05/08/2010

class introduced us to the MoP, and its internal dynamics.

Marxism predicts that you can divide up history so it appears to be a distinct sequence of modes of production—each MoP is identified by its distinctive class structure, which has its own dynamics and its own contradictions.

the question that arises is whether the sequencing of these sets is random—or whether it has to occur in the way that it did.

if there is a 'link', then you have not only a theory of social forms, but also a theory of transitions. at its most ambitious, Marxism aspires not only to be a theory of MoP but also a theory of historical develompent.

the question for Marxists, then, is you have two 'regional' theories—are both equally plausible? is one of them more plausible than the other?

the verdict that Cohen tries to give is that the theory of 'directionality' is 'valid' theoretically. the core of Cohen's defence rides on the 'optimality' thesis (which imposes an extraordiarily strong constraint on HM—it insists that when any given MoP descends into crisis, the PR that replace the existing PR will be selected for the functionality wrt the further development of the PF).

the question that arises is whether this is plausible. for the selectional mechanism to work, of course, there has to exist a mechanism.

the verdict that Wright gives, of course, is a 'weak' version—they argue that the PR will be conducive.

Vivek argues that even this is not plausible—we have only a 'minimalist' HM that can be salvaged.

with this, the theory becomes so weak that it loses much of its 'explanatory' punch—the 'explanatory' punch now moves to claims re: “class struggle.” as the claims of canonical HM weaken, HM has now become a 'class-struggle'.

this does not mean that PF have no role. if that were the case, history would be a random walk.

does this bode ill for Marxism?

Vivek couldn't come up with a single reason that Marxism needs a theory of history.

there's not very much at stake here. for what Marxism is supposed to be, it's not clear that much is lost by not having a theory of history.

it's useful to clarify that Brenner's theory is not an 'open' theory—it is a 'production relations' determinism, but not 'productive forces' determinism.

05/01/2010

Moody's framework for understanding the rise of neoliberalism is quite different from the work that's currently appearing. This work tends to focus on 'electoral coalitions'--the decline of old voting blocs, understood in pluralist terms. Understood as the reintegration of old constituencies into new voting blocs (David Mayhugh). In sociology, there has been good work—it has looked at data on PACs and funding sources for politics. But predominantly it looks at it through two lenses: (1) institutions—no real theory, Vivek is arguing; (2) thinktanks—so the idea is that thinktanks generaate ideas, ideas float into the heads of politicians, and hence you have shifts. Political economy has been shifted off the table.

It's trivially true that there were shifts in the 'meaning' universe. But thinktanks were creatures of the corporate community, and the 'causal arrow' definitely runs the other way.

The approach that Moody presents proposes to situate these factors in an analysis of shifts in political economy—underlying all these shifts, he argues, was an underlying shift in the balance of power between classes. The escalation of an attack on labor in the late 70s, and the coming together of business in a class project.

Underneath this is another mechanism—what triggers the corporate onslaught is an underlying crisis of profitability. This, of course, addresses the question of why corporations mobilize at this point? ('leftish' answers have been given: the 'compact' between Capital and Labor was broken by the social upheavals of the late 60's, or by globalization, etc. Common to this view is that this resolution solved some problems—“Fordism”. Misleading for several reasons, Vivek is arguing: Capital didn't 'agree' to anything. It agreed to 'live' with what was imposed upon it. It never was a compromise. It was 'muted hostility'. The only reason it put up with it was because attacking labor would have been two costly, both in terms of direct costs and opportunity costs. What changes in the 60s is the profits crisis.

Thus we are alerted to the fact that 'politics' is always 'political economy'--the space for political contestation and political alliances was affected by the tempo of capital accumulation (greater space in the 50s, less in the 60s/70s).

This is the theoretical framework of Moody's argument: that 'class struggle' proceeds in the context of shifting economic facts.

It is the shift in these social forces that explains the tectonic shift in American politics as a whole. What Moody is explaining, in short, is why everything shifts to the Right.

- - - - -

1. active labor market requires serious political strength, no?

nationalization as a strategy is threatening to capitalists. so the Swedes thought that they couldn't have both an active labor movement and nationalization, in the 1930s. the Fre7nch bourgeoisie, on the other hand, could live with nationalization, because you didn't have a labor movement mobilized in the same way.  

