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Title: Trump and the Left Author: Eric Chester Date: November 30, 2017 Language: en Topics: Donald Trump, the left, United States of America, The Utopian, Bernie Sanders, Democratic Party, critique of leftism, Elections, Left Electoralism Source: Retrieved on 11th August 2021 from http://utopianmag.com/archives/tag-The%20Utopian%20Vol.%2016.9%20-%202017/trump-and-the-left/][utopianmag.com]] and [[http://utopianmag.com/archives/tag-The%20Utopian%20Vol.%2017.1%20-%202018/special-feature-should-revolutionaries-participate-in-electoral-activity/ Notes: Published in The Utopian Vol. 16.9.
Resisting the Trump presidency has led many on the broad Left to focus
on electing Democrats. However, is Trump the central problem confronting
us, or is he just a crude manifestation of the fundamental problem, a
global capitalist system that is spiraling downward and veering out of
control?
Implicit in the efforts to defeat Trump is the conviction that the
election of a Democrat to the White House, along with the election of a
Democratic majority in both houses of Congress, will reverse the impetus
of the Trump presidency, while providing the basis for a substantial
step forward toward a just and humane society.
Liberal Democrats believe that capitalism can be reformed by a benign
intervention of the state acting to bring about an acceptable version of
the capitalist system. Trumpâs election and the furor this has triggered
raise acutely two distinct but linked issues: The nature of the
Democratic Party and the limits of reform in a globally integrated
economy.
How one views the Democratic Party has always been a critical dividing
line within the U.S. Left. For decades, progressives, even some who
claim to be socialists, have joined the Democratic Party in the futile
hope that it could be changed into a genuine working class party.
Instead, they have been the ones who have been transformed, absorbed
into the mainstream, jettisoning even the remnants of a radical
politics.
The Democratic Party has always been a capitalist party, committed to
defending an economic system in which a few of the rich and powerful
maintain ownership and control over the means of production. Yet in the
past the Republican Party has been the preferred of the two mainstream
parties. Most wealthy donors contributed large sums to Republican
coffers and Republican administrations featured corporate executives in
key positions. All this has changed in recent years with the rise of the
Tea Party and the ongoing economic crisis that began in 2008. Although a
minority of capitalist interests applauds the call for a wholesale
dismantling of social services, most corporate bosses are now aligned
with the Democrat Party, which has welcomed them with open arms.
Trumpâs presidential campaign accelerated this process. The mass media
savagely attacked Trump, while praising Hillary Clinton, despite her
obvious inability to generate any popular enthusiasm. This pattern has
continued with Trump in office. The New York Times, the Los Angeles
Times and the Washington Post despise Trump and devote most of their
energies to battering him. They speak for the bulk of the ruling class,
which views Trump as a dangerous demagogue who cannot be trusted. Of
course, there is a small segment of the ruling class that is prepared to
back Trump in his efforts to pursue a policy of economic nationalism.
Yet it is indicative that most of those who own and control the growth
industries, information technology and entertainment, are vociferous in
their denunciations of Trump. The last thing these globally integrated
corporations want is an economic policy that appeals to nationalism and
that voices the fears of those being squeezed hardest by the integration
of the worldâs economy.
A century ago, the Republican Party was tightly controlled by the
business community. The Tea Party and talk radio has changed this. Even
before Trump, the Republicans were no longer seen as the reliable
framework to defend corporate interests. In the past, the Republican
advantage in funding was counterbalanced by the Democrats ties to the
mainstream unions. The global integration of the world economy has led
to the demise of unions in the private sector. This loss for the
Democratic Party has been offset by an influx of corporate funding. The
Republicans now have to rely on money coming from a few corporate
mavericks and the grass-roots efforts of a conservative minority based
in the South and small town America.
The Democratic Party has become the safe, centrist party, the party that
starts with an enormous advantage in media support and money. The
unlikely result of the 2016 election, when Trump was elected despite
receiving significantly fewer votes than Hillary Clinton, is not likely
to be repeated. Furthermore, it would be surprising if Putin were
willing to use the resources of the Russian government to assist Trumpâs
re-election. Putin has made his point. A country that has fallen far
behind in military and economic power can still mess up the government
of the dominant superpower through clandestine operations and cyber
warfare.
Those who are lining up with the Democrats to defeat Trump and his
right-wing supporters are bound to become a subordinate element in a
political alliance controlled by the corporate ruling class. This cannot
be a successful path forward for the Left in the United States.
This leads us to the question of Bernie Sanders and the liberal wing of
the Democratic Party. Sanders began his political career as a socialist,
committed to working outside of the Democratic Party. Even once in
Congress, he remained an independent. In spite of working closely with
the Democratic caucus in the Senate, Sanders still argued that the
working class needed to form its own, independent party. The current
version of Sanders as a Democratic Party hack is a recent one, the
opportunistic outcome of his decision to seek the presidential
nomination.
