It seems to me power has always had a decentralized structure, The whole purpose of empire-building is to weave centralized order out of a decentralized power network. The task fundamentally involves trade-offs to give locals what is important to them in exchange for their support for what is important to the center.
It is misleading to regard capitalism as having a history longer than it actually did and to project for it a future more than it is likely to have. The difference between pre-industrial capitalism during the Renaissance and industrial capitalism of the 19th-20th centuries, is comparable to the difference between absolute monarchy and constitutional monarchy. And imperialistic capitalism observed by Lenin is a new animal by itself.
The world economy now is in the midst of a shift from industrial capitalism to financial capitalism, a condition about which Marx could not have had any inkling. Imperialistic capitalism is trying very hard to hang on to the back of the new financial capitalism, but only with limited success. Witness the global financial crises that started in Asia in 1997.
There are important opportunities for socialist restructuring of society offered by the onset of financial capitalism. Just as the internet, playing field of IT, is dominated by irreverent young turks that have no respect for the printed media, the global financial markets are dominated by 30-year olds who have no loyalty to any existing socio-political or financial system, not to industrial capitalism, not to imperialism, let along their elders on Wall Street. Among these young turks are many cerebral socialists who don't even know they are socialists. The electronic market is reducing the power of the distribution network, which had been traditionally controlled by the establishment. Human intelligence is the most powerful social capital. That is why it is progressive to support public higher education. For the first time in history, ideas can be communicated relatively cheaply and outside of the establishment's control. That is a very important advance towards intellectual socialism. Unlike Luther, we no longer have to nail our protests to the door of the cathedral.
A time honored revolutionary technique is guerrilla warfare. In the arena of ideas, guerrilla warfare is waged by getting access to communication channels. In academia, it is waged by starting new academic disciplines.
In the mid 60's, I was Chairman of the newly established Architecture Dept. at UCLA for 4 years. In Architecture, it was practically impossible for a new starter to fight the established tradition of Harvard and Yale which commanded all the advantages and privileges and of course the taste setting powers. So, as young turks fresh out of Harvard, we adopted a strategy of excelling in the then new discipline of Urban Design, which focuses on the social and esthetic relationship between buildings in urban settings rather than on the buildings themselves as traditional architecture does. Harvard pioneered the discipline but the entrenched faculty opposed it. And within 4 years, we made UCLA into a leading institution of that new discipline and our graduates and faculty members were sought after by government and the private sector, and even Harvard itself, and many went on to achieve great things. I am sure this happened to many other disciplines in many other institutions.
My point is, financial capitalism offers great opportunities for socialist supplantation (not reform!) toward a new socialist structure that the establishment does not understand and therefore cannot effectively resist. The only danger is establishment co-optation, for which the system have much experience and considerable success. Witness, the protest song "Times, they a'changing" being used as background music for TV commercials, I think to sell cars.
Your list is one of these developments in socialist supplantation, albeit a minor one so far. But as Mao said, a tiny spark can start a forest fire, and thousands like this are popping up everywhere. Goug, your flirtation with the mass media risks the beginning of co-optation. Beware you don't become the token safe Marxist. Remember what the East side liberals (Bernstein and company) did to the Black Panthers in the 60's. Radical chic is the beginning of betrayal.
Have A Happy and Reflective New Year, all LBO readers. And thank you, Doug, for running this list and Enzo, one of the resident free market capitalists, for introducing me to it a few months ago.
Henry
Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> I think it's less a change in the nature of "power" than a change in
> thinking about "power" - in the bad old days, Capital dominated everything
> in a unitary, timeless fashion. Now we know better, and we know that power
> is dispersed, polycentric, local. And also something that has to be
> reiterated constantly, meaning there's a certain vulnerability.