The Renewal of Radical Politics
In the past two decades, the project of radically transforming capitalist societies in order to create communities that are in some sense "socialist" has undergone a profound crisis. This crisis has sometimes looked like a complete collapse of the radical Left, especially in Canada and the United States, where the socialist Left has always been comparatively weak. It is worth stopping to ask why socialism, once so powerful in its mass appeal, in every corner of the globe, has now fallen into such widespread disrepute and popular repudiation.
There are those, especially on the political right, who regard this turn of events as symptomatic of socialism's sheer impossibility. According to this view, the inability of socialist economic institutions to solve the complex coordination problems confronting modern societies has been exposed for all to see.
But another interpretation is ultimately more plausible. Far from the socialist project having strayed too far from capitalism, to the point of unworkability, the problem has been nearly the opposite of that. The roots of the Left's crisis are to be found, not in the distance that separates socialism from capitalism, but in the proximity that makes them too difficult to distinguish from one another. To be sure, there are very real differences between profit-motivated, privately owned capitalist enterprises and the sort of public sector ownership forms favored by real-world variants of socialism in the 20th century (notably, the statist "central planning" of Eastern Europe and the welfare-state expansionism of Western social democracy and "Eurocommunism"). But these variants of socialism have nonetheless been widely rejected as alternatives to capitalism because they have tended systematically to replicate the least attractive elements of the social order they purport to reject. The socialist Left turned against capitalism at the level of property forms, even as it embraced capitalism's bureaucratic model of governance, its technocratic approach to designing and implementing public policy, its hierarchical and autocratic forms of workplace organization, its Realpolitik norms of international relations, its glorification of production and accumulation as ends in themselves, and its elitist understanding of who is best able to exercise political power and spearhead social change.
The result has been a kind of paradox of anti-capitalism: the very considerations that generate distaste for capitalism - hostility to its inequality, elitism, authoritarianism, and alienation - generate at the same time a suspicion of many real-world socialist initiatives. And this suspicion reflects an insight into the Left's very real concessions to capitalism, not a failure on the part of the masses to grasp their true interests, or to see capitalism for what it really is. Securing "public ownership of the means of production" is, plainly, not equivalent to the self-emancipation of the exploited and oppressed from the evils and injuries they endure under capitalism. And the Left has paid a terrible price in diminished credibility for its tendency to treat a necessary condition for transcending capitalism (wresting economic power away from capitalist firms in favor of some sort of public ownership) as if it were a sufficient condition for doing so. In the minds of most working people, the identification of socialism with the project of democratic and egalitarian self-liberation has been broken.
And yet, there are stirrings today of something new, early glimpses, perhaps, of a re-emergence of the radical Left, even here in North America where the Left is weaker than almost any other place on earth.
But the signs of a possible resurgence do nothing to encourage a faith in the prospects for a reassertion of the declining variants of the former Left - the small Leninist organizations, the anarchist Black Blocs, or the reform-minded social-democratic electoral machines. Rather, they suggest new sources of vitality, arising in unfamiliar forms from unexpected locations.
A number of recent (and admittedly still-marginal) grassroots initiatives have been launched by North American radicals hoping to re-invent the radical Left under the banner of participatory democracy. It is, of course, an old term, embraced by some North American radicals at least since the early 1960s. But it has acquired today an importantly new significance. The key difference lies in the fact that, whereas in the past "participation" figured mainly as a proposed alternative to the alienation and cynicism of the elite-dominated system of representative democracy typical of advanced capitalist societies, in today's emerging participatory Left the ideal of participatory democracy has much more of a double function. Participatory democracy has gone from being simply a label for naming certain features of the radical project, to being at the same time a formula used to delineate the constraints on admissible processes deployed in pursuit of that project. It is about means as much as it is about ends, methods as much as goals.
The Left that is beginning to emerge from under this banner is one that eschews both the bureaucratic conception of socialism typified by the East European model, and the uncritical stance of many social democrats toward the political and economic institutions of capitalism, notably "representative" democracy and the market economy. The emerging participatory Left wants to embody, in practice and right now, the characteristics that the Left has always claimed to regard as worth wanting in a post-capitalist future. It wants, in short, to be egalitarian, anti-elitist, non-statist, and participatory.
Consider, first, the re-founding (in January of 2006) of the campus-based Students for a Democratic Society. The "New SDS" bears a familiar name, at least to those well-versed in 1960s radicalism in the U.S.A. But in many ways it has departed sharply from its namesake. Today's SDS has over 120 chapters on campuses across the United States. Its name has perhaps attracted a degree of news media attention that a radical direct action student group would normally not be accorded. But what makes it important, in the present context, is not its size or its relatively high profile, but its aspiration to make a qualitative break with earlier models of organizing. Although SDS has struggled to develop a coherent organizational structure, this weakness is in part symptomatic of a crucial secret to its success: SDS has not seen such matters as strictly issues of efficacy or efficiency, but has treated them as inextricably bound up with the question of what it means to organize in the present for a radically democratic society in the future. SDS members have refused to disengage questions of process from questions of project.
A similar insistence on process/project consistency has animated a distinct, but parallel radical initiative: the project for a participatory society, which emerged out of the popular ZNet website, associated with Z Magazine. First, some background. In recent years, the vision for an egalitarian post-capitalist economy proposed by Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel, known as "participatory economics," has become increasingly influential on the North American far Left. Hahnel and Albert took the longstanding socialist claim that a radically democratic economy was possible, and backed it up with detailed institutional proposals for replacing market economics with a process they call "participatory planning." This process would be based on deliberative councils of workers in the workplace and consumers in neighbourhoods and regions, coordinated by a process of iterative negotiation, using "indicative prices," but substituting participatory and deliberative procedures for the blind rule of market forces.
