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Seeking the Utopian: a Lecture on Erik Olin Wright's Envisioning Real Utopias by Russell Fox |
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I gave this lecture, more or less, on the Friends University campus last Thursday, February 23rd, 2011. It was a small crowd, mostly my fellow Democratic Socialists of America activists, but a few curious others showed up as well. I was happy to be able to talk about Wright's book; Crooked Timber has been planning a symposium on it for a while, and doing so is much deserved. Whatever the faults of the book, I think it's the most philosophically interesting and politically insightful work on socialism that I've read in years, and the more attention it gets, the better. |
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The final shot of that video might make a good launching point: "Can You Hear Us Now?"€? The supposed "realist"€? response to that is, "yes, we can...and so what?" So what if thousands gather to express themselves, so what if they insist that certain principles cannot be sacrificed in the name of enabling certain economic actors and activities to go forward? That doesn't change who has authority over such economic decisions, or the circumstances that they're responding too. As things stand today I am unwilling to make any predictions about the developments in Wisconsin--those protests are persuasive, but ultimately Governor Walker may be able to quite honestly insist that budget needs and fiscal realities justify his every action, and that kind of talk is persuasive to a lot of people too. Anything else just seems...utopian. Some early European socialists, looking at the long history of Christian experiments with devotional, egalitarian, even communalistic communities, more or less explicitly embraced the utopian label; the question was how to bring about this utopian condition. Some, like Robert Owen and his New Lanark community, believed that what was necessary was to build a "partial community" around the “whole faithâ€?; once the equality and simple beauty of such small, cooperative, communitarian experiments because known, their appeal would spread. Others, such as the Fabian Society of Sidney and Beatrice Webb, dismissed such thinking, insisting that what was necessary was to use the existing state and economy to get the "whole communityâ€" to embrace socialism one part at a time. (See the discussion of this distinction in David Leopold, "Socialism and (the Rejection of) Utopia,"€? Journal of Political Ideologies, October 2007, pp. 224-225.) The arrival and impact of Karl Marx's thinking upon European socialism starkly divided the Christian reformers and other utopians from "scientific socialism"€?; while Marx himself at different times over the decades expressed different opinions about various efforts to institute one or another aspect of the socialist alternative to capitalism, whether through unions or political parties or some other means, overall he was decidedly committed to the idea that the achievement of socialism depended strictly upon preparing the working class for the inevitable, historically and materially determined collapse of capitalism. Given that, over a 150 years after Marx made his mark, capitalism has, as yet, not collapsed, or at least not in the way Marx predicted--and also given that those societies which attempted to hurry Marx's logic along through revolution ended up being for the most part horrifically murderous regimes--provides perhaps more than enough proof than most people need to see those of us who long for something other than capitalism as dreamers, nothing more and nothing less. They have no need to listen to us. Well, Wright wants us to dream again, and he wants us, in thinking about utopian alternatives to the present system that really work, to dream broadly. So let's doing some dreaming right here, right now. Since we're in a university setting here, let's imagine a utopian socialist university. First of all, let's stipulate that it's free--no one pays any tuition or fees, and who desires to be admitted is, without question. The costs of keeping up the infrastructure and maintenance of the university is entirely covered by free-will donations, and they constitute more than enough wealth to cover everything that needs to be taken care of. Second, there are no restrictions on what you can study; you create your own agenda of research, and whatever that agenda is, it is treated with perfect respect, equal to every other student's agenda. Moreover, every research agenda is a participatory affair; students are encouraged to bring their work and ideas into the development of each and every course of study, and those students are treated as perfect equals by those responsible for establishing the courses in the first place which all these participants are drawn to. And speaking of those in a position of responsibility, here's the third point: they aren't paid. Every single teacher or researcher who contributes to whatever it is that any other person wishes to study at this university does so on a purely volunteer basis: their only reward is the knowledge that they are part of grand educational project, one which contributes to the common good of humanity and the enlightenment of the human race. What is this utopian socialist university? Any guesses? One hint: it really exists, and it turned 10 years old on January 15th, 2011. That's right: it's Wikipedia. The obvious objection is that Wikipedia isn't a university; it's an encyclopedia, and one that exists solely on the internet for that matter. As such, it has no "real world"€? presence, and so presumably can't count as evidence of a "real utopia." €? Some of these objections could be countered, or at least played with, but for my purposes here I will grant all of them. It's not a real utopia; it's a marvelous bit of evolving web-design and collaborative programming, one that depends upon what is called "crowdsourcing," or turning the goal of a project--in this case, the constant compiling, updating, editing, revising, critiquing, and promoting of any and all information that any given participant my think it valuable to share--over to whomever responds to the opportunity to be part of said project, whatever their level (or lack thereof) of accountability and expertise. All in all, it is something which academics like myself can't possibly avoid and yet also find ourselves tearing our hair out over, especially when we get a paper handed in to us which is nothing but Wikipedia citations (that's not counting the papers which are just cut-and-pasted Wikipedia entries themselves). As an open-ended internet resource, it provides no credentials, which are the life-blood of any modern university's bottom-line, and no direction, meaning that anything one wishes to do with it counts equally as a "course of study."€? So no, Wikipedia is not a utopian solution to the many struggles which face universities today. (And of course, all of these arguably virtuous characteristics which I associate with Wikipedia can be disputed; the accusations about its biases, inaccuracies, and other problems are legion.)