It is too easy to say that the upsurge in support given to Sanders by
young people during the presidential campaign was a positive
development. Sanders has opted to funnel this energy into involvement in
a series of local elections where his supporters campaign for a
progressive seeking the Democratic nomination. This strategic decision
steers those new to politics in exactly the wrong direction.
Radicals need to remain committed to basic principles. The Democratic
Party cannot be reformed. Working within it is not only futile, it is
counter-productive, providing the party of the corporate centrists with
a veneer of credibility. Those who seek to justify support for Sanders
and his ilk as a tactical maneuver are in reality jettisoning a
fundamental cornerstone of radical politics. The result can only be a
wholesale retreat into liberal reformism.
Sanders has focused on the call for a single-payer scheme of health
insurance. Providing everyone with a minimum of health care would
represent a significant step forward in a country where tens of millions
are still without coverage and cannot receive medical care except in
emergencies. Yet this is an issue that fails to challenge the crucial
inequalities in wealth and power that are the core of a capitalist
society. Indeed, Sanders has justified his support for single-payer
health care by pointing out that most of the other industrialized
capitalist countries have implemented universal health care.
Furthermore, merely introducing single-payer insurance would not ensure
a system that provides everyone with adequate health care. Many European
countries grossly underfund their health care systems, resulting in long
waits to see doctors who are stressed out and unable to devote the time
needed to properly care for their patients. Quality health care requires
money and this returns us to the central issue, the gross inequality in
income and wealth.
Sanders is not willing to confront the corporate ruling class because he
knows that this will place him outside of the Democratic Party
consensus. He would also become the target of a full-scale media
assault. Instead, Sanders plays it safe and limits his positions to
those of a liberal reformer.
All of this takes place in a historical context in which capitalism
continues its downward spiral, as the world veers toward environmental
disaster and nuclear war. One response is to cling to what currently
exists, to play for time and hope that somehow a simple way forward will
present itself. This is an easy solution to a complex problem, but it is
one that is bound to fail. Building a genuinely radical movement will be
difficult, but there is no other alternative to the catastrophic
collapse of a disintegrating system. To start, we need to build a
grass-roots movement that can advance a program of specific measures
that challenge the capitalist power structure. As we do this, we need to
be sure that the demands we put forward, and the organizational
structures we build, are consistent with our vision of a future society.
An essential starting point for a newly revived radical movement is the
understanding that Sanders and the progressive wing of the Democratic
Party are not our allies. Our disagreements with their political
perspective are fundamental and irreconcilable.
---
The November issue of the Bulletin carried an article by Eric C. titled,
âTrump and the Left.â This led to much lively discussion, which appears
below. Further discussion will be carried in the next issue of the
Bulletin. âEditor
---
By Wayne Price
Ericâs essay is excellent. Everything it said is true, as well as well
written. However, there is a fundamental weakness in its perspective.
Knowing that the basic political and social problem is capitalism,
rather than Trump as an individual, Eric focuses on the dangers of Left
support to the Democratic Party. But the problem is not the Democratic
Party; the problem is electoralismâthat is, Left entanglement in the
machinery of bourgeois representative democracy.
Concentrating on the Democratic Party as the main obstacle to
progressive change leads to a Left strategy of trying to build a new
party, to oppose and replace the Democrats. This is a widespread
perspective on the radical Left, among those who reject the Democrats.
I have written a detailed argument against this program (Price 2016). As
a practical matter, I pointed out, U.S. laws make it exceptionally hard
to build a new party. A serious attempt would cost the Left a great deal
of activist effort and money, which could be used elsewhere. People know
this; it makes more sense to most people to propose general strikes and
militant demonstrations than to propose replacing the Democrats with a
new party. Also, the distinction made by Marxists between a (good) new
working class party (which would certainly begin with a reformist
program) and a (bad) new liberal pro-capitalist party did not make
sense. In program, leadership personnel, and mass base, the two types of
party would actually be the same. The U.S. does not need a third
capitalist party.
Further, even limiting ourselves to reforms, in the U.S. almost every
major victory has been won by non-electoral means. The rights of unions
(and the benefits of the New Deal) were won through mass strike waves.
The destruction of legal Jim Crow and other gains for African-Americans
were won through mass civil disobedience as well as urban rebellions
(âriotsâ). The war in Vietnam was opposed through demonstrations, draft
resistance, campus strikes, and a virtual mutiny in the armed forces.
LGBT rights were fought for through the Stonewall rebellion and ACT-UPâs
civil disobedience. The womenâs movement was an integral part of these
non-electoral struggles. And so on.
