Die Neue Zeit
14th February 2012, 03:56
Crisis Theories Overrated and Transitional Objections
Conjunctural crises under the conditions of the social crisis of the whole capitalist system inflict ever heavier deprivations and sufferings upon the masses. Growing unemployment, in its turn, deepens the financial crisis of the state and undermines the unstable monetary systems. (Leon Trotsky)
In my earlier work, I wrote of apocalyptic predestinationism regarding fatalism, and deliberately invoked comparisons to the predestination theology of John Calvin. Marxs crisis theory was written during the Long Depression, a time when it was quite tempting to hypothesize a sort of final crash for bourgeois-fied commodity production. Later on, Eduard Bernsteins turn to revisionism came after the German economy emerged from the Long Depression. Regarding the arguments in Evolutionary Socialism against surplus value, against the immiseration of labour (while never considering either inflation or the declining share of wages and salaries in gross domestic product as capital accumulates, let alone the costs of household or other consumer debts), against the concentration of capital, against structural crises, and against the hypothesis of final crash only this last argument by Bernstein against the hypothesis final crash has stood the test of time, before considering environmental catastrophes. Time and again, structural crises beyond typical V-shaped recessions, longer U-shaped recessions, and chaotic W-shaped recessions, have occurred, and have been euphemistically called creative destruction. Time and again, conventional economics, with its rejection of surplus value, fails so miserably to explain them. Time and again, a vulgar Marx for the bourgeoisie is conjured by bourgeois academics and economists to explain these crises and the concentration of capital preceding them. One such person is Nouriel Roubini, as noted by Guy Rundle:
That brings us to our second naked emperor, for Roubini is now in the public prints arguing that Marx was right. We are now in a second great depression, Karl was spot on about capitalism being auto-destructive, we need to pump prime an investing state to get us out of this mess, etc, etc.
Four lines, 38 errors to paraphrase Castoriadis. Marx never thought that the global spread of markets, or the financial system, or the redistribution of income led to crisis. He wrote of high capitalism before the spread of the limited company (i.e. the modern corporation), dominant finance capital, or the rise of trade unions and the global unevenness that made high wages possible. He based his theory of capitalist crisis not on these factors but on the deep structure of capitalism, and three mechanisms in particularoverproduction, anarchy of production and the falling rate of profit.
It is worth considering these, but before I do so, it is worth pointing out one factwhen those devoted to defending the current system talk of Marx, not only as a great philosopher of injustice blah blah, but as a technical guide to system management, then the game really is up. But it is up for capitalism and big-M Marxismas the Left-Communist writer Paul Mattick noted in his book MarxismLast Refuge of the Bourgeoisie?, revolutions become counter-revolutions instantly, if they take on the role of maintaining the systems core features.
Thus Roubini wants to take what he thinks are the ideas of Marx to defend a system Marx thought would end from its own contradictions.
Meanwhile, one should not perceive any ambiguity on the part of Marx regarding the mistaken hypothesis of final crash, so clearly stated in Chapter 32 of Volume I of Das Kapital:
Along with the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital, who usurp and monopolize all advantages of this process of transformation, grows the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation; but with this too grows the revolt of the working class, a class always increasing in numbers, and disciplined, united, organized by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself. The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of production, which has sprung up and flourished along with, and under it. Centralization of the means of production and socialization of labour at last reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds.
Along with the intellectual isolationism, perennial pessimism, and obnoxious I-told-you-so schadenfreude of Academic Marxism, much of the class-strugglist left, part and present, also resorts to crises theories, particularly their application to crash-laden depressions and overstressing decadence and decay, in an exhibition of apocalyptic predestinationism. This led even Kautsky and Lenin to continue identifying immediate economic struggles as those spontaneously raised by the labour movements, and to continue identifying immediate political struggles with politically liberal struggles. Separately, this led the vozhd (leader) of pre-1914 Bolshevism to deem imperialism to be the last stage of capitalism, and the genuine uchitel (teacher) ultimately to parliamentary reductionism. Presently, this is underpinned ultimately by organizational defeatism, with all the fetishes for riots and tyrannies of structurelessness, only to come up against the reality of losing out perennially to the less sloganized agitation of some extremely right-populist ready answer (today pointing fingers at immigrants stealing our jobs and freeloading on welfare and other social services) and resulting electoral gains.
