Being Considerate (and Scientific Socialism)

Because of the taboo nature of Marxism these days, and its absence, even ridicule in popular press culture, I wanted to ask myself the question: "what are the consequences of the absence of these ideas for the ruling bourgeois class"? We might fairly easily, or at least more commonly, conjecture what effects its absence has on the working class and the oppressed, or on Marxists and communists themselves.

Considering that Marxism is scientific socialism, this amounts to asking what are the consequences of the absence of a science. This latter framing of the question of course assumes that Marxism is scientific, which the bourgeoisie and its fellow travelers obviously deny, along with everything else. But this is the claim of Marxist theory, that it is a scientific theory of socialism, and of society in general and its economic development, and it is a claim that has never been refuted in any serious way.

The answer to the question is not just that the absence of Marxism constitutes a victory for the bourgeoisie, which it does in a small way, in the first place, this is because Marxism is a product itself of bourgeois culture and science, of its own advancement on what went previously. But also the absence and exclusion of Marxism or scientific socialism from the debate leaves a gap in science where only ideology can rule. And this gap and its ideology does not only impact on the class enemies of the bourgeoisie. We have all by now heard of 'blowback', the (mostly) unintended consequences of actions that react back upon the maker of those actions. Well, this would be one form of feedback from the absence of scientific socialism: i.e. the inability to accurately predict the course of future society and to consider how such actions may have effects that rebound (not to mention collateral damage).

I came to thinking about this when I was examining another question, about being considerate to others. In one sense it means having good manners and discretion. We all know what it means to be considerate, it means taking care to account for what other people feel and think in various situations and with regard to your own actions and their consequences; but it also has a less benign sounding application: if a person has the capacity to foretell another person's feelings, and so their actions, better, if they 'can think in other peoples shoes' as Brecht said somewhere, this faculty is obviously quite useful if you have enemies whose behavior, say on a battlefield, needs to be foreseen so you can make the relevant strategic plans.

One aspect of the humanist variant of Marxist theory, that version which the bourgeoisie tends to allow into the academy for the sake of seeming 'balanced', would appear to be very much concerned with caring about people, about the oppressed and the exploited and the underdog, you might say this is its popular cultural position on the 'left' of the so called political spectrum, and you might think that this means it is considerate, and thus able to understand its opponents, to have empathy. However this does not seem to be the case.

Humanism is allied quite strongly with the spiritual side of things, even when ostensibly materialist: the 'human spirit' according to humanism, or 'human nature' will win out in history, to put it crudely, for the sake of humankind. It believes in an essence of humanness, in certain incorruptible qualities or essences.

Marxist humanism inherits this bourgeois philosophy, which was revolutionary once in the struggle against the old aristocracy and the divine rights of kings etc, but now is generally reactionary (though this can still depend on the social circumstances). Putting essences into the human pot, in short, means that this Marxism becomes, peculiarly, and usually (there are always exceptions), insensitive to what is going on materially around it, since it tends to see its principles and ideals everywhere as essences and overlooks the facts, not perhaps the bare facts, but more importantly the subtleties that you might pick up when you are, e.g., a considerate kind of person (this is beside the phenomenon of the probably many cadres of 'Marxism' that are little more than police spy versions and are therefore obviously going to be crude, misinformed, and deliberately put people off the subject in any case).

In western Ukraine recently (May 2014) the far right, including Nazis, have been supported by western political leaders in an uprising against a corrupt leader and parliament. One characteristic that the far right have is a severe lack of consideration for their fellows, and in this case the easterners living in the country, which mirrors the broadly crude attitude of fascists towards the value of human life in general, and their essentialism, which is also a crude form (again) of humanism and their crude ideals (strength, unity based on fear of the alien, chauvinism, absolute identity, sexism, etc). National Socialism has socialism in the name of course but there is actually nothing about it that is socialist, unless you call being fake socialist socialism. It is simply that fascism sometimes simulates the popular radical ideology of socialism (popular i.e. in times of crisis despite the taboo), in order to gain power, just as it has in Ukraine. It is highly likely that in Ukraine people did not even see the struggle against the corrupt capitalist president as a socialistic one (which it was), therefore the Nazi elements of Right Sector and Svoboda came to the fore in the struggle and could channel the anger in the direction it wanted.

