[WS:] I certainly do, and made that point time and again on this list. The point is, however, that this kind of analysis looks like academic hair splitting - it may appeal to researchers, but it is terribly unconvincing to an average Joe Schmoe who likes side by side comparisons, even if it involves apples and oranges. Few appreciate the magnitude of progress that the USSR achieved, all they care is that people there drove Trabants and lived in drab apartment complexes.
Marv: "My impression is that most of those who continue to identify with the left tradition are trying to make sense of what happened to a once powerful working class movement, and are exploring new ways to contribute to its revival."
[WS:] That may be true, but the working class movement if often idealized in culturalist terms, as blue collar culture vs. bourgeois culture. In reality, the working class institutions, especially unions, are blamed for all ills, from poor education to the recent bankruptcy of the city of Detroit. Just recently my wife told about exchange she had with fellow teachers who bitched and moaned how bad the unions are. And this is in one of the most liberal counties in the US and one of the most liberal professions. I suspect that unions may be popular among a few die hard communists, socialists and social democrats, and that is about it. For everyone else, they are a part of the dinosaur world of blue collar culture - straight from Bourdieu's book "Distinctions."
Bourdieu's argument is that cultural differences play a major role in making distinctions among segments of the same class (in a Marxist sense) - which is basically a modern version of the argument proposed by MAx Weber.
BY this logic, there is no "working class" in the Marxian sense, but various segments of that class identified by different types of work and different consumption styles, especially cultural consumption. This is what did the Left in in the first place, as I argue it here http://wsokol.blogspot.com/2012/01/day-after-neoliberalism.html. And this fragmentation is likely to persist, putting the old language of the left about working class mobilization into the realm of dinosaurs.
The promising way, as I see it, is to build institutions that are organically linked to the interests of people who work for a living - that is ones that are democratically governed, distribute wealth in a democratic way, and offer collective security, such as various cooperatives, mutuals, and even ESOPs and certain types of nonprofits, social investments, and public-private partnerships. These are a;ready existing institutions that offer an alternative to the top heavy profit maximizing firms, and they can provide the institutional basis for the "new" left. However, the "new" left also needs to stop living in the past and chanting old slogans and battle cries and figure out how to use these institutions as a platform of a new social movement.
On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 8:06 AM, Marv Gandall <marvgand2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2013-07-18, at 9:30 AM, Wojtek S wrote:
>
> > On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 10:00 PM, Marv Gandall <marvgand2 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >> The working class has always been divided by religious, racial,
> regional,
> >> occupational, and gender differences, perhaps more so in early
> industrial
> >> capitalism than today. Yet it was in that earlier period that the
> working
> >> class spawned powerful movements for reform and revolution which were
> >> periodically able to overcome these differences and win democratic
> rights
> >> and improved living standards.
> >>
> >> In fact, therein lies the primary reason for today's relative lack of
> >> worker militancy. The social safety net - food stamps but, more
> generally,
> >> unemployment insurance, pensions, health care, and other universal
> benefits
> >> - HAS held up the system, despite resentment from reactionaries and
> ongoing
> >> efforts to trim and constrain the welfare state.
> >>
> > [WS:] Although I agree with the general idea of your argument, I do not
> > agree with your views on the welfare state. In reality, the welfare
> state
> > was not only the main goal of labor struggles, but also an attainable
> one…
>
> In retrospect, we can see this was so. You may have misinterpreted my
> comments to infer that I'm hostile to the "welfare state". I'm not. I've
> always supported the reforms which compose it, would like to see them
> extended and supplemented, and am opposed to efforts to roll them back.
>
> > ...as opposed to revolutionary fantasies.
>
> They weren't "fantasies" when working class militancy was on the rise.
> Social democrats and revolutionary Marxists were united in the belief that
> the struggle for reforms would necessarily result in the abolition of the
> capitalist system by a workers' government which brought the major means of
> production under public ownership. The two factions of the socialist
> movement differed on whether the process would be gradual and peaceful, or
> whether it would be insurrectionary and produce new forms of democratic
> control.
>
> The Bolshevik revolution and the economic and political chaos which
> followed WWI reinforced the position of the revolutionary socialists, and
> prompted alarmed capitalists throughout Europe and in America to respond to
> the revolution's spreading influence with a combination of repression and
> concessions. It seemed to many that history was moving in the direction
> foreseen by Marx and Engels, and I don't doubt that with clear eyes I'd
> have been on the side of Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky and the other
> revolutionary Marxists had I lived in that period. Though the future course
> of events proved them wrong, it was a close run thing, and they can only be
> accused of having lived in a fantasy world by someone with an inadequate
> understanding of that historical period. The Great Depression revived the
> perception within both the working class and the bourgeoisie that
> capitalism was on its last legs, and it has only been the very long period
> of relative stability and prosperity since then which has made the idea of
> a socialist revolution appear fantastic. The financial crisis and the
> continuing bleak economic outlook has somewhat shaken that comfortable
> consensus.
>
>
> > Welfare state provided major
> > tangible benefits to the working class as a whole while maintaining
> > democracy, unlike revolutionary pursuits that often resulted in
> > totalitarian states of one sort or another, while providing much more
> > meager, if any, benefits to the working class vis a vis those offered by
> > welfare states.
>
> This is largely true, though you don't seem to take into account the
> economic backwardness in Eastern Europe where capitalism was overthrown.
> The USSR from the start wasn't able to match the living standards of the
> advanced capitalist countries in the West, forced as it was to rapidly
> industrialize and arm itself against persistent threats of aggression,
> culminating in the savage and highly destructive war against Nazi Germany.
> Given these obstacles, the success of the USSR and its East European
> satellites in elevating the health, education, culture, and social welfare
> standards of their urban and rural workers was remarkable.
>
>
> > The reasons why the Left can't inspire anymore are twofold. First, the
> > Left has become the rear guard instead of avant garde - ritualistically
> > repeating old slogans and battle cries that lost their appeal long time
> ago
> > or altogether retreating into literary analyses of sacred scriptures.
>
> Some on "The Left" match your stereotype, but I would say most don't. My
> impression is that most of those who continue to identify with the left
> tradition are trying to make sense of what happened to a once powerful
> working class movement, and are exploring new ways to contribute to its
> revival. This is evident on the LBO, Pen-L, and Marxmail lists and in other
> left-wing forums.
>
>
> > Second, and more importantly, the Left does not have what Gramsci called
> > "organic intellectuals" and what I would call "organic institutions" i.e.
> > institutions organically linked to broad working class interests. Labor
> > unions are in decline, labor and socialist parties are no longer tied to
> > working class interests, and institutions that are "organically" aligned
> > with working class interests, such as cooperatives, mutuals and similar
> > institutions practicing democratic governance and wealth distribution are
> > generally frowned upon by what passes for the Left today. We have a
> > situation where cultural manifestations of individual nonconformism and
> > rejection of bourgeois values are more important for many Leftists than
> > building institutions organically linked to broad working class
> interests.
> > Little wonder that this "culturalist Left" has little appeal to the
> > working class concerned about mundane "bread and butter" issues.
> > What undermined the appeal of the Left is not the welfare state but
> > academia that become the home of the Left today.
>
> The relocation of the greatly shrivelled left from the working class into
> the academy was indeed the result of the welfare state which reconciled the
> working class and its traditional parties to capitalism and eliminated
> socialist influences. It coincided with the spread of mass education in the
> 60's and 70's which created a pool of radicalized intellectuals from
> working and lower middle class backgrounds who went on to staff expanding
> university faculties, especially in the humanities and social sciences.
>
>
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>
-- Wojtek
"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."