Reforms as a measure of bribery.

[Broletariat]

I'm under the impression that reforms are basically bribing the working class, the ruling class dons the mask of social-democracy in order to vent revolutionary steam.

I understand this tactic won't always work and that's why it's a tactic not a principle.

I've also extended this thinking to things like unemployment benefits. I might be reaching, but it seems like partially that unemployment benefits pay people not to work. Seems like this works to the advantage of the ruling class by keeping unemployment numbers high and the social power of worker's weaker.

[Ocean Seal]

I'm under the impression that reforms are basically bribing the working class, the ruling class dons the mask of social-democracy in order to vent revolutionary steam.
I understand this tactic won't always work and that's why it's a tactic not a principle.

I disagree that they're bribes. They are necessary measures generally taken by the ruling class in order to continue making profit. The bourgeoisie often need to make concessions not because of fear of a revolution but because it is in their best interest as often labor cannot be broken by force. Every concession that the ruling class makes, is a welcome concession. Every concession that they make has made them weaker and has given the working class additional power, in addition it shows that they are willing to capitulate-- which eventually will result in them capitulating the means of production.



I've also extended this thinking to things like unemployment benefits. I might be reaching, but it seems like partially that unemployment benefits pay people not to work. Seems like this works to the advantage of the ruling class by keeping unemployment numbers high and the social power of worker's weaker.
I would think that unemployment benefits are the last thing that they would want to sign. The disadvantages for the ruling class of unemployment are three-fold. First, they are typically paying them (as often employers have to pay for their fired workers; and by paying them I understand that their money is stolen). Second, they make workers a slight bit braver because they have a safety net. That means that they can risk inciting strikes, starting unions in their workplace without feeling like their family will go without food. Third, they also make unemployed workers slightly more powerful in that they will no longer scab out for cheap, or go to work for low pay.


But unemployment benefits do hurt the working class in one way. They divide it, and allow for the welfare queen rhetoric, typical among the right wingers. They essentially make the workers pay for the benefits of the unemployed and thus decrease the power of the working class. Oftentimes the interests of the unemployed run counter to the interests of the workers, dividing workers into two camps.

[Broletariat]

I disagree that they're bribes. They are necessary measures generally taken by the ruling class in order to continue making profit. The bourgeoisie often need to make concessions not because of fear of a revolution but because it is in their best interest as often labor cannot be broken by force. Every concession that the ruling class makes, is a welcome concession. Every concession that they make has made them weaker and has given the working class additional power, in addition it shows that they are willing to capitulate-- which eventually will result in them capitulating the means of production.

I was rather under the impression that social-democracy was used as a steam-valve of sorts to vent off revolutionary pressure.

I also disagree with the capitulating the means of production bit, depending on how you mean that specifically?

[Ocean Seal]

I was rather under the impression that social-democracy was used as a steam-valve of sorts to vent off revolutionary pressure.
Being that social-democrats often claim that it is "an alternative" to revolutionary socialism I can understand why you see it that way. But I personally think that social-democracy is about keeping the workers pacified while keeping the bourgeoisie in power. This is a Herculean task as their interests are opposed. And the ruling class generally opposes these measures donating millions to candidates that they believe will stop them. Because social-democracy is a very temporary and volatile state. It requires huge funding which it eventually depletes. Thus class elements become far more obvious and with an empowered and proud (I say this in the sense that they are used to having things) working class revolution is facilitated. I think that social-democracy facilitates revolution after a while although it obscures it at first.


I also disagree with the capitulating the means of production bit, depending on how you mean that specifically?
I mean that in strictly revolutionary terms. That eventually they are not able to hold back the revolution.

[Zanthorus]

reforms are basically bribing the working class,

Except for, you know, all those workers in the First International who fought for the eight hour day, the prohibition of child labour and the right to universal education by the state. I suppose the IWMA was just saturated with members of the capitalist class looking to derail workers' struggles...

[Broletariat]

Except for, you know, all those workers in the First International who fought for the eight hour day, the prohibition of child labour and the right to universal education by the state. I suppose the IWMA was just saturated with members of the capitalist class looking to derail workers' struggles...

I'm actually quite historically ignorant, so I have my excuse ;)

[ZeroNowhere]

I've also extended this thinking to things like unemployment benefits. I might be reaching, but it seems like partially that unemployment benefits pay people not to work. Seems like this works to the advantage of the ruling class by keeping unemployment numbers high and the social power of worker's weaker.Um, but if it keeps unemployment high by making it so that more people do not try to get work, and hence do not enter the labour market as sellers of labour-power, then that would decrease rather than increase the supply of labour-power on the labour market. It would seem counter-intuitive to increase competition on the labour market by decreasing competition on the labour market. Of course, unemployment benefits have been applied in ways which do serve the ruling class, through various qualifications, restrictions and so on, and if you're interested in a more detailed look at that you may want to check out the empirical accounts in 'Regulating the Poor' by Frances Fox Piven.