It's flaw, however, is that it lacks consideration, and it always fails to 'think in other peoples shoes', a factor which leads it into making strategic mistakes. To it, being crude and unfeeling is a strength, but its strength is its big weakness. The same in a smaller way is true when the bourgeoisie are successful at turning Marxism into a taboo, which they have been. This success rules out a scientific understanding of society and leads to them misunderstanding their own position, it also leads to support for foolish and extreme powers, and to a lack of consideration for their own actions, being blinded already as they are by profit in the short term.

With regard to the Ukraine conflict, almost all the press, including Russia Today, refers to the protesters who are anti the fascist led government in Kiev as 'Pro Russian', and in this we get a simplistic opposition between Pro Europe (or West) and Pro Russian protesters, essentialist labels that are conducive to civil war. It is clear from this that the vested profit interests of the ruling classes on both apparent sides of the struggle see no value in unearthing a deeper level of analysis, for them this crude appearance seems to serve its purpose. And up to a point it does, it tends to lead people away from socialism and into the humanist, and sometimes fascist, mode of thinking about the crisis, the best criticism that is allowed is some economic cynicism on profit motives.

A war on the mainland of central Europe serves to enable emergency measures to combat resistance to austerity measures, diverts moves to socialism into fascism, and generally confuses everything, in this sense it benefits the capitalist, who sees the possibility of extending its free trade area eastwards via the European Union. But it can only do this by exacerbating the situation and using fascist forces, now openly. These fascist forces are not reliable and do not always act as they are meant to, they are even in many cases opposed to their 'masters'. The latter fact does not matter that much to those who can profit from this circumstance and who live far away in secure places and who can move around their capital on the international markets, and this can easily also include the Russian bourgeoisie, who may not have much interest in defending eastern Ukrainian anti-fascists or socialists or those wanting a return to Soviet days even when they are 'Pro Russian'. And it is likely that those who will suffer at first will be the working classes who resist capitalist expansion.

But the flaw in the plan is that these fascist forces do not see liberal democratic capitalism (the most profitable capitalism) as their real friend or as having any future potential for them, so blowback on liberal capitalism becomes inevitable. Certainly there are those who think that they, by virtue of being wealthy, are immune to the effects of such blowback, but this is only as true as anyone, any class or faction, can be immune from the effects of, for example, human induced global warming, there is no guarantee, and in the chaos of war or of weather nobody can really be considered safe, especially in a nuclear armed world.

If we can talk about our species as a species, refer to its chances of survival as a species, we definitely need a scientific way to understand society and its relation to the rest of nature, whether Marxist or not. Us communists believe that Marxism is the current representative of this science, this of course does not mean it will stay current forever, science moves on, but it is built on its achievements, and socialist science is one of these crucial building blocks. The bourgeois lack of theory here is to actively oppose science, any science not just Marxism, that might lay claim to exactitude in social economics. The mantra in the final instance at work here is that you cannot be scientific about society, that such an effort leads to being crude, you must let it stay 'free' and this reflects the 'free market' as the essence of human nature. So in effect we have the championing of ideology over science. This element of backwardness in the bourgeois class is where it will inevitably misunderstand its own progress and take the wrong decisions even on its own survival as a class.

It is also where it becomes inconsiderate. To consider the feelings of others, to have empathy, rather than only (external) sympathy, becomes a taboo for its version of society because it shows a material kind of fellow feeling exists, it refers to that peculiarly neglected area where socialism might grow up from the 'grassroots'. In place of this the bourgeois interests place technical expertise and statistics, polls, questionnaires and surveys, and all the 'democratic' paraphernalia and rituals, overseen by corporations, to divine what 'the people' think, these corporations, all have interests to find in the data exactly what they want to see, and so they do. The 'data' is not scientific, because that is ruled out in any case, it is merely instrumental, technical, and it often points to the fact (in crises) that we 'need' technical governance (which has happened in this present crisis in e.g. Greece and Italy).