Mike Macnair also stated such realism in early 2010 and related it to a more politically sinister aspect of transition-inspired apocalyptic predestinationism:
I also emphasise both the level of uncertainty in all predictions, and that it is not the business of Marxists to hope for crashes and slumps to make our politics attractive; and that much of the left which does predict a severe crisis does so precisely in the hope that a slump will make their rather unattractive alternative to capitalism attractive. In reality, such a slump is more likely to benefit the far right.
[]
In this view, the more there is economic chaos and war-induced recession, the more workers will move into action. The Transitional programme is the other side of this coin: people will move into action based on immediate economic concerns, not a vision of an alternative future [] Without the masses having the idea in their heads that the parliamentary regime is corrupt and unacceptable [] Without a prolonged period of building up forces, delegitimising the existing state regime and spreading the idea that an alternative system is not just better []
The consequence of this strategy is that it becomes essential to predict [] an enormous slump, which will bring with it street violence, mass strikes, the formation of councils of action and so on. In this situation the small group [] can manoeuvre the masses into taking power. For these groups crisis is fundamental because it leads to the only conditions if their theory of capitalism is correct in which masses of workers might conceivably be desperate enough to think it would be good idea to give all power to the central committee []
Even under these conditions it seems dubious [] The majority of the west European working class did not view the regime in Moscow as representing a superior alternative to capitalism in spite of World War I, the acute economic contradictions following it and, in the case of Germany, in spite of the brutality with which Noske, Ebert and Scheidemann in alliance with the military right suppressed the radical wing of the workers movement.
Because the strategic conceptions of the far left stake everything on slump, there actually develops a desire for it. Crisis is transparently irrational because of overproduction and overinvestment, people are laid off, reduced to poverty and starved. Too much wealth produces poverty. But actually wanting to experience slump conditions is an irrationality of its own sort, certainly if our aim is the self-emancipation of the working class majority, rather than a coup detat by the central committee of your choice.
It should be noted, however, that many worker-class movements themselves began during the Long Depression, which was not characterized by the W-shaped, near-consecutive crashes like those of the Great Depression, but by an L-shaped pattern of changes in economic output: a severe initial crash followed by a prolonged period mixing sputtering growth with sputtering contraction, discrediting the mislabelled political class (for its ineffectiveness), the scapegoaters (for their ready answers), and all their pundits.
Returning to the basic premise of issuing demands that explicitly include the bourgeois-capitalist state as an elephantine component of the political audience but that also give no legitimacy whatsoever to the rule of bourgeois law simply by the mere proper acknowledgement of civil disobedience demands
1) That point to the necessity of the independent class-based political action that is genuine class struggle via pressure, paradigm shifts, and related grassroots discourse for legislative implementation and more,
2) That keep social labour or socialist production in particular consciously in view (Kautsky),
3) That emphasize going beyond national perspectives regarding achievement, and even beyond international solidarity, thus pointing to transnational emancipation, and
4) That, if before the threshold beyond which the working class must expropriate ruling-class political power, "make further progress more likely and facilitate other progressive changes as well" (Hahnel), but in any event prioritize labour empowerment well above the mislabelled political class striving mainly to facilitate capital accumulation and the reproduction of labour power,
Many of those most engaged in ever-economic transitional sloganeering, not just Trotskyists, would scream, Transitional! or Death Agony Of Capitalism! To them, even the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Partys pre-1914 reform demand for state insurance for workers covering old age and total or partial disablement out of a special fund formed by a special tax on the capitalists with emphasis on taxing the bourgeoisie explicitly would be transitional, implying that such required overthrowing the bourgeoisie. However, others also engaged in ever-economic transitional sloganeering, such as the Grantites and their International Marxist Tendency, see through this falsehood:
The argument that there is no money to pay for reforms is a blatant falsehood. There is plenty of money for arms and to pay for the criminal wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan. But there is no money for schools and hospitals. There is plenty of money to subsidize the rich, as we saw with Bushs little gift of $700 billion to the bankers. But there is no money for pensions, hospitals or schools. The argument about practicability therefore falls to the ground. A given reform is practical or not, depending on whether it is in the interests of a given class or not. In the last analysis, whether it is practical (that is to say, whether it will be carried into practice) depends on the class struggle and the real balance of forces. When the ruling class is threatened with losing everything, it will always be prepared to make concessions that it cannot afford.
Or to put it more cordially, as one William Greider did in a magazine series on Reimagining Capitalism:
Imagine you have the ability to reinvent American capitalism: Where would you start? What would you change to make it less destructive and domineering, more focused on what people really need for fulfilling lives? We put the question to an eclectic list of people who are known for thinking long termpublic-spirited veterans of business and finance, optimistic activists, inventive policy thinkers. Their responses provide a provocative sampler of smart ideasconcrete proposals for reforming the dysfunctional economic system in fundamental ways [] The problem, of course, is that none of these ideas have any traction in regular politics. Both parties are locked in small-minded brawls, unable to think creatively or even to tell the truth about our historic economic crisis [] Despite the so-called recovery, the economic pathologies generated by unbounded capitalism during the past thirty years are expanding. Falling wages and surplus labor, swelling trade deficits and foreign indebtedness, deepening inequality and the steady destruction of the broad middle classthe political system does not have an answer for any of these [] The public may not even be aware that there are promising alternatives, since no one prominent in politics ever talks about them. What voters do know, however, is that the system no longer works [] In other words, the new politics does not start in Washington. Trying to persuade policy elites and incumbent politicians to take these ideas seriously is a waste of time. Reform politics has to start on the other end, with the experiments and experiences of ordinary people [] Our first great task is to change the way we talk about whats possible.
This evokes a debate that Marx had with one Jules Guesde in 1880 about their joint work that was the Programme of the French Workers Party. As noted by historian Bernard Moss:
The minimum electoral program was designed solely as a "means of organization and struggle." It consisted of a series of minimum demands that Guesde drew from labor and Radical movements: civil liberty, arming of the people, religious separation, communal autonomy, eight-hour day, weekly day of rest, abolition of child labor, minimum wage law, equal wages for equal work, free public education and child maintenance, employer responsibility for industrial accidents, an end to employer interference with workers' treasuries, worker consultation on shop regulations, the return of all alienated public property, including banks, railroads and mines, to the nation and their exploitation by their own workers, the abolition of indirect taxes, and imposition of a progressive tax on incomes of more than 3,000 francs and all estates of more than 20,000 francs.
Discounting the possibility of obtaining these reforms from the bourgeoisie, Guesde regarded them not as a practical program of struggle, but simply as a means of agitation, as bait with which to lure the workers away from Radicalism. Since in his view these reforms were with the exception of a minimum wage compatible with the capitalist system, their rejection would free the proletariat of its last reformist illusions and convince it of the impossibility of avoiding a workers' [1789].
This was what led an appalled Marx to immediately proclaim that what is certain is that I myself am not a Marxist, despite the fact that both Marx and Guesde actually agreed that their proposed reforms were compatible with the capitalist system of their day. Historical development has proven each of them both correct and incorrect on this debate. The political questions of civil liberty, arming of the populace, communal autonomy, and so on required and still require what Marx insisted: the independent class-based political action that is genuine class struggle. The potential for bourgeois obstruction luring workers away from mere populist radicalism is only incidental.
