If we communists vare about anything at this moment it must be about raising a proletarian political platform that is consistant and within which particular struggles can find some form of general expression. Moreover, given the internationalism of today's world such a program to work at all would have to be itself international.
I trust the prosposition is acceptable based on your example below. Now it no-doubt makes sensible people angry that some kid gets 10 cents to make a cap sold for $18, that capitalism should so pervert human relations to such cruel absurditis is a point of guilt and despair for many who in no way would call themselves socialist.
However should not our aim be to supply something more concrete both for the advanced world to express its humanity by changing conditions and also for the girl getting 10 cents in her struggle.
OK we are limited to what can be practically done, we all feel this limit, and making progress one person at a time is better then nothing, but if we return to the first point about the need for a political platform, an expression of immediate world working class interests, (however it is labled), you no-doubt first thought (as indeed most people reading this would) that this is just a desire for another of those sectarian documents which every grouplet bandies about as its reason for being.
Such a document (expression whatever) would do no earthly good and would not be either political or a practical help to anyone (except the sect that uses it as part of its mantra). Yet knowing this to be so you probably also agreed to the general ambition before the more criticial thoughts came flooding in.
So my next question would be: Does it have to be such a thing and what is stopping us producing it? After all just on this list there is a lot of experience, a good deal of knowledge and many people of good intentions and serious political outlook.
The objective itself, whatever can be raised against it as a practical proposition at this time, it is not even an outrageous or extravagent aim - after all, nothing much need be in it except a clear statement of what needs to be changed at a variety of levels in a way which is as appealing in the advanced world as in the third world.
If Marx's old slogan of workers of the world uniting, has any meaning such a platform would be by all accounts a very modest contributation to such a struggle. Moreover it is difficult to see how this class could properly unite if it did not recognise a common expression of immediate reforms as a common starting point for such unity.
Furthermore we are presently using a medium which could publish it world wide and, if it was any good at all, would soon find its way into the least computerisied home in the third world.
Yet this completely straightforward and small proposal seems completely out of our collective grasp (I am trying to be realistic on this point - no amount of enthusiasm can over-come the experience of working in the left and this conclusion flows from that knowledge).
Now I suggest that the biggest contribution we can effectively make as communists/socialist/marxists, whatever, at this time and scattered across the world, with the "movement" in chaos, is at the same time the smallest contribution to history and struggle that we owe to the working class.
Yet, the thing would seem allusive, either becoming a banal statement of political truisms or blowing out to include every struggle and its dog in some super declaration of the left.
Niether of these would work as the only requirement is also the only thing which can make it work in the first place - a clear statement of the immediate and general interests of the working class for social reform (not socialism, not working class rule - just what those changes around which real struggles jell that could lead to some immediate improvement).
A few things fall naturally into it (ending third world debt, democraticisng states etc). Another way of looking at it is that there really is no problem and in fact in some sense such a thing could easily be written by practically anyone.
So what is stopping such a thing (quite independantly of me suggesting it), why does such a simple thing refuse to come into existence?
You can toy with the idea of writing it yourself, but then simple problems begin to emerge, where you should be specific and clear things start to get muddied, instead of precision - circumlocations, bold statements quickly qualified out of existence, etc.
There is something allusive even in this small project which should be so simple, has no reason not to be simple, but seems as uotpian as living on the moon subsisting on cheese.
No amount of analysis gets us out of the trap. There is no criticial bit of knowledge which is needed, indeed we know just as well as the grils making caps in Bangladesh for 10 cents, also know. we just simply do not have the right concepts to express such a thing.
Now there might be a way of finding them aside from my very unpopular ontological approach, in fact, there is, but it involves self-criticism and taking apart concepts which we have assumed to be true but may not be - there is at least this bit of theory that needs to be done and that as I hope this illustration suggests, is a practical thing to do given our collective impasse.
I believe intellectual self-criticism presumes an ontology, but there is no real need to go down this route. But no matter how things are looked at some real self-criticism needs to be done.
What is standing in the way of us doing our proletarian duty is, I propose, ourselves.
Greg Schofield Perth Australia g_schofield at dingoblue.net.au _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________
Use LesTecML Mailer (http://www.lestec.com.au/) * Powerful filters. * Create you own headers. * Have email types launch scripts. * Use emails to automat your work. * Add comments on recieve. * Use scripts to extract and check emails. * Use MAID to create taylor-made solutions. * LesTecML Mailer is fully controlled by REXX. * A REXX interpreter is freely available. _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________
--- Message Received --- From: Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 14:52:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: Science, Science & Marxism
On Sat, 12 Jan 2002, Greg Schofield wrote:
[much snipped]
> What I would really like is a thread, even an entire list, to work
> together just based on the common asssumption that HM is an ontology
> which needs to be explicitly explored - the questions at this point
> remain theoretical but are far more concretely so.
Greg has a lot on his mind, he's relatively gracious about sharing his ideas, so I felt compelled to respond to a bit of it at least. I agree with Justin that this type of "ontological exploration" is not imperative or strategically useful. Now, if this approach works in your neck of the woods, well and good. I get much better traction talking about girls in Bangladesh earning ten cents an hour making university caps that sell for 18.00 in the U. S. Do we really need hyper-sophisticated philosophy to emphasize the point that capitalism is neither necessary nor just? "Capitalism sucks, and we can do better"--in terms of praxis and consciousness raising, perhaps we don't really need much more than that.
Miles