What can 'technical' mean if it is not scientific? We know the term voodoo economics; it has to be a kind of number mysticism, it must, in the modern world, resemble the sciences without ever becoming science, it is a kind of conjuring. It is the use of something without its core, without its heart, it is in this sense superficial and inconsiderate. And this is why it comes up, repeatedly, with inconsiderate policies in the real world: such as the ideological attacks on single mothers by rightist Conservative governments in the UK, or indeed it supports fascists, who then attack the weak and the alien. Certainly these targets are also scapegoats and represent other opportunities for the powers, but it is the logical illogical outcome of this instrumental anti scientific attitude and which surfaces at its most extreme in the capitalist crisis.

There are, as we know, many examples of e.g. the U.S. governments supporting fascist forces elsewhere than at home as a foreign policy, e.g. Franco in Spain. The reason on the surface is to counteract 'communism'. But this is only a small excuse for what is really a way to ensure its capitalist business interests are secured and fixed in place abroad, and a stable non democratic regime ensures this best, because an enlightened democratic administration that changes in time might represent a commercial threat (look at the recent machinations in Egypt). Fascism not only represents U.S. interests by this fixing down of authority but it also prevents the potential competitor from possibly advancing to equal terms given its backward ideology. And this is also why the most advanced capitalist bourgeoisie even needs some Marxism at home. Without such authentic internal criticism it stagnates into fascism, and this fascism is simply not so profitable for the largest corporations, and represents a level of risk to their predominance. It is a need, however, that can fail to be recognized and necessitates an enlightened bourgeois faction with a lot of power and influence in culture and which can be 'considerate' in the strategic way. The latter appears to have gone missing in regards to Ukraine, not so urgent an issue for U.S. citizens a long way away perhaps, but for the European it is a dangerous precedent to set so close to home, we have been here before.

by Gary Tedman

The Class Struggles in Southern Europe (2)

Euro-area finance ministers approved the payout of 49.1 billion euros ($64 billion) of loans through March and committed to “additional measures” in case Greece’s debt reduction veers off track.
While another cut in bailout-loan rates and an increase in infrastructure funding would top the list of extra measures, the policy makers hinted that outright debt relief -- still a taboo topic in creditor countries led by Germany -- would be on the table as well.
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_13/12/2012_474302

The failure of the bond buy out target was waived very quickly, you might say they stopped short at appearing to bend over backwards to lend Greece more money, but that's all. And they still argue that Syriza (the radical left Greek party that advocates strong negotiation) would not have (had) any leverage!

From, for instance, Merkel's recent position on Greece as well as banking supervision, you can see that she does not act chiefly for her own nation as a whole but also and predominantly for her class as a cosmopolitan European entity. This is why Greece gets the bail out despite failing (and once again defaulting) to meet the criteria of the bond buy back, and why Merkel must sell the idea that Germany will not mutualise debt to her own ordinary citizens, while making sure that this is a future possibility. Each other bourgeois leader does similar, more-or-less, and is involved in the political charade.

So what does this mean for a future Europe?

While it shows that there can be compromises between the national interests, these interests are only compromised by trading with and often away the rights and interests of the lower classes (especially in the crisis), namely the general European working class. Where their own national bourgeois interests outweigh their general interest, national interests tend to win out, but this depends on the relative national power of the competing nation too. Germany is the biggest European economic power and can therefore better defend its own national interests while also ensure its cosmopolitan elite profits from the European project too. Notwithstanding, the national interest does not always coincide with the interests of the ruling national class, which is easier to see in Greece than in Germany of course, but is also just as true in Germany.

The big problem is the reality that is the present economic crisis. The progress of the crisis has been relentless, and the politics has run kind of parallel to it in a way that is consistently only really self interested, so it uses the crisis as a means to implement measures that the European ruling classes desired anyway, it is an opportunity for it, and it takes its opportunities like any opportunist would. But in doing so it tends to ignore the reality of the crisis or give to it only a passing nod of attention. So we have two paths that, in fits and starts, are diverging. The first path is the apparent political route to financial harmonization and federalism in the Eurozone, backed up by humanist rhetorical flourishes such as the recent Nobel Prize awarded (to the EU, or to itself you might say) for 'creating peace in Europe'. As well as proving a negative this piece of ridiculous hubris is set against a reality of harsh austerity measures deriving from its neoliberal policies which have generated poverty and some extreme reactions such as the rise of fascism in Greece and extreme rightist policies in Spain.

