Doug Henwood wrote: (Hi Doug).
>There is something of a - and please forgive me for sounding like a
>financial economist in service to the rentier class - principal-agent
>problem in SD leadership, and in union leadership too. At the top level,
>people find it easy to get seduced into being the junior partners of the
>bourgeoisie, going to conferences with the bosses and their intellectuals,
>having the perks and often the salaries of the elite, etc. And in America,
>we have those damned foundations, the "third sector," the ruling class'
>private semi-state, to seduce the leaders of rebellious oppressed classes
>and groups.
This is a problem I have come to know personally (and it's a problem of the
ruling culture even more than the ruling class, or at least I think that's
a viable formulation) and so I would like to say something about it. I
think Doug is right to speak of the third sector as an agent for a
transformation of society along lines pleasing to the ruling culture/class:
it's a way the ruling culture/class has to manage things; and it's a way
the ruling culture/class has to coopt leadership. Gransci's Southern
Question, by the way, is about this last question: how the ruling
culture/class absorbs the potential leaders of the opposition. There is not
a too subtle logic at work. As I said, I see it personally. BUT, having
said this, this is where the interesting problem lies: why does it happen
that way? and what to do about it? what are the political/cultural lessons
to be drawn from it.
As I see them, the options are two. Either you think that the whole thing
is a ruse of the ruling class (thus endowing this class with even more
powers than it has: this is the danger of thinking of capitalism as a
totality, etc. etc.), or you think that there are processes at work that
have a logic of their own (communities, needs, etc. etc.) but that the
ruling culture/class intervenes to manage--and, perhaps, the ruling
class/culture can keep on being ruling only if it is able to manage these
excesses of needs and communities it does not directly control, as in e.g.,
labor-power.
These two ways of layering the ground for popular initiatives, as problems
for and conditions to be managed by the ruling culture/class, lead to two
different political attitudes. The first option, which is where I suspect
Doug is [Doug, you can correct me if I am wrong], is that, since these
initiatives are ruses of the bourgeoisie, they are to be resisted and
avoided; they are to be branded for what they are, exposed to the world as
such, etc. etc.. But, if the second understanding (that these are sites,
with independent centers, that the ruling class/culture intervenes to
manage) is correct, then the proper political attitude is that the left
should get in there to fight it out, that these sites become places of
struggle between the bourgeois way of addressing problems, responding to
needs, etc, and a progressive/left way of doing it--a way of competing with
the bourgeoisie.
The danger of following the first strategy/response (renounce and denounce
these efforts) if the second understanding is correct is grave: it makes of
the left an irrelevant force, and it forces people, communities, to
negotiate their dreams (for dignity, for liberty, etc. etc.) exclusively
with bourgeois images, models, etc.. [Of course, the danger of the opposite
type is that the left would waste its time trying to work in this area: but
any more than trying to work in any other area? So in the end, if the
bourgeoisie is really so much in control, why engage in any struggles
whatsoever other than just at the workplace--but, what an empovireshed left
that would be].
I say this with all the due respect. Perhaps I am wrong; since I am
politically engaged, I ask myself these question quite often. I have no
lock on the truth of the matter; just some knowledge and some intuition.
But I do think the problem is extremely important for the left.
I'd love to hear Doug's and others' reactions.
Antonio Callari
Antonio Callari
E-MAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
POST MAIL: Department of Economics
Franklin and Marshall College
Lancaster PA 17604-3003
PHONE: 717/291-3947
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