robbo203
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pgb wrote:Hi Robbo:All you seem to be saying re reforms having to "benefit the capitalist class in some way" is that any reform has to operate within the structural constraints of a capitalist economy which sets limits to what is realistic and realisable. But what is the significance, apart from saying what is common knowledge – that there are limits to the scope of reforms within a capitalist system (or any system)? I am not aware that workers and TU' s who fought for reforms were unaware of this. Not the ones that I know of anyway. Saying that reforms are functional for capitalism doesn't mean that workers' interests have been "betrayed" or that workers who fought for them exhibited "false consciousness" or whatever. I think if I asked most workers here how do they feel about, say, free hospital care, they'd say they support it. And if I then said but capitalists benefit from it too, they'd probably say "so what"? I mean if it works, why does it matter if a capitalist approves or not? I won't go into your argument about capitalists paying for the capitalist state through taxes again. It's a uniquely SPGB shibboleth. I certainly wouldn't be asserting the Marxian law of value! It's a no-no as a theory of wage determination in a modern capitalist economy.
OK lets look this. You agree that reforms have to operate within the constraints of a capitalist economy and have to benefit the capitalists (in whose interests, obviously, the capitalist economy is operated) in order to stand a chance of being implemented and this is all "common knowledge". So far so good. But then you ask what does it matter that the capitalists approve of the fact that workers have access to a free hospital as long as the latter benefit. No doubt, they do benefit and as I said before it is not my argument that reforms cannot benefit workers. But once again and with all due respect, you have completely missed seeing the wood for the trees.I can't help noticing that you have failed to address my earlier point – that there is no such thing as a free lunch in capitalism. Free hospital care, while I'm sure it is desirable, inevitably comes at a cost. It means the capitalists are able to get away with paying workers lower money wages as a result. The social wage and the money wage thus stand in inverse relation to each other as different components of the workers standard of living that is determined by other factors – what it costs to produce and reproduce the labour power of workers under current conditions, the efficacy of trade union organisation, the general state of the economy etc etc . This is what the Marxian law of value allows us to see. Now I realise you don't care much for Marxian economics. That's fair enough. Its entirely your prerogative. But, in this instance I think it would profit you to be a little less sweeping in your knee jerk condemnation and consider what it has to say. That fact that there is no free lunch in capitalism and that free hospital care comes at a cost for workers is precisely an instance of the structural constraints of a capitalist economy – which you agree exist – setting limits to what is "realistic and realisable". Realism tells us that workers are not going to to handed something on a plate that is supposedly free without it costing them in some other way. After all they have to fight tooth and nail for a wage increase, so its pretty reasonable to assume there is a quid pro quo involved in them getting free hospital careWorkers can derive some benefit from reforms. How these reforms are often transient and fragile, dependent on the state of the economy, and will only be implemented if they are functional to an economic system that by its very nature must operate in the interest of capital – as you seemingly admit – and therefore against the interests of workers. That is the paradox which strangely you don't seem to see or want to see You are trying to patch and improve a system that cannot be run in the interests of workers but instead must necessarily be based on the systematic exploitation of those workers – unless of course you reject that aspect of Marxian economics as well as being inapplicable to a "modern capitalist economy" Whats more, and this is the really depressing thing about your whole political stance, is that you offer us absolutely no idea whatsoever of an exit route from capitalism. Apparently, according to you, we workers must focus on pushing for reforms on the pretext that this advances in some nebulous fashion our "class empowerment". Empowerment to do what? You don't explain. If capitalism cannot operate in the interests of workers, if capitalism depends instead on the systematic exploitation of workers, then what you are recommending is the perpetual continuation of a system in which we are enslaved and to that extent remain forever powerless.What I don't get from you is any notion of how we are going to move onwards and forwards as a class. How are we going to get rid of capitalism in your view? What is it you are trying to tell us? That bit by bit as we struggle for reforms capitalism will be progressively transformed into something else and then once we reach the point where the problems afflicting workers have been sufficiently addressed then perhaps we can finally turn to address and act upon the question of the socialist reorganisation of society. This is utterly naive, PGB, and you must surely see this. You must surely see that you cannot pretend to both want to mend the system and end it and that it has to be one or the other. Reformism is never going to remove the problems that workers face and if you believe it can then to be scrupulously honest and consistent, you should admit that you do not see any point therefore in embracing socialism. You would be better advised to embrace your political soul mate, Eduard Bernstein
pgb wrote:Your reference to the Beveridge report suggests that the origin of Britain's Welfare State can be explained by the functional need for it, i.e. by the political action of capitalists (like Courtauld). I know little about the origins of Britain's Welfare State, but what I have read suggests quite the opposite, eg: "It was the growing strength of labour organisation that caused the shift leftward in public opinion that brought the Labour Party to power and thus was responsible for the passage of the welfare state reforms of the late 1940s" (J Stephens, The Transition from Capitalism to Socialism, 1979). When I put this up against your description of the political/legislative process, eg "some white paper being debated by a bunch of parliamentarians", "a mere scrap of paper", and workers going "cap in hand to the capitalist state" maybe you can understand why I was struck by the lack of realism, and why your propter hoc fallacy simply didn't work for me.Well, look, let me once again point out to you that I have never denied that reforms like the welfare state can have some benefit to workers albeit within the framework of a system that systematically works against their interests. The perception by workers who are overwhelmingly still reform-minded that the welfare state is of benefit to them can of course provide grounds for them thinking that the welfare state is something worth politically struggling for. But in no way does this alter the fact that the British ruling class (and the so called "Labour" party which presided over the setting up of the welfare state) considered the welfare state to be highly beneficial to the interests of capital at the time. Without the endorsement of the capitalist class and people like Courtauld the welfare state would not have come about. Its as simple as that. What you are doing is committing the time honoured error of confusing function and agency. Its like the Leftists who naively think the Bolshevik revolution was a "proletarian revolution" because it was carried out overwhelmingly by proletarians. It wasn't. Rather it was a (state)capitalist revolution carried out by proletarians on behalf of their future masters and enslavers – the pseudo communist party . And, yes, at the end of the day welfare state legislation is but a scrap of paper put together by a bunch of parliamentarians the implementation of which is basically contingent upon the needs of capital and the state of the economy. You may deny this till you are blue in the face but I would suggest to you that workers at the sharp end of capitalism who face savage cuts in social welfare at a time when capitalism is in deep crisis have a better sense of "realism" than the cosy benevolent image of capitalism yielding magnanimously and graciously to the legitimate demands of workers that you seem to entertain
pgb wrote:You say that legal rights are not inviolable. Of course not. But that's no way of answering the only question that matters: have legal rights been done away with? Well, in my world there is the usual catalogue of liberal democratic rights such as the right of assembly, the right to free speech, the right to vote, the right to strike, etc. and in fact none have been taken away. There have been attempts to whittle them away from time to time, and attempts to whittle them back again, and there are inequalities of access to these rights, but no evidence so far that they have been seriously undermined let alone taken away. I could say the same about welfare state provisions such as medical and health care, etc. I have just made a mental list of reforms in my time and I don't find any that have been done away with. Workers fought hard to get them and keep them! You say I haven't noticed that workers rights are being rolled back in many parts of the world right now – well, sorry, I haven't noticed it here. What has been rolled back is workers' share of national income and their real wages, though not here so much as in the US though even there I haven't noticed a significant rollback of rights as such.In the first place you are doing once again what I earlier upbraided you for doing – which is lumping together political reforms with economic reforms. Reformism as I explained to you has to do with the latter, not the former. Capitalism is something that is defined in essentially economic terms. Since reformism is the attempt to reform capitalism it then follows that for reformism to be called reformism at all , it has to have as its focus the economic domain and not the political domain. I dont have any quarrel with you about your "usual catalogue of liberal democratic rights such as the right of assembly, the right to free speech, the right to vote, the right to strike etc". This is NOT what I am talking about and, yes, of course such "liberal democratic rights" are indispensable as a precondition for the existence of an effective socialist movement. Having said that, I am less sanguine than you about the solidity of such legal rights in the face of current developments. In Spain where I live there is draft bill before parliament at the moment which represents a serious clampdown on protest, whereby unauthorised demonstrators can be fined 60,000 euros. Similar legislation is being considered in the US, the UK and other parts of the world, I believe. Other examples that spring to mind that somewhat dent your complacent rose-tinted view of "liberal bourgeois democracy" is the whole saga of the spying scandal and murky goings on of such shady operators as the NSA. What ever happened to our "right to privacy", huh?Still, as I say, I am concerned here with economic reforms rather than political reforms. I guess in this context I take a somewhat wider view of what constitutes a "right" than you do with with your narrowly legalistic view of right. But even on your own terms I would question your claims. Welfare state provisions have not been undermined you say. Really? What about the shift from universal benefits to means-tested welfare that is happening in many parts of the world in the current financial climate Is this not an erosion of rights in your own terms?But, as I say, I take a wider somewhat view of rights than you do. To take the case of Spain again, since 2008, 350,000 families (which I guess must amount to more than a million people) have lost the right to live in their own home; they have had that right taken away from them by the scumbag banking mafiosi. Even when these poor buggers have lost everything they are still indebted to the banks and still liable to pay the mortgage to the bank that now owns their property ( I think this is still the case but it might have changed recently). Then there's the so called "right to work". Ha! Here in Spain, its a joke. In Andalucia where I live unemployment has grown to above 30% and youth unemployment is 57%. And you still think our "rights" have not been rolled back recently, eh?
