What are the parameters of the situation we face today? How serious? What sort of period are we in today: what time is it? What are our political needs?
These are the sorts of questions — important and urgent — posed (although not in these words) by the following.
Consider the ruling class responses in this country to the oil spill and to the financial crisis. They are hard to understand except in terms of these complications, the most significant of which are those that flow from the contradictions between the developing global interests of capital and its requirements for maintaining the hegemonic institutional structures and ideologies which have supported and cloaked the essential nature of power in its core geographies.
In my mind [we face] circumstances for extreme political volatility and a wide range of indeterminacy. So it is a problem, I think, that much of our discussion of whether or not there is an emerging transnational ruling class proceeds with the implicit assumption that the process can work itself out in a gradual and evolutionary way. The resigned and passive tone of left academic takes on the changing face of capital don’t really orient us towards a period of intense conflict with a wide range of potential outcomes. This contrasts with the approach in various AltRight circles. Their stance, which seems more appropriate to me, is that this is not a historical pause, a time out period of floundering that will be followed by a new systemic equilibrium for capital – instead, it maps out the new normal for a protracted period into the future.
Wallerstein, Leys, and the crisis of the core capitalist states
Don Hamerquist
Hopefully the following relates to a few of the recent Khukuri posts.
Beginning with a question and answer from an interview with Colin Leys on Kasama:
First of all, can you explain to us what you mean by the term ‘market-driven politics’, and can you explain the primary forces that have been driving this process?
I use that term to mark the dramatic change that the de-control of capital meant for a country like Britain — or almost any country other than the United States. With the removal of capital controls, once capital could move where it wished to, governments ceased to have control of the direction of investment, or the terms on which investment is made, making politicians more responsive to the bond markets than to their electorates. This puts political parties in office in a new and complicated position vis-à-vis the electorate. I had seen that happening in Africa where ex-colonial states, very poor and very dependent on external capital, were constantly having to adapt what they said in public, and what they did in practice, to external forces, and it seemed to me that that would be likely to happen to all countries once capital could go where it wanted.
I’m not familiar with this guy. His stance in this interview suggests a Labour Party left intellectual although I see he has written articles with L. Panitch who is better than that. In any case, I was struck by the relationship he describes between the “decontrol of capital” and the hollowing out of governmental structures – primarily nation states but presumably also including both sub and supra national state structures as well. What is presented is a different set of conditions and circumstances within which the structures we used to term the ‘executive committees of the ruling class’ will have to function.
When Ley’s categories of ‘politicians’ and ‘electorates’ are expanded to notions of class and class fraction, as he would probably agree that they should, the changes he describes and predicts go beyond the ‘hollowing out’ of democratic and parliamentary forms that Chomsky and others have been documenting for decades. It is important to see that a new and, I think, more fundamental process is developing that will more comprehensively ‘hollow out’ the capacities of core nation states and their subsidiary formations to, as John Robb says, deliver the political goods.
The process goes beyond the erosion of formal democracy, which in any case has always had a fraudulent aspect, and exposes important changes in the relationship between the profitability of capital and the hegemonic shape of its dominance. This involves changes that potentially raise questions of legitimacy in the capitalist core areas in ways that haven’t been evident since the eclipse of the movements of ’68. I think that despite many illusory notions to the contrary, some of which may be shared by Leys, this “decontrol of capital” is not the consequence of reversible policies. No ‘recontrol’ that is based on different policies perhaps from a different governmental (multi-state) platform is likely.
Leys excludes the U.S. from the “dramatic change” he sees, but, on the evidence I can’t see why this should be. Consider the ruling class responses in this country to the oil spill and to the financial crisis. They are hard to understand except in terms of that “complicated position” he describes. And the most significant of these complications are those that flow from the contradictions between the developing global interests of capital and its requirements for maintaining the hegemonic institutional structures and ideologies which have supported and cloaked the essential nature of power in its core geographies.
The immensely risky financialization processes overshadow the production and consumption of commodities in the global capitalist system and have created major political risks for ruling fractions in the core nation states, but there is little ruling class stomach for an open confrontation of the political and economic risks which would develop from any serious attempt to bring these processes under control of a given nation state structure. This again points to the importance of Ley’s observations about what might; “…happen to all countries once capital could go where it wanted.”
Both of the forenamed ‘crises’ would seem to provide a possibility for potential governing elites to reinvigorate the legitimacy of their national state structures while expanding and consolidating a substantial political base and gaining large and immediate political benefits for their specific agendas. But such economic nationalist and populist programs, which were certainly major factors in earlier periods of capitalist crisis, are only barely visible in marginalized groupings of the ruling class. That particular mode and arena of resistance is largely left to a toxic mixture of reactionary forces whose increasingly anti-government secessionist orientation provides additional destabilizing pressures on national states. Unfortunately this camp also is sucking in some on the left, looking, without really knowing it, to follow comrade Koba and pick up the flag of nationalism which ‘the bourgeoisie has left in the mud’ (Apologies for the paraphrase).
If this is placed in terms of the Wallerstein/Arrighi conception of “hegemonic cycles” (see specifically the essay posted on khukuri), these growing elements of global disorder make it unlikely that a new sovereign state based hegemon will emerge; one that is able to “…impose it (global order d.h.) on the world system as a whole….” (Much the same point was made by Negri in Empire: p.xiv, p. 237). But at the same time, the political agreement and the elements of a ‘legitimate’ institutional framework for the shift to a transnational capitalist hegemonic order are not in sight. Indeed, such a development is hardly conceivable without a massive capitulation by class forces whose essential interests are hostile to capital. However, this is far from an impossible scenario. It would probably take the form of a ‘global social democracy’, a term that I’ve appropriated from others who might be distressed by the way I use it. In any of its conceivable formats, this would only provide an appearance of democratic participation, a threadbare cosmetic disguise unlikely to be a stable base for popular legitimacy without substantial material concessions that are not on the order of the cay.
In my mind, although possibly Wallerstein or Negri might put it differently, these are the circumstances for extreme political volatility and a wide range of indeterminacy. So it is a problem, I think, that much of our discussion of whether or not there is an emerging transnational ruling class proceeds with the implicit assumption that the process can work itself out in a gradual and evolutionary way. (I realize this criticism is less applicable to pieces written before the financial crisis.) The resigned and passive tone of the Leys article and other left academic takes on the changing face of capital don’t really orient us towards a period of intense conflict with a wide range of potential outcomes. This contrasts with the approach in various AltRight circles like the Global Guerrilla post I referenced above. Their stance, which seems more appropriate to me, is that this is not a historical pause, a time out period of floundering that will be followed by a new systemic equilibrium for capital – instead, it maps out the new normal for a protracted period into the future.
Let me make a brief detour to the oil spill issues, maybe not such a detour. Here the most egregious behavior of a ‘foreign’ corporation is officially submerged within the ‘we are all stakeholders’ morass rather than becoming a quasi-official, but certainly popular, basis for economic nationalism. This gets to one of Wallerstein’s important points. Capital has historically been able to displace and defer its real social costs of production, “externalized” is the term he uses in the Khukuri reprint. Wallerstein deals with the issue in a questionable ‘objective’ voice — “…the world is running out of vacant public space” — not mentioning that the ‘space’ was never really ‘vacant’, and never completely ‘public’ or ‘common’, although I am sure that he is not unaware of these issues. However, his major point about the increasing ‘systemic overheads’ created by the shrinking of the actual and perceived ‘outside’ of the capitalist system is certainly valid and important. These overheads makes a ‘responsible’ ruling class attitude towards the BP issue very difficult This is true despite the national political advantages that could accrue from a ‘tough’ stance. Any ‘tough’ stance raises the risk of putting the social costs of capitalist production into clear relief and establishing a damaging anti-capitalist precedent with the potential to become viral.
