A Question for the "Revolutionary Marxists" (Seriously) on the Transitional Program

[commieathighnoon]

I've been reading Mike Macnair, and am currently following his critique of "ultra-left" and Trotskyist programmatism and I came across the following:

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/686/for-a-minimum-programme


The reason is that between the working class seizing political power and the disappearance of classes, supersession of state, nation, family etc is a substantial period of transition. The transition, and the communist outcome, will be shaped by the choices made by the working class when it has attained political power. To `fuse` the maximum and minimum programmes in this sense is precisely to return to the Proudhonist, Lassallean, Bakuninist etc world of sects defined by utopian speculation.

It also has a striking consequence, to which I have referred in polemic with Campaign for a Marxist Party comrades before.19 This is that the core `transitional demands` of Trotsky`s 1938 Transitional programme - sliding scale of wages and sliding scale of hours - if fully implemented, amount to the immediate abolition of money. Replacing the minimum programme with one `transitional` to the maximum programme then turns out to mean "¦ transitional to the `war communism` regime of the Russian civil war, or to a Maoist `cultural revolution` or Cambodian `year zero`.

Moreover, the Transitional programme argument depends on the argument - explicitly maintained in that text - that capitalism is in its death agony and no longer capable of granting reforms. As a statement about the immediate political situation in 1938 this was close to being tenable: the death agony of the British world-regime was about to issue in world war. Even so there were serious problems: for example, Latin America avoided direct involvement in the war and was relatively prosperous through the 1940s. As an epochal statement, it was plainly false.


Sliding Scale of Wages
and Sliding Scale of Hours

Under the conditions of disintegrating capitalism, the masses continue to live the meagerized life of the oppressed, threatened now more than at any other time with the danger of being cast into the pit of pauperism. They must defend their mouthful of bread, if they cannot increase or better it. There is neither the need nor the opportunity to enumerate here those separate, partial demands which time and again arise on the basis of concrete circumstances – national, local, trade union. But two basic economic afflictions, in which is summarized the increasing absurdity of the capitalist system, that is, unemployment and high prices, demand generalized slogans and methods of struggle.

The Fourth International declares uncompromising war on the politics of the capitalists which, to a considerable degree, like the politics of their agents, the reformists, aims to place the whole burden of militarism, the crisis, the disorganization of the monetary system and all other scourges stemming from capitalism’s death agony upon the backs of the toilers. The Fourth International demands employment and decent living conditions for all.

Neither monetary inflation nor stabilization can serve as slogans for the proletariat because these are but two ends of the same stick. Against a bounding rise in prices, which with the approach of war will assume an ever more unbridled character, one can fight only under the slogan of a sliding scale of wages. This means that collective agreements should assure an automatic rise in wages in relation to the increase in price of consumer goods.

Under the menace of its own disintegration, the proletariat cannot permit the transformation of an increasing section of the workers into chronically unemployed paupers, living off the slops of a crumbling society. The right to employment is the only serious right left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is being shorn from him at every step. Against unemployment, “structural” as well as “conjunctural,” the time is ripe to advance along with the slogan of public works, the slogan of a sliding scale of working hours. Trade unions and other mass organizations should bind the workers and the unemployed together in the solidarity of mutual responsibility. On this basis all the work on hand would then be divided among all existing workers in accordance with how the extent of the working week is defined. The average wage of every worker remains the same as it was under the old working week. Wages, under a strictly guaranteed minimum, would follow the movement of prices. It is impossible to accept any other program for the present catastrophic period.

Property owners and their lawyers will prove the “unrealizability” of these demands. Smaller, especially ruined capitalists, in addition will refer to their account ledgers. The workers categorically denounce such conclusions and references. The question is not one of a “normal” collision between opposing material interests. The question is one of guarding the proletariat from decay, demoralization and ruin. The question is one of life or death of the only creative and progressive class, and by that token of the future of mankind. If capitalism is incapable of satisfying the demands inevitably arising from the calamities generated by itself, then let it perish. “Realizability” or “unrealizability” is in the given instance a question of the relationship of forces, which can be decided only by the struggle. By means of this struggle, no matter what immediate practical successes may be, the workers will best come to understand the necessity of liquidating capitalist slavery.

Coupled with the TP's description of the sliding scale of hours and wages, can someone explain to me how this amounts to the "immediate abolition of money" and the descent into chaos of the various utopian diversions described? I thought the "sliding scale" simply means existing wages should be pegged to CPI and that the working week as currently defined (40, 35 hours, w/e) be divided among the existing working class employed and unemployed in a general works and employment program? It is because CPI-linked wages plus full employment will result in unlimited inflationary pressures? Could this be explained by someone who follows Macnair/CPGB's politics more closely?

[Noa Rodman]

I think it was a common demand at the time in the labor movement e.g. made by the IWW, and by Kautsky (1937) (http://www.marxists.org/deutsch/archiv/kautsky/1937/03/arbeitszeit.htm). It would be funny though if Trotsky took the idea from Kautsky. Also Kautsky holds that capitalism entered a monopoly phase of permanent crisis. For the demand to work (pardon the pun) you need several of the advanced economies which are democratic states supported by a powerful labor movement. So I don't think this demand already assumes abolition of money and is a plunge into year zero, it assumes rather something like the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e. the transition period.

[commieathighnoon]

Well full employment plus wages pegged to CPI would tend to lead to generalized inflation and profit collapse; hence why I think Macnair is saying its tantamount to abolishing money. I could be wrong and I'd expect that someone in the "Revolutionary Marxist" group or DNZ would know better, though.

