Food for thought. Thanks.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/18/21, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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