Reflections on Socialism By Sam Webb, National Chair The Communist Party, USA | June 03, 2005 http://cpusa.org/article/articleview/644/1/8/ The main political task at this moment is to assemble the necessary social forces to defeat Bush and his counterparts in Congress and elsewhere.
The urgency of that task, however, should not be converted into a rationale for socialists and communists to push the mute button on the socialist alternative. To the contrary, we should bring our vision of socialism into the public square; we are, after all, the Communist Party and socialism is at the core of our identity. The ruling class, not surprisingly, shows no reticence in shaping popular (mis)understanding of socialism. In fact, establishment think tanks, in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, have said that socialism is not simply damaged, but damaged beyond repair. Meanwhile, on the other end of the political spectrum, this subject is slowly finding its way into political discourse. At first glance, this may seem surprising, given that socialism took such a big hit a decade ago. But on closer inspection it is not such a mystery. The very advances of capitalism bring in their train new oppositional forces. Admittedly, they don't yet embrace socialism as we understand it, but they do imagine a society without the hardships, oppressions, worries, pressures, and unbridled profiteering that are emblematic of and structured into present day capitalism. They desire a future that brings material security and a sense of community, insist on some power over their lives, yearn for a new birth of freedom and hunger for a joyous life, and they want a little heaven on this earth. Obviously, this structure of feeling doesn't, all at once, translate into a mass constituency for socialism, but it does mean that we can bring our vision to a much larger audience. And doing so can only have a positive effect on ongoing class and democratic battles �not to mention the longer-term prospects for socialism. It is no coincidence that the most far-reaching reforms in the 20th century were secured at moments when socialist ideas had their greatest currency and constituency. DEFINING FEATURE In advocating socialism today, we can't simply repeat what Marx and Engels said. Call it what you want ? a blessing or a burden ? we can't act as if socialism wasn't a defining feature of world development in the 20th century. And, to say the least, that experience was tumultuous and contradictory. On the one hand, socialism transformed and modernized backward societies, secured important economic and social rights, assisted countries breaking free of colonialism, contributed decisively to the victory over Nazism, constituted by its mere presence a pressure on the ruling classes in the capitalist world to make concessions to their working classes and democratic movements, and acted as a counterweight to the aggressive ambitions of U.S. imperialism for nearly fifty years. On the other hand, the shortcomings and mistakes in the political, economic, and cultural fields ? not to mention the egregious and indefensible crimes against the Soviet people and Soviet socialism during the Stalin period ? were so serious that in the end, the Soviet Union (and the Eastern European states) collapsed with barely a word of protest from their citizens or ruling parties. All of this � along with the conditions, challenges and sensibilities of our own time � must be soberly studied and appropriate lessons drawn in order to construct a compelling vision of socialism going forward. But luckily there are no pressing deadlines that force us to hurry this process. We can be almost leisurely in our discussions because socialism in our country, it is safe to say, is not around the corner. Marxism, of course, should guide this discussion, but we should employ its principles and methods creatively. Marxism, when properly used, is an open system that absorbs new experience and adjusts earlier assessments and concepts to new realities. To have the most fruitful discussion, we should create an atmosphere that encourages comrades to explore the subject without blinders and in fresh ways, while discouraging the practice of political labeling, which becomes a substitute for thoughtfully addressing the merits of points of view different from our own. No one should feel compelled to defend everything that the communist movement said and did in the past, nor should anyone assume the role of the defender of Marxism-Leninism. That is the role of collective bodies, and even collective bodies should exercise that function in a considered way. Engels once remarked, "� the word `materialist' serves many of the younger writers in Germany as a mere phrase with which anything and everything is labeled without further study, that is, they stick on this label and then consider the question disposed of. But our conception of history is above all a guide to study � All history must be studied afresh." Marx, of course, shared this view. These great thinkers appreciated the dynamic nature of world capitalism and insisted on creatively developing their insights in line with a changing world. Never did they attempt to shoehorn facts to theory; their approach was fresh, creative, critical, and free of cant. I hope that this paper meets that standard. My primary, though not singular, focus is on the transitional period of the revolutionary process. I try to be as concrete as possible, although I am mindful of the fact that any envisioning of this transition must be tentative. Why? Because in any transition from one social formation to another, there are novel features, unforeseen events, sudden turns, and even the possibility of social retrogression. The history of social transitions in general, and the variegated nature of the transition to socialism in the 20th century in particular, demonstrate that societies' developmental paths are neither uniform nor predictable. "History as a whole, and the history of revolutions in particular," Lenin