pgb wrote:Our fundamental disagreement is that I believe in the importance of political struggles and you don't because you regard all or most political struggles as "reformism". You ask for examples. OK, some of great importance to me, and in which I have taken a part, would be: political campaigns to defend free public schools against the threat of funding cuts in favour of private sector schools. A really major issue here at the moment. Another is defending the public broadcaster (ABC) against privatisation. Another is supporting asylum seekers arriving here as so-called "illegal" migrants. Another is to legislate for rights of indigenous (aboriginal) workers. These are all "reformist" political struggles, right? I'm not expecting that on my own I am going to awaken my fellow worker-activists to a revolutionary consciousness, but it should raise their level of political efficacy, and that is surely important in making socialists. Why should I regard this as "mending" capitalism or lead me to a "dead end"? Reformist politics hasn't led workers to a dead end. If anything, it's empowered them.No, once again, you are confusing things. Not all the reforms you cite are strictly reformist. Some are, some are not. Nevertheless, a political campaign that it is not strictly reformist is not necessarily one worth bothering with either. It too can be a pointless distraction. I mean, "defending public broadcasters against privatization" You serious? I couldn't care a toss if that obnoxious organ of capitalist propaganda, the BBC (no doubt the ABC as well) was privatised, frankly. It makes no difference to me either way and I'm certainly not going to get hot under the collar about it. So called public broadcasting like so called public ownership is a myth and I'm frankly astonished you could fall so easily for the salesman's patter peddling these pseudo "public" institutionsYou are quite right not to expect to awaken your fellow workers to a revolutionary consciousness through the reformist struggle and for the very good reason that it is never ever going to happen that way in any case. Revolutionary consciousness is necessarily predicated on the abandonment of a reformist consciousness. It is predicated on the desire to end capitalism rather than mend capitalism.You seem to have opted decisively for the latter but still you want to pretend to yourself that somehow is some nebulous way this is a precondition for the former. Raising political efficacy, you solemnly intone, is "surely important in making socialists" and "Reformist politics hasn't led workers to a dead end. If anything, it's empowered them." I don't know whether to laugh or weep at such arrant nonsense. I would claim the very opposite is true. Workers feel LESS empowered now and MORE threatened now than ever before in the face of massive structural forces over which they have no control. That is precisely why political apathy and cynicism about politics in general and politicians in particular is so pervasive. Trade union membership across the industrialised world has been in steep decline partly because the balance of power has shifted more and more in favour of employers in an era of so called "neoliberal austerity" but partly also because workers themselves see trade unions as no longer being able to do much for them. The changing nature of work itself has reinforced this sense of powerlessness with the shift towards temporary and part time contracts. There has been massive cultural shifts too which likewise point to a growing sense of powerless – the breakdown in traditional solidarities, the focus on consumer individualism and the drive to escapism so graphically represented by the explosion in drug abuse. Many people have simply given up on hoping things can get better, So they turn inwards. Rather than seeking to change the world, they seek release from a world they increasingly see cannot be changed. So much for raising their level of "political efficacy". If desperation drives them to a take up a political cause this is not a vindication of reformism but rather proof of the failure of reformism to prevent the very conditions against which individuals rebelThe very fact that today, unlike say a few decade earlier, there is a brooding pervasive sense of deep pessimism about the future seems to me to be a clear indication, not of empowerment, but of a loss of power. While I would hesitate to attribute this entirely to the cynical shenanigans of reformist politics which has become little more than an an empty ritual of self aggrandising professional politicians vying to outbid each other in the promotion of their empty promises, there is absolutely no question in my mind that the whole ideology of reformism has played a major role in bringing about this state of affairs. Above all, and this is the real killer for me, it has resulted in the virtual closing down and eclipse of any kind of genuine socialist alternative to this brutal hegemony of capitalism. In that sense the reformist politics you espouse have led us directly to this "dead end" and if you think otherwise then I respectfully suggest you are harbouring a serious delusion
pgb wrote:Your reference to the Beveridge report suggests that the origin of Britain's Welfare State can be explained by the functional need for it, i.e. by the political action of capitalists (like Courtauld). I know little about the origins of Britain's Welfare State, but what I have read suggests quite the opposite, eg: "It was the growing strength of labour organisation that caused the shift leftward in public opinion that brought the Labour Party to power and thus was responsible for the passage of the welfare state reforms of the late 1940s" (J Stephens, The Transition from Capitalism to Socialism, 1979). When I put this up against your description of the political/legislative process, eg "some white paper being debated by a bunch of parliamentarians", "a mere scrap of paper", and workers going "cap in hand to the capitalist state" maybe you can understand why I was struck by the lack of realism, and why your propter hoc fallacy simply didn't work for me.Interesting article here which gives a rather different perspective on the rise of the welfare state. In particular, thisIn 1908, when Asquith became prime minister, there were almost no models of state welfare anywhere on earth. The exception was Bismarck’s Prussia, which to the dismay of German Social Democrats had instituted compulsory health insurance in 1883. That created a sudden panic on the left. Karl Marx had died weeks before, so the socialist leader August Bebel consulted his friend Friedrich Engels, who insisted that socialists should vote against it, as they did. The first welfare state on earth was created against socialist opposition.By the new century Prussia was setting an example. Lloyd George and Churchill, as members of Asquith’s cabinet, went there to watch state welfare in action; Churchill, the more studious of the two, read published reports. In 1909 he collected his speeches in Liberalism and the Social Problem, where he made a case for seeing state welfare as an essential prop to a free economy. The Left had good reason to fear it, as he knew. Welfare promotes initiative, initiative promotes growth, and “where there is no hope, be sure there will be no thrift.”Welfare, what is more, had an imperial dimension. The Boer War had been won with a volunteer army, and the nation had been shocked to hear of the high incidence of ill health among recruits. An empire needs troops. There was nothing socialist about state welfare, and socialists were right to fear the specter of a national health service. They continued to fear it, and when years later the Beveridge report appeared, in December 1942, it proved a bestseller but was roundly condemned in a letter by Beatrice Webb, an old Fabian, as a disastrous idea—though fortunately, as she added, very unlikely to be acted on. In the event, Labour was the last of the three British parties to accept a National Health Service, and William Beveridge, whom I knew as a neighbor in his last years, was endlessly bitter about the derision that Labour leaders had once heaped on his ideas. (my bold)http://theamericanscholar.org/the-forgotten-churchill/#.UrU_sftFJSU
