Help me dialectically understand the issue of reform and revolution

[Saullos]

I was thinking today that reform is fundamentally flawed because it produces quantitative results, and that qualitative change can only arise from revolution.

The problem though, is that quantitative changes create qualitative results. Does reform cause revolution? My experiences and understanding would lead me to believe not. Right now, my only way of reconciling this contradiction would be what could be called, "negative dialectics", although I think my term carries a different meaning than Adorno's does. My "negative dialectics" involves that negative, or harmful, quantitative change creates revolution and qualitative change.

Can anyone help me out? I can't really find any writings on this matter, though I could've sworn I had read something that had explained this.

[Proletarian Ultra]

Reform only comes about through class struggle.

That is why reformism is bunk. It does not actually even produce reforms.

That is also why impossiblism is bunk. Failing to recognize the proletarian class struggles going on all around it every day, it is incapable of concentrating them into revolutionary form.

[mikelepore]

The problem though, is that quantitative changes create qualitative results. Does reform cause revolution?

No, because the intention behind reform is to adapt capitalism into something that can be preserved for the long term. Organizing the working class to reform capitalism cannot be of any assistance in organizing the working class to abolish capitalism, for the same reason that persuading a person to remodel and paint the house cannot be of any assistance in persuading that person to take a wrecking ball to the house. When the focus of activity is patchwork and repairs, individuals become less likely to consider scrapping the object. They become proud that they have fixed it and saved it. They interpret their results as evidence that "the system really works", "it gets better all the time." It causes them to interpret revolutionary ideas as a form of chronic pessimism, or a negative attitude.

[Saullos]

So how is this contradiction resolved? The second law of dialectics asserts quantitative into qualitative changes.

I already stated that I was very doubtful that reform led to revolution, because as I said, my understanding and experiences have all taught me otherwise in addition to the vast theoretical work done by past and current Marxists.

Why can't quantitative changes of reform bring about a qualitative state change into revolution, or a communist society?

EDIT: Truthfully, I'm anticipating a response that details how it is possible. I believe it must be possible so that it fits with dialectical understanding, and am expecting that I'm framing the situation in the wrong way.

[Zanthorus]

Why on earth does this issue have to be solved "dialectically"?

[mikelepore]

Some qualitative changes are accumulations of many small quantitative changes, and some are not. The old system of society, which used to be historically progressive, became self-contradictory and decadent and obsolete a small step at a time. The malfunctions and crises in the old society become critical a small step at a time.

However, formally adopting a new principle for the running of society requires an abrupt realization that "what we thought we knew was all wrong", "we were so sure, but we have been deluded all that time." To promote that kind of enlightenent, we have to promote the practice of challenging fundamental ideas directly.

Don't neglect the other dialectical principle, that motion and change are driven by the polarity between opposites. A stark call for the abolition of slavery establishes the necessary polarity.

[mikelepore]

Try to apply the step-at-a-time approach to various other kinds of social oppression to see why it fails.

Suppose, in the days of slavery, a "progressive" person were to support new reforms to make slavery more compassionate, perhaps by the passage of a new law that would require, when masters whip their slaves, they shall be limited to a maximum number of forty lashes of the whip on in any given day, and when rubbing salt into these wounds there shall be imposed an upper limit of one ounce of salt.

Or suppose a "progressive" person tried to resolve the problem of domestic violence against women, by proposing a new law that would say, whenever husbands beat their wives, the punches with the fist shall be fewer in number, and there shall be at least a ten percent reduction in the force of these punches.

What's wrong with such pictures? What's wrong is that the time has come to assert uncompromisingly that an intolerable situation must be abolished. The necessary social awakening requires a refusal to be flexible with the basic principle. Any suggestions about how the injustices may be continued in a less painful form are actually promoting a continuation of the injustices. We have to upset everyone's habitual assumptions about what is "normal." We have to replace the thought "when people do that, they should do it more nicely" with the thought "abolish that practice entirely."

People who publish lists of suggestions about how to make slavery more compassionate in the future, instead of using that opportunity to present the reasons why slavery must be abolished, are in effect a conservative social force, even if this wasn't their intention.

***

"Request a little, when you have a right to the whole, and your request works a subscription to the principle that wronged you. The palliative ever steels the wrong that is palliationed." - Daniel De Leon

[Proletarian Ultra]

So how is this contradiction resolved? The second law of dialectics asserts quantitative into qualitative changes.

I already stated that I was very doubtful that reform led to revolution, because as I said, my understanding and experiences have all taught me otherwise in addition to the vast theoretical work done by past and current Marxists.

Why can't quantitative changes of reform bring about a qualitative state change into revolution, or a communist society?

EDIT: Truthfully, I'm anticipating a response that details how it is possible. I believe it must be possible so that it fits with dialectical understanding, and am expecting that I'm framing the situation in the wrong way.

Com. Man. Chapter 2:

"Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production."

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Saullos:


So how is this contradiction resolved?

Well, it's not a contradiction to begin with.


The second law of dialectics asserts quantitative into qualitative changes.

This is a seriously flawed 'law'.

On that, see here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/stalin-materialism-t66588/index.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/quantity-quality-t66709/index.html

But in much more detail, here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2007.htm

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike:


Some qualitative changes are accumulations of many small quantitative changes, and some are not. The old system of society, which used to be historically progressive, became self-contradictory and decadent and obsolete a small step at a time. The malfunctions and crises in the old society become critical a small step at a time.

