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From a thread on facebook:



I disagree with this. It really shows the social democratic/2nd international view towards reform but that doesn't make it right.

Germany was the most successful reformist experiment prior to ww1 and yet the revolution there was but a sputter. Russia, however had very few reforms, mainly to bring Russia out of feudalism, and yet it had the revolution.

Why is this?
Because a successful struggle for some immediate reform makes most people go to sleep. Reforms take place over time, so by the time a reform is won, the last one is 'just how things are'. It is also based on the consciousness raising theory of revolution: when we sell enough newspapers and enough people read them, when we have enough protests, when we win enough strikes, then people will eventually see how strong they are and seek to move past that.

The thing is, that's bullshit. We had that in Australia, and you know what happened? In the 1970s my uncle was a union delegate at a construction company and all they did was go on strike for a new pair of boots, or down tools because the awning was a couple inches too short. In other words, they used their power to get time off work and go to the pub. Yeah, that's awesome and you wish you had that kind of strength. But it didn't last. There was no reason to break capitalism, they just continually renegotiated the terms of their exploitation. A decade later there was aassive fightback by the bosses and the government (the Labor Party government) to crush the unions and bring them into line that lasted nearly 30 years. We still don't know if we are in that period or are on the way out yet.

People will start s**t when they need to eat but the shops are empty. That's it.

So support reforms. But don't think that that is revolutionary.



I don't think that's the right way of looking at it. The state is not going to accept anything that isn't beneficial to capitalism. Sometimes the appropriate reforms are impossible coz they will hurt individual capitals (even if those individual capitals are all capitals). So a battering ram is needed. The working class, in seeking these reforms for its own purposes is that unwitting and unwanted battering ram. If it is accepted by the state then it benefits capital. Higher wages secure labour and provide an incentive to mechanise, while only being possible because of mechanisation. Healthcare is necessary when the demand for labour grows faster than the population is growing. Welfare is necessary coz training workers is expensive and we can't let that training starve. And so on.

When those reforms are won, what happens? Capital is rationalised, workers become complacent. Each new victory is something less to fight for. This is to be expected. s**t is hard and really, outside a revolution revolutionary ideas have no purchase in society. Just a few weirdos here and there hold them. Most people have better s**t to do. (In case people think I'm blaming workers for not being revolutionary or whatever: I'm not. I'm saying objective conditions don't allow it. "The ruling ideas of every age are the ideas of the ruling class." After all)

When there's a sudden drop in living standards and food, then people will start doing s**t. Only then can the left intervene in a revolutionary manner. Until then, the left is just the radical wing of liberalism in practice.



If you look at 'the system' as a static thing then yes, nothing is really a good reform in the long run I guess. But I don't think that works against what I said, just the opposite:
Unions helped discipline labour in excahnge for high wages and decent conditions. This was possible because of the productivity of labour and was a necessary spur to rationalisation.

Once that rationalisation was complete, however, capital was actually being exported to the third world (until the 70s almost no capital was exported by the imperialists to the colonies, almost all was to other imperialist countries) with huge benefits in terms of absolute surplus value, I.e., lower capital costs. Because of this the workers in the advanced countries were no longer needed and the attacks began in earnest. (This is the same time the postwar rate of profit crashed as well, forcing them to look for new sources of surplus value)

So if we look at capitalism as a process, then eventually new reforms will be needed. In this case the reforms ******** workers in the first world over. Because workers are less needed, they need to educate less of us. So most schools get way worse. Because we aren't needed for s**t jobs, a decent portion of us become purely surplus. Not reserve army of labour, just surplus. Reforms get rolled back, and because it is not in the interests of capital to help us, we cannot possibly win significant reforms in the current period. (Point to $15 in Seattle and I'll point to the rest of the country).

Its not a case of the system absorbing a reform, its a case of the system benefiting from a reform. "All that is real is rational, and all that is rational is real" as Hegel said. When a reform is no longer rational, it soon stops being real.

This is why I think its useless to fight for reforms. If they are possible the liberals will win then for us. If they are possible then the state will do it anyway, maybe if under pressure from the working class. But if a reform isn't possible then why fight for it? So I think putting communism right at the front is important /when the class gets moving again/.

(I don't wanna be one of those 'you are not thinking dialectically' people because that is such a ******** worn out buzzword with no meaning now. But yeah, capitalism is a process )

And from a different thread


Here's the thing about leftist infighting:
Right now there is no class movement, so there is nothing any of us can do to contribute to it. What this means is that we can't discuss what we should do because in practice we can't do anything. So we are forced to retreat into thought and discuss how we should think. Because we are discussing how we should think, and not what we should be doing, the only differences that can come up are differences of thought, and these get magnified because we all have ******** aspergers and need to be absolutely right about everything.

Also, like I said above, there's lot of stuff liberals can do. If liberals can do something, then there is absolutely no need at all for communists to do it. It's just a waste of energy and time. If something isn't possible, you will just burn yourself out and disillusion yourself and others, so don't bother. If it is possible, liberals have better connections, have better skills, and have the organisation to do s**t. Communists should focus, then, on communist s**t. And since the class isn't in any shape moving towards communism, then there is no reason for communists to exist organisationally.

Because there is no basis for communist organisation in the class, the left is forced to look outside the class. Because there is nothing practical to be done, there is nothing to fight over but thought. The various parties become intellectual rackets, each staking out their own turf and defending it. Because we are in a reactionary period, however, almost nobody cares about communism, and so almost nobody joins. The focus of left groups is therefore not on recruiting from outside, but recruiting from other groups. Sometimes a group will come along and decide that it wants to recruit directly from the class. A laudable desire, but since we are in a reactionary period nobody gives a s**t. It just opens up the pool of recruits to a few dozen more people. Since the only way to get more recruits is to steal them from other groups, then there are two ways to do this: Try to be 'practical' and get results and appeal to the lowest common denominator. Or try to be more extreme and orthodox and so on.

In a period like this, Marx gave us the best practical advice through his example: Go to the London museum and read and participate /as an individual/ in what movements the class makes, such as strike efforts, occupy, and protest stuff. If you feel like you can't sit back, and you need to ~actually do something~ then admit it is for your own personal psychological well being and not because you expect any success or resonance with the class. And then do it. But nothing you do is or can be revolutionary in this period. Don't pretend otherwise.



They were a racket like every other leftist organisation. This is shown most clearly in how they were mixed up in extortion and drugs and whatnot. People remember the early panthers, but they leave that s**t out. Where most groups take the middle class road of being a racket over uni students minds, the BPP took being a racket more seriously and less metaphorically. After the struggles of the 60's, the general radicalisation quickly faded and all groups had no reason to exist beyond the preservation of privileges that came with being top dog in a racket.