"To Begin With..." [Redefining the minimum program]

[Die Neue Zeit]

"TO BEGIN WITH... (http://www.revleft.com/vb/begin-redefining-minimum-t90683/index.html)" (original thread)



“Proceeding from these principles, the Social Democratic Party of Germany demands, to begin with [...]” (Eduard Bernstein)



Yes, those words were written by Eduard Bernstein, the official spokesperson and theoretician of “yellow” (non-class-strugglist) tred-iunionisty and equally “yellow” bureaucratic careerists in the international proletariat’s first vanguard party, the then-Marxist Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD). Although many Trotskyists and other “anti-capitalists” prefer the transitional and directional methods, respectively [...] the modern conditions for open class struggle (or the relative lack thereof) are such that Social-Labourists should indeed consider Lenin’s own evaluation, in 1899, of the overly maligned Erfurt Program of the SPD:

We are not in the least afraid to say that we want to imitate the Erfurt Programme: there is nothing bad in imitating what is good, and precisely today, when we so often hear opportunist and equivocal criticism of that programme, we consider it our duty to speak openly in its favour. Imitating, however, must under no circumstances be simply copying.

What was said above was in fact a defense of the minimum-maximum programmatic approach against minimalists like Bernstein (who indeed authored the oppositionist “minimum” section of the Erfurt Program) who in fact rejected this approach (hence minimalism). In my earlier work, however, I deemed this original programmatic approach by Marx, Engels, and Kautsky to be problematic. Minimum programs were historically interpreted as being only on the threshold (that is, the maximum that could possibly be achieved under bourgeois capitalism, or, using the language of game theory, the most rudimentary interpretation of the concept of maximin in regards to programmatic questions), and sometimes included the hard-to-categorize demands for the conquest of specifically political power by the working class (i.e., “the democratic republic,” “soviet power,” and now class-strugglist democracy and the demarchic commonwealth). With the historical development of bourgeois capitalism, the second theoretical founder of “participatory economics,” Robin Hahnel, countered this static programmatic interpretation best:

In sum, any reform can be fought for in ways that diminish the chances of further gains and limit progressive change in other areas, or fought for in ways that make further progress more likely and facilitate other progressive changes as well.

On the other hand, those Trotskyists who adhere to “transitional” sloganeering have abandoned the aforementioned static interpretation and complemented their static “transitional” sloganeering with a vulgar, defensive, and ultimately economistic interpretation of oppositionist “minimum” demands (minimin) taken straight from the Second International minimalists, of whom Kautsky said in The Road to Power:

The reformers dream of the establishment of social peace between the classes, between exploited and exploiters, without abolishing exploitation. They would bring this about by having each class exercise a certain self-restraint toward the other, and by the giving up of all “excesses” and “extreme demands.”

In between the two extremes stands a method that is dynamic (or broadly directional) yet structural and oppositionist. Part of this method coincides with some of the minimax “ideals” of even the most structurally interventionist of “social-democrats,” while a larger part already goes beyond them, but which in its entirety facilitates the issuance of either intermediate or threshold demands later (the “Hahnel criterion,” per the note below) on while simultaneously enabling the basic principles to be “kept consciously in view” (to quote Kautsky, hence the reference to this criterion as the “Kautsky criterion” for the sake of this work) – through the emphasis on transnational class struggle in this method, specifically transnational pressure for legislative implementation (and not regulation by hardly accountable regulators) and politico-ideological independence for the working class.

[Note: For the sake of this work I will refer to the facilitating of the issuance of intermediate and threshold demands as the “Hahnel criterion.” This is due to Hahnel’s criticism of the “non-reformist reforms” precedent established by one Andre Gorz, notwithstanding the pareconist’s own misjudgment on the “full Keynesian program” (in fact “bastard Keynesianism” in the eyes of more radical Neo-Ricardians or Post-Keynesians such as Joan Robinson, Paul Davidson, Hyman Minsky, and Steve Keen) as being reform-enabling.]

