• Streetlight
    9.1k
    Jacobin maganize have been doing a series of interviews with Vivek Chibber, a prominent Marxist sociologist whose recently released a couple of pamphlets on the basic orientation of socialist politics, which I think are really nice and gentle introductions to what socialism is. Of particular interest however, is Chibber's effort to distinguish between socialist politics, and the politics of progressive liberalism. I think this is an important project, because a great deal of people who see themselves as left leaning tend, I think, to identify themselves with the progressive liberal side of things, while eschewing, misunderstanding, or even confusing the specificity of what counts as a specifically socialist politics.

    So here are the first two videos (there's a third to be posted tomorrow I think) and I'll post a quick summary of the main point for each video after.





    (1) The main thrust of the first video begins by marking threefold distinction between neoliberal politics, progressive liberalism, and socialism. The distinction roughly breaks down as follows: Neoliberalism only recognises individuals as political and social actors, and does not give any credence to structural or societal inequalities or injustices. Any issues you have in life, are your faults alone. Progressive liberalism, on the other hand, does recognize structural and societal injustice, and does involve instituting policies designed to mitigate such injustices. Finally, socialism, while sharing with progressive liberalism the recognition of social injustice, adds to the mix an irreducible class element. It's just not just that social injustice exists: it's that it exists, and is primarily driven and perpetuated by, a certain class in society. Conversely, the non-recognition of class is what distinguishes PL from socialism.

    (2) This distinction between progressive liberalism and socialism is very nicely cashed out when it comes to the question of the state. For progressive liberals, the state functions as a great equaliser. No matter how much money you have, or your position in society, each person gets one vote. This is supposed to - in theory - diffuse any accumulation of power into any one sector of society. The state is largely 'neutral' and simply adjudicates between multiple, competing interests, from all walks of life. For socialist politics however, political representation always skews in the interests of capital, because, to put it simply, that's where the money is. Capital funds the state, and political representation is always at the mercy of money. The state, in other words, is largely captured by class-interests. So the state is a nice 'case study', as it were, how the absence of presence of class analysis distinguishes progressive liberal politics from socialist ones.

    This second point/video is I think especially pertinent, given how often state politics is associated with socialist politics, and especially with the 'co-option' of the name 'socialist' by the recent popularity of the American 'democratic socialists' like Bernie Sanders and the DSA. Anyway, I offer these wayy-too-brief summaries mostly as spurs to discussion. The good stuff is in the videos, which I encourage people to watch, even if just for educational purposes.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    And in case anyone is a further masochist: a reading on why this is the perfect opportunity for the left to reclaim the value of freedom from the shallow, hollow shell of it made by the right:

    "While voices of the left periodically worry that freedom has been lost irretrievably to the right, there is an ongoing contest in this country between elite claimants invoking freedom as a possession already had and subaltern counter-claimants envisioning freedom as a struggle to be won. Yet the real reason... to defend a politics of freedom is not that it fits into a national narrative or is an available vernacular—there are many of those, after all. The real reason is that it names the problem that an increasing number of people face today: systemic unfreedom in the neoliberal economy. By confronting that unfreedom, the left can do more than identify, in a coherent and cohesive way, the myriad problems that individuals are currently facing. It can offer people an opportunity for acting collectively, for creating the sort of realignment that in the past has reordered the policies and priorities, the broad language, of public life."

    https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/708919
  • Benkei
    7.7k
    This is to me a reworking of the discussion on positive and negative liberty. What good is the absence of interference (negative liberty, eg. minimal statists) if you have no choices to begin with?
  • Pantagruel
    3.4k
    To me, freedom is a bit of a red-herring as it quickly becomes contentious. I see prioritizing social welfare - establishing a baseline of core human values that supersede monetization - as the focus. Freedom can take care of itself as long as we start to take care of each other.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    . I see prioritizing social welfare - establishing a baseline of core human values that supersede monetization - as the focus. Freedom can take care of itself as long as we start to take care of each other.Pantagruel

    Absolutely. But I think the reworked notion of freedom that falls out of this - freedom that 'takes care of itself', as you put it - is or can be an incredibly powerful element of political mobilization. As in: let's get to the point where freedom does indeed take care of itself - freedom less as originating principle (arche) from which politics flows (what one might call the 'liberal' understanding of freedom), than as a telos, that towards which we work. A kind of centripetal rather than centrifugal freedom, one that works from the outside-in, rather than the inside-out. Maybe I'm old school like that, but I'm not keen to jettison the vocabulary of freedom, so much as rework it.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    Yes and no - one has to be careful about Berlin's distinction here. Berlin's 'positive freedom' was still a kind of individualist, rationalist freedom (modelled on Kant), which aligned with the ability to give oneself a rule for action (auto-nomos; self-rule) and leave it at that. Importantly too, 'positive freedom' was the name Berlin used to try and discredit what he understood to be socialist conceptions of freedom. Raymond Geuss, who contrasts Berlin's positive and negative freedom with Marx's account, notes that what's missing even from Berlin's notion of 'positive freedom' is any link with the notion of power:

