Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 15:01:45 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: AUT: re: grundrisse etc discussion


Rakesh: I think we see things very differently. Comments below.

On Wed, 16 Sep 1998, Rakesh Bhandari wrote:

> I think this can be read as a reply to Harry. 
> 
> I think the focus on the subjective can become solipsistic. No person
> can decide on her own to engage in revolutionary action. 

Rakesh: "solipsism: a theory holding that the self can know nothing but
its own modifications and that the self is th eonly existent thing." I
fail to see what this has to do with what we have been talking about
--which has not been focused on individuals but on class.

> Martrydom is of
> course an individual choice; the subjective decision to make revolutionary
> pronouncements or to support at the cost of personal ridicule failed
> or doomed resistance is also not objectively revolutionary. 

Rakesh: Ditto.
> 
>  Ultimately  no group of workers at a single site can
> make such a decision either. 

Rakesh: Wht is this supposed to mean? If it means particular groups 
of workers can't struggle then I can't take it seriously. If it means that
they can't overthrow capitalism all by themselves, that is obvious.  The
interesting questions it seems to me concern the circulation of struggle
among sectors of the class. It is a fact that at certain moments
"isolated" struggles set in motion a much wider range of struggle and are
thus no longer isolated. I suspect the processes of revolution which will
succeed in overthowing capitalism are precisely of this kind.


> Only if objective crisis conditions are such
> that workers everywhere can *trust* that other workers are willing to
> create a cooperative society will any group of workers be the first 
> to attempt factory and property seizures. 

Rakesh: The above statement seems to me to have been flatly contradicted
by most revolutionary experiences. No where that I know anything about has
the revolutionary uprising of "one group" of workers been contingent upon
their being convinced that all the rest would follow. Moreover, your
evocation of "a cooperative society" sounds like traditional visions of a
singular socialist post-capitalist society which is not what I think most
people are fight for, and never will.

> Workers must trust that other
> workers deem the situation bad enough to attempt the most dangerous of
> acts--revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeoisie. No group of workers can
> or will  risk such action unless they think other workers are so
> predisposed and their action will inspire like action. And this confidence
> cannot be had unless not only there has been a certain objective breakdown
> in the reproduction of capitalist social relations but also workers can
> see for themselves  that the bourgeoisie is objectively weakened enough
> that it can be overthrown. 
> 
Rakesh: I can't see that the addition or substraction of the word
"objectively" adds or substracts anything from the above statement. And my
previous statment applies as well. What do yo think is an "objective"
breakdown? "objectively" weakened? Sounds like a jargon word inserted
instead of "real" or "substantial" or "really", or substantially."

> Moreover unless we are confident that capitalism will create such
> objective breakdown conditions in which groups of workers have a great
> chance of being able  inspire each other to undertake revolutionary
> actions, we will--despite our pronouncements--give up on the working class
> and start tailing anything that moves, though much of that movement has no
> objective possibility of actually overthrowing capitalism. 

Rakesh: Speak for yourself. I have no confidence what so ever in your
"objective breakdown conditions" by I am not about to "give up" on myself
and the rest of the working class. On the contrary because I see
captialist crisis as a crisis of class relations brought on by workers
struggles, I think that waiting around of "objective" conditions won't
help much, better to get on with producing those conditions through our
struggles. 
> 
> What theory can clarify--other than the recurrence of objective crisis
> conditions even in the citadels of capitalism-- is the likely consequences
> of the working class failing to take advantage of its few opportunities
> for revolutionary overthrow. And that consequence is of course unimagined
> barbarities. 
> 
> objectivistically yours, rakesh
> 
Rakesh: Yes, very objectivistically, indeed. I wonder why you bother with
this list which has so few objectivists, if any, besides yourself?

Harry
............................................................................
Harry Cleaver
Department of Economics
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712-1173  USA
Phone Numbers: (hm)  (512) 478-8427
               (off) (512) 475-8535   Fax:(512) 471-3510
E-mail: hmcleave-AT-eco.utexas.edu
Cleaver homepage: 
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/index.html
Chiapas95 homepage:
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/chiapas95.html
Accion Zapatista homepage:
http://www.utexas.edu/students/nave/
............................................................................



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