``Future posts in this blog will try to examine an aspect of the historical experience of socialism in the 20 century that I consider crucial: the organization and planning of the economies in transition to socialism. I admit that, at this point, my work is not systematic. This is a modest work in construction. I start from the premise that the problems that the enemies of socialism have emphasized and continue to emphasize, in their zeal to deny the practical viability of socialism are not imaginary but real, and painful, and have not yet been solved or overcome, in theory or in practice.'' Julio Huato
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Thanks for the link in English. My Spanish is limited to, donde esta el bano? Below are some rough sketched thoughts that may not be relevant to where the blog is going.
So this is cool, yes let's imagine socialism. There are several concepts that are related to each other, which I remember were much discussed during the very early years of the Cuban revolution. (My first revolution of memory.) Remember back then the nearest example of a successful revolution was China, which was still a military dictatorship. The question in the air at the time was how do you get a socialist revolution without a military force?
The difficulty of organization and leadership, and the power structure of hierarchy and authoritarian rule are inter-related. My theory on why these problems arise is the brutal hostility of the opposition, capitalism, which forces the early attempts at socialism to become authoritarian for survival. The system of oppression and repression that socialist oppossion meets---almost by natural force---creates the need for tighter hierarchical internal order under a strong leadership. In other words, the more brutal the repression, the more military like the socialist forces become.
There are examples where the above was not the case. I am thinking of Allende's plan to legally reform toward socialism. Failed or not, it seemed to me, brillant because it answered the problem sketched above. Of course I wish I knew more off the top of my head, but I don't. I suspect it was Allende's general ideal that moves most of the socialist's projects in Latin America.
There are also I think, social inclusive and structural ways around this authoritarian business. These ways amount to inclusion of women and youth, both of whom tend to take a dim view of male hierarchical systems. I saw this social phenomenon in the Art Dept at UCB because almost half of the grad students were young women. I saw it again in the early phase of the disability rights movement. I saw it again much later upon reading some of the early history of the black civil rights struggles.
And, just noticing the photo of the sculpture icon on the blog. But this integration business has to be more than symbolism---which also goes to the French Revolution, symbolized by Delacroix's famous painting Liberty Leading the People, that includes a boy with guns, and a woman with the tricolor---although most men see the tits first. These were discoveries, once learned in the long past and almost aways forgotten, laying there to be re-discovered...in many peoples' pasts.
It's the latter, the re-discovery of history that seems important to me now, because it speaks so eloquantly to the human condition---a deep center we can not loose sight of, and which almost all ideologues do as they harden into their dogmas and become blind to the consequences. At the moment we are watching the Right ossify into their fascism, but there was a time when the Left suffered a similar problem. The essential problem is understanding this process so that we don't repeat it.
``Another aspect of this ideological desolation is, of course, the inability of socialists to appropriate their historical experience, both critically and in a spirit of solidarity, separating carefully necessity from chance, causes from effects, form and substance, and - on such basis - to develop a more potent vision of the future we want.'' (JH)
Yes, yes, absolutely. This is one reason I listened to John Ross for what seemed like hours. He retells US radical history in order to inspire its resurrection. The basic idea is what Octavio Paz (egotist or not) called resuscitation---but it has a much more beatiful Spanish, Italian, and Latin root sound linked to the concepts of memory, maybe English sound links to reciting and resuscitate. To restore to consciousness, to vigor.
So to make a plug for my union deligations, I say we need the poets, painters, writers, well the media workers to do that. You just can't have socialism without its media---which includes all the critique, ideology, and anarchy those entail.
Well, whatever. I have convinced myself we can start on the revolution through cooking, understanding its work, its skills, and the incrediable efficiency of our own labor to sustain ourselves, which disconnects us from the grid of capital production systems. I am currently making enchiladas, rice and beans from scratch. I've been living the entire week on about thirty-six dollars of food, all fresh. Eggs and potatoes for breakfast, coffee, black beans or lentils for lunch, and enchiladas and rice for dinner. Of course I sponge off friends whenever the chance of alcohol occurrs. Then there is the bad faith business of the cigarettes...
Leadership. Not sure what to call it, say the Sancho Panza solution, a rotating head of the unlikely for some period, just long enough to get the idea before going back to the rank and file to mull over the experience. If I remember correctly, Sancho unravels the twisted knot of everyday engimas with eloquant reason and finds the solution with great justice.