In an easier world these problems for capital would also be clear potentials for a revolutionary left. But that is not how they are currently manifested. Instead there is a combination of organizational caution and timidity and academic ambiguities on the left. This also has its causes. Speaking primarily of the left in the core societies, there is a widespread fear of premature anti-capitalism – of losing or risking losing what has purportedly been ‘won’. At the same time, it is true that capital’s difficulties may actually expand the potential for certain selected concessions and accommodations. This is a reality that can be easily twisted in reformist directions. It is important, although also difficult, to see that the ‘more’ that may appear to be possible in the emerging circumstances does not necessarily provide a basis for something categorically ‘different’ – for revolution – sometime in the future when stars are better aligned. However, a lot of revolutionary experience demonstrates that this is indeed the case.
I think that in the core capitalist states there is an undeniable comfort factor in being an opposition rather than an alternative. Large chunks of the left are as frightened of the potentially apocalyptic consequences of capitalist crisis as the capitalists. This leads to politics such as this part of Wallerstein’s political response to the crisis:
I would put at the head of the list actions that we can take in the short run, to minimize the pain that arises from the breakdown of the existing system and from the confusions of the transition.
Why should we not put expediting the “…breakdown of the existing system” at the “head of the list”, rather than minimizing the ‘pain’ and ‘confusions’ of the process?
What is really at issue is the assumption that the masses are not ready and a protracted period of successful left base-building is an essential precondition for raising a categorical opposition to capital. This amounts to capitulating to our own weakness and timidity, rather than taking full advantage of capital’s dilemmas. Supposedly these base-building politics will allow us to eventually take advantage of weaknesses in capital, but the more plausible precedent is that they will end up contributing to the adaptive capacity of the system, its ability to morph its areas of ‘weaknesses’ into new points of capitalist strength.
Not only is the left afflicted by a fear of the cliff, it fears the other at the bottom of the cliff. And it should. The commitment of the tribal and autarchic neo-fascist right to bring the system down is at least as radical as that of the left. Its developing understanding of ‘4th Generation War’ and ‘open source insurgency’ make it a substantial alternative to the left. As it is increasingly recognized, there will be a real and growing tendency to look to an implicit cooperation with the ‘progressive’ and ‘democratic’ segments of sections of ruling class to confront this danger from the neo-fascist right. This de facto alliance, basted with illusory objectives, fits very nicely with the reformist base building to infinity and beyond perspective. This is particularly true if, as is frequently the case, the base building covers the avoidance of any focus on bringing down the system with complaints about popular “impatience” with the long march through the institutions. Then the practical outcome will not go beyond greasing the path to a repressive global social democracy.
I was going to just touch on some other elements of the Wallerstein piece, but then we had the fat-finger Thursday and the gulf oil spill. Chaos theory with its black swans, butterfly effects, and fractal cascades gained both credibility and urgency. It is also the case that despite huge problems with both the form and the content of Wallerstein’s analysis, notably including the passage cited above, I agree with his overall conclusion: capitalism is experiencing a “structural crisis” and the left’s organizing concern should be the very real question of, “What order will emerge from this chaos?” It is also true that, in opposition to many on the left, he does recognize that the minimal and defensive reform steps he advocates, “…are not in themselves steps towards creating the new successor system that we need.”
Andy Blunden, who I don’t know but others may, has a survey of earlier variants of Wallerstein’s perspective titled “Utopistics and Simplistics.” It’s on the web for the venturesome. Blunden finds two elements in Wallerstein’s position; a determinist evolutionary conception of historical cycles, based in long waves of global economic development (Kondratieff cycles); combined with an emerging secular tendency towards systemic collapse, an outcome that is inevitable but essentially unknowable and unpredictable in strategic detail. Wallerstein’s system failure analysis rests on chaos theories associated with the mathmatical work of Prigogine and Mandelbrot that are well beyond my pay grade. Blunden believes the two elements don’t really fit together in a way that justifies Wallerstein’s conclusions that capitalism is no longer able to “mend itself” and that the question on the agenda now is; “What will replace this system?” Perhaps this inconsistency is formally true, but it is still possible that Wallerstein’s conclusions are correct even if his argumentation is suspect. Blunden did not appear to think so, but then he was writing before the current crisis.
I have never liked the long wave analysis. I’ve always seen it as prone to a technological bias that looked away from issues of qualitative change with sharp breaks in normality and underplayed the creative potentials of class and mass struggle. It could very well be that I don’t understand the position adequately and I’m quite open to being corrected. But provisionally, without necessarily accepting the political implications that he derives from his analysis, I would agree with Blunden – against Wallerstein – that capitalism should initially be approached as concrete social formations with internal contradictions embedded in a specific class composition and manifested in struggles that transform what exists and what is possible. This limits the effort expended on tortured attempts to rationalize the collapse of “actually existing socialism” and the incorporation of national liberation as somehow constituting capitalist stagnation and decline.
The functioning of a capitalist world system then should not primarily be viewed as a matter of cyclical repetition, but as the emergence of new phenomena requiring new categories of analysis. This approach, in my opinion, leads to a better use of time than attempts to stuff unwieldy evidence into overly general historical categories that do not help us understand and act on the potentials of the actual situation.
Nevertheless, I would agree with Wallerstein that this is capitalism’s end game.
But how pathetically inadequate is his what-is-to-be-done section which I sampled above. The basic inadequacy rests in the metaphorical conceptualizing of the alternatives as the “spirit of Davos” and the “spirit of Porto Alegre”. Two “camps”, the first split between advocates of militarized order and repressive tolerance; the second split between libertarian decentralists and authoritarian state planners. While these categories have some general descriptive relevance, the strategy they support will most probably devolve to the North vs South simplifications. Along with the lack of an analysis of class forces and of the various states of the situation, there is no understanding that an additional potential outcome is the common ruin of the contending classes; the second option of Socialism or Barbarism.
It is hard to see how much more is possible given the formless presentation of subjectivity; as if there is a given ‘we’: a them for system defenders and an us for system challengers that can confront and reconcile the pending political issues. Without worrying about the issues and contradictions for system defenders, it is a serious limitation to present the problems of revolution as if it were meaningful to say:
“Serious intellectual debate is required about the parameters of the kind of world-system we want, and the strategy for transition.” (From Wallerstein.) So who sets it up and judges the seriousness…and then, who does what?
Maybe my characterization is unfair. So let me balance it by saying how much I appreciate Wallerstein’s specific invocation of the ‘butterfly effect’:
“…when the system is far from equilibrium…small social mobilizations can have very great repercussions…”
Don Hamerquist, 7/6/10
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DonH asks:
First, I wonder who ‘we’ is. Second, I wonder exactly what Don has in mind.
Here where I live in Western PA, the existing system is fairly well broken down, with brownfields and shuttered factories everywhere. Many young people simply migrate out; those that don’t face record-high unemployment and underemployment.
What, exactly, should we be doing to ‘expedite’ the breakdown? Try to stop new state-assisted green energy startups? Push for a further shattering of the social safety net? Oppose jobs programs? I have no idea what Don’s getting at here, except that we have a few TeaParty/GOP politicians campaigning on such a platform.
Then Don goes on:
I can assure you that the masses, especially those at the bottom of the heap, are not ready for much. They have little by way of organization other that a few street gangs engaged in the underground economy, churches and a few sports clubs. Unionization is very low, around 12 percent. The local Dems are a shell; our PDA chapter of several hundred pulls out more to its meetings. We have some local unions and a labor council getting ready to march on DC for jobs, and a peace coalition. That’s about it. One third of the workers vote GOP/Tea Party. The others who do vote go for the Dems simply because they like the GOP less.
We’re not untypical of many Rust Belt areas.
So it seems to me that a period of base-building of independent organizations of various type of the workers and the oppressed is exactly what we need to do.
But Don adds:
I’d assert that it’s a fact that we are weak at the moment. I can count the number of communists or socialists or anarchists in the area on my fingers and toes. We are on the strategic defensive, both in term of left and left-center organization. Our task is precisely to wage the ‘war of position’, organize and gather some strength. Which is not to say we’re limited to that. We can launch small actions, like sit-ins at the Blue Dog Congressman’s office, or a sit-in at a closing hospital, which we’ve done. We also organize study groups on what 21st century socialism might be, and how to find approaches to it, but these, obviously, are small in scope.
