What’s left of the left? Social transformation or social conformation: four points to discuss

7/23/2019 Whats left of the left? Social transformation or social conformation: four points to discuss

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Whats left of the left?

Social transformation or social conformation: four points to discuss

Jan Lust

Abstract: The current correlation of class forces in Peru makes a radical and authentic leftchange at national, regional and local level very difficult. As a matter of fact, the neoliberal

ideology has firmly taken root in Peruvian society. As a consequence, the Peruvian left is

not only affected by the strength of the free market ideology in society, but also by its own

ideological atomization that has caused confusion within not only the Peruvian populationbut also within the ranks of the left. This article is dedicated to clarify four fundamental

questions that differentiate two types of organizations of the family of the left:

organizations that point to social transformation and those that want to maintain the socialstatus quo. The article concludes with a call to elaborate a revolutionary strategy of

development.

Key words: capitalist mode of production, class, capitalist state, imperialism, revolutionary

strategy of development

Introduction

The struggle for a radical change of the development model starts with a fight over the

consciousness of the population. n fact, having the correct consciousness regarding thee!isting relations is an indispensable condition for a political practice towards the social

transformation of society. The current correlation of class forces in Peru, however, makes a

left"wing discourse that, among others, favors state"intervention in the economy almostimpossible. The radical neoliberal policies introduced in the #$$%s has enabled the ruling

class to make the population believe that development is only possible with the free and

unregulated functioning of the markets. As &aad"'ilho ()%%*: ))+ observes, neoliberal

reforms-have acquired a material basis in the transformations that they have wrought onthe economic fabric of atin America/.

The question of what is the left or, better, what is left of the Peruvian left has

everything to do with the actual political and social strength of those forces that favor thefunctioning of unregulated free market policies. As a matter of fact, in the current Peruvian

conte!t the strength of these social forces are not only inversely related to the strength of

left"wing oriented groups and organizations, but it has also dominantly influenced, or

maybe even determined, the ideological changes that slowly, but firmly, have beenintroduced within the left in the last decade. n fact, '0li! 1im0nez ()%#2 is completely

right when he says that left"wing organizations that are in favor of the dictatorship of theproletariat and advocate the e!tinction of the market are hard to find.

This article has the intention to contribute to a necessary debate regarding what it

means to be part of the left. 3iven the inflation of the meaning of the concept in the past

decade due to, among others, the lack of ideological and programmatic debate, we considerit useful to begin to mark some of the differences between the left that points to social

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transformation and those elements that also form part of the family of the left but whose

purpose is social conformation.4efore we proceed to outline the structure of this article, we want to make it clear

that we do not have the intention to discuss the ideological and5or programmatic positions

of the different political organizations and electoral alliances that have their eyes put on

short"term, mainly electoral, ob6ectives. 7e consider, instead, that all those who considerthemselves as part of the left should think in long"term strategic ob6ectives. These

ob6ectives cannot be less than to contribute to the taking of power by the Peruvian

population and to initiate a process that should lead to a society based on socialistprinciples. deas regarding such a process can be found in the conclusion of this article.

This article is organized in si! sections. 8very particular section elaborates on a

fundamental aspect of 9left"wing political thought that should have been discussed withinevery left"wing oriented political organization and5or electoral alliance. ;n the basis of

their point of view regarding each of these five issues, it might be possible to differentiate

between the left that points to social transformation i.e., an irreversible change of the

production relations, which can be deconstructed in relations of ownership, functionalityand e!ploitation< who produces what, for whom and how (=archedi, #$+>: $*, and the left

that 9favors social conformation i.e., those who belief in a human"faced capitalism and

think that by increased regulation and cyclically financed programs of social inclusion theessence of social in6ustice in Peruvian society might disappear. n section # we discuss the

capitalist mode of production and section ) is dedicated to social class. n section ? we

delve a bit into the question of the capitalist state and in section 2 we turn to globalizationand imperialism. n section * we present, as a kind of conclusion, some concrete ideas

related to the elaboration of a revolutionary strategy of development.

