Dialectics of Reformism

[Widerstand]

If we follow the dialectical principle of quantity turning into quality, shouldn't a mass of pro-worker reforms (quantity) be able to bring about revolution, or at least a revolutionary situation (quality)?

[Broletariat]

Following the dialectical principle, you can reach any conclusion you like actually, so I guess the answer you're looking for is yes.

[Aurora]

Reforms are a quality not a quantity, healthcare can be private or universal either one is still healthcare not something different.

[Widerstand]

Reforms are a quality not a quantity, healthcare can be private or universal either one is still healthcare not something different.

I used reforms in a strictly positive sense, as in, reforms which benefit the workers, either by reducing exploitation directly (higher wages with steady labor time, less labor time with steady wages), or indirectly (eg. healthcare).

As such, they are quantity, because each reform presents a gradual improvement of the workers situation and reduces the amount of surplus value extracted. When the amount of surplus value extracted reaches zero, the capitalist system should, in theory, collapse.

[KC]

The assertion of quantity into quality is a manner of describing dialectics, it isn't dialectics itself. You could use this principle to describe anything, so it doesn't really make much sense.

[Widerstand]

The assertion of quantity into quality is a manner of describing dialectics, it isn't dialectics itself. You could use this principle to describe anything, so it doesn't really make much sense.

Could you elaborate on that? I'm afraid, to me, it doesn't really make much sense.

[¿Que?]

If we follow the dialectical principle of quantity turning into quality, shouldn't a mass of pro-worker reforms (quantity) be able to bring about revolution, or at least a revolutionary situation (quality)?
Technically I think so, but strictly speaking, this is not what reformism is. Reformism seeks to replace the struggle for revolution with the struggle for reforms. As Bernstein put it, ""the socialist movement is everything to me while what people commonly call the goal of Socialism is nothing."

In other words, reformist think that the fight for reforms is an end in itself, rather than part of the struggle for bringing about social revolution. In this sense, a reformist could believe that one day socialism could be reached in this way, whereas another (like Bernstein) believed that the capitalist system could be reformed without necessitating a new system. In either case, however, it is a moot point, for as Bernstein says, the end is nothing.

This is why I don't consider Chavez a reformist. Because although his strategy is mostly electoral politics, he is attempting to reach genuine Socialism. True he is using the existing bourgeois State apparatus to do so, and thus he is without a doubt not following a Marxist programme, but this alone does not make him a reformist.

[mikelepore]

El Vagoneta wrote above: "Reformist think that the fight for reforms is an end in itself, rather than part of the struggle for bringing about social revolution."

I think that's wrong also. To fight for reform as an end in itself is reformism. To claim that reform can be part of the struggle to bring about the social revolution is also reformism.

To achieve a revolution will require that working class achieve a frame of mind that is not distracted by objectives to achieve reforms.

For the past 150 years, socialist platforms have been cluttered with "lists of immediate demands." The confusion generated by this mixed message may be one of the main reasons why we don't already have worldwide socialism.

It is impossible for the mind simultaneously to plan to repair something and also plan to scrap it. If you were going to have the junk yard put your old car into the crusher tomorrow, would you spend time to rebuild its engine today? To expend effort to repair the junk that needs to be destroyed makes it LESS probable that people will go through with the plan to destroy it.

I am not refering to types of reforms that will be needed in any social system. For example, policies guaranteeing civil liberties will be needed in any system of the future, capitalist or socialist, and therefore we should seek these reforms, and they will not produce any distraction effect. What we must avoid are calls for reforms that imply the continued existence of capitalism. Capitalism itself has to be recognized as valid in order to implement a proposal to convert over to an improved form of it.

Daniel De Leon wrote:

"Request a little, when you have a right to the whole, and your request works a subscription to the principle that wronged you." -- "Revolutions triumphed, whenever they did triumph, by asserting themselves and marching straight upon their goal."

As this is the learning section of the site, I am obliged to admit that this De Leonist position is not representative of the leftist viewpoint generally. Unfortunately, most of the left rejects what I have just said.

[graymouser]

From a serious dialectical standpoint, reforms (quantity) can only go to a certain point before the capitalist class fights back - that is, they cause a quite different shift in quality than the one you are supposing. You can get things like health care and unemployment insurance and so on, that do not strictly take away the right of the capitalists to extract surplus-value from productive labor, but you cannot actually remove this exploitation without the most vicious fight. Reactions range from the increasing corruption of reformist parties and their co-optation into the capitalist system, as seen in the cases of the postwar European Social-Democratic parties, to outright violence like the coup in Chile in 1973.

The goal of a revolutionary party with a serious list of transitional demands (as framed by Trotsky) is to reach this confrontation, and in so doing prove that the workers' demands, though reasonable, will never be granted them by the capitalists. It is only when workers experience this for themselves that they will actually go through with fighting for a revolution.

[ChrisK]

If we follow the dialectical principle of quantity turning into quality, shouldn't a mass of pro-worker reforms (quantity) be able to bring about revolution, or at least a revolutionary situation (quality)?

First, what do you mean by quality and quantity?

[el_chavista]

This is why I don't consider Chavez a reformist. Because although his strategy is mostly electoral politics, he is attempting to reach genuine Socialism. True he is using the existing bourgeois State apparatus to do so, and thus he is without a doubt not following a Marxist programme, but this alone does not make him a reformist.
This would lead us to consider a non-Marxist social revolution based on what Widerstand spoke about: an accumulation of reforms. I think it is off the Marxist table.
With respect to the original post, an accumulation of expropriations (not any reform) can ultimately lead to a change in the social relations of production.

[Widerstand]

First, what do you mean by quality and quantity?

"anti-dialectics" ._. anyway...

Quantity = amount, "how much of X?" (in this case, "how many reforms?", "how much exploitation?")
Quality = the nature/state/character/structure of Y, whereas Y is something of which X is a characteristic (in this case: society, the relation to the means of production, and the state; reforms/exploitation are a characteristic of those)

[ChrisK]

"anti-dialectics" ._. anyway...

Quantity = amount, "how much of X?" (in this case, "how many reforms?", "how much exploitation?")
Quality = the nature/state/character/structure of Y, whereas Y is something of which X is a characteristic (in this case: society, the relation to the means of production, and the state; reforms/exploitation are a characteristic of those)

Another question then. It is clear that quantity is a variable object by your definitions (ie it can grow or shrink), but what of quality? Is it as Hegel and Engels (and others who devised dialectial theories) claimed it to be; something that if it is changed changes the thing in it of itself?