In any case, reforms can be put in place for many reasons, and there isn't necessarily any benefit to trying to find a monolithic cause of reforms. Reforms by themselves can be a result of working class political struggle, although they don't necessitate that the working class be independently constituted as a class except in times of crisis in which the reforms have an inherently revolutionary content insofar as they further weaken the system; in more calm periods reforms may simply be a means of gaining support - although not necessarily a conscious attempt by the capitalist class as a whole to divert class struggle or anything of the sort - without having any necessary connection to the political rule of the working class (which is not to say that the working class cannot struggle as a class outside of crisis). On the other hand, the working class do not take political rule due to ethical principles or leftist propaganda, but rather to satisfy their concrete needs when capitalism fails to do so due to a low rate of profit, in other words to increase their own wealth at the expense of capitalist profits, in other words for reforms. These reforms, however, will be multitudinous and can hardly be predicted beforehand.

Of course, insofar as reforms are proposed as an end regardless of working class autonomy, they can just as well lead to the compromising of whatever independent character the working class political movement has. This is to some extent inevitable in most 'boom' periods, but nonetheless is not something cheered on by communists, who rather uphold the strength and independence of the working class movement, and finally the dictatorship of the proletariat as a class, as an end, and hence can hardly fall behind reforms without consideration of how they are implemented; in addition, insofar as a reform lowers the rate of profit, it merely weakens the system and increases the tendency towards crisis, and hence, if it in addition weakens the independent character of the workers' movement, quickens the repeal of this measure and hence the nullification of its effect (which cannot be opposed by the independent working class if it is not yet so constituted), often going entirely to the other extreme, as can be seen for example once capitalism started to run into problems in the 70s. This critique of reformism is in actual fact quite similar to the analysis of trade unions put forward by De Leonites and left communists. Of course, although it is admitted that reforms need not strengthen the independent character of the working class movement, nonetheless this is not necessarily due to any concerted effort on the part of the capitalists at 'bribing' the working class, but rather a more organic development out of class struggle in general; to elaborate, it probably represents the contradictory character of democracy as analysed by Marx, namely that:


"The comprehensive contradiction of this constitution, however, consists in the following: The classes whose social slavery the constitution is to perpetuate – proletariat, peasantry, petty bourgeoisie – it puts in possession of political power through universal suffrage. And from the class whose old social power it sanctions, the bourgeoisie, it withdraws the political guarantees of this power. It forces the political rule of the bourgeoisie into democratic conditions, which at every moment help the hostile classes to victory and jeopardize the very foundations of bourgeois society. From the first group it demands that they should not go forward from political to social emancipation; from the others that they should not go back from social to political restoration."

The Marxist conception does not see the bourgeois state as a monolithic machine wielded by cunning conspirators, but rather as a site of class struggle, and this is in no way eliminated by the state's character as a bourgeois state, but rather merely implies that the working class political struggle has not yet taken on a revolutionary character. The Marxist conception of the political state is quite far from the one often associated with it, akin to Voltaire's conception of religion, which "considers political equality a mere 'trap'" (to quote Colletti in his attack on it). Of course, if reform takes place, it is connected with working class interests, but not in a bourgeois scheme to divert class struggle, but rather because of the aforementioned contradiction where the working class do indeed gain political power in the democratic form of the state, and indeed the political struggle of the proletariat as an independently constituted class only represents this contradiction being displayed in clear sight as a contradiction, but does not create the contradiction itself; the struggle of the independent working class is only the realization in clear terms of what in reforms is already implicit. Of course, this contradiction is in fact only the highest development of the contradiction implicit in all forms of the state, namely that they are to represent the social interest, but in actual fact this social interest does not exist, but only particular, conflicting class interests; this attains its highest development in capitalist democracy precisely because, while prior states are explicitly not divorced from civil society and particular interests, but rather are explicitly exclusive and unequal, represented by feudal lords, estates and so on, democracy, and the accompanying universal suffrage, is inclusive, and indeed all exclusion runs counter to the democratic principle, so that it includes the general population and gives people of both classes an equal political life alongside their unequal lives in civil society, hence taking on a form most representative of the state's character as general interest, although still, being a state, an illusory general interest. This final contradiction, then, being the highest development of the general contradiction at the heart of the state, also forms simultaneously the last, so that its final realization is in the political power of the working class, which abolishes the prerequisites of the state (and likewise class), namely the divorce of society from the individual, and hence forms a revolution not against any form of the state, but against the state itself.