1 !he capitalist mode of production

The capitalist mode of production is based on the production of surplus value by the direct

producers and its appropriation by the owners of the means of production. 'rom this itfollows that the social relations of production, -comprise the relationship of the direct

producers to the means of production and their labour"power, the nature of any non"

producing owners and the mode of appropriation of surplus"labour from the directproducers by any such owners/ (=allinicos, )%%2: *2.

a relaci@n entre los propietarios de los medios de producci@n y los que solamente

tienen su fuerza de traba6o por vender es adems una relaci@n de e!plotaci@n tambi0n unarelaci@n de opresi@n y de dominaci@n. Bominaci@n econ@mica, social, polCtica e ideol@gica,

ya que la articulaci@n de estos elementos confiere al modo de producci@n capitalista un

carcter de sistema de organizaci@n social (general y especCfico. 8s decir que el modo de

producci@n capitalista en su relaci@n con las condiciones particulares de determinadaformaci@n social despliega un con6unto de condiciones especCficas de organizaci@n y

desarrollo socioecon@mico en cada paCs del mundo sin perder su carcter general de

dominaci@n.=oncrete capitalist social formations are never characterized simply by the capitalist

mode of production. Darious kinds of pre"capitalist relations of production e!ist side by

side with capitalist relations, although typically these are of marginal importance and aresocially subordinated in various ways to the capitalist mode of production (7right, #$+%:

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?)$"??%. Be hecho, estos modos de producci@n solamente pueden mantenerse porque,

subsumidos a la l@gica del capital, son funcionales al modo de producci@n dominante y a susistema de organizaci@n social. Por eso se podrCa decir que las diferentes formas de

producci@n que e!iste en el PerE, con grandes comunidades indCgenas dueFas de una

cosmovisi@n diferente a la occidental, donde el modo de producci@n capitalista se enraiz@

primero, son -aceptados/ porque son polCticamente y econ@micamente Etiles a lareproducci@n de la dominaci@n del modo de producci@n capitalista.

n capitalist society, the owners of the means of production are forced to transform

surplus value in capital in order to survive in the competitive rat race with other capitalistsand to e!pand its production< the ob6ective of capitalism is to accumulate. 8sta necesidad

los obliga a aumentar la e!plotaci@n de los productores directos, produciendo ms

plusvalCa, absoluta y relativa.A social transformation of society should imply the transference of the means of

production into the hands of society by a process of nationalization and socialization.

Political processes that favor social conformation intend to increase the economic, social

and ideological basis of the capitalist mode of production. As such, organizations that favorthese particular processes contribute to the accumulation of capital.

" Social class

=apitalist society is structured according to the political, economic and social interests of

the individuals that make up society. These interests are determined by ones place andfunction in the production and reproduction process of the system in place. The struggle

between these, principally, antagonistic interests determine the specific course of society.

The social structure of society might be understood in various ways. The left thatfavors social transformation does it in terms of an individuals relationship to production (to

own or to be dispossessed from ownership of the means of production. Those

organizations that favor social conformation, structure society (i in terms of the

individuals relation to consumption or the marketGan individuals -life chances/, asconceived by the sociologist Ha! 7eber (upper, upper middle, middle, lower middle,

lower< (ii an individuals relationship to 9work, or his5her location in the technical

division of labour according to industry and occupation (occupational class as conceived bythe sociologist 8mile Burkheim< and5or (iii according to an individual (or households

level of income, as understood by most economists i.e., as a statistical grouping of

individuals in relation to national income rather than as a social group in a sociologicalsense.

To structure society in occupational groups is helpful to determine the particular

relation that individuals uphold to production. Iowever, as a multiple range of occupations

are presented without establishing their relations to the means of production, to labourpower, to the reproduction of the system as a whole and to the relations between the

particular occupational groups, it is rather difficult to determine the common, ob6ectively

defined social interests of the individuals that through social struggle e!actly determine thecourse of society. To elaborate societys structure on the basis of the individuals relation to

consumption or the market and income groups has the disadvantage, apart from the ones

described above, that instead on production the focus is on distribution. Ience, of what ispresented as societys structure are its particularities or manifestations of a certain reality at

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a certain particular point in time in the history of a given social formation and we are not

able to establish the social and economic fundamentals of these particularities.Political organizations that point to social conformation have eliminated class as the

fundament of society, as the elemental 9unit for the analysis of the development of

capitalist society, and as the key for social transformation. 4y 9removing class from

society, the analysis of these organizations is concentrated on, for instance, inequality andpoverty i.e., on its superficial appearances instead on its causes. As a matter of fact, theories

which do not differentiate among various social institutions and 9identities, cannot deal

critically with capitalism. 4y eliminating class, the relation of e!ploitation disappears asone of the ob6ective conditions for the development of the capitalist system and is

transformed into a sub6ectively and individually felt matter (7ood, #$$%: >$,

The 9removal of class from social analysis makes the totalizing logic and thecoercive power of capitalism to become invisible and it eradicates the possibility to define

strategic power relations as well as conflicts between social groups (Portes y Ioffman,

)%%?: $. A social transformation of society can only be materialized if the owners of the

means of production, as a class, are politically and economically eliminated. The left thatfavor social conformation do not point to this ob6ective and as a consequence they, directly

and indirectly, serve the interests of the capitalist class.

