I expressed surprise when Patrick Bond argued for a redistribution of resources within the limits set by capitalism, as a strategy for fighting poverty. I wasn't aware that he was so committed to the defence of capitalist property relations.
At which point Patrick mystified me with this:
>Ok, now we get into that tiresome debate about reformist or
>non-reformist reforms.
I guess it is to do with being in another part of the world, but the proposition that reforms are not intended to reform was new to me. But since Patrick has introduced the oxymoron of non-reforming reforms, lets follow his definition...
They should be
>* reasonable
>* administratively feasible
>* logistically possible
>* financially affordable...
>
Well, I'm sure that the capitalist class would be delighted to hear that Patrick is labouring away in the movement to moderate its demands to what the system can afford. I tend to agree with the interpolated comment from one of his debating partners:
>> To do this is
>> to keep operating from the point-of-view of capital - an
>> alienated point of view.
In what sense then are they anything but attempts to manage capitalism? Patrick expands:
>* politically *untenable*
>because to meet them would change the
>balance of class forces so decisively that we'd need a revolution in
>power and social relations to bring them to fruition.
Which seems a bit like a waste of effort to me. Why would you try to have a revolution to institute changes that are in any event affordable to capitalism? But then it dawned on me, that was exactly what did happen in South Africa.
What Patrick is arguing for is a transfer of political power, to an elite with a different social base, but that does not disturb the basic conditions of capital accumulation. I guess he's just ten years too late: it already happened. That's why there is a problem there now.
I guess the thing about different kinds of reforms that are being argued for is what is the political lesson that is being taught in the struggle to achieve them. Patrick's principle lesson appears to be to moderate such ambitions that threaten capitalism, and redirect energies in sectional attacks on other parts of the community.
I'm surprised that he has a quarrel with Robert Mugabe, who seems to have adopted just such a strategy in Zimbabwe. -- James Heartfield