But how this amounts to ‘capitulating’ to our weakness rather than building the strength, step by step, to get out of it, is beyond me. So once again, tell us exactly what you’d have in mind.
Carl,
The “we” are communist revolutionaries. I’ll respond to your substantive points in the near future.
Don
I have been reading these articles on the possibiity of an emerging transnational capitalist class with great interest and certainly welcome and unite with the point about being as far-sighted as the “new” or “alt” right in looking at the moment we now find ourselves in. Definitely we should be looking at the ways as communist revolutionaries to seize all we can out of this particular cycle of capitalist crisis.
Also I have read the articles sighted by Wallerstein, and others by Samir Amin, JB Foster, D. Harvey, etc. all of which have different ways of exploring a developing structural crisis of capitalism, or in other words capitalism may be running up against limits and that its potential for continued growth may be coming to an end.
The recent article posted on this cite by Cyrus Bina brought back well the problems with the idea of crisis leading to collapse and the incites by Marx (and Lenin) of the cyclical nature of capitalist crisis and the relationship between destruction of capital and continued expansion.
The positing of a new TCC however, is also a possible answer to the natrue of what is happening to capital (.ie. the social configuration of capital) and its possible transformations.
I like Don H.’s article in that it posits for us our role in transforming things in a more revolutionary way, perhaps ending in some geographies the dominance of capital and replacing it with a new 21st century style of socialism.
However, the idea of an emerging TCC raises some very profound questions about how revolutionary communists should proceed. As the TCC argument begins to take shape there is the analysis of a trend in the ruling class that is committed to the old capital formations based on the primacy of the nation state. Thus we can still see in many ways competition between various nation state formations (ie. the resistance from Russia and China over US policy regarding Iran and North Korea.) Still we can see ways in which these powers collaborate with each other for the good of the global economy, for instance during the present economic crisis.
How then do revolutionaries seek transformation and political power if there is indeed or if in fact a new TCC emerges as the dominant power within the ruling class, but I suppose moreso as the old nation state forces battle it out with the TCC. Do revolutionaries still seek to seize state power in the countries they reside or is a new transnational approach needed? What is the value of the Maoists in South Asia seeking to establish a new South Asian Federation of Soviets including many of the various maoist parties in South Asia? It seems that we still be fighting with the rulers over territory, over geographical space, however, how do you see the nature of that fight changing as the social formations of capital itself begin to shift and transform?
I’d like to draw out a bit more (or perhaps just sharpen up) the first quote at the head of this post, how ruling class responses in this country to the oil spill and to the financial crisis cannot be understood apart from “the contradictions between the developing global interests of capital and its requirements for maintaining the hegemonic institutional structures and ideologies which have supported and cloaked the essential nature of power in its core geographies.” I’ll go on from this to try to summarize Don’s central line of argument, as I understand it, and raise some questions about one of his conclusions, with a view to facilitating discussion of what I think are some highly important points.
Surely the most striking aspect of ruling class responses to these crises have been the weakness, sometimes confusion, and the more or less open subservience shown by American state structures to some of the most popularly reviled sectors of capital (bankers and big oil). There is, quite openly in other words, a seeming inability on the part of the state to control the depredations of capital and to protect the welfare of the people. Now one might say that the capitalist state has never controlled capital nor protected the popular welfare (which has a certain basic truth, albeit with many complexities), but what stands out in the present conjuncture is its inability even to seem to be in command of the situation and to protect the people it governs.
This could (and should) certainly be explored more deeply and subtly, but I take it that it is something along these lines which Don is pointing to in his mention of “structures and ideologies which have supported and cloaked the essential nature of power in its core geographies.”
So there seems to be, at this point, a basic inability of the core capitalist states to do those things domestically (like appearing to be in control or strongly confronting disastrous situations) which have been a central part of conferring legitimacy on these state structures. The causes of this inability (as I understand what Don is putting forward) have to do with the needs of capitalist profitability, which at this point in history involve both “immensely risky financialization processes” and an irrevocable transnationalization of the fundamental circuits of capital. Further, there does not exist, nor is it likely that there will emerge in any relatively near future, anything like a transnational state structure that might be capable of providing a framework for the anarchic and volatile movements of capital: “this ‘decontrol of capital’ is not the consequence of reversible policies. No ‘recontrol’ that is based on different policies perhaps from a different governmental (multi-state) platform is likely.…the political agreement and the elements of a ‘legitimate’ institutional framework for the shift to a transnational capitalist hegemonic order are not in sight.”
In general, as well, it is not only that we face “a period of intense conflict with a wide range of potential outcomes,” but “this is not a historical pause, a time out period of floundering that will be followed by a new systemic equilibrium for capital – instead, it maps out the new normal for a protracted period into the future.”
In this situation of serious capitalist economic crisis coupled with elements of incapacity and legitimacy questions for core capitalist states (US, EEC Europe and others), a situation of increasing volatility and conflict whose outcome is quite indeterminate, where are the forces ready and willing to take advantage of the situation, to put forward a general alternative and mobilize politically? They exist, at present, almost only on the right, both within the core and globally. The left, at least within the core and certainly in the US, has a program which ranges from a return to the status quo ante (on the liberal side of the spectrum) to work among the people, projecting “a protracted period of successful left base-building” as a “precondition for raising a categorical opposition to capital” (one version of this is described and defended by Carl in his comment above) on the more left end.
Don’s summation of this situation on the left, which I find both strikingly true and strikingly incomplete, is the following:
As I say, this just seems obviously true; in which case a couple of questions arise: First, why is the left so weak and timid? And then, given a recognition of the fact that it is, what is to be done, how do we go forward?
These questions are not addressed explicitly by Don, which is what I meant by the above quotation’s incompleteness (to say which is not a critique, or meant as such, but simply a notation). But to some extent there is implicit in this essay what seem to be suggestions or implications of an answer to the what-is-to-be-done question, and I want to engage with those.
At one point Don remarks “how pathetically inadequate is [Wallerstein’s] what is to be done section,” which contrasts the “spirit of Davos” and the “spirit of Porto Alegre” and puts at the head of the list of short-term actions we can take, “to minimize the pain that arises from the breakdown of the existing system and from the confusions of the transition.”
Don asks:
Now this is just one sentence and I don’t mean to put undue weight on it, but it does suggest a line of thinking as to what’s to be done, basically along very “actionist” lines. Yet – this seems the obvious question – how do we see something new and good arising out of the breakdown of what exists? What forms of political organization are necessary to bring about such an outcome? Strategic questions seem to be left by the wayside when “expediting the breakdown of the existing system” is put first on the agenda.
Take the question which Nat W. raises above, which is a crucial one: How do we approach the question of revolutionary organization in an era of the decisive transnationalization of capital and forms of emergence of a TCC [transnational capitalist class]?
I’m certain that Don has thoughts on these questions, as well as many others which also arise, and one of my aims is to initiate some discussion on these points. But I also want to argue for the need and necessity of coming to grips with these questions of theory (for I believe they are questions of theory) explicitly and in their own right, as well as others which I think are equally important.
Now these are questions of practice too, and I wouldn’t argue for a stagism. But I find it hard to conceive of the value of expediting the breakdown of the existing system without a real idea of the shape of the present world, the class forces, structures and shape of friends and enemies, as well as a strategy and method for reaching a goal which itself can be explained discursively and put forward persuasively as a goal.
In summarizing Don H”s ideas John S. posits:
“In general, as well, it is not only that we face “a period of intense conflict with a wide range of potential outcomes,” but “this is not a historical pause, a time out period of floundering that will be followed by a new systemic equilibrium for capital – instead, it maps out the new normal for a protracted period into the future.”