As these economic proposals grew in influence, a group of likeminded writers and activists began to join Hahnel and Albert in elaborating a broader, more expansive vision of a post-capitalist participatory society. Political scientist Stephen Shalom began to articulate a conception of a post-capitalist "participatory polity." Radical journalist and academic Justin Podur proposed a vision of a "participatory culture." Feminist activist and writer Cynthia Peters explored the possibility of a transformation of gender roles and kinship structures within a participatory democratic society. Most recently, Matt Halling has tried to develop a conception of a participatory-democratic legal system. As this notion of a participatory society began to take shape, advocates of the new project began to get organized, first with a conference on strategies and visions for a participatory-democratic movement (in June of 2006), and then with the formation of the (no longer active) International Network for a Participatory Society (IPPS), later that year.
The IPPS was intended to serve as a centre for advocacy and collaboration among activists and intellectuals committed to the ideal of a participatory society. But, just as important, the appearance of the IPPS quickly stimulated the formation of a series of locally rooted anti-capitalist NGOs (grassroots and non-governmental community organizations), such as the London Project for a Participatory Society (in Ontario, Canada), the Austin Project for a Participatory Society (in Texas), joining the already active Vancouver ParEcon Collective, and the Chicago Area Participatory Economics Society. Internationally, a number of such "PPS" groups emerged, including the ‘Hellenic PPS' in Greece, the ‘PPS Down Under' in Australia, the African PPS, and the PPS-UK. Arguably, this may prove to be one of the most enduring achievements of the larger "participatory society" project: the formation of locally rooted, grassroots anti-capitalist NGOs, engaged in a wide array of broadly political, but wholly non-statist activities, including public advocacy, popular mobilization, and prefigurative institution-building. What is striking in all of this is the emergence of a new idea of what a radical organization can be: not a political party, but an NGO; not seeking to conquer power through the state, but seeking to subvert capitalism from a position within civil society; not a coalition focusing on a single issue or theme, but a broad-based project to work for the displacement of capitalist civilization by a new, post-capitalist participatory society.
This brings me to my third example of the emerging participatory Left. Obviously, the whole thrust of what I've been saying so far is that the participatory Left does not believe in putting off until tomorrow what it can do today. And so it is that the participatory economics movement has found practical expression in a series of real-world experiments in post-capitalist economic institution-building. As Robin Hahnel points out in his book, Economic Justice and Democracy: From Competition to Cooperation (2005, p. 368):
[T]here are a handful of collectives in the United States and Canada that are not only owned and managed entirely by their members, but organized self-consciously according to the principles of participatory economics. These collectives...promote participatory economic goals, seek to relate to other progressive organizations on a cooperative rather than commercial basis, and explicitly agitate for replacing capitalism with a participatory economy.
Examples of such participatory workplaces include two publishing firms, South End Press and Arbeiter Ring publishers, a bookstore and café called the Mondragon Bookstore, a bicycle repair shop called Natural Cycle, a now-defunct online newspaper called the New Standard, and a number of others as well. As part of the larger solidarity economy, but also as a living expression of the aims and principles of the participatory society project, these institutions are a key part of the emerging participatory Left.
We can see, then, that what is new about today's emerging new forms of radical politics is the way in which today's radicals have begun to relate their processes to their project. They treat processes, not simply as means to an end, to be assessed in terms of their efficacy and efficiency, but as objects of ongoing political assessment, susceptible to the same kind of critical scrutiny to which the processes and practices of capitalism are subjected.
If, as I claim, the participatory Left can be expected to displace the declining social-democratic strategy for radical change, and the largely exhausted vanguardist revolutionary strategy, what might we expect the next Left to look like, in the years to come?
First, it will be a Left whose most visible manifestation will be the prominent role assigned to prefigurative pilot projects: that is, anticipatory institutions and practices that embody participatory-democratic principles, and that stand opposed to the core principles and leading characteristics of capitalism. The obvious example is participatory workplaces and enterprises, like those mentioned above. But other examples include local participatory budgeting initiatives, participatory-democratic consumer and housing cooperatives, and all manner of experiments with participatory-democratic decision-making.
Second, the emerging Left will be a form of radicalism in which the classical organizational model of the political party, aspiring to exercise state power, will have been displaced by the new model of the anti-capitalist NGO, aspiring to subvert capitalism, and to promote alternatives to it, from outside the state, within a combatively oppositional civil society. Such NGOs will view the market and the state, not as vehicles for advancing progressive aims, but as adversaries to be discredited and displaced, as far as possible.
Third, it will be a Left in which political action and economic institution-building will co-evolve with a reciprocally supporting series of what I want to call counter-capitalist cultural practices. That is to say, the political activism of the next Left will be rooted in lifestyles and value systems that repudiate the cultural bases of pro-capitalist behaviors and aspirations. This follows from the principle that how we live today should be consistent with the kind of society we aspire to create.
All three of these characteristics - post-capitalist pilot projects, anti-capitalist NGOs, and counter-capitalist cultural practices - are rooted in the core principle of project/process consistency. There is, however, a gaping absence in this vision of a renewed radical participatory Left. I have painted a picture of a participatory Left with only a handful of actual participants. But a participatory Left without mass participation is obviously bound to remain on the sidelines of social change and contemporary history.
In the face of this sobering thought, we must acknowledge that the prospects for re-inventing the radical Left, on the basis of a thoroughgoing commitment to participatory democracy, depend largely on the capacity of today's grassroots participatory democratic organizations to merge with larger processes of political mobilization in revitalized social movements organizing for social and environmental justice, and for political and economic democracy. True, these mass mobilizations have yet to occur, on anything like the scale that is needed. But nothing less than such a broad-based resurgence of community-based "movement" activism can lay the groundwork for a re-emergence of the radical Left as a vital political force.
In the meantime, radicals need to support those organizing efforts which - far from discarding the values and principles of the classical Left - cling to those values and principles with an unprecedented attentiveness to the importance of consistency between the project we aspire to realize, and the processes by means of which we pursue that project. And the principle of participatory democracy can serve as a crucial bridge, for the emerging new radicalism, between how we struggle and what we struggle for.
