Democracy as a revolutionary Ideal.

In the work of Rousseau there is a tension between the democratic conception of general will as what the citizens of the state have decided together and the transcendental conception where general will is the incarnation of the citizens' common interest in abstraction from what any of them actually want. We might simply designate this as the tension as between the democratic and the vanguardist. The latter could be taken as a precursor to the Leninist response to the question "What is to be done?" But the former does not belong to any liberal monopoly as Marx took the state as a product of class antagonisms and a tool of domination rather than democratic governance. For the reason that the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, inequalities and injustice are concealed behind a veil of formal equality, freedom and rights. The elections are free with a plurality of choices for a voter. But there is no standard of these choices, they could all be the same. Then there is the cynicism which opens up a gap between what people want and the votes they cast. This is more like really existing democracy than anything like the ideal itself.

In one instance, Rousseau lays down a criterion to which no existing state can legitimate itself and only through the transformation of these states can they come closer to the ideal. This is where Rousseau corresponds with the anarchist tradition. The legitimacy of the state is grounded on the right conditions and right procedures whereby citizen legislators converge on laws which correlate with the common interest. But we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that Rousseau favoured an elective aristocracy as the best kind of government. Funnily enough, the elective aristocracy simultaneously has characteristics which overlap with those of the revolutionary vanguard and really existing democracy. It is an elected class which imposes and enforces the law, not much different from an administration really. We might see this as a bourgeois aspect of Rousseauian thought, but we could also see it as the eternal return of the same after a revolutionary break with the past. We should note that the structures of representation were few and limited in Rousseau's life time. He was dreaming of something that had not been seen since Ancient Greece.

It isn't much talked about the Greek experiment with participatory democracy came about after a long struggle which finally tipped in the favour of small farmers after the advent of iron-based equipment. The landowners had sought expansion through debt-bondage, which ensnared small farmers into arrangements that would leave them without land or freedom if they could not repay the loan. At the time iron was in abundance and the production process was simple to master, so it became very easy to produce iron weapons in Greece. The small farmers could then form militias, with the peasants serving as infantry and rowers on warships. The aristocracy had long had the monopoly on violence because it had held onto bronze. The convergence of such forces led to a series of popular uprisings which brought down a dictatorship and the successive aristocracy before going on to defeat the Spartans who intervened on the side of the aristocrats against the uprising. The radical democracy practiced in Athens was to last for almost two centuries.

The vision laid out in The Social Contract precedes the split between communist and anarchist thought. We find that this egalitarian vision seems to presuppose the abolition of the existing order at the time of which Rousseau was writing. Rousseau may not have seen the necessity of an intermediary phase of development before this kind of social order could be established. Moral freedom as non-subjection presupposes the elimination of dependency, whereby the individual becomes autonomous and can submit to a self-prescribed order. The attainment of civil freedom precedes this, it is the freedom guaranteed by its limits set by the general will. Out of this emerges moral freedom as a bi-product rather than the end goal of the established order. The general will being composed of our true interests, which means that our individual will slots into it and we remain autonomous. This could be interpreted as a kind of enlightened egoism, we pay taxes in order to maintain systems from which we all benefit and thereby we can go about our individual pursuits.

This could presuppose a democratic system insofar as it seems to lead us to the view that the citizenry should be bound by the laws which they participated in making. It wouldn't necessarily be so if we take the general will to be the abstraction of class interests from the class unconscious. It may be that the general will is initially the transcendental vanguard before it evolves into the democratic conception. The Rousseauian parallel being the transition from civil to moral freedom, though this is no teleology as the civil does not give way to the moral for the sake of it. Not like where socialism undoes itself in order to establish communism. The abolition of the existing order of things seems necessary to break apart the subjection of workers to dependency on capitalists. The working-class are rinsed of all value by capitalists and in return receive a small portion of the overall profits to live on. The capitalist class can discard people at whim, but they ultimately need people to squeeze dry. The breakdown of the dependency of the rich on the poor and the poor on the rich seems to be in accordance with the idea of communism in Capital - where Marx writes of communism as the rule of the associated producers. 

We can see the differences with Rousseau's vision and the really existing democracies in which we live. It seems utopian and potentially totalitarian to us. Opposition to the framework itself would not be tolerated for the reason that it would undermine the entire framework. But this is true of a liberal democracy, the entire structure cannot be undermined by opposition to the fundamentals of capitalism. There is opposition to the extent that the system can extend itself into, the competition of parties just embody the contours of interests amongst the ruling-class. You can't simply establish a competing social order from within a liberal society. Unlike in the liberal framework there is no exception for an exploitative minority or exploited majority. The exception might only be implicit, as the space carved out for slavery was by the "natural inferiority" of slaves accepted at the time. Equality and freedom were for a specific set of men. This is where the other exception comes in less implicit form, JS Mill wrote of the 'tyranny of the majority' in defence of the forms of subjection which Rousseau wanted to eliminate.