wrote near the end of his eventful life, "is always richer in content, more varied, more multi-form, more lively and ingenious than is imagined by even the best parties, the most class consciousness of vanguards of the most advanced classes. This can be readily understood, because even the finest of vanguards express the class consciousness, will, passion and imagination of tens of thousands, whereas at moments of great upsurge and exertion of all human capacities, revolutions are made by the class consciousness, will, passion and imagination of tens of millions, spurned on by a most acute struggle of classes. (Left Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder) SOCIALISM ? AN OLD IDEA The dream of a just and classless society has a long genealogy. For centuries, it stirred the hopes of women and men, shackled by exploitation, poverty, oppression, and war. The slave revolts in ancient as well as more recent times were animated by such an idea, as were the peasant uprisings in feudal Europe. Such a vision motivated the rebels on land and sea who fought emerging capitalism in the 17th and 18th century Atlantic economy. The most radical-minded people in our nation's war of independence were spurred to action because of a vision of an alternative way of living based on solidarity, equality, and community. The early 19th century labor movement envisioned a cooperative community of producers. The pre-Marxian utopian socialists constructed intricate blueprints for egalitarian societies. So we can't claim that Marx and Engels invented the idea of a society defined by common ownership, mutuality, freedom and equality. But socialism was their lifetime preoccupation and, unlike the utopians, speculative thinking had a small place in their writings. They were materialists and their point of departure was objective reality with all of its complexities and contradictions. Their method of analysis allowed them to penetrate deep beneath the surface of developing capitalism and unearth its exploitative dynamics, pressures, and laws of motion � not to mention the main class and social forces that would emerge to challenge capitalist class rule. WHAT THEY DID SAY But because socialism was not yet a material reality, and could not be studied in that manner, they resisted making anything more than the most general observations regarding its content, contours, and historical trajectory. Those observations, however ? not to mention their philosophy and methodology (dialectical and historical materialism) ? remain of enormous value and should inform our socialist analysis and vision in the 21st century. Some of the most important of these are: First, the contradiction in capitalist society between the social nature of production and the private form of appropriation is the matrix in which the objective and subjective conditions for socialist society gel. "This contradiction," Engels wrote, "� contains the germ of the whole of the social antagonisms of today." One may reasonably argue that Engels is overreaching here, but the point is clear: the widening and deepening of capitalist relations over time has turned capitalism into a near universal system, reduced nearly everything that humans desire to the cash nexus and the commodity form, sucked hundreds of millions into the web of wage labor, and generated new contradictions, inequalities, hierarchies, and antagonisms on a more extensive scale � all of which constitute the material basis for socialism. Thus, socialism springs from the general logic of capitalist development. A second observation is that the working class, because of its position in the system of social production, is the gravedigger of capitalism. In their view, no other class or social strata has the economic and political strength to successfully confront corporate power. They didn't rule out an important role for allied forces, but, by the same token, they did not see them as the mainstay of the socialist movement. Another of Marx' and Engels' observations is that a shift in political power from the capitalist class to the working class and its allies is an absolutely essential requirement of a socialist revolution. This transfer of power, however, doesn't announce the arrival of full-blown socialism, but rather constitutes the first phase of a period of transition during which the working class and its allies dismantle the old state structures and construct new ones that are infinitely more democratic. They also observed that at the core of the socialist project is the elimination of private ownership in the major means of production and the replacement of market mechanisms in favor of economic planning. In the Manifesto, Marx and Engels write that "the theory of communism can be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property." A fifth observation of the founders of modern socialism is that the role of communists is to "raise the proletariat to the position of the ruling class and to win the battle for democracy." And then, to assist the working class to "wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible." (Communist Manifesto) Finally, socialist societies, according to Marx and Engels, are dynamic social formations that undergo phases of growth and development, leading eventually to the transition to communism, in which classes and all forms of inequality and oppression disappear, the state as a coercive instrument withers away, the distinction between town and country is overcome, and the old division of labor that confined working people to crippling work routines and long hours melts away. In other words, the kingdom of necessity gives way to the kingdom of freedom and inscribed over its door are the words, "From each according to their ability and to each according to their needs." Marx and Engels said much more about socialism, but I hope that this thumbnail sketch gives us a frame of reference. SOCIALISM AND NECESSITY I would argue that socialism is acquiring a new necessity in the 21st century, despite its