A plea for new Left thinking - Introduction

By Leander Jones

The economic crisis that began in 2008 and the austerity measures that followed in many countries have started to breed the first significant signs of discontent in the West for many years. Such episodes have exposed the extensive corruption and double standards rife within the circles of the political and financial elites, and have made people aware for the first time in a generation the extent to which our Western “democracies” are controlled and held to ransom by a powerful few. The more aware members of the public are also increasingly becoming concerned with other problems we face, principally the environmental crisis; while others, particularly immigrant communities, have learned that our wars are rarely fought for just causes. Tension is rising; people are becoming more and more frustrated with the way things are, as well as un-trusting of those who claim to represent us. Yet I see this anger beginning to turn to cynicism and a feeling of helplessness; people are sure that things aren't right but they are bewildered about what to do to change things.

Some look to the past for answers. Yet it is clear to many that this is not the way forward. The old models are exactly that – old; and they are crippled and dying. I read an article this week about the “reforms” that are going on in Cuba; the plan is essentially to implement a neoliberal programme which involves laying off millions of public sector workers in a desperate attempt to get the economy moving after 50 years of stagnation. The official explanation during the whole Communist era for the dysfunctional economy has been the US trade embargo imposed on the island, which is undoubtedly part of the problem. Yet there has been a widespread recognition in recent years that the problem is much deeper – with even Fidel Castro admitting recently that the Cuban model had failed. This is symptomatic of a worldwide disillusionment with the traditional alternatives that are offered by the left-wing, and it has led many to resign themselves to what they see as the inevitability of neoliberal capitalism, while others have turned to more extreme and dangerous solutions – from religious fundamentalism to far-right racist extremism.

I think it is time the left stood up and admitted their addiction to out-of-date doctrines, and begun to seriously tackle their bad habits – from sectarianism, to utopianism, to dogmatism, to authoritarianism – in a coherent and systematic way, through a process of self-criticism and re-evaluation of their methods and even their fundamental principles. Without doing this we risk standing idly by, blinded by our now well-developed cataracts, while the world around us dives head first into catastrophe.

(This aims to be the beginning of an article series for the expression and discussion of new ideas. Contributions are welcome by everybody).

Part 1: Reform vs. Revolution - a false dichotomy: http://birminghamstudentbroadleft.blogspot.com/2011/06/plea-for-new-left-thinking-part-1.html

Part 2: Communicative Rationality and the new party structure:

http://birminghamstudentbroadleft.blogspot.com/2011/06/plea-for-new-left-thinking-part-2.html

A plea for a new Left thinking - Part 1: Reform vs. Revolution – a false dichotomy

By Leander Jones

The first thing that must be established before I begin is that I regard myself a revolutionary. I consider revolution to mean the fundamental transformation of society, in a way that will end exploitation, oppression, violence, and poverty and will allow for the full self-realisation and flourishing of human beings as individuals and as a collective. I believe that the status quo is fundamentally opposed to these aims, and that the social, political and economic structures that currently reign supreme thus have to be completely overhauled. Now that this is clear I can continue under no false pretences, for I do not wish to trick or deceive.

The reason I chose this title for the article is that this is a debate which has been raging for too long within the left, to the detriment of those on both sides of the divide – it has prevented coordinated action, distracted leftists from more important issues, and generally generated more heat than light. I am going to be audacious enough to argue that both sides in this dispute have got it wrong, each providing important insights into the way forward but neither offering anywhere near the whole truth of the matter. This is not to claim that I know the whole truth, for such claims are ridiculous and lead to the dogmatic dismissal of many aspects of reality that do not fit into one's meta-narrative, but I have some educated suggestions I wish to put forward.

One of the most important leftist thinkers in my opinion, but one which is often overlooked by many (particularly by activists) is Antonio Gramsci. He came up with the idea of “cultural hegemony”: the notion that modern capitalism sustains itself not only through the control of the means of production and the state's institutions by “capitalists”, but through the construction of ideas and norms that support and justify the status quo. He argued that these ideas were so effective at asserting control because of their all-pervasiveness; they infiltrated culture, coming to form the routine practices and conventions that make up every-day life, to the extent that they constitute the very fabric of society – people follow them unconsciously and almost instinctively. Thus seemingly innocent and neutral behaviour is imbued with ideological assumptions and serves to reinforce existing power relations and the system at large. This led him on to argue that to fight and overcome the prevailing hegemonic structures, what was needed was the construction of a “counter-hegemony”. This insight had significant implications. It destroyed the myth that the contradictions inherent within capitalism would lead people automatically towards socialism; simply waiting for conditions to get bad enough would not guarantee that opinions would move in the “right direction”. Rather, people in such scenarios would turn to whatever symbol-system best captured the public imagination – usually what was most familiar to them. It also meant that to change the system it was insufficient merely to seize the reigns of the state, as had hitherto been the focus of left-wing strategy, as this would leave the old hegemonic ideas and practices in place. Legislation by such a left-wing state would fail to transform society in any meaningful way, as the people would have retained their old mindsets/cognitive frames. Their “consciousness” would continue to be based upon the values of the old system. Many previous movements failed to appreciate this, and attempted to coerce people into adopting their programmes using violence – and thus we see a dark history of left-wing “experiments”: the term “Communism” for instance is now synonymous in most people's minds with the worst dictatorships this world has ever seen.

