What this individual is talking about is how to change human nature, The goal
is the same as that of religious conversion, the good kind, in which people
think about the welfare of others, rather than focusing mainly on their own
welfare. Believers would say that, that was Jesus' goal, but it didn't work.
All those Christians didn't end up caring about everyone else. Only few of them
did like the Catholic Workers. So now he wants to train socialist organizers to
understand the same concept, that the purpose of socialism is the welfare of
everyone, and to help them teach that concept to the masses. Good luck. Even he
has doubts that it can be done, but he thinks it's because of the effect of
technology on people's consciousness. I think it's because of innate human
nature.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey
(Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Friday, June 18, 2021 2:56 PM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Reimagining Socialism: A Conversation
Reimagining Socialism: A Conversation
• May 18, 2021 • Hidayat Greenfield
Today I was asked to speak about ‘reimagining socialism’. I would like to do so
by rephrasing the topic. It’s not a matter of reimagining socialism, but
rather, of reimagining ourselves as socialists. This makes the task simpler and
more difficult.
Simpler because we do not need to construct a complete vision of a
post-capitalist society or even how the capitalist system will be dismantled
and replaced. We only need to focus on a socialist approach to explaining how
capitalism creates the problems we face (exploitation, injustice, inequality,
poverty, unemployment, violence, discrimination, pandemics, and the climate
crisis), and why solutions cannot be found as long as the capitalist system
prevails.
But it is also more difficult because we must reflect on our socialist
commitment and our ability to communicate a socialist agenda through
organizing, education, and agitation.
Understanding Capitalism
As socialists, how do we understand the problems created by the capitalist
system? How do we locate the root cause(s) of a problem in capitalism as a
system? We must ask this whether it’s brutal working conditions, poverty, jobs
destruction, massive inequality, gender discrimination, violence against women,
the lack of decent housing, or the failure to pay a living wage. Take any one
of the thousands of problems that we’re trying to address in organizing workers
for collective action and systemic change.
Both the causes and the solutions (in terms strategies for struggle and the
demands and policies that are articulated in that struggle) must expose and
challenge capitalism and the capitalist dynamic.
Blaming capitalism is easy. Explaining why a particular problem is integral to
the capitalist system is more difficult. But if we do not locate the cause
within capitalism, how do we arrive at a solution that is anti-, non-,
post-capitalist?
The fact is that much of our response to the crises created by capitalism
produces social democratic demands for state intervention and partial or
temporary state control that just help to ‘fix’ capitalism.
Nationalizing banks, nationalizing industry, promoting food sovereignty,
government subsidies and public spending, public sector job creation, minimum
wages, etc. are presented as radical solutions. In the context of crisis, these
are radical. But ultimately, they serve to promote the realignment of the
capitalist system – revitalizing, not replacing, capitalism. (Nationalization
usually involves nationalizing private corporate debt and shifting the burden
to workers. In the 2008 financial crisis, Newsweek magazine declared on its
cover: “We are all socialists now”).
The incredible propensity of capitalism to absorb whatever you throw at it, to
utilize it to restore itself, is something that we should not underestimate.
Consider how the very real problem of gender discrimination and gender
inequality has been reconstructed as advertising, branding, and reputation – as
something that now generates private profit. The problem of gender
discrimination and gender inequality is tackled without exposing the
convergence of patriarchy and capitalist authority, or subordination and
capitalist property relations. In other words, gender discrimination and gender
inequality are manageable problems within capitalism (and actually a source of
profit accumulation) if de-linked from patriarchy, class, class relations, and
class struggle.
Class, Party, Unions
The problem with ‘class’ is that the predominant understanding of class today
is liberal, not socialist. Class is understood as a hierarchy of wealth and
inequality, of comparative incomes and living standards, and even occupations.
This is a liberal notion of class that supports our moral outrage (unfair,
unjust, outrageous inequality and extreme wealth). But it is not the socialist
understanding of the class relations that are integral to capitalism and the
class struggle essential to challenging it.
With a liberal understanding of class (occupation, income, wealth), any demand
to rectify inequality and poverty is described as ‘class struggle’. This then
gives the impression of a socialist agenda, while, in fact, accepting, if not
revitalizing, the capitalist system. Using the terms ‘class’ and ‘capitalism’
does not make us socialists. We need a socialist understanding of class,
capitalism, and the capitalist dynamic.
I’m not suggesting we abandon our moral outrage and be dispassionate – many
socialist intellectuals appear dispassionate, often with a detached and smug,
‘I told you so’. We must retain our moral outrage and sense of urgency. But we
must ensure that it’s not simply a moral judgment (good vs. evil). We must
respond by tackling the fundamental capitalist logic that’s causing these
problems.
More than anything, this dilemma is reflected in political parties that claim a
socialist platform. These parties tend to use moral outrage to demonstrate that
they are speaking and acting on behalf of the people… that they represent the
oppressed, the exploited, and the mildly annoyed. This is a source of political
legitimacy. This moral outrage at injustice tends to produce short-term
responses in terms of new policies or legal reform. The problem is always
blamed on the incumbent government and rarely blamed on the capitalist system
itself.