# !he capitalist state

The capitalist state is as well the consequence of the contradictions between classes andwithin classes, between fractions of classes (structuralist theory of the state, as an

instrument in the hands of the dominant class (instrumentalist theory of the state.# The

combination of both theories, according to the left that struggles for social transformation,is crucial for our understanding of the workings of the capitalist system at the political

level.

The capitalist state is a collective of all institutional organisms that serve the

purpose of collective capital< it is an organ of and for class domination and oppression andhas the task to maintain the general conditions for the reproduction of the capitalist mode of

production. Therefore, on the one hand it depends on the correlation of forces within the

capitalist state that determines if, how and when production processes will be 9regulated.;n the other hand, it hinges on the class struggle if changes are introduced for the benefit of

the masses

n this era of neoliberal globalization it is been argued that the role of the capitaliststate is been reduced or minimized by the economic power of transnational corporations.

This point of view is wrong, as it not only abstracts from actual capitalist reality but also

from the political, economic and military practice of imperialism, embodied by the Jnited

&tates. As is argued by Hrquez ()%#%: #), the capitalist state is a central agent to e!pandneoliberalism. 4esides, as has been demonstrated by the worldwide financial crisis that

started to unfold in )%%+, the capitalist state intervenes to socialize the debt of privately

owned companies. n the specific case of a country at the periphery of the world capitalistsystem such as Peru, the capitalist state in the peripheral countries primarily e!ecutes the

economic and ideological functions that are indispensable for the enlarged reproduction of

#n Har!ist circles of the >%s, the character of the state was heavily debated. 'or reasons of space, we are not

able to reflect on these discussions. 'or these debates, see Poulantzas (#$>Ka, #$>Kb, #$+% and Hilliband(#$>%, #$>K.

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multinational capital. ;r, as 3onzlez =asanova ()%%K: ))* e!plains, the role of national

capital in the capitalist countries of the periphery, within the global capitalist system, isreduced to principally the e!ports of raw materials, occupying a place as intermediaries in

the metropolis of the countries of the 9&outh.

The left that 9promotes processes of social conformation, in line with a civil society

discourse, does not consider the organisms of the capitalist state as class adversaries butinstead as partners. 4y bluntly accepting capitalist state institutions, they implicitly support

and maintain the dictatorship of a minority over the ma6ority and everything what this

implies. A social transformation of society points to the destruction of the capitalist stateand a far"reaching democratization of society.

$ %lobali&ation and imperialism

3lobalization is the worldwide institutionalized form of e!ploitation and oppression by thecapitalist centre. t is the result of the continuously search of capital for higher rates of

profits, facilitated by the neoliberal prescription of abolishing capital controls, the opening

of the markets and favorable ta! regimes.

3lobalization is a class pro6ect for the accumulation of capital on a global scale(Petras and Deltmeyer, )%##: #%>, albeit its conditions are not, as in previous phases,

unilaterally dictated by capital from the centre countries (Amin, #$$+: #2#. The 7orld

Trade ;rganization (7T;, the nternational Honetary 'und (H' and the 7orld 4ank(74 are, as 4ello ()%%K: #?2$ writes, -key pillars of the system of global governance of

the neoliberal global order/ and serve the interests of the Jnited &tates and its allies in the

9Lorth. t is for these reasons that the term imperialism is more suitable to define what isbeen known as globalization. The use of the term globalization by policy"makers and

mainstream economists has the intent to mask the class"nature of globalization, the class

realities behind it (Petras y Deltmeyer, )%#%: K*.The relations between the countries at the centre of the capitalist world system and

the periphery are not linear or static. As is argued by Petras and Deltmeyer ()%##: #%*,

these relations -are dynamic and change over time, in part because the geopolitical and

economic concerns of the nation"state sub6ect to imperial power leads to a quest for relativeautonomy by state officials and politicians in these countries and protection of the national

interest at issue./ n addition, although capitalists in the countries of the 9Lorth and the

9&outh may have at certain points conflicting economic interests, however markedlydiminished by increased penetration of globally functioning corporations in the 9&outh, in

general, differences in economic interests and short term political ob6ectives are put aside

when the system is questioned or is in danger.)