04/23/2010

New Deal was put into place through an intensification of 'class struggle'--that was the point of last week's lecture. (Debate took place in the 80's—started by Skocpol, who wrote about it as the action of bureaucrats acting against the whims of Capital).

The Marxist response was to say that she was partly right, insofar as Capitalists didn't want the New Deal. But she was wrong in missing the importance of labor mobilization. (There is debate amongst Marxists, of course—some refer to 'enlightened capitalists' addressing the system's contradictions)

What the readings therefore emphasized was the power of labor.

This week's readings attend to the limitations of the New Deal legacy. These do not analyze the weaknesses of the New Deal (a full analysis would have to include thinking about Southern Planters and the weakness of the legislation itself).

The extent to which Labor did well in the Golden Age masked, in effect, the weaknesses of the movement—these readings tried to identify the structural sources of the labor movement's weakness. Whatever the list is, it will include the following: though the labor movement grew, it was never able to extend unionization across a plurality of the workforce; union membership was regionally highly concentrated, which gave American corporations a serious regional flexbility—before 'globalization', American capital began a migration within the continental land mass of the US; the internal source of weakness was the defeat at GM in the late 30's, where the parameters of the agreement shifted to a 'committeeman' system, leaving the rank-and-file less necessary for officials (shifted towards a 'monological' culture).

Added to this is two strategic decisions: the decision of the Communist Party in 1937 to draw back from its militant line, and especially after 1939—this took the most reliable wing of the trade union movement, and effectively neutralized it; the civil war within the labor movement, as the Left was basically kicked out by the late 1940s by Reuther and co—related also, obviously, to towing the line of the Dem. Party.

Thus, by the 1950s, the trade union movement is seriously weak—even while it's still growing, of course, until 1953-1954 (peak of union density). Union officials now relied much more on partnerships with Capital. It seemed to be working, though, only because of uniqueness of the conjucture, i.e., the unprecedented expansion of the economy—no company wanted to disrupt the inflow of profits, at this stage. This, for trade union bureaucrats, clarified that an 'accord' with management was the future. What they were relying on was not a mobilized rank-and-file, but the hesitance of employers, at a time of growth, to attack labor at a time when revenues were flowing in. [Doesn't the Brenner reading also argue that this had to do with 'wildcat strikes', etc.?]

This, it goes without saying, masked the serious weakness of the Labor movement.

After a few strikes in the late 50s, a 'honeymoon' takes on the guise of a confrontation. The beginnings of a total war. You see a serious, noticeable 'speed-up' of the labor-process at the shop-floor—made possible by the fact that shop-stewards are impotent. They file grievances, but this does nothing, of course.

It's in this context, that you see an explosion of unrest—from the late 1960s to early 1970s, the mid-west is rocked by a wave and wave of wildcat strikes. Workers fighting not just management, but their own officialdom, as well.

Thus, serious fissures are showing themselves, in the 'liberal' order. By the 1960s, you see the structural weakness of American liberalism. It is after the upsurge, of course, that you see the full-frontal assault on Labor—Reagan, and the rise of the Right within the Democratic Party.

This week the important moral was the structural weakness of the Labor movement, even at its height, which lays the basis for understanding what it is that American capital is motivated by, when it launches its assault. They realize that they cannot recapture their profits without attacking labor: because of higher costs, and the welfare state that it supports.

- - - -

A big problem for T. World countries is lack of domestic market, which produced underutilized capacity (insofar as your importing machinery designed for bigger markets). Another reason for underutilized capacity is the lack of suppliers for spare parts, etc. [Important discussion here of 'racism', and whether it matters sui generis in determining whether 'farm workers' are excluded from the Wagner Act]

Roosevelt's AAA mechanizes agriculture—this has knock-on effects that lead, ultimately, to the collapse of the racial order, the agglomeration of workers in Southern and Northern cities, and the civil rights movement. In the 1920s, even the murmur of mobilization meant death—but in the 1950s, planters can accommodate this.

Why not organizing the South? 1. change from mobilization strategy, to corporatist strategy; 2. resources problem; 3. level of racial antagonism.  