What Gramsci never did sufficiently elucidate – at least in any full and coherent manner – is what concrete steps can be taken to construct this counter-hegemony. This process is obviously multifaceted and complex, and one could think of many tactics which could be adopted without delving too deeply into the matter, for example attempting to influence the education system or the mass media machine. But here I want to focus on one element in particular which I believe is crucial to this process, namely the role of legislative reform. Progressive political, economic and social reforms are useful in themselves because they help people by alleviating their every-day hardships. They are also useful to progressives in that popular reforms popularise the reformers, or those who are seen as responsible for pushing for and winning the reforms. Additionally, success in short-term political battles can engender confidence and generate momentum towards further change. But most importantly reforms can dig institutional paths. There is a political theory known as Historical Institutionalism which explains how institutions (conceptualised broadly as routine practices that are identifiable and widely considered legitimate, both formally in organisations and informally in terms of cultural conduct), once initiated, tend to rigidify into self-perpetuating trajectories, and create path-dependencies which restrict the scope of future decisions. This happens firstly in concrete terms usually because the implementation of legislation involves significant economic costs, meaning that changing paths or reorganising can be very expensive. This therefore creates a “lock in” effect whereby state and societal actors become trapped into certain ways of doing things, corresponding with the rules and constraints imposed by the initial piece of legislation. Secondly, we are creatures of habit, and, as the philosophers J. S. Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville observed, long-established doctrines tend to be accepted as natural and legitimate by the history-illiterate public, regardless of however unnatural or ridiculous they appeared when they were initiated. But thirdly, and most crucially, legislation can shape the very environment individuals find themselves in, and structure peoples' material interests and incentives, as well as direct their social interactions through certain channels and in specific ways which are conducive to fostering particular types of behaviour in the short term, and which over the long term transform people's identities and belief-systems. A good example of this is the massive expansion of home-ownership under Thatcher; a result of her “right to buy” scheme alongside her ending most new council housing projects. While she benignly argued that it gave people a “stake in society” and encouraged model citizenship, what it was in fact designed to do was change people's political behaviour through transforming their material interests. Due to the fact that a large proportion of many people's incomes was now spent on mortgage repayments, increased rates of home-ownership engendered hostility towards “post-war consensus” policies which involved high levels of taxation and public spending. In the long term, as is demonstrated by the “welfare trade-off” theory, this led to an increased proportion of the population identifying themselves as monetary conservatives. We see the same pattern in all countries where home-ownership rates have been expanded in recent decades.

Another example of an institutional path can be seen with the 1977 Bullock Report of the Committee of Inquiry on Industrial Democracy set up by Labour PM Harold Wilson. It proposed workers' participation/control in the workplace as a solution to chronic industrial strife. This call for economic democracy was based on a perceived “moral need to extend democracy” in society and in elite circles. Such an argument would be inconceivable nowadays now we have lost our corporatist model of industrial relations (which involved a cooperative relationship between employers, Government and trade unions), our commitment to full employment, and our reasonably extensive trade union powers. For industrial democracy to be the natural step forward in such a context, rather than a radical one, highlights the degree to which institutional pathways determine trajectories and outcomes – particularly now the political paradigm has shifted and such a move is almost unimaginable.

All this means that public policy has a vital role (although by no means the only role) to play in the revolutionary process, in Western democracies at least, if legislation can be used to engender progressive norms and expectations. I stress again that I conceive of revolution as a radical transformation of society, not as a single moment of (potentially violent) upheaval; although I appreciate that in some circumstances this process may culminate in such a moment (usually in more repressive states) – but this is not an end in itself. If violence is viewed as a constructive tool rather than merely a means of throwing off the yoke of the old repressive political system, it is bound to lead to the creation of a militaristic society.

This may lead some “revolutionaries” to argue that I am advocating reformism. Reformism, they say, is limited in scope in that it merely aims to tinker around the edges of what is a fundamentally flawed social and economic system. To achieve any true human emancipation we have to totally transform society, so that all forms of alienation are eliminated, social relations are amiable and really are “social”, and the correct conditions exist for individual self-realisation and the fulfilment of full human potential on a personal and collective level. And I would agree with all of these assertions; but using these against my argument fundamentally misses its point. Reforms, seen as stepping stones towards the attainment of wider goals, are not the same as reformism – which by its nature has limited goals.