Let me make a different point: Electoral politics play an ideological
role in attaching the working class to the capitalist system. This is
like the role that the Catholic religion played in keeping people
attached to medieval feudalism. That is in spite of the fact, known to
everyone, that the capitalist economy does not pretend to be the least
bit democratic, but is completely top-down authoritarian. (Its
ideological claim is to be âfree enterprise.â)
The bourgeois representative democracy, in its various forms, has two
main functions. One is to let factions of the capitalist class and its
hangers-on settle their differences and make overall policyâ without
(much) bloodshed, and without the dangers of a dictator. The bourgeoisie
is, after all, a very divided and conflicted (competitive) class. By and
large it prefers to concentrate on running its businesses, and to hire
professionals to manage its government and other institutions (with
exceptions, such as Trump, a businessman but also an entertainer). This
is organized through the electoral system.
The other main function is to bamboozle the working people into
believing that the system works for them, that they rule the state, that
they are a free people. Even when they are cynical about the system,
they think this is the best that can be done. And there is some reality
to all this, in that they have a fairly high degree of personal and
political freedom and at least some (indirect) influence on the workings
of the state (within the limits of capitalism).
Perry Anderson writes: âThe general form of the representative
State-----bourgeois democracy-----is itself the principal ideological
lynchpin of Western capitalism, whose very existence deprives the
working class of the idea of socialism as a different type of State [I
would say âa different type of societyââWP], and the means of
communication and other mechanisms of cultural control thereafter clinch
this central ideological âeffectâ. Capitalist relations of production
allocate all men and women into different social classes, defined by
their differential access to the means of production. These class
divisions are the underlying reality of the wage-contract between
juridically free and equal persons that is the hallmark of this mode of
production. The political and economic orders are thereby formally
separated under capitalism. The bourgeois State thus by definition
ârepresentsâ the totality of the population, abstracted from its
distribution into social classes, as individual and equal citizens. In
other words, it presents to men and women their unequal positions in
civil society as if they were equal in the State. Parliament [or
congress and presidentâWP], elected every four or five years as the
sovereign expression of popular will, reflects the fictive unity of the
nation back to the masses as if it were their own self-government. The
economic divisions within the âcitizenryâ are masked by the juridical
parity between exploiters and exploited, and with them the complete
separation and non-participation of the masses in the work of
parliament. This separation is then constantly presented and represented
to the masses as the ultimate incarnation of liberty: âdemocracyâ as the
terminal point of history. The existence of the parliamentary State thus
constitutes the formal framework of all other ideological mechanisms of
the ruling class. It provides the general code in which every specific
message elsewhere is transmitted. The code is all the more powerful
because the juridical rights of citizenship are not a mere mirage: on
the contrary, the civic freedoms and suffrages of bourgeois democracy
are a tangible reality, whose completion was historically in part the
work of the labour movement itself, and whose loss would be a momentous
defeat for the working class.â (Anderson 1977; 28)
Which is why radicals must defend the rights of African-Americans and
others to vote, which are now under attack. While voting is essentially
a fraud, it is part of the complex of bourgeois-democratic rights such
as free speech, free association, the right to bear arms, the right to
strike, free press, etc., which are useful for the self-organization of
the working class and the oppressed. But in themselves, none of these
change the capital/labor relationship, the oppressor/oppressed
relationship, which dominates all of usâand certainly voting does not.
When the First International split between the Marxists and the
anarchists, there was a lot of personal and organizational conflict. But
there was one main political issue, which reverberates to this day. Both
sides were for workers forming labor unions. But Marx insisted that
every local of the International should form a workersâ political party
to run in elections and try to take over the state. Bakunin and his
comrades opposed this. In 1910 Kropotkin summarized their position: âThe
anarchists refuse to be party to the present State organization and to
support it by infusing free blood into it. They do not seek to
constitute, and invite the workingmen not to constitute, political
parties in the parliaments.... They have endeavored to promote their
ideas directly amongst the labor organizations and to induce these
unions to a direct struggle against capital....â (Kropotkin 1975; 110)
In over a century and a half of experience of various socialist parties,
social democratic parties, labor parties, Communist parties, Green
parties, and so on, it should be clear enough whose perspective was
correct.
Eric is completely correct when he concludes with a call for a
âgenuinely radical movementâ as âan alternative to the catastrophic
collapse of a disintegrating system.â He advocates, âbuild[ing] a
grass-roots movement that can advance a program of specific measures
that challenge the capitalist power structure...consistent with our
vision of a future society.â (32) In my opinion this requires rejection
not only of the Democratic Party but of the whole electoralist
perspective.
References
Anderson, Perry (1977). âThe Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci.â New Left
Review.
Kropotkin, Peter (1975). The Essential Kropotkin. (eds. E. Capouya & K.
