If we focus COMPLETELY on the democratic tasks before the working people, socialism will take care of itself in due course. 21st Century socialism is, for the US working class, 21st century democracy.
My thanks to Sam Webb for taking a thoughtful, frank, necessary but difficult step in assessing the prospects and requirements for a party of socialism in the 21st Century.
The strategic difficulty before us consists in the fact that a challenge to "too big to fail" corporate power, in many of its dimensions, is an essential component of both economic recovery and the survival -- and expansion -- of US democracy. These tasks naturally beg numerous questions of socialist ideology.
Some conclude that the challenge to corporate power cannot be resolved, progressively, that is, to the advantage of working people, short of overthrowing that power. Socialist theory certainly argues that is "ultimately" true. However, "ultimate" truths are a poor guide to political strategy and tactics. In fact, their overuse ends up often distorting the most important principle of both Lenin's and Marx's concepts of truth -- namely, that truth is ALWAYS concrete.
The concrete truth -- from my perspective -- is that the American people can be won in big majorities to curbing too-big-to-fail corporations, and reducing their control over politics. All this they will and do support, however, in the name of democratic principles, and basic principles of equity, not concepts of 'socialism'.
Before Stalinism in its various guises, socialism, communism and democracy were closely linked. Afterwards, not so much. Re-linking them may not be possible -- at least in our lifetime. If its a choice between a party of 50,000 calling itself the party of working class democracy, or a party of 5000 calling itself the party of 21st century socialism -- I don't think we should pause a minute in choosing the former. There is NOTHING TO FEAR FROM THIS.
In fact, I suspect it is much more likely that Sam's points and principles will be actually won in the name of democratic change: 1) public management of market failures; 2) improving the performance of markets (capitalism) in those areas where competition still improves productivity and efficiency; 3) coming up with new forms, alternatives to straightforward government direction, for providing -- and evaluating -- the ever growing sector of public good products and services where there is, in fact, NO objective measure of productivity in the classic sense; and 4) improving, in the wake of curbing corporate political power, the participation of grass roots communities and workplaces in politics.
A legitimate question can be asked: how can a working class party advocate "improved capitalist performance" in market sectors of the economy? Won't that result in conflicts of interests with workers? The answer is that in advanced market economies, the progress toward socialism -- toward public and non-profit vs private goods and services -- is overwhelmingly dominated by OBJECTIVE, not SUBJECTIVE factors. This a question where a clear understanding of the Chinese vs Soviet paths is perhaps most helpful. Markets and commodities do not disappear by fiat, or will, or command. The recede as the mode of production changes, as the employment of "human capital" diverges from wage labor and labor-power, as the provision of public goods becomes ever more necessary and entwined with production and reproduction. Human capital -- essentially -- creative intellectual or artistic or professional athletic power -- cannot be easily alienated by wage-labor conditions, and where it is attempted, it is not sustainable. It cannot be made "homogeneous" -- a key requirement in the labor-power / surplus value relation.
Further, markets are not inherently hostile to incomes rising in proportion with production and overall social wealth. After all, markets are SOCIAL and LEGAL institutions. Once the social safety net is sufficiently robust -- where loss of a job is not equivalent to loss of life or health -- many permutations of market and non-market relations can be tolerated, including within a "socialist" framework. Although, we would be well advised to call it a "genuinely democratic" framework, or, better yet -- just BASEBALL -- a FAIR game -- if we want to make headway here.
One of the important challenges we must meet here is devising a strategy for compensating "human capital", for enhancing its bargaining power. This is a non-trivial question at the heart, IMHO, of the industrial strategy being proposed by the president, as well. which will focus development on high-tech manufacturing, infrastructure and services. Trade unions will not be able, no matter what labor law reform is passed, to address this question. A new bargaining law, much broader in scope than redressing the attacks on the NLRA, is required.
It is also important to note in connection with the "human capital" question that -- prior to the onset of the great recession -- only the bottom 20% of the workforce owns little or no capital wealth, and only the bottom 5% is in negative wealth territory. And, while wages and salaries have stagnated for 30 years or more, wealth income, either from real estate, pensions, stock or other sources significantly rose in 40K and above incomes, especially in the mid to late 90's. Combine this with the gradual automation of "maggot with hands" factory occupations, and, in other words, the "working class" is only purely "proletarian" in the classic Marxist sense, in very small, and declining, numbers. This is, I think, a permanent feature of advanced capitalist societies. They are already, in fact, mixtures of capitalist and socialist structures and institutions
All this is an argument that if we focus COMPLETELY on the democratic tasks before the working people, socialism will take care of itself in due course. 21st Century socialism is, for the US working class -- 21st century democracy.