This clash of opposites has not yet become so sharp as to be able to puncture the smug pomposity of the Eurozone apparatchiks or the club of political leaders, who only see a slow and steady progress to something ill defined that could possibly be a federal social democratic Europe, but which looks like at the moment a vehicle for the richest nations to better exploit the poor of the poorest 'peripheral' nations at the behest of their lesser endowed bourgeoisie. Yet the problem of the economic crisis is not resolved either by the austerity or the manifold agreements to unify, at some stage, Europe. In actual fact the problems are exacerbated by these, at best partial illusions under the influence of which both the club of national leaders and Euro apparatchiks can drift into the self satisfaction that they have 'acted' and so at least absolved themselves from further responsibility. That in, say, Greece people are suffering, with a lack of a social safety net, from the effects of the crisis and the failure of their policies, can be set aside as something that exists as if in another dimension which cannot impinge on theirs. Of course, the contours of this partition between the two dimensions has, as well as ideological illusions, also some real aesthetic accoutrements, the repressive state apparatus that in the end enforces the will of the state by violence, the riot cops and suchlike.

The central core of the Eurozone ideology sees itself as a hero of peaceful diplomacy and soft power (to use an appropriate phrase from Saif's LSE doctoral thesis) belonging to its humanist-humanitarian ideals, which are in fact stressed in the European Charter, but just as this document is being trampled underfoot in the rush to austerity for the workers, the reality is one of implementing by increasingly authoritarian means anti-social and anti democratic policies. It is not that the European peoples have failed to notice this disparity, they have protested vigorously as we all know; the problem is what to do about it beyond mere protest. While, say, Egyptians are strenuously trying to get a democratic government at least as democratic as exists in a few nations central to Europe, European peoples are protesting against secular democratic governments and systems that have been achieved after similar long historical struggles. These governments and their democracies still appear to be advanced; they still appear to represent the people, and to belong to the people. This is democracy, how can they attack democracy without seeming to want despotism? So protests tend to flounder on the rocks of democracy itself, and/or the question of democracy begins to loom: what is it exactly? Why are we apparently failed by this system, yet we have the vote? Have we really voted to represent us these fools who have squandered money and got into enormous debt just because we, like them, became greedy? The poor became greedy!! The people are told this is how it was, that it was their choice and so also their fault as well as the fault of democracy (and its baggage of 'entitlements', the sense of entitlement, and the dignity that goes with that) itself that the crisis led to such huge debts. There is little room left here for a critique of democracy. The bourgeoisie say it is democracy or fascism, you choose one or the other, and the people do not want fascism, so it is democracy, this democracy. The question as to whether this democracy was ever truly representative is not to be discussed, it is a taboo subject. For on this assumption, that we have such a choice, rests the whole underlying bourgeois media story of ordinary folk being to blame for the crisis.

It is not the end of the matter though, again because the crisis is just too big and too deep. It has its own reality that will trump the measures and the illusions both. At some future point we can expect the opposition between the reality and the rhetoric of power to become too sharp. Even if, for instance, a federal states of Europe becomes increasingly a genuine possibility, long before this can happen the crisis will be also visiting Germany, and with that the problem of sharing the debt, as federal partners, or not. Indeed this crisis is likely to be both the motivation for federalism as a solution to the crisis and at the same time the reason why its biggest apparent exponent does not want it to be the solution. In the process we can expect that the debts will be smuggled and dispersed even more onto the shoulders of the European working classes, but as the consequences of austerity approaches the core, so too will the protests that follow it. The European project may not be about to fail formally, but it has in fact failed as a form of social democracy, the ideals of a harmonious Europe have been shattered and left behind and what we face is not necessarily a de facto break up of the Eurozone but its repressive iron fist poking out of threadbare holes in the soft glove in order to hold it together. That it may or may not break up is therefore a merely academic question, European nations are not about to sail away from Europe, but in actual fact what has been lost is already the most important part of it, you might say, its heart. It will be the task of the European workers to start it beating again, even though it was mostly fictitious in the first place, only they can give real heart to the heart of Europe.

