January 23, 2006: Unspecified
The Marxist tradition has historically chosen to deliberately leave whole areas of our theory and strategy vague, even blank. Right now I'm thinking of the Socialist Mode of Production, the Communist Mode of Production, and the appropriate transition strategies from the Capitalist Mode of Production to its replacement. We've deliberately left our discussions of these problems gestural, for two reasons which descend from Marx personally and which have seemed strong: desire to avoid utopianism, and respect for the democratic self-organization of the people.
Our gestures have been exceedingly simple. "Democratic control from below"; "socialization"; "planning"; "withering away of the market"; "withering away of the state".
In hindsight, I think this has been a mistake. Aren't these gestures in fact "incantations", in the way I've been using that label? Phrases used to make problems disappear, leaving a "silence" intact and unconfronted, therefore filled preponderantly with the dominant ideology.
Dominant ideology: statization, change-from-above, elitism, substitutionism. The problematic which Draper, correctly I think, identifies as common to Social Democracy and Stalinism.
The broad question is, in the absence of theorization, can there be strategy? Or will the silences be filled with assumptions?
Not a new question. It's the basis of Lenin's criticism of "spontaneity". Seems our traditions have been in conflict with each other.
I think we need to be very critical of our habit of substituting gestures for theory, phrases for analysis, incantations for strategy.