All of these points could be contested, to be sure; nothing ever operates entirely as it is designed to. But still when you go down the list--unpaid voluntarism, open access to resources, equal participation, absence of competitive market relations or economic distinctions, opportunities for democratic deliberation, rule by consensus--it really does sound rather "socialist." Is it? Wright would have us changing our thinking so that we recognize it as just that. No, it does not involve, or even suggest, many of the aforementioned forms or structures associated with socialism: no state-owned industries, no government-regulated utilities or social services, no controlled wages, no free housing or health care or any of the rest. And certainly, it doesn't match the hysterical and practically nonsensical fears which depict any and every kind of socialist arrangement as involving murderous actions comparable to the worst communist tyranny. But to limit our thinking about "socialism€" to such tropes is to fail respect the fundamental appeal of socialist ideals, an appeal which keeps bringing them back into our collective arrangements, whether we recognize them for what they are or not. What are those socialist ideals? Wright defines them very simply as "social justice" and "political justice." (See pp. 12-20.) The "former involves making access to the necessary material means of human flourishing as equal and open as possible; the latter involves empowering people as members of their societies to be able to construct that access as they think best within their own collective spheres. If you think about it, this definition of socialist ideals makes Wright very much a democratic socialist; but even more than that, it makes him a socialist who wants us to keep our eye on the "social"€? ball, and remember that every aspect of socialist thinking ought to be subject to constant critique, so as to better measure just how well it promotes the sort of radical, democratic egalitarianism that he thinks is inseparable from social and political justice. Wright makes no bones about his belief that socialist thinking has, in the 150 years since Marx, frequently taken its eye off that ball. While he gives great credit to Marx in the ways in which he opened up the eyes of millions of people to the harms of free market capitalism as it took industrial form during the 19th century, he ultimately insists that socialists should disregard Marx's "brilliant, if ultimately unsatisfactory, solution to the problem of specifying an alternative of capitalism"(p. 89). Marx's belief in the long-term economic unsustainability of capitalism, of the intensification of the struggle it, and the eventual revolutionary transformation of the marketplace into a socialist (and eventually fully communist) one, had a religious-like appeal; indeed, his philosophy of historical materialism and determinism permeated those beliefs, lending them an almost metaphysical character, whatever Marx's insistence otherwise. Wright very concisely counters Marx's theories of capitalist self-destruction, of worker proletarianization, of class solidarity and ruptural transformation--not that there is nothing to be learned from those theories, and not that there is no historical truth to them whatsoever, but simply that we cannot trust in them as providing a clear and reliable direction. What we need, Wright argues, rather than the path which Marx's socialist arguments provided (a path that, because it seemed philosophically mandated by history, was easily collapsed into convictions about its end-state, and with that the desire to mandate that end through the barrel of a gun), is a "compass"€?--a set of general orienting guidelines that will help us identify whatever it may be which brings greater social and political justice, meaning greater democracy and equality, into the world. This does not mean that anything which seems to achieve such is automatically "socialism"€?--but by the same token, it also does not mean that those looking for alternatives to capitalism should automatically discount the socialist potential of any given type of social or economic organization and project. If it is something which has at least some of the social and political implications or consequences which the socialist compass points toward, then it is something to take seriously. Hence, Wikipedia. Obviously, it is not a tool for accomplishing greater economic equality, or local collective governance, or participatory democracy. But then again, it is an arena of action which is open to teaching lessons about those things, and other open-ended alternatives to strictly capitalist marketplace exchanges as well. Wright's focus on the social (which permeates the whole book; the original subtitle he wanted for it was "Putting the Social Back in Socialism"), is likely to seem worrisome to the philosophically liberal among us. Would a democratically empowered civil society actually be a force for egalitarian emancipation? Obviously, not always; as Wright himself admits, many actually existing civil society institutions and associations around the globe do not (pp. 146-147). The anarchistically inclined response might be that such is the wrong way of looking at things--a civil society that can "achieve sufficient coherence as to provide for social order and social reproduction" is all that one needs hope for when it comes to exploring socialist possibilities. But a proper socialist response, a radical democratic egalitarian one, would have to be different, Wright thinks; it would "require a state...with real power to institute and enforce the rules of the game," to construct or at least preserve that which is democratic and egalitarian in the midst of "pluralistic heterogeneity" of the "public square." Wright continues: There is no guarantee that a society within which power rooted in civil society predominates would be one that upholds democratic egalitarian ideals. This, however, is not some unique problem for socialism; it is a characteristic of democratic institutions in general. As conservatives often point out, inherent in democracy is the potential for the tyranny of the majority, and yet in practice liberal democracies have been fairly successful at creating institutions that protect both individual rights and