(Steve D'Arcy is an activist in London, Ontario, and a member of the London Project for a Participatory Society. He can be reached at steve.darcy [at] gmail.com)
ZNet Articles
Re: The Renewal of Radical Politics
By Wetzel, Tom at Jul 26, 2009 11:52 AM
Steve you write: "The key thing that radicals have to remember is that they cannot change the world. It is mass struggle from below that can change the world. To be a radical, in the best sense, is (among other things) to play a useful and productive role in the struggles of the exploited and oppressed. "
I interpret this as playing a role in mass organizations...in organizing them, in being a voice for rank and file control in them, and so on. Engaging with others in this context is probably the main way that radical ideas can gain more influence.
Lately i've been mainly involved in developing housing cooperatives, through working with tenants in struggle to gain control of their buildings. I came to this support for housing coops out of a desire to have a solution in areas where there is an ongoing fight over evictions and land use and so on.
But I can't see how forming worker cooperatives and other alternative institutions is going to get us past capitalism...or get rid of the big corporations and the state. They may be able to play some sort of role, but I don't see a self-managed socialist society being built that way.
I would say that the values that go contrary to the social-democratic and Leninist practices you refer to would be things like an emphasis on rank and file control, direct democracy, in organizations, so that large number of people have the means to develop and organize for their own solutions, and various kinds of mass mobilization and collective action. But it seems to me that a political organization can be run internally on the basis of these values and can participate in mass organizations/movements on this basis also in that activists can try to encourage mass organizations to work in a participatory and solidaristic way. I'm not sure what you mean by an NGO. a political organization is a non-governmental organization. but so are non-profits. Many non-profits in the USA are controlled by professionals and run in a hierarchical manner. for example tenats in buildings owned by non-profit housers often have little say. it's just another landlord.
historically the largest mass organizations were labor organizations and at times in the past grassroots worker organizations played a role in workplace takeovers and large scale attempts at changing society. the participatory economics vision borrows the idea of a "workers council." workers councils as actually built, such as the Russian factory committees of 1917 or the factory councils in Italy in 1919-20 or the mass assembly and shop steward based unionism in Spain in 1936 or the cordones industriales in Chile in 1972-73, were forms of what i call 'self-managed unionism'. so if workers themselves are not to directly have a hand in creating a self-managed socialism, how is this consistent with self-emancipation? yet you reject a revolutionary role for unionism. this rejects the history of worker councils.
Reply this comment
Re: unions, councils, etc.
By D'Arcy, Steve at Jul 26, 2009 22:18 PM
Hi Tom,
I get the sense from your comments, first, that you perceive me (correctly) to be distinguishing between (1) building radical organizations and institutions, such as "anti-captialist NGOs" and "prefigurative pilot projects," to use the jargon I deploy in this article, and (2) building mass movements (and therefore mass organizations), including the feminist movement, the anti-racist mvt, and the labour movement; and second, that you also perceive me (incorrectly) to be singling out the former as more important or central to revolutionary strategy than the latter.
As I say in the article, "the prospects for re-inventing the radical Left...depend largely on the capacity of today's grassroots participatory democratic organizations" (co-ops, anti-capitalist NGOs, etc.) "to merge with larger processes of political mobilization in revitalized social movemetns organizing for social and environmental justice, and for political and economic democracy....Nothing less than such a broad-based resurgence of community-based 'movement' activism can lay the groundwork for a re-emergence of the radical Left as a vital political force."
So in no way do I want to suggest that building co-ops or anti-capitalist NGOs or counter-cultural lifestyles are alternatives or substitutes for building unions or other mass organizations.
Two other points. First, by "anti-capitalist NGOs," I means grassroots community organizations that are not aspiring to take state power but instead to challenge capitalism by means of public advocacy and popular mobilization "within a combatively oppositional civil society." This is my alternative to the idea of building a "party." It has nothing to do with Greenpeace or Human Rights Watch, which is what some peole mean by "NGO," I know. It is probably not a good choice of terminology on my part, because it does invite confusion, but I'm trying to indicate that I regard the model of the "political party" as too closely tied to the notion of taking state power, and I'm proposing a grassroots community-organization model as a replacement for the idea of a radical political party.
Second, you say that my "rejection" of "a revolutionary role for unionism" amounts to a rejection of the history of worker councils. I must disagree. The only sense in which I "reject" a revolutionary role for unions is that I don't anticipate that unions will play such a role. This is because of the fact that unions today are institutionally entangled within the state's legal regulation of labour relations, hampered by the hegemony of the business unionist ideology within the movement itself, and not only at the bureaucratic leadership level, and pervaded by a demobilized, passive role for members as consumers of collective bargaining and other services, as opposed to being primarily vehicles for the self-organization of working people to struggle against their employers. Everybody, certainly including you, knows all about these and other barriers to unions serving as sources of working-class militancy in North America today. So, my expectation is, indeed, that unions are less likely than other sorts of grassroots community organizations to serve as the main sites of future working-class and anti-corporate, ultimately anti-capitalist resistance and struggle.
But -- and here's where we mainly disagree about unions and syndicalism I think -- I do not see workers' councils as continuous with unions. I see workers' councils as, precisely, grassroots forms of working-class oppositional self-organization. Unions are also forms of working-class self-organization, but whereas workers' councils challenge the state from the outside, unions in today's North America are integrated into and tightly regulated by the capitalist state. So, it is precisely the limitations of today's unions that makes workers' councils so appealing as part of a revolutionary strategy over the long term.
For what it's worth, I think of revolutionary strategy in terms of two sets of strategic objectives: attrition objectives that specify what we would have to do (starting right now) to move from being a weak Left into being a strong Left; and "overthrow" objectives for a later stage of anti-capitalist struggle, when a strong Left would be attempting to actually defeat the ruling class and ultimately resolve a social crisis in favour of the Left and its anti-capitalist project. I won't go into my views about all this now. But I will say that establishing workers' councils and other "community-based challenges to the capitalist state" (as I see them) do figure among the strategic objectives that I would identify as crucial for carrying out an overthrow strategy. In fact, for me, "winning" against capitalism, or consummating anti-capitalist revolution, means securing the demand to transfer all public authority from the capitalist state to community organizations, including workers councils. This, I take it, is roughly what the Bolsheviks thought they were doing in 'October' 1917 ("All power to the councils!"). Of course, that all ended badly, but that's a whole other set of issues.