[Geiseric]

The point of that demand in the TP is that it is literally impossible to seriously argue against. In the U.S. we have 4x as much money as in the 70's that's in circulation, but wages have stayed stagnant, so once we explain that to people and if we have an organization that can put that campaign into practice, that demand can attract HUGE amounts of working class people.

[commieathighnoon]

That doesn't help answer the question at all--the point is that volume of the money supply is quite irrelevant. The point is with full employment, wages will be bid upward, and prices will rise; pegging wages to prices will induce an inflationary spiral. Nothing you said disputes Macnair's assertion; I suspect it is because you are (as usual) reciting the ortho-Trot catechism and don't know very much concretely about political economy.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

McNair's arguments are specious and suggest that either he does not understand the reasons for the TP or that he is just trying to discredit it for partisan reasons. The transitional demands will not be met by the bourgeoisie except in the context of intense class struggle -- but they are "possible' in the sense that they could be met to the greater good. They are not the old Min/Max program crap of the old German Social Dems and the Second International. These demands are raised to sharpen class struggle.

As for the statement that this would immediately lead to the abolition of money -- well that is a load of crap. Unless he is using the word "immediate" a very odd way. Does the logic of it possibly lead to the eventual abolition of money? Perhaps, but if put into play, it will be but a brief interlude before red revolution or white reaction. In any case it misses the purpose of transitional demands.

Capitalism's "death agony" has indeed been more like Malaria -- it has periods where it seems to by dying and then recovers enough to carry on. In large part this is due to the failures of revolutionary leadership since 1938. We are now in a reactionary period (at least in the industrialized nations) that has been going on for several decades. The greatest danger for revolutionaries is to adapt their program to this. Things will change and the pendulum will start to swing in our direction. We must be ready when that time comes.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Lev, CPGB comrade Mike Macnair is an ex-Trot, so he knows the TP all too well.


I've been reading Mike Macnair, and am currently following his critique of "ultra-left" and Trotskyist programmatism and I came across the following

Actually, it swings between "Year Zero"-isms and economism. Notice that "sliding scale of wages" and hours are raised at the trade union dispute level, not at the public policy level. This echoes Boris Krichevskii's stage-ist approach, which Lenin criticized in WITBD as part of the "feud within Russian Erfurtianism."


Coupled with the TP's description of the sliding scale of hours and wages, can someone explain to me how this amounts to the "immediate abolition of money" and the descent into chaos of the various utopian diversions described? I thought the "sliding scale" simply means existing wages should be pegged to CPI and that the working week as currently defined (40, 35 hours, w/e) be divided among the existing working class employed and unemployed in a general works and employment program? It is because CPI-linked wages plus full employment will result in unlimited inflationary pressures? Could this be explained by someone who follows Macnair/CPGB's politics more closely?

First, the question is: how often would the pegging occur? It can be annual, quarterly, monthly, weekly, or daily. Do it daily, and you have "Year Zero."

Second, if the CPI goes down, Trotsky's slogan would mean that wages would go down!

Third, "sliding scale of hours," and work-sharing schemes don't work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy


Historically, the term "lump of labour" originated to rebut the idea that reducing the number of hours that employees are allowed to labour during the working day would lead to a reduction in unemployment.

I wrote this within the context of Post-Keynesian public policymaking:



Conflict with Cost-of-Living Adjustments and Reinterpreting “Sliding Scale of Wages”

It has been noted that the aforementioned reform [Minsky's ELR] and extended socio-income democracy [Direct Democracy in Income Multiples] could conflict with the consistent, complete, and lasting implementation of the earlier cost-of-living adjustments demand – for the universalization of annual, non-deflationary adjustments for all non-executive and non-celebrity remunerations, pensions, and insurance benefits to at least match rising costs of living. L. Randall Wray wrote on Minsky’s zero non-frictional unemployment reform:

He argued that it should increase over time faster than high wages to reduce the spread between low-skilled and high-skilled wages. As discussed above, policy might need to constrain high wage growth (to a rate below productivity growth) to offset any inflationary pressures.

[…]

Minsky argued that ELR would not be inflationary once it is in place. He did allow that implementation of ELR could raise wages and employment, leading to some price increases. However, he insisted that maintaining full employment does not have the same inflationary impact as moving to full employment (Minsky 1965). Raising aggregate demand (for example, through investment incentives or defense spending) to move to full employment would be inflationary. But, he argued, it hasn’t been shown that maintaining low unemployment is inflationary – especially if full employment is maintained through a wage floor. For this reason, even if implementation of ELR raised wages at the bottom and increased consumption demand, placing pressure on prices, this is a temporary phenomenon. Maintenance of full employment with an ELR program would not cause permanent inflation.

[…]

Further, ELR would also be supplemented with other policies to deal with unemployment and poverty – and these, too, would need to be changed through time [see Minsky (1986) and Minsky and Whalen (1996) for discussion of other policies]. In particular, Minsky consistently argued for policy to reduce bigness; he favored policy biased toward smallto- medium sized firms. He would restrain growth of construction wages, as he saw these as substantially set by powerful labor unions, imparting an inflationary bias to the economy. He also advocated price controls for things the government buys (most importantly, utilities, defense industry outputs, and healthcare), as well as moderated wage increases in those sectors and in the government sector (Minsky 1968, 1975a). Together with ELR, this would allow for full employment, with greater equality and lower inflation than alternative antipoverty programs.