In a rare discussion on Newsnight in 2010 about socialism Tony Benn praised democracy as the most revolutionary idea of all. The reasoning being that it is a way for working-class people to participate in the decisions which have long been monopolised by the rich and the powerful. This huge concentration of economic power exists outside of the formal structures of Parliamentary democracy has to be fought against. This is the reason that Bennism - if it can described as a coherent set of ideas - is a blended mix of democratic socialism and syndicalism. The role of the trade union in the building of workers' control of the means of production in gradual democratic steps rather than the revolutionary seizure. So the ballot box becomes a part of an arsenal of weapons that the working-class can reach for in the battle to emancipate itself. The radical democracy proposed by Benn and others may not pose as a sufficiently practical alternative to the representative model of advanced capitalist societies. But it remains a cutting tool of critique in a time ripe for change.

When Nixon goes to China...

... Lower Your Expectations!

Only Richard Nixon could have gone to China to make peace with Mao, for it was Nixon who was the most staunchly anti-Communist of Republicans and had been embedded in McCarthyism in the 1950s. If the step had been made by a Democrat then they would have been torn apart by the right-wing media. Only Obama can legally enshrine killing American citizens aligned with the "associated forces" of al-Qaeda, even as the conservatives accuse him of being a 'socialist' and the liberals remain silent just to keep the Republicans out of office. This is the lowering of expectations that Alexander Cockburn talks about. The business of conventional politics is rooted in a kind of realism which forecloses any manifested opposition to the ruling-class. We can see this in Britain where the Labour Party signed onto the Thatcherite programme in the 1990s, which amounted to nothing less than an assault on the minimal living standards of working-class people.

The architects of New Labour were well aware that the trade unions would hang on no matter what, a large chunk of Scotland and the North would vote Labour no matter what, so it was only a matter of winning over the Southern middle-class. Under Blair the Party quickly dumped it's commitments to any kind of socialist development, indicatively the common ownership of the workplace by workers was abandoned. It was only because of Labour's history that it could hand over the Bank of England to the private sector and let the markets run amok in the NHS. So it should be no surprise that Ed Miliband has signed onto every pathetic decision of the Conservative Party to trash health-care, education, pensions and benefits in general. The opposition has been foreclosed. Now no one stands on the side of the vulnerable and the exploited in this time of great turmoil. No doubt if Blair was in power he would be pushing through bigger cuts than the Conservative Party could get away with.

So it would seem that the Labour Party is beyond reform, you can thank Tony Blair for that. In another sense then the ground is ripe for the radicals to tap into popular disillusionment, widespread grievances and the people's wrath. We need some major decisions, perhaps the trade unions should break off from the Labour Party and align themselves with the Greens. Of course, the unions won't because they're afraid that would forfeit any influence in Parliament whatsoever. The trite of Ed Miliband is the best they can hope for and clearly the unions have lowered their expectations. There is widespread outrage at what has gone on for the last 30 years. Now we have to think of what is to be undone. It wouldn't take much to reach out to ordinary people, we've seen nearly 1 million march against cuts through the streets of London. The Coalition of Resistance seems to have petered out since Ed Miliband gave a crap speech at the March for the Alternative. The Occupy movement is a good thing in terms of popular energy, but it is insufficient in many respects.

We can't lower our expectations and give in to this crowd. We should remind ourselves that it isn't all gloom and doom. Take a close look at the hubbub around SOPA and PIPA, what do you see? So Wikipedia goes on strike because libertarian Jimmy Wales wants to take a stand for free-speech online. Can't you just make out one of the contradictions of capitalism prevalent today? The more the common is captured as private property, the more its productivity declines and yet the further expansion of the common undermines the relations of property.  Neither the state nor the market has any substantive answers to this matter. Both have demonstrated a remarkable ability to shoot themselves and each other in the foot. Jimmy Wales took a stand for free-speech and undermined property rights in doing so. The state acted to defend the interests of corporations vested in private property, but it will only reduce the productivity of the system if it succeeds. This is just another repeat of when Nixon went to China, except we won't be lowering our expectations this time!


As for the question of what's your alternative? We shouldn't shirk away from central planning even though it was largely a disaster in the 20th Century. There does exist a model for socio-economic planning within the current system and this is reason enough to not dump all talk of planning from radical programmes. In a capitalist system the markets are meant to provide coordination to an intricate network of firms, the only alternative is central planning to coordinate a network of worker self-management. The Left doesn't want to talk seriously about the question of coordination. The corporation is the most advanced, sophisticated and dynamic command and control system in world history. It is a profit-based planning system but the corporate model is not a free-market one, it sends order through supply chains to extract and distribute resources. These techniques of planning can be ripped out of the capitalist system and applied to an egalitarian end.

Brand Obama - Prospects for a Second Term.

