The Social Sources of Solidarity in the 21st Century
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SOCGRAD MINI-LECTURES
by
Juan Inigo, of Argentina, continues to push those of us interested in the
potentials of market socialism to reflect on some of our implicit...and
untreated assumptions...in his latest post on the Marxist Discusson
Network, Inigo asks:
"...Where, from the supposed "socialist" commodity, [will] producers get
their free consciousness. It cannot be a product of the market. But the
market actually is their general social relationship..."
Inigo goes on to say that:
"....nobody has ever discovered the existence of this super social
relationship yet. Instead, market socialist resort to moral, ethics, right,
solidarity, justice, and the like, as the sources of free consciousness.
Yet, as I pointed out in my previous post, all of these are concrete forms
in which alienated consciousness produces and reproduces itself."
The operative question is, then, where does a transcendent social
solidarity come from???
I want to concede the general point as a critique of both capitalist and
socialist markets...as one who does some work in cultural marxism, I can
see that, in all market relationships, interaction is so meagre and
solidarity so frail, that persons in market exchange become mere objects
and instruments to the needs and interests of (most) others.
This forces one to look for extra-market sources of solidarity which
reaches into and carries interaction through immediate market exchanges
such that market exchanges are bracketted by a transcendent and supportive
social solidarity that minimizes exploitation, extraction of surplus value,
fraud and spoilation of environment.
Both Schweikert and John Roemer provide the social grounding for solidarity
within work groups...together with ideas for creating solidarity between
work groups and the larger community in which they function...Gene Garbiner
made this point a day or so ago.
W. Paul Cockshott and Allin F. Cottrell make a compelling case that
socialist markets can be more efficient and more economical than capitalist
markets. That argument is at:
http://www.tryoung.com/archives/194value.html
But I think the Inigo thesis is correct...we need to create solutions to
serve well a meta-solidarity as between communities, nation-states,
economic blocs and off-shore financial institutions...this requires much
more than solidarity and rationality within worker owned and operated firms
and between
WOOFs and their immediate communities.
If the key to transcendent social solidarity is, in fact, interactionally
rich and informationally relevant interaction, then one begins to look
around, in, and over market relationships toward parallel institutions.
Non-Economic Sources of Solidarity.
The family immediately presents itself as a source of solidarity...not a
societal solidarity but one that transcends mere self interest and results
in the kind of distribution and use of goods and services which promotes
welfare within the boundaries of those persons defined as 'family.'
But family in not enough...however large those boundaries.
Religious communities next present themselves as candidate for transcendent
social solidarity which encompasses and mediates market dynamics. Most
religious traditions promote a fairly intense solidarity within any given
set of believers but fail miserably when dealing with competing religious
groups.
Ecumenical efforts show some minimal success but exploitation and conflict
remain.
But one should not discount the future given the past of organized
religion; Pope John Paul will not survive the decade...his successor may
have a dose of liberation theology barely glimpsed in the Encylicals of
John Paul...and there are intimations of liberation theology in
Islam...both could be momentous sources of progressive solidarity among
their parishioners.
For some years, I have been working on that postmodern religious
sensibility which may help improve religious solidarity...most of that work
is at:
http://www.tryoung.com/dramaholy/dramaholyindex.html
Political solidarity remains confined to the nation-state and is, at best,
a thin solidarity bringing some meagre re-distribution of social needs to
marginized groups within a society.
The Aging of America has some interesting potential for meta-solidarity.
The AARP is the largest union in the USA. For the most part, the AARP has
sung two notes: Medicare and Social Security. But, of late, I see an
expansion of the writ of AARP to show concern for children, for the poor
and for ethnic groups...one should watch this process.
In recent years, since 1950, Economic Blocs may extend some limited
economic and political solidarity and thus transcend the nation-state. An
outline of the case for displacement of the nation-state is made at:
http://www.tryoung.com/lectures/076blocs.html
The UN and its various Agencies have some promise...enough to support, it
seems to me, by progressives and marxists. The World Court and other
trans-national legal instruments may work on behalf of a larger clientele
than do courts at local and national levels.
The State and the Law.
The Capitalist State seems indissolubly wedded to free market dynamics; in
the USA, the recent past has been bleak. The Supreme Court seems bent on
indivualizing both the source and the solution to social problems...leaving
all power in the hands of wealthy corporatons. Politicians, East and West,
seem to conflate the social power of a society with their own private
circle and their own purse.
Yet the possibility of an informed populist movement, informed by critical
thought and inspired by transcental ethics cannot be dismissed. There have
been few such voices in the past 100 years...and many of these met an early
death at the hands of the state or by under-ground Right-wing groups. If
Martin Luther King has lived, he might have been such a voice. But what
has been past in not prologue. Other voices in other lands arise all the
time; above the special interests of class, racist, religious and ethnic
elites, we may just, now and again, hear them.
The Legal Process itself may turn against its economic and ethnic masters
as the democratization process works through its many obstacles...the $35
million dollar judgment against a oil pipe line this week may fore-shadow a
more progressive law than we now imagine. Civil suits have exploded; they
are increasingly used as a tool against corporations which maim, pollute,
discriminate and conspire.
Today, the Internet is largely the domain of middle class professionals;
today, the Internet is increasingly colonized by mega-corporations. Yet
the internet provides a basis for trans-national organizing and
trans-ethnic interaction never before seen in all of history. To some
extent, the Internet will be what we make it...and much may be made.
Global Warming is a global issue. Restrains on national and trans-national
corporations...for the common good...may emerge. Loss of millions of acres
of prime farm land in middle America may help polticize and organize for a
more democratic political economy.
The other media; radio, newspapers, television, movies, books and music
have, in the past, had progressive moments. It may be too much to expect
that Journalism Schools and Professional Reportage can transcend the
selective power of sponsors and owners (if different). Yet news reporting
is better in year 2000 than it was in Year 1800 and 1900.
The new sciences of Chaos and Complexity teach us that causality is often
non-linear. It also teaches us that the interaction of key variables
produce surprizing, unpredictable and, sometime, progressive social change.
There are many such variables interacting now. I have listed some of the
key variables above. Just what kind of future we have depends, I do
believe, on how well we lay the groundwork for democratic socialism and
economic justice.
And On the Left: We have much to do in the next century. The Marx who died
in 1883 was a voice for that century; the Marxes, Lenins, Luxemburgs,
Gramscis, and Marcuses of the 21st century have already been born...we need
to listen for and to respect those voices. All too often, we have failed
to listen for and respect those voices on the Left which do not fit well
into our vision of Marx or our hopes for the future. Perhaps we can do
this better in the future...and on the Internet.