Although the rate of productivity growth is not the same as the rate of inflation, when there is little or no economic growth, the former can be lower than the higher, most notably in cases of stagflation or even hyperinflation. If that is not enough, the creation and especially adjustment of income multiples limits in all industries, for all major working-class and other professions, and across all types of income would certainly conflict with the earlier demand if high-wage incomes are affected by income multiples limits.

On the other hand, the simultaneous existence (not implementation) of all three reforms with priority given to zero non-frictional unemployment and income multiples limits would put an end to precarious conditions and give a new meaning to “sliding scale of wages.” Sliding scales, more generally, are scales whereby indicated wages, prices, tariffs, taxes, and so on fluctuate due to changes in at least one other factor, standard, or condition. Instead of Trotsky’s reductionist, one-dimensional slogan aimed economistically at the lower level of union dealings and not at the bourgeois-capitalist state, wages under this new, multi-factor “sliding scale” would fluctuate in accordance with rising costs of living (not notorious government underestimations due to faulty measures like chain weighting, or even underhanded selections of the lower of core inflation and general inflation), with limits on high-wage incomes based on productivity growth, and with income multiples limits in all industries, for all major working-class and other professions, and across all types of income.

[Goooh]

The point of that demand in the TP is that it is literally impossible to seriously argue against. In the U.S. we have 4x as much money as in the 70's that's in circulation, but wages have stayed stagnant, so once we explain that to people and if we have an organization that can put that campaign into practice, that demand can attract HUGE amounts of working class people.

Wages have stayed stagnant since the 70's? Just because you read that doesn't make it true.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

^^^ Lev, CPGB comrade Mike Macnair is an ex-Trot, so he knows the TP all too well.



Actually, it swings between "Year Zero"-isms and economism. Notice that "sliding scale of wages" and hours are raised at the trade union dispute level, not at the public policy level. This echoes Boris Krichevskii's stage-ist approach, which Lenin criticized in WITBD as part of the "feud within Russian Erfurtianism."



First, the question is: how often would the pegging occur? It can be annual, quarterly, monthly, weekly, or daily. Do it daily, and you have "Year Zero."

Second, if the CPI goes down, Trotsky's slogan would mean that wages would go down!

Third, "sliding scale of hours," and work-sharing schemes don't work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy



I wrote this within the context of Post-Keynesian public policymaking:



Conflict with Cost-of-Living Adjustments and Reinterpreting “Sliding Scale of Wages”

It has been noted that the aforementioned reform [Minsky's ELR] and extended socio-income democracy [Direct Democracy in Income Multiples] could conflict with the consistent, complete, and lasting implementation of the earlier cost-of-living adjustments demand – for the universalization of annual, non-deflationary adjustments for all non-executive and non-celebrity remunerations, pensions, and insurance benefits to at least match rising costs of living. L. Randall Wray wrote on Minsky’s zero non-frictional unemployment reform:

He argued that it should increase over time faster than high wages to reduce the spread between low-skilled and high-skilled wages. As discussed above, policy might need to constrain high wage growth (to a rate below productivity growth) to offset any inflationary pressures.

[…]

Minsky argued that ELR would not be inflationary once it is in place. He did allow that implementation of ELR could raise wages and employment, leading to some price increases. However, he insisted that maintaining full employment does not have the same inflationary impact as moving to full employment (Minsky 1965). Raising aggregate demand (for example, through investment incentives or defense spending) to move to full employment would be inflationary. But, he argued, it hasn’t been shown that maintaining low unemployment is inflationary – especially if full employment is maintained through a wage floor. For this reason, even if implementation of ELR raised wages at the bottom and increased consumption demand, placing pressure on prices, this is a temporary phenomenon. Maintenance of full employment with an ELR program would not cause permanent inflation.

[…]

Further, ELR would also be supplemented with other policies to deal with unemployment and poverty – and these, too, would need to be changed through time [see Minsky (1986) and Minsky and Whalen (1996) for discussion of other policies]. In particular, Minsky consistently argued for policy to reduce bigness; he favored policy biased toward smallto- medium sized firms. He would restrain growth of construction wages, as he saw these as substantially set by powerful labor unions, imparting an inflationary bias to the economy. He also advocated price controls for things the government buys (most importantly, utilities, defense industry outputs, and healthcare), as well as moderated wage increases in those sectors and in the government sector (Minsky 1968, 1975a). Together with ELR, this would allow for full employment, with greater equality and lower inflation than alternative antipoverty programs.

Although the rate of productivity growth is not the same as the rate of inflation, when there is little or no economic growth, the former can be lower than the higher, most notably in cases of stagflation or even hyperinflation. If that is not enough, the creation and especially adjustment of income multiples limits in all industries, for all major working-class and other professions, and across all types of income would certainly conflict with the earlier demand if high-wage incomes are affected by income multiples limits.

On the other hand, the simultaneous existence (not implementation) of all three reforms with priority given to zero non-frictional unemployment and income multiples limits would put an end to precarious conditions and give a new meaning to “sliding scale of wages.” Sliding scales, more generally, are scales whereby indicated wages, prices, tariffs, taxes, and so on fluctuate due to changes in at least one other factor, standard, or condition. Instead of Trotsky’s reductionist, one-dimensional slogan aimed economistically at the lower level of union dealings and not at the bourgeois-capitalist state, wages under this new, multi-factor “sliding scale” would fluctuate in accordance with rising costs of living (not notorious government underestimations due to faulty measures like chain weighting, or even underhanded selections of the lower of core inflation and general inflation), with limits on high-wage incomes based on productivity growth, and with income multiples limits in all industries, for all major working-class and other professions, and across all types of income.
Most of which is debatable but beside the point. Trotsky was not trying to come up with a good way of making capitalism better for the proletariat -- these are a series of demands that were designed to further class struggle. And the specific demands, it would seem to me, could be adjusted over time to better reflect shifting realities in the capitalist economy - not to accommodate the situation, but perhaps to avoid contradictions as you point out. But again do not lose the forest for the trees -- this is not a program to simply make the lot of the proletariat better under capitalism -- it is a program to push for militant labor action to bring down capitalism.

