What reforms cannot solve

[RedWorker]

Hi. I am recently engaged in more debates and am starting to wonder how to respond more specifically to stuff like "reforms can solve most problems", coming not from centre-left but rather left-wing people, who would be willing to apply any kind of reforms.

Let's not talk about common arguments like "the bourgeoisie will just roll back reforms". I would prefer if you just criticized reformism as if the conditions are utopian within capitalism. (e.g. the bourgeoisie won't try to roll reforms back)

I would also prefer that you also use some real-world examples rather than arguing only theoretiaclly.

I myself already have some thoughts and arguments of my own but would like to hear yours.


What are some major, systematical problems that reforms just, by virtue of being reforms, cannot solve, whatever the conditions within capitalism are?
What is your systematical criticism of reformism, not focusing on certain issues?

[consuming negativity]

Read "Reform or Revolution?" by Rosa Luxemburg. Sorry to be that person who tells you to go read a book, but it's exactly what you're looking for, I promise.

[tuwix]

What are some major, systematical problems that reforms just, by virtue of being reforms, cannot solve, whatever the conditions within capitalism are?



The problem of private property. The basis of capitalism is private property. Capitalism won't allow to abolish a private property because it means the end of capitalism.




What is your systematical criticism of reformism, not focusing on certain issues?


Reformists refuse to accept a nature of capitalism that tends always to be in its naked brutal form. There was a time of civilizing a capitalism. And what? Capitalism returned to its naked nature.

[RedWorker]

Read "Reform or Revolution?" by Rosa Luxemburg. Sorry to be that person who tells you to go read a book, but it's exactly what you're looking for, I promise.

Will check it out, thank you.


The problem of private property. The basis of capitalism is private property. Capitalism won't allow to abolish a private property because it means the end of capitalism.

Well, I'm talking about people who believe that private property doesn't need to be abolished. How do you convince these people that there are problems that will not be solved by mere reforms? They say "We give everyone food, health care, education, and the problem is solved".

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

How are reforms going to food into my belly tomorrow? That's what I'd like to know.

[Rugged Collectivist]

How are reforms going to food into my belly tomorrow? That's what I'd like to know.
Foodstamps

[Crabbensmasher]

Eh, you could look at it from another perspective.

Take something like unemployment benefits/insurance for example. High unemployment benefits are usually touted as part of a left reformist agenda. On the surface, people see no problem with them.

In reality however, its carefully designed to 'cushion' the economic impact of a recession. Its a favoured tool of capitalists because it helps economic decline from spiraling out of control. When people are left with no disposable income (unemployed), businesses suffer, crime rises, and pretty soon the economy is in the shitter. You can see how this can be especially problematic if a large portion of the workforce suddenly becomes unemployed (Take the decline of the manufacturing sector in the US as an example). With unemployment insurance, the capitalists are 'insuring' people have enough money to keep spending, and 'insuring' there's no civil unrest or disobedience.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Well, I'm talking about people who believe that private property doesn't need to be abolished. How do you convince these people that there are problems that will not be solved by mere reforms? They say "We give everyone food, health care, education, and the problem is solved".

Now on top of the pithy Luxembourg essay you have to read capital :lol:

Because capitalism isn't just some policies or economic rules, but the entire logic of how we survive as individuals (sell our labor, sell commodities for profit, or manage capital) and how contemporary society reproduces itself, there is a natural tendency while trying to survive or navigate this system to want to tinker with it, to try and make adjustments to it. This goes for any class, but class also informs what would be considered a better deal under the circumstances.

I support reform efforts that help the working class survive and fight better not so much because of the reform itself, but when it's an effort from below, then it's part of how the working class begins to develop it's own capacity to lead... Organizing together, working out demands, learning how to potentially see class divisions and take on the interests of the ruling class. Independent revolutionary working class formations (I.e. Revolutionary "parties") are a big part of the organizing for more IMO, but that's a whole other long-ass post:)

But why it's not enough (especially reform schemes from above to be imposed on society to make it "run better" and therefore do not help workers organize their own power) is that the main problems of capitalism stem from the very logic of the system itself.

Privatized property (not personal property) is inherently tied to class divisions and in capitalism control or lack of control of that is needed to have a workforce (people who have to sell their labor cheaply enough for capitalists to make a profit) that will work at the pace and rates for profit-making. Competition in capitalism creates innovation (in a narrow way) but also disruption, waste, the drive towards monopoly and imperialism and economic capitalist crisis. So the better capitalists get at capitalism, the more they undermine their own system because they have to invest more and make fewer or cheaper workers work harder to be competitive. The capitalist answer to this is usually the capitalist state. They can regulate or deregulate, they can use military power to open up new markets for plunder and expansion, they can go to war to destroy their competitor's productive capacity thereby creating new markets and space for productive growth.