    "The third conception of “freedom” [in Marx] is the materialist notion that identifies it with power. “I am free” means “I am free to do... ,” and that means concretely that I have the power or ability to do....” To be more exact, Marx seems to think of the full notion of freedom as comprising the conjunction of the ability to determine what one will do and the power to do what one decides to do. Anything less than this is not freedom, but a mere shadow of that concept. This part of Marx’s analysis breaks dramatically with the account which Isaiah Berlin will eventually give of the concept of freedom. Berlin does not even countenance the possibility of construing freedom as power, but rather counts “power” as belonging not to liberty but to a wholly different subject, namely the conditions under which liberty can effectively be used." (Geuss, "A Metaphysics of Right").

    Effectively this agrees with your substantive point: freedom to choose, without the freedom to determine the very choices set out, is no freedom at all. But this should not be confused with 'positive freedom', which has a very iffy conceptual history.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    Didn't mean to get so caught up on freedom! Watch the Chibber videos!
  • schopenhauer1
    10.8k

    Let's call a spade a spade. Any organizational setup of politics is to coordinate how resources are distributed. In ANY system, you still have to coordinate. Coordination implies there will be de facto force. If you do not comply with the way society is setup, you basically end up physically suffering and dying at the end of the day. So, I feel debating socialism and free-market capitalism, or mixed economies, or whatnot is never quite getting at the realities of having to coordinate in general. Nothing really solves the more existential problems. The first decision of being at all, was never even something we had a choice in. No one considers the idea of de facto non-freedoms expressed in all situations of human coordination (which is necessary but due to this is unsolvable).
  • Pantagruel
    3.4k
    Effectively this agrees with your substantive point: freedom to choose, without the freedom to determine the very choices set out, is no freedom at all.StreetlightX

    But isn't this the entire nature of freedom as it is really experienced? Sartre characterizes us as theoretically free, but at the same time constrained to choose within already well-defined material contexts, what he calls praxis.

    Isn't the very nature freedom that it must be limited/defined in order to be actualized? Sydney Hook says that the limitation of possibilities is the necessary condition for the liberation of possibilities, and I tend to agree with this view. (Metaphysics of Pragmatism).
  • schopenhauer1
    10.8k
    But isn't this the entire nature of freedom as it is really experienced? Sartre characterizes us a theoretically free, but at the same time constrained to choose within already well-defined material contexts, what he calls praxis.Pantagruel

    That's sort of what I was getting at above with "Coordination implies there will be de facto force".
  • Pantagruel
    3.4k
    Yes, I picked that up...wrote my post before I saw yours.
  • schopenhauer1
    10.8k
    Yes, I picked that up.Pantagruel

    Another formulation might be, "You are free to choose which form of coordination you would like to see people de facto forced by :).

    Edit: So when people want to change from one form to another, but feel they are stifled, they are not stifled from true freedom, but rather stifled from what way to de facto force people to coordinate.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    Need to hit the sack but a quick comment: the exercise of force and coordination of power are the conditions of, and not constraints upon, the exercise of freedom.
  • schopenhauer1
    10.8k
    Need to hit the sack but a quick comment: the exercise of force and coordination of power are the conditions of, and not constraints upon, the exercise of freedom.StreetlightX

    Hence my quote above here:

    So when people want to change from one form to another, but feel they are stifled, they are not stifled from true freedom, but rather stifled from what way to de facto force people to coordinate.schopenhauer1
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    No idea what you mean by 'true freedom'. It's like asking for triangles without angles.
  • schopenhauer1
    10.8k
    No idea what you mean by 'true freedom'. It's like asking for triangles without angles.StreetlightX

    Not having to coordinate at all.. No conditions needed. It's a non-starter, but who says it has to be :). We can think of things that don't exist all the time. It doesn't mean it's any less of a better situation.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    Not interested; not interesting.
  • schopenhauer1
    10.8k

    I see you deleted the posts I wrote. That's fine. Your thread. You are the moderator. I accept that.

    I'll try to engage you regarding only what you want to talk about. So classes. What type of freedom do you think will happen in the idea socialist society? What salvation do you think will be had? I guess, what is the vision, the goal, etc.?

    At the end of the day, it is who works for whom, what are the factors that force you to work for someone else. All of it is necessary due to our own needs and demands. There is no way out of that initial condition. What does it matter if you work for a nameless corporation beholden to shareholders, a small business owner, or some government organization? There might be more bureaucratic red tape, but that is micro-level stuff from management styles. Work is still going to be there. And guess what? You de facto have to do it.