Some of these demands are so dynamic that they transcend the political-economic divide of traditional “minimum” demands. The rest of this lengthy chapter will examine, on the basis of the Hahnel and Kautsky criteria provided above, various dynamic oppositionist demands.



http://www.revleft.com/vb/32-hour-workweek-t88097/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/class-strugglist-assembly-t99908/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/right-bear-arms-t113782/index.html?p=1506576
http://www.revleft.com/vb/local-autonomy-and-t106241/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/party-recallable-closed-t94427/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/against-personal-inheritance-t106772/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/socio-income-democracy-t92929/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/progress-poverty-and-t100661/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/abolition-indirect-and-t117359/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/right-city-t130974/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/sliding-scale-wages-t98609/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/private-sector-collective-t124045/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/class-based-affirmative-t133944/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/education-and-experience-t133376/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/worker-buyouts-t88629/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/do-we-address-t109089/index.html?p=1476266

(Corporate personhood and intellectual property commentary deliberately omitted)



REFERENCES:

Program of a New Type: Dynamic Minimum-Reformist-Revolutionary [http://www.revleft.com/vb/program-new-type-t83818/index.html]

Programme of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany (Erfurt Programme) by Karl Kautsky and Eduard Bernstein [http://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/1891/erfurt-program.htm]

A Draft of Our Party Programme by Vladimir Lenin [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dec/draft.htm]

Fighting For Reforms Without Becoming Reformist by Robin Hahnel [http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/6588]

The Road to Power by Karl Kautsky [http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1909/power/ch03.htm]

[gilhyle]

What I dont get is what are the positive criertia for the selection of the key demands.

What happens in practice in a lot of unprincipled left politics is the selection of a slogan on the basis that it allows the 'left' to combine while dividing that left from the more right wing. THus, for example, slogans like one I saw recently "We need a 24 hour strike" to fight the cuts are purely opportunistic with no substantive content.

By contrast, the trotskyist perspective at least says that what defines the transitional demands is the articulation of what the working class NEEDs - irrespective of whether captialism can deliver or not. Thus it has positive criteria - need - to determine what it articulates.

That most trotskyism has honoured this methodology only in the breach and that the methodology of transitional demands has become redundant is not the point. The point is that it is intellectually coheren, whereas the Kautskyist methodology is only schematic.

Fine to say that the minimum demands must allow the ultimate goal to be kept in mind. But this reduces the process of struggle to a mere standing of illustration and illumination. The objective character of struggle, the requirement that struggle be class struggle, i.e. that it be a focused struggle by the class to achieve concrete outcomes which suit its needs, that is lost.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Fine to say that the minimum demands must allow the ultimate goal to be kept in mind. But this reduces the process of struggle to a mere standing of illustration and illumination. The objective character of struggle, the requirement that struggle be class struggle, i.e. that it be a focused struggle by the class to achieve concrete outcomes which suit its needs, that is lost.

Huh? :confused:

If you read at least some of those links or re-read my e-mailed paper, you'll note that one of the basic principles is class struggle.

The basic principles to be kept in view simultaneously are Class Strugglism, Social Labour, Transnational Emancipation, and Partiinost ("Party-ness"). That each of these demands require class strugglism already keeps that first principle "consciously in view."

[gilhyle]

I am of course gulty of not reading links - I bow my head in unrepentant shame.

Having done that :cool:.....let me just reiterate the point as clearly as I can: the difficulty is not that there are no criteria for choice, but that as long as the choice is about keeping the goal consciously in view, the conception of politics is essentially mystical. Thomas a Kempis could be cited as precedent.

My point is to set out an alternative perspective in which it is not the point of revolutionary politics to keep the outcome in mind through the diversions of reformist politics. Such a view succumbs to the temptation to treat a socialist society as a goal, which it is not - it is an outcome.

That it might be a goal for me personally does not make it a goal for the movement. For the movement the goal is what is best for the currently living class. The overthrow of capitalism is a mere abstraction.....however, our historical analysis suggests that if we consistently fight for the self interest of the currently living working class we will -incidentally - be required in time to conspire to overthrow the ruling class as our class becomes increasingly militant and canot be restrained from conflict which must end either in its defeat or the overthrow of the dominant class.

