The Programme of the Early Comintern, and the Transitional Programme (8/18)
Paul is driven by a fear that what he sees as a repeat of the same kinds of economic and political conditions as existed in the 1920's and 30's will lead to the potential for the rise of fascism once more. In the first two sections, I have tried to set out why that analysis is itself flawed. The economic conditions are not those of the 1920's/30's, but of the 1950's/60's, and, similarly, the political conditions, today, are not those of the 1920's/30's, when the owners of fictitious capital sought to ally with the petty-bourgeois reaction to prevent the forward movement of social development. Today, the owners of fictitious-capital need to ally with the working-class and professional middle-class, to prevent a backward movement of social development, most clearly epitomised by Brexit, and, similarly, ultra-nationalist trends across Europe, and North America.
It is a position akin to that which existed in Britain in 1848 in relation to Repeal of the Corn Laws, which split the Tory Party, and led to the creation of the Conservative Party, and Liberal Party. As Engels described that, and the lessons from it for the new industrial middle class that was taking over the role of professional managers, in place of the old private capitalists,
“And the manufacturing capitalists, from the Chartist opposition, not to Free Trade, but to the transformation of Free Trade into the one vital national question, had learnt, and were learning more and more, that the middle class can never obtain full social and political power over the nation except by the help of the working class.”
(Preface To The Second German Edition of “The Condition Of The Working Class”)
Their problem is that they dare not unleash the working-class for fear it will move beyond the bounds of social-democracy entirely. That is why it is so desperate that the workers' parties themselves continue to be dominated by the centrists, by the forces of conservative social-democracy. But, again, its dilemma is that, as with Macron in France, Miliband and Starmer in Britain, Clinton and Biden in the US, no one believes that those solutions can work any longer, because that world has gone, consigned to history by the crash of 2008.
The real bifurcation created by material conditions is between, on the one hand, reaction in the true sense, i.e. an attempt at a social counter-revolution, to overthrow the current productive and social relations based upon the dominance of large-scale socialised capital, and to reimpose 18th/early 19th century capitalism, based upon a plethora of small private capitals, and, on the other hand, progressive social-democracy, i.e. an extension of all those elements of the social-democratic state required to allow the rational development of capitalist productive and social relations. Brexit sums up that bifurcation, which is why I described it as a battle between two great class camps. The rational development of progressive social-democracy requires an extension of all the principles of Taylorism, which also involves an extension of real industrial democracy, and the curtailing of the influence of shareholders in controlling socialised capital. It requires a recognition that the interests of fictitious-capital are antagonistic and immediately damaging to the interests of real industrial capital. It requires greater planning and regulation, and on an ever expanding geographic basis. That is why Trump, Le Pen, Wilders and Farage appeared on one side of the spectrum, whilst Syriza, Podemos, the Left Bloc, Sanders and Corbyn appeared on the other. These are not accidental developments, but are a direct result of changes in material conditions. Paul's approach is to continue to fall between these two stools, but to do so, by positioning ourselves slightly more to the Right than the Left!
No comments:
Post a Comment