This seems to be more in common with the arguments I mention above, particularly that we are in a period where there is a structural crisis of capital. Often accompanied with this line of thought is that capitalism cannot sustain a consistent growth rate (ie. D. Harvey) or the idea that we are headed toward a stationary state (Gopal), or in any event that the current state of capital is headed toward irreversible shifts for better or worse.
Is it really the case that these shifts will not be merely geo-political shifts, perhaps shifts to multi-polarity where emerging economic giants such as China, India, or Brazil counter the hegemony that has historically belonged to the West. It does seem in many ways that different geo-political blocks still compete against one another even as they coalesce over some strategic issues. The development of this TCC may be less conscience on the part of the rulers than we realize, even while there are certainly forces who recognize the needs of a TCC and think within framework (though perhaps even those thinkers are consciencely caught in between looking at national and global interests of capital).
Further while left forces overall and particularly in the capitalist cores seem to be weak, there are potential allies for revolutionaries to hook up with in the case of an acute crisis. I do not hold that the right is the only player besides the current ruling class. For instance what role would the Latin American left populist states play in such a crisis and would it be possible to serve as a sought of rear guard to actions that they may lead in the beginning to defend what they have put in motion, thus raising the possibility of regional shifts in which crisis leads to geographical gains by radical/progressive governments. What role would South Asian communist movements play.
What I’msaying is that there is enough of a progressive force in embryo in the world to put up a fight against both ruling class and extreme right forces if enough of the left can see the possibility of a new kind of united front fought in a transnational and even a cross-border context. If we recognize such diverse forces (and I would include the burgeoning student movement in Europe which has is also visible in the Americas) as a potential fighting force that can at least be loosely coordinated then things are not as bleak as they seem, an expediting the fall of the rulers does not equal definite victory for the right or some other dire result.
I’ll just add that a rear guard action in the midst of a global conflagration in a core territory should not replace building a mass movement but may become possible in but in such a conflagration where ruling forces are stretched it may be possible to launch such an action in core areas. I will not elaborate any further.
The balance of forces on a global scale is more favorable to the left then perhaps it would seem to us. In any event if we look at the opposite side of this emerging trnasnational situation and the dependency of all local and regional player (rulers) on one another to keep global system functioning at all, this necessarily leads to a situation where upheaval in one region is more likely to lead to global contagion. The war on terror is an example as wars launched in the middle east have led to the spread and growth of this movement into the core. Obviously immigration plays a great role in this. There is the example of the food riots, and even the student uprisings in Europe spread into the US and Canada and most recently Puerto Rico.
Where the right seems to get the press and the core is focused on combatting reactionary Islamic forces, it should also be noted that these various movements are as fragmented and diverse as those on the left. It should also be noted that were it not for the Islamist threat we would probably be watching contradictions in latin america come to head. We can probably guess that they will somewhere down the road. How will the rest of the left react?
The possibility of a TCC necessarily leads to possibility of a global left front, fragmented in some ways but in solidarity in other. The possibility of 1848 or to a lesser extent 1968 on a much broader scale, the ability due to rapid communication and means of transport may necessarily lead to possibilty for the engulfment of greater areas of territory being put into play for politcal control in a far more rapid period then in the twentieth century. Does this make sense and can communists take advantage of this if it is true?
The TCC already has given rise to a counterpoint, such as it is, in the World Social Forums and their local variations, such as the one just held in Detroit. But this is only fertile ground. Sowing and harvesting the revolutionary crop is another matter.
I’m also saying, as similar to the WSFs, that when upheaval breaks out it tends to be of a more global character and that this is related to the development of globalization and the emergence of a TCC.
This also has implications for specifically revolutionary organization across national borders, which I think still involve seizing actual space (land)and wielding revolutionary power over it.
I’d like to begin a response to some of Nat W.’s observations on these topics – including those of 7/15, 7/16 and 7/18 on Khukuri and 7/27 on Kasama. I apologize for being so late to the discussion and hope it is clear that I take his positions seriously, including where I disagree and where I have questions.
It’s a bit odd to start with the last post, 7/27 on Kasama, but I think it can be helpful to consider some of these questions in a different framework, in this case the one provided by an argument from Basanta, a spokesperson for Nepal’s Maoists. Basanta stresses the importance of a unified strategy for revolution in S. Asia and the importance of international support for that strategy, but does not deal directly with the transnational capitalist class and related issues. My disorganized response will touch on points where I think this analysis is very valuable, as well as some where -in my opinion -it leads nowhere. At one point Basanta says:
“Though no rival to the US imperialism has emerged yet in terms of military strength but its contradiction with other military and economic super powers is on the rise in the world.
A once-unipolar world has now changed into a multi-polar one. The contradiction between capital and labour is intensifying all across the world. And also the contradiction between imperialism and the entire oppressed nations and the people, which is the principal contradiction in the world at present, is also sharpening.” (7/27 Kasama)
I understand that Nat doesn’t necessarily embrace this entire position but believes it merits a serious inclusion in the discussion. So do I. It is certainly wrong to present the case for the growing importance of global capital and the ruling class political formations that implement its needs and interests as though we were looking at a completed process – or an inexorable one – in which interimperialist conflicts between nation states and, particularly, the conflicts between oppressed and oppressing peoples have been or will soon be superceded. They haven’t and they still have a real and irreducible impact in overdetermining the main contradiction as some dead French communist once observed.
My point is that these contradictions have been increasingly subsumed in the globalization process, important counter-trends to them have emerged and the relevant categories of analysis must recognize this and must be transformed in order to be useful.
One such change is to recognize that a more contradictory global political context is not equivalent to a shift from; “A once-unipolar world…into a multi-polar one.” At least not if this shift is seen primarily in terms of inter-imperialist conflict between rival nation states or blocs of states. I argued this point at some length in a previous piece. Without going into the issue, I believe that the notion of the development of any significant multi-polar challenge to U.S. hegemony is very difficult to support empirically. While U.S. hegemony is definitely weakened, this is based much more on the ‘hollowing out’ of its legitimacy and efficacy as a nation-state through its contradictions with the needs of de-centered global capital, through its contradictions with ‘non-state actors’ with destabilizing projects tending towards what Marxists have seen as barbarism, and through emerging, internationalizing, and potentially explosive class contradictions.
I thought that one of the strengths of the Basanta piece was that this reference to an emerging multi-polarity seemed quite pro forma, while the main direction of the remarks went towards a priority on developing a regional transnational class struggle in the South Asian subcontinent. My hope is that this will develop in the direction of the hopeful, but essentially lost, initiatives in the Cabral conception of a liberatory strategy for anti-imperialism in Africa and, particularly, the Latin American continental strategy advanced primarily, but not exclusively, by the armed communist groups in the Southern cone, and perhaps best articulated by Abraham Guillen. However, the combination of this notion of the struggle –one that recognizes the limited and conditional nature of the imperialist imposed facts of those nations – with the Maoist conceptions of ‘feudalism’ and ‘New Democracy” is very problematic. And Basanta’s article does does confuse them in my opinion.
This leads to my main point in response to Nat, one that I will only introduce here. There is a theme that I think runs through a number of his comments, that of the implications of the unevenness of the struggle:
“ What I’m saying is that there is enough of a progressive force in embryo in the world to put up a fight against both ruling class and extreme right forces if enough of the left can see the possibility of a new kind of united front fought in a transnational and even a cross-border context . (Nat W., 7/16; 1st post)
Overwhelmingly, yes. (I would be in complete agreement, if that notion of “progressive” which can cover and contain so much crap is rectified. I wouldn’t expect to disagree with Nat here – but there are others…) The question then is the character and objective of this “new kind of united front”. I strongly agree with Badiou – or perhaps it is just my understanding of him – that the essential features are that it must develop at a distance from the state and that the potentialities “in embryo” must develop the elements of communism as both what is necessary and what is demonstrably possible – as axiom, not merely ultimate objective.
