two logics of collective action, offie and wiezenthal

(171): against liberal vision, we assert that the 'freedoms' of the bourgeois world actually produce and reproduce "factual inequality on the largest scale." [this mode of proceeding is unclear, to me--why not simply term the liberal commitment incomplete, since it was never meant to apply across the board? or as negative vs. positive commitment?]

(172): sociological critique shows that inequality prevails even where we have political and economic equality [but equality in what sense, here? no guilds, full commodification?]. and surely you can have a philosophical critique of bourgeois society? all this is a bit odd.

(173): key--four properties of labor-power:

1. cannot be physically separated from its owner
2. does not exist because of the expectation of its saleability
3. it is of no use-value to its owner (outside of exchange)
4. the owner is compelled, therefore, to enter into a wage-contract

(174): political science and the 'interest group'

(176-194): distinguishing labor and capital on three counts:

1. input factors (176-184)--insuperable individuality of labour (178); atomized form of living labour vs. integrated form of 'dead' labor (178); multitude of needs, for labour, vs. just one for capital (179); capital can introduce technical change and lessen its dependence on labor, while labor has no such option (180)--the costs of being unemployed, for labor, are much higher than the costs of not employing labor, for capital; thus:L= three possibilities of resistance (182-183)--(1) individual (lose); (2) collective (lose, because individual interests remain unchanged); (3) collective, interest-changing (now you're talking--have to convince 'relatively powerless' workers that the costs of organization, are low--"redefinition of collective interests").
   
2. internal processes (184-191)--unions need "conscious and coordinated active paritipation of their members" (not individuals, not bureaucracy) (185); danger of size or organization decreasing potential power (due to bureaucratization) (186); bureaucracy/democracy balance (187); unions are forced to represent a 'totality of interests', whereas business associations deal with limited and specific goals (190).
   
3. outputs (191-194)--the State is much kinder to capital, than labor, because it depends on the former (191); the State is dependent on capitalists to a degree that capitalists are not dependent on the State (192) [questionable?].
   

(193): summary dichotomies (not that helpful, but can consult)

(194-195): liberal vision rests on 'practical positivism'--an individual's interests are exactly what they say they are (this gives you Carl Schmitt--dictatorships can only have democratic means)

(196-197): claim, here, is that likelihood of interest misrecognition is not evenly distributed amongst the classes.

(198-199): five reasons that it is easy for capitalism to recognize its interests:

1. in capitalist society, pursuit of capitalist interests is considered just/normal; this is not the case for workers
   
2. supported by the state apparatus, which depends on capitalists
3. has a 'monological' interest, insofar as individual capitalists can pursue their 'true' interests without consulting others (whereas workers require a 'dialogical' process)
   
4. a false notion, for capitalists, will be immediately corrected by the market
5. because of bourgeois hegemony, it is more difficult for the workers to shape their interests autonomous from capitalist influence; for the capitalists, of course, bourgeois hegemony is hardly a problem [question is, of course, whether this is what we're trying to explain]

(199): in sum--"in order to achieve an equal amount of accuracy in awareness of the respective interests, vastly different efforts are required on both sides of the major dividing line of social class."

(200): important-- the inherent ambiguity of interest explicit in the workers' position (they are objects and partners in the labor contract, object and subject of exchange)--all ambiguities follow from this basic one:

• between individualistic and collective improvement
• between political and economic interest
• between identity as consumer and identity as producer
• between higher wages and better working conditions/secure employment
• between individual competitiveness and class solidarity

(202): liberal political forms rely on interests that are already enlightened; they don't provide the means for individuals to discover their 'enlightened' interests (because of the encouragement of individualistic choice and of representation, they're arguing)

(204): liberal political theory cannot accept the second level of collective action (the 'dialogical'); the 'monological' is encouraged.

(206-207): three theoretical alternatives for unions, then:

1. an expansion of the 'dialogical' logic--this requires nothing less than a model of socialist transformation.
   
2. expansion of the 'monological' logic--this is a 'corporatist' formula, presuming imposition from the outside
   
3. the uneasy and temporary coexistence of 'dialogical' and 'monological' logics--this is a result of some internal dynamic, within the working-class organization, and will result--eventually--in decline (though, they will say, this is temporarily rational, nonetheless). it is this they endeavor to make sense of.
   

(209-213): three institutional ways in which all this has unfolded, within liberal political forms

1. limitations of demands made by unions
2. institutionalization of alternative interest representation (works councils, etc)--this dissocioates representation from struggle, they argue.
3. statuatory increases of diversity and conflict within unions--in other words, the strategic attempt to bring forward elements that have been coopted

(214-215): Rosa Luxemburg on "opportunism"; the notion is summarized, here, by three elements

1. inversion of means-end, elevation of institutionalized means
   
2. priority given to short-term accomplishments
3. emphasis upon quantitative criteria (recruitment) rather than qualitative (formation and expression of collective identities

(215): opportunism appears, in sum, as a "rational and unstable" solution to the dilemma of working-class organizations. it unfolds in five stages.

1. small-scale and militant conflict
2. here, the dilemma between dialogical and monological forms emerges--it has to recruit and activate members; but it also has to hold these members in check. it will, from here, go to Stage 3 absent mass class struggle outside of itself.
   
3. opportunist resolution--maximizing independence of functionaries, from its base (again, this is rational--it needs to secure success and escape threats to its survival [in what sense is this the case, though?])
   
4. it now loses all capacity to act, due to the separation from its base
5. the option of going back to stage I (reversal of institutionalization), or more-or-less decomposing (I think)

(219-220): in sum, opportunist strategies are ultimately 'self-defeating' and thus are limited in their rationality. they're ultimately degenerative (which means that leftists shouldn't worry as much as they do; and that liberals are flat out stupid--both of these people fear that 'opportunism' is self-regenerating). 'transitory rationality' of opportunism. [we ought to think more about the contingency, here--what variables explain or don't explain mass class struggle?]