Like the absence of any real class analysis (where class is understood as
social relations and property, not wealth disparity and income), there is a
lack of understanding of the capitalist state. The focus is on government,
which is the institutional representation of only one aspect of state power.
More often it is a narrow focus on the people who run the government – bad
people we don’t like. Again, moral outrage.
I think, at its worst, this moral outrage is driven by a desire to seek popular
approval through social media, rather than a desire to prevent the systemic
causes of whatever outrage we’re responding to. The fact that – due to the
digital divide – those who respond to social media are a tiny minority doesn’t
seem to matter. Those who Like, Heart, re-post and re-Tweet are ‘the people’.
Our populist response is trending! For populist political leaders the task of
reimagining themselves as socialists is much easier. They only need to be as
socialist as social media needs them to be.
To reimagine ourselves as socialists we must restore our socialist analysis.
The COVID pandemic, rising unemployment, poverty wages, wage theft insecurity,
and all of the vulnerability that we’ve been discussing should be understood in
terms of the capitalist dynamic. No doubt private property and the drive for
profit is already well understood. (Although we need to understand profit not
in terms of how much money is made, but in terms of exploitation and the
extraction of surplus value.)
We probably need to pay more attention to commodification, which is essential
to the capitalist system. Commodification is a social process that transforms
every aspect of human life into a commodity that can be bought and sold for
profit. We must understand the intersection of property relations (as a source
of power) and the compulsion of capitalism through market forces that
transforms everything into a commodity. We then need to understand the
exploitation through which surplus value is extracted and the redistribution of
that value.
I’m sure it is well understood that the most fundamental aspect of capitalist
social relations and the capitalist system is that labour power is a commodity.
Workers sell their labour-power to capitalists (the owners of the means of
production) and capitalists extract profit (surplus value), which constitutes
exploitation.
Yet everything about labour organizing reinforces the politico-legal framework
that regulates the commodification of labour-power and how workers sell their
labour-power. Registration of trade unions and legal recognition and a
collective agreement are necessary goals of a labour movement. But it is not a
socialist movement because it does nothing to challenge the commodification of
labour-power. It could be argued that the institutional fetishism of a
legalistic approach to organizing diminishes workers’ capacity for class
struggle.
It’s worth considering that social movement unionism simply obscures this
contradiction. Coming as it does from a social democratic tradition, the very
purpose is to compromise.
To understand the distinction between a socialist understanding and a social
democratic or libertarian understanding, consider that the founding declaration
of the International Labour Organization (ILO) states that “labour is not a
commodity.” What is the difference between labour-power as a commodity and
labour as a commodity? Second, distinguish between the libertarian notion of
worker rights in ILO conventions as individual human rights and our need for
collective rights.
Commodification
Understanding commodification is vital. Sexual exploitation involves
commodification. Gender discrimination involves commodification. Indeed, the
current solutions to gender discrimination without disrupting patriarchy or
property relations is also a form of commodification. The current crisis and
pandemic (and the next pandemic) are rooted in commodification. If we can
understand the ‘disease drivers’ that created this pandemic (through
human-mediated action), we can see how commodification plays such a vital role.
For example, the issue of vaccines and access is not just a government failure,
but the failure of a system in which human health is commodified.
Commodification is not just about everything becoming a product (for sale).
It’s inextricably bound up in competitiveness and the relentless drive to
increase productivity. It’s the capitalist imperative or the compulsion of
capitalism.
As I argued – somewhat hopelessly – in a recent debate over the need to restore
public healthcare, a genuinely public service that serves society, such as
free, universal healthcare for all, can fulfill neither its obligations nor
guarantee the rights of people if it is subordinated to the imperative of
capitalist productivity. The compulsion that drives productivity, efficiency,
competitiveness – regardless of the absence of an overt aim of generating
profit – turns a service to society, a public need, into a commodity. As a
commodity, it is inherently unable to satisfy human needs because people – as
individuals competing for access – must seek out that commodity in the market.
More than anything, this prevents us from protecting public health in this –
and the next – pandemic.
The other aspect of reimagining ourselves as socialists concerns the complex
interaction of individual material interests and collective interests. It’s
complex because when we’re organizing, we have to consider how much time and
energy we put into trying to convince workers that whatever we’re proposing is
in their individual personal, material interests. ‘If you join us and do this,
you will benefit.’ ‘If you don’t do this, there will there will be terrible
consequences!’ ‘If we don’t take action now, you could be next!’
Fear of bad things happening to them as individuals drives much of what we do
when we attempt to convince people to join our organizations or to join our
struggle. But what kind of struggle is it if it’s just a collection of
individual, personal, and material interests? Progress on a day-to-day basis
will be measured against our ability to deliver on that promise: ‘What do I get
from this?’ ‘Why haven’t I gained anything yet?’ Even if phrased as we (‘What
do we get from this?’ ‘Why haven’t we gained anything yet?’), it still means me.