However, given the long history and current developments of economic independence for the working class under bourgeois-fied commodity production being wishful thinking, Guesde actually had more of a point on economic reforms, especially if they are more radical and, to quote Greider, change the way we talk about whats possible. Indeed, the conclusions of Crane Brintons The Anatomy of Revolution, reproduced by James Chowning Davies, vindicated Guesde on economic reforms and revolutions:
First, these were all societies on the whole on the upgrade economically before the revolution came, and the revolutionary movements seem to originate in the discontents of not unprosperous people who feel restraint, cramp, annoyance, rather than downright crushing oppression. Certainly these revolutions are not started by down-and-outers, by starving, miserable people. These revolutionists are not worms turning, not children of despair. These revolutions are born of hope, and their philosophies are formally optimistic. Second, we find in our prerevolutionary society definite and indeed very bitter class antagonisms [...] Revolutions seem more likely when social classes are fairly close together than when they are far apart. "Untouchables" very rarely revolt against a God-given aristocracy, and Haiti gives one of the few examples of successful slave revolutions [...] Third, there is what we have called the transfer of allegiance of the intellectuals [...] Fourth, the governmental machinery is clearly inefficient, partly through neglect, through a failure to make changes in old institutions [...] Fifth, the old ruling class or rather, many individuals of the old ruling class, come to distrust themselves [...]
In short, it is much better to commit the ironically cautious mistake of deeming directional or genuinely transitional measures those economically inclined demands that result strictly in labour empowerment, and necessarily require the working class to expropriate, beforehand, ruling-class political power in policymaking, legislation, execution-administration, and other areas as radical reform, than to scream Transitional! or Death Agony Of Capitalism! at every radical reform presented only, to quote Nate Hawthorne, to be suckerpunched when [radical reforms] take place and the reformists will be in a better position.
REFERENCES
The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International (Transitional Program) by Leon Trotsky [http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/index.htm]
The Prerequisites for Socialism and the Tasks of Social Democracy (Evolutionary Socialism) by Eduard Bernstein [http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bernstein/works/1899/evsoc/index.htm]
Marxs crisis theory: overrated? [http://www.revleft.com/vb/marxs-crisis-theory-t160755/index.html]
Capitalism finally the pundits are taking notice by Guy Rundle [http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/09/01/rundle-capitalism-finally-the-pundits-are-taking-notice/]
Marxism: Last Refuge of the Bourgeoisie? by Paul Mattick [http://books.google.ca/books?id=ycrkYMDIXrEC&printsec=frontcover]
Das Kapital, Volume I by Karl Marx [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch32.htm]
Lenin, Kautsky, and the new era of revolutions by Lars Lih [http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004670]
The far right has a ready answer. Does the left? by Stephen Gowans [http://gowans.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/the-far-right-has-a-ready-answer-does-the-left/]
World politics, long waves, and the decline of capitalism by Mike Macnair [http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/799/crisis.php]
Lessons from the Long Depression by Shamir Karkal [http://shamirkarkal.blogspot.com/2011/08/lessons-from-long-depression.html]
Materials Relating to the Revision of the Party Programme by Vladimir Lenin
[http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/reviprog/ch04.htm]
The Crisis: Make the bosses pay! by the International Marxist Tendency [http://www.marxist.com/imt-manifesto-on-crisis-part-two.htm]
Reimagining Capitalism: Bold Ideas for a New Economy by William Greider, The Nation [http://www.thenation.com/article/161267/reimagining-capitalism-bold-ideas-new-economy]
The Origins of the French Labor Movement, 1830-1914: The Socialism of Skilled Workers by Bernard Moss [http://books.google.com/books?id=quW3ZVn8WGgC&printsec=frontcover]
When Men Revolt and Why by James Chowning Davies [http://books.google.com/books?id=bm3VNPlOTQoC&printsec=frontcover]
Reform is possible and reformism is guaranteed by Nate Hawthorne [http://libcom.org/blog/reform-possible-reformism-guaranteed-22122011]
Conjunctural crises under the conditions of the social crisis of the whole capitalist system inflict ever heavier deprivations and sufferings upon the masses. Growing unemployment, in its turn, deepens the financial crisis of the state and undermines the unstable monetary systems. (Leon Trotsky)
