"Be in government but do not hold power": sign of economism?

[Die Neue Zeit]

http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article3895


Experience proves that left-wing movements can come to be in government, but nevertheless do not hold power.

Is there indeed economism implicit in this statement? The article continues:


When an electoral coalition or left-wing party arrives in government, it does not hold the real power: economic power (via the possession and control of financial and industrial groups, the major private media, large-scale commerce, etc.) remains in the hands of the capitalist class, the “richest 1%” (not even!, it is less than 1% of the population). Moreover, this capitalist class controls the State, the legal apparatus, the ministries of the Economy and Finance, the central bank, etc.

It is clear that "hold power" gives more emphasis to economic power. Control of the state apparatus is, within this cheap sloganeering, merely an afterthought.

How, then, does one describe the situation of having sufficient “office” to change the constitutional framework in favour of “power”? For example, how does one describe the situation of having two-thirds majorities in enough “offices” to effect constitutional amendments or to change constitutions outright, or what could have transpired in Venezuela during the 2007 referendum? That doesn't fall within the usual definition of "dual power."

[tuwix]

The scenario described in the article isn't the case always as you pointed about in Venezuelan case, but it is a case in many other countries unfortunately.

[Creative Destruction]

http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article3895



Is there indeed economism implicit in this statement? The article continues:



It is clear that "hold power" gives more emphasis to economic power. Control of the state apparatus is, within this cheap sloganeering, merely an afterthought.

How, then, does one describe the situation of having sufficient “office” to change the constitutional framework in favour of “power”? For example, how does one describe the situation of having two-thirds majorities in enough “offices” to effect constitutional amendments or to change constitutions outright, or what could have transpired in Venezuela during the 2007 referendum? That doesn't fall within the usual definition of "dual power."


But the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.

The simple fact of the matter is that the economy is what determines the structures. The working class' political supremacy must take a form that is different from the central bourgeois authority that exists right now, including constitutions and rule of law. Working class officers being voted into positions within the bourgeois government isn't going to do anything, if not for the simple fact that, in the United States at least, there are checks against power that would prevent this from happening. That's why we have, even at the local level, supposed socialist candidates get voted into office (such as in Seattle) who then, close after their election, do an about face and strip their rhetoric and policy of any revolutionary politics.

[Noa Rodman]

According to Morris Hillquit one of the reasons for less belief in political struggle among US workers is the power which the Supreme Court has.

(relating to Léon Blum's famous distinction between the exercise and the conquest of power, this is a mildly interesting article on Blum and the SFIO's response to the SPD's coalition politics: Klassenkampf versus Koalition. Die französischen Sozialisten und die Politik der deutschen Sozialdemokraten 1928-1933Heinrich August Winkler

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/40185649?sid=21105793715821&uid=2134&uid=4&uid=70&uid=2&uid=3737592)

It's a bit tricky distinction I agree, because whenever there's a protest against a government they always stall with the response that they don't have the necessary power.

Dictatorship of the proletariat is power over the other classes, I don't think it means the economic conditions can be changed at will (and even pointing this out can already become the target of criticism which sees this as stalling/an excuse).

[Die Neue Zeit]

It's a bit tricky distinction I agree, because whenever there's a protest against a government they always stall with the response that they don't have the necessary power.

Dictatorship of the proletariat is power over the other classes, I don't think it means the economic conditions can be changed at will (and even pointing this out can already become the target of criticism which sees this as stalling/an excuse).

Comrade, I won't go down that slippery slope and say you're for "stalling" or providing an "excuse," but I do think you need to be much, much clearer about how you define "at will." Enough people "at will" can overhaul economic conditions quite unilaterally.

This is yet another reason why I oppose cheap sloganeering, as many times the slogan-eers are clueless about their own slogans. "The educators should be educated" should really read "The agitators should be educated."

I posed the constitution overhaul scenario above because the combination of that (1) with a revolutionary period (2) for the proletarian demographic (3) *majority* (4) poses the fullest question of class power: at least four characteristics are there, and the first two have sub-characteristics of their own.

(I.e., (1) being outlined definitively in the real "State and Revolution" that is Kautsky the Marxist's Republic and Social Democracy in France and (2) being outlined more definitively in Kautsky the Marxist's The Road to Power)

[Noa Rodman]

unless I skipped something I don't think Kautsky does anything more in Republic and Social Democracy in France than literally quote Marx on the Commune.

[Die Neue Zeit]

unless I skipped something I don't think Kautsky does anything more in Republic and Social Democracy in France than literally quote Marx on the Commune.

Ben Lewis didn't follow up on additional articles on the translation, so the last published article stopped at the Marx citation. Republic and Social Democracy in France goes further than that, with seven articles: http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/conferences/8annual/submit/the-book-that-didn2019t-bark-karl-kautsky2019s-2018social-democracy-and-republic-and-france2019-as-defence-of-marxist-republicanism-ben-lewis