pgb wrote:Where I do disagree is with your views about the state and political action, as distinct from strictly economic (TU) action. Your picture of political action is so far away from my experience of politics in a modern (liberal democratic) capitalist state that I wonder am I on another planet. Why do you insist that pushing for reforms means "cap in hand supplication to the capitalist state"? That isn't even fair to those 19th century Chartists who pushed for democratic reforms (with the active support of one K Marx)! Why do you call legislation that enforces workers rights to eg. free medical and health care or occupational safety "a mere scrap of white paper etc"? Are you seriously suggesting that the legal entrenchment of a right is of no consequence for workers? In my part of the world these reforms were introduced via political parties and pressure groups and did not represent merely a "ratification of what happened on the ground". Your post hoc propter hoc fallacy doesn't fit. Making the propagation of ideas a principal role for a revolutionary socialist party today is fine. But it is a long way from what Luxemburg and other Marxists believed in and practised. For them, the propagation of socialist ideas was meaningful only in the context of an active working class movement. The lesson here for me is that socialists must actively engage in the political and economic struggles of the working class if their propagation of ideas is to be more than what you call “abstract propagandism”. Does the SPGB do that? But what if there is no working class movement to speak of? What if after a century and a half there is not the slightest evidence that the working class is “essentially” or even potentially a revolutionary class? Anyway, thank you for the opportunity to give my views on Rosa Luxemburg. It forced me to read again her pamphlet which I first looked at more than fifty years ago.Hi PGBMy post was accidentally deleted by the moderator and I don't have a copy which is a bit of a bummer but never mind. I think since we agree on some things it might be more useful and pertinent to turn to those matters on which we don't appear to agree – like the above First of all, to make myself clear, by reformism i mean legislative enactments or decrees undertaken by the state in the political domain which are fundamentally concerned with issues that pertain to the economic domain . Capitalism is defined in essentially economic terms and so to be consistent and faithful to the meaning of the term, reformism has to be seen as having as its focus the economic field or domain. It is capitalism that reformism seeks to reform, after all. For that reason, I don't regard political reforms as strictly an example of reformism. The chartist movement that you cite was not a reformist movement in this sense. The 6 basic reforms embodied in the People's Charter were political reforms, not economic reforms – that is, the focus of such reforms was on the political field and has to do with such matters as the basic right to vote – universal suffrage. I support such a right and the struggle to get it. I believe that is the position of the the SPGB as well. Yoy cannot effectively propagandise for socialism without a modicum of democratic rights in place Where I part company with you is on the question of economic reforms – reformism, properly speaking. To clarify things, I don't say that certain economic reforms are not beneficial to workers. Free medical care which you mention is a case in point. But you seem to have this rather naive idealistic view of such reforms if you think they were introduced essentially with the welfare of the workers in mind, The Beveridge Report in the UK which published in 1942 and which roughed out the basic outlines of the welfare state established after the Second World war made it abundantly clear what is was all about. In 1943, the millionaire industrialist and Tory supporter, Samuel Courtauld commenting on the Report: said this "Social security of this nature will be about the most profitable long term investment the country could make. It will not undermine the morale of the nation's workers; it will ultimately lead to higher efficiency among them and a lowering of production costsThe point is that while some reforms may benefits workers, in order for them to be implemented they have also to benefit the capitalist class in some way as well. The capitalist class after all has to foot the bill for it through taxation which ultimately is a deduction from profits, not wages, as Marx argued. Thus, if there is not something in it for the capitalists too a reform is unlikely ever to see the light of day. Reforms that have been implemented that don't sufficiently suit the interests of the capitalist class (or some fraction within it) can be circumvented, watered down or simply ignored That is why I reject your suggestion that a post hoc propter hoc fallacy doesn't fit the situation. I think it fits it very well and the example of the welfare state is a case in point, The subsequent erosion of many of the founding principles of the welfare state further supports my characterisation of such legal enactments as a mere "a mere scrap of white paper etc"? Am I "seriously suggesting that the legal entrenchment of a right is of no consequence for workers"? Well, let me throw the question back to you – does the fact that a right is legally entrenched means that it is inviolable ? What can be given with one hand under capitalism can be taken away with another. It is not a question of whether a right is of no consequence but rather of whether they can hold onto it The point I was trying to make is that it is the power of the workers organised in the industrial field that counts far more than some white paper being debated by a bunch of parliamentarians. But even this power that workers possess is limited and conditioned by the state of the economy. Economic recession not only undermines the bargaining position of workers vis a vis their employers but as we have seen, can mean the wholesale watering down and abandonment of many reforms expediently introduced by the state in more prosperous times. You say from the way I describe things you wonder whether you are on another planet. Well on this planet, PGB, in case you hadn't noticed , workers living standards and workers rights are being rolled back in many parts of the world right now despite the legal entrenchment of reforms you place so much confidence in Your position seems to be that what is called the "social wage" is something quite separate from the actual wages workers receive and that there is, somehow, no connection between them. The Marxian law of value would assert otherwise. There is no such thing as a free lunch is capitalism. What we get for free – like medical care under the NHS – we pay for in other ways – notably in terms of relatively lower wage levels. Employers don't have to pay their workers as much as they might have to if medical care was not available for free to the workers. Of course there is nothing automatic about this and workers will still have to struggle for that increased wage to cover the costs of such things as medical care Finally you say socialists must engage in the political and economic struggles of the working class if their propagation of ideas is to be more than what you call “abstract propagandism". Well, this is far too sweeping a statement to be considered acceptable. What struggles are You talking about.?I can agree wholeheartedly with the idea of socialists – at least in their individual capacity – participating in economic struggles against the employers, But political struggles? This seems to me to be code for reformist struggles and allow me to point out again this is dead end. We are never ever going to move forward and onwards to a new kind of society as long as we are being constantly sucked backed into the unending business of wanting to patch up and improve existing capitalist society. You are inviting us to get on a treadmill that is simply going to go nowhere What you are advocating is in effect no different from what Bernstein was advocating even if you may passionately declare your commitment to the goal of socialism and see reforms as a mean of awakening workers to a revolutionary consciousness,. So did the the Marxist faction in the SDP but Bernstein was really only telling them the unpalatable truth of what lay at the end of line of a policy of pressing for reforms.. It doesn't awaken workers to a revolutionary consciousness; it deadens them to that. Capitalism was not transformed. What or rather who was transformed were those who imagined that by engaging with capitalism through a process of reformism they could move society to the point where capitalism could be transcended and socialism introduced. With the benefit of hindsight we now know that was an utterly forlorn hope Let me reiterate again – I'm not saying some reforms might not be of benefit to workers however transient and fragile these benefits turn out to be. I'm saying that even so socialists shouldn't be drawn into the business of proactively advocating or pursuing reforms which is what I strongly suspect you mean by "political struggles". You have to draw line somewhere and there is absolutely no getting round this simple fact. Either you want to end capitalism or you want to mend capitalism. You cant possibly do both
