January 22, 2006: Social Democracy from below?
European Social Democracy is, as Draper pointed out, a flavor of top-down Socialism. Is it possible to imagine a Social Democracy from below?
What would that look like?
Well. It would not attempt to smash the state. This is one reason why I'd use the term "Social Democracy" to describe what I'm describing. It would be an electoral movement attempting to win legislative and executive majorities via the ballot. If victorious, there would be constraints on its ability to implement a consistent anticapitalist program. In the final analysis -- there's that incantation -- it would be a party of progressive reform within capitalism which would not change the mode of production.
It would not advocate wholesale nationalization. As Social Democrats from below, its leaders would understand that statization is not Socialism. As a self-avowedly reformist project, its purposes would be essentially regulative. It could perhaps reasonably call for, say, the public ownership of public utilities: energy, transportation, insurance, finance. There's nothing anticapitalist about these sorts of measures in and of themselves. Indeed, they could actually contribute to increasing the profitability of capitalist enterprises in other sectors. Within the problematic of a regulated free market they would provide levers for a certain degree of planning intended to smooth over bumps in the business cycle, and to encourage recalcitrant enterprises to fall in line.
As a regulationist project within capitalism it would intervene to ameliorate the worst abuses. It could ensure universal health care, but not full employment. It could legislate wage standards more to the advantage of employees, without ending the wage relationship. It could establish thoroughgoing standards for safety, environmental protection, child care, education; and it could coordinate the kinds of strategic investment which are impossible within the Neocon ideological universe, for instance, a NASA-inspired program for developing and adopting sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels. But it could not eliminate exploitation. It could implement a rational tax policy, including the elimination of indirect taxes. It could not eliminate classes.
It could intervene strenuously to enforce separation of church and state; a rational national contraception policy which as a consequence would all but eliminate abortion; the rational decriminalization of drugs; and the vast de-incarceration of the African American and Latino American communities. It could not solve "the national question" within American society, that is, put an end to conflicts between races and communities. It could invest strategically in infrastructure, education, and research, which would, paradoxically, strengthen capitalism in the long run.
It could democratize the public portions of the state apparatus. It could eliminate the Senate, drastically disempower the Presidency, recenter authority in the legislature, make representatives recallable, force delegates to vote their mandates, implement proportional representation. It could not implement direct democracy, nor could it likely do much about the nonpublic networks of class power within the military, the intelligence apparatus, and so on.
Its own leaders would be accountable to its rank and file.
It could organize internationally to export these reforms. It could advocate an international minimum wage, and international agreements on environmental protection, working conditions, and the regulation of movement of capital across borders. It could implement a principled, strategic democratic foreign policy, meaning among other things that it could actually win the so-called War on Terror. It could not eliminate borders or conflicts between nations.
How deep could these reforms go? I suspect that would depend on the balance of forces within the broader struggle. If this kind of ballot-reform movement were isolated within the poll, it would not have much social weight, even if it were to succeed in electing people. If it were embedded within a wider extra-parliamentary movement which attained momentum, it would, I think, tend to open a more contradictory and open-ended situation which I'd like to call a "struggle space". Where outcomes depend on the balance of forces within the legislature, but also in the streets and the workplaces. Ultimately, on the depth of the popular mobilization and its ability to sustain itself.
It would necessarily be a heterogenous movement with multiple currents, left, center, and right. On the left, revolutionary socialists advocating class power, workers' councils, and a properly smashed state. On the right, pro-capitalist reformers hostile to projects of workers' power. In the center, potentially, all or nearly all the people who call themselves "progressives" today. Such a coalition would likely not be very stable. Strategically, perhaps its major emphasis might need to be on achieving proportional representation, allowing it to break down into its constituent currents. Maybe this would be its fundamental basis: a temporary reform coalition whose members intend to go their separate ways eventually.
What would "from below" mean? That the movement seeks to extend popular control over the state via recallable representatives, proportional representation, a disempowered executive, and so on. Also, I think, that the movement understands that statization is not Socialism. What would "Social Democracy" mean? That the movement uses the state to intervene in a limited way to implement reforms which favor working people and the poor, while at the same time opening up a "struggle space" with potentially transitional implications.
How would this differ from European Social Democracy? In its emphases on democratizing and disempowering the state machine, the accountability of its own leadership to its rank and file, and the role of an extra-parliamentary mass movement.
Does such a thing have a snowball's chance in the proverbials? I dunno. Just trying hard to think outside the box. Just thinking out loud.
Comments
Well. Yeah. So?
I'm trying to get after several things here. The contradictory, bounded character of any reform project which rejects revolutionary violence. That there might be ways to push the boundaries of reform far enough to open a "struggle space" with a transitional dynamic. That a Social Democracy "from below" is conceivable.