Tompkins). NY: Liveright. Price, Wayne (2016). âShould the Left Call for
a New Party? Electoralism or Independent Mass Action?â
Anarcho-Syndicalist Review.
---
by Eric Chester
Wayne has raised several important issues in his thoughtful response to
my article on Trump. Both of us agree on Trump and the need for radicals
to remain outside of the Democratic Party. Yet we disagree on the
fundamental issue underlying this critique. For Wayne, âthe problem is
not the Democratic Party; the problem is âelectoralismââ. In my view,
the fundamental issue is reform versus revolution.
Wayneâs response focuses on positions that divide anarchists and
libertarian socialists. My feeling is that we should be emphasizing the
basic agreements in political perspective uniting all anti-authoritarian
radicals, whether anarchists or socialists, rather than highlighting our
differences. Still, the questions that have been raised are important
and cannot be left unexplored.
Let me start by clarifying where I stand before I go on to respond to
the specific points made by Wayne. Capitalism cannot be reformed. The
working class cannot move from the existing system of exploitation to a
new society based on cooperation and equality through a series of small,
incremental steps. This holds for both electoral and non-electoral
actions. Only a revolutionary transformation of capitalist society can
provide the basis for socialism.
Wayne points out that the reforms that have been won were gained through
direct action, not electoral gains. I agree entirely, but I would go
further. Capitalism is spiraling downward. The working class in the
advanced capitalist countries is on the defensive, moving backwards not
forwards. Even small reforms are difficult to win and usually result in
only a temporary victory.
Unfortunately, much of the Left remains within the Democratic Party. I
continue to believe that the Democratic Party is the graveyard of
radical politics and that a complete and total break with it in all its
forms, including Bernie Sanders, is an essential prerequisite to
building a radical movement in the United States. Yet this is only part
of the problem. Underlying the commitment to the Democratic Party is the
hold of liberal reformism. As radicals, we need to directly challenge
this perspective. My article sought to do both, that is it attacked the
Democratic Party for being not just a capitalist party, but for becoming
the capitalist party, as the Republicans become increasingly erratic and
demagogic. At the same time, the article also criticized the program
advanced by Sanders and the liberal politicos, pointing out that these
politicians deliberately avoid any direct challenge to the underlying
concentration of wealth and power that characterize a capitalist
society.
Wayne believes that my position critical of the Democratic Party leads
inherently to support for a broadly based progressive party. As he
correctly observes, this is a position widely held by those on the Left.
In fact, I not only disagree with this proposition, but I have written a
book examining the pitfalls that beset socialists who opt to work within
more broadly based progressives parties (True Mission).
The argument for a broad party was originally presented as support for
the creation of a labor party modeled on the British Labour Party. As
unions have declined in strength, the argument has been modified to a
call for a progressive party that would link activists in community
organizations as well as unions. Yet the historical record demonstrates
that the program advanced by progressive parties closely resembles the
positions advanced by the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. These
parties remain trapped within the limitations of a liberal reformist
perspective. Furthermore, they frequently maintain ties to liberal
Democratic Party politicians, even supporting them in ânon-partisanâ
elections. Ultimately, without a firm commitment to an anti-capitalist
perspective, progressive parties usually wind up by sliding back into
the Democratic Party.
The only electoral formation that I could support would be a grass-roots
party that is explicitly socialist and that puts forward a program of
immediate demands that challenge the existing system while pointing
directly to a future society. Such a party would have close ties to a
militant, direct action movement with its roots in both the workplace
and the community. Indeed, such a party would see its electoral efforts
as secondary to the actions taken by the mass movement.
For Wayne, opposition to any form of electoral activity is a matter of
principle. He raises several objections to the electoral arena, but I
want to focus on the one that represents the essence of his argument.
Anarchists have frequently contended that participation in elections by
itself validates the existing system and, furthermore, that it
reinforces the illusion that social change can be achieved through the
electoral process.
I do not find this argument to be compelling for several reasons. For
one, voting rates are very low in the United States and, indeed, in many
other countries. Most people are very cynical about politicians and
about the utility of elections. Unfortunately, this cynicism is usually
linked to apathy and despair, as well as the conviction that efforts to
change the system are bound to fail.
Furthermore, while committed liberals do believe in the electoral route
to social change, it is far from true that they are under the illusion
that everyone enters the electoral arena on an equal footing. On the
contrary, there are frequent complaints from progressives concerning the
efforts of rich conservatives to buy elections. Yet liberals believe
that the system can be fixed, perhaps by capping the amount that anyone
can contribute to a candidate or by public funding of elections. Also,
they suggest, anti-trust laws could be used to break up media
monopolies. This set of measures is consistent with the pattern followed
by liberal reformists. They are convinced that the existing system can
be fixed from within. One has to be pragmatic and come up with a
patchwork of reforms that can modify the system to make it fairer.