04/16/2010

new deal lecture

question of the conditions under which reform under capitalism are possible.

the general argument, of course, is class struggle. but what is about class struggle that produces this?

thomas ferguson gives an argument that is reminiscent of botwinick's framework—concessions become rational when the cost of obstruction is greater than the cost of concession.

the consequence, of course, is that working classes have to impose cost on capitalists.

what ferguson shows is that the reform coalition within the american business community is constituted by the degree to which they feel the costs of upsurge—those that feel the costs of concesssions to labor the least, in other words, are most likely to feel the costs of the upsurge first (and can best afford those concessions, of course).

the second fact that these readings introduce is the 'blockian' argument that reform will be transmuted to be acceptable to the ruling classes, to capitalists. the mechanism for this, of course, will be that legislation will be shepharded through the State.

in these articles, the organization of the labor movement are black boxed. the lichtenstein reading foregrounds the micro-history of the organizing (chapter 7—the key point in that chapter is the inability to institutionalize the role of shop-stewards; instead, it had to resort to a bureaucratized grievance procedure as a means for expressing workers' power. this makes shop stewards a cop, rather thana mobilizer).

- - - - -

additional social organizing is not redundant to labor organizing, and maybe not even just additive—but possibly interactive/multiplicative. calling into question the entire social order, not just economic questions.

first new deal coalition as an attempt to shore up the old order (you see this today, too), but it didn't ­work (today the crisis has abated, and without a labor upsurge)

question of whether capitalists approach the state as an 'organized fraction,' or whether the State itself does the organizing of 'fractions', etc.

american political economy after new deal characterized by two things

1. welfare state
2. an expansionary push

04/09/2010

on ideology ('structured musings')

what is often times called a 'theory of ideology' is not, really, a theory at all. when you try and distill theoretical conclusions, it's usually fairly thin.

thus far we have explained—why class matters, the rules of reproduction of capitalism, how laws of motion work themselves out through the accumulation process, how the accumulation process leads to antagonisms, how the roots of the stability of the system lie in the collective action problems, and how that stability is reinforced through the State.

we have explained, therefore, the stability of capitalism without referring to 'ideology', at all. this is a stark difference to classic accounts. not just in sociology, but even in 'western marxism' (interwar period to 1960s and 1970s).

we've gone against this grain—a startling conclusion: ideology is not a fundamental or central factor in explaining the stability of capitalism.

so, then: what is exactly the role of ideology?

a kind of Gramsci-ism (mediated through Stuart Hall) answers that ideology is important because the working-class consents, through ideology, to its domination. but what does consent mean, here?

1. a resignation to being exploited. if this is what we mean, though, you don't need ideology—it comes from the structural limitations confronting the workers in a given situation.
2. something narrower—meaning that workers take their exploitation to being 'legitimate'. if that's what you mean by consent, it's most likely empirically and demonstrably false. the hold of this kind of consent on the minds of lower order is tenuous (sby the way, this was poured into gramsci by the post-althusserians. he's not to blame).

this means that invoking ideology here is probably mistaken.

so we're back to square one.

one of eagleton's suggestions: the main role of ideology is not to secure worker's domination, but enabling workers to make sense of their domination. to 'rationalize' their situation. it provides workers with a 'story' that makes sense of their social world. in so doing, it doesn't create social stability, but it does help 'reinforce' it. in sum: the basic conditions for social stability come from the structural context, but this is further reinforced by the story spun to them. [how exactly do we attribute analytical weight, then?]

note, there is no reason that 'ideologies' have to be false or distorted—workers may very well understand their situation accurately, but still have to live with it. or even, as Eagleton says, many a true statement can serve 'ideological' functions. most people who are confronted with a situation that they would like to change, are confronted by serious 'cognitive dissonance'--they'll probably come up with some kind of story [but this is a private conception? how about social roots of ideology?]

how does it do this, though?

by painting the social order as legitimate, it is traditionally said. but this is a thin reed, it seems—the assessment of social order as being legitimate is strongest amongst the wealthy [but how is this cashed out? surveys?]

Marx often points to two other mechanisms:

1. taking the social order to be 'natural'--you reify the social order insofar as you take it to exist naturally independent of your own practice.
2. not by blocking people's conception of the unwholesomeness of their situation, but by diluting it (roots of economism).

what are the mechanisms, then, by which ideology serves these functions? here's where we're getting into the 'murkiness'. where do these ideologies come from?

