On the other hand, in the Manifesto of the Communist Party, Engels and Marx, not known for their confusion on the base/superstructure relationship, said that the goal of the communism ( in a few words) is "Abolition of private property," which might be termed a legalistic formulation.
I think the attitude of revolutionaries toward legal reforms should be the same as toward reforms in general. We struggle for reform in a revolutionary manner. When a reform fails, the effort must be to demonstrate that only more radical solutions will solve the problems the reformers seek to solve.
In this case, I think it is a very good sign that movements are focussing on curbing corporate power, as that is a main form of private property today. Revolutionaries should help this reform and seek to deepen it; and , participating in that struggle, try to sharpen the movement's understanding of exactly what the role of the corporation is in modern capitalism, so that all of private property in the basic means of production can become the target.
On the Constitution, I don't see abolition of the Constitution as a revolutionary goal. Rather the goal would be to enforce its progressive provisions and change the rest. Socialism is not some leap to a lawless society.
Charles Brown
>>> James Farmelant <farmelantj at juno.com> 06/03/99 01:44PM >>>
On Thu, 3 Jun 1999 12:55:01 -0400 Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
writes:
>annia wrote:
>
>>There's some citizens or lawyers group in colorado trying to pass a
>>three-strikes law for corporations: break three state laws, and you
>>can't do business there any more. I think it's a way of highlighting
>the
>>double standard: i.e., we crack down on people for three offenses,
>but
>>violate three environmental or labor laws and you'll *still* get a
>huge
>>tax break, etc. Does anybody know anything about this? Like the name
>of
>>the group, for example? I read about it somewhere, but can't remember
>>where ...
>
>Don't know about the Colo thing, but the anti-corporate charter crowd
>has a
>web site at <http://www.ratical.com/corporations/index.html>. It all
>seems
>very legalistic to me - very Constitutional, in that classically
>American
>way, with lawyers standing in for mass political movements - and it's
>not
>clear what they'd replace corporations with. But there it is.
>
>Doug
Don't such reformers fall into the error of confusing property relations with the social relations of production? In Marxian terms. the latter are a part of the economic base whereas the former are a part of the legal superstructure. As part of the superstructure they function to help stabilize the base. If corporations as a legal form are abolished or modified, this is not likely to have much effect on the social relations of production unless such reforms come as Doug suggests as part of a mass political movement. Otherwise, corporations as legal entities will simply be replaced by some other legal entity that will perform the same type of functions in regards to the existing mode of production. Alas, as Doug suggests such legalistic hocus pocus is too much a part of American reformist politics, and is a poor substitute for the real thing.
Jim Farmelant
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