Radicals need to contest this analysis, pointing out that the way
elections are rigged is embedded in the essential logic of the
capitalist system.
Finally, I donât believe that a candidate presenting an explicitly
anti-capitalist program validates the existing system. Instead, radical
candidates can use the electoral arena as a platform to reach the
working class with the message that fundamental change is both necessary
and possible, and that it cannot be won through the ballot box. Debs
stood on exactly this perspective. Indeed, he was so effective that the
powers that be went out of their way to silence him by confining him to
jail.
Wayne correctly places the debates within the First International in the
context of political differences rather than tactical maneuvers and
personality disputes. Marx insisted that the formation of a working
class party should be a priority objective in every country, no matter
what its traditions and circumstances were. Bakunin and the anarchists
opposed this dictum and, in my view, they were correct. Yet Bakuninâs
position, as supported by Wayne, is just as rigid, that is the total
rejection of any form of electoral activity.
From my perspective, participation in the electoral arena is a strategic
option that has to be determined in the specific circumstances as they
arise in a specific country. There are times when standing candidates
may be a useful means of articulating an anti-capitalist perspective and
be helpful in building a mass movement that can challenge the existing
system. Yet there are also many situations when electoral activity is
not a viable option and will only drain scarce energy and resources.
Given the de-politicization of much of the working class and the
weakness of the radical Left in the United States, the formation of a
viable radical party seems unlikely at this moment. Instead, the
priority would seem to be the creation of a network of anarchists and
radical socialists that can present an alternative vision of politics
while participating as a radical presence within direct action
campaigns.
References
Eric Thomas Chester, True Mission: Socialists and the Labor Party
Question in the U.S. (London, 2004)
Eugene V. Debs Speaks (New York: 1970).
---
by Wayne Price
As is clear from his response, Eric and I are in agreement on most
issues. He even agrees that in the split in the First International
between Marx and the anarchists, the anarchists âwere correctâ in
opposing Marxâs insistence that every branch form an electoral party
(the anarchists wanted each branch to be free to decide for itself
whether to run in elections). He chastises me, however, for
âhighlighting our differences.â But I did not criticize his opinion on
electoral party building (among other reasons, because I did not know
what it was). What I criticized was his focus on the Democratic Party as
a barrier to progress, rather than on the inherent problems of
participation in the electoral process in general.
This is not a trivial question. Most of the Left is for participating in
the Democratic Party. Most of the rest of the Left (as Eric
acknowledges) is for building a new electoral party: a Labor Party, a
Workersâ Party, a Green Party, a Progressive Party, etc. So the question
of how radicals relate to electoral politics is pretty important.
It has been stated by Eric and others that my opposition to electoral
activity is âa matter of principle.â Apparently I was not clear. As a
believer in pragmatic morality, I do not much care for abstract
âprinciples.â My opposition to electoral activity is primarily
strategic. I am not discussing what individuals, isolated from broad
movements, should do every two years when there is an election. I donât
care. I am concerned what we radicals advocate to major groupings that
they might do: the unions, the African-American community, Latino
community, LGBT people, organized feminism, the climate justice
movement, the 40 % of the population which identifies as âsocialist,â
etc. What strategy should they carry out?
The Left focus on the Democrats as the problem leads in general to the
wrong strategy, namely advocating a new party. (Which Eric is not for,
but his essay also focused on the Democrats rather than on
electoralism.) The strategy I advocate is (1) non-electoral
(âextra-parliamentaryâ) direct mass action: militant demonstrations,
civil disobedience, boycotts, mutinies, and especially labor actions
such as union organizing, strikes, workplace occupations, and eventually
general strikes. (2) An opposition to the electoral strategies of the
liberals, reformists, and âcommunistsâ, who advocate either a
pro-Democratic or a new-party program. Whatever these radicals think in
their hearts (or in their position papers), they act to reinforce the
belief that the democratic representative state is âneutralâ and can be
used by either the capitalists or the working class.
To quote Perry Anderson again: âThe general form of the representative
State--bourgeois democracy--is itself the principal ideological lynchpin
of Western capitalism.... The existence of the parliamentary State thus
constitutes the formal framework of all other ideological mechanisms of
the ruling class.â This has to be exposed and rejected. So long as
people see the state as neutral, they think they can use it. Therefore
they do not see the need for a revolution to overturn it and replace it
with other institutions.
Eric says he agrees with me in rejecting âsupport for a broadly based
progressive party.â He writes that attempts to build broad progressive
parties (based in unions and community organizations) invariably tend to
be little different from liberal Democrats, at best. Based on his
research, âThe historical record demonstrates that the program advanced
by progressive parties closely resembles the positions advanced by the
liberal wing of the Democratic Party. These parties remain trapped
within the limitations of a liberal reformist perspective....
