Video: “Is an Emancipatory Communism Possible?”

“Is an Emancipatory Communism Possible?”
A talk by Allan Armstrong
Recorded Wednesday, April 13 at 7:00 PM at TRS, Inc. in NYC

Mention of the word “Communism” today conjures up visions of tyrants. Young people, even when they clash violently with the representatives of global capitalism in Seattle or London, call their protests “anti-capitalist,” not communist. However, anti-capitalism is not enough. Revolutions can lead to immediate feelings of intense liberation, but they are usually followed by much longer periods of defense, setbacks, and painful reconstruction. The 20th century was the “Century of Revolutions,” but it eventually produced so little for humanity at such a high cost, that it is not surprising that many are very cautious, despite growing barbarism. Read More

4/13 (NYC): “Is an Emancipatory Communism Possible?” A talk by Allan Armstrong

Is an Emancipatory Communism Possible?
A talk by Allan Armstrong
Wednesday, April 13^th at 7:00 PM
TRS, Inc, 44 East 32nd Street, 11th Floor
(Between Madison & Park Avenues)
New York, NY 10016

Mention of the word “Communism” today conjures up visions of tyrants. Young people, even when they clash violently with the representatives of global capitalism in Seattle or London, call their protests “anti-capitalist,” not communist.

However, anti-capitalism is not enough. Revolutions can lead to immediate feelings of intense liberation, but they are usually followed by much longer periods of defense, setbacks, and painful reconstruction. The 20th century was the “Century of Revolutions,” but it eventually produced so little for humanity at such a high cost, that it is not surprising that many are very cautious, despite growing barbarism.

Allan Armstrong will argue that it is vital that we outline a genuine new human emancipatory communism, which takes full stock of the failings of both “official” and “dissident Communism,” and which can persuasively show that human liberation can still be achieved. He will explore Marx’s vision, particularly as detailed in his “Critique of the Gotha Program,” which emphasizes the need to break with capitalist production relations rather than expecting a new society to come about through political changes.

Allan Armstrong, a republican, Scottish internationalist, and communist, is currently co-editor of Emancipation & Liberation, the journal of the Republican Communist Network. He is also involved with the commune, a collective dedicated to outlining a new communism for the 21st century. Armstrong is the author of  “Why We Need a New Emancipatory Communism” (http://thecommune.co.uk/2009/06/02/why-we-need-a-new-human-emancipatory-communism) and “The Communist Case for ‘Internationalism from Below’” (http://thecommune.co.uk/2010/06/06/the-communist-case-for-internationalism-from-below).

Presented by Marxist-Humanist Initiative & the New SPACE (http://new-space-nyc.org).

What Must be Changed in order to Transcend Capitalism

A forum organized by The Commune and Marxist-Humanist Initiative was held in London on July 5, 2010.  A talk by Anne Jaclard, “You Can’t Change the Mode of Production with a Political Agenda,” was followed, as it is below, by a talk by Andrew Kliman, “The Transformation of Capitalism into Communism in the Critique of the Gotha Program.”

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“You Can’t Change the Mode of Production with a Political Agenda”

by Anne Jaclard, National Secretary, Marxist-Humanist Initiative

Marxist-Humanist Initiative sees as a primary responsibility the theoretical development of “what must be changed in order to transcend capitalism,” and the engagement of workers, women, minorities, Leftists, and others in this work.  We consider this to be vital theoretic preparation for revolution, so people are not first confronted with the question after the fall of capitalism, while it is waiting in the wings to rush back in.

But in this work, we are battling prevailing Left concepts about how to change society from capitalism to socialism, concepts which rely first and foremost on political change: typically, first you change people’s consciousness, then you seize power by overthrowing the state and corporations, then you vote in (or impose) new economic and personal codes of conduct, and proceed to set up methods to distribute resources and goods fairly, to plan what to produce, protect the environment, etc. We get this sort of scenario from everyone from vanguardists to anarchists.

In fact, as the process of achieving a socialist society is commonly discussed, it seems we only need the will to have one, and the political power to enforce our will. In this scenario, it is assumed that politics is in the driver’s seat, able to override all existing economic relations and bad human relations as well. The history of the many failed 20th century revolutions is rarely examined, other than by people with theories of state-capitalism, in terms of the revolutions’ failures to break out of the capitalist mode of production.

I argue that Marx’s philosophy entails a different anticipation of what is crucial to socialism. For Marx, capitalism’s laws drive politics, not the other way around, and those laws must be smashed completely in order to begin to build a new society. Only a change in the mode of production will enable a new society to emerge and to be sustainable. While a break with the operation of law of value will not automatically ensure that all aspects of society will be made anew, it is an essential part of the process. It can create the material and social basis for women, for example, to continue their struggles until their ideas of liberation are fully developed and realized.

Left sees politics as in command

On the Left today, even most Marxist economists have skipped over the issue of what constitutes breaking with capitalism. For example, Fred Moseley responded to the economic crisis by saying last year (in “The US Economic Crisis: Causes and Solutions” on line at (http://www.isreview.org/issues/64/feat-moseley.shtml) that nationalizing the financial sector is “the only way” out of the crisis:  ”…finance should be nationalized and operated by the government in the interest of public policy objectives.” He goes on to predict that once finance is nationalized, it will open the door to “more worker-friendly options,” and concludes, “The nationalization of banks is not socialism, but it could be an important step on the road to socialism. The use of government banks to pursue important public policy objectives, rather than profit maximization, would be a model for the rest of the economy.”

Moseley doesn’t tell us how this would work. Aside from the fact that their current owners would resist nationalization, we must ask:  can banks pursue public policy objectives? While we remain in capitalism, banks depend on investors, and investors want profits, not social engineering. So there is no basis for seeing this as a possible stepping stone to socialism. In fact, such popular approaches to making real change must fail. Thus, advocating them only leads to unrealistic expectations, promoting the idea that through political and social victories, we can incrementally improve capitalism until it can be turned into socialism by voting it in. Read More

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