To return to the point, there is no single communist position on 'reforms' in the abstract, although there is one on reformism, namely that it takes its place on the left wing of capital along with other positions which advocate the undermining of the autonomy of the working class movement.


Oftentimes the interests of the unemployed run counter to the interests of the workers, dividing workers into two camps.Technically speaking, the working class is divided into as many camps as there are workers, which forms the basis of xenophobia (and the complementary racism), sexism and anti-unemployment positions, and is essentially inherent to the working class condition considered in the abstract. On the other side of things, the condition of the working class as shared sellers of the commodity labour-power creates a necessity for unified struggle if working class interests are to be realized. Both of these sides are represented over the course of capitalist development, although ultimately the overcoming of the first by the second takes the form of necessity as soon as struggle as a class is constituted as a necessity, in other words as soon as class struggle and the assertion of working class interests takes an explicitly revolutionary form.

[Broletariat]

^ You always have the best posts.

Like no seriously, you're a fountain of gold.

[Savage]

Well ZeroNowhere has really said all that needs to be said, but I was going through my notes on Gorter and thought I may a swell add this into the mix;


However, there is yet more to be said on the ideological question: civil liberties, the power of parliament, has been won in Western Europe by means of wars for liberty, waged by former generations, by the ancestors. And though at the time these rights were only for citizens, for the possessing class, they were won by the people all the same. The thought of these struggles is to this day a deeply-rooted tradition in the blood of this people. Revolutions are always the deepest memories of a people. Unconsciously the thought that it meant a victory to achieve representation in parliament has a tremendous, silent force. This is especially the case in the oldest bourgeois countries, where long or repeated wars have been waged for freedom: in England, Holland and France. Also, though on a smaller scale, in Germany, Belgium, and the Scandinavian countries. An inhabitant of the East cannot realise, perhaps, how strong this influence can be. Moreover the workers themselves have fought here, often for years, for universal suffrage, and have thus obtained it, directly or indirectly. This was also a victory, which bore fruit at the time. The thought and the feeling generally prevails, that it is progress, and a victory, to be represented, and to entrust one’s representative with the care of one’s affairs in Parliament. The influence of this ideology is enormous.
And finally, reformism has brought the working class of Western Europe altogether under the power of the parliamentary representatives, who have led it into war, and into alliances with capitalism. The influence of reformism is also colossal.
All these causes have made the worker the slave of Parliament, to which he leaves all action. He himself does not act any longer (2) (http://www.marxists.org/archive/gorter/1920/open-letter/ch03.htm#n2).
Then comes the revolution. Now he has to act for himself. Now the worker, alone with his class, must fight the gigantic enemy, must wage the most terrible fight that ever was. No tactics of the leaders can help him. Desperately the classes, all classes, oppose the workers, and not one class sides with them. On the contrary, if he should trust his leaders, or other classes in parliament, he runs a great risk of falling back into his old weakness of letting the leaders act for him, of trusting parliament, of persevering in the old notion that others can make the revolution for him, of pursuing illusions, of remaining in the old bourgeois ideology.
This relationship of the masses to the leaders has also been excellently characterised by Comrade Pannekoek:
“Parliamentarism is the typical form of the kind of fight carried out by means of leaders, in which the masses themselves play but a minor part. Its practice consists in this: that representatives, individual persons, carry on the actual fighting. With the masses it must therefore awaken the illusion that others can do the fighting for them. Formerly the belief was that the leaders could obtain important reforms for the workers through parliament; many had even had the illusion that the members of parliament, by means of laws and regulations, could carry out the transition to Socialism. Today, since parliamentarism acts in a more honest way, the argument is heard that the representatives may do great things in parliament for communist propaganda. Ever again the importance of the leaders is emphasised, and it is only natural that professionals should decide about politics, be it in the democratic guise of congress discussions and resolutions. The history of Social Democracy is a series of fruitless attempts to let the members determine their own politics. Wherever the proletariat goes in for parliamentary action, all this is inevitable, as long as the masses have not yet created organs for self-activity; as long, therefore, as the revolution has not broken out. As soon as the masses can act for themselves, and can consequently decide, the disadvantages of parliamentarism become paramount.''
The problem of tactics is how to eradicate the traditional bourgeois way of thinking that saps the strength of the mass of the proletariat; everything which reinforces the traditional view is wrong. The most firmly rooted, most tenacious part of this mental attitude is dependence on leaders, to whom it leaves the decisions in all general questions, and the control of all class matters. Inevitably, parliamentarism has a tendency to crush in the masses the activity necessary for the revolution. No matter what fine speeches are delivered to inspire the workers to revolutionary deeds, revolutionary action does not spring from such words, but from the keen and hard necessity that leaves no other choice whatsoever.-Herman Gorter, Open Letter to Comrade Lenin, 1920