Jonathan posts on the Z forums. Michael Pugliese
----- Original Message ----- From: "Jonathan Michael Feldman" <JonathanMFeldman at hotmail.com> To: <marxist at yahoogroups.com> Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2001 8:58 AM Subject: [marxist] Why Mechanical Marxist Treatments are Still Rubbish & Maybe Marx Was Wrong!
Dear Comrades of the world,
I wrote,
"Is this a conflict between classes only? Or is a conflict involving states, domestic populations, and networks that in some ways resemble states and in other ways criminal organizations?"
The reply I got:
It is primarily a conflict between classes (the "mechanical marxists" you attack almost never go around saying that a social phenomena is "only" about a single factor).
My rejoinder:
This is a rather poor defense of what has been posted here before (i.e. the rubbish). The fact is that the "class category" is a very weak one for explaining the institutional actions of the Pentagon. Let us examine the different ways in which the category "class" would be relevant.
CATEGORY 1: DESCRIPTION OF THE ACTORS
For example, the Bin Ladins for their support involve a vertical integration as it were of the lower classes (audience), the middle classes (recruits) and the upper classes. For the Pentagon, we have very much the same thing. When would the class category be relevant here? In the composition of the conflicting actors? Well, what if the public supports a movement from above, e.g. terrorists or militarists? Does not this public support (e.g. from the working and middle classes) shape the context for the action? The class category is much too narrow. Theories of fascism, itself a phenomena linked to imperialism and militarism, describe the support from below, i.e. working class. In sum, ruling classes are involved but not restrictively so.
CATEGORY 2: THE REASON FOR THE ATTACKS
Well, the CIA helped promote these "terrorists" but as an actor can we really say that it is simply "an agent of capital accumulation"? That is way too simplistic. It presumes that America is simply capitalist and has no contradictory democratic forces, i.e. mass opinion is irrelevant. You can read a scholarly article I wrote about the constraints on public choice, but how choice still matters: “Public Choice, Foreign Policy Crises and Military Spending Levels,” in Finding the Future, edited by Lloyd J. Dumas. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1995. As I may have said last time, the anti-Vietnam war movement shows that democracy constrains militarism. Now, the relevant weakness of such movements to stop or regulate US foreign policy can contribute to a militarist environment that promotes the cycle of violence linked to terrorism. Yet, the existence of the dialectic between state agencies and actors and mass movements is not simply one of class. Why? Because not all fractions of the ruling class support militarism, e.g. business groups against the Vietnam war, e.g. Japanese capitalists. When it comes to Saudi Arabia, there are clear disagreements within the ruling class about Bin Ladin, so class conflict is an utter simplifying rubbish argument to explain the attack. Can we not have renegade capitalists? Is not bin Laedin's existential trajectory and ideology relevant? Not to the mechanical rubbish artists.
I wrote:
"Victims of the terror have rights that are independent of "class" per se. There must be universal rights which exist independently of one's class."
The reply:
Those imagined rights didn't help them to survive. Sure, there must be universal rights, but until social relations make such rights a reality the militants "must" be realists: "we have no rights, and will continue fighting until the ones who suppress our rights are defeated."
My rejoinder:
I simply do not understand the above. Social struggles produce power and a power associated with rights. Terrorism depreciates power and infringes on rights. The above comment to me is apparently not very dialectical and hence not marxist at all, it seems more like neo-vanguard party sloganeering. The mechanical marxists see the victims as byproducts of a class struggle perhaps or their salvation in the class struggle perhaps. Yet, can we honestly say that if the World Trade center were filled with ruling class bankers, that their slaughter would not be horrific? If I understand the mechanical marxists correctly, their answer is no. The "social relations" described above are continually evolving in American capitalist society. The civil rights movement helped promote power related to rights, rights related to class status, but also more universal. If we look at the Marxian discourse on nationalism, we see in various two stage theories a recognition of national rights in contrast to imperial interests. The Sandinista movement (a "social relation") recognized this and thereby developed an alliance with national capitalists. Would the Sandinistas be unhappy if their capitalists were attacked by a terror bomb of the contras? When you answer this question, you see how ridiculous the mechanical rubbish is.
The idea above is that the victims of the bombings had a right to defense against them. The "class struggle" perspective offers these victims zero in the way it is usually articulated. Furthermore, the trajectory of the peace movement, United Nations, human rights groups, international law, etc. has a constituency that is much larger than the working class, e.g. it includes parts of the ruling class in Norway.
I wrote, "This does not mean that militarism is not linked to accumulation..."
The reply I got: Whom, exactly, is suggesting that militarism is not linked to accumulation?
Rejoinder: I am saying that militarism is not linked to accumulation. From Rosa Luxembourg we see that this is partly so. Nevertheless, it is not restrictively so for many reasons that I think I covered before. This conflict is not just about "oil" and relates to other issues, e.g. the militarist factions in Israel supported by sephardic Jews from the working class or the weakness of the Israeli peace movement. Where an intellgent class analysis would come in would be to show how corporate capitalist hegemony created barriers to opposing state militarism.
I wrote:
>Of course, the subjectivity of the mechanical marxist must never be
>explored because that would reveal contingency.
Reply I got:
You seem to be saying that Karl Carlile is incapable of understanding Sarte, and incapable of taking into account his own subjectivity as (like all objective phenomena) contingent on a complex web of social interconnections. Is your ad hominem attack generated by Mr. Carlile's firm belief that (a.) terrorism is a fundamental component of capitalism, and (b.) a rising communist movement would effectively reduce the potential for terrorism?