The fundamental transformation of society cannot happen overnight. Legislative reforms can play a vital role in directing us through the chaos of the political jungle, digging a path that will lead us to the clearing on the other side.

A plea for new Left thinking - Introduction:
http://birminghamstudentbroadleft.blogspot.com/2011/06/plea-for-new-left-thinking-introduction.html

A plea for new Left thinking - Part 2: Communicative Rationality and the new party structure:
http://birminghamstudentbroadleft.blogspot.com/2011/06/plea-for-new-left-thinking-part-2.html

A plea for a new Left thinking - Part 2: Communicative Rationality and the new party structure

By Leander Jones

In my last article I established that reform vs. revolution is a false dichotomy because legislation can be used to dig institutional paths which can shift people's material interests and fundamental attitudes towards progressive ends.

My argument thus far is perhaps overly-abstract and may sound like crypto-normative apologism for, or theoretical contortion used to justify, the same old methods of Parliamentarianism that have been tried, and which have failed, so many times in the past. A major problem with Parliamentary socialist or left-wing parties is that, although they may initially derive from, represent, and have popular support among, those they strive to help – namely the poor, the oppressed, the discriminated against – the nature of the Parliamentary system insulates them from the real world, while their undemocratic party structures bureaucratises and corrupts their politics. They thus eventually become a separate elite political class alienated from the people, and survive only through a combination of anachronistic electoral systems and the control and manipulation of state functions and resources.

What I am proposing is a simple concept – one that has been the main driving force behind progressive change throughout history; that is, democracy, although not as commonly conceived. By democracy I mean the supreme power being vested in the people, so that they do not only live their lives in the freest way possible, but so that they shape their external environment and the very context in which they exercise their freedom.

Behind this conception of democracy lies an assumption: that people know what is best for their own lives, and that self-determination is the only path to self-realisation and true happiness. But I hear the elitists rapping at the door. There is a huddle of them, each wearing tail coats, pin-striped suits, or designer jackets, all clamouring to tell me about how the people are not qualified to rule themselves, and how they are too stupid and animalistic to be given complete freedom of choice. But although I bar the door to these elitists, some of what they are saying reaches my ears, and seems to ring true. When we hear the opinions of the unwashed masses, they are often repulsive to our sensitive liberal ears – they usually involve a confused mixture of bigotry, xenophobia, and hatred of “benefit scroungers”, alongside a nostalgic support for social-democratic full employment and progressive taxation. These people also, a lot of the time, frankly do appear stupid, abusive and“animalistic” like the elitists claim.

Thus is exposed a fundamental flaw in democracy: the people (at least formally) have political power, but they have not the education to wield that power wisely. This is a natural and, although its effects can be mitigated by a high quality and egalitarian education system, largely inevitable result of the class divides that pervade any capitalist society. The elitist solution to this problem always revolves around the idea of a Platonic “Philosopher King”, or some derivative of the concept. However authoritarianism is not acceptable for a number of reasons – crucially because such systems are not conducive to the maximisation of human potential – but a discussion on this topic is beyond the remit of this article.

Massive tangent, read if you have too much time on your hands

But neither is it acceptable for some leftist “vanguard” to simply seize the state apparatus in the hope of legislating their way into a classless society – the phenomenon of class is much more complex than this. The merits and flaws of a state-commanded economy aside (and also if we ignore the potential of this type of tactic to slide into dictatorship), such a strategy implies an anachronistic understanding of class as purely based on one's relation to the means of production: if you own capital then you are a “capitalist”, if you don't then you must sell your labour power and are thus “working class” - with each class having fundamentally homogeneous interests. Yet by this definition the working class would make up about 95% of the population (at least), and would include people as diverse as non-skilled manual workers, peasant farmers, immigrant contract-workers, white-collar office employees, business managers and corporate lawyers. Society thus should not only be divided into only two classes; at the very least a distinction has to be made between the “coordinator class” and the working class (and even this is perhaps too minimalistic because it does not recognise the distinction between small and large business owners, different types of capital, skilled and non-skilled labour, public and private sector workers etc.). The coordinator class is that which has a monopoly on empowering work: the “tasks that not only brighten their spirits and attentiveness, but also provide them with information critical to intelligent decision-making” and which crucially involve responsibility for, and the coordination of, others. This class includes the majority of professionals, such as corporate lawyers, business managers, those in important positions in the public sector etc. This is in contrast to the working class, who are relegated to performing disempowering work that is rote, unpleasant and intellectually un-stimulating – not involving any conceptual tasks. For an explanation of this three-tiered class division read/watch Michael Albert on “participatory economics”. This means that non-capitalist societies such as the Soviet Union, which abolish their property-owning classes, still retain class divisions if they do not recognise this further fundamental divide. The abolition of this class divide thus requires more than merely state ownership of the means of production.

