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It isn't as simple as you make it sound.
A class in itself may have little if any socioeconomic awareness, but it may also have "socialist consciousness" on the basis of moral appeals or Utopianism. In either case, there is no actual class consciousness. A class in itself may also have basic political consciousness, but not specialized in the form of class-based political consciousness.
A class for itself has class-based political consciousness, but may or may not have the desired "socialist consciousness."
"A new centrist project does not have to repeat these mistakes. Nobody in this topic is advocating a carbon copy of the Second International (which again was only partly centrist)." (Tjis, class-struggle anarchist)
"A centrist strategy is based on patience, and building a movement or party or party-movement through deploying various instruments, which I think should include: workplace organising, housing struggles [...] and social services [...] and a range of other activities such as sports and culture. These are recruitment and retention tools that allow for a platform for political education." (Tim Cornelis, left-communist)
Also there isn't such thing as an "economic struggle." It's central to marxism that economics and politics are indistinguishable.
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"[I]t’s hard to keep potent historical truths bottled up forever. New data repositories are uncovered. New, less ideological, generations of historians grow up. In the late 1980s and before, Ann Druyan and I would routinely smuggle copies of Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution into the USSR—so our colleagues could know a little about their own political beginnings.”
--Carl Sagan
I agree. I think the traditional distinction between "economic struggle" and "political struggle" represents the division of labour between trade union bureaucrats and politicians within the social democratic and Stalinist parties, rather than an authentic Marxist analysis.
But there is a clear distinction between the economy and politics; it is a division of capitalism and capitalist society. That we communists desire to abolish this division and unify all social activity as human activity isn't the same as recognizing that, under capitalism, there are separate spheres of social life.
The programme and theory on tactics from the Communist Party of Italy are clear on this point as it relates to the intervention of communists (I'd say the same principle is still relevant today and in the next International):
Apolitical? It's a cornerstone of understanding the course of capitalist development, and applied to historical materialism, the means to understand the mechanism for the revolutionary change of social relations and modes of production based on the class struggle in each epoch.
In a nutshell, instead of staying on the recidivist terrain of wage demands (regardless of how militant), they ended up questioning both political structures and the proletarian condition itself. In the case of the wave of bossnappings in France, threats to dump sulphuric acid into the local rivers or burn or blow up factories under occupation, were not over keeping their jobs (occupations and bossnappings happening after the workforce was made redundant and the factories were to close down), they were aimed at achieving the largest possible severance agreement so that the factory workers would not have to work, could exist for as long as possible, outside of the proletarian condition. Bossnappings in the 1960's (especially 1968) often were over working-conditions and higher wages, but in 2008-today, they've been about getting as much money as possible in severance; no demands to keep the factories open or save their jobs. In one factory workers got the equivalent of 10 years worth of wages in exchange to end the occupation and not blow up or burn down their factory.
There's an excellent article about this here:
http://riff-raff.se/texts/en/sic1-ho...be-satisfied?s[]=struggles&s[]=france
In the example of the Chinese auto workers and Egyptian textile workers, normal economic demands end up challenging the legitimacy of the state- first militancy, then self-organization, then clashes with state forces and police, rejection (and ejection) of union leaders. In the case of China, the mystification about 'democratic trade unions' like the wave of Solidarnosc in Poland was skipped- workers formed factory committees and elected delegates from amongst themselves directly to make decisions; in Egypt, at least 1 trade union leader was hospitalized after being physically removed from the mills in Mahalla for trying to negotiate an end to the mass strikes.
The abolition of the bourgeoisie's "spheres of life" isn't some over-the-rainbow ideal, something to be achieved after some revolutionary event-horizon, it is the practical content of the communist movement. To participate in the communist movement is to participate in the abolition of the division between "spheres of life", and to reproduce those divisions (however pragmatically we imagine we are doing so) is to practice anti-communism.
But we are not living through the movement for communism- it doesn't make sense to deny that this division exists. It's idealist to transpose communist principles onto material reality when the bases for this movement is not happening.
I agree that the unity of the political and economic is a necessary part of the movement for communism- I'm making that argument in the context of struggles that begin to go beyond recidivism; but it is not the generalized situation today. The divisions of bourgeois society is the world we live in (until the movement for communism begins).
In other words, you think we should be social democrats.
I think we're talking at crossed purposes- I agree that what communists should promote is the immediate unity between the economic and political spheres in struggle (and not promoting separate economic and political strategies); it sounded like you were saying this division has already been overcome by the movement for communism.
Workers are quite capable of leading ourselves, to claim otherwise is patronising.
