>At 10:06 AM 2/17/97 -0800, Max wrote:
>
>>Maybe we differ in that one impulse is devoted to
>>creating a legacy of a vision which future
>>generations will find illuminating and useful,
>>and frankly I'm interested in work whose
>>beneficial, tangible effects I will live to see,
>>not least because I would like to be assured they
>>are indeed forthcoming.
And Anders replied,
>I think you could even argue that it doesn't make a lot of sense to create
>a vision of the future....
I agree with Anders, but I think the differences between me and Max (and
Max's comment was a response to me) have nothing to do with concrete,
practical activity in the here-and-now versus fantasy projections about
some imagined future. Differences between me and Max (they've come up
before) have to do rather with our different understandings of the dynamics
of capitalist relations, the relationships these have to the social
totality, and the relationships between the dynamics of capitalist
relations and anti-capitalist/anti-corporate activities and resistance.
This is obviously a long discussion, and I have time now only to suggest a
few basic and undoubtedly controversial elements of the relationships I
mention above.
The hallmark of capitalism is its ability to adapt to changing environments
and contexts. This feature has been oft-noted, typically as a reference to
its revolutionizing or dynamic tendencies. However, this is usually
discussed in the context of technological changes. Think about the micro
level first: capitalist enterprises appropriate surplus, and then they
distribute the surplus in various ways to secure access to the conditions
necessary for exploitation (capitalist surplus appropriation). As
conditions change, so do the ways in which enterprises distribute the
surplus. Managing surplus distribution to maneuver through changing social,
natural, political and economic landscapes is precisely what the board of
directors and its appointed agents do.
Thus, enterprises bribe politicians, acquire competitors, spin off
suppliers, survey "consumers'" changing attitudes and opinions, develop new
products, donate funds to particular charities, purchase new technologies
or build new plants ("accumulation"), fund scientific research, lobby
legislators, etc., etc. to make sure they can continue to appropriate
surplus from laborers through exploitation.
This basic structure of capitalist enterprises -- appropriate to distribute
to appropriate -- makes them extremely flexible and adaptable. Thus,
capitalism's fantastic (and recognized) ability to coopt, recuperate, and
appropriate resistance movements of any sort.
On the other hand, this ability of capitalism has often been taken as a
kind of absolute, as if the world is a passivity waiting to be taken over,
appropriated, by the dynamism of capital, so that the only way to overthrow
capitalism is with "radical" activity, to tear it up by the roots, to
finish it totally, once and for all, so there is nothing left of it to act
as coopter, recuperator, appropriator (see Gibson-Graham, RETHINKING
MARXISM 6.2, 1993). Hence, the "reform vs. revolution" debates. However,
this notion of tearing it up by the roots once and for all is a fantasy;
there is no activity of resistance so large and expansive as all that. All
we have is reform, small activities that chip away, a war of position. But
then we are back to capitalist recuperation of reforms. Are we then in a
hopeless position? Obviously, the question is what kind of reform activity
can challenge the basis of capitalist relations?
All this so far is simply by way of introduction, context. The point, to
return to Max and Anders' comments to me, is that I think the kind of
reforms Max suggests and works on (insofar as I know about these, which
could be very little, but in any case is based on what I recall of his
comments here on PEN-L) are precisely reforms that require enterprises to
alter their patterns of surplus distribution (just what they do best!), but
present little or no threat to the existing structure of surplus
appropriation.
Does this mean I think that any activity that does not directly attack the
capitalist fundamental class process (surplus production and appropriation)
is a waste of time and resources? No. Precisely because of the
overdetermined relationship between fundamental and subsumed class (surplus
distribution) processes, challenges to particular patterns of surplus
distribution may, under certain circumstances, also present challenges to
capitalist forms of surplus appropriation. Everything hinges then upon the
larger social context (and changes within it) in which these challenges to
capitalist surplus distributions are taking place, and in particular, on
the articulation of these different challenges.
["What? Really? You're going to stop here, just when you're about to say
something concrete?!"
"Well, I'm currently writing a paper about just these points. All shall be
revealed in due time. And really my dissertation is about these things,
too."
"But,... but,... why bother with this at all, then, if you're not going to
get into the details?"
"Because I'm kinda tired of some people repeatedly implying or claiming
that *their* activity is concrete and practical, getting their hands dirty
with politics that has "beneficial, tangible effects," while others,
academic pedants, sit dreaming in their ivory towers, and wile away the
time in idle fantasy about impossible future utopias.
"I will just say that the perspective I suggest above highlights the need
for cross-constinuency, cross-issue alliances, and a theoretical framework
that can make genuine alliances possible. In principle, then, any 'reform'
activity has revolutionary potential, but that potential can only be
realized if it is explicitly and consciously articulated with other
'reform' activities in a revolutionary strategy. No 'reform' activity is
intrinsically revolutionary, and the recuperative powers of capital are
such that even the reforms of such activity are likely to be evanescent in
the absence of such explicit theoretical articulation."
"So this is why you think the environmental justice movement offers some
promise?"
"As much as anything, yes. But now I've got to get back to my paper."]
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Blair Sandler "If I had to choose a reductionist paradigm,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Classical Marxism is a damned good one."
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