Waiting for Lenin

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Aldo's challenge on 7th was permissible under the conventions of this
list because it was not directed at anyone individual. 

It does not appear to have been accepted. 

I agree there are rising fascist tendencies in the USA, and it appears in
Italy, now.

I agree Bush has many things going for him and he could do more damage.

Silent subscribers may be thinking about Aldo's challenge but not
professed to embrace it and take it further. Members of the Democratic
Party may have thought they had better keep silent about having accepted
it. Which would be worrying for the health of this list.

Most contributors said they did not have faith in the Democratic party;
some indicated another party would be preferable.

___


Lenin has an argument in State and Revolution, Ch 1.3, which describes
the difficulties that progressives face in a bourgeois democracy:

"A democratic republic is the best possible political shell for
capitalism, and, therefore, once capital has gained control of this very
best shell ...it establishes its power so securely, so firmly, that
no change, either of persons, of insitutions, or of parties in the
bourgeois-democatic republic, can shake it.

"We must also note that Engels is most definite in calling universal
suffrage an instrument of bourgeois rule. Universal suffrage, he says,
obviously summing up the long experience of German Social-Democracy, is
'the gauge of the maturity of the working class. It cannot and never will
be anything more in the present-day state.'

"The petty-bourgeois democats ... expect just this 'more' from
universal suffrage. They themselves share and instil into the minds of
the people the false notion that universal suffrage 'in the modern
state' is really capable of ascertaining the will of the majority of the
toilers and of securing its realization."

However Lenin incorrectly bent the wand to take Engels's emphasis on the
indispensible role of force, overt and covert in every state, to be
represent a panegyric on violence. (Whether the two words look more
similar in Russian or German I do not know, but there is a shift in
English) - S&R Ch 1.4.

This weakens the arguments for some sort of Gramscian war of position,
including war in the ideological superstructure, aimed at undermining
some of the opportunities the capitalists have of using arbitrary
force.

___

Last Sunday on UK tv Robin Cook, with enhanced authority after his
resignation from the government about going to war over WMD, was also
commenting as a loyal member of new Labour on where its project has got.
Some of these arguments would be relevant for Aldo's challenge.

Brown argued that Blair had put together an alliance between the middle
class, the 'aspirational' class, and less privileged working people. He
thought the danger was that the latter now saw little reason to vote for
Labour. He urged that Brown's creeping programme of tax credits should be
publicised more widely to show that this strata has benefited. 

I am not a member of the Labour party, and see no reason to be. But I
suggest a balanced reading of Lenin, and indeed of the current situation,
is that within the political shell of the democratic bourgeois republic,
centre or centre left governments are preferable. 

In the Gramscian struggle for ideological hegemony there should be a wide
debate about what measures at least restrict the possibility of rightward
lurches, fascist tendencies and impoverishment of working people. The
great majority of the population are working class, in that apart from a
few savings, even a house, they are not free not to be wage slaves in
some capacity or another. Nor are their children. There is therefore some
merit in addressing the divisions that bourgeois ideology and
individualism can produce by thinking in terms of the aspirational
"strata" and the disadvantaged "strata" who together
make up the majority of working people.

A device like a tax credit, or a tax benefit, as Gordon Brown pushed it a
little on Monday, is useful for addressing the deep resentment that the
aspirational strata have in the US and in the UK against what they see as
lazy people getting free handouts for being lazy. At the same time it
probably also contributes as Brown claims to getting more people into
work. Yes to be exploited, but at least they are not lumpen recipients of
state benefits. (Remember this is a bourgeois republic we are talking
about, not premature communism)

I suggest that third parties are illusory, and un-Leninist, if that
sobers anybody up - probably not. But reforms which are sometimes helpful
are constitutional ones that weaken the ability of the capitalists to use
the system. Proportional representation at the risk of racists getting
elected, could ensure publicity for more radical voices and therefore a
centre left coalition just that little more to the left than it would
otherwise be. See Scotland. Some increased sort of transparent
accountability of what big business is doing is helpful. Further
restrictions on capitalist funding of political parties, and caps on
campaigning costs would be progressive.

Concerning Aldo's headings

Macro-economic policy needs to be extended to talk about the fluctuations
of the capitalist trade cycle, partly for a better hold on reality,
partly to make the workings of capitalism a more open subject of
discussion.

Social benefits > tax credits
Health care: one of the largest and growing areas of economic activity.
involves enormous costs and calculation of potentially vast risks, on the
edge of science, and professional incompetence. Work with the finance
capital behind HCO's to make it more rational and more transparent in its
standards. Overcome a right-left perceptual divide on this.

Fiscal policy - no comment 

International trade policy: much more than international trade. The
international management of global capitalism. That Neo-con unilateralism
is counterproductive. That alliances need to be made to reflate the whole
global economy. The people of the USA could benefit by this longer term
far more than by just selfishly taking advantage of economic hegemonism.

links with international policy - however overwhelming US supremacy, do
the US working people, aspirational or disadvantaged, want their sons and
daughters garrisoning failing states across the world, and being killed
at the rate of one a day. Is that how to guard against terrorism?

Labour policies: Completely premature at this end of the 21st century to
try to abolish wage slavery as part of an electable programme. They need
to redo their focus groups to find out how to achieve consensus between
aspirational and disadvantaged workers. By no means impossible because
even the aspirational workers all know family members or friends who have
suddenly become disadvantaged.

Deregulation: an electable centrist bourgeois party, needs to accept a
diverse economy in return for great social accountability. It should
review the important capitalist reform against monopolies, and allow some
capitalist developments to pursue their natural course towards monopoly
in return for greater social accountability.

Nobody has guiltily to confess undying faith in the Democratic party to
contribute to a continuum of debate about what policies would be
electable and progressive, in the short term and with a view to the
longer term. If some members of this list secretly or openly also try to
influence debate within the Democratic Party, (or the Republican Party
for all I care) isn't that part of the continuum of a lively democratic
civil society? And the struggle for hegemony in the small amount of space
that the domination of capital allows us?

Do we have to wait for a reincarnated Lenin or Ralph Nader to develop
that debate? Can we not tolerate differences in personal positions and
treat the debate as more important?

Chris Burford

London



 From Aldo's original post 7 June

> In a year?s time, a serious Democratic
> candidate may be facing down the lonely ranger. We don?t know who the
> candidate will be. But he?ll need good economic programs in a hurry.
> Someone has to prepare the ammunition, and keep it dry. FDR had such a
> team of academic advisors. We have no FDR (yet ? but don?t worry, the
> opportunity makes the man) but we need the programs now. They cannot be
> improvised. So her is the challenge to all of you professional
> economists. What about drawing up an effective economic program for the
> next electoral showdown? It could be articulated along the following
> lines:
>
> · Macro-economic policy 
> · Social benefits (social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.) 
> · Fiscal policy 
> · International trade policy 
> · Labour policies 
> · Deregulation. Now such a program should be progressive, and not
> utopian. 
>
> For one you need the votes, not the glory of perfection. It has to be
> coherent, and doable. And it must be something that even a donkey can
> defend. Hence it is not simply the current program multiplied by ?1.