Dialectics and Process: Part II
Society moves in class antagonism. "At a certain stage of their development, the material forces of production in society come into conflict . . . with the property relations . . . From forms of development of the forces of production, these (property) relations turn into their fetters. Then comes the period of social revolution." Application of new (technological) methods of production cheapens labor-power and increasingly renders every larger portions of world labor superfluous to the production of commodities. Human labor is the source of the value borne in commodities. Increasingly value-less production is incompatible with a system based of the sell and purchase of labor-power. The technological advance must by definition further polarize a society based on the sell and purchase of labor-power. Polarization means the increasing separation - externalization, of the poles that constitute the unity and strife in the production process - labor and capital, a rupture in the unity and emergence of the poles as relatively independent entities. The "rupture" in the contradiction labor and capital mean a rupture in the social fabric. Society is being torn from its old foundations or undergoing a 'leap' to a new mode of production. The objective aspect of the leap began with the introduction of something new, the transition from automated electro-mechanical processes to automated digitalized processes. If the means of production have undergone a leap, then the social response must be characterized as a leap to a new consciousness necessary to form the subjective aspect of the new mode of production. Antagonism with its polarization of wealth and poverty, separation of poles expressing the unity of labor and capital in the production process; quantitative and qualitative dimensions and changes; leaps and evolutionary leaps are not separate categories but isolated as aspects of development to indicate why society behaves a certain way and why what was simply a mass of unemployed labor has been transformed into the emergence of a new class. The leap - sometimes a very long process, is the transition from one quality to another or better yet, the transition from one law system to another. The leap is not some slow quantitative moving away from the old, but a sudden break in the continuity and the establishment of a new qualitative development, incompatible with the old law system. Nor is the leap the swift establishment of the new law system of a quality all in one bold stroke. Everyone who recognizes the power of the Marx dialectic understood that capitalism could not and did not ensure the standard of living and cultural development of the working class. What was not understood was the specific limitation of capitalist property relations as a historically evolved social force, because the technological revolution had not unfolded. Generally all of us agree that the maturing of a system of production creates the conditions for its change. In the absence of the existence of the concrete material conditions for the leap from one law system to the next or a change in the mode of production, the specific boundaries of capitalist commodity production could not be defined and was articulated as "at a certain stage of their development, the material forces of production in society come into conflict . . . with the property relations . . ." The physically concrete conditions that define the boundary of capitalist commodity production and the horizon of a new law system of production are summed up as value-less production. What has obscured this process for many is the conception of the "information economy." What is the primary qualitative distinction is not the reconfiguration of channels of information - which most certainly represents qualitative enhancement, but the increasingl y value-less character of commodity production. Increasingly value-less production is the primary qualitative distinction defining the leap - transition, from one mode of production to another. Here is the primary quality that demands that property relations be reconfigured - not the structure and technological character of information. Technology - the rendering of an increasing mass of living labor superfluous to the production process creates the condition defining the boundary of capital. As conditions ripen, elements of the new system of technology are grafted onto the old infrastructure. The new is incompatible with the law system governing the old and the new begins to destroy the old social relations driving production. In the language of the Marx dialectic this is stated as a general law of process development: "qualitative transition begins with the quantitative introduction of the new quality into the quantitative development of the old." Here is what limited the framework of the social struggle in yesteryear. 1. An exploited class cannot overthrow an exploiting class since they together make up the system. Their unending struggle is over the division of the social product and political liberties. 2. Since they cannot overthrow the system, the basic struggle of the masses led by the organized sector of the working class was to re form or restructure the system in favor of the people. These reforms or restructuring is society's recognition of quantitative changes in the economic process that demand changes in the social contract. Thus, all reforms are political and redefine the relations between classes. Under such conditions not simply the communist, but everyone is reduced to begging for sector interest and maneuvering to "get what I got coming." As long as reform is left in the system - that is as long as a series of quantitative developments can still take place within the mode of production, the battle of the communist is driven along the line of logic of reform of the quality called capital. The process is objective and no slogan or subjective view can overwrite objective logic development. After the reform movement legalized unions, communist work in the trade unions was virtually impossible or rather communist work in the trade unions meant organizing the unorganized and when possible, winning scattered elements over to the ideological cause of communism, because there was still reform left in capital. The communist pursued the line of organizing the unorganized to improve the conditions of the workers, enhance their fighting capacity and with the knowledge that such activity was directed at breaking the strength of the labor aristocracy over the mass of unorganized workers - the labor movement, by expanding the trade union movement into the labor movement. The period of this specific configuration of history is spent. Once development of the old means of production stop, reform stops. The revolutionary change in the economy (the quantitative introduction of a new qualitative dimension) begins to destroy the society built on the old foundations. No reform is possible. The initial leap signals that a new period of accumulation of forces necessary for the evolutionary leap is underway. The evolutionary leap is the establishment of the dominance of a new law system. The leap is governed by the subjective and not the productive forces because the leap means transition. The new technology exists and is being applied partially to bolster profits and seek maximum returns. An antagonistic contraction cannot move beyond partial resolution without destroying the conditions of existence of the previously dominate pole, so that the new social forces can evolve based on their unique law system. The shift from spontaneous development to development through consciousness must be fought for and consolidated by the all enlightened members of society. Since the initial qualitative leap in the productive forces has taken place - the application or establishment of the new quality, there is bound to be a leap from one political base to another and this is entirely subjective. What kind of society will there be? How shall society be reorganized to conform to the new developments in the productive forces? How will people cloth themselves, eat and secure housing? There are no more reforms left in capital. The spontaneous struggle for non-existent reforms cannot but force the introduction of new ideas - ideas compatible