Reform and social revolution: the new narrative Marxism contains a language, a set of words and terms accepted as short cuts. Problems arise with words and terms given different meaning. "Reform," "concession," "social revolution," and "reformism" are such words. When these terms are detached from the materiality of the "object" being examined, the "shortcut" becomes "the long way around." The dictionary states that reform is "an improvement or amendment of what is wrong." Reform means to restructure. Restructuring changes existing relations between and within classes. These production relations express and correspond to material relations of the economy and ultimately find its center of gravity in the division of labor. "Reform" is alteration of a material relation within and between classes in connection with means of production. Reform and concession is not the same. Reforms are more durable and cannot be taken away based on political will alone. Something must change within the "object," structure of society for "reform of the system" to unravel. Reforms do not change the property relations. Wrestling greater shares of the social product and expanded political liberties from the state or employer is the content of most social struggle. Concession is yielding to a demand based on political will. Concessions do not alter the structural relations within and between classes. Concessions can be taken away based on political will. The Republic Window and Door workers in Chicago (Local 1110) won a concession package compelling their employer to give them back pay. The settlement totals $1.75 million. It provides the workers with: oEight weeks of pay they are owed under the federal WARN Act, oTwo months of continued health coverage and, oPay for all accrued and unused vacation. Reform as "shortcut" means "change in relations between and within classes, without changing the property relations." The impulse for reform of the system arises from the spontaneous quantitative development of the building blocks of economy: means of production. II. Society is the totality of the relations between classes and groups in a community. The creation and form of wealth depends on the state of development of the productive forces. The means of production develop as incremental quantitative inputs until a qualitative leap is underway. The unity and strife of primary classes defining (re)production is the flesh and blood compelling society to advance through the progressive accumulation of productive forces. As involuntary promoter of industry, the bourgeoisie and privileged ruling classes, economic and political layers in society evolve a stake in keeping the system the same because that is how their wealth, power, privilege and life experiences are realized. As the means of production evolve, a corresponding deepening change and contradictions widens with the static immobile property relations expressed as corporations, political organizations, entrenched self interest of groups of all kinds and their civic structures. As favorable condition emerges the social struggle riveted to primary classes ends with a quantitative leap in the social relations, which brings a reformed society more into correspondence with improved means of production. III. The impulse for reform arises from the spontaneous quantitative development of means of production. The impulse for social revolution arises from the spontaneous qualitative development of means of production. The former merges with the latter only under conditions of leap to a new technology regime, as was the case of the industrial revolution. Our generations have witnessed, lived and recorded the epochal movement of a mode of production and how it reformed itself until all the space - boundaries, in the industrial system was exhausted. At each juncture - (quantitative boundary of our developing industrial production relations), the subjective question of political revolution emerged as an issue for the most farsighted revolutionaries. Henry Ford and the system of "Fordism" expressed the continuation of the industrial revolution. Henry Ford's factory system accelerated restructuring of production relations and changes the in the form of the working class destroying the structural basis of craft/skilled labor of the historic artisan. Assembly line production restructured the industrial work process driving transition from craft to industrial trade unionism. This motion logic was genuine reform of the system. America assembly line auto production nail the coffin shut on the "company town" and laid the basis for suburbia; expanded the cement and housing industry and fifty years later resulted in our nationwide Interstate system. There are thousands of incremental changes to society brought about by the Henry ford system. The growth of the industrial union movement was a subjective/political reform of the system, expressing a material reform of the building blocks of the economy. Reform is the actual process of a system passing from one quantitative boundary of growth to another. Reform of the system gushes forth based on continuous quantitative growth of a distinct "quality" defined as specific state of development of the means of production. The National Labor Relations Act, signed by Roosevelt into law July 5, 1935 or the Wagner Act, was a genuine reform that changed the relations within and between classes. Seven months after the Wagner Act became law, the first sit down strike took place at Firestone Plant One in Akron Ohio. This single legal document regulated labor unrest to the legal arena. But is implication were much broader and durable than a concession. It was a concession that reformed the system. The most recent memory of the reform movement is that of the African American freedom struggles. African Americans have always fought and struggled for freedom and equality. This critical subjective factor of fighting gives shape to the outcome of reform. IV.
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