Well, as we have seen, these generalisations only seem to work because they trade on ill-defined terms like "quality" and "leap/node".


Don't neglect the other dialectical principle, that motion and change are driven by the polarity between opposites. A stark call for the abolition of slavery establishes the necessary polarity.

And yet, as I have shown, this 'theory', if true, would make change impossible:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1401000&postcount=76

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1594418&postcount=90

[S.Artesian]

There really isn't a "dialectic" between reform and revolution; one is not organized in the other; each does not reproduce both.

The Second International proved that-- with all its reforms being in the last analysis, which became its first principle, attempts to pre-empt and counter revolution.

[mikelepore]

The real theoretical argument here is about what strategy will be needed to make the working class have a "cognitive dissonance."

That's the psychologists' term for when a new stimulus contradicts your beliefs, so you feel pulled both ways, and when your awareness snaps then hopefully you will have learned something new. For example, suppose you believe that the earth is flat, but every day you see ships sail away, and they gradually sink over the horizon, the tip of the mast being the last thing to vanish. This may make you go "boing" and suddenly realize that the earth must be curved.

This is what the working class must experience with respect to capitalism and socialism. So the debate here is: what method on the part of revolutionaries will best assist the working class in experiencing a cognitive dissonance and its resolution?

The traditional leftist answer for the past 150 years is that lists of less-than-revolutionary demands are the devices that will do this. Therefore most of the left today publishes pamphlets and articles that say, "Tax the rich - Resist the war - Set up free daycare centers for parents - Eliminate racism - No nuclear power plants - No college tuition hikes."

But I come from a small Marxist sector that believes that the most explicitly socialist assertions are the devices that will best perform this function of producing the needed cognitive dissonance and its resolution. Therefore we omit all the less-than-revolutionary demands, and instead our literature says, "Capitalism is the cause of hundreds of social problems. Organize the workers politically and industrially to take over the industries and services, and establish collective ownership and democratic control."

In the paragraphs above, I hope I have been somewhat objective in stating what the theoretical argument is about, instead of just proselytizing for my own position. I really tried to do that, in this post at least.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike:


The real theoretical argument here is about what strategy will be needed to make the working class have a "cognitive dissonance."

The only 'cognitive dissonance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance)' here is that displayed by us Marxists: we have a theory that makes no sense at all (unless Hegel's baleful influence is excised) and a movement which is almost synonymous with total failure. The dissonance here arises from the fact that few comrades will even so much as half admit the second part, still less will even consider the allegation that our defective 'theory' might have something to do with it! They will not even entertain the idea.

So, in a universe where everything is supposed to be interconnected, apparently the only two things that aren't are our long-term failure and our core theory!

You just couldn't make this stuff up... :(

[The Vegan Marxist]

^ Why is that I never see this person on any other thread except for ones talking about dialectics?

[Saullos]

^ Why is that I never see this person on any other thread except for ones talking about dialectics?

I was debating whether or not to explicitly ask them to stay out of this thread when I originally posted. XD

Seems like I should have.

[scarletghoul]

Reforms can go both ways, and more often than not they strengthen the bourgeois state rather than undermine it. This does eventually lead to a qualititive transformation, but not usually to socialism. It could be the qualititive change from liberal democracy to fascism, for example.

History has taught us that capitalism is capable of reinventing itself in many ways and that socialism is not inevitable, so I dont think its correct to assume that any quantitive change in capitalism will turn it into socialism. Its likely to turn it into another kind of capitalism, especially if these reforms are calculated moves by the capitalists.

The quantitive changes that lead to socialism usually seem to be a heightening of the contradiction between classes aswell as empowerment of the workers. (Reform can play a big part in this, but it can also preserve and reinvent capitalism and its state.)

That's my crude understanding anyway. Hopefuly a more experienced dialectician will arrive and say if its right or wrong

[S.Artesian]

I was debating whether or not to explicitly ask them to stay out of this thread when I originally posted. XD

Seems like I should have.


Ask them now if you think it's important.

[mikelepore]

Rosa, I didn't mean the Hegel-Engels connection. I meant the popular assumptions about how wonderful capitalism is: everyone moves up the ladder and becomes affluent unless they are lazy, capitalists are wealthy because they are hard-working creators of wealth, no business would lie to its customers because they know that if they did then they would lose all of their customers, etc. The working class must experience a cognitive dissonance. The working class must get slapped in the face with the idea that the humorist Josh Billings once expressed: the problem isn't that people "don't know"; the problem is that what they "know" isn't so. Or, as Confucius said, when you know that you know what you know, and when you know that you don't know what you don't know, that is knowledge.

[S.Artesian]

Or, as Confucius said, when you know that you know what you know, and when you know that you don't know what you don't know, that is knowledge.


Confucius said that? I thought it was Donald Rumsfeld when he was US secretary of defense.

[mikelepore]

Confucius as quoted by Thoreau in "Walden." Primary source not indicated.

[S.Artesian]

Confucius as quoted by Thoreau in "Walden." Primary source not indicated.


That's probably where Rumsfeld got it, being a big Thoreau-ian