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My Response to Michael Albert: Revolution and the Democratic Party

category north america / mexico | the left | opinion / analysis author Saturday August 09, 2008 09:36author by Wayne Price - (NEFAC-US) personal opinionauthor email drwdprice at aol dot com

Michael Albert's reformist strategy-PART II

Michael Albert, co-founder of "Parecon," has responded to my essay on his strategy. This is my response, focusing on the meanings of reformism and revolutionary and the implications for a "revolutionary to support the Democrats.
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Michael Albert has written a response (2008) to my essay (Price, 2008) which criticized some of his theory. My essay did not discuss his theory of Parecon (“participatory economics”), a program for a new society, of which he is one of the two founders. I agree with much of Parecon, but do not buy the whole package (which is also my attitude toward Marxism). Instead it focused on his proposed strategy and tactics for achieving Parecon. (I made a similar discussion about the strategy of Robin Hahnel, the other founder of Parecon, when reviewing his latest book [Price 2005].)

From Albert’s response, I see that we are talking past each other, due to different assumptions. This is even though we are both for the ending of capitalism and its replacement with a radically democratic, cooperative, economy, polity, and society. As he says of my essay, “We immediately enter a zone of confusion - or at least I do… which will simply escalate from here.” Certain it is that he believes I misunderstand him! And he writes whole paragraphs speculating on what I really mean. Since I accuse him of reformism, he wonders whether or not I support the struggle for reforms (Yes, I do). Since I doubt that a revolution could be nonviolent, he wonders whether I am for immediately building a guerilla army (No, I am not). Since I say that his strategy is “fatally flawed” and that he “crosses the class line” in voting for the Democratic Party, he claims that I am labeling him a “class enemy” (I do not). Since I advocate socialist revolution, he says that I sound like “Lenin and Trotsky;” this implies that I do not sound like what I am, a revolutionary class struggle anarchist rooted in the tradition of anarchist-communism. In order to understand revolutionary anarchism, Albert was not obliged to have read my other essays on www.Anarkismo.net or my book on the nature of the state (Price, 2007). But it wouldn’t have hurt.

Given the lack of space and time, I am not going to discuss every argument of his in detail nor follow every side topic he raises. Instead I will cover two subjects: (1) the meanings of revolution and reformism and (2) the significance of voting for the Democrats.

(1) The Meanings of Revolution and Reformism



Albert repeats his basic definitions of reformism and of revolution. To him, reformism means to keep society essentially as it is, with only minor changes (reformism = liberalism). Revolution, as he defines it, means to basically transform society. Of course, I cannot argue that a definition is “wrong.” I can only argue that it is not useful. In particular, Albert’s set of definitions leaves no space for reform socialism, that is, for a movement which wants to make fundamental changes (like his definition of revolution) but believes that the way to do this is by making step-by-step, peaceful, gradual, reforms (like his definition of reformism). Historically, his definitions provide no labels for the pre-World War II German Social Democratic Party and British Labor Party. Their leaders and their ranks claimed to be for a new, socialist, society, but did not believe that revolution was needed. Or for the pre-World War I German Social Democratic Party, whose key leaders (e.g. Kautsky) and many members believed that someday a revolution would be needed, but meanwhile only reformist strategies were valid. Another example was Proudhon, the “father of anarchism;” he advocated a totally new society, to be achieved by gradually building a cooperative bank (“mutualism”). All these may be called reformist socialists; the last two cases might be better called “centrist”: revolutionary in rhetoric and posturing but reformist in actual behaviors.

Albert believes that Parecon (socialism, anarchism, whatever) WILL BE a revolution (a new society). But he does not explain that Parecon WILL TAKE a revolution. That is, an upheaval similar to the U.S., French, or Russian Revolutions. (All revolutions began with the existing state having most of the armed power—which is what made it the state; yet revolutions have won.) Because, as I said, we identify with similar traditions, we advocate many things in common, judging by Albert (2000), to which he directed me. That is, we are for building a mass movement. We advocate raising reforms such as classwide demands for shorter hours without cuts in pay. We advocate and seek to organize workplace and community councils. We will oppose all other forms of oppression and misery. We will try to win over the ranks of the military (Albert includes the police).

What is unclear to me is why he is so certain that the actual changeover will be mostly nonviolent. Especially since he writes in his counterargument, “My guess would be about a third of the population would be aggressively pro revolution [meaning, being for a new society-WP], about a third doubtful, and about a third paying little attention, at the time when the balance of power would shift [his term for a sort of revolution-WP], but it is just a guess, nothing more. As to the army and police…I believe that movements for change will be constructing a new society from positions of being able to themselves define (and not just demand) innovations {another Albertian term for a nonrevolutionary revolution-WP] only after the military and police are no longer willing to crush opposition, but are instead won over to our cause.” Perhaps I misunderstand him, but he seems to be saying that while only a third of the population will be strongly for “the revolution,” yet most of the military and the COPS will be “won over.” So Pareconists will win a higher proportion of the police than of the general population?? (He cannot men this, I hope.) But what if we win most of the soldiers but very few police? What if the counterrevolution starts out with more guns, but we use the power of the strike…and the power of producing weapons? All of this seems more likely to me than any assurance that the revolution will be peaceful.