Progressive parties usually wind up by sliding back into the Democratic
Party.â
For Eric the basic issue is not electoralism. Instead, âthe fundamental
issue is reform versus revolution.â Well yes it is. I never said that
electoralism is the âfundamentalâ problem, as opposed to industrial
capitalism. But I believe that it is a more basic and general problem
than is the Democratic Party.
If, as Eric writes, âreformâ is the âfundamental issue,â then what is
the reform position on the state and elections? It is that the state is
class-neutral and can be taken over by the people through democratic
elections. What is the revolution perspective? It is that the state
serves the capitalist class and its system that it needs to be
overturned and to be replaced by a federation of councils and
assemblies. To write âthe fundamental issue is reform vs. revolutionâ
does not contradict my strategic position.
Eric says he is only for electoral activity if there is a grassroots
party, one that is explicitly socialist, with a program that challenges
capitalism, with ties to mass direct action that it prioritizes over
elections. This does not sound like much of a pro-election perspective.
He agrees that conditions for this are not likely to exist in the near
future.
In my opinion, I do not see any principled reason why such a
hypothetical revolutionary socialist grass-roots movement might not
sometimes run candidates to use elections as platformsâif they make it
absolutely clear that they do not expect to win power in the state
and/or to use the state to change society. What I object to is the
strategy (by this hypothetical revolutionary grass-roots formation) of
running in elections to build an electoral machine, which implies a
belief in the reform of this state and the possibility of using the
state to free the working class and the oppressed.
I am not responding to Ericâs argument that many nonvoters do not have
illusions in elections, and that many liberals also do not really have
illusions in elections but they are involved anyway. I am not sure what
his point is. My strategy is not only to discredit bourgeois elections
but to inspire people to see an alternative to electoral activity,
namely mass working class direct action (aimed ultimately to get rid of
the state). Most people do not see this now. In fact, the whole of U.S.
politics can be understood as a method of keeping the working class from
realizing its potential power in mass action.
Finally, I agree with Eric that, for now, âthe priority would seem to be
the creation of a network of anarchists and radical socialists that can
present an alternative vision of politics while participating as a
radical presence within direct action campaigns.â That is, to build a
revolutionary libertarian socialist left wing within the growing
movements of opposition.
---
by Ron Tabor
At the risk of alternately (or even simultaneously) boring and enraging
some people, I would like to indicate my views on electoral action.
I would first like to make clear two points:
my position is more extreme.
question until or unless either it becomes actionable (that is, somebody
makes a specific proposal for organizing, participating in, or otherwise
supporting a specific electoral campaign) or a very broad consensus
comes to be formed in our group around a specific viewpoint.
My basic position is simple: I oppose organizing, participating in, or
supporting any kind of electoral activity within the capitalist
political process as a means of promoting revolutionary social change.
And yes (horrors of horrors!), this is a principled question for me.
Although it is not among the top tier of my political principles, it is,
in fact, closely linked to them.
Aside from wanting to be more revolutionary than everybody else, I have
additional reasons for my stance. The most important ones flow from my
basic views as an anarchist. Although anarchists are commonly understood
as being primarily against the state, the more fundamental category for
most anarchists is the notion of hierarchy. Hierarchies are structures
of domination (authority) through which one individual or group of
people rules over or dominates others. Examples of hierarchies are
socio-economic classes; oppressive social and cultural relations
involving gender, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, religion,
nationality, and physical and mental ability; bureaucracies; states; and
top-down organizations of all kinds, including capitalist corporations
and political parties of all suasions. I see contemporary society as
being made up of a web of these hierarchies, with a small (wealthy and
powerful) elite at the top and the rest of us descending from this apex,
roughly in the shape of a cone (with its base on the bottom), that
evolves over time. Against this, the goal of most anarchists is the
creation of a truly egalitarian, cooperative, and democratic society, in
other words, a completely non-hierarchical society, a highly
decentralized form of socialism in which no individual, group, party,
social layer, or class rules over or dominates anybody else. Although
many anarchists (most notably, the Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin in
his book, Mutual Aid) have attempted to establish a scientific basis for
anarchism, I do not find their arguments convincing. They usually come
down to the claim that human beings are, by nature, cooperative and
non-hierarchical, and that hierarchies have been imposed through
violence, particularly the violence of the state, on the majority of
human beings. In contrast, as I have tried to explain elsewhere, I
believe human beings have (at least) two tendencies hard-wired into them
through the course of our evolution: a tendency to cooperate with each
other and a tendency to compete with and strive to dominate one another,
both as individuals and as groups. In fact, these two tendencies are
thoroughly intermeshed. Throughout much of our recent history (say, the
last 5,000 years), people have cooperated through the means of
hierarchies, most notably, the state and economic classes. (In what has
been called âprimitive communism,â the human tendencies toward
competition, hierarchy, and inequality tended to be suppressed in the
interests of the survival of the tribes and groups in which people were
organized. Yet the tendencies were always there, waiting, as it were,
for the opportunity to express themselves more forthrightly. This
opportunity emerged, full blast, with the development of âcivilizationâ,
that is, the state and class society.) As I result, I am not convinced
that human beings really are capable of living in a truly
non-hierarchical manner. However, it seems to me worthwhile to hold up
this goal as an ideal to aim for, and to organize and fight for it to
the degree I am able. At this point in time, I see my goal as helping to
keep the libertarian/anti-authoritarian ideal alive.