That is a very different thing from promoting a minimum programme which allows us also to 'keep in mind' an ultimate goal. What I am suggesting is that our ultimate goal that we must keep in mind is just the current best interests of the working class as a whole. No other goal should be kept in mind - although other outcomes may come to mind.

[Die Neue Zeit]

What happens in practice in a lot of unprincipled left politics is the selection of a slogan on the basis that it allows the 'left' to combine while dividing that left from the more right wing.


That it might be a goal for me personally does not make it a goal for the movement. For the movement the goal is what is best for the currently living class. The overthrow of capitalism is a mere abstraction.....however, our historical analysis suggests that if we consistently fight for the self interest of the currently living working class we will -incidentally - be required in time to conspire to overthrow the ruling class as our class becomes increasingly militant and canot be restrained from conflict which must end either in its defeat or the overthrow of the dominant class.

That is a very different thing from promoting a minimum programme which allows us also to 'keep in mind' an ultimate goal. What I am suggesting is that our ultimate goal that we must keep in mind is just the current best interests of the working class as a whole. No other goal should be kept in mind - although other outcomes may come to mind.

For some reason, the link on "Private-Sector Collective Bargaining Representation as a Free Legal Service (http://www.revleft.com/vb/private-sector-collective-t124045/index.html)" ("The wholesale absorption of all private-sector collective bargaining representation into free legal services by independent government agencies acting in good faith and subjecting their employees to full-time compensation being at or slightly lower than the median equivalent for professional and other skilled workers" - in short, "socialized" business unionism) seems to address your two posts.

"Combine and divide" is a clear maneuver here. At least some non-unionized workers like what I suggested, but unionized public-sector workers (whom this demand doesn't address) don't like it. However, this demand is in the interests of the current living class of which you speak, even if there is intentional cynicism in "acting in good faith."

[gilhyle]

I dont doubt for a moment that you give certain regard to actual struggles. That is not the point. The point is to draw attention to the weakness of the concept of keeping the goal in mind. The closest analogy I can think of to this idea is Thomas Aquinas' 'Knowledge-Mysticism' in which knowledge of why things are as they are illuminates the practice of life in a way that keeps it on the right path.

Even in religious terms this concept is shallow and in relation to Marxism, it leads to just the kind of subjectivism which came to marr Kautskys balanced and sensible perspective. Faith in the goal, knowledge of it does not guide - that is the point.

Thus, it is true: the activity of class struggle is everything, the goal of socialism is nothing !

[Die Neue Zeit]

Thus, it is true: the activity of class struggle is everything, the goal of socialism is nothing !

So how does that explain the gross problems of Mao's Mass Line, or of aggressively pursuing defensive struggles while not pushing for better reforms?

BTW, my opinion is that Bernstein's assertion is correct only to the extent that there is a proletarian or worker-class movement and not a mere labour movement. Recall my "PNNC" abbreviation for Proletarian-Not-Necessarily-Communist: formation of the proletariat into a class for itself, replacing bourgeois hegemony with proletarian hegemony, and conquest of all ruling-class political power (policy-making, legislation, administration, and other measures based on the political features of the Paris Commune and more) by the proletariat.

The pre-orthodox minimum program of Marx (before it was lost by Kautsky, Lenin, and all) called exactly for the above:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/class-strugglist-democracy-t112390/index.html

[gilhyle]

So how does that explain the gross problems of Mao's Mass Line, or of aggressively pursuing defensive struggles while not pushing for better reforms

Im not sure why I would want to explain Mao's Mass line any other way than by reference to the dynamic of the unfolding of Stalinist power struggles

As to a militant defensive working class which does not pursue better reforms....I don't see the problem. A working class which aggresively defends itself is the goal !

My knowledge of history and politics (Thanks to Karl) tells me that aggresive defence of itself will lead the working class, inescapably, into the political realm, since only at that level - within capitalism - does the working class as a whole have a concrete existence. But that is only my observation.

My knowledge of history and politics also tells me that given the tendency of the rate of profit to fall and the indeterminacy of the split between wages and profits within capitalist production, a militantly defensive working class will lead to a situation where the socialisation of production is the only reasoanble way forward.

But Im not writing cook books for the future.

Damm ! a militantly defensive working class - if only we had the problems of such a reality !