ALB wrote:Certainly her pamphlet defends the day-to-day practice of the SPD of the time, i.e having a minimum programme of reforms as well as a maximum programme of the capture of political power for socialism. But is having or defending having a minimum programme automatically of itself reformist? I thought our position was more subtle, i.e that having a minimum programme runs the high risk of a party becoming reformist as its support will be built up on this basis rather than for socialism and eventually someone (like Bernstein) will come along and call for theory to be brought into line with practice. And the party become a reformist party.I don't see how having a minimum programme could not be construed as reformist. What you really seem to be saying is that having a minimum programme does not necessarily mean that on balance the party should be considered a reformist party if it continues to advocate revolution. That may be true but it does not detract from the fact that having a minimum programme is indeed "automatically of itself reformist". Of course what will happen – inevitably – is that the reformist element of the party will crowd out the revolutionary element so you will end up with a completely reformist party rather than a hybrid that it might at first be
ALB wrote:What I'm suggesting is that we restrict the word "reformist" to those who advocate that socialism can be established gradually by a long series of reform measures. But maybe this is too narrow as reformist (in this sense) parties go on to suffer a further degeneration and drop even the pretence that "socialism" is the long-term goal and end up just advocating reforms to capitalism as an end in itself. In other words, the link between "reformism" and "socialism" is completely broken. In practice we've more or less accepted this evolution of the word "reformism" and apply it to parties such as the Tories, Liberals, Greens and Nationalists which have never even claimed to be socialist.Aren't you slightly contradicting yourself here? If the Tories et al are to be considered "reformist" then how can you restrict the term reformist to those that advocate that socialism can be established gradually?. The Tories don't advocate socialism so what would you call them then in that case? Non reformists? Surely not.A better approach would be simply to acknowledge that there are different varieties of reformism . In my view the earliest variety was that associated with the Social Democratic movement which in fact coined the very term "reformism", Another major and more recent variety of reformism does not have as its objective the structural transformation of capitalism into something else . It is this particular variety of reformism, I suggest, that is the default form of reformism in general and to which all other forms of reformism will naturally tend to collapse in the long term
ALB wrote:Even when Luxemburg wrote her pamphlet (at the turn of the century) the SPD had become reformist (Bernstein was right). Its voters and most of its members wanted social reforms and political democracy in Germany not socialism. Her mistake was to not realise this and to assume that it was a mass socialist party. On this assumption some of the things she says about reforms in the quotes Alan has given make more sense. A mass, genuinely socialist party would not neglect the position of workers under capitalism while this lasted. After all, even we can countenance Socialist MPs and local councillors when they are a minority voting for reforms or other pro-worker measures under some circumstances.Yes but the key difference here is refraining from the pro-active advocacy of reforms – legislative enactments. Once you get into that ball game you've crossed the Rubicon and nothing but the slippery slope awaits you which will deliver you into the quagmire of reformist politics from which there is no escape. I might be wrong but I think some of the passages from Luxemburg Alan quoted hint at such an approach of not pro-actively advocating reforms but rather, of "wringing concensions " from the state – that is, forcing the state to offer reforms as a sop in a bid to buy off the revolution
Here are a few random links on the general subject of Mandela and apartheid which I offer without comment. You will no doubt be able to draw your own conclusions …. http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2013-12-10/mandela-%E2%80%93-a-hero-for-capitalismhttp://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/mandelas_cult_like_worshippers_rewriting_history/14410#.UqyrQ2eA3rchttp://www.theamericancause.org/index.php?mact=News,cntnt01,detail,0&cntnt01articleid=1016&cntnt01origid=15&cntnt01returnid=29 Personally, I find this all this compulsory beatification of Saint Nelson, distasteful and the relentless insistance on casting Mandela in the role of some kind of "great man" who made history while the rest of us were merely onloookers or bit players, utterly depressing and deluded. Little wonder that the likes of Obama should flatter Mandela in these glowing terms – to bask in the reflected glory of being a celebrity politican himself. It is something these political con artists are particularly adept at and for good reason – the art of mutual flattery is the means by whiich they massage their own egos. Still, at least the petty-bourgeois traders in trinkets, T shirts and memorabilia of all kinds have been able to make a killing on the flourishing market for such things. I believe the extended Mandela family, when they have not been busily stabbing each other in the back and accusing each other of betrayal, have been falling over each other to milk his brand name for all its worth. Apparently there is even a "House of Mandela wine collection" you can now savour and mull over – or given that we are now well into that most dreaded time of the year, the festive season, turn into mulled wine! For the curious, the details are here:http://thegrio.com/2013/12/11/mandelas-legacy-lives-on-through-house-of-mandela-wine-collection/
pgb wrote:Hi Robbo In the Introduction to her pamphlet Rosa Luxemburg refers to "the daily struggle for reforms, the amelioration of conditions of the workers within the framework of the existing social order, and for democratic institutions…." So she's identifying reforms with anything that ameliorates workers' conditions, which seems to me to be wide enough to include strictly trade union activity (eg. wage demands) as well as state or government activity (eg. welfare legislation). On this reading, "the daily struggle for democratic institutions" is treated separately from "the daily struggle for reforms". However, further on she refers more generally to "the struggle for reforms" and it is clear she is referring to both . But does it matter? The important thing is that she treats both as part of the class struggle, as a means for engaging in the "proletarian class war". And from this she takes the orthodox Marxist line, that the "struggle for reforms" provided the proletariat with the necessary practice to undertake the final battle which was of course the socialist revolution. The struggle for reforms was a means to the revolutionary end. This goes to the heart of her dispute with Bernstein. While for Bernstein and other revisionists the struggle for reforms was an end in itself, for Luxemburg this meant turning their backs on the ultimate goal – socialism. When Luxemburg said that reforms would fail, she meant that reformism (a la Bernstein et al) would fail to bring about socialism. I agree with ALB here. I don't think she ever believed that reforms of the kind fought for by workers and the SPD were necessarily "unrealisable" in themselves; only that they were "inadequate" as a means to the ultimate goal of socialism. Only in this sense would they "fail". In the same sense, she said that reforms on their own would be "meaningless" – if they were not a means to the conquest of power. As for comparison with Trotsky's transitional demands, I don't see that there's a total incompatibility. As I understand it, a transitional demand is one made in the knowledge that it would be unrealisable under normal capitalist conditions, like. eg. the demand: "Jobs for All!" I've heard demands like that made over many years by trade unionists in May Day marches! Whether they work or not is an empirical question. I don't think you can argue that they are inherently "unrealisable". Lenin's slogan "Peace, Land and Bread" is an example of a highly successful transitional demand. Given Rosa Luxemburg's strong belief in the role of the mass strike as the most effective weapon of working class revolt, I doubt that she would have rejected demands that she might have believed were unrealisable if they nonetheless had the promise of energising workers to deepen their struggle against capitalism.Hi PGBThanks for your useful comments. You say that Luxemburg's definition of reform is wide enough to include anything that might ameliorate the workers' conditions. This would mean lumping together trade union activity with government or state activity as in the case of welfare legislation. That is precisely what I would see as problematic; it is insufficiently nuanced as an approach and therefore fails to heed what follows from the necessary distinction that needs to be