From: "Dave Bedggood" <dr.bedggood-AT-auckland.ac.nz>
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 11:06:55 +0000
Subject: Re: M-TH: New Zealand


Why is it so difficult to nationalise private property Louis? 
It can only happen if those whose needs are not met under the system 
start to produce for their needs anyway and by a process of struggle 
and political development see the need to nationalise private 
property. 

There are huge black working class economies in capitalist society 
which fill in some of the subsistence needs of workers not paid for
 by wages, or social  security. The point of the earlier post is to 
show that some Maori  have started to do it by catching 
fish on customary grounds and challenging private property.
 So do those who have forced back onto the land by unemployment 
and inadequate social security. The ideological challenge to private 
property is still pre-capitalist, i.e. based on customary use of land
 and fisheries, which is why we need to extend this challenge to
all private property.

So what gives us the confidence to know that such subsistence isnt 
just simple petty capitalism struggling to become capitalist 
production? Well its easy. Because just like the original process of 
capital accumulation, this does not happen by means of individual 
accumulation of personal surplus-labour, it happens by the big 
bastards ripping off the small fry and building a capital fund.  
So there is no way that the 4th worlders, just like the 3rd worlders 
before them, can accumulate capital and join the big boys.  
Such production for use, is doomed to remain so, and to be under 
constant attack, or at least marginalisation in bantustans.  Therefore, 
it is necessary to mobilise these struggles around transitional demands 
that includes them in the wider class struggle.

To do that means having a political programme that is in advance of 
what is happening, and intervening practically at every point in the 
struggle to open up debate and develop consciousness. The only 
Marxist current with any credibility on this is Trotskyism and the 
transitional method - the ability to fight for basic needs and 
democratic rights and to take those fights all the way to socialism. 
Unlike Louis's romantic Menshie conception of history in which people 
spontaneously follow some process of filling in the gaps as they 
come to them,  Bolsheviks are there ahead of the play and have a bridge to 
put over the gap before we get to it.

Dave.

> Bedggood:
> >
> >Great! All we need now is take the principle of customary usage of 
> >land and fish based upon need to be generalised across the whole 
> >capitalist economy. That will give the bosses something to get 
> >reallly excited about. What about nationalising the land and fisheries 
> >under workers control with customary rights to Maori to use these 
> >resources? What about nationalising all resources, plus privatised 
> >state corporations without compensation, and under workers control?
> >Well to do that we have to go a bit beyound the United Tribes and aim 
> >for the United Socialist States of the Pacific. Which is another story.
> 
> This paragraph fundamentally expresses the problem of the Trotskyist
> movement. It thrives on "maximalist" politics. What is the problem? Just
> fill in the blank. What is the solution? Socialism, of course. Whether it
> is the oppression of women, gay people, ecological despoliation, etc., the
> solution is revolution. There is very little difference between this
> approach to politics and Maoist maximalism. Or Second International
> maximalism, for that matter. The only problem is that between the current
> stage of the class struggle and this solution, there is an abyss. Filling
> the abyss is the job of real revolutionary politics. It is not filled by
> singing "The Internationale."
> 
> For example, the question of "uncle tom" Tribal Councils making deals with
> corporations is easily resolved by the Trotskyist wand. Just nationalize
> the land under workers control. The problem, however, is that this formula
> simply does not relate to the existing state of consciousness or level of
> struggle.
> 
> And what is the reality of indigenous struggles? All over the world,
> land-based peoples are confronted by the same reality. There are mineral
> deposits and oil on their lands that corporations want to exploit. Within
> the tribes, there tend to be two conflicting needs: one, to sign deals with
> the corporations so that royalty payments can benefit the tribe; two, to
> preserve the traditional relationship to nature on ancestral lands. It is
> within these two contradictory poles that real politics is being played out
> all over the world. By the way, it is bullshit to assume that making deals
> with corporations only benefits the elites. The Blackfeet Tribal Bank, the
> first such bank in the country, was funded 95% by oil royalty payments. It
> now makes low-interest loans to Indians, who used to be discriminated
> against by white-owned banks. In NYC, the Amalgamated Bank was started by
> trade unions for the same exact purpose.
> 
> Bedggood's call for socialism is not so much wrong, but besides the point.
> Socialism will not come about because small groups propagandize for it. It
> does not take much intelligence to argue for the superiority of socialism.
> Pamphlets like the American SWP's "America's Road to Socialism" always
> served a useful purpose when you were trying to recruit fresh blood. But it
> doesn't advance the class struggle to simply repeat the sorts of formulae
> contained in such a pamphlet.
> 
> Especially, when your are dealing with the dilemma-laden politics of
> indigenous peoples. These are peoples who fundamentally share a
> precapitalist ethos, but who are faced by capitalist encroachment. Dogmatic
> Marxism really has nothing to say to people with such a precapitalist ethos
> except, "Get over it--get with the program--join the working class." No
> wonder this message falls on deaf ears.
> 
> 
> Louis Proyect
> 
> 
> 
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