'ruling ideas as the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships' – saying that socio-structural changes generate dominant ideas, rather than vice versa

two important things:

1. a materialism that is quite critical, clearly.
2. but there is a problem, then—there's no mechanism to explain why these ideas, in particular, ought to be 'ideological' ideas. but unless you think that all ideas are 'ideological', you still need to explain how these ideas emerge that perform these functions. [possibility of selection, though? by trial and error?]. certainly, the same relationships and same experiences have to produce a revolutionary, critical set of ideas.

what is the mechanism, then?

'the ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideas'. class with means of mental production, etc.

the dominant discourse of a social epoch is one which is going to take a set of material relationships and advance them through the 'media'. notice, here, your firmest gruond here is going to be on the side of 'ideological production'--we have a pretty robust theory of why media, in capitalism, is biased [see chomsky]. if you shift to 'ideological reception', though, we have more of a problem. it becomes much more murky.

there has been a tradition in the understanding of 'ideology' that has advocated for a definition that's much wider (not a 'negative' conception, but a 'neutral' one)--the possibility of working-class ideology. Marx opposed ideology to science; Lenin opposed bourgeois ideology to proletarian ideology. and Lukacs, of course, takes this much farther.

if you start with a materialist premise, that ideas are generated from practice, then insofar as 'unjust ideas' are produced by that same material practices/institutions (media, trade union bureaucracy), it follows that a critique of ideas will be bound up with a critique of those insitutions and practices that sustain injustice and unjust ideas. all those institutions and practices which produce distorted ideas must be dismantled. [materialist theory of ideas vs. materialist theory of ideology?]

- - - -

Marxists talk about 'ideology' simply because the detritus of ideas heaped upon workers are a primary political obstacle to organizing. And this is also why capitalists and the State spend so much time on fomenting 'ideology'. 

4/2/2010

theoretical parameters of vivek's book are a bit askew from what we've been looking in, in this course.

two enduring forms of the State

1. welfare State
2. developmental State

wanted to show that the developmental State could be understood in the same frame as the developmental State. it used to be thought of as a 'third-world State'. and when the 'developmental State' came around as a theoretical category, it was understood a-theoretically. vivek looking at it as a 'capitalist State'.

the terms of this debate, though, were different.

the key concept that was developed came from the debate about the Welfare State, which was 'state capacity' – when Marxists say that the welfare State functions to perpetuate capitalism, they assume both a willingness and a capacity to administer to capitalist interests. this cannot be taken for granted; it has to be built.

because it has to be built, facts about the State itself are going to have a large bearing on whether and how State capacity is built. in the developmental State literature, this had a large impact. it came out of the context of neoliberalism, where the argument was that State's will necessarily muck it up (rent-seeking, or crowd out, or whatever). in every case, the State will harm development. this came out of Latin American stagnation—they squelched private intiative.

BUT: by the late 80's/early 90's you had a growth miracle in E. Asia. and you had extensive State intervention. what the developmental State literature argued was that what distinguished these States was 'State capacity'--they had the capacity to intervene successfully. the question was not State intervention, but the quality of State intervention.

the question that was not asked, however, is how State capacity gets built. the argument, when it was made, was as simple as, well, politicans built it (Peter Evans' book is a partial answer—you need good bureaucracy and good ties to the private sector. But even here the answer is not given as to the origins).

in vivek's book, there were two cases: India and Korea. in the former, it was a failure; in the latter, a success. difference was capacity. why?

easy answer: gift of long historical process. determined at the outset, in a sense.

but neither country had much of a developmental apparatus, when it started out. that means that there was a punctuated period of State building. in Korea, this was successful. in India, not.

the answer that vivek gives is that it has to do with the reaction of the capitalist class to State-building. this was novel because it was assumed, prior to this, that capitalists don't matter, because these were poor countries. but in fact, vivek shows that the opposite was true.

what it shows, then, is that the developmental State was constrained by bourgeois power because the caiptalist class was able to forestall State-building. the attempt, then, was to bring

why did the Indian capitalist class rebel?