(PS, just to be clear: I'm not at all denying the importance of unions as vehicles for -- among other things -- building working-class capacities for resistance and self-organization. It is just that they have limits as far as specifically playing a 'revolutionary role,' it seems to me.)
Reply this comment
Again, a different take
By Davidson, Carl at Mar 17, 2009 18:35 PM
Once again, I have a different take. A critical difference the left needs to grapple with is whether organization-building trumps movement-building as the key task of the day.
Naturally, they are linked and we have to do both; but what leads is important, and I'm of the opinion that organization-building is what's most critical to having a strong left-progressive pole, not simply fanning the flames of discontent via more militant and critical agitation and mobilizations. Along with it, organization-building requires the left to get clear on what it's platform is, both of immediate demands and deeper structural reforms.
It's hard to organize without such a platform, inside or outside the electoral arena, as it is difficult to bargain with the center, which will certainly have its own views as to what can and can't be done.
Without this emphasis, mass mobilizing tends to strengthen liberal organization instead
Reply this comment
Re: Again, a different take
By D'Arcy, Steve at Mar 18, 2009 09:08 AM
Hi Carl,
These are complicated issues, as you know. I certainly agree fully (of course) with your starting point: that both movement-building and radical organization-building are important. But I think I would push in the other direction.
If an organization consists of basically isolated radicals, debating questions of "program" among themselves, and being ignored by the many, many thousands or even millions of people involved in struggles (strikes, anti-racist campaigns, environmental justice or anti-war protests, etc., etc.), then we have a familiar and depressing spectacle: an irrelevant sect, with delusions of gradeur and self-importance, unable and even unwilling to engage with struggles, which they see as hopelessly reformist and class collaborationist.
That, of course, is the extreme. (I won't name any actual organizations, but we can all think up our own examples.) But I think that there is a continuum: on one extreme, a radical can simply and exclusively engage in mass struggles and veiw radical organizations or long-range 'vision' with disdain (which arguably is the less problematic of the two extremes); on the other extreme, a radical can be focussed only on building a "programmatically correct" political organziation, or only advocating a long-range vision, often feeling alienated from mass organizations or struggles which seem too reformist or liberal. I suspect that you'll agree with me that one should occupy a space between these two extremes. But where on that continuum?
The key thing that radicals have to remember is that they cannot change the world. It is mass struggle from below that can change the world. To be a radical, in the best sense, is (among other things) to play a useful and productive role in the struggles of the exploited and oppressed. There are many ways to do this. (Indeed, although I think that there are risks associated with this option, it is possible to have division of labour, of sorts, with some activists more focussed on building radical groups and others more focussed on movement-building; indeed, this is probably inevitable. But I think that it can have a negative impact on the development of one's politcal experience and skills and especially for the type of organization that one creates to opt too exclusively for one or the other. That's just my personal sense of it.)
I feel, though, that at this level of abstract and general discussion, there's not too much to say, except, precisely, to offer abstract and general formulas. As we all know, getting the balance between such things right is an ongoing challenge, and the most important thing is to see it as a challenge and to grapple with it in a serious way.
Reply this comment
Re: Re: Again, a different take
By Davidson, Carl at Mar 18, 2009 15:30 PM
I'm not talking about 'irrelevant sects', Steve. they're not even in the ball park. I'm talking about mass democratic organizations--ward committees, trade union locals, block clubs, left-progressive NGOs, and local alliances of all these. I'm not interested in letterhead coaltions or teeny factions of the 4th Intl. I am interested in grassroot groups with actual members who want to work. Their politics will range from left to center, no matter. The mass struggles will ebb and flow, but we have to consolidate organization within them to develop real ongoing strength. Otherwise, we're pissing into the wind, and the liberals or worse will coop our 'fan the flames' movement building.
Reply this comment
Re: Re: Re: Again, a different take
By D'Arcy, Steve at Mar 18, 2009 19:40 PM
Hi again, Carl,
Yes, I think I've misunderstood you. In the present political context, in North America, I would distinguish between "radical organizations," which tend very much to be fairly marginal to mass struggles, even if they directly and actively engage with them, and what we might call "mass organizations" or at least "broad-based activist organizations." This is obviously a historically specific phenomenon (although not entirely so), since the far (radical) Left once had more of a central role in mass politics, and will no doubt do so again in the future.
You mention things like "trade union locals" and other mass organizations or broad-based activist organizations as what you are talking about. I thought you were talking about radical organizations, per se, as distinct from activist organizations that radicals actively participate in or sometimes help to initiate. So, in that sense, we were just "talking past one another," as they say.
When you say "organization-building" as distinct from what you call "movement-building," I guess I don't get the distinction. In any case, it is not a distinction that I would make. For example, if one is building the labour movement, then, of course, one is building "trade unions locals." Similarly for the organizational forms typical of other social movements: to build the movement is to organize people. Movement building is, by definition (I think), organizing people to act collectively, and so it takes place via organizations, just like the ones you list.
Reply this comment
Re: The Renewal of Radical Politics
By Albert, Michael at Mar 17, 2009 11:01 AM
Steve,
Just one point, I'd like to comment on...among much you have written here that I, for one, of course quite like.
I think we disagree on a matter of weight, rather than something being good or bad per se. And I would like to offer it up for clarity...and to see what you think...
Of course any efforrt to create a classless economy is going to include efforts to construct examples of future organizations in the present, as you note, both as experiments to display aims and to learn from. But I don't see any reason to think, as it SEEMS you do, this is the core of the project, or the heart of it, so to speak, or even the predomiant aspect of it, by a long shot. There are many reasons...
