Date: Mon, 09 Sep 2002 08:09:50 -0400 From: "Todd Archer" <todda39 at hotmail.com> Subject: Re: a critique of the march on Sandton
Todd, I think there would be something quite wrong if I tried to give definitive answers to the questions you raise, but I will make one or two comments below. Tahir
Tahir said:
>1. Only where the direct, head-on struggle against capitalism is >possible
>can the end to class society (and by implication imperialism) >be achieved.
Could you be a little more specific about this, please? What form will this/these struggle(s) take?
Tahir: What I was trying to distinguish between was, on the one hand, action that was directly and consciously targetted against destroying the power of capital, i.e. insurrection, and on the other hand the various forms of class struggle that are carried out, perhaps with less awareness of an ultimate goal, on an everyday basis.
>2. It IS necessary to point out that this is not possible in all >its
>facets and in all places and times. In some contexts the working >class and
>the revolutionary people need instead to fight for bourgeois >democratic
>freedoms, better working conditions and the strengthening >of civil
>organisations that are beneficial to the people. This >situation is typical
>of countries that are backward in those >particular respects. The point of
>this is not reform but strengthening >of the conditions that are necessary
>for socialism. It means creating >the social conditions, and especially
>expanding the cognitive and >affective resources, that will be required in
>the head to head with >capital, i.e. in becoming more human rather than
>more like a machine.
This is a fine idea, in and of itself. I take it this would mean allowing or even encouraging capitalist relations in the country, right?
Tahir: Whaaa!? When does a communist believe in encouraging capitalism? (Oh you mean like Mao or someone like that? But that kind of thing is way outside my frame.)
Given the context of today's realities, don't you think the government would be "swamped" by the bigger TNCs, seeking a place for cheap investment, and a goverment desperated enough to accede to their demands for a "favourable climate" in which to do business? Or do you think they should go the route of the Asian "Tigers" and hold them off while developing one's own bourgeois instead?
Tahir: As I say this is all quite foreign to my thinking. I think it is premised on the idea of communists taking state power in a particular country and still continuing to run it along some kind of capitalist lines, the 'stagist' position. I am implacably opposed to the idea of communists managing or governing nation states in any way whatsoever. The goal of communism is to bury them. It is not the task of communism to try and do the bourgeoisie's job for them. Our job is to push them into retreat; that is what the class struggle has always been about (read Harry Cleaver on this). Reforms are not our business. Reforms are what the bourgeoisie do the more we push them into a corner. Take for example the use of machinery. This was only highly developed by capital because of the decline of what Marx called 'formal subsumption' of labour. It is the relative surplus value strategy of capital, adopted in the face of class struggle to limit the working day etc. and marks the phas! e ! of 'real subsumption'. It shifts capital to a new phase, the domination of variable capital by constant capital, not because the bourgeoisie wanted to do this, but because they were compelled by the working class. You talk as if governments and capital were the real subject in history, but it is the mass who make history. I don't presume to solve the problems that government and capital face, I would rather see them increase a hundredfold.
>3. What else is advocated here? Complete unity of those fighting >against
>capitalism across all national boundaries. There is absolutely >no marxist
>basis for uniting with one's 'own' bourgeoisie against the >foreigner in
>the name of anti-imperialism (But that is exactly what >happens in national
>struggles - 'our' bourgeoisie somehow becomes >benign in relation to
>'theirs').
Very true. Straight out of M & E's Manifesto.
What do you mean by "complete unity"? What happens if there are Marxists who disagree with the tactics used to "fight capitalism" in this or that country, such as allowing the country's own bourgeois to develop and so improve conditions for socialism?
Tahir: They can all pursue different tactics. What's wrong with that? But your last point is not a communist one in any sense that I recognise, therefore I would advocate struggling against it. I hope you will explain to me how the 'development of the bourgeoisie improves conditions for socialism'. This formula looks to me like one that has been tried many times. It is the mentality of the nineteenth century romantic revolutionary, the hero who captures state power and carries out a revolution on behalf of the people. Somehow round about the turn of the last century this highly conservative notion got mixed up with marxism in a lot of people's minds, and we know the results ...
>4. The domain where direct anti-capitalist struggle is impossible >is
>shrinking all the time. This is because of globalisation. The third >world
>is moving into the US and the US is moving into the third world. >Let's not
>get too attached to our stereotyped categories here.
Are you alluding to events like Seattle? Is that what you mean by "direct anti-capitalist struggle"?
Tahir: That would only be one manifestation. I am thinking of something much deeper. Chomsky likes to say that what globalisation is is the generalisation of the third world model. Whatever else I may think about him, I think he's right about that. He means inner city areas in the US coming to resemble third world societies. But the other side of the coin is industry being shifted out of the countries where it initially developed into third world countries. What I am saying is don't absolutise the first/third world distinction. The most progressive aspect of globalisation is the internationalisation of the means of struggle. Your Seattle example is one manifestation only of that.
>5. A very specific myth needs to be put aside in relation to the >above
>point: this is that autarchic quasi-marxist movements are more >effective
>in developing capitalism and that this constitutes an >additional
>justification for their existence (i.e. beyond the fact >that they will
>somehow 'lead to' socialism at some point in the >future). But there are
>and have always been other models of >authoritarian capitalism. South Korea
>is a recent one. But Franco's >Spain is an earlier one. Who says that the
>Stalinists would have done >a better job of capitalist modernisation?
"Would have done"? I thought much typing was done not too long ago here, arguing (fairly successfully, I thought), that Stalin et al. did work towards modernisation.
Tahir: Look again. I was referring above to Spain and what would have happened there if the Stalinists had won. Would they have done better than Franco? Compare Spain today with, say, Cuba. As far as modernisation goes, if that has to be the project, it can be done by by an extreme right government just as well if not better than by our leftist statists. But why should that be our project?
> As Bordiga says: Capitalism >is the agrarian revolution. It doesn't
> >require bourgeois democracy at >all. It can be >done by authoritarian
> >rightists just as well as by >authoritarian 'leftists'. Each one of
> >these also sets back the >socialist cause as much as the other (but >only
>one discredits marxism).
Yes, this makes good sense. Anything else? Todd
Tahir: It's your call