- - - - - - -

remember, the two theoretical arguments re: the State

1. instrumentalist accounts
2. structuralist account, the most important of which has to do with 'business confidence'

theda skocpol offers an account of 'full autonomy' – that the State can ride roughshod over the capitalists, if it will.

in dev. state literature, the notion of State-centeredness was at its height in the late 1980's, mid-1990's. it was a counter to the neoliberal arguments that had been dominant, at this time, after the Latin American collapse in the 1980's (those countries where States had intervened, in the past). the only way, it was said, to accelerate the pace of Capitalist development was for it to become a 'nightwatchman State'.

Amsden and Wade upset this apple-cart. it was not the fact of State intervention that determines the outcome, but rather the quality.

well, what conduces high-quality State-intervention? the answer that emerged was: States with adequate capacity. if the State has this ability, then, it can overcome the obstacles people pointed to (obstacles were rent-seeking on the part of private agents, and State predation).

KEY--one argument could have been about the 'social setting'--a kind of Marxist account, about the history of the two countries, etc. in Left literature, there had been this notion that in the Third World, classes are underdeveloped (Hamza Alavi). the idea, here, being that States are much more powerful, viz-a-viz social classes. the only actor that was seen as being capable of upsetting the State's agenda was the landed class. this literature in Latin America, and elsewhere, always points to the absence of land reform. as an economic fact, certainly, but as a political fact (the power of landlords). this, however, was an inference; it wasn't an argument. nowhere was the industrial bourgeoisie seen as being capable of blocking the State's agenda. [a subsidiary argument was that, even if industrialists do matter, why would they care? it's going to be a State, for them—capitalists were thought to be natural allies of the developmental State.]

a very powerful argument at the time was that Korea succeeded, at the time, because it was an authoritarian State. vivek's argument is that the opposite was the case, in fact (to be developed, later) – in an authoritarian state, a class that you should find that is unable to impose its will on the political process, in fact, is labor, not capital. it's true, maybe, that your control over labor might make capitalists more amenable to a partnership. four countries: taiwan, korea, france (45-68), japan (54-mid 1980's)--'successful capitalist planning'. the latter two were democratic states].

the argument in the Korean State is that, even when the State controls finance, it is subservient to capital. example being given is the switch to heavy industry in Korea in 1973. control of finance is only a weapon when capitalists have a high demand for finance, which presupposes 'business confidence'.

[if military takes on capital, workers may lose jobs. if workers take on capital, capital loses its power of the 'investment strike,' because work is already stopped]. think through this.

in both India and China, Nehru and Park have political hegemony. Nehru could have pursued his agenda, but political elite pointed to the go-slow. In Park the political rivals didn't have the support of the capitalist class. this is key, clarifies the impotency of a 'within-state' argument.

the question of land reform—if the book had been about growth, then land reform would have had to be in the book. what vivek is looking at is one part of what explains growth, which is State capacity. [key--absence of land reform increases the incentives for capitalists to ignore plan directives. planning, remember, is premised on the notion that capitalists pursue industries that have high private returns but low social returns (luxury good sectors, niche sectors, etc.). highly unequal income distributions, which follow from failed land reform, give rise to these kinds of sectors. so land reform does matter, in this sense.]

[thinking about brazil, chile, etc., and the transition of the 1920's/1930's/1940's] what about the landed class? it wipes out the dominant, landlord class. the immediate reason is because the evidence didn't show any landlord influence (found one petition from landlords). all of the two-dozen business organizations expressed their opposition to this legislation. what that said was that they're just not a factor. why? what about latin america, and the supposition that landlords didn't like developmental state (remember, this is not about economic growth)? the commitment to build developmental states is really a phenomenon of the post-1930s; the commitment to industrialization starts in the Great Depression, mostly as a necessity (because third world countries are cut off from their markets). when you compare the two threats, is it not the switch to rapid industrialization, rather than the switch to the developmental state that threatens them? industrialization, remember, threatens to wipe out the landed class. the supposition is that industrialization rendered them politically helpless—how do you get the onset of developmental states/industrialization without land reform? the explanatory task, here, would be to understand how the power bloc shifted in the 1930's and the 1940's.