[Noa Rodman]

I think the focus should be on sliding scale of hours (and total hours of work is not fixed, I'm sure Trotsky didn't think otherwise, why else name it sliding scale). Though Kautsky wrote it in a union magazine, he sees the demand to be taken up by the state. It is obvious that also Trotsky saw it as a public policy (he lists it with the demand for public works).

The sliding scale of wages is another (less radical) demand which I think is just about keeping "purchasing power". I don't see how that would lead to inflation.

p.s.
I don't see why these demands signify a rejection of a min-max program either.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I think the focus should be on sliding scale of hours (and total hours of work is not fixed, I'm sure Trotsky didn't think otherwise, why else name it sliding scale). Though Kautsky wrote it in a union magazine, he sees the demand to be taken up by the state. It is obvious that also Trotsky saw it as a public policy (he lists it with the demand for public works).

The sliding scale of wages is another (less radical) demand which I think is just about keeping "purchasing power". I don't see how that would lead to inflation.

p.s.
I don't see why these demands signify a rejection of a min-max program either.

I don't think Trotsky saw it as public policymaking as much as sloganeering:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/tp-text.htm#ss


Against a bounding rise in prices, which with the approach of war will assume an ever more unbridled character, one can fight only under the slogan of a sliding scale of wages. This means that collective agreements should assure an automatic rise in wages in relation to the increase in price of consumer goods.

[...]

Against unemployment, “structural” as well as “conjunctural,” the time is ripe to advance along with the slogan of public works, the slogan of a sliding scale of working hours. Trade unions and other mass organizations should bind the workers and the unemployed together in the solidarity of mutual responsibility.

He doesn't say "enforcement of appropriate legislation and regulation" or something along those lines. This is public policymaking. Sloganeering at the level of collective agreements and other aspects of mere labour disputes isn't. That's broad economism at the very least.

On the focus on sliding scales of hours, comrade Macnair argues that what's already implied here is a planned economy, at least indicative, and perhaps even directive. Work hours per week or even per day go up and down. If the workers don't explicitly support this, it's a con scheme.

As for sliding scales of wages and inflation, I wasn't arguing that it would lead to inflation. If there's deflation, a true sliding scale of wages would mean just that, a sliding scale, which means nothing less than wage reductions. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Italy implement a true sliding scale of wages during the 1970s?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Most of which is debatable but beside the point. Trotsky was not trying to come up with a good way of making capitalism better for the proletariat -- these are a series of demands that were designed to further class struggle. And the specific demands, it would seem to me, could be adjusted over time to better reflect shifting realities in the capitalist economy - not to accommodate the situation, but perhaps to avoid contradictions as you point out. But again do not lose the forest for the trees -- this is not a program to simply make the lot of the proletariat better under capitalism -- it is a program to push for militant labor action to bring down capitalism.

I'm not arguing this point. After all:

One last criticism of issuing demands must be addressed: the toxic notion of managing the bourgeois-capitalist state, or of managing bourgeois capital, state capital, and so on. In more technical terms, this means that reform struggles do not really benefit the working class, but instead facilitate capital accumulation and the reproduction of labour power. What these particular critics simply do not understand is that there are times when these two outcomes intersect; there are measures strictly for facilitating capital accumulation and the reproduction of labour power, measures strictly for labour empowerment (politically and economically), and measures that can achieve both in varying degrees. While it should be acknowledged that even the economically-inclined demands based on the game theory concept of maximin – by enabling the basic principles to be “kept consciously in view” (Kautsky) and, in the cases of immediate and intermediate but not threshold demands, by “mak[ing] further progress more likely and facilitat[ing] other progressive changes” (Hahnel) – involve some degree of facilitating capital accumulation and the reproduction of labour power, maximin yields little in the way of this other side and much more in the way of labour empowerment. Meanwhile, the 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 – are simply of a directional nature. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=6667)

[Noa Rodman]

I don't think Trotsky saw it as public policymaking as much as sloganeering:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/tp-text.htm#ss



He doesn't say "enforcement of appropriate legislation and regulation" or something along those lines. This is public policymaking. Sloganeering at the level of collective agreements and other aspects of mere labour disputes isn't. That's broad economism at the very least.

On the focus on sliding scales of hours, comrade Macnair argues that what's already implied here is a planned economy, at least indicative, and perhaps even directive. Work hours per week or even per day go up and down. If the workers don't explicitly support this, it's a con scheme.

As for sliding scales of wages and inflation, I wasn't arguing that it would lead to inflation. If there's deflation, a true sliding scale of wages would mean just that, a sliding scale, which means nothing less than wage reductions. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Italy implement a true sliding scale of wages during the 1970s?

Well collective agreement and legislation go together I think. It doesn't make these points in the program political demands such as workers' militia, sure. But these demands are state measures, at least thus spoke Kautsky. And yes there is implied strong workers support and a certain planned economy (for the demand to have a chance, it should be complemented with measures such as foundation of state credit banks, etc. - so the year zero objection falls flat), and it should be implemented on an international scope. I don't see what the problem is.

