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- | ====== One step forward, but just as far from the goal ====== | + | ====== One step forward, but just as far from the goal. Regarding the text by Xavier Girrard |
+ | :: **Peter Åström** | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Necessity and communism ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | In his text on Troploin’s and Théorie communiste’s respective conceptions of history, Xavier Girrard (XG) makes a convincing argument for "the inadequacies of both positions" | ||
+ | |||
+ | > [B]ecause it is only in the material struggle to produce communism that one can comprehend whether the communism of the present is indeed the definitive overcoming of the dialectic, a self-consciously historicist communist theory can simultaneously assert the necessity of the present movement’s authoritativeness while recognizing the possibility of its failure.((Op. cit.)) | ||
+ | |||
+ | However, there is one big problem and that is the very point of departure, for if it is impossible to balance two symmetrically opposed errors, as Dauvé himself notes, it will certainly be less possible to successfully overcome a problematic which doesn’t even exist. This is the mistake to which XG has fallen victim. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Regarding the critique aimed at Troploin and their ahistoricism, | ||
+ | |||
+ | > TC abstracts the theory of their moment as the absolute theory. TC produces a total history where the necessary production of communism, as determined by the //current// cycle of struggle, is neatly situated as its end.((Op. cit., XX.)) | ||
+ | |||
+ | > TC only reconstructs history to prove that communism will be necessarily produced in the present historical moment.((Op. cit., XX.)) | ||
+ | |||
+ | But where does TC say that the present moment, the existing contradiction between proletariat and capital by necessity has to result in a victorious communist revolution? Nowhere. Still, XG is not the first to have interpreted TC’s theory in this way. A member of TC, in our interview published in the previous issue of // | ||
+ | |||
+ | > [T]here is also a big misunderstanding about the way we present the possibility of communisation: | ||
+ | |||
+ | The profound scepticism that many people have for TC is founded on a reading which sees a messianic preaching that the moment of true communism has finally arrived, when they see that TC writes that the revolution //as communisation// | ||
+ | |||
+ | True, TC maintains that the proletarians now tend to confront their class belonging directly in the majority of today’s struggles. This is indeed a very interesting phenomenon in which we can see how every-day struggles portend the dissolution of the classes. It wasn’t like this before, but when did anybody say that this must imply a certain victory in the class war? Never is anything certain but it is only in the contradiction between capital and the proletariat, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Progress for the capital relation? Progress for class struggle? ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | For XG, the " | ||
+ | |||
+ | > Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, | ||
+ | |||
+ | If we on the other hand watch capital more closely and see it as the impersonal process it actually is, then we arrive at the basic formula M--C--M´. We recollect that capital and the capital relation can only continue to exist if this process is pursued continuously, | ||
+ | |||
+ | A specific pole of capital takes a step forward once it has managed to go through its cycle and bring forth M´, but with this it is inexorably brought //back// to the beginning of the formula, to M. If one million dollars had been invested and after a turn through the production process returned as the same one million, then no progress will have been made; no additional value was produced and the money sum has thus ceased to be capital, for the law of valorisation insists that value grows //bigger//. However, if one million were to become two and you have a doubling of the wealth, this wouldn’t for capital be less of a progress than if tree, five or even one hundred millions could be realised. For the capitalist it would certainly be a delight being able to collect a hundred millions; he would be able to live a comfortable life in luxury. But capital itself can never rest. A twice as full warehouse is twice as difficult to get rid of. Social total capital stands constantly with the knife against the throat and it doesn’t survive one moment without deepening the exploitation of its opposite the proletariat, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Regarding present day capitalism XG writes that " | ||
+ | |||
+ | So according to XG, capital has become more advanced than previously, but he also says that this has been accompanied by a more advanced and pugnacious proletariat: | ||
+ | |||
+ | If we look just at the general life and working conditions the struggle of the workers doesn’t seem to have led to any improvements worth mentioning ever since globalisation was initiated, at least not in the advanced capitalist countries where we’ve rather seen the opposite trend. From this perspective programmatism actually seemed more advanced: the workers’ movement marched forward and attained an ever greater degree of organisation. More and more votes were won in the parliamentary elections. No-one could turn a blind eye on its growing strength. And with the improvements that it managed to force through the vision of an eventual liberation from the yoke of capital could also be maintained. Today this vision is dead and buried. Nobody can see any such trend in the current development of society. The productivity gains are now accompanied by stagnating wages, increased pressure and rising unemployment.((Capital’s apologetes are seeking to prove that the free flows of capital are making the world a better place in showing numbers of an increased average length of life and reduced child mortality. Excellent! Let’s forget about our robbed youth and instead look forward to a prolonged old age with postponed retirement.)) | ||
+ | |||
+ | But XG seems to be looking for some sort of qualitative aspect in the struggle because he adds the following: | ||
+ | |||
+ | > [W]orkers struggle //against// the union and the party as aspects of capital, wildcat strikes abound, the council has lost its role as a panacea, and workers’ identity is increasingly ignored or directly assaulted by workers themselves.((Op. cit.)) | ||
+ | |||
+ | This cannot be interpreted as if XG would say that the trade-union, | ||
+ | |||
+ | It is true that shell of the trade-union movement which grew up during the previous period along with the workers’ parties today often need to be attacked by the workers. These organisations have, in a country like Sweden, as its major goal to guarantee future investments and thus jobs in the country. No longer are they advancing the positions of the workers as it used to be called. Workers’ politics has been replaced by the need to administer the crisis (i.e. the latent crisis since the beginning of the restructuring) and to spread out its negative effects according to a principle of “solidarity, | ||
+ | |||
+ | But the restructured capitalism and the attacks by the capitalist class over the last thirty years are in no way better for the mode of production than what the Fordist regime once was. It simply became necessary that the latter was to be dismatled as soon as it had become incompatible with the reproduction of the system. Likewise, the counter-attacks by the workers are not more advanced today. If, at present, in order to defend your conditions of living, it often becomes necessary to go out on an unofficial strike or, as we have seen in France, that very radical measures are being taken, such as taking the boss prisoner and threats of massive sabotage of the means of production, then these methods are only necessary in the light of an increased international competition and they are being taken in pure desperation. But the bitter truth is that the number of strikes has gone down steadily according to statistics, including the unofficial ones. | ||
+ | |||
+ | A confrontation with the unions today have however nothing to do with the ultra-left’s critique of the mediations, or that one against the reformism within the workers’ movement has to put forward the self-organisation of the working class. That world has ceased to exist; today’s situation looks radically different. There is no longer any workers’ movement since there is no more workers’ identity and thus no more reformism or revolutionary workers’ autonomy. A struggle coming from the grass roots can emerge spontaneously outside or against the wishes of the local union, but it may also occur that it is the union which takes the initiative. As long as the struggle is over wages and conditions these formalities do not matter very much, for it is not the //trade union// which needs to be overcome but the // | ||
+ | |||
+ | To conclude, although certain " | ||
+ | |||
+ | :: April 2010 |