From: "Dave Bedggood" <dr.bedggood-AT-auckland.ac.nz>
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 15:10:27 +0000
Subject: Re: M-TH: reforms? (was: 40 Years After Little Rock)


Jukka wrote:

> Ralph wrote:
> 
> " The whole history of socialism in the bourgeois democracies is not 
> to wait around for revolutionary change and ignore the struggle for 
> reforms, (...) but to strongarm the capitalist state into making 
> those reforms it otherwise resists. " 
> 
> And that's the problem. After the crash of the soviet system 
> socialist ideology don't sell. There's no such alternative on earth 
> that could seem to be a serious enemy (as soviet system with its 
> western allies, left parties): Bourgeoisie isn't (don't have to be) 
> afraid anymore - they don't have to accept reforms (as if smaller 
> evil than socialism that could come if they don't accept some 
> reforms). On the contrary, reforms they let social democrats and 
> communists do in the old days have been cancelled recently to a 
> certain degree (applies to Europe, at least). Well, I know, in 
> certain countries that began much earlier than 1990... NZ... 
> 
> Besides, in contemporary ideological situation (or cynical mood, if 
> you like) any real reformist-like alternative is seen as somehow 
> laughable, utopian, daydreaming... General shift to the right is a 
> fact. People live (relatively) tougher times than 20 years ago, and 
> yet they are geared more towards right than yesterday. And that has 
> made left parties to turn to right: commies are today (ideologically) 
> social democrats and socdem's are just another liberal party 
> (whatever) - compare: Labour in UK. Talking about welfare reforms? 
> Talk about resisting the 'deconstruction' of welfare state... The 
> whole idea of offensive is today somehow dubious, I'm afraid. 
> Especially when the left is fragmented into more or less 
> insignificant groups that mainly concentrate to each others only. 
> Tell me that I'm totally wrong... 
> 
> How you would get out of that impasse? That's the real question. 
> 
This indeed is THE question. Jukka is right to point to the nature of 
the period and the historic defeat of the USSR.  That's what makes 
the debates on these lists, while not central to the struggles that 
are going on, at least relevant or irrelevant. 

Its the question of what do we do to rebuild the socialist movement 
after the fall. Jukka is responding to Ralph's scathing criticism of 
the Spartacist line on Little Rock 40 years after. This is also a good
 test of the argument we are having on this list of the role of socialist morality. 

Ralph has a point, the Spartacist line was ultra left. It mistook the 
possibilities for workers to carry the fight for racial integration straight to a 
battle for state power. 40 years ago,  in the middle of the post-war 
boom and the Cold War, this was ultra-left. There was no way that the 
working class could by itself enforce racial integration. 

But the Sparts were correct to condemn those who welcomed 
the intervention of the state forces to forcibly integrate the races because 
this created illusions in the ability of the capitalist state to solve the problem of 
racism. At that time it was correct to call on workers self-defence to 
physically defend integration, because this did not substitute the 
bosses state for the working class. But it was also necessary to push 
for reforms by demanding that the state deliver social spending to 
provide for jobs, education and social welfare etc. That is, to 
deliver  the material means of equality. To the extent 
that access to equal opportunity could not be guaranteed by the 
working class, and meant calling on the state to defend civil rights, 
this was also a legitimate demand of the state. But it had to be made 
in such a way as to draw attention to, and  expose the ultimate 
inability of the state to enforce civil rights. 

The only way this could be done was to raise the consciousness of 
workers beyond that of civil rights. That is, the level of radical 
justice that Justin has been arguing is necessary to motivate the 
fight for socialism. For in itself civil rights presuppose bourgeois 
right, and the bourgeois state, and therefore bourgeois class rule.
It was necessary therefore to put forward a programme that joined up 
the struggle for reforms, and legitimate demands on the state, with 
the struggle to expose and ultimately to overthrow the state. And 
this programme is not one of socialist morality, but of socialist 
theory and practice under the leadership of a vanguard party.

