Date: Thu, 28 Nov 1996 14:03:05 -0000 From: Adam Rose <Adam-AT-pmel.com> Subject: M-I: Base and Superstructure, the London hanged chapter 6, Stalinism, the world economy today, the French Drivers Strike . . . ---------- Gary writes: > The disagreements with Adam really have to do with notions of determination and > totality. He coming from a semi-anarchistic tradition is rather weak on the > notion of determination of the superstructure by the base. Adam I think > seems to be working from a notion of power, where the ruling class will do > anything and almost can do anything to maintain their class rule even if > that means destroying the very basis of that rule. > > This is a big subject and it needs the kind of careful analysis that I > cannot give it now. > > Overall on the question of determination I tend to a rather Raymond > Williams' version where the base sets limits and creates tendencies rather > than writes the superstructure. [ Well, I'd rather be a semi - anarchist than a vulgar materialist :-). ] i) My description of capitalism as an irrational system is a materialist one. This applies to the basic dynamic of capitalism itself : it is "rational" for one capitalist to increase his profits, but this "rational" act produces a fall in the overall rate of profit, including his own. It also applies to any alliance between capitalists - two or more capitalists may find that because they have complementary interests, that they are able to agree with each other sufficiently to make political alliances. But ANY such alliance is riven with contradiction - the closer any two capitalists are in their position in the economy, the more cut throat the competition between them will be. Thus a materialist analysis of capitalism must be dialectical, not just because we prefer it to be dialectical, but because capitalism itself is riven with contradiction. To give an example, the French hate John Major for his Euro scepticism. They want Britain in the Euro. Why ? Because they're sick of Britain devaluing the pound and getting a competitive advantage. They've endured years of an artificially high franc, and it's knackering them. They want Britain in the Euro in order to PREVENT Britain gaining access to European markets. Their Europeanism is also anti "Rostbif" ism. My ( materialist, and dialectical ) point is that Australia's "Asianism" is seen by Australian bosses as a means of wiping out their Asian competition, not as some friendly cooperation treaty. Hence your argument "Australian bosses interests are pan Asian, therefore they are opposed to anti - Asian racism" is not materialist and not dialectical. You have abstracted a theory from one aspect ( "moment" ) of material reality, not from the contradictory whole of that reality. As I said before, this may or may not have led you to correct conclusions - I'm not Australian, I can't judge this - but your method is wrong. ii) Hence my disagreement with the basic idea of "synchronous" and "non synchronous" trends / parties / people. If I am not charicaturing too much, you seem to indentifty "synchronous" with Thatcherite free market capitalism, and "non synchronous" with authoritarian "populist" strong state racism and protectionism. Again, the grounding of my critique of this idea is first of all a materialist one : it completely underestimates the role of the state in contemporary capitalism. The state is still crucial to capital - not simply in its role as providing "armed bodies of men" to crush workers when they rebel, but in mobilising its economic and political resources to create the conditions in which capital accumulation can take place. Unfortunately, I am not in a position to give concrete examples of this from Australian economic life, so I shall give British ones. Japanese, and recently Korean, chip fabrication plants have recently been built in Britain. The Tories claim this as a success for free market Thatcherism. In fact, the British state has provided an educated work force, clean(ish) water, a transport infrastructure, millions of pounds of state aid and POLITICAL PROTECTION in the trade negotiations in the EC. As the sheer size and complexity of each individual investment made by multi national capital increases, the necessity for state support has increased over the last few years, not decreased. The consequence of this is that free market Thatcherism is as "irrational" or "non synchronous" as undiluted authoritarianism. The real world is a contradictory mass of complementary and competing tendencies : both towards and away from a welfare state, towards and away from globalisation, regionalisation, and the protection of "national" champions, towards and away from large scale class confrontation, towards and away from war WITHIN each trade bloc. The descent into war is a perfectly "rational" and "synchronous" aspect of today's capitalism, and the Asia - Pacific region, Australia included, is leading the way in this respect - look at the arms build up in the region, at least as "rational" and "synchronous" as open trading across barrierless borders. What, after all, is more rational than using your political and/or military muscle to increase market share ? iii) I have tried to outline my idea of the "base" as a set of complementary and competing tendencies. What impact does this have on "the superstructure" ? Gary commends "Raymond Williams' version where the base sets limits and creates tendencies rather than writes the superstructure". As this sentence stands, I think it allows too much self determination to the superstructure. I hold this position at the same time as having a non determinist view of history. [ Gary meanwhile manages to hold to a determinist view of history while simultaneously allowing the superstructure more freedom ! ] The reason I can hold both these views is that I see the actual real live struggle between and within classes, between real men and women, as what determines how things turn out. It is our everyday practice which creates and also resolves the apparent contradiction between necessity and contigency. A few historical examples : i) From Peter Linebaugh's "The London Hanged" Chapter Six. Sometimes we can arrive at a view of the development of