Peter, thank you so much for posting this article. I really resonate with what Michael Lebowitz is saying here. He says: Why is it that after so many defeats so many still cannot see what Marx grasped in the nineteenth century – that capital has the tendency to produce a working class which views the existence of capital as necessary? ‘The advance of capitalist production,’ he stressed, ‘develops a working class which by education, tradition and habit looks upon the requirements of this mode of production as self-evident natural laws.’ This is so true. Many radicals get frustrated that others can't see what they see. I have been there myself. Why do working class vote for Tories? Incomprehensible I thought. But according to Lebowitz (and Marx) it makes sense. And by mode of production lets understand hierarchical relationships, so that it includes ICT, and all patriarchal relationships based on power and money. Lebowitz again: It begins, in short, by grasping the ‘key link’ of human development and practice that Marx consistently stressed. Revolutionary democracy recognizes that every activity in which people engage forms them. (My emphasis) Thus, there are two products of every activity – the changing of circumstance or things and the human product. What's the significance of recognizing this process of producing people explicitly? First, it helps us to understand why changes must occur in all spheres – every moment that people act within old relations is a process of reproducing old ideas and attitudes. Working under hierarchical relations, functioning without the ability to make decisions in the workplace and society, focusing upon self-interest rather than upon solidarity within society – these activities produce people on a daily basis; it is the reproduction of the conservatism of everyday life. This is what I was trying to say in the discussion with you and Michel, we have to take into account where these forces converge in the individual because that is where the 'alternative logic' that Michel talks about, arises. But what I didn't see is that what gives rise to this 'alternative logic', is the possibility of different practice, different activity, what Leibowitz calls below 'new spaces in which people can develop their powers...' “Recognizing this second side also directs us to focus upon the introduction of concrete measures which explicitly take into account the effect of those measures upon human development. Thus, for every step two questions must be asked: (1) how does this change circumstances and (2) how does this help to produce revolutionary subjects and increase their capacities?”[5] Of course, it must struggle to capture the existing state from capital so that state can serve the needs of the working-class rather than capital. However, it also must “promote by all means possible new democratic institutions, new spaces in which people can develop their powers through their protagonism.” You questioned Lebowitz use of term working class. To me the 'working class', is all those who never actually have a chance to think outside the box, who are captured by the logic of capitalism to sell their labour in whatever form, or who accept inequality as a natural state of affairs. I know these terms are very imprecise but I find the hair splitting arguments between old timers a real waste. Lebowitz is really addressing the question you raised about the 'socio-cultural processes' needed to accomplish a politico-economic transition. I will write more when I have finished Lebowitz article which I am in process of reading and would heartily recommend http://monthlyreview.org/2014/03/01/proposing-path-socialism-two-papers-hugo... Excerpt: This is a society centred on a conscious exchange of activity for communal needs and communal purposes. It is a society of new, rich human beings who develop in the course of producing with others and for others; these are people for whom the desire to possess and the associated need for money (the real need that capitalism produces, Marx noted) wither away. We are describing a new world in which we have our individual needs, needs for our own “all-round development,” but where we are not driven by material incentives to act. It is a world in which our activity is its own reward (and is, indeed, “life’s prime want”) because we affirm ourselves as conscious social beings through that activity, a world in which we produce use-values for others and produce ourselves as part of the human family. How is this accomplished? Anna
On 2 Aug 2015, at 09:45, Peter Waterman <[email protected]> wrote:
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