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A social revolution is not an inanimate process, confined to and by a developmental concept abstracted from class struggle, such as comrade WL constructs in saying "The social revolution means revolution in the material power of the productive forces, as this compels the reorganization of society." The overture to an era of social revolution is, as Marx put it, the conflict between the means of production and the social relations of production-- between the organization of the means of production in a specific form of property, and the demands for the reproduction of that specific property which can no longer be satisfied by the means of production when organized in that form. Coincidentally, as the opposite identity of this process, organization of the specific property relations encapsulating production become an obstacle to the further development of the means of production. The "industrial revolution," if we are talking about the one that occurred in Britain in the early 19th century, did not usher in a transition from feudalism to industrial society. First, we do not move from feudalism, a social relationship of land and labor, to the "labor neutral" concept of an industrial society. We move from feudalism to capitalism. The industrial revolution in Britain is preceded by ascendancy of capitalism over feudalism in the relations of land and labor in both countryside and cities. That ascendancy is marked by intense class struggle. The "industrial revolution" in the US, by which is often meant the period leading up to, during, and especially after the Civil War, was of course preceded by capitalism, by the panics and recessions of capitalism which made the limitations imposed upon Northern capitalism by the South's plantation economy, and control of the political arena, so intolerable to the strengthening bourgeoisie. The Civil War followed, large proportional increases of machine power were applied to rural and urban production. And despite that industrialization, or rather, as part of that industrialization within the capsule of bourgeois property, the Northern bourgeoisie pulled back from Reconstruction, not just failed to overturn the the plantation economy of the South, but actually worked to restore it, to support the Redemptionist governments. What was the limit to Reconstruction? Property. Bourgeois property which of course was manifested in the need to create and consolidate a national market throughout the south, a unified means of transportation, and this very same industrialization that propelled the North to destroy slavery now created the terms, and the opportunity for the reconstitution of the power of the slaveholders, and the reconstitution, in a different form, of indentured black labor. And the meaning of this historical digression? That the question in every struggle since 1865 is not "how developed are the productive forces," but which class has the power to truly revolutionize the organization of labor. The bourgeoisie, local, national, international, have shown themselves incapable of doing that-- limited as they are by their form of property-- the means of production as private property. We encounter these limitations, and the inversion of the "emancipatory impulse" within capitalism as it expands, projects itself throughout the Americas, Asia, Africa-- where capital by its very nature becomes the guarantor, the reconstitutionalist of indentured labor, debt-peonage, convict and penal labor; where capital allies itself with hacendados, etc. So if capital itself, and its representatives big or small, or incapable of the thorough transformation of society; if capital can no longer revolutionize the relations of land and labor to support its own "normal" forms of land tenure and labor organization, what class does exist to do that? What class does hold an essential relation to the means of production without the limitations of bourgeois property? Clearly, what comrade WL insists on describing as the "back of the curve" of industrial development which is supposed to make the proletariat incapable of independent, class explicit, class-defined struggle, is a mechanical extension of the old stages theory, the "development" line, that have been completely surpassed by the contradictory development of capital itself. Clearly, what comrade WL insists defines as the limits to proletarian social, and socialist, revolution, is in reality the actual force behind proletarian social revolution-- the unrelenting necessity for a different organization of ownership of the means of production to reorganize, revolutionize, the use of land and labor. If we look at those countries in, what comrade WL calls the "back of the curve," and their struggles in the early 20th Century-- we see this inability of capital, of a national or international bourgeoisie up close and in detail-- I am thinking specifically of Mexico and the struggle against Porfirianismo leading to the revolution of 1910 through 1920? 30? 40? [goes on a long time in Mexico, in different parts of the country] and China in the 1920s. The conflict between means and relations of production, a conflict "quickened" by capital itself through investment, through introduction of modern means of communication and transportation, is incapable of being resolved by the bourgeoisie. The haciendas were destroyed by the agrarian revolt of the Zapatistas, but reconstituted by the bourgeoisie. Despite the growth of industrial capital, Mexico remains fundamentally agrarian, with its industries concentrated in the extractive industries of mining, oil for the international market and consumer goods, with productive capacity far exceeding the breadth of the domestic market. What Mexico really lacked was a capital-goods producing industry-- which is to say it lacked a proletarian revolution that could reorganize the entire economy and, coincidentally, break Mexico's historical lack of development [based on the pre-existing forms of land tenure] and shatter Mexico's subordination to the international bourgeoisie. Certainly the bourgeoisie of Mexico, including its "left" standard bearer, Obregon, proved incapable of accomplishing that. What Obregon did accomplish was to prevent the proletariat from organizing itself and engaging in its independent actions, with its independent program and thus link to the agrarian revolt engulfing the country. More than that, and I still can't understand how this occurred, Obregon convinced a portion of the working class to actually take up arms and battle Villa in the north. But the bottom line is, and has been, that developmental formalism is nothing but an excuse for the suppressing the actual struggles against the limitations of, and enforced by capitalism. ----- Original Message ----- yFrom: <[email protected]> To: "David Schanoes" <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 12:52 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] The Chinese Revolution (90 years ago) > ====================================================================== > Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > ====================================================================== > > > > > ******* > >>>“Do you mean a 'social' revolution in that it's "Socialist" or a > revolution that simply overturns the current political state from > feudalistic > warlord and colonial dismemberment to a modern democratic one?” << > > Comment > > None of the above. > > The social revolution means revolution in the material power of productive > forces, as this compels a qualitative reorganization of society. The > industrial revolution was such, ushering in the transition from agrarian > society > - feudalism, to industrial society. ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