Without going on too long - yes, setting up, say, a pareconish firm - if that is the shape of the future eocnomy one favors - is a good thing for lots of reasons. I obviously believe in doing that. Even more important, however, is trying to incorporate insights and stuctures associated with the desired future, in present movements - for example self management and balanced job complexes, to the extent they are relevant, in our movement organizations. But the heart of the matter is undoubtedly for a long time to come struggles within existing workplaces, communities, and other units - around changes that move toward the desired future, in our case parecon, carried out in ways designed to both meet pressing needs and develop consciousness and capacity to seek and win more. Setting up, say, a new farm or publishing operation is, I think, really good to do, if it has desirable features, makes a good case for them, learns lessons from the effort, can operate usefully in current conditions, doesn't cause the people involved to become isolated, etc. etc..
But fighting for higher wages or better conditions in a giant firm, among all sorts of other demands and projects that one can pursue via struggle, including non economic focused ones, of course, is not only not less important or less central, it is ultimately far more important and central - it is where the real change levers reside and will certainly involve far more people, time, and energy, for example. Most people will participate in movements, in struggles, not in particular institutions we are trying to create - so most education, commitment, etc., as well as most victories, etc., will depend on the former, not the latter, even as we understand their intimate connection.
People struggling to win changes should not disparage building new model institutions, for sure. But even more so, people doing the latter should not only not disparage, but should see their work as contributing to and being part of, the larger movement efforts. And larger movement organizations, movements, parties, councils in communities, and whatever emerges, are not only not somehow less central than newly created workplaces, they are, if we must weigh at all, more central.
I am not sure why many pareconish folks, once they decide that creating alternative institutions now is a good idea - then slip into a stance that says it is the main task, of for some folks even the only worthy task - but I am quite sure such a trajectory of leaving behind the field of existing institutions, workplaces, budgets, and policies, as if to wage struggles there is a mistake is itself contrary to building a winning movement. I doubt you intended to imply anything like that - yet similar words often are heard that way, by people.
Reply this comment
Re:
By D'Arcy, Steve at Mar 17, 2009 14:34 PM
Hi Michael,
I appreciate your comments and I agree with what you’ve written. But I want to clarify what I was trying to do in this article.
In the article, I insist that “the prospects for re-inventing the radical Left…depend largely on the capacity of today's grassroots participatory democratic organizations to merge with larger processes of political mobilization in revitalized social movements organizing for social and environmental justice, and for political and economic democracy.” Just below that, I add that “nothing less than such a broad-based resurgence of community-based ‘movement’ activism can lay the groundwork for a re-emergence of the radical Left as a vital political force.”
Moreover, in another article available on ZNet, “War of Position: Anti-Capitalist Attrition as a Revolutionary Strategy for Non-Revolutionary Times”, I argue that the Left should adopt three “strategic objectives” in the present period: “fomenting civil unrest,” “subverting mass loyalty” (to capitalist institutions), and “constructing an anti-corporate alliance.”
And in my article on “The Politics of Self-Emancipation” I argue that radicals have to foster mass social movements (including the women’s movement and the labor movement, for example) as “spaces of mediation” for building bridges between the transformative agenda of radicals and the millions of people who don’t identify as radicals or with a radical agenda at this time.
So what am I trying to say in this article, which seems to look inward, at projects developed at the margins of the wider society, and only really involve the participation of leftists (“a handful of actual participants,” as the article puts it)?
I am trying to focus on something more specific than the wider question of how to rebuild the Left more generally. The article presupposes – but, unfortunately, doesn’t make explicit – a distinction between (1) the tasks of organized radicals and (2) the form taken by radical organizations. This article only address the second of these issues.
Arguably the single most important task for radicals to take up is, as you say, to promote social movements and popular mobilization (etc.). That’s an answer to the first question, above. But I would deny (and perhaps you would also deny) that unions and feminist and anti-racist organizations should be organized as radical organizations (although you do favor balanced job-complexes etc.). For example, we would not (I assume) favor “red unions,” precisely because these would exclude many workers from participation. (I know, of course, that there are some who do favor revolutionary unions, but I set that view aside.)
So, while radicals in their political work should be engaged in mobilizing masses of people, around demands or agendas that speak to the present-day grievances and aspirations of ordinary people, this does not mean that radical organizations themselves should do so. The question of the form to be taken by radical organizations is a different sort of question. And that’s what the article is about. It’s about how radical organizations can practice a different kind of institution-building: building grassroots community organizations (“NGOs”) rather than building “parties”; building prefigurative coops, etc., rather than postponing such work till “after the revolution”; and cultivating new lifestyles and values in the here-and-now, rather than imagining a “new socialist man” will emerge in a post-capitalist society.
So, in short, I’m really focusing here only on the narrow question of how the radical Left can pursue its own “self-reinvention” (as I put it in the article), rather than the different question of how the Left can intervene effectively in the struggles of the exploited and oppressed. (As I say, I have other articles on ZNet that address these other points, which I agree are ultimately more crucial, in terms of having an impact on social change.)
Sorry for the long-winded reply.
Steve
Reply this comment
Re: Re:
By Albert, Michael at Mar 17, 2009 17:49 PM
Thanks for your fine answer!
Reply this comment
Re:
By Ward, Peter at Mar 17, 2009 14:40 PM
I agree, but understand the tendancy illuded to. Dreaming about what we'd like to do once we're near the summit is a lot more enjoyable than the drudgery and seeming futility of struggling for a couple more scraps while we are still in the foothills. And I think the left would profit from more honest recognition of how potentially demoralizing the struggle can be.Facing our task honestly rather than daydreaming and gossiping is clearly needed but needed too is moral support, something quite illusory at present.
Reply this comment
A Different Take
By Davidson, Carl at Mar 17, 2009 09:19 AM
I'd frame things a little differently. D'Arcy's critique of second wave socialism, generally the Soviet model, is fine, although I'd add that a critical flaw is its theory and method of information, the idea that the plan, where decisions are made in series, can always, or even mostly, trump markets, especially in goods and services, where decisions are made in parallel.
But for the options today he ignores the 21st Century socialism that gets markets right, ie, varients on David Schweickart's Economic Democracy, which is centered in workplace democracy of the particatory variety, and public ownership, but still makes use of a socialist market economy. Only the capital and labor markets here are severely restricted, if not done away with. It's part of a wide solidarity economy movement, at least that part of it that is not 'market abolitionist.' I'm of the view that markets preceded capitalism, and will persist, no matter what the system, as long as scarcity persists.
