[PEN-L:9415] social democracy & utopianism

[James Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Tom Walker quotes Max as saying that >>The issue isn't whether I or anyone
else "likes" social democracy... The issue is how good stuff happens and
how shit happens.<<

And then quotes me as replying: >> The basic argument here is whether [A]
positive social change happens because grassroots agitation ... or [B]
whether such agitation bolsters or fuels the political initiatives of ...
social-democrats who hold public office, staff the public sector, work in
the media, or do advocacy.<<

Tom, I wasn't replying to Max there. The second passage is an abbreviated
quote from Max. And I agreed with the first quote from Max, for the
purposes of that discussion.

More importantly, Tom writes: >>I'm afraid both sides beg the question of
what is "good stuff" and/or "positive social change" and focus on the
secondary issue of how it
happens. In some ways, this relates back to the discussion of utopianism
and the
aphorism (Yogi Berra?) that if you don't know where you're going, it
doesn't matter how fast you're travelling.<<

As one willing to take utopianism seriously, I'm all in favor of
discussions of what "good stuff" is, what is meant by "positive social
change." However, unlike the utopians, I don't see the issue of "how it
happens" as being secondary. Rather, these two are intimately related.

A long long time ago, in college, I was reading Albert Camus's THE REBEL
and mostly not understanding it (it was required reading). But one point
made sense to me: he argued that the means to an end (how we try to get
what we want) ends up determining what ends we actually attain;[*] this has
been validated in a lot of sociological research and my own experience with
life. This encouraged me to try to figure out how to harmonize means and
ends, with the latter dominating. Since my (perhaps utopian) goal involves
the democratic control over the political economy (a.k.a. socialism),
therefore we need to have a grassroots democratic movement to create such a
situation.

One of the problem with many utopians is that they not only _start_ with
their idealized vision of the good society, but stop there. They take their
"recipes for the cookshops of the future" and try to force these goals down
peoples' throats, trick people into following them, ask people to blindly
follow their enlightened leadership, petition the powers that be to
institute their wonderful plans, and/or simply present them to the public
at large hoping that everyone will accept them based on an assumed
consensus of interests. These utopians forget that the way in which their
goals are established helps determine the actual result achieved. (This is
one reason why they often shun analysis of the laws of motion of modern
society of the sort Marx was trying to develop: not worrying very much
about how to get there, they don't need a map of the terrain.)

[*] His example is terrorism: a victorious terrorist campaign for
revolution ends up producing a terrorist government. To his discredit, he
uses this argument against the Algerian battle for independence from France
without mentioning France's terrorism against the Algerians. (Actually, his
argument is more abstract in THE REBEL than that, but it's easy to figure
out what he's talking about here.)


in pen-l solidarity,

Jim Devine   jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
jim_devine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ.
7900 Loyola Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90045-8410 USA
310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950
"It takes a busload of faith to get by." -- Lou Reed.