One of the things that flows from this, at least as I see it, is that to
create such a non-hierarchical society, it is necessary to utilize means
that are consistent with the goal. This is a major area of difference
between most anarchists and Marxists. Marxists believe that a free â
that is, a class-less and state-less â society can, and even must, be
created through the use of hierarchical and authoritarian structures,
specifically, the state and political parties. Most crucially, Marxists
have insisted that the immediate goal of a socialist revolution has to
be the establishment of a state, what they call the âdictatorship of the
proletariat.â Equally important, in their view, this state must be based
on the centralization of all of societyâs productive resources, what
they call the âmeans of production,â in its hands. In the Marxist view,
such a state represents âraising the proletariat to the position of the
ruling classâ and the âestablishment of democracy,â and they believe
that once it is established, it will immediately begin to âwither away.â
While I once subscribed to this view, it has become crystal clear to me
that it is absurd, a complete contradiction in terms. For to the degree
that society is collectively and democratically-controlled by the
majority of its people, to that degree there is no state; while
conversely, to the degree that there is a state, society is not managed
by the majority of people but, instead, by the minority that controls
the state. Moreover, once such a highly centralized state, one that owns
all of societyâs economic resources, is established, it will certainly
not wither away. Aside from some mythological law of history or âlaws of
motionâ of capitalism, whose existence Marx never proved, why would it?
And the history of all Marxist-led revolutions demonstrates this: rather
than the âwithering awayâ of the state and the establishment of
state-less and class-less societies, these revolutions all led to the
creation of tyrannical, bureaucratic monstrosities that attempted to
control every aspect of their citizensâ lives, including their very
thought processes.
Thus, while Marxists believe that hierarchical/authoritarian means,
namely, the state and political parties (either Leninist âvanguardâ
organizations or Social Democratic bureaucracies), are essential to
establishing free societies, anarchists emphatically deny this. In fact,
they argue the exact opposite: specifically, that it is impossible to
establish truly free â that is, non-hierarchical/non-authoritarian â
societies through the use of the state or any other hierarchical or
authoritarian institution. As a result, they do not support, participate
in, or organize hierarchical structures as a means to promote social
change, including and especially political parties. And this means that
they do not participate in, advocate that anyone else participate in, or
organize anyone else to participate in, the bourgeois political process.
To me, this precludes supporting, organizing, or otherwise engaging in
any kind of electoral activity within the political structures and
processes of contemporary society. Thus, I oppose forming, helping to
form, or organizing for anything like the Peace and Freedom Party, the
Green Party, a Labor Party, a mass (reformist) socialist party, a
Leninist-style party, or even third party candidacies, such as that of
Ralph Nader. Beyond the general argument I have just laid out and which
I think is paramount, I would add the following:
fundamental change cannot be won through the capitalist electoral
process while simultaneously running or supporting candidates or
otherwise participating in that process. Such participation, by its very
nature, suggests that one believes that such change can occur through
that process. In other words, it seems obvious to me that by
participating in the process one spreads illusions in the viability of
that process. Moreover, to the degree that we run, support, or urge
people to vote for candidates in capitalist elections, we are drawing
people into the political process, rather than encouraging them to
reject it. Today, more than 40% of potential voters do not vote, even in
elections involving a high turnout. I strongly support this (de facto)
boycott. Why would I want to try to convince them to turn out and vote,
that is, get involved in what I believe to be an inherently hierarchical
and authoritarian process? It would be the height of hypocrisy of I did.
in fact building a political party or some other hierarchical structure,
in other words, an electoral apparatus, to organize, raise funds for,
and manage those campaigns. As an anarchist, I am opposed to such
parties, structures, and apparatuses, and will not support or
participate in them.
campaigns and those targeted by the campaign (the potential voters) is
inherently didactic and elitist. It necessarily entails the idea that
âweâ (the organizers) are trying to âeducateâ or âraise the
consciousnessâ of those we are addressing. As I have written elsewhere,
I do not see what I am doing as âeducatingâ or âraising the
consciousnessâ of anybody. Such notions are appropriate for Marxists and
others who believe that they are the possessors of the scientific or
religious truth. In contrast, I believe that I am merely presenting an
alternative way of looking at the world, a possible way of trying to
change it, an alternative way of relating to our fellow human beings,
and an alternative way of living.
