From: "Greg Schofield" <g_schofield-AT-dingoblue.net.au>
Subject: Re: AUT: Re: Re: re: the real movement definition again
Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2001 10:29:40 +0800


Commie00, a very reasonable reply to Monty, I hope this sort of honest exchange is typical of this list. If my posting is out-of-place please let me know and I will desist until I have a better grasp of what is going on.

I believe an anthropologist called wolf did some studies on peasants and landlords, where he found something which simplifies aspects of this discussion. What he found was that occassionally the opression of the landlord would cause some young peasant to rebel often leading to "him" becoming the object of suppression. When this did not work, usually by the time the rebel was forced to become a bandit and met with some success, the landlord would recognise that he was a "hard-man" pay him some form of respect (no-doubt reforming his ways in some manner) and then recruit him as a an enforcer.

The pattern was so often repeated that Wolf was able to document many intsances of such carreers.

In otherwords, Reformism writ small, at the village level. Of importance is two factors, the rebellion which had social cause, the fact that the rebellion and the landlord where stuck together - afterall he could not pull up stakes and go anywhere else and to a great extent niether could the rebel (fleeing to the city is common enough escape route, but by definition there is no rebellion in this).

Only at the point when the rebel became a successful bandit (of a Robin Hood variety is not all that rare), only when the force became "extra-legal" in the sense that normal methods of oppression did not succeed was refromism become a possiblity.

In terms of social democracy, only after successful struggle did reformism become a problem. It matters very much therefore at what end of the process you look at. The successes of struggle were built on reforms, and so was reformism. In a sense the reforms themselves are of two different soughts defined by the level of struggle and the actual reforms become something of a moving target.

The next point is more relevant to us now. Reformism worked because Imperialism had homelands in which capital was stuck (like the landlord, it amy have been linked to the wider world, but it could not just get up and leave the homeland state). The bourgeoisie had to strike deals with the "rebel" leaders, and the poor level of culture and political awareness corrupted otherwise good leaders and allowed bad ones to manipulate organisational power to elevate themselves.

So we must take this aspect into account - the level of organisation, culture, politics and communications (something we can do something about). But the other thing s the collapse of reformism itself which is all too obvious. Capital is no longer locked into particular states the way it was under imperialism. Capital can and does get up and leave, it has little interest in fostering relationships with "rebel" leaders. Hence old-style reformist parties behave as soft-conservativies, contend to romance capital and act as "good" state managers for it.

There is a significant weakness now in the state, hegemony has been significiantly weakened, old-style reformism has no place to call its own, oppositional "left" politics are also thereby absurd (no good acting as the loyal opposition to reformism if reformism has dessolved).

When Monty says Marx-as-a-social democrat and we look at the beginings of social democracy rather than its end products, we are looking towards a political solution which has a long history (I would also point to the communist parties when they were most effective followed a similar approach).

So I would disagree with you that the difference is when reforms become the soul focus is the basis of reformism, reformism has always had a class basis which has little to do with the particular reforms.


Greg Schofield
Perth Australia



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From: commie00 <commie00-AT-yahoo.com>
To: aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2001 18:17:44 -0500
Subject: Re: AUT: Re: Re: re: the real movement definition again


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