Re: [Marxism] From here to there? The Road Forward

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 12/25/03 2:31:30 PM Pacific Standard Time,
piratefish@xxxxxxxxx writes:

>So what is your view on how the current
system (capitalist) can be replaced.
How do we get from here to there?<

                    Les Evenchick


Comment

Theory explains and doctrine is policy and line of march. Lets start with
theory.

To get from here to there means defining "there?"

"There" is defined differently by almost everyone who has encountered some
form of socialist ideology. From the standpoint of my political ideology "there"
is communism or to be more accurate a society without value producing
classes, or what Marx refers to as the classless society. At this juncture of 
history
we can give definition to the meaning of classless society on the basis of
what is in front of us and what is becoming an outline of the new technological
regime.

I believe the above definition of classless society is a step forward in
understanding our general directional line of march because it based on an 
actual
configuration of society as it exist today. Without question Marx outlined the
theoretical concepts that underlay the above in his famous Critique of the
Gotha Program. It follows from this that a vision of the stateless society or
the withering away of the state is a political manifestation of the abolition of
not just bourgeois property but that value producing classes themselves.

The society of associated producers of which Marx speak has no meaning as a
vision if it is not rooted in the evolution of the law of value and the decay
of the commodity form. The technological regime coming into being no longer
expands the boundary and field of play of the commodity form as was the case 
with
the rise and ascendancy of the industrial system, as was the case during the
world historical transition from agriculture to industry.

The law of value presented itself an insurmountable obstacle to Marxist
theorists penning away within each quantitative boundary of the industrial 
system.
Value is NOT a social relations that assumes a material form in the process of
production. Value is NOT materialized labor because laboring is not an
abstract process but an assertion of muscle and blood. Value is not price or 
money.
Value is the amount of socially necessary labor embodied - that goes into,
commodities. The socially necessary amount of labor in commodities changes with
the development of the material power of production.  With the injection into
the production process of a qualitatively different production logic, the
commodity form - the value relations, begins decay.

This decay is not an abstraction. Value is expressed in the world of
commodities as a combination of use-vale and exchange-value. The decay of value 
does
not refer to the use value of useful purpose of a thing - product. The decay
means the increasing inability to effect exchange that provides for the needs of
humanity on the basis of the buying and selling of labor. The decay of value
is a concept that describes the increasing inability to circulate -
distribute, a mass of commodities because a juncture has been reached where a 
critical
mass of humanity has been converted into property less proletariats unable to
sell their labor power in the absolute sense, no matter how profitability
rises, fall and recovers.

"There" - where we are going, is communism or a classless society and this
classlessness in its concrete material affirmation means abolition of classes as
value producing categories in human history.

This of course means I reject the theoretical proposition that we are
fighting for a "transition to socialism" as the last stage of the merging of
syndicalism with the revolutionary communism of Marx.  As an individual I do not
advocate a Workers State and understand this slogan as basically syndicalism -
although I am not in opposition to various socialist trends.

Socialism is not an economic system of production or a social relations but
rather a political form of property. This public property relations in the
industrial infrastructure governs the circuit of reproduction and differs from 
the
bourgeois property relations by its absence of competition between the
capital under the domination of individual owners.

Rather my vision and advocacy is for communism - distribution of all social
necessary needs of humanity based on a common sense understanding of needs at
this juncture of society and our existing state of development of production.

To get to "there" requires conscious human intervention. "There" has to be
defined in theory and then cast as a vision of the society we are fighting for.
To take this vision to the working class one must develop a very large group
of agitators and propagandists, although many of the visionaries will be
generated on the basis of the spontaneous development of the means of 
production,
expressed in the fight for life, love, against police violence and for the
pursuit of happiness.

In this regard basic American history has to be studied and the Abolitionist
movement is instructive. The propaganda battle against the slave oligarchy was
waged for roughly seventy years with various individuals and ideological
groups demanding the ending of slavery. David T. Walker staked out the position 
of
the extreme calling for the immediate abolition of slavery in the context of
varying political opinion that even advocated compensation as a form of
abolition.