In my earlier work, I wrote of apocalyptic predestinationism regarding fatalism, and deliberately invoked comparisons to the predestination theology of John Calvin. Marxs crisis theory was written during the Long Depression, a time when it was quite tempting to hypothesize a sort of final crash for bourgeois-fied commodity production. Later on, Eduard Bernsteins turn to revisionism came after the German economy emerged from the Long Depression. Regarding the arguments in Evolutionary Socialism against surplus value, against the immiseration of labour (while never considering either inflation or the declining share of wages and salaries in gross domestic product as capital accumulates, let alone the costs of household or other consumer debts), against the concentration of capital, against structural crises, and against the hypothesis of final crash only this last argument by Bernstein against the hypothesis final crash has stood the test of time, before considering environmental catastrophes. Time and again, structural crises beyond typical V-shaped recessions, longer U-shaped recessions, and chaotic W-shaped recessions, have occurred, and have been euphemistically called creative destruction. Time and again, conventional economics, with its rejection of surplus value, fails so miserably to explain them. Time and again, a vulgar Marx for the bourgeoisie is conjured by bourgeois academics and economists to explain these crises and the concentration of capital preceding them. One such person is Nouriel Roubini, as noted by Guy Rundle:
That brings us to our second naked emperor, for Roubini is now in the public prints arguing that Marx was right. We are now in a second great depression, Karl was spot on about capitalism being auto-destructive, we need to pump prime an investing state to get us out of this mess, etc, etc.
Four lines, 38 errors to paraphrase Castoriadis. Marx never thought that the global spread of markets, or the financial system, or the redistribution of income led to crisis. He wrote of high capitalism before the spread of the limited company (i.e. the modern corporation), dominant finance capital, or the rise of trade unions and the global unevenness that made high wages possible. He based his theory of capitalist crisis not on these factors but on the deep structure of capitalism, and three mechanisms in particularoverproduction, anarchy of production and the falling rate of profit.
It is worth considering these, but before I do so, it is worth pointing out one factwhen those devoted to defending the current system talk of Marx, not only as a great philosopher of injustice blah blah, but as a technical guide to system management, then the game really is up. But it is up for capitalism and big-M Marxismas the Left-Communist writer Paul Mattick noted in his book MarxismLast Refuge of the Bourgeoisie?, revolutions become counter-revolutions instantly, if they take on the role of maintaining the systems core features.
Thus Roubini wants to take what he thinks are the ideas of Marx to defend a system Marx thought would end from its own contradictions.
Meanwhile, one should not perceive any ambiguity on the part of Marx regarding the mistaken hypothesis of final crash, so clearly stated in Chapter 32 of Volume I of Das Kapital:
Along with the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital, who usurp and monopolize all advantages of this process of transformation, grows the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation; but with this too grows the revolt of the working class, a class always increasing in numbers, and disciplined, united, organized by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself. The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of production, which has sprung up and flourished along with, and under it. Centralization of the means of production and socialization of labour at last reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds.
Along with the intellectual isolationism, perennial pessimism, and obnoxious I-told-you-so schadenfreude of Academic Marxism, much of the class-strugglist left, part and present, also resorts to crises theories, particularly their application to crash-laden depressions and overstressing decadence and decay, in an exhibition of apocalyptic predestinationism. This led even Kautsky and Lenin to continue identifying immediate economic struggles as those spontaneously raised by the labour movements, and to continue identifying immediate political struggles with politically liberal struggles. Separately, this led the vozhd (leader) of pre-1914 Bolshevism to deem imperialism to be the last stage of capitalism, and the genuine uchitel (teacher) ultimately to parliamentary reductionism. Presently, this is underpinned ultimately by organizational defeatism, with all the fetishes for riots and tyrannies of structurelessness, only to come up against the reality of losing out perennially to the less sloganized agitation of some extremely right-populist ready answer (today pointing fingers at immigrants stealing our jobs and freeloading on welfare and other social services) and resulting electoral gains.