The problem with Ralph's reaction to the Spartacist position, 
he writes off the vanguard as necessarily ultra-left, and  credits the 
bourgeois state driven by spontaneous working class struggle for 
the civil rights reforms.  He doesnt appear to  draw the conclusion that the 
Spartacist mistakes must be overcome in building a new vanguard to 
take the struggle from limited reforms to socialism. It is all too easy, as do 
the mesheviks over on menshevik-international,  or Jukka appears to 
do, write off  or at least question our ability to  build a revolutionary party 
today  on the grounds that it failed in the past, or that revolutionaries
 are too divided and weak. While these arguments have 
some basis in reality, they become one-sided recipes for fatalism and 
demoralisation if not approached from a Marxist standpoint.

The great advantage that revolutionaries have today is that despite 
the current reactionary period, we have the advantage of knowing that 
capitalism has developed according to Marx's analysis, and today is 
more crisis ridden and destructive than ever. Part of our tradition is 
recognising also that vanguard parties did not fail, they were blocked by 
treacherous anti-worker  currents within the workers movement. 
 Given this objective reality, we are bound to put all our efforts into 
building a subjective socialist movement.  This means clearing all the old 
debris of social democracy, menshevism, neo-stalinism, and ethical 
socialism out of the way. Because all of these anti-worker currents are 
expressions of bourgeois ideology transmitted into the working class 
via the petty bourgeois intellegentsia.

On these lists the struggle against menshevism has developed to the 
point where the neo-stalinsts have split first to the Lenin list, and 
now by purging a number of us, to the menshevik-international list. 
But this does not mean that the fight against menshevism is won. Its 
hardly begun. There is an inevitable pull to the right in a 
reactionary period, and many former socialists are retreating to a 
mini-max generic menshevism where they defend bourgeois democracy 
as their minimum programme, and postpone the struggle for socialism 
until some future date. 

The reason why these currents have to be removed is that unevitably 
as capitalism staggers from crisis to crisis, these menshevik 
socialists will try to contain workers struggles to the  defence of 
bourgeois democracy, or  advocate only distributional or 
exchange-based reforms.  Capitalist corruption, finance capital, the 
first world etc  become the enemies of the peopl, instead of the 
international capitalist class.. But because thisradical democracy 
raises expectations but is not tied to transitional demands which raise 
the question of socialist revolution, when they come up against the
 limits of bourgeois economy and state to deliver, they can be easily
sidetracked into chauvinism and ultimately fascism. 

This is why the argument with Justin about socialist morality is 
important. It echoes the debate some months back on how workers fight 
fascism. Workers defend bourgeois democracy not out of any commitment 
to bourgeois right, but as a tactic to exploit the contradicition 
between bourgeois right and bourgeois exploitation.  So long as 
workers can gain strength from using bourgeois institutions it is 
tactically necessary to to do. But we do not advocate absolute rights 
to anybody, least of all fascists, to whom we deny both the right of 
free speech and assembly. 

Similarly, we defend bourgeois right, or civil rights in the case of 
the Little Rock example, as a tactic only as a means of building the 
movement and exposing their limits. These limits are that bourgeois right,
 or justice- that each is equal in the market as buyers and sellers 
of commodities at their value - is in contradiction with,  not some objective
 universal criterion of human justice,  but with the ability of capitalism to 
meet the most basic needs of workers to survive. Only a programme 
which represents the necessary steps workers have to take from the 
defence of democracy through jobs for all, and then all  the way 
to the seizure of powe,r is capable of getting rid of capitalism.

One other point. James H has argued that Marx has some overarching 
moral notion of human progress.  I agree with this. I would express 
this as the conservation of labour-time [nature] or the reduction of necessary 
labour time. But this is a general abstraction derived from Marx's 
first hand analysis of capitalism. As a general abstraction it has 
not social force other than a moral sentiment detached form material 
reality. It is important to have it otherwise we would not be able to 
judge what is progressive about human history. But such a general 
moral conception does not motivate the struggle for socialism. It can 
only attach itself to material foundations upon the emergence of 
a socialist mode of production when necessary labour-time becomes 
transparent. 

Dave.

Dave Bedggood


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