historic defeat in the 20th century. Since its earliest days, capitalism has inflicted incalculable harm on the inhabitants of the earth. Primitive accumulation, world wars, slavery, various forms of labor servitude, ruthless wage exploitation, territorial annexation, colonial and interstate wars, racist, gender, and other forms of oppression � all this and more occupy prominent places in the historical mapping of U.S. and world capitalism. And yet as ghastly a history as this is, the future could be even worse for a simple reason: capitalism's destructive power, driven by its inner logic to pump surplus value out of its primary producers and dominate global space, has grown exponentially compared to a century ago. Unless restrained and eventually dismantled, this power is capable of doing irreversible damage to life in all its forms. A century ago, Rosa Luxemburg, the great communist leader, famously said that humanity had a choice, "socialism or barbarism." A century later, her warning has even more meaning. Consider some of the new dangers that make socialism necessary. First is the prospect of unending war and mass annihilation. With the winding down of the Cold War, most people assumed that the war danger, conventional and nuclear, would ease. Subsequent events, however, have erased these modest hopes. The nuclear threat remains and conventional wars scar the landscape and brutally extinguish the lives of millions of people. Our own government, with the biggest stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, continues to develop ever more powerful ones, but with this twist: unlike its predecessors, the Bush administration claims a singular right to employ such weapons in a "preventive" fashion and not simply as a last resort. At the same time, the administration demonizes, imposes sanctions against, and threatens and wages war on countries that possess or may possess nuclear capability and/or constitute an obstacle to its global designs. Despite claims to the contrary, the mission of neoconservatives in the White House and Pentagon is world domination, cunningly and cynically couched in the language of "fighting terrorism" and accomplished by military means. And with no counterweight to its power, U.S. imperialism feels few restraints on its ability to wage war. Indeed, from the moment the Bush gang stole the presidency in 2000, they have been hellbent on putting the Pentagon's military might on display for the entire world to see. Some say that while the danger of local and regional wars has grown, the danger of inter-imperialist wars and nuclear exchanges between competing capitalist countries is less likely, given the overwhelming preponderance of U.S. military power relative to other capitalist states, the present level of integration of world capitalism, the hesitation of sections of the capitalist class to consider the nuclear option a viable one, and the worldwide opposition to U.S. militarism and aggression. There is more than a grain of truth in this logic. Nevertheless, we should never forget that war is always latent in capitalism and has a logic of its own. Even the cleverest policy makers are guilty of miscalculations and/or are easily overtaken by events beyond their control. Furthermore, tensions in some regions of the world, say Taiwan, North Korea, South Asia, and the Middle East, could easily escalate into much wider wars, with the possibility of nuclear exchanges. The present balance of forces is also more fluid than it appears. China, for example, could emerge as a counter-hegemonic force to U.S. imperialism in the not too distant future, something that the Bush administration and the most reactionary sections of capital say that they will not allow. Finally, the readiness of the Bush administration to use nuclear weapons should not be underestimated. A recent report in the Washington Post describes how the administration has at its beck and call a global strike force that can launch a strike, including a nuclear one, anywhere on earth within in a few hours. And given a " clash between the triumphal rhetoric of global domination and the sordid reality of failure in practice � would the President facing defeat of his policies somewhere in the world � actually reach for the nuclear option." (Jonathan Schell, The Nation, June 13, 2005) All of this offers powerful reasons to intensify the struggle for peace as well as the struggle for a new society that turns swords into ploughshares. WHERE IS THE SUSTAINED BOOM? Another compelling argument for socialism's new necessity is that the economic slowdown of the world capitalist economy in the early 1970s has not been overcome. The political elites hoped that economic restructuring, deregulation, privatization, trade liberalization, and massive financial manipulations � in a word, neo-liberalism ? would create conditions for a sustained economic expansion worldwide, but it never happened. Yes, the economy has grown and profitability has been restored. A regime of internationally networked production has superseded the old Fordist arrangements. The financial sector has grown at a dizzying pace and millions of low-wage jobs have been created in the service sector. But vigorous and prolonged growth has been a no- show. Neoliberalism, in fact, has produced tremendous human suffering across the globe. No country, including our own, has escaped its punishing impact in a highly competitive world economy that is awash in commodity overproduction. All of which makes one wonder if the sustained growth of the 1945- 1970 period was an aberration, rather than ? as conventionally believed ? the norm to which the economy will eventually return. While the jury is still out on that, clearly capitalism in its neoliberal form on a global level is incapable of resolving the contradictions and hardships that it creates: unemployment and underemployment, dislocation of industries and people, declining living standards, growing income, racial, and gender inequality, unrelieved debt, and marginalization