Mike Macnair also stated such realism in early 2010 and related it to a more politically sinister aspect of transition-inspired apocalyptic predestinationism:
I also emphasise both the level of uncertainty in all predictions, and that it is not the business of Marxists to hope for crashes and slumps to make our politics attractive; and that much of the left which does predict a severe crisis does so precisely in the hope that a slump will make their rather unattractive alternative to capitalism attractive. In reality, such a slump is more likely to benefit the far right.
[]
In this view, the more there is economic chaos and war-induced recession, the more workers will move into action. The Transitional programme is the other side of this coin: people will move into action based on immediate economic concerns, not a vision of an alternative future [] Without the masses having the idea in their heads that the parliamentary regime is corrupt and unacceptable [] Without a prolonged period of building up forces, delegitimising the existing state regime and spreading the idea that an alternative system is not just better []
The consequence of this strategy is that it becomes essential to predict [] an enormous slump, which will bring with it street violence, mass strikes, the formation of councils of action and so on. In this situation the small group [] can manoeuvre the masses into taking power. For these groups crisis is fundamental because it leads to the only conditions if their theory of capitalism is correct in which masses of workers might conceivably be desperate enough to think it would be good idea to give all power to the central committee []
Even under these conditions it seems dubious [] The majority of the west European working class did not view the regime in Moscow as representing a superior alternative to capitalism in spite of World War I, the acute economic contradictions following it and, in the case of Germany, in spite of the brutality with which Noske, Ebert and Scheidemann in alliance with the military right suppressed the radical wing of the workers movement.
Because the strategic conceptions of the far left stake everything on slump, there actually develops a desire for it. Crisis is transparently irrational because of overproduction and overinvestment, people are laid off, reduced to poverty and starved. Too much wealth produces poverty. But actually wanting to experience slump conditions is an irrationality of its own sort, certainly if our aim is the self-emancipation of the working class majority, rather than a coup detat by the central committee of your choice.
It should be noted, however, that many worker-class movements themselves began during the Long Depression, which was not characterized by the W-shaped, near-consecutive crashes like those of the Great Depression, but by an L-shaped pattern of changes in economic output: a severe initial crash followed by a prolonged period mixing sputtering growth with sputtering contraction, discrediting the mislabelled political class (for its ineffectiveness), the scapegoaters (for their ready answers), and all their pundits.
Returning to the basic premise of issuing demands that explicitly include the bourgeois-capitalist state as an elephantine component of the political audience but that also give no legitimacy whatsoever to the rule of bourgeois law simply by the mere proper acknowledgement of civil disobedience demands
1) That point to the necessity of the independent class-based political action that is genuine class struggle via pressure, paradigm shifts, and related grassroots discourse for legislative implementation and more,
2) That keep social labour or socialist production in particular consciously in view (Kautsky),
3) That emphasize going beyond national perspectives regarding achievement, and even beyond international solidarity, thus pointing to transnational emancipation, and
4) That, if before the threshold beyond which the working class must expropriate ruling-class political power, "make further progress more likely and facilitate other progressive changes as well" (Hahnel), but in any event prioritize labour empowerment well above the mislabelled political class striving mainly to facilitate capital accumulation and the reproduction of labour power,
Many of those most engaged in ever-economic transitional sloganeering, not just Trotskyists, would scream, Transitional! or Death Agony Of Capitalism! To them, even the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Partys pre-1914 reform demand for state insurance for workers covering old age and total or partial disablement out of a special fund formed by a special tax on the capitalists with emphasis on taxing the bourgeoisie explicitly would be transitional, implying that such required overthrowing the bourgeoisie. However, others also engaged in ever-economic transitional sloganeering, such as the Grantites and their International Marxist Tendency, see through this falsehood:
The argument that there is no money to pay for reforms is a blatant falsehood. There is plenty of money for arms and to pay for the criminal wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan. But there is no money for schools and hospitals. There is plenty of money to subsidize the rich, as we saw with Bushs little gift of $700 billion to the bankers. But there is no money for pensions, hospitals or schools. The argument about practicability therefore falls to the ground. A given reform is practical or not, depending on whether it is in the interests of a given class or not. In the last analysis, whether it is practical (that is to say, whether it will be carried into practice) depends on the class struggle and the real balance of forces. When the ruling class is threatened with losing everything, it will always be prepared to make concessions that it cannot afford.