by Gary Tedman

The Class Struggles in Southern Europe (1)

The embourgeoisment that has been enabled by the massive credit injection over the last years, plus the shifting to the super-exploitation of overseas workers ('outsourcing') rather than those at home, plus the expert predominance of bourgeois culture through the media, has seemed to create European societies without working classes. It is not that the economic relations of class difference have disappeared, far from it, but that these were smoothed over and erased as feelings, and so as corresponding ideas:- there is no working class culture, or if there is, it is rather like dark matter and dark energy in the cosmos (it is there, it has mass, has a huge effect, but it is unknown). This is one reason why the big economic crisis has had few obvious political effects by the standard routes so far. Parliaments remain what they are, representative democracies unshaken by the crisis, except in the places in Europe where the effects have been most acute, where the crisis brings the reality of class exploitation into sharper relief, Greece for example, where Syriza, a radical left party, has risen dramatically to become the second primary force, dissolving the hitherto entrenched certainties of the false dialectic of the 'balance' of pseudo Left and Right. What we see, therefore, is a slow dawning realization of the shakiness and falsity of the bourgeois sensibility and ideology as it comes into contradiction with the economic reality of the crisis for large sections of 'middle class' people who are being thrown down (losing their employment, being evicted from their homes, falling into debt and poverty).

One feature of this is and has been the sense of indignation (i.e. the 'Indignado' movement) that the 'middle class' sensibility has when it finds itself in this situation. To be 'indignant' expresses the loss of dignity, but also a dignified sense of that loss: so it is actually an assertion of dignity against the forces that are stripping it away. For this section of the people the relation between them and workers unions and the working class who also struggle, always, but also specifically now against the effects of the capitalist crisis in various, usually traditional, ways is not exactly or always harmonious, they grate against each other and jockey for position. So this is a cause of division among those who oppose such policies as the troika directed austerity drive, and prevent a Popular Front from being as effective as it could be, although things are still rapidly developing. The case of Argentina is mildly instructive, their earlier, similar, crisis led to the fall of governments and leaders, a great amount of suffering for ordinary people, inspirational uprisings, and a similar movement to the Indignados (the piquiteros, or pickets), but not so much has changed in terms of class division in Argentina, to an extent because of the separation of the opposition into factions and the lack of clarity about what was (and is) to be done.

This lack is to be expected and is not to be taken as a sign of failure, I suggest. The strongest positions become adopted through the struggle and not by imposition, but it is always necessary to point this up and engage in the ideological debate. Socialism remains the only real alternative to the neoliberal policies of the European bourgeoisie and its troika, whose aim is always to push more loans and debt as the answer, but there are so many illusions about what constitutes socialism, and illusions that are 'made real' and acted out too, that the broad Popular Front is the best current movement that serves these struggles. One fear is that 'socialist' or 'communists' wish to impose their 'grid' for revolutions upon these struggles, probably harking back to the USSR's socialist imperialism in Eastern Europe. This could not be further from Leninist principles, but nevertheless these feelings are widespread, there is a great deal of associating the name with the thing itself, as if all Communist Parties in Europe are by default therefore communist or Marxist, as if the act of naming alone means that. And then there is the question of democracy. Probably the most advanced critique of the current democracy in Europe is that of the updated Hannah Arendt version of performative democracy, which in the end and in practice seems to have the US republic as its ideal form, and so is very limited given this form is also currently being severely criticized as failing to represent. Will this theoretical limit form the actual limit of these anti-austerity protests? It looks as if Argentina reached this limit, a kind of buffer zone, hovering at the edge of something new, something greatly resisted by the established powers.