Generally in "disintegrating" capitalism there is inflation, so I imagine that was also the case in Italy in the 70s. In short:

http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/384/176/d2f.jpg

[Jimmie Higgins]

Property owners and their lawyers will prove the “unrealizability” of these demands. Smaller, especially ruined capitalists, in addition will refer to their account ledgers. The workers categorically denounce such conclusions and references. The question is not one of a “normal” collision between opposing material interests. The question is one of guarding the proletariat from decay, demoralization and ruin. The question is one of life or death of the only creative and progressive class, and by that token of the future of mankind. If capitalism is incapable of satisfying the demands inevitably arising from the calamities generated by itself, then let it perish. “Realizability” or “unrealizability” is in the given instance a question of the relationship of forces, which can be decided only by the struggle. By means of this struggle, no matter what immediate practical successes may be, the workers will best come to understand the necessity of liquidating capitalist slavery.

He isn't making some principle of this specific or other specific demands - like in any situation this is the way forward. He is arguing that in the context of that crisis capitalism can only recover if it does so on the backs of workers - this naturally causes at least the desire for fight-back (he says workers are already making these sorts of partial demands) and so revolutionaries should support demands that will put the working class in a more independant and agressive position, to fight for their interests irregardles of the effects for capital.


Wages have stayed stagnant since the 70's? Just because you read that doesn't make it true.Do you have counter-evidence because just saying something isn't true doesn't make it untrue. I don't know about wold-wide (and an increase in industry in so-called developing countries could mean that average wages world-wide have increased) but in the US even bourgoise economists are well aware that wages have increased at a much slower rate than inflation. More imporatntly for Marxists, the rate of exploitation and inequality has increased dramatically in the US. Living standards were able to maintain a bit, but due to increases in personal debt.

[CyM]

This is really quite stupid.

Trotsky wrote the transitional demands to help the masses make the transition from minimum to maximum program. The minimum program being economic and reform demands, the maximum demands being the need to overthrow capitalism and begin the dictatorship of the proletariat.

As in, you want a sliding scale of wages, right? Ok, great, let's agree to do what it takes to get that. What? The capitalists will be raising prices in response to this very reasonable demand and sabotaging it? I guess that proves we need to expropriate the capitalists.

That is how they are intended.

Macnair is being an idiot, he's attacking Trotsky for putting forward demands that would be impossible under capitalism. Only, them being impossible under capitalism is what makes them transitional demands.

He is accusing Trotsky of something he did quite purposely, and is the very genius of transitional demands. Once you accept the need for one of these demands to solve an everyday problem of the workers' conditions, you suddenly find you have to follow it to its logical conclusion and fight to overthrow capitalism.

If it is true he's an ex-Trotskyist, he never had any understanding of Trotsky's ideas.

[vanukar]

So what's the difference between the Transitional Program and reformism? Cus from where I'm standing there doesn't seem to be any.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Macnair is being an idiot, he's attacking Trotsky for putting forward demands that would be impossible under capitalism. Only, them being impossible under capitalism is what makes them transitional demands.

He is accusing Trotsky of something he did quite purposely, and is the very genius of transitional demands. Once you accept the need for one of these demands to solve an everyday problem of the workers' conditions, you suddenly find you have to follow it to its logical conclusion and fight to overthrow capitalism.

If it is true he's an ex-Trotskyist, he never had any understanding of Trotsky's ideas.

Au contraire, the comrade understood Trotskyism all too well. Trotsky's TP is a mixed bag, one for not actually listing transitional measures that have to break even with petit-bourgeois property relations, and another for agitating workers by the hook into supporting things they wouldn't support without actual public policy education.

[Red Enemy]

^^^ Lev, CPGB comrade Mike Macnair is an ex-Trot, so he knows the TP all too well.

Just to throw it out there:

Chris Hitchen (the new atheist, Islamophobe and apologist for imperialism) was an "ex-Trot"... just goes to show that it doesn't mean shit that Macnair is an ex-Trot.

[Die Neue Zeit]

No, Hitchens was an ex-Cliffite, not an ex-orthoTrot.

[CyM]

Workers need an answer to skyrocketing prices, to rising fees, to falling wages, to unemployment and in the context of the period it was written in: to the world war and to fascism.

To simply say "revolution" is ultra-leftism. The idea is to link the need for reforms to the need for revolution.

The reformists cannot win reforms in the first place, and limit themselves to reforming capitalism. The workers are responding to attacks by the bosses, and this provokes mass class struggle. The Marxists must make clear to the workers that the reformist leadership cannot win these battles, and that nothing will be resolved under capitalism.

The idea is that the marxists must be at the forefront of every battle to improve the conditions of the working class, pushing for militant united struggle against the capitalists, while pointing out the need to go further and the reality that the only guarantee is to overthrow capitalism all together.

The transitional programme is the antidote to both the reformist programme (no link to the revolution) and the "arm-chair revolutionary" programme (no link to the conditions of the workers who are losing jobs right the fuck now).

If you have nothing to say about the struggle for free education in quebec for example, or the struggle for wages and jobs in greece, you can yell revolution all you want but you'll stay three men and a dog.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Who said anything about three men and a dog? Media overhaul is more politically important, for example, than price changes (whether in the grocery, in the classroom, or in your bank account). Class rule, and its base of class politics, are counterposed to all shades of economism.

[Luís Henrique]

Not having given too much thought to the main issues of McNair's argument, I must take exception from this:


Latin America avoided direct involvement in the war and was relatively prosperous through the 1940s.