Or to put it more cordially, as one William Greider did in a magazine series on Reimagining Capitalism:
Imagine you have the ability to reinvent American capitalism: Where would you start? What would you change to make it less destructive and domineering, more focused on what people really need for fulfilling lives? We put the question to an eclectic list of people who are known for thinking long termpublic-spirited veterans of business and finance, optimistic activists, inventive policy thinkers. Their responses provide a provocative sampler of smart ideasconcrete proposals for reforming the dysfunctional economic system in fundamental ways [] The problem, of course, is that none of these ideas have any traction in regular politics. Both parties are locked in small-minded brawls, unable to think creatively or even to tell the truth about our historic economic crisis [] Despite the so-called recovery, the economic pathologies generated by unbounded capitalism during the past thirty years are expanding. Falling wages and surplus labor, swelling trade deficits and foreign indebtedness, deepening inequality and the steady destruction of the broad middle classthe political system does not have an answer for any of these [] The public may not even be aware that there are promising alternatives, since no one prominent in politics ever talks about them. What voters do know, however, is that the system no longer works [] In other words, the new politics does not start in Washington. Trying to persuade policy elites and incumbent politicians to take these ideas seriously is a waste of time. Reform politics has to start on the other end, with the experiments and experiences of ordinary people [] Our first great task is to change the way we talk about whats possible.
This evokes a debate that Marx had with one Jules Guesde in 1880 about their joint work that was the Programme of the French Workers Party. As noted by historian Bernard Moss:
The minimum electoral program was designed solely as a "means of organization and struggle." It consisted of a series of minimum demands that Guesde drew from labor and Radical movements: civil liberty, arming of the people, religious separation, communal autonomy, eight-hour day, weekly day of rest, abolition of child labor, minimum wage law, equal wages for equal work, free public education and child maintenance, employer responsibility for industrial accidents, an end to employer interference with workers' treasuries, worker consultation on shop regulations, the return of all alienated public property, including banks, railroads and mines, to the nation and their exploitation by their own workers, the abolition of indirect taxes, and imposition of a progressive tax on incomes of more than 3,000 francs and all estates of more than 20,000 francs.
Discounting the possibility of obtaining these reforms from the bourgeoisie, Guesde regarded them not as a practical program of struggle, but simply as a means of agitation, as bait with which to lure the workers away from Radicalism. Since in his view these reforms were with the exception of a minimum wage compatible with the capitalist system, their rejection would free the proletariat of its last reformist illusions and convince it of the impossibility of avoiding a workers' [1789].
This was what led an appalled Marx to immediately proclaim that what is certain is that I myself am not a Marxist, despite the fact that both Marx and Guesde actually agreed that their proposed reforms were compatible with the capitalist system of their day. Historical development has proven each of them both correct and incorrect on this debate. The political questions of civil liberty, arming of the populace, communal autonomy, and so on required and still require what Marx insisted: the independent class-based political action that is genuine class struggle. The potential for bourgeois obstruction luring workers away from mere populist radicalism is only incidental.