Gary Tedman

Class and Crisis, notes

Gary Tedman

A class doesn't necessarily know what its own interests are, but it acts on its own interests, or what it thinks they are. A class doesn't have a consciousness of its own and nor does it have an unconscious, but it acts as if it had both. The unconsciousness of a class is its underlying tendency or direction, the consciousness of a class is what it says it is going to do, its media and press. We have no name for these two things but I would venture the aesthetic level and the ideological level can be useful as terms for them. What a class feels (aesthetic level, and shows in its affective practices) is never as one lump, in unison, it is always compromised and contradicted, but history can usually show how a class has felt in general instead of what it said about itself, or what its ideologists said about it, and the two things are often different. It is only in the modern period that it is possible for a class to have a precise consciousness of its real feelings and movement (with Marx), but this is a rare happening because of the forces against such a knowledge. In modern times it is considered to be a benefit not to have any exact knowledge of the true nature of the movement of classes and their desires, and the economy must remain a force beyond human control, be 'free'. In this strange world where knowledge and the control it can bring is considered a bad thing (except in the technical sense of the progress of science), 'consciousness' is hailed as the only good. Not the consciousness of self awareness of one's own feelings, but superficial delusions about the deeper movements at work, the type of consciousness that sees itself as the captain of its soul, and to be entirely without an unconscious. Thus in the present crisis we are trapped in a dualistic discourse about cuts versus spending within the capitalist economy, which lead, because they are either stupid cuts and/or daft spending, to the same place and an exacerbation of the crisis, and no mention is of course made of the big alternative to capitalism, genuine socialism, which might actually be the only thing to save us from total meltdown. This cannot even be thought in any serious way, it is the veritable unthinkable. So we seem to be all confined to the same narrative as in the last great global capitalist depression, and to be going to the same terrible place. It seems almost inevitable, impossible to arrest this movement, to go against this tide. We see demonstrations and protests but that is all they are, voices. How many need to protest before notice is taken? One might imagine the entire US out in protest, even the President himself, but still the same inexorable progress to doom continues to unfold when everyone returns to their work, or lack of it. Is there something about the social structure that needs to be broken before change can happen, or is the structure being broken itself by its own contradictions, and we are struggling to keep up with these breakages? The latter seems to be more the case these last few months of the crisis.

Bawl Street: Wall Street Bankers Cry: Make Us Richer

By Joe Sims

With the stock market crashing another 300 points yesterday (Thursday) amid news of a drop off in production and major financial defaults, a major ideological and political struggle is shaping up over how to address the economic crisis. The New York Times reported that this morning the stock market has dropped a full 9 points since the beginning of the year.

At the bottom of this debate is the class struggle over distribution over profits. Wall Street ideologues are arguing for greater tax cuts for the corporate super rich. Labor and democratic circles are stressing the need to provide a stimulus to the economy by extending unemployment benefits or tax rebates to working people as opposed to business.

A column in today’s Wall Street Journal is a striking case in point. In an article titled No Stimulus Gimmicks, Please, Bill Thomas and Alex Brill cry their eyes out in behalf of Wall Street bankers and the super rich. Thomas is the former chair of the House Ways and Means Committee and is now a consultant at the arch conservative, American Enterprise Institute.

The column argues against any bailout of ordinary working-class Americans in favor of a deepening of "relief"for the big bourgeoisie. Incredibly, they attack the current tax system already which heavily favors the rich. The write: "The current tax code - designed to discourage capital accumulation and projected to collect rising levels of revenue in increasingly complex and distortionary ways - does need serious reform."

Can you imagine?

After disparaging earlier tax rebates to working-class Americans, who they write instead of spending the money, saved it (something only rich folks are supposed to do) they laud, not surprisingly Bush’s tax cuts.

Listen to how they talk about it:

"The 2003 tax cut, which has been shown to have delivered a significant positive economic punch, lowered the tax rate on capital gains and dividends to 15%, accelerated the reduction in tax rates on labor, and offered businesses 50% bonus depreciation to stimulate investment. While it took just six months to be enacted, it required tremendous political valor on the part of many, and political strength on the part of others."

"Tremendous valor" and "political strength?" Try rather tremendous "VENOM" and political "Spinelessness."

It’s all about who controls the surplus and to whose benefit it will be put. In the great class and democratic battles that are to come to address the recession and economic crisis, this will be the central question. Who benefits? Capitalists or the working class.