CR Bijoy
Framework for Dialogue and Change
Framework for Dialogue: Issues in philosophy and politics
Sectarianism prevents creative dialogue and debate preventing the progressive development of understanding of reality, of debating reality and of changing reality. Sectarianism emerges from a mechanical monolithic understanding that there is one and only one correct line and any other line are mistakes or deliberate distortions or outright subversives. Sectarianism afflicts all shades of thinking or ideologies - the marxists, the capitalists, the religious, the feminists, the environmentalists, and what have you; and more so the imperialists, the fundamentalists, the racists, the communalists, the fascists, and the like at the political level. At the philosophical level is the flawed perception of being the holder of ‘absolute truth’. At the other extreme is the ‘postmodernist’ framework which while placing all points as equally valid and at the same plane states no particular view point is more valid than the others. It places the onus on validity of any view point to the individual’s choice. This is politically and philosophically paralyzing and regressive.
Creative and progressive dialogue takes place when multiple understanding and contradictions are grounded on a degree of convergence in a dialectical way. A shared framework of change is the basis for recognizing the diversity of understanding, acknowledging the diversity of understanding, and understanding the relevance of the diverse understanding. This shared framework is also the basis of debating the diverse understanding into a coherent whole or coherent pluralism without the sharp polemics to demolish the opponents breaking down the dialogue and debate. This shared framework and the coherent whole or coherent pluralism should build broad and inclusive political coalitions or revolutionary coalitions at the social level. At the organizational level inter and intra organizational level debates and common programmes could set the tone for increasing coherence in thought and action.
Framework of Change: Issues in Politics and Programmes
A framework of change as a revolutionary philosophy and politics should not only tell us how to change the world, but also how we can change ourselves and our relationships. Merely seizing of the state power through radical political seizure or political negotiation with the bourgeoisie state or through the bourgeoisie parliamentary democracy inevitably leads to reproduction of the basic hierarchies of capitalism; the logic of capitalist power takes over reproducing within the struggles the power of capital, of leaders versus led, and of power-over versus power-to-do. This criticism is moderated with the thesis that ‘it is to take state power with the goal of afterwards changing society’. And in many instances it results in majoritarian fascism and minority reactive violence feeding on each other taking the society into a spiral of internecine conflict. Or the structures of exploitation and oppression reproduce themselves leading to concomitant struggles and resistances. The state is not an instrument that exists outside of capitalism; capitalist relations are instead thoroughly embedded in the modern state. The state is an expression of the social relation of capital. A focus on seizing state power inevitably leads radicals to reproduce the basic hierarchies of capitalism. Far greater attention than taking over state power is required for changing social relationship. It is not the conquest of power but of changing the power relationship at all levels that is the challenge. Therefore the framework of change should seek to address both the political and economic ideology of the structures of power within peoples and therefore relationship between peoples, between men and women, between peoples and nature.
Progressive movements recognize the challenge of hegemonic globalization. A coherent framework requires the integration of an understanding of the central problems, in the geopolitical sense, in the era of globalization – of massive exploitation of classes, castes, ethnicities, patriarchy, spiraling accumulation, a developmental model that plunder natural resources and heap environmental destruction. Imperialist globalization operates through partnership with entrenched exploitative domestic socio-economic system. The framework of change has to have an integrated understanding of key socio-economic contradictions and conceptualise convergence of various struggles for providing an effective societal challenge to imperialist globalisation. A revolutionary transformation is simultaneously an economic, political as well a consciousness change, and none of these aspects occur or follow in any linear sense from another.
The Era of Globalization
The term globalization, used by some for the sake of brevity, is not only globalization, but Liberalization, Privatization, Globalization (LPG) together that constitute the New Economic Policy, being pushed energetically in India since 1990’s. It simply is a specific manner in which capitalism is restructuring itself as the global economic system. In the last two centuries, global capitalist economy has been undergoing ‘long-waves’ (of about 20-30 years) of crisis and boom alternately. Crisis is also the potential period of revolution. Each time the world capitalist economy has overcome the crisis only by thoroughly restructuring itself within the bounds of laws of capitalist accumulation. This restructuring involves restructuring of the relationship between capital and labour, between competing capitals, between the centre of the world economy and its periphery etc. It also involves thorough change in the choice of raw materials, energy sources, and division of labour. Corresponding changes in the politics and culture also take place. Capitalism has always been a global system. The primitive accumulation of capital, expropriation of the means of production from the toilers and their conversion into wage labourers on one hand and accumulation of money capital on the other, along with the expansion of markets of pre-industrial and industrial capitalism had been a global system.
Capitalism entered the phase of monopoly capitalism in the late 19th century accelerating the global process of primitive accumulation of capital and expansion of commoditization along with the new phenomenon of globalization of capital flows. There was also the renewed colonization of the world under the hegemony of the new dominant coalition of monopoly-finance capital. This phase of capitalism not only globalized the market of goods but ushered in the new era of globalization of the market of labour power. Global capitalism entered a new phase of decolonized imperialism with state monopoly capitalism as its internal face in the post-second world war era. The rise of multinational corporations, the third technological revolution consisting of use of nuclear energy, electronic devices, computers etc. and other measures together could increase the rate of profit for private capital to an attractive level leading to a boom for about another 20 years.
The distinctive features of the current restructuring of the imperialist globalization features absolute sway of global finance capital over other forms of capital like the industrial and state capital. This is aided by a new technological revolution that includes information-technology (that facilitates rapid mobility of capital across the globe) and bio-technology changing the nature of raw material sources and forms of energy, with consequent revolution in consumption patterns. This has also led to drastic changes in the management of enterprises. The globalization of labour-process has reached its peak wherein more and more products are being produced in a manner in which different stages in the production of a commodity take place in different countries so as to suit the needs of global capital. Global capital, a section of the capitalist class all over the world, who are not tied to any particular nation and therefore owing no allegiance to any particular nation emerged forming global companies who are less and less amenable to economics and politics within nations. Another feature is the decline of the role of the state in the economy opening up the country for free flow of investments of private companies with access to easy resources, both natural and human. This domination of national capitals by the global capital is also facilitated by the rise of supranational WTO.