the interests of minorities. A socialist democracy rooted in social empowerment through associations in civil society would face similar challenges: how to devise institutional rules for the game of democratic deepening and associational empowerment which would foster the radical egalitarian conception of emancipation. (p. 147) And so Wright acknowledges that, as we commit ourselves to experimenting upon different paths and testing different theories in pursuit of greater community and equality, as the socialist compass directs, certain kinds of institutional brakes or controls need to be kept in mind as we seek to place power in the hands of civil society institutions. Some of these brakes and controls should probably be liberal ones, thus pointing towards the well-understood controls provided by the language of state-enforced rights and constitutional balances. But not too many of them. Part of the power of the protests in Wisconsin is that what we are seeing is a political fight in which the interests of the collective, or the public, is being pitted against private and corporate one. Of course, as always, the story isn't that simple (unions, to be sure, can be corrupt and corporate as much as businesses can be!); but that is part of the story. In fact, it is at the crux of the current story--we have unions talking freely about surrendering a great deal of what their marketplace negotiations, conducted between the political representatives of various groups and interests, had secured them...just so long as they don't have to surrender the power to demand and organize collective negotiations in the first place. This is democratic, social power, and beside it, the liberal and redistributive and protective egalitarian accommodations in the marketplace that most of us treasure (weekends, health insurance, cost-of-living wage increases, civil rights protection on the job, labor standards and safety regulations, etc.), as vital as they all are, are nonetheless secondary. Keeping unions as one of the tools of "social empowerment...[and a] radical egalitarian conception of emancipation" is the reason why socialists should care about this fight, and only secondarily because of what rules about lay-offs the use of those tools have resulted in. For Wright, socialists should look at unions the same way we look at Wikipedia--what power can they move into the realm of the social? We should be wary of how that power can be abused, and liberal protections and guarantees are a valuable part of protecting against such. But we should not allow ourselves to become sufficiently fearful of the radical and democratic potential of civil society institutions or other participatory organizations--even if they are not, on first glance, properly "socialist"--that we look fail to back them when they appear. Since the mid 1990s, the MCC has adopted an aggressive strategy of expansion beyond its historical home in the Basque country. This has, above all, taken the form of buying up capitalist firms and turning them into subsidiaries of the cooperatives within the corporation....[For example] Fagor Elian, a cooperative that manufactures various kinds of auto-parts, created a new wholly owned subsidiary in Brazil, to manufacture parts for the Brazilian arm of Volkswagen. The director of the MCC explained...that although the Fagor Brazilian plant loses money, the Volkswagen Corporation insisted the Fagor Elian provide parts to its Brazilian operation if it wanted to continue to supply parts to Volkswagen in the EU....[Hence, the] MCC believes that, given market pressures linked to globalization, this strategy of national and global expansion is necessary for the survival of the MondragĂłn cooperatives in the twenty-first century. Whether or not this diagnosis is correct is a matter of considerable controversy, but in any case the result of this expansion has been to intensify the capitalist dimension of the MondragĂłn economic hybrid. (pp. 243-244) There are, to be sure, many ways in which we might contemplate and develop responses to the pressure which exist in the global marketplace--and some undoubtedly, ought to involve more "vertical," comprehensive, or "cosmopolitan" parameters. But there remains the fact that a reliance upon those parameters moves one away from the diverse forms of real solidarity and social power which the hope for radical egalitarian and democratic transformation in part depends upon. So why would it not be equally viable--why would it be any less "utopian"--to approach the compass of socialist empowerment and look for ways to preserve the local and cultural environments that provide spaces for emancipation in the first place? This is not a question which Wright directly asks, but it is one which his analysis, I believe, presents us with nonetheless. The struggles of Mondragan mainly have to do with maintaining a reliable cooperative ethos while simultaneously handling an enormous increase in workers pressing for membership, whether that be through a) developing procedures for encouraging "spin-off" cooperatives to be formed, or b) abandoning the "unitary organizational form" which have guided the cooperatives from the beginning, and accepting that the push for democratic and egalitarian reforms will have to come through unionization in the subsidiaries, rather than full participatory membership. Would any of these struggles have arrived in a global marketplace more resistant to globalization, and where national economies--and the firms that operated within them--enjoyed greater self-sufficiency (which, yes, would also mean the national markets they supplied would also "enjoy" greater restrictions on the range of pricing and goods available)? Perhaps they would have anyway--but then again, in a global economic environment less hostage to the neoliberal terms of the IMF and the EU, perhaps the Mondragan cooperatives would have developed as an even stronger example of the socialist ethos, one less implicated in the tensions that could pull a civil association away from radical democratic egalitarianism, because the sources of that tension would be, in a sense, literally "foreign" to the local, cultural site wherein this particular association was able to plant its socialist seed. |
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