The creation of a mass infrastructure of propaganda - putting forth a
collective vision, of why and how to immediately take socially necessary 
production
out of the profit making free market system is urgent. We have to grasp the
logic of the fight and communist assertion. We are fighting to see our lives go
forward and distributing water on the basis of profit making is a crime against
humanity and God. Jimmy Carters Habitat for Humanity is not enough, when we
have the means to build homes in factories and end homelessness in 12 months. A
vision has to be shaped and fought for by propagandist.

This vision has to be fought for and wedded to the practical activity of the
working class in all its sectors. It is not enough to simply fight to house
the individual family without advocating for public and individual dwelling
units outside the profit making system.

We need a very large mass party or organization that can shape a national
class consensus and wage the propaganda battle. We need an understanding that
there is going to evolve an enormous battle for the streets and here is where 
the
fascist are going to be engaged and I am talking about the police and not
some lunatic fringe group.

Ours is a very large country and the citizens are not going to be reduced to
peasants, as were the newly freed slaves. The people are slowing turning
against the police and this is best expressed by the dispossessed. There are
section of society calling for fascism on themselves because they believe this 
will
halt the destruction of the economy and preserve their livelihood.

Propaganda and agitation explains and organizes real activity with a purpose
and vision. I utterly reject the Leninist form of the party at this phase of
the social struggle. At this phase the class struggle has not emerged in
America and comrades use this concept without thinking things out. What we are
experiencing is class attacks. The class struggle is a struggle over power and
emerge as such as the result of other preceding processes. Workers going on 
strike
is not the meaning of class struggle.

This first phase of the revolutionary process sets the basis for the next
stage. Now is not the time to get in front of ourselves. Today the agitation and
propaganda fight has to be articulated in its concreteness as organizing based
on a vision of socially necessary means of living being distributed based on
needs.

The first battle is always convincing the socialist and communist of what is
possible based on the specific alignment of class forces and the actual class
configuration of society. The communist class has arisen. Shouting for
socialism will get us no where. Further socialism is an industrial ideological
formulation anyway. No one is going back to industrial society of the ideology 
of
the Third International and this includes its various factional off shoots.

As stated several times over the last two years we are talking about the
transfer of political authority from one class to another and a more than less
rapid advance to communism. Rapid is defined in decades not days. Therefore we
are talking about a mass uprising involving at least 60-70 million people.

American society is more revolutionary than most radical believe. What is
lacking is a vision of a better society - something the bourgeoisie no longer
even advocates.

The people can be won over to the cause of communism but it has to be
visualized and articled in the framework in which the people of America think 
things
out.

The genesis of Mao was that he understood how to articulate a vision to the
masses in China and called this "New Democracy." Perhaps this needs to be
explained because we have left a period of history that bounded out practical
activity. Some question cannot be answered on the basis of theory and this is 
most
certainly true with real world politics.

The masses of people have deep strivings, which express, and are tied to
their economic well being. In the revolutionary process the various ideological
groups compete for mass political support. The group or groups that win mass
support are able to take the ideological movement and make it a shell within
which the historic economic and social struggle and striving of the people fit 
and
move forward. The communist in China learned how to do this under complex
conditions. Their call was for "New Democracy," land redistribution, a guarantee
for food for all and most importantly the rebirth of China.

One who calls the above nationalists demand is being silly. No theory on
earth has ever won a battle. Theory explains and doctrine is application of the
line of march. In politics you win or lose and in the opening class war losing
is going to entails a horrible loss of life.

Fighting along the rail of abortion rights, homosexual marriage rights, this
rights and that rights for this group and that group is to dig ones own grave
and bury one self. Communists enter these various field of struggle with a
vision and this is a horse of a different color and sets the equation up
properly.

The first phase in getting from here to "there" is consolidation of the
propaganda fight and this does not mean passing out copies of Capital - 
although I
love Marx Capital, but rather the fight to advance a national vision of hope
based on the road to communism. Here is the Road Forward.


Melvin P.

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