market relations as something which arrived as the natural consequence of the laws of capital. While this is of course true, we must not forget that real people really related to each other in different, older, ways, and that the capitalists fought bloody battles with proletarians and plebians in order to inflict these new market relations upon them. Linebaugh starts by the seemingly innocent observation that there was a disproportionately high number of butchers amongst the people hanged at Tyburn in the 1700's in England. He then relates this to the changes going in the delivery of protein to London, ie the meat trade. The old market, the covered market, was designed precisely in order to bring producers into a direct relationship with consumers, unmediated by hucksters ie people who bought cheaply and early in the day in order to create a market shortage and sell later in the day at a high price. This old system was swept away in the 1700's. The "free market" ie markets that were "free" from the regulation of the city authorities, and therefore "open" to the hucksters, ruined the small independent plebian butchers by squeezing their margins. This led butchers to highway robbery. Highway robbery basically meant following the circuit of the commodity, in this case animals, to the point at which money changed hands, and liberating the money from its owner, at the appropriate time and place. This robbery was popularly sanctioned. The hucksters had stolen from the producers and the consumers what was rightly theirs, and the butchers were taking it back. The butchers knew where the animals were fattened after the long journey from the country before they were brought to market - the common lands around London. After their robberies, they hid in these common lands ( one of which, the Harrow Weald, still survives as common land, and is near where I grew up ). Dick Turpin "was the son of an Essex Farmer. He attended a common school and completed an apprenticeship to a Whitechapel BUTCHER". All the legends of Dick Turpin are essentially a record of this period of struggle between plebians and capitalists over the introduction of the "free" market. The finance capitalists responded in two ways : firstly, to cut down the trees near the roads, and enclose as much of the commons as possible; secondly, to change the means of payment. The idea behind changing the means of payment was to separate in time and space the transfer of the commodity >from the transfer of the money. The producer came to the dealer and handed over the cattle. The transaction was recorded in a book, and a receipt issued. Later, perhaps days later, the receipt was exchanged for cash. The dealer could keep these accounts - or, the accounts could be held in one place, all together - ie A BANK. In other words, the needs of the class struggle forced the capitalists to improvise. This institutional improvisation forced on them as a result of the class struggle led to further commodification, and enhanced the further separation of toilers from their produce. Banks, accounts, and wide roads were the result of this struggle between classes. [ And this tendency is continuing today - nowadays, I hardly ever use cash. I rarely even use a cheque - such primitive instruments are reserved for the corrner shop, the newsagent, weekend bread + breakfasts, and contributing to the Socialist Worker appeal. ] ii) The Birth of State Capitalism in Russia ( From Riemann's "The Birth of Stalinism in Russia" ). [ I have thrown in this one just to annoy all the out and out Stalinists, soft Stalinists, and people who make concessions to Stalinists, just too make sure I am my in normal splendid minority of one ! ) Sometimes when we look at Stalinism, even after its collapse, it strikes us as some incredible monolith. Indeed, to the people in the slave camps. It must have seemd that way. But the interesting thing about the birth of Stalinism in Russia in 1928 was that it came out of particular constellation of multiple crises. Stalin did not wake up and say "ah ! today I think I'll atomise the working class and destroy the peasantry in order to build up Russian state capital". The rapid industrialisation, and the consequent attack on the peasantry and the working class, was a solution to the increasing resistance of the peasantry. the increased militancy of the working class, the continuous pressure from the Imperialists, and the worrying rise of the opposition. But it was a solution Stalin stumbled upon, not some planned thing. One particular advantage was that it completely wrong footed the mainly Trotskyist opposition ( which had about 10,000 supporters ) , preventing them from tapping into the upturn in workers militancy at the time. iii) France Today and the Euro. The plans for European Economic and Monetary union are in the balance with the current lorry drivers strike, and the medium term battle between French bosses and French workers, of which this strike is merely one episode. There are splits in all the European ruling classes about the wisdom of the strategy. At present in France and Germany the balance is in favour of monetary union, but with some grave worries. IF the French bosses win this medium term battle, then French capital will be able to survive under the Euro. If they lose, it is by no means obvious that monetary union is viable. A precondition to union is a successful assault on precisely the issues they have already conceded on : working hours and retirement age. The mass of contradictory pressures will be resolved in one way if the French bosses win, and another if they lose. I do not believe I am exaggerating to say that the culmination of 40 years of European capital's strategy is at stake in last year's strikes, the lorry drivers now, and the inevitable strikes in the near future ie this year, next year and the year after. In other words, what is "rational" or "synchronous" for the French ruling class in terms of its position in the European order is being decided now on the streets of France. I shall now collapse in a heap, exhausted. Adam. Adam Rose SWP Manchester Britain. --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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