Yes, Latin America avoided direct involvement in the war, and (et pour cause) it was relatively (and even more than just relatively) prosperous during the time. But its prosperity was directly related to the war, which raised the prices of raw materials, allowing for some accumulation of capital, and disturbed the offer of European, and North American, industrialised products, erasing the comparative disadvantages of Latin America when it came to industrial production, prompting the possibility of using the newly accumulated capital in developing local industry.

Luís Henrique

[CyM]

Who said anything about three men and a dog? Media overhaul is more politically important, for example, than price changes (whether in the grocery, in the classroom, or in your bank account). Class rule, and its base of class politics, are counterposed to all shades of economism.
"Media overhaul" is irrelevant from the point of view of the working class.

A revolutionary organization, large enough, can have a newspaper that sufficiently counters the bourgeois media. Not to mention union papers launched by revolutionaries who gain majorities in these unions.

Again, anyone who thinks "media overhaul" is more important than wages and prices for the workers will perpetually be in a group of three men and a dog.

This is a question of getting to the workers and winning them for the revolution, and "media overhaul" is a slogan you are imposing in an idealist and sectarian manner. Wage and price issues are slogans drawn directly from the material conditions of the workers themselves and the natural evolution of their own demands, just nudged in a transitional way towards revolutionary conclusions.

"Media overhaul", I'm assuming, is the right for your opinions to reach more people, since the mass media is bourgeois. Except there is no such right. You have no right to reach the masses. You must work for it and win the masses yourself. There is no such shortcut. You might as well put forward the demand for a big organization, it's about as logical to the non-revolutionary worker as you talking about "media overhaul".

[Die Neue Zeit]

"Media overhaul" is irrelevant from the point of view of the working class.

And that's your first concession to broad economism, CyM.

Without that, where will the political will be to get across key points about the more economic issues?


Again, anyone who thinks "media overhaul" is more important than wages and prices for the workers will perpetually be in a group of three men and a dog.

Every genuine class struggle is political, not economic. Politics must be maximized in order to even begin to address the smallest of economic issues.

Here's another example: populist grumblings about paying those holding political office no more than some measure of average national income. Doesn't that cut right through the cynicism of ordinary Joes towards corruption in politics?


"Media overhaul", I'm assuming, is the right for your opinions to reach more people, since the mass media is bourgeois. Except there is no such right. You have no right to reach the masses. You must work for it and win the masses yourself. There is no such shortcut. You might as well put forward the demand for a big organization, it's about as logical to the non-revolutionary worker as you talking about "media overhaul".

I'm referring to many political things when I say "media overhaul," everything from support for alternative media startups to the old balance of content rules to appropriate taxation of the use of the broadcast spectrum.

[Red Enemy]

No, Hitchens was an ex-Cliffite, not an ex-orthoTrot.
Still doesn't mean sweet fuck all.

[Geiseric]

And that's your first concession to broad economism, CyM.

Without that, where will the political will be to get across key points about the more economic issues?



Every genuine class struggle is political, not economic. Politics must be maximized in order to even begin to address the smallest of economic issues.

Here's another example: populist grumblings about paying those holding political office no more than some measure of average national income. Doesn't that cut right through the cynicism of ordinary Joes towards corruption in politics?



I'm referring to many political things when I say "media overhaul," everything from support for alternative media startups to the old balance of content rules to appropriate taxation of the use of the broadcast spectrum.

The way the bolsheviks gained power was leading in the union apparatus and fighting for what people cared about, namely land peace and bread, which is more or less what the transitional program is based on, firsthand experiance.

[vanukar]

The way the bolsheviks gained power was leading in the union apparatus and fighting for what people cared about, namely land peace and bread, which is more or less what the transitional program is based on, firsthand experiance.

Pretty sad that you're regurgitating strategies used 100 years ago in distant lands with completely different situations from the current ones.

[CyM]

Pretty sad that you're regurgitating strategies used 100 years ago in distant lands with completely different situations from the current ones.

I'm sorry. How exactly is fighting for better wages and conditions for the working class, while explaining how that can only really be guaranteed by the revolutionary overthrow of the bosses' system, rendered irrelevant by supposedly "different" conditions today?

Right now, when capitalism is in a deep economic crisis and attempting to make the workers pay for that crisis, is precisely when the transitional programme makes the most sense.

Look at greece, where hundreds of thousands are owed months of backpay, and where the capitalists are proposing a 6 day workweek and an 11 hour work day as the only capitalist solution to the crisis. This is precisely the kind of situation that transitional demands are made for: instead of a 66 hour workweek, a 30 hour workweek without loss of pay. The capitalists say this is not possible in a capitalist economy in freefall. We agree, but for those that don't want to work 66 hours that leaves one option: nationalize the major industries under workers' control and move towards a democratically planned nationalized economy. Break with capitalism before it breaks our backs!

As for DNZ, I refuse to enter into a debate with someone who invents new terms so that no one knows what the hell he is saying. "I mean many things by that". Be upfront about what you are proposing instead of proposing riddles.

[Die Neue Zeit]

This is precisely the kind of situation that transitional demands are made for: instead of a 66 hour workweek, a 30 hour workweek without loss of pay.

[...]

As for DNZ, I refuse to enter into a debate

There's the economism again. What's the purpose of your 30-hour workweek proposal? Marx and Engels had more political aims in mind for the eight-hour day than the "transitional" approach to the 30-hour workweek.

[vanukar]

All he's doing is saying that since the transitional program "worked" in Russia, we should use it today - no matter how impractical it might be. You don't see the glaring stupidity in that?

[CyM]

All he's doing is saying that since the transitional program "worked" in Russia, we should use it today - no matter how impractical it might be. You don't see the glaring stupidity in that?