That Albert and Hahnel strongly desire the total change of our oppressive social system, I do not doubt for a second. What I doubt is that they propose, in fact, a revolutionary strategy. This is what I mean when I call them reformists, or, better yet, centrists. This is not name calling, but a discription of where I, and other revolutionary class struggle anarchists, disagree with them.

(2) Voting for the Democrats



Albert and I agree that we are very far from a revolution right now. But the presidential election is happening right now. This is a here-and-now test of what it means to be a revolutionary.

We anarchists are anti-electoralists. We do not support electoral campaigns even of reformist socialists such as Lula of Brazil or Chavez of Venezuela (in this we differ from Lenin and Trotsky). We think that electoralism contradicts the idea of building a self-managing movement of popular opposition from below, which Albert says he is for. Instead it involves focusing on a leader who you urge the people to vote into power in the capitalist state, where the leader can be political FOR the people.

However, what I specifically called “crossing the class line” was to vote for an explicitly capitalist party, and not just any capitalist party, but the Democratic Paarty, which is the second party of U.S. imperialism. It is the Democratic Party which has historically served as the death trap for mass movements. It is the Democrats which historically began World Wars I and II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, and whose presidential candidate now promises to expand the U.S. military and to step up the war in Afghanistan.

Talking with my liberal family members, friends, and co-workers, I do not try to dissuade them from voting for Obama, a pointless task. I do try to persuade them that Obama is, at best, the lesser evil, rather than a great Hope, and that the lesser evil remains…evil, even it they feel they must vote for him.

It is different when I discuss with “revolutionaries.” How can we persuade others that we think the Democrats are an evil force in U.S. politics, if we simultaneously tell people are voting for them? (That is, if we DO think that the Democrats are an evil force.) Albert compares voting for a Democrat to using a bank. But we have to participate in the capitalist economy, just to live. We do not have to vote. And voting means giving political support to a party or candidate, whereas banking has no such implication.

There is a matter of principle. At least when President Obama sends his bombers and soldiers to slaughter Afghani civilians, MY hands will be clean.

But what really matters is not how any individual vote, one out of a vast number (if our votes are even counted). What really matters is what large groups of people and organizations do. If the unions were to stop spending a big part of their money and personnel on bourgeois politicians, they could spend it on union organizing and on strike support work. The same for the Black community and other People of Color, the women’s movement, the Queer community, the environmental movement, and so on. For that matter, one large, successful, general strike in a big U.S. city would change U.S. politics drastically—in a way no election could. For decades—generations—labor, African-Americans, and other progressive forces have repeatedly supported the lesser evil of the Democrats. And for decades, the greater evil has gotten worse, the lesser evil has gotten worse, and the whole of U.S. politics has moved to the right. Lesser-evilism has failed. That Albert does not see this is astonishing!

Virtually every progressive step forward has been won through non-electoral mass actions: the sit-down union strikes of the thirties, the “civil disobedience” (and urban rebellions) by African-Americans in the sixties, the anti-Vietnam war demonstrations and rebellions, etc. When these movements were absorbed into the Democratic Party, they were coopted and died down.

In Albert (1994), he takes the left to task for not supporting Jesses Jackson hard enough. This time he writes that my opposition to the Democrats is plain “silly.” Instead, he suggests that I might vote for Jackson and even work for him. In both Jackson and Obama’s campaigns, he writes, “Did I hope and try to contribute to good results coming from both those efforts? Yes, I did.” But he assures us of “my disdain for the electoral system [and] Democratic Party.” “Disdain” is hardly enough. I cannot think of a better example of someone assuring us that he has the most radical beliefs, revolutionary even, but urging good old reformist tactics. When Albert reassures us that he is trying “to contribute to good results” coming from the party of capitalism and death, is he covering up his revolutionary beliefs or is he just expressing his own reformist illusions? It is hard to tell. It is not enough to try to be nonreformist; it is necessary to be revolutionary.



References


Albert, Michael (2008). Albert’s reply to this article. In the comments section. http://www.anarkismo.net/article/9513

Albert, Michael (2000). Moving forward: Program for a participatory economy. Edinburgh/San Francisco: AK Press.

Albert, Michael (1994). Stop the killing train. Boston: South End Press.

Price, Wayne (2008). Michael Albert’s “Parecon” and reformist strategy.
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/9513

Price, Wayne (2007). The abolition of the state: Anarchist and Marxist perspectives. Bloomington IN: AuthorHouse.

Price, Wayne (2005). Parecon and the nature of reformism; A review of Robin Hahnel’s Economic Justice and Democracy.
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/737

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