made between the economic domain of class struggle and the political domainTrade union struggle in the economic domain is of course necessary and desirable but is essentially only a defensive struggle against the downward pressure exerted by capital; it cannot leadof itself to a revolution since as the saying goes starvation always works on the side of the capitalists. The struggle for reforms via the state is different matter: it locates itself on the the very terrain in which the revolution is to be effected – the political domain ( and I would argue necessarily represents a preference for reform over revolution on that terrain) You maintain that Luxemburg took the "orthodox Marxist line, that the "struggle for reforms" provided the proletariat with the necessary practice to undertake the final battle which was of course the socialist revolution" . If that was the case then I would suggest that this supposed "orthodox Marxist line" is very much subject to a fundamental flaw. The struggle for reforms ( or reformism) in the sense of measures undertaken the the state cannot possibly prepare the working class to undertake the final battle in the form if the socialist revolution. On the contrary, it can only make for the perpetual postponement and eventual abandonment of that revolutionary goal As one prominent Trotskyist , Duncan Hallas of the International Socialism group (forerunner of the British "Socialist Workers Party"), once put it: "Socialism will not be on the agenda" if " capitalism can concede, for an indefinite period, the demands and aspirations of working people then, of course, it will be enormously strengthened" . (Duncan Hallas, "Controversy: Do we support reformist demands?, International Socialism (1st series), No.54, January 1973. On the other hand , if capitalism cannot concede to the demand and aspirations of workers in the form of particular reforms then how can struggling for such reforms possibly prepare workers to undertake the final battle in the form of socialist revolution. It is only by realizing the futility of such struggling and of going cap in hand to the ruling class that workers will properly begin to prepare themselves for that battle. Refomism is a treadmill going nowhere, a quagmire into which any hope of revolution will disappear completely.That is the basic problem, you see, and I don't really see how it is logically possible to get round:it. You cannot both seek to reform , and inadvertently, strengthen the very system you have supposedly set your sights on overthrowing. That just does not make any sense however you look at it. Inevitably the former will crowd out the latter and the whole sorry history of Second International is clear evidence of the truth of this claim. No Labour or Social Democratic Party anywhere any longer pretends even to want to overthrow capitalism let alone establish a genuine socialist alternative . The struggle for reforms is not and cannot be a means to revolution as Luxemburg claimed and it was Bernstein paradoxically who grasped better than Luxemburg what that struggle was about: – that the goal would become nothing and the movement , everythingThat aside, I question the whole premise on which reformism rests. In my view, measures enacted by the state do not so much initiate improvements to the conditions of the workers as respond to pressures in the economic domain that call for such improvement. Reformism in other words is based on a Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy – "after this, therefore because of this". In that sense that reforms are simply a ratification of what is happening on the ground. It is a fetishistic way of looking at things to hold that it is a mere scrap of white paper over whose contents a bunch of parliamentarians have debated that is in any way decisive in the matter. What the matter really boils down is the relative share of the social product going to the workers vis a vis the capitalists which as Marx put it, is a function of the relative strengths of the combatants in the class struggle – the practical organisation of the workers in the industrial field – which would be weakened and compromised by reformism and which is in turn influenced by such background factors as the state of the economy e.g. whether the economy is in a boom or a recession. State enacted reforms are worth little more than the paper they are typed on and as we all know they can be widely ignored , more "honoured in the breach than in the observance", watered down or even simply simply scrapped and consigned to the bin of history.On the question of Luxemburg's attitude towards reforms I'm not sure you are correct in saying that when she observed that they were "inadequate" she meant from the point of view of obtaining socialism. What I think she meant by inadequate or insufficient was from the point of view of meeting the needs of workers under capitalism. It was the realisation that they were inadequate from that point of view that would cause workers, in her view, to turn to socialism insteadOn the question of transitional demand, well, I think that point is that by definition such a reform is one that capitalism is meant to be structurally incapable of delivering or implementing and that consequently the implementation of such a reform would indicate that it could no longer be considered a transitional demand. – something that was "unrealisable". Trotsky as I said was not averse to supporting mere reforms. More to the point he indicated that mere reforms could be converted into transitional demands should economic conditions render the former impracticable and unrealisable. But the converse was equally true. You say of transitional demands that i I don't think you can argue that they are inherently "unrealisable". But that is part of the very definition of a transitional demand – that they are unrelisable. If conditions changed that enable them to become realisable then this would indicate they were no longer transitional demands but had become "mere reforms"I m also not sure that the Bolshevik slogan "Peace, Land and Bread". is a good example of a " highly successful transitional demand". Land reform for sure followed in the wake of the Bolshevik takeover but "peace" and "bread"? From what I understand the Russian working class in the early years of the revolution melted back into the countryside in large numbers precisely because, amongst other things of the dire problem of food provision in the cities. And as for peace , well, one only has to mention the bitter civil war that ensued soon after the Bolshevik take over to put that particular claim to rest
ALB wrote:And of course, although we don't advocate them (so as not to suffer the fate of the SPD and become a reformist party), we ourselves are not opposed to all reforms. Wouldn't we too describe any favourable reforms obtained as "inadequate"? We do regard some proposed reforms as "unrealisable" but say this openly and that workers are wasting their time pursuing them. Which of course is the basis of our criticism of Trotskyist "transitional demands".Yes exactly. And the nonsensical thing about Trotsky's crackpot theory of transitional demands (so called) is a that it commits its proponents to maintaining the illusion that such reforms are not only achievable under capitalism but are of such a nature as to fully satisfy the needs of workers – that is to say are adequate should they be achieved That being the case, it cuts from under their feet the very grounds upon which they might want to advocate socialism to replace capitalism – namely . that capitalism cannot possibly be operated in the interests of workers and adequately meet their needs. This is why the Trots are almost driven by the very logic of their own thinking to play down the case for socialism for fear of being lambasted as " impractical dreamers" (and is also why they criticise socialists for being "utopians"). To argue that socialism is the only answer is to imply that capitalism cannot be reformed to adequately meet the needs of workers which in turn directly runs counter to the illusion they are intent upon fostering for the purpose of recruiting workers to their cause – that transitional demands are indeed both achievable and fit for the purpose. In private, of course, they know otherwise but for the purpose of public consumption and political influence they are obliged to conceal this discomforting fact. Only the select few that comprise the vanguard can be trusted to safely digest this fact and rationalise it away in terms a dialectical sleight of hand. The theory of transitional demands requires them to make these demands to serve as a "bridge" to revolutionary consciousness. According to the theory, it is when workers realise the impossibility of such demands in capitalism they will turn to socialism. The truly laughable thing about such a deplorably manipulative and cynical tactic is that probably most workers already know well enough that such demands as, say, a