How impractical it might be? Listen, if someone analyses gravity and lift and comes up with a plane that can fly more than a century ago, I'm going to assume that the basic principles of flight worked out by them remain the same wherever you are. Now I may tweak things or deepen our understanding, but unless gravity and air flow are different in my time and location, the plane still flies. And my plane will be just an update of theirs, not a saucer.

So tell me, "might be impractical", what, precisely is different today that would stop us from tying the burning demands of the workers' everyday life to the revolution?

[CyM]

There's the economism again. What's the purpose of your 30-hour workweek proposal? Marx and Engels had more political aims in mind for the eight-hour day than the "transitional" approach to the 30-hour workweek.
The exact same purpose Marx and Engels had in mind, to draw the workers together in a struggle against the capitalist class that would drive them towards revolutionary conclusions in the course of that struggle.

Economism: you keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The exact same purpose Marx and Engels had in mind, to draw the workers together in a struggle against the capitalist class that would drive them towards revolutionary conclusions in the course of that struggle.

Although I already disagree with you, I ask rhetorically: To address unemployment? To increase workers' leisure time? What is your expanded position on the purpose of the shortened workweek?

[CyM]

Although I already disagree with you, I ask rhetorically: To address unemployment? To increase workers' leisure time? What is your expanded position on the purpose of the shortened workweek?

To address unemployment would be what we would say in agitating for it, yes, but we wouldn't agitate for it without linking it with the need to occupy the factories and take the power to implement it. In the context of greece, where the bourgeois are openly saying that the crisis requires a 66hr workweek, this revolutionary jump is self-evident.

[RedMaterialist]

Although I already disagree with you, I ask rhetorically: To address unemployment? To increase workers' leisure time? What is your expanded position on the purpose of the shortened workweek?

Aren't you really saying that workers should have one and only one goal and that is immediate revolution? That they should not fight for a shorter work week or increase in wages or free health care, an increase of leisure time, etc.

School bus drivers in New York are striking to keep Bloomberg from outsourcing their jobs. What do you suggest they do? Start throwing bombs? Marx said somewhere that it is insane to use force when political action can still achieve change. I read today that in Greece a group of factory workers had taken over the factory and begun producing for themselves. Should they leave work and start a revolution?

[CyM]

I read today that in Greece a group of factory workers had taken over the factory and begun producing for themselves. Should they leave work and start a revolution?

Furthermore, isn't the task of the greek Marxists to do political work amongst these workers explaining that their struggle is actually the beginning of the revolution, and can only be won by being extended, generalized across all industries and ending with the conquest of power by the working class?

The example you have brought up is the perfect example of transitional demands comrade :) Factory occupations pose the question of power, and though they always begin as an answer to an everyday problem, when they appear as a mass phenomenon they open up the prerevolutionary period and make it possible to answer the question of power.

DNZ needs to pay attention to Greece. Thank you for your contribution.

[Luís Henrique]

There's the economism again. What's the purpose of your 30-hour workweek proposal? Marx and Engels had more political aims in mind for the eight-hour day than the "transitional" approach to the 30-hour workweek.

Elsewhere someone pointed to me that Lenin in 1917 did not demand a six hour journey and six rubles more pay. And I answered that perhaps he should, since the Russians ended up with huge journeys and shitty wages anyway. What's the purpose of taking power, if then you don't, or can't, use it for you own benefit?

More to the point, I don't think in 1917 things worked in a transitional program mode. The Bolsheviks famously had to apply the SR's agrarian program - or they would have never had the support of the peasantry. That's much closer to the application of a minimal program, in a stage oriented politics. I think Trotsky's idea, far from repeating Russia's example, intended to put up a different strategy, more suited for not-so-belated countries.

Luís Henrique

[black magick hustla]

If you have nothing to say about the struggle for free education in quebec for example, or the struggle for wages and jobs in greece, you can yell revolution all you want but you'll stay three men and a dog.

except trotskyists in these countries are the metaphorical equivalence of "three men and a dog".

there's a few things a group can do to stay more relevant (i.e. gear oneself around struggles that are happening), but a transitional program is not necessarily one of them. cooking up a laundry list of political points that sound "realistic" doesn't necessarily make them so.

[black magick hustla]

nationalize the major industries under workers' control and move towards a democratically planned nationalized economy. Break with capitalism before it breaks our backs!.

so nationalizing buisnesses is breaking with capitalism? wow then i guess there is no point for postal office workers to strike, cuz' they already abolished capitalism

[Luís Henrique]

so nationalizing buisnesses is breaking with capitalism? wow then i guess there is no point for postal office workers to strike, cuz' they already abolished capitalism

To be sure, if we understand capitalism as a system - as a world system, perhaps - we can also realise that "socialism in one trade" isn't socialism at all. The point here is of course nationalising all businesses, and whether that breaks with capitalism or not. On this of course we can agree or otherwise, but we cannot substitute post office for post-capitalism in order to make an argument, if you can pardon me the pun.

Luís Henrique

[Die Neue Zeit]

That's much closer to the application of a minimal program, in a stage oriented politics. I think Trotsky's idea, far from repeating Russia's example, intended to put up a different strategy, more suited for not-so-belated countries.

And I'm arguing that, not only was Trotsky's idea irrelevant for Russia, it is only barely relevant for the countries you just mentioned.


Aren't you really saying that workers should have one and only one goal and that is immediate revolution? That they should not fight for a shorter work week or increase in wages or free health care, an increase of leisure time, etc.