Workers can make their own reformist demands, but if they get good at it, then it starts to cut into the capitalist's ability to profit and so class struggle from the bosses side will tend to always try and regain control. Historically this has included both cooption but also massive repression such as pinochette or backing fascists to restore "order".

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Foodstamps

I'm already on food stamps. It's a fucking joke.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Eh, you could look at it from another perspective.

Take something like unemployment benefits/insurance for example. High unemployment benefits are usually touted as part of a left reformist agenda. On the surface, people see no problem with them.

In reality however, its carefully designed to 'cushion' the economic impact of a recession. Its a favoured tool of capitalists because it helps economic decline from spiraling out of control. When people are left with no disposable income (unemployed), businesses suffer, crime rises, and pretty soon the economy is in the shitter. You can see how this can be especially problematic if a large portion of the workforce suddenly becomes unemployed (Take the decline of the manufacturing sector in the US as an example). With unemployment insurance, the capitalists are 'insuring' people have enough money to keep spending, and 'insuring' there's no civil unrest or disobedience.unless people are getting too weak to complete work tasks or children are being killed by black lung in mines faster than they can grow up and produce more tiny mine-workers, I think they capitalists prefer us to be precarious and therefore more acquiescent and easily intimidated.

Currently austerity, things in the recent past like the economic moves by the thatcher or carter-Reagan administrations, are actually designed to increase unemployment and vulnerability so that work can be sped up and wages lowered through more intense competition for jobs.

They will offer us things if they fear the alternative would be revolution though.

[RedWorker]

.

I understand all that. But your argument seems to boil down to: "The bourgeoisie will try to roll back reforms".

I know they will and history has proven it x times. But the people I'm arguing with won't understand that. So let's imagine an utopia where the bourgeoisie would not try to roll back reforms.

Your other argument seems to refer to the falling rate of profit as I understand it. But is it not theoretically possible that, in an utopia, the bourgeoisie would e.g. not use the military? Of course, this may very well be impossible. But imagine this utopia really existed, what would be your argument then?

The people I'm arguing with say: "Capitalism doesn't need to be removed, it's just that laws which give everyone a decent life through guaranteeing the fulfillment of basic needs need to be created". Is it possible that, under capitalism with such laws, all humans are guaranteed at least a decent life? And if such a thing was possible, then what would be the best arguments against capitalism?

[Jimmie Higgins]

The people I'm arguing with say: "Capitalism doesn't need to be removed, it's just that laws which give everyone a decent life through guaranteeing the fulfillment of basic needs need to be created". Is it possible that, under capitalism with such laws, all humans are guaranteed at least a decent life? And if such a thing was possible, then what would be the best arguments against capitalism?no, capitalism needs to divide and oppress people, it needs inequality or else it can not profit off of labor by having people willingly (more or less) allow themselves to be exploited.

People make arguments otherwise because they either think alternatives are impossible or undesirable.

You can, historically, have periods of relative class peace, but the dynamics of the system mean that the needs of capital are going to compel greater competition which means a pressure on bosses to have greater exploitation. A "utopia" of capitalist stability and social calm is an impossible utopia because capitalism would not grow under such conditions, which ironically would lead to increased class tensions and strife.

My argument is not so much that capitalists will consciously, politically, and out of preference, "roll back reforms" but that the very dynamics of the competitive accumulation of capital create the eventual need for any reforms to be rolled back.

[Left Voice]

On the most basic level, reforms fail to address a worker's relationship with the means of production. This is the very point - reforms inherently cannot break with capital because they imply a compromise with capital. An acceptance of the existence of capital, on the basis that capitalism can become some more benign, 'good' form of capitalism.

Not only is this fairytale fantasy, but it wilfully ignores the very basis of worker oppression. Those who propose reforms to capitalism ultimately want to maintain this exploitation, believing that exploitation can somehow become humane.

[Red Economist]

basically reforms cannot solve the fact you're still ruled by capitalists, that they exploit you and rule 'for you'. You won't be free on your own terms.

[RedWorker]

no, capitalism needs to divide and oppress people, it needs inequality or else it can not profit off of labor by having people willingly (more or less) allow themselves to be exploited.

I assume you are talking about a scenario where social-democracy is pushed to a point where people are guaranteed a livelihood without wage-labor. (but there could still be big inequality in such a scenario)

Please elaborate on how this works. Would capitalists not still be able to profit off surplus value off the people who would engage in wage-labor? Would this necessarily result in the collapse of capitalism (to be saved only by rolling the reforms back), or would there just be lower/no profits, which would be resolved by the reforms being rolled back by the bourgeoisie's engagement in class warfare?