But anyway, I digress. If the people are too ignorant to govern themselves, what hope is there for democracy? Here I am going to explain two things which I think have the potential to change the face of politics and revitalise the Left in this country:

1. Communicative rationality
2. The structure of future political parties/organisations

1 - Before I continue I need to explain a fairly obvious, yet often overlooked, phenomenon. This is the idea of “communicative rationality”: the notion that communication and dialogue with others can lead not only to a greater understanding of the subject in question, but to enhanced general reason and the capacity for critical-thinking, by the individuals involved. There are numerous psycho-linguistic explanations for this process, such as that offered by Jurgen Habermas (although I wouldn't try and read him because you'll only end up with a headache and more confused than when you started) who argued that there is an innate “will to reason” in communicative interaction. But besides these complex neuro-theories, much can be learned by mere observation of one's surroundings – it doesn't take a genius to work out that dialogue and debate forces people to utilise logic and reason and encourages them to analyse their own (and others') ideas and evaluate their coherence. This process often means that people's beliefs move from being under-analysed assumptions to rational convictions, while ideas that come to be identified as erroneous are scrapped and others are adopted which correspond more consistently with their belief systems. I appreciate that speech can and often does lead to false beliefs and the dogmatic adoption of prevailing ideas, but the important thing distinguishing these two scenarios is the power relationships of those involved. The former requires there to be, as much as is possible, a dialogue between equal partners; the latter exists where there is hierarchy between the people involved – either formal or informal – which places certain members on a pedestal, in a teacher-like position, and others on lower ground, as pupils that are to unquestioningly accept whatever the teachers say. Furthermore, decision-making based on strategic competition between self-interested groups hinders reflective reasoning and often leads to irrational outcomes. Thus for discursive reasoning processes to be successful certain procedural requirements must be met which allow for equal social inclusion of all parties, the minimisation of power differences, and increased transparency of actors' intentions.

2 - A problem with traditional leftist parties, as I mentioned above, is that the leaders become separated from the people they are supposed to represent. But beyond this, their doctrinaire approach and general structure often mean that their ideas become quickly out of date and out of touch with the people and thus cease to resonate with the population as they no longer embody people's values or respond to their every-day problems and needs. This is certainly a big part of the reason the Left in this country is in dire straits, and has eked out a mere subsistence in the political wilderness for many years – surviving only on ever-sparser scraps of theoretical truisms that survive from the cultivation of past civilisations. So what is needed is for leftist organisations to provide a genuine voice for the voiceless: no more top-down dogma, no more putting words in people's mouths, and no more assuming we know what is best for others. How can this be done? There is a small political party I have heard about which I think came up with part of the answer. The innovative idea behind this party is that its members completely decide its policies – from putting forward the initial policy suggestions to voting on the final manifesto points. This would of course lead to policies that completely coincide with people's wishes, but not necessarily with their true interests (I know I will have a post-structuralist shouting at me about this point, but I hope they will grant me the luxury of assuming at least that some wishes are more enlightened than others). The problem with the idea behind this party is that it is largely populist; it plays up to people's prejudices and misjudgements – its policies are the manifestation of the whims of an unreflecting populace. What is needed is instead an organisation that responds to the needs of a reflecting public.

Thus what we need are communicative forums for discussion and the enhancement of rational thinking that can act as the source of policies for such an organisation – which will then be not only democratic but progressive in nature, and which will create a more enlightened momentum within society. It will only be legitimate for participants in these forums to decide on policy, rather than any individual person; but ideally all would participate. This organisation could start off small, pressuring local councils into implementing programmes decided upon by local residents. If this was successful it could stand in local elections, with any person elected held directly accountable to these decision-making forums and subject to regular questioning on their activities; they would also of course be recalled should their efforts be deemed insufficient. If this strategy succeeds then the organisation should naturally be extended to the national level. The policies pushed for and implemented by such an organisation/party would be based on enlightened collective deliberation and make a real positive difference to people's lives. The resulting legislation will play a part in constructing counter-hegemonic institutional paths due to the fact that the exercise of communicative rationality will lead to the scrutinising and challenging of the norms, practices and structures of the status quo. But even more crucially, the very process of participation in these democratic forums is itself emancipatory and empowering. Participation in decision-making serves to shift expectations with regard to how much control and responsibility people can, and ought to, have over policy and society; this democracy will thus be (one of) the main counter-hegemonic institutions that will revolutionise attitudes and challenge dominating authority. The means is a large part of the ends.

A plea for new Left thinking - Introduction:
http://birminghamstudentbroadleft.blogspot.com/2011/06/plea-for-new-left-thinking-introduction.html

A plea for new Left thinking - Reform vs. Revolution - a false dichotomy:
http://birminghamstudentbroadleft.blogspot.com/2011/06/plea-for-new-left-thinking-part-1.html