Re: [Marxism] Offlist: Social movements don't die in theDP&In-Reply-To=

[Haines Brown <brownh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Hmmm.  It's much like saying that if you oppose what the Democratic
> Party has built and how it misleads the workers, it is your
> obligation to support the Democratic Party and make sure it wins
> elections, so that it stops doing the terrible stuff that it was
> doing when you voted for it.

Well, at least that's not how I see the issue.

I believe one level of argument is that bourgeois democracy can't by
its nature serve the working class. That is, it is a representative
system that for structural reasons does not really represent. I would
agree with this in principle.

In practice, in order for the state to survive, it created about the
time of the Civil War the beginning of a commonwealth, For the
viability of that commonwealth, it must be somewhat responsive to
people's needs and desires. I don't believe it would be hard to show
that many laws are actually useful and necessary in the eyes of the
bulk of the citizenry. That is, in practice and historically, the
bourgeois parties are ambivalent, both serving people's needs and
ensuring the condition for their exploitation. This distinction we
make by differentiating government and state.

This seems to raise two issues. One is that at any moment one has to
assess whether the positive outweighs the negative. In spite of
everything, I believe most people assume the former. After all, the
majority of people do register with one of the major parties and
vote. If the political system were entirely empty or clearly on the
whole hostile to their interests, they would do neither and turn
instead to some other form of political expression. On the other hand,
I believe contradictions are deepening and this situation will change.

The other issue is that it makes participation in the political
process ambivalent. On one hand you are trying and to some extent
succeed a bit in getting the political institution to respond to your
interests. Arguments to the contrary seem too facile. But on the other
hand, one is contributing to the strength and legitimacy of an
institution that is fundamentally hostile to the working class.

I believe, while there is certainly ambivalence, I do not see it as a
contradiction. Political participation strengthens the political
potentials of the working class and brings some pressure to bear that
makes the system respond to our needs. That is, action should aim at
deepening the contradictions of the system by strengthening oneself
while making demands upon a system that it is increasingly unable to
address. Now, of course, if a third, more progressive, party arises
and does not get co-opted as usual, that should be supported.

The aim should not be to strive for an imagined goal that contradicts
the present order, but to deepen the contradictions of the present
order by actions that enhance the real political potentials of the
working class so that it can demand its needs be met, and when the
major parties can no longer deliver, to turn to alternative political
means that have greater promise. Participation in Democratic Party
politics is part of a process, not an end in itself.

-- 
 
       Haines Brown, KB1GRM

         
        

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