School bus drivers in New York are striking to keep Bloomberg from outsourcing their jobs. What do you suggest they do? Start throwing bombs? Marx said somewhere that it is insane to use force when political action can still achieve change. I read today that in Greece a group of factory workers had taken over the factory and begun producing for themselves. Should they leave work and start a revolution?

I'm saying something entirely different:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_programme

CyM just stated his economistic opinion on a shortened workweek. You hinted at my position when you said "political action can still achieve change." It's not about unemployment. It's not about leisure time, either. It's about taking time off to be involved politically, or what others might mistakenly call "civil society."

On another note, isolated groups of factory workers beginning to produce for themselves is problematic if the production is indeed limited to their own interests. That isn't a "transitional" demand; that's parochialism (not producing for broader consumer demand).

[CyM]

so nationalizing buisnesses is breaking with capitalism? wow then i guess there is no point for postal office workers to strike, cuz' they already abolished capitalism
Obviously not, but nationalization of the commanding heights under democratic workers' control to begin the process of democratic planning certainly is breaking with capitalism.


And I'm arguing that, not only was Trotsky's idea irrelevant for Russia, it is only barely relevant for the countries you just mentioned.



I'm saying something entirely different:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_programme

CyM just stated his economistic opinion on a shortened workweek. You hinted at my position when you said "political action can still achieve change." It's not about unemployment. It's not about leisure time, either. It's about taking time off to be involved politically, or what others might mistakenly call "civil society."

On another note, isolated groups of factory workers beginning to produce for themselves is problematic if the production is indeed limited to their own interests. That isn't a "transitional" demand; that's parochialism (not producing for broader consumer demand).
Calling me an economist is completely dishonest, I would ask that you stop redefining terms in order to lie.

A shortened workweek in a socialist society is necessary in order to allow the workers to escape alienation, and in order to allow them participation in politics, art, science, etc... But it also allows all to work.

But a shortened workweek as a slogan under capitalism is merely the banner for struggle, it shows what is possible, but unpalatable to the profits of the bosses. When the IMF is suggesting a 66 hour workweek be the norm in Greece, say a 24 hour workweek without loss of pay to alleviate unemployment becomes a revolutionary slogan.

[Die Neue Zeit]

A shortened workweek in a socialist society is necessary in order to allow the workers to escape alienation, and in order to allow them participation in politics, art, science, etc... But it also allows all to work.

But a shortened workweek as a slogan under capitalism is merely the banner for struggle, it shows what is possible, but unpalatable to the profits of the bosses. When the IMF is suggesting a 66 hour workweek be the norm in Greece, say a 24 hour workweek without loss of pay to alleviate unemployment becomes a revolutionary slogan.

You still don't get it. The very participation in politics is what facilitates genuine class struggle. Every such struggle is political, not economic.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

You still don't get it. The very participation in politics is what facilitates genuine class struggle. Every such struggle is political, not economic.

Political and economic. Not every struggle is political, though. And not every struggle is economic. But every economic struggle (i.e. over pay, conditions - the working week) can become political (by becoming a slogan/by-phrase) and every political struggle has economic connotations (i.e. striking without loss of pay, factor shares and so on).

You seem to try and portray even the most economic struggle as a political demand, which is effectively painting social-democratic economism as the political ends we are seeking; it is a self-limiting strategy that cannot be masked by the Kaleckian-style use of Marxian language to describe essentially radical but not revolutionary politics.

[CyM]

DNZ, you really need to try to pin down your language. Marxism is a science, and every science has terms particular to it, or common terms which have a particular meaning in that scientific setting. We have to strive to use the same terms, or else it becomes impossible to discuss. It is not necessary to invent new terms for phenomena that have already been analyzed, nor is it necessary to attach a new meaning to an old term that already has a different meaning. In fact, it is extremely harmful, and reduces Marxism from a science to windbaggery. I'm sure that's not your intention.

The economic struggle is the struggle against the boss for better wages and conditions. It is the struggle to sell labour at better terms on the market. Economism as Lenin refers to it is the reduction of the tasks of the "Social-Democrats" (Marxists) to the extension of this struggle, and the idea that the economic struggle itself would be lent a political character, that there was no need for a professional revolutionary organization which would raise political ideas.

You see, your charge of economism holds no water. The task that the Marxists in Greece have set themselves is to bring a successful revolution in the country. Their paper is named "Revolution", and they are the revolutionary wing of Syriza.

The question for them is not how to get a shorter workday, it's how to overthrow capitalism. Now calling for the overthrow of capitalism can seem simple, you just do it, right? Wrong.

As Lenin set down in "What is to be done?" where he defined the struggle against economism, what is needed is a newspaper that will analyze every single issue facing the working class, including unemployment, pose concrete solutions, and show how revolution is necessary for them. The party needs to develop an understanding of the issues and how to resolve them, while understanding that they won't under capitalism. The masses need to see this too.

There is no economism in saying the nationalization of the commanding heights of the economy would allow us to move to a short workday without loss of pay and 100% employment. Considering unemployment is more than 30%, it would be simple stupidity to say nothing about how that is connected to the need for revolution.

The Russian revolution was not made on the slogan "Socialist Revolution!", it was made on the slogans: "peace, land and bread" and the slogan "all power to the soviets".

Peace, land and bread are not socialist slogans, they are concrete tasks, concrete problems that the capitalists could not resolve during the crisis. All power to the soviets was also not directly revolutionary, because it meant all power to the mensheviks. This was Lenin's slogan, to tell the mensheviks they should take the power. By showing that they were unwilling to do this, the workers came to the understanding that the mensheviks were useless, and moved to giving the bolsheviks a majority in the soviets.

All of these are, in fact, transitional demands.