from 1960-1975, India was far less corrupt than Korea. today, the most corrupt state in the world is also the world's fastest growing economy. [cf. Mushtaq Khan]

Japanese multinationals in Korea were using the country as an export platform; European and American multinationals used India as a home market, blocking Indian access to the American market.

size of the domestic market (domestic demand) does not produce an export-led strategy (China, DR/PR). export markets are not more attractive because they're highly competitive (they're used as places to dispose of excess inventory at firesale prices, sometimes).

two counterfactuals

1. you use the labor movement, as in France, to push a developmental State, then you push them out. labor has a role in state installation, but nothing in State reproduction.
2. you would have had a social-democratic developmental State. so it's important not to think of ISI as mal-development, ISI is a world-historical success. but, of course, pound for pound, India could not have matched Korea. [yes, ISI carries internal contradictions—but so does ELI. this happens in the mid-90's in Korea, they cease to be interested in a developmental state.]

- - - -

KEY, the question of the 'flying geese'--what Japan did with Korea, remember, is give them low-value niches, so that they themselves would have room for capital good exports. Korea and Taiwan do the same thing, later, with South East Asia (and this helps the book's argument—Indonesia and Malaysia don't have developmental States, so they're not nearly as successful as Korea and Taiwan).

also, let's remember that Japan's strategy, re: Korea, is greased by the executive branch in the US (Congress is more ambivalent).

Two contingencies, in this book:

1. Opening created by the arrival of the Japanese
2. Park Chung-Hee's taking advantage of opportunities granted him by the Japanese.   

javeed alam, caste and left politics April 2010

what makes Left practice increasingly difficult in India? and not worried about leaving a pessimistic impression.

here discussing the failure of the Left to win over its core constituency (the 'peasantry').

the Left has seen a relative decline amongst this population [here, it seems, quite clear that the Left means the CPI-M].

the question of the worker-peasant alliance—and its importance, not just for the seizure of state power, but also for buidling the foundations of social democracy.

revolution, let's be clear, is not predicated on the depth of knowledge about a society.

here, then, speaking of the specificity of the class formation, in India. new classes are forming within peasant communities in India—you have a big growth of poor peasants, for example. but because of stregnth of 'caste', you have fragmentation—poor peasants are not coming together.

the way to understand this phenomenon is to begin to look at international differentiation within caste communities

1. a long period of capialist development, followed by land reforms, moderniztion, education, etc. after independence, the backward castes all became proprietary peasants, where they were, before, tenant farmers. new modern classes have emerged amongst the castes.
2. where land did not often go to the direct tiller (in the land reform), many dalits were forced to remain agricultural laborers. if the land reforms had been of a different nature (gone to the tiller), the pattern of development would not have come about in the way that it did.

within the class formation, the middle class (largely drawn from the rich and middle peasants) has also been in the course of formation within these caste communities. these are central to the process.

many larger/intermediate caste formations have been breaking up (the dravidian movement, for example, is breaking up)

a new, white-collar middle class, which is seen as the only path to success. and this unification under these classes is, simultaneously, the domination of the rich peasants.

this is a kind of absence of freedom which is forced, collectively, by one jat on another.

and also, the reality that the call for caste social justice (for dalit justice) is a bourgeois demand—there is hardly any economic agenda in the demand. whether it is a democratic advance is not germane, right now. but this shows a shift, in the conception of democracy.

major argument, in sum: casteism has emerged as a major phenomenon because of the decomposition of the consciousness of the middle classes.

caste has typically been thought of as a 'superstructural' pheonemon. here contesting that—the development that I have traced are conditioned by a historically-grounded material force (what has been the nature of the bondage of the direct producer? by asking the question, you shift the terms of debate from the earlier discussions. this is central, even today. because what you call the 'dailt', today, were actually the producing classes in india, either in agriculture or secondary manufacture. pre-capitalist social relations linger on, in the current mode of production. all these sections of society were made up of dependent jatis on the upper-castes—what is important to note is that the dependence was of a collective nature, which has long-term implications for the form of struggle that emerged later. the nature of the unfreedom of the producer was of a collective kind, which was different than the unfreedom of the european serf.)

[here, starting to say something absolutely absurd—the degradation of manual work, here, explains why indian immigrants come to the US and become white-collar!]