I must admit that exchanging mails with Patrick Bond over reform/revolution was something of a blast from the past for me. It is probably only in South Africa that you could come across a popular reformist movement.
It is quite rare in Britain (and I think throughout the developed West) to confront a developed reformist position. (In fairness to Patrick, I don't think that he would agree that his position is 'reformist', but sees the struggle for reforms as a strategy for developing a revolutionary movement.)
More often we see in the advanced West the collapse of the reformist movement of social democratic parties allied with institutionalised trades unions. In their absence, radical activism tends to an isolated revolutionary purism, that has no organic relationship to any social class. In consequence its demands tend to the millenarian, and absolutist.
In such conditions, I would favour reformism over the kind of 'beautiful soul' whose principles are so pure that they can never be compromised with reality.
I don't agree that radicals should never take power, for fear of being corrupted. On the contrary, a movement that eschews the use of political power is one that does not intend to be taken seriously as a political alternative but wants to survive instead as a kind of aesthetic rejection of everything.
The question of whether you are using the state or whether the state is using you is not one that can be decided a priori. It is only by analysing the actual content of the demands that you could decide whether a political programme is reformist or revolutionary.
In message <sb8ba720.092 at Services-02.uwc.ac.za>, Tahir Wood
<twood at uwc.ac.za> writes
>I thing this Bond-Heartfield debate is a typical example of where no progress
>can be made because of the fixation on a particular word, or on a particular
>antinomy (reform vs, revolution). No one out of two leftists is going to accept
>being the reformist so the other guy always has to be the one who is positioned
>as the reformist. Fortunately I think there might just be other ways into the
>issues that our protagonists are concerned with.
>
>I assume that the problems with reformism are all pretty familiar to leftists,
>so I won't waste time with those, but I hate it when revolution is presented as
>if we all know and agree on what that is. So as soon as someone assures us that
>he/she is really into revolution rather than reform we all relax, cos that's
>okay then. But lately I find that is just the point at which I get tense and
>find I want to know more, but, worse, when I do find out more I am often very
>far from feeling assured.
>
>See I don't believe it is the job of communists to take state power within a
>capitalist world system, because you end up doing the job of the bourgeoisie for
>them. Oh inept bourgeoisie, they don't know how to run a country so let's take
>state power from them and show them how it's done! This is the story of
>bolshevism and that's why people don't really like it anymore - it's just too
>obviously a way of thinking about how to push capitalism along where the
>bourgeoisie looks uncomfortable or incapable in its traditional role, mainly in
>backward countries which call for some kind of forced-march modernisation,
>particularly with regard to the agrarian revolution.
>
>I am far from convinced that either of you really have a conception of
>revolution that is different to this. I know that Patrick is still into some
>sort of variant of the good ol' national democratic revolution (delinking,
>etc,), whereas James is kind of saying hey that's not revolution let's have a
>revolution. But guys what are we talking about here? Overthrow of a ruling class
>to replace it with another ('better') one? Overthrow of the entire world
>capitalist system so as to put an end to classes or what?
>
>My point is that real communists should not think of taking political power
>under any circumstances, except where the opportunity exists to abolish it
>permanently. Having a revolution in SA or Zim or somewhere like that does not
>constitute such a prospect, so let's forget it. Political power is not something
>we should covet. What should communists do when the opportunity for worldwide
>anti-capitalist revolution does not present itself? I think they should push for
>all those things that make life better. To me this is not reforming capitalism,
>because reforms are the job of the bourgeoisie - it's what they do when we are
>making life impossible for them. That's our job in the longer run: we don't help
>them to change (implement reforms), nor do we take their power away from them in
>order to do what they weren't able to do (revolution). What we do is to push
>them as hard as possible for all the things we want from life and thereby make
>their task impossible. We should not want the!
>m to satisfy us or meet our demands; our task should be literally to make their
>job impossible.
>
>Tahir
>
>>>> owner-lbo-talk-digest at lists.panix.com 08/27/01 08:56PM >>>
>> Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 10:23:14 +0100
>> From: James Heartfield <Jim at heartfield.demon.co.uk>
>> 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.
>
>Ok clever, I agree, you weren't/aren't aware, and you're in another
>part of the world.
>
>> 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.
>
>Never read Gorz or Kagarlitsky? or Saul on SA in the NLR? Gazing
>at architecture has put you right off practical socialist politics,
>cde James?
>
>> But
>> since Patrick has introduced
>
>No, borrowed.
>
>> the oxymoron of non-reforming reforms, lets
>> follow his definition...
>> They should be
>> >* 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?
>
>Because unless you have a revolution, you don't get them, that's why.
>The reason: social power relations don't allow the decommodification
>of anything much, really, before K rebels.
>
>> But then it dawned on me, that was exactly what did
>> happen in South Africa.
>
>No, on the contrary, as we're learning, keeping 5 million HIV+ folk
>alive is *affordable* to SA capitalism, assuming we ignore
>int'l pharmacorpo patent rights (the way some civilised health
>ministries do, such as those in Thailand, Brazil and India). But
>saving those lives is not allowed under present power relations.
>Would cost too much -- aside from the drugs themselves -- given the
>enormous size of the Reserve Army of Labour, you know. Keeping
>the RAL going beyond a certain convenient point (we're at +/-40%
>unemployment now) is a drain on the Treasury. (Just like early
>deaths from smoking save the Czech Republic money.) So
>"anti-retrovirals for all, on demand under conditions of a vastly
>improved public healthcare delivery system" is potentially a
>revolutionary (non-reformist) reform. More examples needed?
>
>> What Patrick is arguing for is a transfer of political power, to an
>> elite
>
>Did I say that?
>
>> with a different social base, but that does not disturb the basic
>> conditions of capital accumulation.
>
>Did I say that?
>
>Actually, on second read, this sentence recalls for me the reputation
>of LM/sp!ked politics. Is this a creepy recruitment tactic, man? No
>way, I'm not falling for it.
>
>> 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.
>
>Ah well, appearances can deceive even the London sharpy.
>
>> I'm surprised that he has a quarrel with Robert Mugabe, who seems to
>> have adopted just such a strategy in Zimbabwe.
>
>Hey, how would you know about my tiff with Bob, then?
>
>------------------------------
-- James Heartfield