    I guess if the concern is with the "freedom" for more people to get to work certain types of jobs. Fine. But that's all that really comes down to. It isn't that interesting a question.. I mean I'm all for people born poor to get to be doctors and lawyers and such. I don't think anyone's going to disagree with that. And if possibly the best way there is redistribution and/or public takeover of certain types of industries. But at the end of the day, it is about people having a "chance" to do certain types of jobs. Goods and services can be redistributed all day, but someone has to make them and distribute them.
  • Snakes Alive
    743
    Definitely. War is peace, too – people just don't get it!
  • NOS4A2
    9.1k


    It’s nice to see this distinction. Modern liberalism is still liberal. Democratic socialism is still socialist.

    The relationship between socialism and the state is an interesting one. Engels spoke of a “withering of the state”, that after people have either absorbed or have been indoctrinated in socialist ideals the state would become obsolete. I would argue that the opposite occurs, that the state only gets bigger and more entrenched after generations have been raised in it. Rosa Luxemburg, I think, predicted this. The gradual introduction of socialism through incremental social control (a la Eduard Bernstein) has proven to be failure for socialists, as it seems to have only made capitalism more palpable for the proles, and the state more powerful, socialism be damned. But I wonder the differences between Engel’s stateless socialist society and an anarchist society, if there are any.
  • schopenhauer1
    10.8k

    At the end of the day it is still who works for whom. People have to work is the real thing here. Besides allowing more chances for people from different backgrounds to do different types of work, what is the difference between capitalism structure and socialism? Some people are going to naturally be able to create things that are valuable for society. Other people will always demand things that generally make things more healthy, comfortable or will entertain them. Other people will fall in line with whatever specialty skill they can offer based on their experience. It's just reshuffling things for distribution. I don't see how it solves any of the existential things like having to work itself, and having to coordinate and distribute resources itself.
  • NOS4A2
    9.1k


    Believe it or not many people want to work, not just out of necessity, but because it provides purpose, dignity, and fulfillment. So I don't see why we'd try to solve work as if it was a problem. Capitalism would, I think, allow the freedom to choose which profession or trade they'd like to pursue, whereas I don't think that is true in socialism, though I could be wrong.
  • Frank Apisa
    2.1k
    People DO NOT HAVE TO WORK.

    In fact, America could dramatically increase its overall productivity...if it limited the number of people who are allowed to work.

    EVERYONE should be provided with "enough"...and "enough" should be defined as the kind of life one could live if earning $50,000 to $60,000 per year.

    That should be the basic.

    Then...the ones allowed to work...can fight it out the way "getting more" is fought right now.

    EVERYONE should be provided with the means to live a decent life without working for it...and then the ones who WANT TO WORK...and who are productive enough not to be a drag on productivity...can duke it out for the MORE.
  • Jamal
    9.6k
    Believe it or not many people want to work, not just out of necessity, but because it provides purpose, dignity, and fulfillment.NOS4A2

    Yes.

    Capitalism would, I think, allow the freedom to choose which profession or trade they'd like to pursueNOS4A2

    No.
  • Frank Apisa
    2.1k
    Everyone here has worked with someone who would increase productivity by simply staying home. OFTEN it is a boss...or a supervisor. But there are plenty of peons who fit that shell also.

    The people who are not productive should not be allowed to work.
  • Chester
    377
    I used to think that but since I've been on furlough I've decided I quite like not working. There's plenty to get on with provided you're not struggling for money...plus the missus and I get on well most of the time. Work is generally an unfulfilling drudgery for many people...especially those without the qualifications or training to get a skill/career as opposed to job.
  • Frank Apisa
    2.1k
    jamalrob
    2.3k
    Believe it or not many people want to work, not just out of necessity, but because it provides purpose, dignity, and fulfillment.
    — NOS4A2

    Yes.
    jamalrob

    And many do not want to work. Better to give them what they need to live a reasonable life...and keep 'em the hell out of the way.
  • Chester
    377
    Not wanting to work is not the same as not being good at it.
  • Frank Apisa
    2.1k
    Chester
    173
    ↪NOS4A2 I used to think that but since if been on furlough I've decided I quite like not working. There's plenty to get on with provided you're not struggling for money...plus the missus and I get on well most of the time. Work is generally an unfulfilling drudgery for many people...especially those without the qualifications or training to get a skill/career as opposed to job.
    Chester

    Right you are. Spending more time with the family...tending more carefully to the house and yard...reading more books...playing more golf...

    ...all make life just as fulfilling as working.

    We've introduce BILLIONS of slaves into our workforce...and we are still struggling to work harder.

    Fucking nuts.
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