Re: book promotion

["michael a. lebowitz" <mlebowit@xxxxxx>]

At 17:33 26/11/2003 -0500, you wrote:
> Mike:
>
> Let me ask a question you _must_ have been asked before:
> What is the relevance of your book to the Bolivaran
> revolution in Venezuela? ... and to the Cuban revolution?
>
> In solidarity, Jerry

Nice question, Jerry. Actually, no one has asked. In fact, I usually
don't give them a chance because I tell folks upfront--- at least in
Cuba. (In Venezuela, there aren't many people I've met who have an
interest in Marx; as the saying goes here, 'we invent'.) The connection
(it's for them to decide its relevance) is roughly as follows:

        

In
focusing on the side of workers in the book, one important aspect of the
book as it develops emphasizes the way workers produce themselves through
all their activities, how every act generates a joint product--- the
changing of circumstances and self-change (Marx's definition of
revolutionary practice). The emphasis here is upon the nature of workers
that capital produces and the way workers produce themselves in a
different way through struggle. Capital tends to produce workers who by
'education, tradition and habit' look upon the requirements of capital
'as self-evident natural laws'-- ie., capital tends to produce the
workers it needs (cf. Vol I, 899 Vintage). Only insofar as workers
struggle do they alter themselves and create the possibility of going
beyond capital. The way I put it in this edition at one point (p.189) is:
'Once we recognise that the subjects of this process are human beings and
that "revolutionary practice" is essential for building human
capacities, then a central question to pose with respect to all struggles
becomes---

does this help in the self-development of the working class?'
        

The
relationship of this perspective to the building of a socialist society
is, I think, clear. It points to the necessity to develop forms and
relations of production (not narrowly conceived) which allow producers to
develop through their activities. Thus, it stresses the importance of
self-management in work places and communities rather than the hierarchy
and verticalism that characterised 'actually existing socialism' (which I
have written about as the 'vanguard mode of production') and the
importance of direct solidaristic links rather than connection through
market relations--- because a central question is what kind of people are
produced (produce themselves) under different relations.

        

I've
been presenting papers, lecturing, etc in Cuba since 1996 on this theme,
and it goes over very well. There is an instant acceptance of these
arguments by the 'muy revolutionario' among them as their own-- and,
specifically, as the position of Che. (Several of these papers have been
translated and published in Marx Ahora, the leading theoretical journal
there--- including the one I gave at the Marx Conference last May,
'People and Property in the Building of Communism', which is available on
the conference website.) In particular, researchers working on community
developments have been very enthusiastic given their own focus on the
development of the Popular Councils in the last decade as a basis of
solving problems from below. In Venezuela, on the other hand, we are
talking about things at a quite different level of development. The
Bolivarian Constitution, however, is quite unique in its stress on
revolutionary practice (without using this term, of course), and the
development of the social economy that Chavez stresses is quite
consistent with this general thrust. But, to the best of my knowledge, it
has not been theoretically articulated sufficiently--- not at least by
Marxists. (This may reveal my own ignorance so far.) I'm hoping to write
something quite soon on this theme which can help the process here in
Venezuela, and I suspect that it will be the paper I present at next
year's Marx conference (if I don't feel too constrained by the 10 page
limit).

        

I hope
I've answered your lob, jerry.

        

        

in
solidarity,

        

        

michael

        

        

        

---------------------

Michael A. Lebowitz

Professor Emeritus

Economics Department

Simon Fraser University

Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6

Office Fax:   (604) 291-5944

Home:   Phone (604) 689-9510