of whole countries and regions. In fact, without radically restructuring the world economic order it is hard to envision how these present economic trends and their inevitable negative consequences will change in any fundamental way. British Marxist David Harvey believes that we are entering an era where capital accumulation occurs as much through dispossession and theft, legal and otherwise, of public and private assets, social entitlements, and cuts in living standards as through expanded commodity production. ENVIROMENT REELNG UNDER STRESS Another threat to humanity's future is environmental degradation. Almost daily we hear of species extinction, global warming, resource depletion, deforestation, desertification, and on and on to the point where we are nearly accustomed to this gathering catastrophe. Our planet cannot indefinitely absorb the impact of profit-driven, growth-without-limits capitalism. Many scientists say that unless we radically change our methods of production and consumption patterns, we will reach the point where damage to the environment will become irreversible. We must move in the direction of sustainability, which Marxist John Bellamy Foster describes as the following: (1) the rate of utilization of renewable resources has to be kept down to the rate of their regeneration; (2) the rate of usage of non-renewable resources cannot exceed the rate at which alternative sustainable resources are developed; and (3) pollution and habitat destruction cannot exceed the "assimilative capacity of the environment." Obviously, we are far from meeting these criteria. The earth is sending distress signals to its human inhabitants, which will become more pronounced as long as the social relations of production are not in harmony with the ecological relations of consumption; as long as the reproduction of capital dominates the reproduction of nature. Despite this, even the most modest measures of environmental protection are resisted by sections of the transnational corporations. This makes the transition to a socialist society all the more imperative. EMBEDDED INEQUALITIES Humanity is also gravely endangered by the deep and persistent racial, gender, and regional inequalities that exist across the planet. The evidence of these inequalities is obvious: massive hunger and malnutrition, dire poverty, pandemic diseases, daily and institutionalized brutality against peoples of color, systemic abuse and oppression of women, explosion of slums around mega-cities, massive migrations of workers and peasants in search of a better life and decaying urban and rural communities and whole regions. While these conditions exist worldwide, the countries of the southern hemisphere experience, not quietly to be sure, the worst forms of deprivation and inequality. These inequalities are embedded in the very structures, hierarchies, and dynamics of capitalist development. Unconscionable affluence and wealth at one pole and unspeakable poverty, exploitation, and oppression at the other pole are the gasoline that fuels the engine of global capitalism. All of this provides yet another compelling reason for a new society. DEMOCRACY A final danger is the many-sided assault on democracy in the recent period, resulting from two interrelated phenomena: the new aggressiveness of world imperialism and the political ascendancy of the neoconservatives in the U.S. The hacking away at labor, civil, voting, women's, immigrant, gay and lesbian, and disability rights is exceedingly dangerous. But the role of the democratic movement is not to lament this attack, nor to cry that fascism is imminent. Its role is to fight more energetically to preserve and expand democratic rights. In the early days of the Cold War we didn't do this and thus contributed to our own political isolation. We don't want to make the same mistake again, nor do we want others to do so. I hope that the foregoing makes the case that socialism is not just a good idea, but a necessary one ? necessary to preserve peace and our planet, necessary to defend and expand democracy, necessary to eliminate gross economic, racial, gender and other inequalities, and necessary to provide a secure life for the billions living on this earth. While I'm not saying that we mothball the idea of socialism's inevitability � an idea, by the way, that we have understood in a too mechanical and too superficial way ? I do believe that the notion of socialism as "necessary" has great meaning and mass resonance. WHAT THE WORLD WILL LOOK LIKE The struggle for socialism today unfolds in a world in which the U.S. ruling class and especially its most reactionary section is determined to maintain unrivaled dominance. But the Bush administration, despite its overwhelming preponderance of military power, is learning that the world isn't infinitely malleable. The subduing of Iraq has proven far more difficult than policy makers expected and has revealed the limitations as much as the strength of U.S. imperialist power. The invasion has morphed into a grinding occupation, unpopular among both the Iraqi and American people. Moreover, this is but one expression of the many forms of opposition that imperialism has encountered to its political and economic ambitions. Admittedly, the social actors (regional groupings, nations, international bodies, and, above all, hundreds of millions of people) who resist are diverse and differently motivated. Nevertheless, the scope of this opposition as well as deep-going changes in the political economy and relations of power of world capitalism are so impressive that the theoretical adequacy of unipolarity ? a notion that asserts that a single superpower, the United States, is unrivaled and able to easily impose its will on the rest of the world for the foreseeable future � is being questioned. So much so that it has triggered a spirited debate. One side claims that U.S. imperialism, with its military and financial might, has rebuffed the challenges it faced over the past three decades and is now leaner and