Jim Devine wrote:
> Did Marx advocate supporting the people he described here -- or
> supporting their illusions?
Well, Marx didn't say that he or his followers would be immune to
these illusions. He worked hard to grasp the inner workings of
capitalism. That was his best try to vaccine himself individually
against these illusions. But, ultimately, these illusions have
objective bases. From a collective (real) point of view, dissipating
the illusions and dismantling the bases on which they arise are one
and the same process. Sometimes, the consciousness of (a few or many)
people get a bit ahead, sometimes it lags behind. But it is only
through the interplay between the struggle to appropriate the world
mentally and materially that the process advances for real.
There's no escape from the illusions of our epoch other than the
struggle. I mean, there's no *individual* or *sectarian* escape.
That's another illusion, if you don't mind the paradox. The struggle
has to be collective, because only collectively can we dissipate those
illusions for good *and* build a more transparent and deliberate type
of social life. That doesn't mean that we as individuals or small
groups of individuals claiming to know better don't count. We do. We
can make a difference. But it is not by pretending that we can
extract ourselves from the *collective* enterprise of uncovering the
illusions and dismantling the objective bases that make them necessary
or even possible. *That* is just another illusion -- the sectarian
illusion.
Again, those who think that there's some fixed ideological rule that
you can safely apply ("support Obama if X, do not support Obama if not
X") are just as trapped by their illusions (sectarian in that case)
as, if not more than, the masses who may naively adopt the ideological
and political apparata that history bequeathed them to advance their
interests as they currently perceive them. People do what they can
with what they have.
There's a fellow who posts regularly on Louis Proyect's list under the
name of Joaquin Bustelo. He's put it in much better terms that I can
ever. That's all on the list archives. He ties this to Marx and
Engels' calls to arms in the Manifesto. In fact, similar theses can
be found explicit or implicit in many other Marxian works. Or in
Lenin or Trotsky or Mao. Marx and Engels didn't call the communists a
force separate, or juxtaposed, or counter-posed to the workers in
political motion. The communists were a subset of the class in
motion, who simply emphasized the universal and long-term interests of
the class as opposed to their temporary interests or the interests of
particular subsets of the class. (Marx and Engels also called the
communists the "most advanced," etc. sector of the class. But that
wasn't a statement of fact. It was a call to action. When a sport
team cheers itself up and claims to be the best, it still has to prove
it on the court every time it plays.)
What does this mean? It means that the communists don't process their
differences with respect to the overall direction of motion of the
class from somewhere outside the class, from outside the framework
(ideological, political -- institutional if you wish) within which,
through which the class is currently moving -- e.g. the electoral
system, the Democratic Party. They don't sit by the fence.
The contrarian arguments seem to be the opposite of each other, but
they redound on the same thing, namely "separate yourself from the
class." One argument is, it doesn't matter whether you stand outside
that framework or not because you're just an individual (or a small
group) and your influence is negligible. The other argument is, the
issue is crucial, ethically or politically (as if the cost of making
the mistake of falling off your horse were as high as your horse):
I'll be damned if I ever accept the 2-party system or the Democratic
Party or whatever as the framework for my political work, because I'm
holier than thou *or* because it's a political suicide to do so. This
is the same as saying that the whole point is not to accept the rules
of the existing game but turn over the tables and set up another game.
Yeah? Where? In your mind? Big deal.
Even children know that you cannot just set up a new game a caprice
and have all others assent and follow you sheepishly. Who the f****
are you anyway? Sometimes you have to join the existing group and
play the game other children are playing, and switch to other games
through the collective realization that the existing game is no longer
good, that other games are feasible, etc. Children who don't grasp
this early on grow up socially impaired. Sectarian leftists are
socially impaired. They cannot communicate with one another, let
alone with the rest of the class.
But, you may say, Marx *does* say that the communists are distinct
from the rest of the class. They are a part of the class, but not
identical to the rest of the class. So, if you just follow passively
the rest of the class, how are you asserting your individuality or
particularity as a communist? Good question. Even if here I tend to
bend the stick in the direction of joining, I'm not saying that we
should passively follow the crowd. I have to struggle, but the where
and how is material. My basic answer is this: If you are in the
framework -- i.e. playing the existing game -- then assert the
overall, long-term interests of the class *as forcefully as you
possibly can* while contributing to the unity of the class or at least
not contributing to its disunity. But if you are outside, then get in
in the first place!
I'll say this again: Alienation is the problem. Not the solution.
> As Carroll often says, without an opposition
> force, no economic crisis is really a crisis for the system.
It seems to me that Carrol has a certain mental image of what a "true"
opposition force is. IMO, to use the old terms, that's a very
mechanical, idealistic view of things. Life will pass us by if we
wait for Carrol's "true" opposition force to appear.
That said, however, I don't think that the system is ever opposition
free. Humans being who they are, there's always some opposition to
capitalism. The trappings of ideology and politics can reduce it
(temporarily), but never completely eliminate it. The rulers know
this well. That's why they are so scared of Marxism and socialism. I
read it in every William Kristol or George Will article. I read it in
every editorial by the Economist or even the Financial Times.
Of course, an opposition to the system can be different from another
in the degree of consciousness, organization, and political autonomy.
But we're talking degrees here, not discrete distinctions.
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