doubling of the minimum wage or reducing the pensionable age to 55, is just a pipe dream under capitalism . But you don't see them flocking to the socialist cause, do you now? . To the contrary many of them will happily endorse Mrs T's old mantra that we must all live within our means and give the likes of her the thumbs up when it comes to elections. For all the frantic efforts of the Trots to come across as pragmatic realists, thoroughly grounded in the concrete day to day struggles of workers they are the very ones who end up looking the impractical dreamers in the eyes of most workers On the question "opposing reforms" and "opposing reformism " there is the interesting case of Samuel Gompers and the American Federation of labour circa late 19th century. Gompers' rather tortured reasoning for opposing reforms and not merely opposing reformism was a sort of dogmatic rendition/extension of a kind of quasi Marxian stance . Since the state represented the interests of the ruling class, all legislation emanating from the state would ipso facto be bound to further the interests of that class and so work against interests of the workers. On these spurious grounds, Gompers actively campaigned against reforms such as the eight hour day in certain states on the West coast of America. Gompers seemed to have subscribed to a purely voluntaristic concept of working class activism which restricted itself to the economic field alone i..e in the trade union movement – lest it be tainted by politics and hence the influence of ruling class ideas. His ideas find some echoes in the thinking of the so called Economists (not to be confused with the practitioners of economics) who Lenin savaged in "What is to be Done" (1902). The Economist movement published a document entitled Credo (1899) in which it was argued that it was to the liberal bourgeoisie to which the workers should defer to take up the political struggle against tsardom and that the workers should confine themselves to such matters as fighting for higher wages and better working conditions. Here we see, once again, the distinction being made the economic domain and the political domain to which I earlier alluded. It was not the distinction as such that was invalid but how it was applied and in the case of the two examples cited it was applied quite inappropriately , I would suggest
ALB wrote:But I don't think she can be found guilty of advocating Trotsky's dishonest and stupid policy of advocating reforms they know can't be achieved under capitalism in the expectation that workers will turn to "revolution" (insurrection under the leadership of a vanguard party) after the struggle for the unrealisable reforms inevitably failed. This assumes that the reforms struggled for can't be achieved, but there is no evidence that Luxemburg thought that the reforms she favoured the SPD advocating and struggling for were unrealisable. She merely says that they would be "inadequate", which is not the same as "unrealisable".I think her position was that if the working class struggled for reforms on a class basis this would help prepare them for the final and more important struggle for political power (and that this wouldn't happen unless there was a body of socialists consciously advocating this, so it's not going to happen on its own).Thanks for your explanation, Adam. It certainly does seem that the title of Luxemburg's pamphlet was somewhat misleading. However, I am not fully convinced that the distinction between Luxemburg's advocacy of reforms and Trotsky's transitional demands is quite so stark as you suggest though there is a formal sense in which they differ as you point out. Where Luxemburg thought reforms would prove "inadequate", Trotsky thought they would be "unrealisable" in the case of so called transitional demands (although it has to be remembered that Trotsky also advocated mere reforms along the lines of the SDPs minimum programme). Nevertheless, in substantive terms the outcome is basically the same. In both cases, the needs of the workers would not be met and, in both cases, such reforms were to be advocated in the full knowledge that such needs would remain unmet. One might be forgiven for inferring a certain degree of cynicism in both cases – although, no doubt, Luxemburg was honest about admitting the inadequacy of her reforms where Trotsky was deceitful in concealing the unrealisability of his. There is also a certain structural similarity between Trotsky's metaphor of a "bridge" and Luxemburg's idea of the Party steering a middle course between two "rocks" – the reformist aspirations of the working class and the revolutionary intentions of the hardline politicised revolutionariesThere is something else that occurs to me as well – what exactly did Luxemburg mean by reforms and reformism?I have always taken the view that reformism essentially entails the enactment of measures by the state operating in political field or domain that have as their focus issues arising in economic field or domain. This seems to follow from our conceptualisation of capitalism as a fundamentally economic construct and reformism is an attempt (classically so in the case of Bernstein) to modify the economic behaviour of capitalism itself. Trade unionism, for example, is not to be equated with reformism since in this case, the field in which trade unions ideally operate is the economic field and not the political field – even if trade unionism has the same focus as reformism being the economic field or domainThese two conceptual categories of FIELD and FOCUS are, I suggest, vital analytical tools to distinguish between different kinds of activities – like reformism and trade unionism – in terms of the particular kind of configuration applying to each. I realise in practice the political field and the economic field are thoroughly intermeshed. So for example what is called the "labour movement" stereotypically comprises two wings – the political and the economic – having an overlapping membership and is (supposedly) represent respectively by the social democratic-cum-labour parties, on the one hand, and the trade unions on the other. Nevertheless we are talking here of ideal types and for the purposes of analytical clarity, it is sometimes necessary to resort to ideal types to get a better grasp of the subject under discussion.Which brings me to the point Could it be be that by reforms, Luxemburg meant something different to measures enacted by the state? You say that she held the classic SPD position of a socialist party having a maximum (socialism) and a minimum (reforms under capitalism) programme and the latter would certainly be classed as a measure to be enacted by a state but is there any possibility that she might have meant by reforms something more vague and having to do with the day to day struggles of workers to improve their pay and working conditions? In other words could she possibly have been conflating the economic struggle and the political struggle in the guise of advocating reforms as a "means" to social revolution?The answer to that question might have a bearing on the legacy of Luxemburg who, to this day, remains a significant political icon to the revolutionary Left.
LBird wrote:robbo, since we both agree that ‘individualism’ is entirely historical, I think we can leave that concept alone.But, when we come to your ‘individuality’ as ‘transhistorical’, even you concede that it isn’t.robbo203 wrote:Individuality is something different. It has to do with the inner life of the person, the sense of self hood. This is something that is both historical and trans-historical.So, even ‘individuality’ is ‘both historical and trans-historical’, not just simply ‘transhistorical’. But then you go further:
robbo203 wrote:That is why I contend that this aspect of individuality is trans historical. It is a necessary built-in aspect of infant development in all human societies. Of course the content of our inner lives is also historically contingent and subject to social influence.[my bold]So, the apparent essence of ‘individuality’ is ‘inner life’ and ‘self hood’, which is the bit which is ‘transhistorical’. But… even this you concede is ‘historically contingent and subject to social influence’ It seems to me that your thesis depends upon identifying just what the ‘necessary built-in aspect of infant development in all human societies’ consists of. You identify this as ‘individuality’, but I’m not so sure. It seems to me to be perfectly possible to identify this ‘necessary aspect’ with purely biological functions: that is, the infant ‘in all human societies’ must be taught to feed and water itself, keep itself warm, etc. This is a long way from any notions of ‘individuality’ in any modern sense; after all, most animals go through this process of ‘necessary self development’, which enables them to exist biologically as a species. That is, without an initial stage of close support from (usually) the mother, the ‘infant’ (child/pup/kitten/etc.) would die.
