International Socialists

Their power, our power

The power of the ruling class in capitalist society is abundantly clear, especially with respect to state power, the unequal distribution of power entailed by capitalist relations of production, and the role of the media in manufacturing consent. What is less commonly recognised is the way that capitalist power relies on the failure of the working class and its allies to act in a united and collective manner and exercise their capacity to control society.

 

For this reason it is important to focus, not just on their power, but on our power. The concept of class struggle precisely implies a clash between classes with distinctive interests, powers, and collective capacities. In this respect Marx argued: "The will of the capitalist is certainly to take as much as possible. What we have to do is not to talk about his will, but to inquire into his power, the limits of that power, and the character of those limits." Hence the rate of exploitation is "only settled by the continuous struggle between capital and labour," a struggle in which "the respective powers of the combatants" is of critical importance.

 

The potential power of the working class is vastly greater than the power of the capitalist class, because it is workers, rather than capitalists, who are strategically located at the very heart of the economic system. Whether in factories, railways, airlines, shipping and other areas of transportation, construction, banks, shops, supermarkets, restaurants and bars; it is workers who make the "wheels of industry" turn, it is workers who produce the wealth that is so conspicuously unequally distributed. This is why a mass strike by the working class is potentially a revolutionary act - it fundamentally challenges the power of capitalists and the state to govern society.

 

What prevents workers from exercising this power most of the time is disunity, sustained by the ideological control of the ruling class, a hegemony that promotes in complex and contradictory ways, nationalism, sexism and racism. In rejecting the possibility of collective social transformation, postmodernism has adopted an air of resignation with respect to disunity, encouraging us instead to celebrate difference. Classical Marxism, while recognising the broad range of divisions within the working class, has traditionally emphasised what we share in common so that we may engage in united collective struggle for a better world.

 

But no matter how many times Marxists argue for this and highlight the centrality of the working class to any generalised struggle for major social change, the accuracy of such ideas only becomes fully apparent through participation in actual collective struggle.

 

This is so, firstly, because the potential fragility of capitalist and state power only becomes apparent when this power is successfully contested by the forces on our side of the class struggle - most importantly workers, for the reasons stated above, but also students and/or movements of the oppressed. This is why the WTO protests in Seattle were so important and influential - they graphically demonstrated the potential fragility of the power of the international bourgeoisie and the world's states, while simultaneously dramatically demonstrating the potential strength of our power. The second reason is that people's consciousness can change extremely rapidly during involvement in collective forms of struggle, even when these are on a relatively small scale.

 

In general the larger the scale of the struggle the more likely it is that this kind shift in consciousness will assume an increasingly radicalised and ultimately revolutionary form. This is being powerfully illustrated by the anti-capitalist movement. Of course, the key figures in classical Marxism were acutely aware of the importance of these rapid shifts in collective consciousness, and it is a key theme in their writings, especially after the 1905 revolution in Russia. For example, in Rosa Luxemburg's brilliant analysis of this revolution she graphically demonstrates why and how revolutionary working class consciousness develops through participation in mass struggles.

 

So in order to overthrow absolutism in Russia "the proletariat requires a high degree of political education, of class consciousness and organisation. All these conditions cannot be fulfilled by pamphlets and leaflets, but only by the living political school, by the fight and in the fight, in the continuous course of the revolution." In a similar vein, Lenin wrote that "The real education of the masses can never be separated from their independent political, and especially revolutionary, struggle. Only struggle educates the exploited class. Only struggle discloses to it the magnitude of its own power, widens its horizon, enhances its abilities, clarifies its mind, forges its will."

 

It is these rapid and dramatic shifts in working class consciousness that ultimately make revolution possible because it is only in the context of mass struggles that workers and the oppressed can become fully aware, not only of what's wrong with the world, but also of why it is like this, of their collective capacity to change it, and of the socialist and democratic alternative to capitalism. As Trotsky observed with respect to the February Revolution of 1917, "Elements of experience, criticism, initiative, self-sacrifice, seeped down through the mass and created, invisibly to a superficial glance but no less decisively, an inner mechanics of the revolution as a conscious process."

 

Collective forms of action can also highlight the extent to which a socialist organisation can act as the "memory of the class" - carrying forward knowledge and experience gained in earlier struggles to struggles in the present and future. One of the great strengths of most serious socialist organisations on the far left, is that they are repositories and transmitters of a tremendous amount of collective experience from long-term involvement in the unions, on the campuses, and within the various progressive social movements. This is why socialist organisations can generally exert an influence over campaigns out of all proportion to their size.

 

Socialist organisation is historically of greatest importance with respect to the dynamics and trajectories of revolutionary movements. While genuine revolutions always involve largely spontaneous upsurges of mass struggle, political leadership is critical in determining the ultimate outcome of these struggles. The contrasting historical experiences of the Russian and German revolutions of 1917-18 is the standard reference point in this regard. Whereas Luxemburg refused to break from the SPD and build an independent revolutionary socialist party until revolution had already broken out, Lenin spent years building the kind of organisation that could play a successful role in leading the masses during the revolutions of 1917. As he observed with respect to the "dress rehearsal" of 1905, such an organisation needed to "reveal to [the masses] our democratic and socialist ideal in all its magnitude and splendour, and show them the shortest and most direct route to complete, absolute, and decisive victory."

 

 

Their democracy or our democracy?