From this prespective, D'Arcy's favored Parecon trend, should it emerge at all, would do so mainly as a local or regional subset under Economic Democracy. Even so, it would still have to have market relations with any firms and stores beyond its local border, unless it wants to pursue some local version of autarchy.
Economic Democracy on the micro level can be fought for today. Demanding 'Buyout, Not Bailout' for GMC, then leasing it to a collaborative of the UAW and some Green engineers, retooling for the high speed rail cars and making the 19,000 parts that go into a single wind turbine, letting each plant be governed, one worker, one vote--let's just say it's a stretch that fires the imagination of workers today, who can understand the practicality of such a transition, and how they would gain by it on several levels, without going over to utopian projects.
It makes all the sense in the world to grow this perspective in the context of an anti-Depression fightback, and to organize an electoral arm for it as well. Parecon in this context, however, is rough to get moving, let alone off the ground. So yes, there are new openings for a radical left, but its important to know where it can grow and where it gets stuck in a cul-de-sac.
Reply this comment
Re: A Different Take
By Burke, Richard at Mar 17, 2009 09:45 AM
In "Economic Justice and Democracy" Robin Hahnel recognizes that for any foreseeable, "mid-term" duration some kind of mixed economy is inevitable. The point of insisting on participatory economics is that it provides a long-term perspective as to where we ultimately want to end up at. The problem with market socialists is that they refuse to see beyond this mid-term perspective to envision something that goes beyond markets. The project of replacing capitalism with a libertarian socialist alternative is something that will take a long time and may never be fully completed. A long term vision is needed to provide direction for the struggle.
Reply this comment
The Next Step?
By Burke, Richard at Mar 17, 2009 08:42 AM
The author admirably points to some encouraging trends on the left. Unfortunately he overlooks the need for a political party to translate these efforts into a wider effort to remake society. Relying on "post capitalist pilot-projects, anti-capitalist NGO's, and counter capitalist cultural practices" while necessary are not themselves sufficient as he seems to recognize. By themselves only a sub-culture will be created. We are going to have to transcend the ideological differences between anarchism and marxism in order to succeed. Marxism deserves criticism for the emphasis on party and state building at the expense of self-management and autonomy, at least among the "official" marxist parties. Purist anarchism can on the other hand induce a concern for personal purity at the expense of effective change, and a concern to avoid involvement with the state can play into the hands of right wing, "free market" ideologues. We will have to learn from both while avoiding their defects in order to be successful in the project for a participatory socialism.
Reply this comment
Re: The Next Step?
By Dean, Gregory at Mar 18, 2009 13:06 PM
Michael,
First the good news, we’re basically in agreement on strategy and are now just discussing prioritization of which tactical steps get the prioritization of paresoc geeks’ limited resources first: Focus first on building our own participatory alternative and counter institutions (Participatory Dual Power, aka Par2Power) ‘or’ focus on inserting straight into ‘mass’-movements.
I think you're weighting falls into a common trap: you see a great, awesomely beautiful pool in the larger movements and existing institutions, and a small pool in potential Participatory Dual Power Strategy (Par2Power) alternative and counter institutions which don’t yet exist. You want us, (libertarian socialists) to focus on jumping into the large pool. Even though we don’t have the capacity to change the large volume of water and/or have everyone in that water see that it is parecon methodology and people that have changed the water: that is we’d only be a small, limited lobby force in that pool and we’d earn little, demonstrable credit for parecon, plus we risk drowning ourselves in the clambering masses. Seems like lots of risk and output for little, clear reward to a paresoc movement.
Whereas if we can create alternative and counter institutions which affect just a few thousand people’s day-to-day profoundly, while expanding our economic and communications infrastructure, we can then put more visible and of scale mechanisms in that large social movement pool to effectively and visibly change the nature of the water in which the masses want to swim. Basically it may well be that by focusing on alt. and counter institutions first, we can more expeditiously affect the larger movements and existing institutions. So a round about tactical strategy might get us a big water heater that has the parecon ‘brand’ plastered on it, and jets that when they bubble up the pool gurgle the sound of ‘nice movement water conditions brought to you by parecon’, instead of us just having a few crappy spring boards so we can get some paresoc geeks into the deep end of the movement pool (where maybe they sink or swim with no bigger paresoc apparatus to rescue them if they sink).
Let’s take our own media capacity as an example: let’s say we focus all our energies for a while on helping start up other participatory co-ops according to the basic legal R&D foundations we set. We get them some contracts with semi-democratic institutions like univerisities, credit unions, big co-ops, progressive municipalities, etc. Par co-ops grow into a participatory federation, if a small federation. Zcommunications is paid a little to provide the marketing/promotion of a ‘brand’ for that federation and helps all the parCoops garner a good pool of loyal participatory consumers. The federation gets those consumers to identify with the brand through our cultural media projects and events. The ‘parConsumers’ are deeply affected by participatory methodology and principles and bring in more people, more economic resources, and help grow our participatory media conglomerate (Zcomms). Simultaneously growing our economics and media capacity giving us more ability to affect mass movements, and then bring people from the mass movements into ‘pure’ parInstitutions, growing a clear example of a parecon parallel economy again.
Whereas if you just jump straight into the pool, what happens? Maybe we help affect the enactment of some half-descent reform, maybe a good number of organizers saw how paresoc principles were affective in winning that reform. But that reform is not of itself paresoc per se and doesn’t broadcast to the broader population, which hates protest movements, our great methodology. Plus we didn’t really build our own capacity beyond drawing a few organizers into parecon geek collectives which are spending their own personal capital drawn from their poverty-pimp and market jobs (which of course is a recipe for burnout).