Perhaps your ad hominem attacks are "contingent" upon your rejection of those two points? -RjC
Rejoinder:
(1) TERRORISM IS NOT SIMPLY CAUSED BY CAPITALISM or CLASS CONFLICT
I do not think that terrorism is a fundamental component of capitalism because that would mean that I would believe that we could not eliminate terrorism before we eliminated capitalism OR that I believed that the elimination of terrorism could proceed without an anti-militarist movement that is partly independent of class-based movements from below or alliances with sympathetic nation states in the Third World or capitalists supporting economic justice and disarmament.
I certainly DO NOT believe that a "rising communist movement would effectively reduce the potential for terrorism" because I have no way of knowing what you or he mean by a "communist movement." If you mean something of the Leninist or Stalinist variety, I would suspect your movement of an indifference to concerns of disarmament and demilitarization. Of more relevance my friends is this quote by Simone Weil:
"[Marx] neglected war as a factor every bit as important to human history as social struggle. Therefore, Marxists always found themselves in a ridculous confusion in the face of all the problems caused by war. This ommission is significant for the entire nineteenth century. With this approach, Marx gave further proof of how dependent intellectuals were on the controlling influences of the time. At the same time, he wanted to forget that the internal struggles among the oppressed and among the oppressors are just as meaningful as the struggles between the opporessed and the oppressors. Moreover, the same person could be both oppressed and oppressor. Marx situated the concept of oppression at the center of his work without every analyzing it." S. Weil, Oppression and Liberty.
I can not vouch for everything Weil argues, but I can say that this is a far better description of the existential trajectory of the terrorist than the mechanical Marxist rubbish we have been offered.
I think the Sandinistas (despite what I wrote above) got into trouble by failing to nuance the difference between imperialist threats overseas and the need for demilitarization and democracy (see the critique in Roger Burbach's book on Post Modern Socialism). Of course, I am not saying that Nicaragua was not under seige and could easily promote all democratic rights (see Chomsky, Turning the Tide). I am saying something else too complicated to fit in an email message, just look at the related arguements in Burbach's book.
(2) THE LEFT HAS OFTEN BEEN WEAK ON DEMILITARIZATION
Furthermore, the Left has often been weak on demilitarization. Some of the neo or pseudo Leninist left feels an urgent need to march in support of authoritarian militarists in the Third World. When the Left in the USA had a great opportunity to support demilitarization during the peace dividend movement, I saw that many left intellectuals sat on their ass and did nothing (as they waited for capitalism to disappear first). Furthermore, pardon my saying this, I think most "Marxists" are not even Marxists because their thinking is: a) ahistorical; b) not dialectical; c) has no understanding of the complex conjuncture of forces that define social phenomena, etc. I of course do not mean to sidestep the important contributions of the anti-intervention and anti-vietnam war movements. I do mean to say that both of these have been rather unsophisticated in developing a comprehensive approach to demiltarization (see point below).
(3) TOWARDS AN ALTERNATIVE TO MILITARISM AND TERRORISM
A comprehensive program, not restricted to dogmatic Left parties which 99% of the population would ignore, would have to promote economic and media and political democracy. I elaborate these elsewhere, but could gladly direct you to my article in Peace Review 2000, "Extending Disarmament through Economic Democracy." You can substitute the word "socialism" for "economic democracy", but then I am not sure what you mean by "socialism" and might be afraid to ask.
SOME key aspects:
First, town meetings and teach-ins should be held to debate the ineffectiveness of current defense policies and institutions. The meetings should involve simultaneous broadcasts in the United States, Europe, Canada, and other countries. They should join the peace, religious and progressive movements and others concerned with making the world a more safe and just place. The anger of those who are outraged by the attacks must be constructively engaged. Thomas Jefferson realized that continual mobilization of the public was the best safeguard for democracy—a kind cooperative network.
Second, we must improve airport security in ways that do not threaten civil liberties. (The dysfunctional technology of airport security reminds one of the incompetent U.S. electoral machinery we saw in the Votergate scandal last year).
Third, defensive technological systems such as radar and the like should be focused on protecting the obvious targets. The Twin Towers have long been the object of terrorist attacks and are among the most vulnerable of structures, but the buildings were not secure.
Fourth, the budgets for military agencies that subsidized military adventures abroad, while failing to protect the U.S. should be radically reduced. Capital monies should be redirected to providing local defense and improve domestic security through infrastructure improvements. Coalitions that divert war-making budgets into environmental renewal, modern mass transportation, and housing will make domestic life more secure by helping end the cycle of violence.
Fifth, there needs to be a concerted resistance to America’s militarist adventures abroad, but this resistance must be linked to concerted actions to promote demilitarization. Such policies should include conversion of defense industries that hijack federal budgets for pet projects that have failed to defend, comprehensive disarmament treaties, and investments in economic development in impoverished areas.
Sixth, the crisis of militarism described above is partly a byproduct of an intellectual crisis. The discourse on globalization must embrace concepts such as alternative security, conversion, disarmament and comprehensive democracy. In “alternative security” we would start planning for what is called non-offensive defense, with military technology focused on defending home targets rather than engaging in overseas targets. In conversion, we would transform military firms into production for civilian products, supported by civilian infrastructure investments in developed and developing nations. In disarmament, we would negotiate treaties to reduce weapons manufacture and military research by cooperative treaties among all nation states. In comprehensive democracy, we would build alternative national and international networks linking the progressive media, cooperatives, socially responsible businesses, trade unions, NGOs, and various groups united by a vision supporting economic justice and demilitarization.
JONATHAN FELDMAN