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  • Chodos1998 PDF

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    James Heartfield
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    6 Ansichten18 Seiten

    Chodos1998 PDF

    Hochgeladen von

    James Heartfield

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Als PDF herunterladen oder online auf Scribd lesen
    Markieren Sie unangemessene Inhalte
    von 18
    So The Party’s Over? Marxism and Political Strategy After ‘the Fall’ Howard Chodos & Colin Hay It hardly needs saying thatthe Left in the advanced capitalist economies is in a state of severe disarray. Inspired, or perhaps more accurately, dis-inspired, by the dull conflation of globalisation and welfare retrenchment that marks the neoliberal orthodoxy of the times, the former social-democratic Left has abandoned all socialist advocacy. It marches instead towards a ‘Centre’ that itself continues to drift rightwards. Meanwhile, at least in the industrially developed world, serious movements and parties to the let of social democracy have become harder and harder to find. For example, in Britain (a country that in recent years has so often been the initiator of regressive tendencies), the Labour Party has been busily conjuring a Faustian pact withthe neoliberal devil intoxicated as it became with the mere whiff of governmental power. Setting out its stall for government in terms of its ability to manage the contradictions ofthe Thatcherite legacy better than the Tories themselves, New Labour restricted itself in opposition to that set of policies and strategic resources compatible with the dominant neoliberal economic paradigm that is at the heart ofthe problem. Thus far, its term in office has only served to confirm the full extent of the party's capitulation to neoliberalism and to the Thatcheritelegacy.' ‘A quick glance around the globe suggests that similar scenarios are being played out by almost all social democratic parties. The degree of capitulation to the neoliberal tide no doubt varies from situation to situation, but itis hard to resist the conclusion that the ‘golden epoch’ of social democracy, in which its aim was to (re-)construct the welfare state in its own image, has been swept away by the juggernaut of jobless growth in an era of global competition, ‘The immediate prospects for more radical variants of the socialist tradition are, ifanything, bleaker still. Whatever one’s assessment ofthe former Soviet Union, itis clear that its collapse has further compressed the space necessary forthe flourishing of alternatives ofall kinds. The seeming inability of the radical Left to respond to the two great challenges it faces — that of producing @ cogent analysis of the developments cascading through contemporary capitalism and of ‘generating a transformative programme that incorporates a compelling balance sheet of its own past ~ can only continue to ensure its marginal * Foran attempt to gauge the fll extent ofthis capituation to neoliberalism soe Hay 1998s See also Partch and Leys 1997 and Hay 1999. Wistorieal Materlalsm status. And all this regardless of the extent of spontancous resistance to the imposition ofthe neoliberal agenda by its victims across the globe ‘As always, we must atempt to define our political tasks in terms of the monumental challenges that confront us. While the demise of former orthodoxies leaves us bereft of easy and immediate answers, it allows and entreats us to consider new alternatives. At the same time, novelty itself offers no guarantee against ephemerality. In this regard, ‘we would simply note that much of the lustre has come off the ‘new’ social movements which had seemed to offer hope only a few years ago. Now they seem tobe suffering from many ofthe same defects as the old social movements some thought they were destined to replace, arguably because they too are unable to articulate « broader pois of societal transformation In such @ context it might at frst appear bizarre, or atthe very last ‘groupuscularian, to want to inquire into the organisational conditions that are necessary to the radical transformation of capitalism, but this is what we propose todo. It seems tous that the question of the party isin many ways at the centre of our contemporary dilemmas. We need a party not only in order to participate in, and, in so doing, 10 reconstitute, the political process, but also to provide an indispensable ‘context in which we can define who we are and what we stand for. Our programmatic ineptitude cannot be dissociated from our organisational deficiencies. We wil argue that to postpone posing the question ofthe party unti after we have clarified the basics of our politcal programme is both to consign its creation to political ‘never-never-and” and slso to deny ourselves the necessary fools actualy to elaborate a transformative agenda Our argument proceeds in three parts. Inthe first section we outine general theoretical framework for understanding organisational questions, while in the second we present & few critical comments on the two most important traditional models, Leninism and. social democracy. This will allow us to sketch, by way of conclusion, an approach to organisational matters with features which, in our opinion, distinguish it from other significant theoretical positions Rethinking Marxist strategy, rethinking strategy Put simply, our central contention in what isto follow is that there is & distinctively creative component to politics. This, in itself, is not a new ‘dea, but we think that following it through in a certain fashion can help us interrogate the question of transformative agency in a genuinely ‘original way. Political activity for us is one kind of collective agency, where agency simply refers tothe ability of people to ct intentionally, inciples are relevant here 3, purposive activity always takes place in a social context. Any attempt to understand how socal action — of which political activity is a 30 ‘Chodos & Hay/So the Party's Over? subset ~ comes about must therefore take into account two key facts, Roy Bhaskar captures this in the idea that individuals and social structures constitute ontologically distinct but existentilly intertwined centities.