I wouldn’t spend much time disputing some of Nat’s picture of the process. For example, while I’d like to believe his optimistic picture of the Bolivarist states in Latin America, I see too much Peron and too little class struggle, too much ‘state’ and too little ‘revolution’ in those developments. However, my main point is one of agreement, particularly with the sense that questions of power will be presented piecemeal, sometimes ‘prematurely’ and in definite geographies, but nevertheless unavoidably for genuine revolutionaries. The emerging conflicts will not conform to idealized perspectives and comfortable, if rigid, intellectual categories. And in the process the obligation to develop a “rearguard struggle”(Nat W.; 7/16; 2nd post) will arise and, if we are alert, the opportunities for something more will emerge as well – perhaps the “…possibility of an 1848 – or a 1968…” (Nat W.; 7/16, 3rd post)
Don H.
So far I’ve yet to see any organizations come close to seizing power or ‘space’ locally or regionally, let alone nationally or cross-border globally. Let’s focus on first things first. If it’s not real on the ground, where we work and organize, how is it going to work beyond that?
just theorizing Carl (or trying to).
I’ve been trying to develop a semi-coherent statement on Don’s piece and the comments on it, but progress has been slow. Just now I’ve seen the Negri piece, haven’t read it, but based on John’s introductory excerpt it looks promising for continuing the discussion of issues raised in “… The Crisis of the of the Core Capitalist States.” I still want to get out some comments on the latter, to keep some independent consideration of its arguments going, even if they overlap with Negri. I apologize for the rambling, fragmented, sometimes random quality of my comments, some of which are going to be tangential, and for not having any big answers to one of the big questions raised in Don’s piece. I don’t address the challenge of neo-fascist revolution; I’ll just say that I that I agree it’s there, waiting at the bottom of the cliff. If capitalism goes over the cliff on its own, leftists would be better off to disentangle themselves from capitalism first in order to be better prepared to face that other.
I’ve found my self referring to a major intervention by Don written early last year, “Thinking and Acting in Real Time and the Real World,” which can be found at 3 Way Fight, among other places. I think people coming across Don’s current post would find it helpful to consult that previous essay.
Most of this is going to be organized around, or riff off of, John’s attempt to unpack and summarize and critique Don’s piece, but I’ve read Nat and Carl’s comments with interest and think they make important points requiring discussion. These points include Nat’s concern with the implications of the transnationalization of capital for the geographic dimensions of communist revolution, and his undeveloped speculations about capitalism’s “structural crisis.”
The Crisis of the Core Capitalist States
The globalization of capital is leading to a “‘hollow[ing] out’ of the capacities of core nation states” (d.h.), a major claim, but needs to be taken seriously – especially in light of the 2008 financial meltdown and the uncontrolled destruction of the Gulf’s ecosystem by BP, and the inability to control unemployment (a key part of the post WW2 keynesian class compromise) – which exposes “changes in the relationship between the profitability of capital and the hegemonic shape of its dominance… changes that potentially raise questions of legitimacy in the capitalist core areas in ways that haven’t been evident since the eclipse of the movements of ’68” (d.h.), [emphasis added, n.p.).
The unlikelihood of a nation-state hegemon” imposing order on global capitalism, while “at the same, the political agreement and the elements of a ‘legitimate’ institutional framework for the shift to a transnational capitalist hegemonic order are in sight” (d.h.), and a crisis of legitimacy not seen since ‘68, should be placed alongside an observation in Don’s “Think and Acting…”, on the need for “development of categorical anti-capitalist alternatives to capitalism in crisis – revolutionary alternatives,” when accounting for “the difficulties the global ruling class faces to either continue to rule in the old way or develop any new way,” and “the immediacy of and the magnitude of revolutionary potentials, not to mention their transitory character and thus the political imperative to pay full attention to them, when, where, and how they develop” (d.h.).
If this hypothesis of a “hollowing of governmental structures” in the absence of a hegemonic transnational capital institutional order is correct, we have a situation of a global ruling class attempting to rule openly, unmediated class domination, without the mediation of state structures. We also have a ruling class that lacks some central, collective class authority, in past supplied by the nation state, or international institutional offshoots, to impose order on the anarchy of capital.
Some things about “The contradictions between the developing global interests of capital and its requirements for maintaining the hegemonic institutional structures and ideologies which have supported and cloaked the essential nature of power in its core geographies” (d.h.). Capitalist profitability vs. hegemony.
John cites Don’s mention of the gigantic and risky financialization process. Don also discusses and agrees with Wallerstein’s argument about capital’s inability to “externalize” its “real social costs of production” – e.g., environmental destruction – “the increasing ‘systemic overheads’ created by the shrinking of the actual and perceived ‘outside’ of the capitalist system (d.h.)” Don argues that “any ‘tough’ stance [by a nation state, like the U.S. towards BP] raises the risk putting the social costs of capitalist production into clear relief and establishing a damaging anti-capitalist precedent with the potential to become viral.”
I think the problem of “damaging anti-capitalist precedent[s]” going “viral” is a major challenge for a global ruling class in managing a number of crises, where the collective class interest has to be asserted against particular individual and sectoral capitalist interests. Take the example of global warming in the environmental arena – here, industries based on fossil fuels, and with a lot of economic and political clout, will have to brought under tight control (carbon caps and so forth won’t hack it, obviously), and the capitalist political organization undertaking this mission will have a difficult challenge in equating the general interests of capital with the broader general welfare of humanity without sounding “socialist” and inspiring mass aspirations for further social control of production. Or take the economic crisis and the need for destruction of outmoded capital: again, any state-like capitalist organization is going to have to forcibly eliminate inefficient capitals, in a way that avoids seeming “anti-capitalist.” The same with disciplining financial capital. It is the “politicization of accumulation” problem that some radical left and pro-capital intellectuals have been talking about since capitalist proposals for state planning to manage the economic crisis started surfacing during the 1970s.
The emerging legitimation crisis has a variety of sources related to and in addition to the globalization of capital. The restructuring of capitalism to facilitate global accumulation will contradict hegemonic institutions in nation-states in a number of ways. In the U.S., the “white skin privilege” pillar of capitalist hegemony was already being undermined by “Wal-Mart-ization,” and the current economic slump is casting millions of white workers into the ranks of the “structurally” unemployed. The Fordist model of accumulation is out (see the discussion in “Thinking and Acting,” where keynesian “templates” for resolving the crisis are assessed). There is the problem of the emerging “gap” in the “core,” as the kind of marginalization of uprooted populations in the periphery is now seen in the deindustrialized zones of the center.
“Structural Crisis”
The development of the productive forces which have made the globalization of capital possible are also reshaping the labor process which is helping create the phenomenon of marginalization, and the “secular crisis” of the capitalist mode of production, as outlined in various passages in the Grundrisse – a “crisis of the law of value,” as Don used to term it.
(Speculative, half-baked thoughts here. In mulling over the notion of a crisis of the law of value, in which force increasingly substitutes for the autonomous operation of the law of value in regulating capitalist society, I have been playing with the old idea that bourgeois democracy is rooted in the apparent “free and equal exchange of equivalents,” as suggested in the famous passage in Capital V.1: “the sphere of circulation… [where] the sale of purchase of labour power goes on… is the exclusive realm of Freedom, Equality, Property, and Bentham;” the self-interest of free and equal agents, not force, brings together proletarians and capitalists for the “common weal” and the “common interest.” Just looking at the U.S, I ask myself: in a society where coercion in many forms, ranging from the huge prison system and incarceration of the population, police presence, surveillance, etc., is seemingly becoming so widespread and woven into the daily experience of the relations of production, what are the implications for the appearance of free and equal exchange, a necessary aspect of capitalist production and exploitation.)
Another angle on the profitability vs hegemony contradiction comes from considering the possibility that the current crisis is a terminal crisis of capitalism, or a crisis episode close to the terminal stage, in the old-fashioned sense of a falling rate of profit/overaccumulation of capital, the catastrophic interpretation of the falling rate of profit theory, one version of which is argued in the David Harvey article cited by Nat, and can be found on this site (and is worth looking at, even if you don’t agree with Harvey’s strategy for the transition beyond capitalism). When faced with a declining mass, as well as rate of profit, legitimation is going to be sacrificed to accumulation without question. (I know this is simplistic statement of the matter, but I’ll have to let it go for now.)