The problem with what you are saying is that while economic power governs political power there is a difference. The economic system utilizes the State as a method of maintaining itself. In order for the state to mitigate or misdirect the anger of the proletariat it does allow concessions with social democrats as one of the main releases of this tension. In consideration of this, what you recognize as a single struggle - rightfully so - acts in some senses as two systems that work in conjunction with each other to maintain the status quo. When you look at the State you can see that it does and has built itself upon channeling the class struggle for its own benefit by effectively having the bourgeois and to a much smaller degree the proletariat bribe them to utilize the state's power for their respective ends.
The State, within liberal democracies, is in the employ of the bourgeoisie and has the vested interest of maintaining their social hegemony. Parliamentary action can in some cases alleviate some of the suffering of the proletariat, but the mechanism for reversing those strides will always be left in place for the bourgeois to excercise their superior power and reverse it. This is best displayed in the New Deal and its dismantlement.
Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand. ~ Karl Marx
formerly Triceramarx
I'm saying that the communist movement- as a real social movement, and not just a milieu of no-good hippy beatniks like ourselves- consists in that overcoming, is realised only in the active abolition of "political" and "economic" spheres. It's a matter of practice, not "promotion", of what is actually done, not what we merely aspire to do at some imprecise date in the future.
As you say, most of the time, such an overcoming is not in evidence, because, most of the time, the communist movement is not in evidence. But that doesn't imply that we should simply accept the bourgeois structure of life in the mean, at least not no more so than we are obliged to, and certainly not that we should seek to participate in the reproduction of those divisions by taking up reformist politics. (There are plenty of people doing that already, and whatever good may come of it doesn't require our involvement.)
As if parliamentary reforms were not always, ultimately, bourgeois reforms, a precaution against the threat (and, most often, reality) of working class insubordination? As if they were achieved against and despite capital, rather than with capital's sufferance- and even, as in your example of the New Deal, its enthusiasm? As if social democracy was a weapon wielded by the working class, and not against it?
Last edited by Fionnagáin; 24th April 2013 at 20:06.
Re: Why should communists engage in economic struggles?
To bakuninism, perhaps. Both "economics" and "politics" are part of a larger mode of production, yes, but that does not mean they are the same.
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[FONT="Courier New"] “We stand for organized terror - this should be frankly admitted. Terror is an absolute necessity during times of revolution. Our aim is to fight against the enemies of the Revolution and of the new order of life. ”
― Felix Dzerzhinsky [/FONT]
لا شيء يمكن وقف محاكم التفتيش للثورة
This is only true if we recognise that every economic strike is, at the same time, a political action. Other than that, the idea that only the "political struggle" matters is pure bullshit. The majority of workers do not belong to political parties but are, every day, at the point of production and brought into conflict with their main enemy - this being, not this political party or that one, but the individual capitalist and, by extension, his entire class. This is the truth revolutionaries should be drawing out of the economic struggle, not standing on the sidelines with a misplaced superior smirk on our faces, denouncing "mere economic struggle" like some ponce from the middle classes.
If Lassalle thought that the organisation of workers at the point of production was irrelevant, this only shows us another good reason why Marx and Engels saw the man and his ideas as something which the proletariat had to overcome. And given Lassalle followed the orthodox Hegelian notion that the political state (even in bourgeois society) had the aim of developing the "education and development of liberty in the human race" (Source) even his "political struggle" amounts to nothing but mere reformism.
Capitalism is a mode of production, not a mere political system. Its overthrow is the task of the proletariat, not its proxy in the official political organs of bourgeois society.
"Events have their own logic, even when human beings do not." - Rosa Luxemburg
"There are decades when nothing happens; and there are weeks when decades happen." - Lenin
Of course not- economic struggle is the business of trade union officials and political struggle is the business of politicians. (The business of workers, for those wondering, is doing what they're told.)
You're detatched from reality. The new deal happened because of general strikes, and through the 30s the CIO only grew throughout the New Deal. The condition of the working class also rose as a whole due to things like minimum wage laws and tons of safety and health procedures enacted by the federal government, as a result; not a means of avoiding, strikes.
But you think that suffering in some deterministic way raises class consciousness. Left communists generally think of things in this petit bourgeois idealistic notion that "Oh they're in poverty now, they must hate capitalism EVEN MORE!" It doesn't work like that, people don't strike when they're in poverty; they work harder than ever.
The first thing that was done when germans gained universal suffrage was the election of August Bebel into the Reichstag. Eventually the Leibnachts was elected as well. I'll trust these mens course of action more than your or anybody on the interent's advice.