with and reflecting the economic revolution or the new qualitative feature in the productive process. These ideas cannot arise from the spontaneous movement for non-existent reforms, but must be worked out and introduced to the social movement from outside the social movement by what is called the "conscious element." This is the task of modern communism. Not the demand for socialism, which in our current conditions is obsolete, - or rather do not clearly express that, which is new (qualitatively new and distinct) in our system of production. There exist no need to build "the material basis" for socialism or socialism as such. This is so because as the new class consolidates and becomes aware of itself and material interest, what is needed is not the building of a comprehensive industrial infrastructure or a system based on ones labor contribution - the sell of labor power, but a system based on needs. What separates society from expanding the all round development of value-less production (the new qualitative development) is political authority in the hands of the workers. This was not the case thirty years ago. Today in North America we need a system of production and distribution of the social product based on the needs of people, not the content of one individual labor contribution. The technological basis for value-less production and comprehensive distribution of the total social products exist today. Medical coverage, foodstuff, education, cultural pursuits, public housing, public transportation, etc., should not and cannot be based on ones labor, place of employment or the general value content of the social product. Society has already made the initial leap in the productive forces and cannot evolve backwards or go qualitatively forward without a political change in society. Political change is driven by thinking human beings and takes place more rapid by pursuing a general strategic line. The battle that must unfold is for a class vision and class politics. There are no more reforms left in capital, practically and historically. The vision Marx spoke of has come true: "To each according to their need, from each according to their ability." Engel's prophetic insight into the historical limit of value as a mediator of human relations - articulated in 1844, has been confirmed in our daily lives. Even a causal look at the conditions of our class reveals new features. On the heels of the ending of the war against the Vietnamese peoples, what was called homeless veterans has become an entire population segment of homeless people in all major center cities. The Ozzie and Harriet character of family life, with the father able to secure more than less uninterrupted employment and a pension has been regulated to antiquity. The separation between the people and the state superstructure - polarization, has begun and expresses the new qualitative feature in the economy. The impoverishment of an increasingly vast segment of the workers compels the police to move from protection of our citizens to control "of the mob." The state superstructure is polarizing with police departments collapsing in smaller cities and the police and state employees are hitting the unemployment lines. This process is rather clear to anyone with the courage to look and the strength of conviction to grasp the dialectic of antagonism as the movement of class society. In other words a textbook case of the destruction of the "middle" and its social consequence is taking place. The middle is the broad strata of petty bourgeois and working class people who through income and property had a big stake in the property relations. The March 2000 collapse of stock market value and with it pension dreams has had profound consequences on the thinking of the middle. To the degree that the middle is shrunk and destroyed, society is polarized into two hostile camps - propertyless workers and capitalist. This unfolding process is the textbook description of social revolution written in the Communist Manifesto in every major detail. A full 30 million or one third of the workforce is called "throwaway" workers, who make only 70% of what workers doing the same job on a permanent basis make. Not only do they not have benefits they have no set work schedule. Their jobs include high-tech software designers, office workers, janitors, taxicab drivers, adjunct college professors, home healthcare, food processing, etc. The turnover rate of these workers is 80 percent and many live in horrible conditions, especially more rural areas with abject poverty and spreading diseases like TB. In Iowa, workers from Laos live in railroad shacks that resemble scavenger huts in Seoul. Beneath these workers are the destitute. There conditions are deplorable and highlighted by millions of homeless men and women. These two brief categories of the working class is the new class and points to the direction of the technological revolution. Our inspirational slogan is "victory to the working class in its current struggle" but there is only one program with meaning to 50% of the working class in our country and 80% of the worlds population: "distribution based on need." This is the new idea that has to be painstakingly fought for; the guiding thread we sworn loyalty to, before the conditions for its realization appeared - "distribution based on need." The Argentina masses - in their totality and class complexity, broke into stores and spontaneously took food (distribution), demanded the liquidation of debt and this impulse has profoundly affected the communist in North America. We of course can never tell our compatriots what to do or think, least we run the risk of being rightfully branded imperialist scoundrels. Yet, we can extract a simple conclusion from this impulse, that we can used in our struggle: the program of the world working class is apparently headed in the direction of distribution based on need. Scores of issues have to be fought out in the theoretical arena but hardly any in the arena of work within the class, if we grasp the revolutionary conclusions of the old Communist Manifesto and live the moment. For example, what is the configuration of the fascist movement in our country; what is its ideological underpinning; what is the trajectory of the organized labor movement; why is it that fascism in North American cannot assume a military form as in Germany? What is the current ideological state of the various sectors of the class? What are the figures? What is the role and urgency for a Labor Party under conditions where there are no more reforms in capital and society has made a qualitative leap in the productive forces? How do we attack the ruling class bit by bit, proceeding from where the people are at, showing that communism is no pie in the sky put a practical solution to practical problems of today? How do we build a critical mass in the working class with a center of gravity capable of pushing all section of society forward? What has become rather clear is that the timeframe when the organized labor movement - the trade union movement, could express the will of the class is spent. The idea that the trade union movement can be identified as the labor movement is wrong. The idea that particular trade union leaders can be identified with and substituted for the mass of trade union members will leave us defenseless in the face of an onslaught of capital. It is of course desirable that the demand for "distribution based on need" take root in the organized sector. Nevertheless, the work of communist within the trade union movement is to win its members over to the program of the real labor movement; "distribution based on need." The leaders of the trade union movement should never be confused with the millions of members of the trade union movement. There are no reforms left in capital. Limited, isolated, reform struggles call for one kind of activity when quantitative expansion is left within a system of production. Social movement expressing a new qualitative dimension - the motion of the evolutionary leap, calls for another kind of activity - class activity. The demand of the moment is to master the art of imparting why and how classes fight for their material existence is the order of the day. Melvin _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