The left that favor a human"faced capitalism or social conformation helps i to

maintain political stability that might be disrupted by the revolt of the impoverished and

hungry masses< ii to lock the population into small scale pro6ects as a mean to mystify thestructures that lay at the bottom of their particular socio"economic situation< and iii to

2The intimate relations between the capitalists from the 9Lorth and the 9&outh are clearly manifested by the

political practice of the Peruvian bourgeoisie. n the last two decades it was not only capable to implement a

large scale privatization process, but it was also the ma6or political force behind the free trade agreements that

Peru signed with a variety of countries. =urrently, the Peruvian bourgeoisie is the principal defender of the

interests of (transnational e!tractive capital, having succeeded in avoiding an e!tra ta! on the super profits ofthe mining corporations.

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develop small local markets as mechanisms for income generation and for spreading of the

capitalist ideology. The left that struggles for social transformation intends to break thechains with the capitalist centre, lifts its population out of misery and makes it ob6ect and

sub6ect of its own development.

' (onclusion

7e have the firm conviction that change in Peru is possible. Iowever, we do not consider it

possible within the boundaries of capitalism. 7e propose a revolutionary transformation ofsociety that starts by empowering social movements, providing them with the ideological

arms to develop and implement proposals for change and to counter the attacks from capital

and the neoliberal policy makers.The necessity for revolutionary transformation can easily be defended on the

grounds of general accepted development goals. f it means the steady and structural

improvement of the social conditions of a continuously growing part of the population, it

should imply a break with the commoditization of the basic social needs of the population,such as water, healthcare and education. f it also points to a qualitative increase of the

participation of the population in political and economic decision"making, it should mean

giving the e!ploited and oppressed masses the ownership, the control and the managementover the means of production.

A strategy that points to the social transformation of society inevitability has to be

based on the social consciousness of the population and their socio"economic situation as itis the only way to connect the pro6ect of social transformation to the reality of the masses.

n this sense, the particular synthesis of revolutionary strategy (long"term and development

(short and medium"term might contribute to break the deadlock in which, actually, arevolutionary alternative to the capitalist system of oppression and e!ploitation is finding

itself. 7e suppose that this strategy might contribute to bring the internal contradictions of

capitalism in the open and to forge the class consciousness of the Peruvian population.

This, which we denominate as a revolutionary strategy of development, has to be based onthose social layers that may put the capitalist system in check. These are, currently, the

indigenous communities that are fighting (transnational e!tractive capital.

A revolutionary strategy of development needs to be conceptualized as a processthat advances in accordance with the changes in the correlation of class forces, resulting

from the class struggle that evolves over the time period that the strategy is taking root in

the e!ploited and oppressed social layers of society, and is being internalized in theirpolitical practice. The ob6ective of the strategy is the advancement of the struggle for a

process that leads to a society based on socialist principles.

&tarting from a reformist perspective, the strategy needs to define, first of all, what

it considers as development in a society based on a capitalist mode of production anddistribution. This should include a discussion regarding the production and redistribution of

wealth in relation to the Har!ist concept of e!ploitation of as well human as natural

resources. &econd, it has to elaborate on proposals that foresee in a diminishing role of themarket in the economy, the creation of other modes of distribution and an increase in the

participation of the citizens in social and economic decision"making, at local, regional and

national level. 4esides, it should discuss alternative forms of government and the role of thestate in society.

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The fight for these Min the Peruvian conte!tM revolutionary reformist proposals

might be considered as a leap forward in the class struggle as these intend to break thedominance of the neoliberal ideology and contribute to generalize, by broaden its political

horizon, the mainly locally organized struggle of the indigenous communities to other

layers of society. Iowever, as revolutionary these reformist proposals might be, their

implementation does not have a lasting and definitive character if the bourgeoisie, as aclass, has not been politically and economically eliminated. n addition, these

9revolutionary proposals become reactionary if they are not turned into stepping stones

towards a society without e!ploitation and oppression.

)eferences

Amin, &amir (#$$+, -mperialismus und 3lobalisierung/, in Das Manifest - heute. 150

Jahre Kapitalismuskritik, Iamburg, D&A Derlag, pp.#?>"#2$.

4ello, 7alden ()%%K, -The capitalist con6uncture: over"accumulation, financial crises, andthe retreat from globalization/, in Third World Quarterly, vol. )>, no. +, pp.#?2*"#?K>.

=allinicos, Ale! ()%%2, Making history. gen!y" stru!ture and !hange in so!ial theory,eiden 5 4oston, 4rill.

=archedi, 3uglielmo (#$+>, #lass analysis and so!ial resear!h, ;!ford, 4asil 4lackwelltd.

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What’s left of the left? Social transformation or social conformation: four points to discuss

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