passivity of the voters, that is, to convey the notion that âyouâ (the
voters) should rely on âusâ (the candidates running for office) to
promote social change. This is one of the key functions of the political
process under capitalism. In contrast, anarchists seek to encourage
people to take matters into their own hands, to reject their elected
âleadersâ, and engage in direct action (as Wayne described) to win their
rights, needs, and freedom.
ambitious and often opportunists, who, while claiming to want to carry
out propaganda to further the âcause,â are or become primarily
interested in furthering their own political careers. Bernie Sanders is
a perfect example of this. The tension between this type of person and
those who really believe that they are participating in a campaign to
carry out socialist propaganda usually comes to the fore when the
candidate running for office wins an election. Such candidates are
often, even usually, tempted to take office in order to âdo good thingsâ
for the people. They then become involved in managing the very system
they claim to oppose. Under the reformist Socialist Party of the early
1900s, such people were described as âsewer socialists.â Serious
revolutionaries have always opposed this. Moreover, those sections of
political movements that engage in electoral action often, even usually,
become the chief forces fighting for explicitly reformist politics
within those movements.
While there is more to be said under this topic, I wish now to indicate
my views on specific types of electoral activity. I write this because I
realize that not everyone in our milieu sees him/herself as an anarchist
and shares my view about participation in the capitalist electoral
process. As a result, I am concerned to indicate what type of electoral
activity I might be willing to tolerate as part of a united-front effort
to win people over to my perspective.
I will not participate in or support anything like the Peace and Freedom
Party. This was an explicitly middle-class and reformist political
party. It did not even purport to be a labor or a working-class party or
one moving in that direction. (In fact, for the Independent Socialist
Club, the chief organization that launched and organized the party, the
Peace and Freedom Party was seen as a âstepâ toward the formation of a
Labor Party, although they kept this view to themselves. The founders of
the ISC had, for the most part, been members of the Labor Party Tendency
of the Young Peopleâs Socialist League [YPSL].) Moreover, the program of
the Peace and Freedom Party was so tepid that a good chunk of the
radical movement of the time (including the very organization the ISC
wished to build an alliance with, namely, the Black Panther Party) was
far to its left. Finally, the ISC explicitly counter-posed launching and
building the Peace and Freedom Party to a perspective of working inside
SDS, which it dismissed as being made up of a bunch of âultra-left
crazies.â
I will not participate in or support anything like a Labor or Workers
Party running as a âthird partyâ in the capitalist electoral process.
I will not participate in or support anything like a mass socialist
party that runs on an explicit or implicit reformist (and statist)
program, such as the Socialist Party under the leadership of Eugene
Debs, Norman Thomas, or whoever has represented the party since.
I will not participate in or support electoral campaigns of
Leninist-type organizations.
With all these formations, my belief is: one is what one does. To the
degree that members of a political organization devote their time,
energy, and other resources to organizing such parties or movements,
they become what they are doing. Thus, if people who consider themselves
to be ârevolutionary socialistsâ devote themselves to building a
reformist organization and promoting reformist politics, they become
reformists themselves. In the same vein, if those who consider
themselves to be revolutionary socialists take positions within the
trade union bureaucracy, they become reformist (or even liberal) trade
union bureaucrats. The history of the ISC/IS/Solidarity â starting with
the Peace and Freedom Party, including their recruitment of orthodox
Trotskyists who believe that the state capitalist societies are
âdegenerated or deformed workers statesâ, and ending with the
organization, or at least a significant chunk of it, supporting Bernie
Sanders in the 2016 presidential primaries â is instructive in this
regard.
I will not be a member of any organization or milieu that supports and
decides to participate in the above-mentioned types of activity. I
refused to join the ISC/IS until it had abandoned the Peace and Freedom
Party and indicated that it would pursue a more radical and
working-class approach. I have not changed my position on this issue. If
anything, my position has become more extreme. If some might call me or
my approach âultra-left sectarian,â I suppose it is now time for me to
âcome outâ explicitly as an âultra-left sectarianâ (otherwise known as
an anarchist).
In the interests of solidarity with those in our milieu who do not see
themselves as anarchists and do not support my opposition to
participating in any way in the capitalist electoral process, I am
willing to take a united-front approach. Specifically, I will not insist
that my position be adopted as the official stance of our group and will
not attempt to block efforts of others to launch or support a high-level
propagandistic campaign, that is, one organized around an explicitly
revolutionary and libertarian (that is, anti-state capitalist) program,
which, among other things, emphasizes that we can only win our freedom
outside of â and in fact, against â the capitalist political process.
Anything short of that, I will adamantly oppose.