For student organizing in california, join this group!
http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=1036
http://socialistorganizer.org/
"[I]t’s hard to keep potent historical truths bottled up forever. New data repositories are uncovered. New, less ideological, generations of historians grow up. In the late 1980s and before, Ann Druyan and I would routinely smuggle copies of Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution into the USSR—so our colleagues could know a little about their own political beginnings.”
--Carl Sagan
"No revolutionary perspective is possible without the primacy of the political struggle over the simple economic struggle. For apolitical economic struggle leads to economism, that is, to class collaboration, while on the other hand, pure concentration on the political struggle, neglect of, scorn for, the economic struggle, leads to voluntarism, i.e., to adventurism." - Louis Althusser
This is one of my favorite quotes. You've definitely got a point, but I think the struggle for certain reforms is a good place to immerse yourself within the working class and bring Marxism to the forefront to convince the working class that mass movements and revolution is the only way.
You cant just call something an "economic struggle," in the way left communists do. There is only class struggle which manifests itself into specific demands which may or may not correspond with the conscious goals of the rest of the working class.
There is uneven development in consciousness, which some marxists here seem to disregard as a notion of reformism. If you actually talk with and listen to 90% of the population they are more worried about paying rent than ending capitalism. The goal of the communists should be to aid them organize the conditions to raise the standard of living; and show how ultimately their struggle is impossible to solve in the long run without abolishing capitalism.
From chapter two of the Communist Manifesto:
In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole?
The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties.
They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole.
They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.
The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only: 1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.
For student organizing in california, join this group!
http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=1036
http://socialistorganizer.org/
"[I]t’s hard to keep potent historical truths bottled up forever. New data repositories are uncovered. New, less ideological, generations of historians grow up. In the late 1980s and before, Ann Druyan and I would routinely smuggle copies of Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution into the USSR—so our colleagues could know a little about their own political beginnings.”
--Carl Sagan
In 1865, Marx in Value, Price and Profit discussed the question of why workers should try to force wages up, and resist a reduction in wages:
Obviously working people have no difficulty understanding why they should strike for higher wages and benefits. The problem is that the working class and the communists, at least in the U.S., became separated and were turned into each other's enemies; so that now a leftist can ask whether communists should even be fighting for higher wages, shorter working weeks, etc.
The big unions will never see the communists as their allies again. However, communists can still offer their support to the workers at places like Walmart.
Wrong on both counts. Marx himself made distinctions, as noted by the quote earlier in this thread.
That in fact is orthodox Marxist analysis, not a weird combination of Marxian analysis and syndicalism.
I don't know what to make of the inconsistency in your post. The "clear distinction" points to a conclusion against growing political struggles out of economic disputes and against harboring any notion that "the economic is political." The "clear distinction" means, in fact, to start with blatantly political struggles from the get-go, and spillovers into economic issues should be welcomed as a bonus.
"A new centrist project does not have to repeat these mistakes. Nobody in this topic is advocating a carbon copy of the Second International (which again was only partly centrist)." (Tjis, class-struggle anarchist)
"A centrist strategy is based on patience, and building a movement or party or party-movement through deploying various instruments, which I think should include: workplace organising, housing struggles [...] and social services [...] and a range of other activities such as sports and culture. These are recruitment and retention tools that allow for a platform for political education." (Tim Cornelis, left-communist)
And here, Idler, you make that other mistake: that the "struggle for socialism" is political and not economic. The "struggle for socialism" is in fact economic, not political (as opposed to class rule).
Yes, the merger formula, but such fights for higher wages and shorter workweeks should be at the level of public policymaking pressure. Activist workers in San Jose did a much better job addressing this than the big unions ever will.
Tell that to low-paid San Jose workers who benefitted from something other than isolated strike action.
Besides, the long-term effectiveness problems of private-sector collective bargaining can be addressed substantively by this: Private-Sector Collective Bargaining Representation as a Free Legal Service [Monopoly]. A "State Aid" monopoly on this Mediation-In-Practice function is better than isolated "Self-Help" disputes that rarely turn political.
Last edited by Die Neue Zeit; 26th April 2013 at 05:47.
"A new centrist project does not have to repeat these mistakes. Nobody in this topic is advocating a carbon copy of the Second International (which again was only partly centrist)." (Tjis, class-struggle anarchist)
"A centrist strategy is based on patience, and building a movement or party or party-movement through deploying various instruments, which I think should include: workplace organising, housing struggles [...] and social services [...] and a range of other activities such as sports and culture. These are recruitment and retention tools that allow for a platform for political education." (Tim Cornelis, left-communist)
