>>From Doug to Charles:
>>>Charles: If we could get a huge fraction of the population to think
>>>of capitalism as organized crime, that would be one giant step for
>>>humankind toward socialist consciousness.
>>
>>Which project conspiracy theories actually hinder, since they imply
>>that there's some virtuous norm from which the conspiracy is an
>>exception - and if we could just let that norm flourish, all would be
>>well. If it weren't for the Bilderbergers, capitalism would be ok, eh?
>
>Exploitation works through "a very Eden of the innate rights of man" where
>"alone rule Freedom, Equality, Property, and Bentham." Commodity fetishism
>is not a conspiracy.
"Commodity fetishism is not a conspiracy." She takes her stance on the fundamental character of the capitalist mode of production.
It is good to re-read the passages from
_Capital_, Volume 1, Chapter 1, Section 4
which Yoshie goes on to quote, once again, but from a slightly new angle.
Incidentally they illustrate why to talk about the labour theory of value goes only half way towards grasping the inner dynamic of the capitalist mode of production - why I tend to urge instead the use of the term marxian "law of value".
The term 'commodity fetishism', with which Yoshie has re-titled this thread, is also often only half understood by admirers of Marx. Since we are about to submerge in a capitalist festival of a superfluity of commodities, it is worth noting that Marx is not essentially referring to the idolisation of commodities, though that certainly occurs. Commodity Fetishism means the hidden social relations of production carried within the exchange value aspect of commodities.
Yoshie comments:
>Marx counterposed _history_ to the "science" of economics, and it
>is this fact that both posties and empiricists neglect.
I would appreciate a quote or reference because I have been impressed by some who insist that Marx claimed to be writing only a critique of political economy, not a political economy itself - but perhaps this is another point.
Yoshie goes on the argue that commodity fetishism inevitably involves a repressive state:
>>From a different perspective, Walter Benjamin said with regard to fascism:
>"The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the 'state of emergency' in
>which we live is not the exception but the rule. We must attain to a
>conception of history that is in keeping with this insight."
>
>Marx gives us the necessary theoretical insight into the fundamental
>mechanism of exploitation, through the science of history that allows us to
>see commodity fetishism for what it is. Benjamin reminds us of the
>constant necessity of the repressive power of the state to protect the
>"very Eden of the innate rights of man."
>
>Commodity fetishism & the National Security State are normal, and
>conspiracy theories hide this fact from workers. That is why the
>opinion-making caste live by "plausible denial," which encourages people to
>think it necessary to expose The Secret. Whereas commodity fetishism is
>out in the Open, and the National Security State is our Common Sense.
>
>As Brecht said in _Threepenny Opera_, "what is the robbery of a bank
>compared to the founding of a new bank?" What is the assassination of a
>president compared to the election of a president? What is McCarthy
>compared to Truman?
I generally agree with Doug and Yoshie that it is a mistake to conduct political work mainly in the form of exposing corruption and conspiracies.
I take Charles's point about marxists communicating with ordinary people from their experience and in language they can understand. However I think he sells the pass if he argues that a marxist political movement should agitate and propagandise mainly against abuses against the idealistic image of bourgeois democracy. Unless marxists can find ways of linking up the experience of the masses with the capitalist mode of production at its *best* as well, we will not be able to help people organise to change it.
I get the impression that popular consciousness in the USA is all too ready to blurt out that 'they are all a load of crooks'. While that may sometimes be a stepping stone to more profound revolutionary consciousness, it also may be a stepping stone to empiricist despair, or opportunism that one of them somehow feels a *little* less like a crook (McCain I gather, momentarily).
On the other hand I think Yoshie moves too quickly from the statement about commodity fetishism to an assertion of the repressive nature of the state. The danger of this is it blurs the distinction between bourgeois democracy and fascism, which the 20th century has taught us is a most important distinction stratetically. She quotes Benjamin, speaking about fascism, and the ever present possibility of fascism.
I am with Charles if, as I understand, he regards the defence of bourgeois democratic rights against fascist violations a continuing crucial feature of political struggle (even if he would put it in different terms). Yoshie does not discuss the fact that although some aspects of the bourgeois democratic state are necessarily repressive, other aspects have extensive procedures for going through the motions of legality. It is true that the fundamental legal premise of these lawful non-violent procedures is *bourgeois right*but it is still progressive relative to open violence.
Furthermore only by challenging the legal process of peaceful bourgeois right can we not only defend against regression to fascism but we capture territory, outposts, stockades, headlands, which we can defend as relatively free from direct domination by the bourgeois right of the owners of the means of production, and more answerable to the social right entailed in responsibility to the whole society of working people.
Yoshie quotes Brecht's Threepenny Opera, which was written in 1928 with later amendments after Brecht came under more explicit communist influence. This opera with Weil's music is a brilliant but also a poignant artistic work of the Weimar Republic. The failure to distinguish between bourgeois right and fascist violence illustrated in the quotes was a recipe for enormous dramatic popularity, but also demobilisation in building braod alliances against fascist violence. (Enjoyable though it is now to see the British monarchy and constabulary treated with biting disprespect, it is important that Britain just managed to escape a fascist revolution in the 30's but Germany did not! It is important now that similar bourgeois legal processes in Britain still have Pinochet under house arrest with a funny helmeted policeman outside his comfortable mansion. Ridiculous, but objectively a victory for the people of the world!)
We often have to risk allying with social democracy both to guard against fascism, but also to expose its own limitations, and to win more ground for a socialist society and a socialist economy. Perilous, if we are not clear about our marxism, but an important lesson of the 20th century, since we cannot expect commodities to be abolished overnight.
Chris Burford
London