This alt. and counter institutions ‘vs.’ mass movements argument seem like something of a false dichotomy or splitting of hairs argument except for this; parecon geeks are few and far between and to do anything effectively at this time it is probable that we need to focus all our energy in basically one ‘place’/way. We need a tactical-strategy where we move in consolidated step so we can fully leverage our limited capacity to move one thing: I’m arguing that focus be expanding our own capacity while building the foundations of clear example institutions/firms so that we can then more viably move into social-movements. They are of course not mutually exclusive, they feed each other. First let’s make sure we can feed ourselves and have rescue boats on hand to recoup our compañeros who take the plunge into the mass movement ocean. It would be nice to have a fleet to send out, but let’s at least get some provisions back on dry land and the rescue boats to start, eh?
One more thing: to only be recruiting people within the mass movements seems somewhat given to developing our movement with a vanguard, which I don’t think anyone of us want. It is difficult to do develop anything other than a vanguard by going directly into mass movements because it is almost impossible to go into the ‘mass-‘movement and get agreement to change the way the movement makes decisions to parMethodology. So the best a par contingent in a broader movement can do is to form side caucuses, which is akin to a vanguard. Thus by jumping straight into mass-movement positions we’ve undermined our own par principles, and diluted any chance of creating an example of participatory methodology at work.
Alternative & counter institutions (Par2Power) do 3-4 things all at once:
1. They build the capacity of parecon geeks to be able to communicate and organize more widely
2. By significantly providing for peoples’ real day-to-day lives (proving incentives to participate via paresoc methods) we convert over more hard core paresoc geeks and we can then support them to campaign back out in the existing (mass and corporate) structures.
3. Alt. institutions provide clear examples that can immediately demonstrate ‘pure’ parecon methodology and principles.
4. Provide us a strong-hold or ‘safe house’ to which to regroup and draw on for strength in the case of an (early) attack from the corporate-state.
Reply this comment
Re: Re: The Next Step?
By Albert, Michael at Mar 18, 2009 14:37 PM
> First the good news, we're basically in agreement on strategy and are now just discussing prioritization of which tactical steps get the prioritization of paresoc geeks' limited resources first: Focus first on building our own participatory alternative and counter institutions (Participatory Dual Power, aka Par2Power) ‘or' focus on inserting straight into ‘mass'-movements.
The answer is not going to be a general norm, but pretty much entirely a function of context, which includes the means at people's disposal, their personal inclinations, and also where they find themselves. To say the only good way to partake of seeking parecon/parsoc, or any other vision, is x - rules out people who can't or aren't included or aren't situated to do x, and denigrates, for no gain, all those with a different approach. The tendency toward competition and sectarianism in the American community is so great, that one does not want to opt for any approach that can slip into it. This would be true even if there were really good arguments that one path was somehow likely vastly more important than the other path - but there aren't.
> I think you're weighting falls into a common trap: you see a great, awesomely beautiful pool in the larger movements and existing institutions, and a small pool in potential Participatory Dual Power Strategy (Par2Power) alternative and counter institutions which don't yet exist.
I see, rather, that one project, working toward creation of mass movements by altering existing ones, or creating new ones, occurs potentially everywhere in society and can be undertaken by virtually anyone, anytime, to varying degrees, depending on their circumstances, etc. The other project is setting up something new - which entails not only more comittment and time from people who would be involved, and more risk of their incomes, etc.,, but also, most likely, lots of additional resources.
Having done both, and seeing both as valuable, I also see that saying that the second is more important or more essential or a higher priority creates a useless ordering that can cause each to see the other as contrary rather than dual, and that can cause people to think they have to gear themselves up to work on something that is in fact out of their reach and beyond their means, if htey are to be doing something valuable, which is simply false.
Beyond that, yes, I do also see that looking well into the future, while having an array of pareconish/parsocish institutions will be a tremendously valuable asset in a host of ways - evidence of possibility, schools of insight, means of nurturance, etc. - it is massive movements seeking to change instiutions and win new ones that are the ultimate vehicle on which both consciousness, comittment, and actual change will likely rest.
But, honestly, if we disagree, no problem. Strategic and tactical questions are always contextual, there is rarely any point in extended dispute about them. Diversity is a value for a reason - try approaches and see what works - save for the unusual cases where one can predict with very good confidence, and sometimes even then.
> You want us, (libertarian socialists) to focus on jumping into the large pool. Even though we don't have the capacity to change the large volume of water and/or have everyone in that water see that it is parecon methodology and people that have changed the water: that is we'd only be a small, limited lobby force in that pool and we'd earn little, demonstrable credit for parecon, plus we risk drowning ourselves in the clambering masses. Seems like lots of risk and output for little, clear reward to a paresoc movement.
Telling me what I want may be overstepping a hair...
I want people to do what they have means to do, what they are comfortable with, what suits them, not what someone says is more important...which is rarely ascertainable in any event.
i also worry that folks who get overly excited about one of these two broad approaches can become dimsissive, wrongly of the other. I have often heard wonderful folks talk about participating in social movements against war, for redistibution, etc. etc. as if it is somehow a distraction from what matters - and that is a horrible stance and one that I worry about emerging from this kind of discussion, whichever side feels a need to make a case that the other side is somehow ill conceived. I strongly recommend against that.
> Whereas if we can create alternative and counter institutions which affect just a few thousand people's day-to-day profoundly, while expanding our economic and communications infrastructure, we can then put more visible and of scale mechanisms in that large social movement pool to effectively and visibly change the nature of the water in which the masses want to swim.
If you and others can do that, it is a great thing to do. I would perhaps place the aims just a little lower at the moment - creating worthy experiments that learn more about the values and vision, that begin to give it credibility, thus helping with recruitment of new advocates, etc. On the other hand, suppose someone or some group manages to create a growing level of support among activists in diverse movements and communities, people who are in no position at all to start up new economic units but who are eager to be politically involved where they live, work, or study, for parecon and parsoc. That too would be a great thing to do, and either of htese two projects can and would nourish the other, not compete with the other.
There is no point in either view acting as though the other is in any sense an inferior thing to be doing, or that people should feel compelled to push themselves, against natural inclinations, one way of the other.
> This alt. and counter institutions ‘vs.' mass movements argument seem like something of a false dichotomy ...