“Expediting breakdown of the existing system.”
Don’s said things like this before. (We’ve tried to get him into counseling, but he won’t listen.) In one of his first posts on the current crisis (three way fight, 9/25/08, “Capitalism in Crisis?”), he argued that, “Following the Chairman, unless it is pushed, capital will not fall… So let’s push a bit – and stay alert for other broom wielders” (the neofascists practicing 4th generation warfare). This strategic orientation, which I agree with, is linked up with a stance on the need for the left to pose a categorical, revolutionary communist alternative to capitalism, which is stated numerous times in his “Thinking and Acting in Real Time and the Real World,” e.g.: “a confrontation with capitalism as a system, rather than … a protest movement focused on grievances and abuses”; “vital issues of the relationship between revolution and reform, and between confrontation and accommodation, must be spelled out…”
Don’s statement (“Crisis of the Core Capitalist States), with regard to Wallerstein’s program, on putting expediting “breakdown of the existing system” at “the head of the list,” precedes his statement on “capitulating to our own weakness and timidity, rather than taking full advantage of capital’s dilemmas,” but John deals with the “timidity” issue first, asking “why is the left is so weak and timid” (j.s.). This is a good question, but he overlooks, “what is really at issue,” according to Don, “the assumption that the masses are not ready and protracted period of successful left base-building is an essential precondition for raising a categorical opposition to capital.” This sentence precedes “capitulating to our own weakness.” I think this question, “are the masses ready” to organize a better world in the wake of capitalism’s collapse, is central, and obviously controversial (as Carl argues). A question for the base-builders is, are they ready themselves, or more ready than the masses? From the Thesis on Feuerbach, “the educator must himself be educated,” and “the coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.”
Don’s “expediting system breakdown,” as i’ve followed his analysis through different posts since the onset of the crisis in 2008, is linked to a conception of the proletarian masses’ capacity for “epistemological breaks” with capitalist ideology and rationality, and for independent, revolutionary self-mobilization self-organization. In “Thinking and Acting,” he argues that Lenin, at various points, held this belief and eschewed “an extended period of base building.”
At the end of “Thinking and Acting,” Don argues: “We’re in a period where the rules of what is possible can be washed away overnight and we must organize to take advantage; prepare to take risks; plan to develop capabilities.… The left is going to have to organize itself, not the working class or the ‘people’… At moments of crisis such as we are entering, this internalized acceptance of subordination will break at many points and masses of people will start to think and act in ways that would have seemed irrational to them a short time before. The role of the left is to recognize these elements of epistemological break and attempt to generalize them and incorporate them into an anti-capitalist social bloc. To accomplish this, the left must learn for itself what is to be done and how to do it, before presuming to educate others on these questions.”
This position, which draws a lot on Gramsci as well as other people, is certainly in need of discussion and elaboration, but it is not simple “actionism.”
Now for one almost last thing. John “find(s) it hard conceive of the value of expediting the breakdown of the existing system without a real idea of the shape of the present world…” This may be too lazy a response, but, how will we know when we do have a such a “real idea” allowing for action; we’ll never have perfect knowledge of the “shape of the present world,” especially under capitalist social relations, where social reality is so veiled. A wise professor of sociology of mine once stated, without elaborating on the point, that for Marx, knowledge of a society is obtained through the process of overthrowing it. (This was probably in reference to the thesis on Feuerbach.) Knowledge production can’t occur without practice.
“The New Normal”
Don argues that the neofascists, in contrast to many on the left, grasp that this is “not a historical pause, a time out period,” but a protracted period of “intense conflict” and crisis. I don’t have anything to add, except to repeat Don’s conception of secular crisis stated in his “Capitalism in Crisis?” (three way fight, 9/25/08), discussing Hardt and Negri’s Empire: “‘crisis’ should not be reduced to collapse, it is the new normality when capitalism has become global and no longer effectively has an ‘outside.’… contradiction, paradigm shifts, disequilibriums, and transformations [are] the ‘normal condition’ of the political terrain.”
And I’ll add something from Rosa Luxemburg, from Chapter 6 of her Anti-Critique. Although she was wrong about imperialism being “the last chapter of its [capital’s] historical process of expansion,” I think her diagnosis remains accurate for the current, global stage of capitalism: “In this final phase, economic and political catastrophe is just as much the intrinsic, normal mode of existence for capital as it was in the ‘primitive accumulation’ of its development phase.”
I’ll close this post with a not completely irrelevant quotation from Mike Davis, on “The Necessary Eloquence of Protest,” written for a Nation forum on “reimagining socialism,” March 17, 2009 (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090330/davis). Davis’ call for leftists to be “forthright about the need for disorder” can be read as militant reformism, but I still like it:
“this starts with the recognition that there are no realistic solutions to the current planetary crisis. None. A peaceful, just-in-time transition toward low-carbon, rationally regulated state capitalism is about as likely as a spontaneous connecting-the-dots of neighborhood anarchism across the world. Simply extrapolating from the present balance of forces, one most likely arrives at an equilibrium of triaged barbarism, founded on the extinction of the poorest part of humanity.
I believe that socialism/anarcho-communism – the rule of labor upon and for the earth – remains our only hope, but the necessary epistemological condition for serious strategic and programmatic debate on the left is a rising global temperature in the streets.”
I generally like Don’s writing very much and take his work seriously but this piece left me frustrated. I suspect I’m being unfair and setting the bar way to high here, but I’m going to lay this out anyway in the hope of sparking further debate.
Don criticizes various failings here, but his own views are hard to see here, so it’s hard to tell some of the time how much I agree or disagree. Anyway, among the big failings Don criticizes, one of the very big ones for him is the failure to assume that the masses are ready. I’m not totally sure about this, but I think there may be a distinction between actively thinking “the masses are not ready”, which Don talks about, and the absence of assuming “the masses are ready”, which appears to be Don’s counter assumption. I’m not at all sure what to do with either assumption; if pressed to pick I guess I’d pick “not ready”, based entirely on gut level intuitions and my own limited and decidedly mixed experience. I’d really prefer not to have to pick assumptions, though, and instead to hear some arguments either way, and to hear a lot more about which masses we’re talking about, where, and what their readiness or lack thereof consists in. As it stands in the piece, there are two contending assumptions and in my opinion Don comes close to suggesting that the bad assumption on many people’s part is more like a character flaw than anything else. (People holding “illusory notions”, “organizational caution and timidity and academic ambiguities”, “widespread fear,” “undeniable comfort factor”, “weakness and timidity”.)
I also don’t think the picture here is clear wth regard to concessions and legitimacy, which means the nature of the crisis is also muddy. Some of the time the obstacle to concessions seems to be a matter of will/hegemony (“there is little ruling class stomach”), other times a matter of institutional changes (decontrol and policy), and yet others a matter of some objective economic or other systemic limit of some sort (globalized economy or something, I’m not sure).
Don writes that “substantial material concessions (…) are not on the order of the day”, and without these we will not likely see “a stable base for popular legitimacy” and, at least as I read the piece, this is supposed to be a new condition. That doesn’t make sense to me. It seems to me that the material concessions that were/have been/are handed out have always been unevenly distributed, and often distributed in ways that deepened or maintained or created new divisions within the working class, in the US and globally. Home ownership in the US is one example of that. So, given that concessions aren’t required to the whole class, but only to enough of the class to create some legitimacy with some sectors and division among the parts of the class, I don’t see it as so to think that a new deal may get cut some place, a deal substantial enough to create legitimacy or what have you. Don’s piece also says that “capital’s difficulties may actually expand the potential for certain selected concessions and accommodations” which seems to me to make this same point, or at least be amenable to it.
