Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1996 12:40:49 +0000
From: m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se (Hugh Rodwell)
Subject: M-G: "can afford" vs "want to afford"


Adam R makes a remark I think we should consider a bit more carefully. He
writes:

>I think the French bosses have already made more concessions than
>they can afford.

Writing "can afford" here instead of "want to afford" makes a big difference.

It makes constraints on capitalist freedom to manoeuvre *objective* and
lifts them out of the social and political arena.

The obvious question to ask here, is how come they can't afford concessions
today, but *could* and *did* afford them in the aftermath of World War 2?

To put the question is to answer it.

The relationship of class forces made it necessary to institute concessions
in the shape of welfare reforms etc after the war. The capitalists were
desperate to head off the threat of revolution in the capitalist
heartlands. The resurgence of working class militancy today is once more
tilting the balance of forces in the favour of the working class and
forcing concessions that the bourgeoisie has been touting as unfeasible --
the classical bourgeois formulation is Thatcher's "There Is No
Alternative".

The cutbacks and other attacks are dictated by the political will of the
bourgeoisie, not by rigid economic necessity. (The bourgeoisie *chooses* to
obey the "impersonal" dictates of capital.) Left to their own devices, the
processes of capitalist reproduction tend to obey laws of natural economic
development, but they are by their very nature embedded in society and
subject to political intervention. It is the contradiction between their
immanent laws of development (maximizing profit at any cost) and humanity's
need and ability to consciously control social production that produces the
friction leading to the conflicts and conflagrations we see all around us.

So please, no more "can afford" or "can't afford". It's a question of "want
to afford", and that's where we can get them politically!

Cheers,

Hugh







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