well, I could "live with that"...maybe.
But you want more than that, don't you? You want a formula that says that struggle within the limits imposed by bourgeois legality "can" or even "must" lead to revolutionary consciousness...provided only that some "revolutionaries" are around to "point this out" at the "appropriate time".
This is, of course, exactly what never happens! The trade union "revolutionary" never gets around to that revolution stuff at all!
It's always "too soon" or "ultra-left" or "divisive" or whatever!
The working class "must learn to crawl" before it can be permitted "to learn to walk".
This is, I guess, regarded as a "law of nature".
quote:
Workers aren't abandoning unions because they think they aren't radical enough, they are abandoning unions because they wrongly believe that they can face capitalism's exploitative machine individually.
They are giving up on unions because unions have failed them. The popular perception in the U.S., as far as I can tell, is that the union leaders are all in bed with the bosses.
Is that true?
Looks that way to me.
It is an error, to be sure, to think they can "do better" as individuals "on their own".
But what is necessary, in my opinion, is that the class itself must create new forms of struggle in the workplace...and no, I don't know what those "new forms" might be.
I know they will have one characteristic for sure...they will be outside the channels of bourgeois legality.
They have to be that to do the working class any damn good at all.
quote:
I am absolutely sure that you believe you are saying the truth here. And even more sure that you aren't.
The possibility of error can never be entirely ruled out.
But yes, I do try to tell people the truth as best I am capable of perceiving it.
If this be "irresponsible revolutionism", then that's a risk I'm willing to take.
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First posted at RevLeft on January 2, 2006
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quote:
And you certainly give me the impression of believing that revolutionary conscience comes as a consequence of the repetition, pious or not, of "revolutionary truths".
Well, it is my opinion that the repetition of "revolutionary truths" is infinitely preferable to the repetition of reformist lies.
quote:
I never said "within the limits imposed by bourgeois legality". That's your interpretation, and it is completely false.
If I have done you an injustice, then I am certainly willing to apologize.
But what is one to make of...
quote:
struggle which, by its own nature, does not directly challenge the bourgeois State
What "special meaning" can your phrase have other than "remaining within the limits imposed by bourgeois legality"?
quote:
Merely doing illegal things - which can be useful, necessary, or both, depending on the situation - does not directly challenge the bourgeois State.
I think you know as well as I that we're not talking about petty pilfering in the warehouse.
When trade unions were initially organized, they did indeed "challenge the bourgeois State". They were completely illegal and often met with violent state repression. As a consequence, some of them developed an overtly revolutionary perspective.
Do you wish to suggest that such is the case now? Or "will be" in the foreseeable future?
Trade unions are now totally integrated into the structure of bourgeois law...and can no longer seriously fight for the working class.
For the most part, strikes are now "rituals" and "well within the law". Gains are minimal at best...and "give back" contracts are more and more common.
Do you imagine that this "inspires" the growth of revolutionary consciousness?
I think it just spreads demoralization...and indeed, that's its purpose!
Publications like The Economist complain bitterly about "Bolshie unions" in Europe -- yes, that's the phrase they use...and they mean by it unions that still try to carry out militant struggles regardless of the law.
But they rarely have anything critical to say about unions in the United States...where they have been properly domesticated.
Is it really so surprising that young workers here mostly see unions as "dues-sucking machines"?
quote:
You are seeing Leninists under your bed.
They were a "major part" of 20th century trade unionism in many countries...in fact, you could fairly say that they organized the major trade unions in the U.S. and probably elsewhere as well.
And they put forward the same argument that you do.
1. First, workers organize unions and win concessions from the bosses.
2. Then, perceiving their growing strength, the workers go on to become revolutionary.
Of course, it didn't work out for them. Why should it work out for you?
quote:
Workers aren't brainless creatures. We fight, we win, we lose, we sit together and we discuss what went right and wrong in our struggles.
I'm sure you do.
But discussions take place inside a "framework"...a series of shared assumptions about social reality.
That framework constrains what can be discussed and what options can be considered.
Anything outside that framework "sounds crazy".
In my opinion, revolutionaries must attack that framework across the board.
Why? Because it is, at best, a bourgeois reformist framework that was designed to keep the working class in chains.
No, that's not how unions began...but it's what they've become!
quote:
Ali trains.
Indeed he did. What he trained to do was fight more effectively.
Your implication is that existing unions "train" the working class to "fight the bosses more effectively".
I don't think the last half century of historical experience justifies your analogy.
quote:
I bet if he just sat there telling himself the truth he would have a whole lot less chances of beating Frazier!
No doubt. *laughs*
However, the struggle to overthrow capitalism is not simply a matter of superior physical strength...that's not a good analogy at all.
If people don't understand "how things really work", then their chances of changing that drop so close to zero as makes no difference.
In particular, if workers don't grasp that bourgeois "legality" is both a fraud and an obstacle to their justified demands, their chances of getting anywhere are meager indeed.
"Revolutionary truths" are needed!
quote:
They are giving up unions because they think, perhaps rightly, that the union leaders are all in bed with the bosses - and because they think, certainly wrongly, that they cannot do anything to change this.
Are union elections these days "more honest" than regular bourgeois "elections"?
Think so?
Really???
I trust you'll forgive my "cynicism" and "dogmatism" if I suggest that you are probably mistaken.
Indeed, even if you "won" a union "election", it's most likely that between the bureaucrats and the courts, you would never be permitted to "take office".
Unless, of course, you had already "gotten on board" with the professional reformists.
A "fresh face" is always useful to them.
quote:
How much time do you deem we should have figured new forms of struggle?
Beats me! "Time frames" are a realm in which historical materialism is still "intuitive" rather than scientific.
It wouldn't hurt if those few workers who today have (or think they have) a "revolutionary perspective" would "put their thinking caps on" and begin trying to figure out how workers might break out of all the reformist traps that presently bind them.
You don't expect me to do it for you, do you? *laughs*
quote:
They will - like unions when they were created - ignore the lines that divide legality from illegality.
You can phrase it like that if it makes you feel better. The reality remains: until workers break out of the "official channels" of "conflict resolution", they'll stay in the shit.
quote:
But then, there is this problem - like Leninists, you think of workers in the third person.
Well, I'm retired...so things look differently to me than they did while I was still working.
But if you wish to invoke grammatical justification for your position, that's ok with me.
On the other hand, if you want to suggest that "real workers" don't agree with me at this time, I already know that.
It doesn't bother me greatly. If Marx was right, then they will agree with me in the future.
Meanwhile, I'll just keep telling people the truth as best I perceive it.
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First posted at RevLeft on January 3, 2006
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