I also don’t see the link between all this and volatility. I was born in the late 70s so all of this is way before my time, but from what I’ve read, there was increasing volatility across the US starting in the late 50s, which I believe was a pretty prosperous time for the US as a whole – and that “as a whole” is a misleading, perspective, which is sort of my point. I think the “we’re in for increased volatility” is not quite the same as “there’s a crisis on.” I don’t think I’m reading in too much here – to say that this is a major crisis of capitalism where the end of capitalism is seriously on the table (“this is capitalism’s end game”) is different from a prediction of volatility. I find the volatility prediction convincing. I’m agnostic on the end game prediction.
Don writes about the increased possibilities for particular reforms that “the ‘more’ that may appear to be possible in the emerging circumstances does not necessarily provide a basis for something categorically ‘different’ – for revolution – sometime in the future.” That seems to me to be one of the central in this piece. That seems basically right to me but here too I have an impression that the piece is suggesting some epochal shift and I’m not convinced of that. There has always been a difficult relationship between reform and revolution, as I’m sure Don and many Khukuri readers are more aware of than I am. I for one would be interested to hear if there was a prior time when Don or others think that fights for ‘more’ were better suited to fights for ‘different’ than they are now, and when and why that was.
As for base-building and so on, I really am trying to be charitable and look for an argument but I don’t see one. I see assertions. Base-building is not “capitulating to our own weakness and timidity” if the analysis that leads to “we need base-building” is correct. I know Don thinks that such analysis is wrong, because he thinks this is not the time for base-building. I’m willing to be convinced of that – my mind’s not made up, and I’m not totally sure I even know what Don means by base-building – but I need an argument in order to be convinced. Just saying “not base building” doesn’t do it for me. It’d be really helpful to have an example of a base-building perspective, because as it stands this is a bit vague who the base-builders are. I also don’t find the assertion convincing that “the more plausible precedent is that [base-building efforts would] end up contributing to the adaptive capacity of the system.” That too is, in this piece anyway, just at the level of assertion.
Another reason why it’d be good to see an actual pro-basebuilding perspective criticized here (one that’s worked out in writing, preferably, by a self-identified revolutionary) is that the distinction between “expediting the breakdown” and base building or “minimizing the pain” is a fine one in theoretical terms but … I suspect that if sketched out in more detail or in application this would be much messier when applied.
Setting all this aside, let’s say Don’s right across the board. Let’s say we’re in capitalism’s end game and we face a much greater volatility and that the very far right is at least as ready for this moment as the left both in ideas and organization. So, the stakes are tremendously high and the primary left analyses and even more so the left’s “what-is-to-be-done section[s]” are woefully inadequate. Accepting all that for the sake of argument, what next? I find the criticism here so total and the picture so bleak that if Don is right, then I for one am at a real loss. The major point underlying the implied alternative to all this is the masses are ready – which, as I alluded to above, is here no less an assumption than the mirror image assumption that Don criticizes, that the masses are not ready. Again, let’s assume Don is right about that: the masses are ready. I don’t really get what that means either. I need to see that operationalized for it to mean anything to me. What do revolutionary communists do different when we abandon base-building and reject the assumption that the masses are unready? Maybe that’s an unfairly huge question to ask. In that case, I think more detail on the perspective rejected and so on would be helpful, to start sketching out the positive practive in silhouette, by getting more detail on what the practice isn’t.
One other thing about base-building, part of why I’m confused is this – a close friend and comrade has recently written an essay calling for what he calls “intermediate level” organization. It’s up on his blog, http://anarchowhat.blogsome.com. I can’t speak for my friend, but we’re members of the same political organization and talk regularly about the activity we’re doing in our respective cities, and I’m not aware of any strong differences between us. I have some quibbles but they’re very minor as far as I can tell, primarily philosophical and stylistic differences for the most part, at least on anything relevant to this discussion.
Don and I both say we agree with this article. My understanding of the practice that follows out of the piece is that the groupings and people we have now start small fights by getting people who weren’t previously in motion to step into struggle. In the process we build strong relationships. The experiences of these struggles – the activity people do individually and together, the reactions of the powers that be against them, the relationships with us as revolutionaries and the conversations we have with them – has the potential to radicalize some of the people we work with and to have them gain greater abilities and confidence than they had before. Basically, this is a very schematic plan for existing cadre of whatever level they/we are to act in such ways that end up with more cadre. This pool of cadre will expand and shrink but tendentially the aim is both quantitative and qualitative growth – a wider pool and deeper pool, so to speak. (In all honesty, I’m not at all sure of this as a strategy for revolutionary communists. I do know that we’ve seen some satisfying and worthwhile results from this and it seems like the best we can do right now — I don’t have any better or clearer ideas or practices in mind, I haven’t run into any other arguments I find more convincing, so this is what we’re working on for the moment.)
To my mind, this activity will look a good deal similar to what I think of when I hear the phrase “base-building.” Maybe that’s not base-building and I’m using the term wrong. Either way, as I understand this proposal, it will be protracted. (That term could be unpacked too, I’m not sure how much time counts as protracted or not.) We’re not likely to grow in numbers and in quality rapidly and we’ll lose a lot. Often, the losses will be as educational as the wins, the key will be in lowering our rate of loss of cadre. I can’t tell here if I’m disagree with Don, or not. I’d like to know.
I’ve already gone on too long but I want to talk a moment about bits of Nick Paretsky;s comment. He writes that — “a crisis of the law of value, in which force increasingly substitutes for the autonomous operation of the law of value in regulating capitalist society.” I don’t know what this means. What was the autonomous operation of the law of value, prior to its substitution via force? When and where was that and how did it work, and for whom? I ask in part because I’m thinking of his comments about bourgeois democracy and exchange of equivalents, and there’s some connection here I think to the thing I mentioned above about the distribution of material concessions, though I’m not quite sure what the connection is yet. The constituency who was allowed to play the roles of free and equal agents acting out of self interest rather than force was very narrow for a very long time — formal equality for women, youth, racialized minorities, and migrants was slow in coming, and in some respects still hasn’t arrived. So I’m not convinced that we’re seeing coercion “becoming so widespread and woven into the daily experience of the relations of production” — for big chunks of the working population this widespreadness has always been the case or was long the case. As such, I think I probably have a much lower estimation of how much/what degree of “the appearance of free and equal exchange” is “a necessary aspect of capitalist production and exploitation.”
Likewise, I don’t see why having to put down some capitals (like the fossil fuel based industries he mentioned) poses such a huge problem or that this poses some threat of unleashing anti-capitalist potentials. This kind of thing has happened before. I realize the scope is significantly smaller, but it’s the only example I really know about – the introduction of workmen’s compensation took many years but once the dominos were lined up in about 12 years time the US went from no workers comp laws to 42 states having them. Before that transition there were dire predictions about class war breaking out, about depleting the national labor force, etc. The transition set smaller-scale capitalists way back compared to larger ones, and capitalists in relatively safer industries (which is part of why the associations of manufacturers backed the law). There were some arguments that this was an anti-capitalist proposal – not unlike the Glenn Beck types who see the Obama healthcare bill as the entering wedge for communism – but only from sectors of capital who saw their interests threatened (insurers, for one, who wanted to make sure they got a piece of newly created risk pools). As far as I know, there was zero popular unrest created as a result, and this in some pretty volatile times (1911-1923).
Again I know the scope is different and the parallel is questionable in all kinds of ways and I know that prior success is not a guarantee of future success (I think that’s the inductive fallacy but I’m not totally sure). I raise all this though because I think over all, maybe I’m misunderstanding, but there seems to me to be an optimistic counterpoint to the dire side of Nick and Don’s predictions – things will be bad and scary and volatile and fascists are a major threat, but at the same time capitalism especially vulnerable now. I’m not sold on that yet. More than anything else that seems to me like an interpretive stance, I’m not sure if there’s a ton of evidence either way.
[...] Hamerquist has a piece up on Khukuri on these matters. Incidentally, there’s a lot up on Khukuri that looks good, I [...]