But aren't you the one making it? I am saying only that those who partake of one approach should aid and in no way argue against the merits of the other. That each should hope the other thrives and does incredibly well. That we can make guesses, some of us with a lot of experience iwth one or both types of approach, some with less, about what will likely occur, but we don't know. My guess is that the alt institutions will be a vehicle that aids the mass movements, not the other way around, but maybe I am wrong. It doesn't matter. There is no point making decisions as if we can know that. It is far better for individuals to do things that are likely valuable, which they feel comfortable doing, are able to do, etc., and about which they report accurately. My other guess is, it is going to be hard and take a lot of time - both avenues - so setting aims too high for too soon, is a good way to undervalue what is really very valuable, though slow, progress.
> ... or splitting of hairs argument except for this; parecon geeks are few and far between and to do anything effectively at this time it is probable that we need to focus all our energy in basically one ‘place'/way.
I don't see it that way. But telling a conceivable story of success for one view, and of failure for the other, as a way to make a case for the former rather than the latter - to me - doesn't make a kit if sense. One can just as easily envision a different scenario, in which the stories would be opposite.
> We need a tactical-strategy where we move in consolidated step so we can fully leverage our limited capacity to move one thing: I'm arguing that focus be expanding our own capacity while building the foundations of clear example institutions/firms so that we can then more viably move into social-movements. They are of course not mutually exclusive, they feed each other. First let's make sure we can feed ourselves and have rescue boats on hand to recoup our compañeros who take the plunge into the mass movement ocean. It would be nice to have a fleet to send out, but let's at least get some provisions back on dry land and the rescue boats to start, eh?
Each person should try to do what they think has merit, and is also n their range of options...what they can do well. That would be excellent, and sustainable. At this point, to address your concern about low numbers and the need for some marshalling of energies, if there is one thing that I think we can pretty confidently say all advocates of any particular vision, including parecon/parsoc, should do, it is advocate the vision - get it out there, become good at making a case for it, talk about it, write about it - try to conceive how to have it inform activity. Honestly, I would mostly like to see that from many more folks, in turn affecting others, it is a simple step, compared to devoting one's life to creating a new institution or tryingt to literally organize in some venue, but it is a step that needs taking, probably well before the others get growing momentum.
Let me try saying that a different way. There are easily 100, maybe even 500, I don't know, people out there who should have read the Ehrenreich/Fletcher piece and immediately formulated and likely written and sent in a pareconish/parsocish reply, in their own words - or so it seems to me. That people who strongly advocate these visions, and who have even immersed themselves in them to some degree, are still very hesitant to take initiative in advocating them publicly in articles, or even comments, in social networks, and of course where they work and live, is a problem, one that exists now, and that can be overcome, I suspect, only by people just, well, doing it.
> One more thing: to only be recruiting people within the mass movements
And who proposes that?
> ...seems somewhat given to developing our movement with a vanguard, which I don't think anyone of us want. It is difficult to do develop anything other than a vanguard by going directly into mass movements because it is almost impossible to go into the ‘mass-‘movement and get agreement to change the way the movement makes decisions to parMethodology.
Nothing stops people who like parecon/parsoc from developing movements of their own, on campuses, in communities, wherever - it is certainly not harder than developing a viable economic operation. And working inside an existing struggle, to enrich its perspective, to incorporate self management, etc. etc., need not be remotely vanguardist. I think at this point this part of the issue is pretty simple: anyone who will think about the vision is someone to talk to about the vision - and that is likely to be average folks not involved on the left, as well as various folks on the left, and the numbers will grow the more people are public about their beliefs and comittments.
If I was on a campus, say, or working in some factory or hospital, or whatever - I would not be trying, I think, to recruit from within some sect or reasonable but small group that was there - I would be trying to advocate new views, get them around, form a group or influence one if htat was plausible, and then think about and begin seeking changes via demands and struggle that would better people's lives and develop strength for more to come.
> So the best a par contingent in a broader movement can do is to form side caucuses, which is akin to a vanguard. Thus by jumping straight into mass-movement positions we've undermined our own par principles, and diluted any chance of creating an example of participatory methodology at work.
I think you have a conception of something valuable to do...and for some reason it tends to cause you to see the other thing one might do instead in the worst possible ways it could unfold. I think that actually undercuts the value of the good thing you propose, not aids it.
Suppose someone said to you, people going off to form new businesses can become incredibly insular, defending their jobs, in time, becoming disconnected from and unconcerned about broader change, and so on. This happens all the time - over and over with very very well motivated efforts - so, says the person, you shouldn't do that, instead do what I prefer, build movements.
Well, you would probably say, yes, those cad things could happen, so we have to pursue our aims differently - I agree on that. But we can pursue them differently and avoid the problems and that's my intention. You'd be right. But the same holds for the other side of the path forward when they tell you tehy are going to work to reach new people and build new activism differently then the problematic ways you spel out.
Don't get into a mindset where you think the possibility of pursuing what rings true, valid, and good to you - building alternative institutions - makes you think the obstacle to doing it is for people with the same goals as you to pursue different priorities, The task you face is overwhelmingly finding new people...just the like the task that those on the other part of the path face, not trying to make a case against the others project - it is really one project, two parts.
Reply this comment
Re: The Next Step?
By Burke, Richard at Mar 17, 2009 08:43 AM
The author admirably points to some encouraging trends on the left. Unfortunately he overlooks the need for a political party to translate these efforts into a wider effort to remake society. Relying on "post capitalist pilot-projects, anti-capitalist NGO's, and counter capitalist cultural practices" while necessary are not themselves sufficient as he seems to recognize. By themselves only a sub-culture will be created. We are going to have to transcend the ideological differences between anarchism and marxism in order to succeed. Marxism deserves criticism for the emphasis on party and state building at the expense of self-management and autonomy, at least among the "official" marxist parties. Purist anarchism can on the other hand induce a concern for personal purity at the expense of effective change, and a concern to avoid involvement with the state can play into the hands of right wing, "free market" ideologues. We will have to learn from both while avoiding their defects in order to be successful in the project for a participatory socialism.
Reply this comment