A recurrent theme of the Seattle protests concerned the fundamentally undemocratic nature of the WTO; like the IMF and World Bank, it is dominated by the governments of a handful of the world's dominant economic powers and by the interests of global capital. While the limits of representative democracy are widely recognised by many of those participating in the anti-globalisation protests, these bodies are seen as being even more securely distanced from the influence of the majority of the world's citizens. In contrast, following the closure of the WTO convention in Seattle, protesters were chanting: "This is what democracy looks like, this is what democracy feels like!" The contrast evident here between the empowerment experienced by a broad mass of people collectively participating in direct political action and the alienation entailed by highly indirect forms of representation is a long-standing one in the history of democracy.

 

In practice, the way that the clash between representative and participatory democracy is played out revolves around the question of whether to seek reforms of existing social relations and political institutions or their overthrow. This is an old question resurfacing in new forms in the current anti-globalisation movement. To seek the democratisation of bodies like the WTO, IMF, World Bank, and so forth, or their abolition? To seek fair trade rather than free trade? Or to advocate the vision of genuinely democratic workers' (and peasants') governments redistributing the world's food and resources on the basis of need rather than profit?

 

There is an old question resurfacing in new forms here - reform or revolution? This question is one of the most commonly misunderstood and misrepresented on the left because it actually relates to, not only the ultimate goal of the workers and progressive movements (reformed capitalism versus socialist democracy), but also to the entire array of strategic and tactical questions raised in the short term by struggles for reform as well as the industrial class struggle.

 

For example, how does one place the most pressure on a government to increase state funding for public health, housing, welfare and tertiary education - by lobbying parliamentary representatives and working through existing political parties, or by organising large scale protests, occupations and industrial action? Or to cite another example from a recent industrial dispute on the New Zealand waterfront - to stage "peaceful pickets" unsupported by widespread industrial action in order to dissuade the scabs from working, or to close the entire waterfront down with industrial action and mass pickets to keep the scabs out and maximise the pressure on the company hiring the scab labour?

 

It can be argued in this regard that revolutionaries, far from abstaining from the struggle for reform, are actually the best fighters for it. But they do insist that ultimately reform is not enough - it can, as Marx pointed out, succeed in improving the terms on which the worker is exploited, but it will never end that exploitation. A world of equality, democracy, and truly sustainable environmental practices can only be achieved through the overthrow of capitalism and creation of socialism.

 

Of course, however inspiring it may be, the international movement against global capitalism is still far from assuming revolutionary proportions. But it is already raising the vital question of whether or not there is an alternative to capitalism and representative democracy. Classical Marxism has a radically democratic vision of socialism at its core and still constitutes, in an intellectual sense, the most fully developed alternative to the existing system. Historically, soviet or socialist participatory democracy, in which the majority is directly involved in the self-governance of society was never realised in Russia. This kind of radical democracy will be vastly easier to establish and maintain in the twenty-first century, given the economically, culturally, and scientifically advanced conditions created by contemporary capitalism, than it was in the relatively under-developed conditions prevailing in Russia during the First World War.

 

In socialist participatory democracy control over production and distribution is achieved through the institutional mechanism of a network of councils and assemblies that combines elements of centralisation (eg. with respect to major investment decisions) and decentralisation (eg. decisions within the workplace). Accountability of delegates is ensured by the right of recall, frequency of elections, regular mass assemblies, the extension of liberal democratic citizenship rights, the democratisation of the judiciary, and the establishment of a popular militia (if necessary) to defend the revolution. Such a system of democracy can only be achieved through elimination of all major forms of exploitation, inequality and oppression and this, in turn, requires the overthrow of capitalism. This is also necessary in order to reduce the average hours each person needs to spend performing productive labour and in order to ensure that there is adequate provision of, and equal responsibility for, childcare. By creating more "free time" socialism ensures, not only that participatory democracy can work, but also that individual liberty, diversity and self-development is maximised. This is the "democratic and socialist ideal in all its magnitude and splendour" that constitutes a feasible and desirable alternative to capitalism.

 

 

Conclusion

The growing movement against global capitalism has significantly altered the political terrain upon which the intellectual battles between right and left are being fought. It is too early to suggest, as some have, that Seattle constituted a world-historic turning point. Most importantly we have not yet seen the kind of upsurge in the industrial class struggle that characterised the period from the late 1960s to the late 1970s. But it is the case that after many years of having to respond defensively to successive waves of intellectual bombardment, the classical Marxist tradition is likely to experience a revival if there is a revival of the international workers' movement and the progressive social movements. This is because it is engagement in "practice and the comprehension of the practice," that, more than anything else, convinces large numbers of people that classical Marxism still has much to offer those struggling for a better world in the twenty-first century.

 

One of the most inspiring and important features of the anti-capitalist movement has been the extent to which it has been prompting a reunification of theory and practice. Lenin once wrote with respect to the 1905 revolution that "undoubtedly, the revolution will teach us, and will teach the masses of the people. But the question that now confronts a militant political party is: shall we be able to teach the revolution anything?" While the recent anti-capitalist movement has not assumed an overtly revolutionary form, it has already helped to re-educate many committed socialists. The question is whether or not socialists have anything to offer the movement, and if so, then what.

 

In this respect, it is the classical Marxist tradition, kept alive during the 1980s and 1990s by a broad range of socialist organisations on the far left together with a small number of relatively isolated intellectuals, that has much to offer. This is not only because of its organic link between theory and practice, but also because it constitutes a rich intellectual tradition providing crucial insights with respect to the key questions of concern to contemporary activists. At the most basic level activists today need to understand what's wrong with the world, why it is like this, how we can change it, and whether there is a feasible and desirable alternative. And it is precisely this set of questions to which those in the classical Marxist tradition have been providing answers for more than 150 years.

 

A more detailed discussion paper, which this article is based on, along with extensive references, can be read at

 

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