Very rarely do we suggest that workers join struggles simply on the basis that
it is for the greater good, in the public interest, or social interests.
(Notice we refer to social problems but no longer speak of social interests.)
There is not much traction in arguing that there will be a collective benefit.
When we talk about climate change and the struggle for climate justice, it’s
still very much a libertarian approach to a capitalist problem. It’s very clear
to us that the capitalist system created this climate crisis. It’s equally
clear that capitalism cannot deliver or allow a solution to this crisis. That
capitalism will destroy the planet is pretty much a foregone conclusion.
But our collective ability to prevent that from happening is diminishing. Day
by day.
Yet how much education, awareness, campaigning, and organizing for climate
justice involves an appeal to individual material interests? The impact on
individuals is the most predominant part of the discussion.
Even if we refer to ‘community’, we do so because that’s the collection of
people around us, all the people we know or identify with, so it’s still about
me. Look at the entire response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the way in which
personal inconvenience (wearing masks, staying home,
distancing) trumped our collective need to protect public health.
When we are organizing, the need to bring in the personal is seen as a very
practical way to reach people and convince people in everything we do. It’s
practical. But from the outset, it undermines our socialist commitment because
we avoid the very difficult task of building a collective set of values that
gives real meaning to solidarity. We sidestep the need to build a collective
set of values to drive collective action, and a genuine commitment to something
greater than ourselves. Whether you want to say it’s societal or the public
good, or the greater good, it doesn’t matter at this stage. We can barely have
a conversation about this thing that is beyond the individual. What we do is
pretend we’re talking about social interests or societal interests, and the
greater good, by talking about the collection of individual personal interests
affected by this. There’s always that promise of what it means for me. All
subsequent collective action around this is premised on that promise.
The final point I’d like to make in reimagining ourselves as socialists is the
dilemma of the imagination itself. Our collective imagination is fundamentally
inhibited by how we communicate, educate, and agitate.
It’s inhibited because we communicate within a system where human attention has
been commodified. Our attention has been commodified and is bought and sold for
profit.
The business of Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and other corporations that
produce and control social media is the business of capturing and selling
people’s attention. As critics of the attention economy have shown, the product
is you.
The commodification of attention transforms our ability to communicate,
perceive, learn, and ultimately, to think. One of the effects of the
commodification of attention is distraction, and the level of distraction or
inability to pay attention is massive. This perpetual distraction or continuous
partial attention syndrome is the result of both new technologies and the
commodification of attention.
Reimagining Socialism
So even if we develop our socialist analysis, what do we do with it? We have a
socialist commitment based on genuine collective interests that rise above
personal individual material interests, yet we can’t communicate, educate, and
agitate effectively because we don’t have people’s attention. Their attention
has already been captured or bought.
This is probably what leads me to be so pessimistic about our future.
Whatever we try to communicate, people are listening for phrases and sound
bytes to post or share. Already thinking of how it will look on Instagram,
TickTock, Facebook, Twitter, etc. and what reaction it will get – likes,
comments, re-posts – so we don’t really have their attention, just their time.
And all the while, they are thinking about getting other people’s attention.
This constant inattention preempts any deeper thought or analysis or reflection
or internalization because it’s all completely externalized at that point. It’s
all for an imaginary audience. This is part of the commodification of attention
– it’s now what people’s brains are re-wired to do. This perpetual distraction
or continuous partial attention syndrome also has significant consequences for
mental health and well-being. It runs up against how our brains are hardwired
and we may have to consider how this damages, inhibits, or redefines our
ability to understand or imagine anything.
How do we reimagine ourselves as socialists if we are constantly competing for
the attention (not understanding) of others? How can the reimagining of
socialism take place if we are so distracted? Is it possible that the depth of
understanding needed to fight capitalism and replace it with socialism no
longer exists because understanding no longer has depth? In fact, I wonder
whether we’ve lost our ability to imagine.
Recapturing that attention and rebuilding our collective imagination is a
massive task. We must regain people’s attention sufficiently to understand the
causes of the crisis and problems we face and the collective action that’s
needed for the collective good. If we believe we can still do that, then I
think there’s hope. •
Hidayat Greenfield is currently the elected Regional Secretary for the
Asia-Pacific section of the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel,
Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF).
NEXT »« PREVIOUS
SHARE
--
Irvin D. Yalom “Truth," Nietzsche continued, "is arrived at through disbelief
and skepticism, not through a childlike wishing something were so! Your
patient's wish to be in God's hands is not truth. It is simply a child's
wish—and nothing more! It is a wish not to die, a wish for the eveastingly
bloated nipple we have labeled 'God'! Evolutionary theory scientifically
demonstrates God's redundancy—though Darwin himself had not the courage to
follow his evidence to its true conclusion. Surely, you must realize that we
created God, and that all of us together now have killed him.” ― Irvin D.
Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept