KM had something to say about this topic:
"We see then that, apart from extremely elastic bounds, the nature of
the exchange of commodities itself imposes no limit to the working-
day, no limit to surplus-labor...there is here, therefore, an
antinomy, right against right, both equally bearing the seal of the
law of exchange. Between equal rights force decides. Hence is it
that in the history of capitalist production the determination of what
is a working-day presents itself as the result of a struggle, a
struggle between collective capital, ie., the class of capitalists,
and collective labor, ie., the working class." (v1, p.259)
To deny or deprecate the importance of any effort to shorten the
working day is to deny or deprecate the class struggle itself!
On Sep 14, 2013, at 4:59 PM, Tom Walker wrote:
"should people organising a struggle for one of these limited and
unsustainable-under-capitalism reforms, e.g. radically reduced
working hours, be open and frank about the fact that achieving said
demand in any long-term way isn't consistent with the current
economic system, and hence would if insisted upon lead to a major
crisis?"
I wouldn't at all jump to the conclusion that the reforms are
"unsustainable under capitalism." Mitterrand's France is not a
convincing example. A reduction in work hours from 40 to 39 hours is
insignificant. There's more noise than signal there. Neoliberal
policies can "fail" for years without being abandoned. Witness
"austerity." So Kliman's evidence against the social democratic
zombie is both anecdotal and selective.
Have a look instead at the evidence presented by Dean Baker, et al.
in "Labor market institutions and unemployment" (2004) or Richard
Freeman's 2005 summary of "the debate over flexibility and labor
market performance." The politically-favored policies of capital are
not necessarily the economically superior ones EVEN IN TERMS OF THE
CURRENT SYSTEM. Capitalism does not necessarily make capitalists
rational and omniscient. Once you get that bugaboo out of the way,
the nature of the question changes dramatically. Radical reforms are
feasible from a purely technocratic standpoint. But such reforms
won't come off the drawing boards of the politicians and their
technocratic lever pullers. The question then is how does a movement
arise that will not only demand such reforms but somehow, through
direct action, compel officials to implement them.
On Sat, Sep 14, 2013 at 1:06 PM, Jamie Stern-Weiner <[email protected]
> wrote:
Have I got Kliman's plan/program correctly?
1. Overthrow capitalism.
followed by:
2. Reduce working hours.
I don't know what his political program is. But I don't think it's
an unimportant question whether or not significant reductions of
working hours, and social democratic policies more broadly, are
compatible with capitalism over the medium- to long-run. One can try
to answer that question in its own right, in isolation from
(related) questions of political strategy.
That said, since you raise it, I've a question regarding the
political strategic implications of Kliman's economic argument. If
it's the case that post-work and many other social democratic
aspirations are unsustainable under capitalism, some here have said
that they should be struggled for nonetheless, as a process by which
workers (and others involved) may come to feel their power and
perceive, by pushing up against them, the limits of what capitalism
as a system can accommodate.
OK. My question is, should people organising a struggle for one of
these limited and unsustainable-under-capitalism reforms, e.g.
radically reduced working hours, be open and frank about the fact
that achieving said demand in any long-term way isn't consistent
with the current economic system, and hence would if insisted upon
lead to a major crisis?
If the answer is 'yes', the problem is that I doubt many would sign
up to measures sold as having the potential to induce economic
crisis, at any rate in the absence of a confidently-held vision of a
comprehensive alternative political-economic model. If the answer is
'no', that would be dishonest (and, in time, exposed as such).
--
Jamie Stern-Weiner
http://www.newleftproject.org/
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--
Cheers,
Tom Walker (Sandwichman)
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