Hi L BirdWell, yes, sure there is a biological basis to this in the sense that obviously consciousness – in this case , awareness of ourselves as individuals – is dependent on the brain. But you are still missing the essential point which is that the emergence of this sense of self is the product of (and is dependent on) a process of social interaction and so is not purely a matter of biology. The brain does not automatically or spontaneously generate or produce this sense of self awareness on its own, it requires also the intervention of others. It is through interacting with significant others – most particularly of course the mother – that the infant comes to to recognise the existence of others outside of itself which, in the process, enables it to define itself as someone separate from these significant others and thus acquire a sense of self hood. I repeat this happens in EVERY society without exception (so you are quite wrong to say I "concede" that individuality is not in this respect transhistorical ) but the form that the social interactions take (which then shapes the individual's particular sense of herself) is obviously socially conditioned and historically contingent. It is for that reason that I say that individuality is BOTH historical and transhistorical and that this corresponds to the form and the substance of the phenomenon of human individuality . What you are doing, with respect, is confusing this "form" with this "substance" when they need to be analytically distinguished, I don't think this is a particularly Freudian perspective, incidentally, and as I said to ALB it is quite consonant with Mead's concept of the self., Freudian psychology, as I further said, has been discredited on grounds quite other than what we are talking about – in particular the role it imputes to the unconsciousness mind
ALB wrote:Vin Maratty wrote:I don't think the SPGB's case for socialism is based on a moral objection to capitalism and if it is then best of luck with that oneOfficially it isn't.In 2010 Conference passed the following resolution by 64 votes to 52 "Socialism is both scientific and ethical." Six branches then called a Party Poll to rescind this resolution. The result of this vote later the same year was:
Quote:Results of the Party Poll on the following motion : "That the 2010 Conference resolution that 'Socialism is both scientific and ethical' be rescinded on the basis that 'the case for socialism is one of class interest not one of morality.' Are you in favour? Yes / No" No of votes cast : Yes – 81 No – 39 Abstain – 3 Spoilt – 2 Therefore the 2010 Conference resolution – Socialism is both scientific and ethical – is rescinded.Well in that case I think the SPGB merely succeeded in shooting itself in the foot. It looks pretty damn silly condemning capitalism in strident moral terms and then claiming the case for socialism is not in part a moral one. Class interest by definition entails a moral dimension since its implies a concern for the welfare and wellbeing of others (in the working class) which, actually, when you think about it , is what morality is about
ALB wrote:robbo203 wrote:In terms of early childhood development what we see, to begin with. is what psychoanalysts call a stage of primary identification in which the infant develops a strong emotional attachment to the "significant other" (most particularly, the mother) but is unable to distinguish itself from the latter whom it sees as a mere extension of itself. This is followed by a form of identification called narcissistic identification which derives from the experience of loss of, or alienation from, the other in question. In coming to see our mothers as separate from ourselves we gain a sense of self hood.I don't disagree with the basic point you are trying to make, but am surprised that you are making an appeal to "psychoanalysis" when Freud's theories have been so thoroughly discredited. The rival behaviourist theory is also capable of giving an account of the emergence of "self". See, for instance, this from GH Mead:http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/mead3.htmI was a bit surprised to find this on the Marxist Internet Archive but it's there and probably deserves to be as his theory does have socialist implications. His Mind, Self and Society used to be recommended to Party members for those interested in the subject as it provides a social materialist theory of "mind".
Sure, Freudian psychoanalysis has been largely discredited but I dont think that means we must reject the basic explanation for the emergence of sense of self as being contingent upon a process of "objectifying" others. It is by becoming aware of the existence of others as separate from ourselves that we begin to define ourselves as individuals. I dont think Mead's theory of the self contradicts this at all. Meads central argument is that the self is an emergent property of social interactions which is what I'm saying too. The mother interacts with the infant and over a period of time the infant becomes aware of the existence of the mother as an entity outside of itself and so in the process becomes aware of itself. You can dispense with the Freudian-type jargon but I think the basic argument remains sound. In any event, I thought what was descreditable about Freudian psychoanalysis was the imputed role of the unconscious in human beings and the whole contrived typology of id, ego and superego.
Vin Maratty wrote:The case against capitalism is not based on any morality. Being poor does not make you any 'better' than being rich. Who wouldn't want to be a capitalist?The SPGB is unique and cannot be attacked or its reputation tarnished for investing money, its case is not ethical or moral but is based on the interests of a class. A moral stand against capitalism is sterile. In capitalism money is power.The more money a socialist organisation has the more it can attack capitalism. A moral opposition to capitalism is on the same level as a belief in religion and should be rejected by socialistsSorry Vin but I absolutely and categorically disagree with this argument. I think it is literally impossible for socialists not to take a moral position vis a vis capitalism. The dichotomy that is often presented – "socialism is a question of self interest" versus " socialism is a question of morality" is a totally false dichotomy. It is necessarily and logically both of these things. Think about it. Morality is an other-oriented perspective which ultimately is about the welfare and wellbeing of others (fellow workers) apart from ourselves. The very conception of class solidarity is implicitly a moral conception. If you take as starting point only that which concerns you from the point of view of your own perceived self interest then logically there can be no sense in you striving to foster a sense of solidarity amongst your fellow workers. It would make far more sense, I would suggest , to strive to become a capitalist and take up the attitude "I'm alright Jack and sod the rest of you" in relation to our fellow workers. We dont because actually behind the macho posturing around self interest we care about others. We wouldnt be socialists if we did not. All this nonsense about socialism having nothing to do with morality and scientific socialism being some kind of "value free" construct is just so much old fashioned 19th century mechanistic-cum-postivisitic thinking and despite Marx's supposed repudiation of morality his writings are literally suffused with a moral condemnation of capitalism. How can you possibly condemn exploitation and seek to end it without this implying a moral perspective? Its plain nonsense. As Stephen Lukes points out Marx's underlying moral judgements are all too self evident:Hence all the passages in Capital about ‘naked self-interest and callous cash payment’, ‘oppression’, ‘degradation of personal dignity’, ‘accumulation of misery’, ‘physical and mental degradation’, ‘shameless, direct and brutal exploitation’, the ‘modern slavery of capital’, ‘subjugation’, the ‘horrors’… and ‘torture’ and ‘brutality’ of overwork, the ‘murderous’ search for economy in the production process, capital ‘laying waste and squandering’ of labour power and ‘altogether too prodigal with its human material’ and exacting ‘ceaseless human sacrifices.’ (Lukes S Marxism and Morality, 1985 Oxford Clarendon Press p1). The part of the problem I would suggest is that people have misunderstood what is meant by a "moral perspective". The influence of Kantian universalistic moral categories has not been helpful in this regard. Kantian thinking is what influenced people like Bernstein and Otto Bauer and you can see where this can lead to – appealing to abstract universal moral principles at the expense of a class analysis I would reject that kind of moral universalism in a favour of a moral perspective called ethical particularism. Engels, surprisingly perhaps, put his finger on it in Anti-Duhring:We therefore reject every attempt to impose on us any moral dogma whatsoever as an eternal, ultimate and for ever immutable ethical law on the pretext that the moral world has its permanent principles which stand above history and the differences between nations. We maintain on the contrary that all moral theories have been hitherto the product, in the last analysis, of the economic conditions of society obtaining at the time. And as society has hitherto moved in class antagonisms, morality has always been class morality; it has either justified the domination and the interests of the ruling class, or, ever since the oppressed class became powerful enough, it has represented its indignation against this domination, and the future interests of the oppressed” (F Engels Anti-Dühring, Moscow 1947, p117). Class morality!. Now thats what we need. Coupled with the notion of self interest and not at the expense of the later.