Posted by: Mark Phillips | January 22, 2006 09:50 AM
Why not call it a Socialist Party. Then, say that in the first instance we are for a set of things (reforms) that would make society more just, both in terms of political democratization and economic redistribution. There has, over the last 25 years, been a huge redistribution of wealth to the top. We should fight a war on poverty that uses economic means to guarantee people a good standard of living. We should also begin to tax the rich, and well off, so that the huge discrepancies that now exist begin to disappear. Environmentally, corporations are not really paying to clean up their own mess. Such a party should not be merely an electoral vehicle, it needs to link itself to mass action and social organization. If the bottom line is still the bottom line, we will not get very far, so we have to challenge profitability.
Question, revolution is not on the agenda, why take it off?
Posted by: Wayne Rothschild | January 22, 2006 01:06 PM
I remember joking with someone -- I think it was you -- round about thirty years ago now -- before either of us were born -- that literal-mindedness is a warning sign of incipient schizophrenia. Well: I'm gonna have to make a doctor appointment. I'd resist calling it a Socialist Party because it couldn't achieve socialism, and, in my opinion, therefore shouldn't advocate it. Calling something a Socialist Party which then turns around and advocates reformed capitalism seems confusing to me. I think it would confuse people. Why not strive for clarity?
Similarly re revolution and the agenda. Take it off 'cause it's not on. Why not be straightforward? I guess the question in my mind is, granted it's not on the agenda, why leave it there?
Posted by: Mark Phillips | January 22, 2006 02:57 PM
Re-reading this piece and Wayne's comment, I find myself trying to channel the spirits of our erstwhile leaders in those left groups from once upon a time. People actually talk that way here in Northern California: channeling spirits. In this instance I think it's not hard. They'd say, deep structural reform is impossible because of the crisis of profitability.
Now, let's think about this and talk back to the spirits. Meaning, talk back to our own past, I think.
What is it about a crisis of profitability which closes the space for reform? Firstly, note the metaphor: space. This never was an analysis, it was only ever an analogy. What did it mean?
Being literal -- call my doctor -- what impact does declining profitability have on political struggle? Well: seems reasonable to say it encourages segments or even most of the capitalist class to struggle harder. Thus the employer offensive that began in the late '70s. Is there anything else?
I dunno. Not sure. Don't think so. In what literal sense does declining profitability automatically doom reformism? Shrinks the pie: so? Struggle harder, that's what the bad guys do.
Historically, in what phases of the business cycle have reform movements been effective? I think, typically, when downturns end and recovery begins.
Is that the kind of business cycle we're talking about when we discuss the crisis of profitability?
I'm no expert, but, I think not. We're discussing two different levels of duration, the short-term business cycle versus the underlying structural tendencies of capitalism.
Marx identified the law of the tendency of profit to decline. For Marx, all laws are tendencies, that is, there are other tendencies which can counteract them. Including class struggle.
What are people saying when they argue that the crisis of profitability closes the space for reform?
Posted by: Mark Phillips | January 22, 2006 03:14 PM
I'll take your incipient schizophrenia and lower it with my obsessive compulsive neurosis. A rose, is a, is a....Anything we do that eats into profitability, or the dictatorship of the market, will get us branded or baited. So why disarm in advance, we have a vision of a world organized around lines that are democratic, egalitarian and collectivist. Now, I am in favor of all kinds of actions that do not raise the red flag, but for ourselves and for honesty we should draw out some of the conclusions.
Posted by: Wayne Rothschild | January 22, 2006 03:17 PM
Is there a way to say jinx for the internet? It is not that reforms are impossible, it is the case that they are more difficult. That means that we have to have new methods of organization and struggle. Some of this implies the immediate imports of Internationalism, markets, corporations and products are aligned in a broader global network. If, for example, we won the series of reforms you list on American grounds the markets would try to choke us off. So even when people run left they typically govern right. I think it makes struggles pre-maturely transitional, which is a problem not easy to solve. The Anti-Globalization struggle had some of this problem, but more, favorably mobilized some of this energy.
Posted by: Wayne Rothschild | January 22, 2006 04:29 PM
I'm not convinced that structural reforms are off the agenda, either, if we look at the global situation. I would have thought that Hugo Chavez's Bolivarian Revolution is trying to carry out precisely that! I'd like us to go back to Mandel's pre-1968 writings on structural reforms. I would agree that we should spend less time on the U.S. far left talking about r-r-r-revolution and focus more on understanding the specific historical features of capitalist development in the United States. Having made some headway on that exceedingly difficult task we could begin to envision a more concrete political strategy.