meaner and able to impose it hegemonic designs on friend and foe. The other side argues that new centers of power and accumulation are emerging, especially in China and East Asia as a whole that will rival and eventually replace U.S. imperialism's dominance. The only question, according to these social theorists, is whether U.S. imperialism will adjust peacefully to the new configuration of power or, to borrow the phrase of sociologist Giovanni Arrighi, pursue a policy, of "exploitive domination," that is, a policy of maintaining global dominance by primarily military means. (Chaos and Dominance in the World System) Regardless of who's right, this wider conflictual environment on a global level will impact on the transition to socialism. Precisely how I don't think we know, but it is safe to say that it will create both new opportunities and new dangers to the socialist project. SOCIALISM AND VALUES Our vision of socialism should embrace a set of values and norms. Some of the most important are social solidarity, equality, non- violence, economic justice, the abolition of exploitation, democracy, respect for difference, individual freedoms and liberties, sustainability, and internationalism. These values are not chosen willy-nilly, but emerged out of the struggles of working people and the necessities of social development. Moreover, they should inform the culture, discourse, and decision- making processes of a socialist society in our country. While they can only be fully realized over time, and while they may conflict with socialism's short-term developmental requirements, these values must condition the means as well as the ends of socialist construction. Wage leveling, for example, is not a suitable goal of the socialist phase of development for economic and cultural reasons. And yet the normative value of equality must be upheld as a safeguard against excessive variations in incomes, a deterrent to the emergence of privileges, and a reminder that inequality will disappear at higher stages of social development. Or to take another example, Lenin wrote on the eve of WWI, "Disarmament is the ideal of socialism." (The "Disarmament Slogan) Was he being na�ve in making this assertion in view of the world conflagration about to take place? Or was he saying that at every turn of the class struggle communists must strive (and must be seen in the public eye as striving) for a world free of violence, or where that is not possible, to minimize war and violence. There was a tendency in the communist movement, however, to see values and norms instrumentally. Thus, in the name of fighting the class enemy and building socialism, they were too easily dispensable. I like to think we have learned some lessons in this regard, one of which is that we can't be cavalier about the values that socialism should embody. If our values don't animate the revolutionary process, if the means and methods of socialist construction aren't reflective of those values, then socialism will concede its most attractive features � humanism and moral superiority ? which once lost, are difficult to regain. To insure that this doesn't happen requires an active citizenry engaged in democratic organizations and steeped in a robust socialist political culture. DEMOCRACY AND DEMOCRATIC STRUGGLE The struggle for democracy, understood in the broadest sense, is at the core of social progress and socialism. Democracy ? the opportunity to shape one's own destiny ? has become a necessity of life for working people in the current phase of capitalism's development, much like food and shelter were in an earlier stage. It is not simply a means to an end, nor a tactical device to be employed when it advances the class struggle. Rather the struggle for democracy is both a means and an end. It empowers people and people empower democracy. Under capitalism, which hems in and restricts democratic life, the struggle to deepen and widen democracy is an inescapable task at every turn. In the course of democratic struggle, the working class and its allies acquire practical experience. They gain political understanding. They unify the necessary forces in political and organizational terms. They curb the power of their class adversaries. And, not least, they win immediate improvements in their day-to-day lives. MAIN SITES OF STRUGGLE The main site of the democratic struggle today � which is the main site of the class struggle as well ? is the battle to defeat the reactionary sections of transnational capital gathered around the Bush administration. Every democratic right (the right to peace, the right to a living wage job, civil rights and affirmative action, the right to organize, reproductive rights, constitutional protections, gay and lesbian rights, social entitlements, etc.), and every democratic organization, beginning with the trade unions, is threatened by this administration and its supporters. Thus the main task at this moment is to decisively curb the political power and influence of the extreme right and in doing so move to a more advanced stage of struggle. At that stage, where the main obstacle to social progress is corporate power as a whole, new democratic tasks will emerge, such as radically cutting the military budget and conversion to a peace economy, full funding of the public sector, a shorter workweek, electoral and political reforms, curbs on capital movements, deep- going measures to end poverty and inequality, tax system overhaul, aid to small and medium-sized business, restraints on the coercive instruments and structures of the state, and a foreign policy that accents disarmament, peace, and neighborly relations. And, finally, in the socialist stage, the struggle for democracy will continue to loom large and acquires an even deeper content. In sum, there is no road to socialism that bypasses the democratic struggle. Anyone who attempts to do so will soon feel the chilling winds of political isolation. ------------------------ Yahoo! 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