* This means that the way we act is driven by ineliminable causal factors which emanate from our makeup as individual, living, thinking, bbeings, and that these are never reducible without remainder to the circumstances in which we act. At the same time, there are also causal factors which are rooted in those circumstances, and these are independent of our will as individuals. This produces two dualties: a duality of structure; and a duality of agency.? ‘The duality of structure can be expressed as the idea that social structures only exist in and through (that is, they are reproduced or transformed by) the activity of living human beings. At the same time they simultaneously constitute @ constraining and enabling environment for that activity. The complementary duality of agency points to the existence of an irreducible individual dimension to human acti (captured roughly as our free will, or our capacity to act intentionally) bbut also notices that this individuality is always constituted in a definite ‘and irremediably social context. Contra methodological individualism, then, there is no human action that does not contain both social and individual components. There is no social structure that is not both the product of human action while also being the context in which human action occurs, There is no individual outside of specific social contexts. ‘Thus structure and agency, society and individual, each refer to distinct ontological realities. There are elements of each that can be analysed separately, and aspects of their respective dynamics and particularities ‘can be understood individually. But they always come into simultaneously. In Bhaskar's terms, they are ontologically distinct but existentally intertwined. Second, when considered from the point of view of the participants this points to the need to think in terms of strategic action. The notion of strategy or strategic action implies the orientation of an agent to @ (structured) context. Such contexts are strategically selective in that they circumscribe, or differentially enable and constrain, the range of strategic possbiltes.* Within such a perspective, the formulation and reformulation of political strategy is understood as a practice, an accomplishment on the part of strategic actors. As such, it takes place within a strategic context that is itself constantly evolving through the consequences of strategic action. Strategies, once formulated, are ‘perationalised in action. Such action yields effects, both intended and unintended. And since individuals are knowledgeable and reflexive, they 2 Bhaskar 1979 and 1989, in particular Chapter 5, 3 In worth noting that although Bhaskar himself employs the term ‘duality of structure’ in his writings, he has recently suggested that he agrees with Margaret ‘Archer's ertigue of the term (in Archer 1995). Archer insists instead on the {importance of analyteal dualism and ericics Bheskar for coneliating with the ‘eldionis’ of Anthony Giddens. For a critque of both Archer and Bhaskar See Ghodos 1997. Jessop 1990. Mistorieal Materialism routinely monitor the consequences of their action, assessing the impact of previous strategies, and their success or failure in securing prior objectives. Strategic action thus yields: 1) direct effects upon the structured contexts within which it takes place and within which future action ‘occurs, producing a partial: (however minimal) transformation of the structured context (though not necessarily as anticipated); and, 2) strategic learning on the part of the actor(s) involved, enhancing awareness of structures and the constraints/opportunites they impose, providing the basis from which subsequent strategy might be formulated and pethaps prove more successful.’ Yet this does not exhaust the selectivity of the context. For the strategically selective context is also discursively selective, in that it ean conly be accessed through perceptions, misperceptions and representations, Such perceptions may or may not enhance the ability of actors to realise their intentions, and, in certain contexts, may militate severely against their realisation. Moreover, strategic action is also informed by anticipated future scenarios. Strategic actors simply cannot assume some unchanging and immutable context within which cumulative strategic learning can occur. They are instead consigned to gauge, assess and project the strategic conduct of others and the impact this is likely to have on the context itself® ‘One of the necessary filters through which strategie political opportunities must therefore be processed isthe vision of the long-term goal towards which we are striving (a vision which is by no means set in concrete, and which may ~ indeed must ~ itself evolve). The strategic horizon is thus circumscribed by one’s beliefs about how one’s present interests (projected over a fairly limited time-horizon) are best served, as well as by beliefs about what constitutes the ‘good’ society (in the longer term).. ‘One way of putting this is that collective strategic action involves what we would call the actualisation of ‘belief-dependent emergent capacities’. What we mean is that people's belies themselves, as well as their awareness of the strength of those beliefs, can contribute to generating new, or emergent, capacities. This is because the calculations people customarily perform before undertaking any activity involve an assessment of the extent to which the participants in the activity being considered are aware of, and have confidence in, their ‘own capacities ~ including those emergent capacities which arise only as 4 result of the willingness to engage in the collective undertaking. Let us give an example. A factor in assessing the risks involved in going on strike would be an evaluation of the degree of determination fon the part ofthe potential strikers to overcome the inevitable hardships the struggle entails. ‘The fact that each is convinced that the others are prepared to shoulder their part of the burden contributes to the Hay 1995, Hay 1998 and 1998e. ‘Chodos & Hay/Sothe Party's Over? emergent collective capacity to engage inthe strugele and have a chance of winning. It is part ofa belie in the collective eapacity to accomplish something, and the scope ofthat capacity is a function of the strength of the belie, Belief in the capacity is not a mere reflection of a pre-existing capacity that was somehow dormant, but is constitutive of thet capacity. It helps create a capacity that would not exist without the belief. This is not a crude voluntarsm, because itis not the assertion thatthe capacity will necessarily be realised in the way in which those who believe in it would hope or expect. In fact, it says nothing about an eventual outcome, and only asserts that certein outcomes become possible as 2 result of belief-dependent emergent capacities. Because they are emergent they cannot be turned on and off like a light switch, but require an appropriate confluence of conditions, including’ the contingent presence of individuals with the requisite talents and abilities This is largely what we meant when we stated at the outset that Politics is a creative, and not merely a representative, activity. Parties of all kinds do not simply ‘represent’ the interests of a pre-existing class (or other social/politcal aggregate), but are necessary instruments in the process of creating interes: they are integral to the very constitution of classes (and other social categories) as actors on an historical stage. We would argue that there isan interactive relationship between interests, the organisations to which a recognition of such interests give rise, and the strategic action this enables, Parties function ‘to make possible certain things that would not otherwise be achievable, ‘and contribute to creating both a vision and a capacity to act that would rot and could not otherwise exist. This applies as much to parties dedicated to the preservation of the status quo as well as to those which strive to bring about radical change. We could say, to paraphrase celebrated dictum, that we create ourselves, but not under conditions of ‘our own choosing. Political organisations, on this view, provide contexts within which boelief

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