I've just read Petros Evdokas' critique of my article, which he posted to the Brooklyn Greens listserve. As Petros is writing from Cyprus (where lots of things are suddenly going on that have global ramifications), I've forwarded it for him to the other lists to which I posted my original, as well as to my own website.
I'll only comment here on the 1st half (I haven't re-read the 2nd half, yet). I agree with the thrust of what Petros writes, and most of his specific points. Extremely articulate and perceptive. Thank you!
Remember, please, that I was not writing here a treatise on capitalist marketing, the social-psychology involved in "shopping", a comparative study of the importance of this dichotomy when compared with many others, nor of alienation as an objective condition in advanced capitalism. Those are all legitimate and interesting jump-off points, but they were not what I was writing about (I've done so elsewhere, extensively).
The context in which I was writing was George Caffentzis' discussion of, in his view, the different and somewhat contradictory strategies for organizing a debt-strike movement vs. one around wage issues, and the underlying theory for that separation. Of course I don't think that that "split" is the end-all and be-all of why revolutionary movements are in the shape that they're in nor for understanding our tasks in terms of the larger picture; Petros is right to point out that there are "many other factors that are proven to be a lot more potent obstacles to appropriate action."
Well, yes (of course!) but also no.
One could say the same for any of a dozen or so "false dualities" that capitalism and capitalist ideology/philosophy rips through our lives, of which worker/debtor is just one. (Objective/Subjective; freedom/determinism; holism/reductionism, sponaneity/planning; wholes/parts; opportunism/adventurism; are just some of those that come to mind. I've addressed these elswhere in my "Zen-Marxism" series, which includes discussion of how one can decide whether a dualism is "false" or not.) My aim here, in thinking over George's fascinating essay, was to posit that that "split" is one in a long series of false dualities, which leads one to organize differently when their unity is realized as opposed to organizing within each movement when seen as separate vectors.
Petros challenges my statement that "our job is to show that [our roles as consumers (debtors) and workers (wages)] are really two artificially separated moments of the same historical force." Fair enough. But I did not mean to imply that everyone in either the "strike debt" movement nor those in wage-worker movements must be shown the Truth by we, the Promethian vanguard (he says, sarcastically), before anyone is able to do anything constructive or revolutionary. We're arguing here over the phrases "our job" and "to show"; I understand (and agree with) Petros' sensitivity over that phrasing when taken out of context. What I meant by that was a sort of "show it to ourselves" -- and by "ourselves" I mean those few involved in this discussion. Since we're talking about a very specific situation: How to build upon and act within the growing debtors' movement. A better way I could have phrased it would have been, "we (me, you) need to act from our understanding that our roles as consumers (debtors) and workers (wages) are really two artificially separated moments of the same historical force." Again, HOW we'd act in reflecting that understanding would be different if we didn't have that understanding. This manifests in terms of the demands we'd raise, the scope of the movement, the targets we'd hit (and how), and the allies we'd seek
One important question Petros references still lingers -- as it has done for a century-and-a-half: Do large numbers of people need to see (or experience) before-hand -- that is, prior to taking action through organizations they've joined -- the revolutionary result of where they're heading, or is it in fact the new socialist society that needs to exist first as a means through which those divisions can be overcome?
A lot of radical philosophy and history depends on how one answers that seemingly chicken/egg (ahem!) question. In fact, a purpose of my "What is Direct Action?" book is to show how, through institutions of dual power (which require direct actions to make them real), we (there's that upstart pronoun again!) create revolutionary socialist bubbles of possibility in the here-and-now through which we do, to a great extent, take part in the process of overcoming the divisions discussed above. Otherwise, we end up looking to some outside force (the State, among others) to create those conditions after the revolution, on our behalf, leading to enormous problems that have had huge historical impact on our lives in the last century.
I'll return to a point-by-point discussion with Petros on all of this at a later time. Damn, I really miss these kind of intense, intricate political discussions that used to dominate our collectives in the radical left, which -- when one is involved in organizations -- lead to real and immediate practical measures .... Thanx!
Mitchel
Ring the bells that still can ring, Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything, That's how the light gets in. ~ Leonard Cohen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-vSfwIJkjY