LBird wrote:robbo, I’m not sure about your distinction between ‘individualism’ and ‘individuality’. Could you give me a brief summary of what you consider the essential differences to be? I’d be inclined to think that you are drawing a distinction between ‘ideology’ and ‘biology’, but at the moment this is just a guess. I don’t think that this distinction can be maintained, but if that’s not the point you are making, then ignore me on that point!Hi LBirdI made an attempt of sorts to distinguish between individualism and individuality in post no.46. Individualism is essentially an outer directed ideological posture in the sense that it has to do with one's relationships with others, above all in a socio economic context , and is grounded in a conception of the individual as a self interested atomised agent who sees society as simply a means of his/her own ends Contract theories of the origin of society (e.g.. Locke) typify this kind of outlook.. I agree that individualism is entirely a historical phenomenon Individuality is something different. It has to do with the inner life of the person, the sense of self hood. This is something that is both historical and trans-historical. In terms of early childhood development what we see, to begin with. is what psychoanalysts call a stage of primary identification in which the infant develops a strong emotional attachment to the "significant other" (most particularly, the mother) but is unable to distinguish itself from the latter whom it sees as a mere extension of itself. This is followed by a form of identification called narcissistic identification which derives from the experience of loss of, or alienation from, the other in question. In coming to see our mothers as separate from ourselves we gain a sense of self hood. Even to talk of the existence of others outsides of ourselves (society) presupposes this process of separation in which became aware of ourselves as individuals. We cannot recognise others as others without seeing ourselves as separate from them That is why I contend that this aspect of individuality is trans historical. It is a necessary built-in aspect of infant development in all human societies. Of course the content of our inner lives is also historically contingent and subject to social influence I think the point you are groping towards does not concern individuality as such but rather the holism- individualism distinction. The French anthropologist Louis Dumont is the person to read up on in this connection – his books such as Homo Hierarchicus : the Caste system and its implications, and From Mandeville to Marx: The Genesis and Triumph of Economic Ideology and Essays in Individualism are classics A holistic ontology according to Dumont sees society as primary and a logical entailment of that, according to him, is hierarchy as exemplified by by the Indian caste system. An individualistic ontology by contrast, vests the individual with primary value and subordinates society to the individual. Individualism according to Dumont logically entails equality at a fundamental level and so we get notions such as "we are equal in the eyes of the law". Of course differences exist between individuals e,g in the distribution of wealth but according to Dumont , from an individualist perspective such differences have to be explained in voluntaristic terms . They cannot be said to emanate from the basic level of the abstract individual in an individualistic outlook since to think that is to presuppose the existence of society as a higher value which would threaten the very autonomy of the abstract individual I don't know if I've made myself clear but that in a nutshell is what Dumont is about. I think there are huge problems with Dumont's thesis but there are some useful insights too. Dumont traces modern individualism to the early Christian concept tion of the self which emerged from this latent form into a fully manifest form with the arrival of capitalism
LBird wrote:No, I think you're making yourself clear, robbo. I just think that I disagree.I see 'individualism' as a product of a particular society, and not as any sort of 'trans historical' factor in humans.Societies in the past didn't have the concept of 'individual' in the sense we have. Your view about agricultural slaves, it seems to me, is just transposing the way we think now onto the past.Hi L Bird But I wasn't talking about "!individualism"! I agree – individualism is a relatively recent ideological phenomenon and, as I pointed out earlier, closely associated with the rise of capitalism. Individuality, on the other hand, means something quite different to individualism and I attempted to explain the difference in an earlier post I maintain that individuality is part historical and part trans-historical in the sense that it is an inevitable outcome of a socialisation process which happens in every society..There is a useful discussion of these terms in Abercrombie, Hill and Turner's influential book Sovereign Individuals of Capitalism (1986) in which they too draw a sharp distinction between individualism and individuality Robin
ALB wrote:Quote:John Pilger's 1998 documentary "Apartheid did not die"I can guess what he's arguing but, strictly speaking, the title is inaccurate. Apartheid, as the legal separation of the different so-called "races" in South Africa with jobs reserved for some of them, did die (and a good thing too). And it died because it had proved to be a barrier to the normal operation of capitalism and the process of capital accumulation in South Africa. What its death didn't do was to improve the economic situation of most "Africans", even though it did improve that of some of them, not just businesspeople and politicians (who were able to enrich themselves).but also skilled workers (who were able to move into jobs previously reserved for "Whites"). Come on, let's not say that the formal abolition of apartheid made no difference and wasn't a welcome advance.
Strictly speaking, apartheid has 3 aspects to it1) social apartheid – what is called petty apartheid (the racial segration of public facilities such as public transport) , the segregation of the education system along so called racial lines , the "Immorality Act" forbidding sexual relationships between races2) economic apartheid – job reservation and the colour bar3) political apartheid – the homeland policy and the denial of political rights to the Black majority within the so called White area of South Africa (constituting some 87% of the land surface if I recall correctly), separate constitutional rights for the mixed race ("Cape Coloureds" as they were called) and Asian populations, the further differentiation of the Black homelands along so called tribal or ethnic lines. Of these 3 aspects I would say political apartheid was the most important. Apartheid was basically the grafting of a racist political ideology onto a capitalist economy. It needs to be understood, however, that it was the British who first implemented many of the basic building blocks of what emerged as Apartheid after the second world war. The Britsh, for instance, introduced the first pass laws and established the first native reserves in Natal and the Cape Colony – not the Boers. I mention this because it is sometimes argued (by liberals like Merle Lipton) that capitalism and apartheid are fundamentally incompatible, with the implication that the involvement of (mainly British) capital in the development of South Africa was essentially a progressive influence. Im rather skeptical about this thesis and though I dont reject it out of hand I think it is a bit simplisticIn the early days of South African industrial development big capital, particularly in the case of the mining industry, quite happily collaborated and colluded with the racist state – long before Aaprtheid was officially introduced – to ensure an abundant supply of cheap migrant labour. In fact , the size of the native reserves were deliberately reduced so as to further undermine what remained of the subsistence economy of Black peasants and make them more dependent on migrant income . For the same reason, hut taxes were introduced or raised – to force people to become more involved in a money economy It was the structural transformation of the South African economy particularly after the second world war – with the growth of the manufacturing and service sector – which is often presented as the primary impetus begind the long term trend that would eventuate in the demise of apartheid. In particular, it was the growing shortage of skilled and semi skilled labour associated with this development that is said to have exerted an irresisitable pressure on the apartheid state causing it to progressivly soften its hardline stance, ultimately leading the the scrapping of apartheid. It is from this time that you began to see a split emerging within the white nationalist community between the more pragmatic verligtes and the die-hard verkramptes. I have some problems with this argument even though it has some truth in it , partly because there was in fact an expedient device which the apartheid state could – and to an extent, did – fall back upon to relieve the shortage of skilled labour if it so desired. This was called the floating colour bar. Basically what this meant is that as the pressue of skill shortages grew you could relieve it by allowing Blacks to do more and more of the work previously done by Whites only. In theory this could have nullifed what I term the internalist argumnent – that capitalism mechanically and of its own accord brought about the demise of Apartheid.. Interestingly, Harry Oppenhiner Chairman of Anglo American who funded the Progressive party – the political wing oif Liberal capitalism – himself expressed support for the the idea of a floating colour bar. The other problem with the internalist argument is that even if Apartheid had to go because it had become economically ineffiicient to operate a modernising capitalist economy along those lines, that cannot possibly be the entire reason why Apartheid went. More important, arguably, was the mounting costs to the state resulting from political opposition. One thinks here of the enormous costs of social unrest in the townships, of the government strategy of "total onslaught" against the frontline states (my brother and I narrowly missed being sent into Angola to fight the Cubans and MPLA at the time when we were both very naive young army conscripts, by electing to join the regimental bugle band back in Namibia!) and of course the costs of international sanctions. All these things took a tremendous toll on the apartheid state and caused it to reconsider So it really wasnt as simple as saying that capitalism was fundamentally at odds with apartheid and therefore the latter had to go. There was a lot more to it.