Posted by: Ted | January 23, 2006 08:53 AM
OK, so, about this "Socialism" label thing we're all worried about. :-)
I've been using "socialism" in a narrowly political sense, to mean the political self-organization of working people and the poor. Note the absense of anything about changing the mode of production.
To be consistent I should agree with Wayne and Ted that this "SD from below" thingie should get that red "Socialist" label sewn inside its Levi's jacket.
But this discussion and re-reading Draper have made me focus on the fact that a reform government by definition would be one which does not attempt to eliminate the capitalist mode of production. Instead to regulate it more to the advantage of working and poor people. Whereas the classical Socialist movement meant exactly that: change the MOP. The SDs thought they could do that incrementally by progressively nationalizing more and more stuff. The Commies thought you had to have the big smashup all in one go. They both meant by "socialism" a change in the MOP, and they both equated that change in the MOP with wholesale nationalization.
My reluctance to endorse the label follows from the definition of this "SD from below" dealie as reformist, not revolutionary. Also, from agreement with Draper that nationalization doesn't equal socialism, and that you have to watch out for socialism-from-above creeping in when you equate the two things. With me on this?
In other words we're bumping into new silences. If socialism-from-below is the goal, and nationalization equals socialism-from-above, then the socialism-from-below camp -- that's us -- has a silence about our strategy for transition from the capitalist to the socialist MOP. Indeed, we have no definition of the socialist MOP. We've refused to do that since it would be utopian, and it would pre-judge what people would do if massively mobilized. But that's a silence which results in exactly this problem, I guess. Note that historically the movement covered the silence with the incantation of nationalization, which we now know to reject.
Where's this go?
I dunno.
Posted by: Mark Phillips | January 23, 2006 06:08 PM
I agree with you that nationalization doesn't necessarily equal socialism--especially so long as there is no workers' democratic control of production. Moreover, some decision-making about production needs to remain local, regional, or even become global. So I think we would be better off talking about socialization of production under multiple, complex, overlapping levels of property rights, rules, and regulations. At least I heard Boris Kagarlitsky once argue something along these lines a few years back and nodded my approval then.
Posted by: Ted | January 23, 2006 11:39 PM
I'd like to make another point about the need to retain "socialism" as a way to name a post-capitalist mode of production, or, more precisely, the transition to a "communist" mode of production. Given the brute and frightening reality of global climate change, I don't see how even your left-social- democratic variant of capitalism is ecologically sustainable.
I too worry about the question of violence, and I agree that we on the left need to think longer and harder about how to avoid the civil war scenario you're rightly worried about. However, without radical global social change in the near future, we're still going to face the prospect of new resource wars that will equally cause massive death and destruction. What then is to be done in order to insure the survival of humanity beyond the end of this century? And how to do it as nonviolently as possible?
Posted by: Ted | January 23, 2006 11:55 PM
Perhaps the navel of these contradictory ideas is that we lack a theory and strategy of transition from the capitalist MOP to a socialist MOP to a communist MOP, including basic definitions of what those post-capitalist MOP would be.
"Silences", as we've been saying.
The Marxist tradition has refused that project, from the belief that it would be either utopian, or presumptuous, or both. This is seeming more and more incantatory to me. Incantation: "utopianism". Where the silence which the incantation waves away is that of the post-capitalist modes of production and the specific transition strategies they would imply.
Second incantation: "nationalization". The socialist-from-above incantation common to traditional Social Democrats and Stalinists. If we replace that with "socialisation" and "control from below", what do those terms mean? The requirement, IMO, is to avoid replacing one incantation with another.
We know from Althusser that silences are never empty, they're filled by the dominant ideology. What fills ours? Are the incantations "utopianism" and "nationalization" products of the dominant ideology?
Posted by: Mark Phillips | January 24, 2006 10:23 AM
I agree that we should above all avoid incantation, but neither are we completely at a loss, are we?
For example, in a very interesting 1921 book the British Left-Labor historian H.N. Brailsford took the trouble actually to investigate how the early workers' councils worked. Other scholars of the early Soviet Union have obviously developed this research more fully. I think we need a LOT of careful cross-cultural comparison to rely on in order to get a sense of how successful new democratic workplace organizations have been, from unions, cooperatives, and workers' centers, to factory committees and workers' councils.
Another example: in Charles Payne's recent book I've Got the Light of Freedom we get a a fascinating, incredibly detailed close-range view of civil rights organizing in Mississippi in the mid-sixties.
I guess I'm pretty pragmatic about these matters. What has worked in past struggles at least offers a glimpse of what will work in the future--allowing of course for the possibility that history will prove all of our best "prior practices" to be utterly wrong!
Here again, I think we have to rely on some experimentation and creative impulse from below to launch new organizations.
Posted by: Ted | January 24, 2006 02:34 PM