Nick P, I wasn’t trying to speculate on the existence of a “structural crisis”, merely using it as term to describe what many writers from Harvey, to Gopal Balakhrishnan, to Don H., to the people at Monthly Review, to Wallerstein, to Samir Amin have been saying with their own unique analysis, namely that capitalism cannot continue to function in the same ways as it has before and that we are headed for something new yet undetermined in sturcture (left within a capaitalist framework)yet politically up for grabs (for rulers, fascists, and leftists). I’m not ready to critique the various ideas but just pointing out a common (or at least similar) conclusion in the diverse analysis. An interesting development in the world of theory to think about in its own right.
Nat W.: Among the list of theorists arguing some variant of “structural crisis” position, in the sense that underlying its increasingly severe cyclical crises capitalism is undergoing a more fundamental crisis as it approaches objective, outer limits, I would add Zizek, in his new book, Living in the End Times (Verso). (Maybe this has already been mentioned on this site.)
From the summary at Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/Living-End-Times-Slavoj-Zizek/dp/184467598X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1280041232&sr=1-1):
‘There should no longer be any doubt: global capitalism is fast approaching its terminal crisis. Slavoj Zizek has identified the four horsemen of this coming apocalypse: the worldwide ecological crisis; imbalances within the economic system; the biogenetic revolution; and exploding social divisions and ruptures. But, he asks, if the end of capitalism seems to many like the end of the world, how is it possible for Western society to face up to the end times? In a major new analysis of our global situation, Slavok Zizek argues that our collective responses to economic Armageddon correspond to the stages of grief: ideological denial, explosions of anger and attempts at bargaining, followed by depression and withdrawal.… After passing through this zero-point, we can begin to perceive the crisis as a chance for a new beginning. Or, as Mao Zedong put it, “There is great disorder under heaven, the situation is excellent.”…’
Yes, the “common (or at least similar) conclusion in the diverse analysis” is striking, when comparing, for example, Wallerstein with this statement from Harvey (“Organizing for the Anti-Capitalist Transition,” on this site), analyzing the crisis in terms of overaccumulation of capital: “There may be no effective long-run capitalist solutions (apart from reversion to fictitious capital manipulations) to this crisis of capitalism. At some point quantitative changes lead to qualitative shifts and we need to take seriously the idea that we may be at exactly such an inflexion point in the history of capitalism. Questioning the future of capitalism itself as an adequate social system ought, therefore, to be in the forefront of current debate.” Harvey goes on to say, “Yet there appears to be little appetite for such discussion, even among the left.” He also talks about how “a crisis of legitimacy looms.” Harvey’s proposed program for the “anti-capitalist transition” doesn’t appeal to me, but it, and his survey of the different tendencies of anti-capitalist opposition, and his argument on the continuing importance of seizing state power vs. Badiou-ian stances, may be useful for discussion.
The idea that global capitalism’s “complex” and “interdependent” structure and dynamics make it subject to “systemic failures,” “butterfly effects,” “indeterminancy,” etc. also appears in transnational ruling class discourses. I apologize for the length of the following quotations.
Here’s an excerpt from an article by two leading bourgeois theorists of globalization, one of whom, Harvard government professor Joseph Nye, is North American chairman of the Trilateral Commission: “The point is that the increasing thickness of globalism – the density of networks of interdependence – is not just a difference in degree. Thickness means that different relationships of interdependence intersect more deeply at more points. Hence, the effects of events in one geographical area, on one dimension, can have profound effects in other geographical areas, on other dimensions. As in scientific theories of “chaos,” and in weather systems, small events in one place can have catalytic effects, so that their consequences later, and elsewhere, are vast. Such systems are difficult to understand, and their effects are therefore often unpredictable. Furthermore, when these are human systems, people are often hard at work trying to outwit others, to gain an economic, social, or military advantage precisely by acting in unpredictable ways. As a result, globalism will likely be accompanied by pervasive Uncertainty. There will be continual competition between increased complexity and uncertainty, and efforts by governments, market participants, and others to comprehend and manage these increasingly complex interconnected systems.” (Robert O. Keohane, Joseph S. Nye, Spring 2000, “Globalization: What’s New?, What’s Not?, (And So What?),” Foreign Policy magazine (ProQuest data base))
Consideration of the problem can be found in a report by the World Economic Forum, Global Agenda 2010 (www.weforum.org/globalagenda2010 (HTML); http://www.weforum.org/pdf/globalagenda2010.pdf). This report was the result of a 2009 attempt to synthesize the work of WEF study groups, called “global agenda councils,” which deal with different policy arenas such as “global institutional governance,” “the future of government,” and a long list of economic, environmental, and “security” problems. “The phrase ‘risk is the new normal’ succinctly summed up” the consensus view of the study group dealing with “Mitigating Global Risks and Addressing Systemic Failures,” since “the interconnected nature of the world makes it a riskier place” (ibid, p.25). These “global risks,” which “transcend the boundaries of regions and organizations alike” and cannot be managed by “current global governance structures” (ibid, p.26), include “catastrophic risks,” “high-consequence events that have a severe impact on many aspects of populations and businesses,” which include “sudden impact” events like hurricanes and “slow burners” like financial crises and global warming (ibid, p.188). “These risks differ from their “moderate” counterparts in qualitative terms – not only in quantitative ones – and they are constantly evolving. All this requires us to be more imaginative and creative about risks. Tomorrow’s large-scale disaster is unlikely to fully resemble today’s.” (ibid). These “catastrophes impact not only those proximate to a disaster but also increasingly those removed from it, through the far-reaching global interdependencies that permeate contemporary travel, trade and finance” (ibid).
Finally, the notion that the interconnectedness and complexity of phenomena in the global capitalist system threatens to become a “buzzing mass of confusion,” or some holistic Blob, (sorry for the weak metaphors), is given prominence in the report, “Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World” (http://csis.org/files/media/csis/events/080110_grand_strategy.pdf), coauthored by a group of retired NATO defense chiefs, including General John Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and NATO supreme allied commander in Europe. “The defence and security challenges the world faces today are very serious, but are very different from the challenges we have previously known – such as those posed by Fascism or Communism. In its 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, the Pentagon called the post-9/11 global conflict the ‘Long War’ against ‘dispersed non-state networks’. This definition of the conflict reflects the scale of the threat, but not its complexity, and it does not address the means of coping with the threat. The novelty of this ‘global age’ is the way in which threats and security challenges are interlinked, e.g. energy security, climate change, information technology, financial capital flows, armed conflict, radical and Islamist terrorism, organised crime, proliferation, scarce resources, and refugee issues. All are interconnected in an unprecedented fashion. In addition, other trends act as a multiplier for specific threats. Demographic trends affect urbanisation, crime and terrorism. Climate change affects refugee issues and economic interests. Ideological trends and nationalism affect terrorism, crime and social instability. Technological change, ease of movement and interconnected economies all help to amplify local problems into regional and even global crises” (Grand Strategy,pp.41-42).
“We are not merely in a ‘long war’ against networks of terrorist or non-state actors; the West faces a complex, mutable, unstable combination of specific threats against a background of larger trends. The complexity and the interrelated character of these changing threats and trends place much of the risk beyond the scope of predictability. Given that many challenges are a part of general trends, and that specific threats can be carried out by means that are both non-military and irregular – such as cyber attack – it does not make sense to speak of a ‘war’, because to cope with the situation we need much more than military instruments alone.” (ibid, p.42)
Another interesting matter in these reports and others I’ve been looking at, concerns the dysfunctionality of the nation-state system for global capitalism, which I’ll deal with in a separate comment. There seems widespread agreement among transnational capitalist policy elites on this dysfunctionality, but there are differences over the new political arrangements required, with the World Economic Forum favoring creation of a completely new, global political structure, and some ruling class types like the NATO generals cited above, and Henry Kissinger, arguing that the core nation-states can be the platform, or building blocks, for a new world order.