However, given the long history and current developments of economic independence for the working class under bourgeois-fied commodity production being wishful thinking, Guesde actually had more of a point on economic reforms, especially if they are more radical and, to quote Greider, change the way we talk about whats possible. Indeed, the conclusions of Crane Brintons The Anatomy of Revolution, reproduced by James Chowning Davies, vindicated Guesde on economic reforms and revolutions:
First, these were all societies on the whole on the upgrade economically before the revolution came, and the revolutionary movements seem to originate in the discontents of not unprosperous people who feel restraint, cramp, annoyance, rather than downright crushing oppression. Certainly these revolutions are not started by down-and-outers, by starving, miserable people. These revolutionists are not worms turning, not children of despair. These revolutions are born of hope, and their philosophies are formally optimistic. Second, we find in our prerevolutionary society definite and indeed very bitter class antagonisms [...] Revolutions seem more likely when social classes are fairly close together than when they are far apart. "Untouchables" very rarely revolt against a God-given aristocracy, and Haiti gives one of the few examples of successful slave revolutions [...] Third, there is what we have called the transfer of allegiance of the intellectuals [...] Fourth, the governmental machinery is clearly inefficient, partly through neglect, through a failure to make changes in old institutions [...] Fifth, the old ruling class or rather, many individuals of the old ruling class, come to distrust themselves [...]
In short, it is much better to commit the ironically cautious mistake of deeming directional or genuinely transitional measures those economically inclined demands that result strictly in labour empowerment, and necessarily require the working class to expropriate, beforehand, ruling-class political power in policymaking, legislation, execution-administration, and other areas as radical reform, than to scream Transitional! or Death Agony Of Capitalism! at every radical reform presented only, to quote Nate Hawthorne, to be suckerpunched when [radical reforms] take place and the reformists will be in a better position.
REFERENCES
The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International (Transitional Program) by Leon Trotsky [http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/index.htm]
The Prerequisites for Socialism and the Tasks of Social Democracy (Evolutionary Socialism) by Eduard Bernstein [http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bernstein/works/1899/evsoc/index.htm]
Marxs crisis theory: overrated? [http://www.revleft.com/vb/marxs-crisis-theory-t160755/index.html]
Capitalism finally the pundits are taking notice by Guy Rundle [http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/09/01/rundle-capitalism-finally-the-pundits-are-taking-notice/]
Marxism: Last Refuge of the Bourgeoisie? by Paul Mattick [http://books.google.ca/books?id=ycrkYMDIXrEC&printsec=frontcover]
Das Kapital, Volume I by Karl Marx [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch32.htm]
Lenin, Kautsky, and the new era of revolutions by Lars Lih [http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004670]
The far right has a ready answer. Does the left? by Stephen Gowans [http://gowans.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/the-far-right-has-a-ready-answer-does-the-left/]
World politics, long waves, and the decline of capitalism by Mike Macnair [http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/799/crisis.php]
Lessons from the Long Depression by Shamir Karkal [http://shamirkarkal.blogspot.com/2011/08/lessons-from-long-depression.html]
Materials Relating to the Revision of the Party Programme by Vladimir Lenin
[http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/reviprog/ch04.htm]
The Crisis: Make the bosses pay! by the International Marxist Tendency [http://www.marxist.com/imt-manifesto-on-crisis-part-two.htm]
Reimagining Capitalism: Bold Ideas for a New Economy by William Greider, The Nation [http://www.thenation.com/article/161267/reimagining-capitalism-bold-ideas-new-economy]
The Origins of the French Labor Movement, 1830-1914: The Socialism of Skilled Workers by Bernard Moss [http://books.google.com/books?id=quW3ZVn8WGgC&printsec=frontcover]
When Men Revolt and Why by James Chowning Davies [http://books.google.com/books?id=bm3VNPlOTQoC&printsec=frontcover]
Reform is possible and reformism is guaranteed by Nate Hawthorne [http://libcom.org/blog/reform-possible-reformism-guaranteed-22122011]