It has become fashionable to attack Barack Obama not just from the Right but from the Left as well. We should not lose sight of the magnitude of the election of the first African-American to the Presidency, especially as it was slavery which built the White House and provided the material conditions necessary for American capitalism. But the election of Obama was not the fulfilment of the dream that we all pay lip-service to. The ideological goal-posts of America have been shifted under Obama in a way which was unthinkable under just another white male politico. With that in mind it is impossible to deny that Obama would be a better President if he had not backed the coup in Honduras and slashed the wages of Haitian workers in the aftermath of the earthquake. The same goes for the way Obama has extended the war in Afghanistan to Pakistan. Let alone the drone attacks on Somalia which have been conveniently ignored in the mainstream media.

It has been a long strange trip since 2008 when the first African-American became President-elect and the American people were ready to say "Adios!" to George Bush. That year the Obama campaign team won the award for the Best Marketing Campaign, with commiserations to Apple and Nike. The election was the subject of an enormous flow of corporate dough and grass-roots campaigning which succeeded in electing Obama. Soon the word was out that the US had finally gotten over it's silly little race problem, it had become a "post-racial" society overnight and just around the corner the 'birthers' were on their way to tell the world that the President was a "closet Kenyan". There had already been attempts to pin the label of Muslim to Obama's lapel, the point being to call him a "terrorist" without actually saying it. Soon the favourite substitute for the n-word was "socialist". By now we can listen to the odious Newt Gingrich calling Obama a "food stamp President". Notice all of this has no relation to reality.

There is very little of substance for Republicans to complain about. Obama has conceded on health-care reform (which were conservative changes anyway) as well as the Bush tax-cuts, the National Defense Authorization act and on the stimulus which was wiped out by cuts at other levels. So the GOP shout about debt and they would love to run on economic issues, but they can't win on the economy because their policies only appeal to the top income brackets. The Republicans need more than just the ultra-rich to vote for them, the Democrats can appeal to ethnic minorities, gays and women to seek refuge in their party. The GOP are in a truly desperate situation. It was most astonishing to see the Republicans take a contorted anti-capitalist position last year, when they tried to block the rise of the debt-ceiling and in doing so acted to undermine the accumulation of wealth. At this point Karl Marx would just smugly remind us that "the contradictions of capitalism work in mysterious ways."

It is common knowledge that the outcome of American elections are basically bought. Back in September, Obama had the lead on Romney with a gap between them of over $50 million. Now we find the Republicans have leaped in front of the Democrats by almost $6 million. In 2008 Obama raked in around $750 million which was far more than McCain could muster. The estimates for the costs of 2012 are running as high as $11 billion and probably about $2 billion poured into the campaign war-chests. The core base of the Obama campaign were the same financial institutions which caused the Crash of '08. The small donors to Obama's campaign should not be ignored, but they amounted to $300 million at most which still leaves $450 million on the table. Large donors have been donating enormous amounts of cash in small chunks as to appear as small donors in the stats. This is something the Obama campaign encouraged from day one and probably still does.

It is corporate interests which shape American politics and every so often there is a convergence with working-class interests. The Obama health-care reforms were designed to drive down the costs entailed by the private system on manufacturing companies. It costs General Motors $1,000 more to produce a car in the US than it does in Canada. A system of universal provision would have a significant impact on the deficit, it would reduce it heavily. This is why a national health service is an inevitability.  In fact the Republican Party put forth these proposals when Clinton pushed for health-care reform in the 1990s. The former draft-dodging pothead Newt Gingrich is still a defender of the individual mandate and Mormon vulture Mitt Romney imported the same reforms in Massachusetts. Both Gingrich and Romney have been attacked for this by the ultra-Right for whom there is no "pure" conservative. These are the people who want to reduce the deficit through cuts and no tax increases, but insist on a "strong military" which costs $1 trillion.

The deciding factor could be turnout in this election, there is an extreme disillusionment in the electorate and both parties could feel the brunt of this. But it isn't just apathy in this situation which could tip things over. The GOP are well aware that the White House could be seized if they the opposition simply doesn't vote against them. Remember George Bush only came to power because the GOP managed to disqualify black voters in Florida. On average the Americans who earn less than $100,000 lean towards the Democrats, that actually accounts for 75% of the population - which only had 36% of the vote in the 2010 midterm elections. The forces of reaction are well aware of this, thus the Republicans have opted to make it as difficult as possible for Americans to vote. It was conservative Paul Weyrich who told a gathering of evangelical leaders in 1980 "our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." Almost 40 states have introduced measures to deliberately hinder voters.

The voter is now expected to provide proof of citizenship before registering in some states, ex-felons have been barred from voting, in some states you'll need to produce a government-issued ID before you can vote. This would exclude that 10% of American voters, 18% of the youth and 25% of black voters. This is comparable to the use of poll taxes and literacy tests to prevent blacks from voting out the racists in the South. Ironically, the Republicans have pulled this off on the grounds that there needs to be tighter guidelines to eliminate "fraudulent voters". Naturally the same billionaires who bankrolled the Tea Party are in the shadows seeing to it that the cogs in the machine are well oiled. This could be the divine, or should that be satanic, intervention to save the Republicans grabbing at political power wildly. It's even possible that the GOP are looking towards 2016 at this point. With that in mind, we should remember the words of Hunter S Thompson "The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but to those who see it coming and jump aside."