Maybe I really do need to read Capital. :D

[boiler]

I think No reforms could fix unemployment. There will always be unemployment within the capitalist system as unemployment is more beneficial to capitalists, unemployment keeps wages down, etc unemployment basically makes capitalists more money.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I assume you are talking about a scenario where social-democracy is pushed to a point where people are guaranteed a livelihood without wage-labor. (but there could still be big inequality in such a scenario)

Please elaborate on how this works. Would capitalists not still be able to profit off surplus value off the people who would engage in wage-labor? Would this necessarily result in the collapse of capitalism (to be saved only by rolling the reforms back), or would there just be lower/no profits, which would be resolved by the reforms being rolled back by the bourgeoisie's engagement in class warfare?


I'm not sure what you are really asking here.

Capitalists compete with each-other and so in order to win this competition, ultimately they need to figure out how to increase the rate of exploitation more than their competitors. They can temporarily improve production technology but then while they may be increasing exploitation by having fewer workers be more productive, they are also spending a lot more on machinery and tech and soon a competitor will come up with an analogue. Capitalists can "innovate" and say, replace video stores with streaming movie rentals, but soon Apple and cable companies and amazon are also in the competition and so any momentary gain is lost and again, the capitalists hit a wall where increasing exploitation is still the only way to stay competitive.

A situation where say the government regulated things to the point that basics of living are covered and their was full employment would basically be like a kind of state-capitalism. Generally this kind of reform is geared towards maintaining a decent but low-level basic living standard and so it's just managed inequality as opposed to regular old market inequality. In this case with either capitalists still controlling production, but highly regulated, or buerocrats managing capital directly since it is still a class system, the rulers resort to direct repression to control people if they can't use the threat of hunger and homelessness debt to compel people.

Reforms on capitalism are still reforms on an inherently unequal organization of society where the few control the ability of others to live (through the privatization of productive wealth). It's a reform on a system based on class theft and class domination. So it's a way to manage, not eliminate class dominance and exploitation.

Again, I don't think that means reform struggles are useless under capitalism, but their main value from a revolutionary, view in my opinion, is in potentially organizing workers to make their own demands and begin to flex their own power. Because workers can end exploitation and class dominance, not manage it better.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Read "Reform or Revolution?" by Rosa Luxemburg. Sorry to be that person who tells you to go read a book, but it's exactly what you're looking for, I promise.

To you and the OP: That's not enough.



What are some major, systematical problems that reforms just, by virtue of being reforms, cannot solve, whatever the conditions within capitalism are?
What is your systematical criticism of reformism, not focusing on certain issues?


This not only doesn't focus on certain issues, but lists every single one of them:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/sectarian-approach-dealing-t189785/index.html


Earlier, I suggested that such left reforms "should, at a very dynamic 'minimum,' coincide with the 'maximum demands' of modern 'left social-democrats.'" However, what exactly were those demands historically?

Is the state of political (http://www.revleft.com/vb/educate-educate-agitate-t143439/index.html) education (http://www.revleft.com/vb/political-education-expertisei-t186939/index.html) on the broad left deficient enough to validate the anti-Blairite statement of one Sunder Katwala about being "willing to offer a free internet-based phD certificate in comparative social democracy to anybody who can do that" (http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/ourkingdom-theme/the-challenges-for-milbands-progressive-fusion)? This would basically mean hard-nosed research on identifying the main areas of left-social-democratic policy (i.e., fiscal, monetary, labour, agriculture, etc.) in each western European and Scandinavian country during the immediate post-WWII era, and identifying the "best" ones implemented on a country-vs-country basis that can also be applicable to "post-industrial" economies. Hopefully, there would be enough of them to make a political laundry list.

[...]

The "sectarian" approach involves presenting this laundry list as a total ultimatum or "red line" for any sort of front-based work with left-reformists, safeguarding against opportunistic tendencies towards reform coalitionism. Basically, "We don't want to even talk politics with you, let alone work with you, unless you support every bullet point on the list!"

Is this needed?

[John Nada]

I think that capitalism at it's best can't solve one problem, is who wields power. The proletariat, in the end, will always have to answer to the bourgeoisie under capitals. The bourgeoisie want capital, and profits always come over people. If they don't have or manage capital, they're no longer capitalists. Without capitalist there can't be capitalism. And we all can't be bourgeois, who will be left to make money off of? I also don't think that reforms itself will eliminate bigotry. These shit was built on slavery patriarchy and imperialism. Even if there's reform in the developed countries, there's a financial incentive to keep other nation down, and minorities oppressed. With it, I don't think war will go away. They always talk about making war less messy. That's impossible. The interest of different factions of the bourgeoisie will inevitably clash. Although I support reforms to ameliorate the proletariat's lives now(won't complain about get free healthcare and universal income), it will eventually need to go. Taking about perfect capitalism is like talking about perfect slavery.