Evolving Counter Hegemonic Revolutionary Transformation
This new restructuring of imperialist globalization fuelling rapid socio-economic changes has also led to identify crisis and rise of fundamentalism, to the rise of reactionary, revivalist forces in different forms (fascism, fundamentalism) etc. There are clear indications that while on the one hand there is a weakening of national identities with growing atomisation, but on the other, ethnic and religious identifies in fact is growing stronger. Under the onslaught of capitalist globalization, the traditional community and family identities as well as traditional territorial identification such as a village or a locality are weakening. The resultant insecurity is leading people to fall back on their identities albeit of ethnicity, caste, religion etc in exclusivist terms promoting divisiveness and violence against the ‘other’. This also has impacted or has the potential to impact the suppressed nationalities by altering earlier notions and understanding of identity and of nationality struggles from being liberative to that of becoming cannon fodder for communal and fundamentalist political forces. These trends at individualization and loss of identities to become a mere consumer of goods in the market place on the one hand and the rise of parochial fundamentalist and fascist trends across economies and countries are but two sides of the same coin. These are reflected, for instance, in the inter-racial animosities in the US and Europe, the inter denominational conflict in the Islamic countries, rising religious fascism and fundamentalism in the south-east Asia, inter-caste in India and inter-tribal in Africa are but few examples. The question of identities and nationality are real issues of increasing relevance that need to be addressed. However, what is pertinent to note is the need to develop a much deeper understanding of the ‘non-material’ drives which motivate social behaviour, and learn to create spaces for inclusive, humane and progressive identities, and how a socially radical movement can also help persons to transcend ‘self’ and find meaning in a shared identity.
The post-independent India was built on the edifice of capitalism introduced by the British in the colonial mode of extraction retaining and using the feudal caste structure. With an economic and development policy of inward looking industrialization established the basis for the establishment and development of national and regional capital which negotiated politically and collaborated for their economic progress in accumulation. The national capitalist sections are drawn into the global system, transforming them into a transmission belt or sub-imperialist junior partners. In effect, the national capitalist class lost its anti-imperialist potential although some jockey for larger share of surplus. The national capitalist class has intensified its exploitation of working people within its country and seeks larger markets outside the country with the current era of globalization. A section within them has become a part of global capital rapidly becoming trans-national, transferring capital for investment and take over across the world. The colonial structure of governance aided and abetted the growth of national and regional capital through a process of internal colonization of the country’s rich resources (incidentally located in the homelands of Adivasis/Indigenous Peoples). The accumulation of capital and rapid strides in enclaves of growth, and state as an instrument of capital to transfer resources such as land and minerals in an unprecedented scale responding violently to any opposition from the masses, the massive build up as a police state, the complete subservience to the dictates of global capital and through the international instruments (WB-IMF-WTO) along with major strides in growth on the one hand has created an illusion of upward mobility to vast sections. At the same time, the process of marginalization has led the state to contain this through a process of very limited guarantee for work and food with a slump in agriculture and other traditional sectors. The real wages of the working class, especially in the unorganized and rural sector have taken a beating.
The social tensions arising from the rising aspirations and a corresponding absence of fulfillment manifests through both the rise of far right, the far left, and the intra working class and inter-caste competition for a share in the development largesse dictating the political expediency of the bourgeoisie political process. Fuelling nationalist, regional, religious, caste and ethnic jingoism often resulting in violence helps camouflage the crisis while not addressing the material basis for resentment and frustration but ensuring the continuation of the hegemony of the ruling classes. Imperialist globalization rides on the dominant model of development based on centralised production, capital intensive technology, externalising costs to the environment and ever increasing consumption. As long as these remain unchallenged, the internal logic of the model would not be able to overthrow the rule of capital. This model centrally defines the pattern of surplus extraction and capital accumulation, as well as resource extraction from the environment. Therefore there can be no ‘humane’ or ‘ecologically sustainable’ imperialist globalisation.
Challenging the system of global and national capital is not just an ‘external’ process but requires deep and thoroughgoing transformation of internal social relations to build a broad but equitable counter-hegemonic alliance. Solidarity among the oppressed is the biggest basis of countering the hegemony of oppressors. Stratification amongst the exploited requires the simultaneous task of transforming the internal and external relations to lead to a broad alliance.
Identity politics presents half of the answer, with the danger of appearing as the complete answer. Identity politics can be transcended only by a programme which seeks to transform both relations of production and socio-cultural oppression as part of a larger process of socio-economic reorganisation. Similarly ‘nationalism’ in its old form now remains only a shell of cultural and military nationalism with regard to India, effectively promoting sub-imperialism within and contention with people of neighbouring countries, since the economic foundation based on assertion by the Indian capitalist class has evaporated. Therefore a ‘new’ nationalism and the sub-nationalism of the suppressed peoples or nationalities in the context of taking on an anti-imperialist mantle requires programme of solidarity with all struggling people seeking transformation of the class-caste system for changing the relations of production, based on control of productive resources by toiling sections, combined with a programme of social emancipation. This struggle integrates new forms of organising production that are ecologically sound and sustainable with control over resources by the oppressed sections which now need to be organised and struggled for, from the village level upwards through self-determination.
As the globalised capitalists attempt to push through their version of restructuring the world, the working and oppressed people must present their comprehensive counter-plan of restructuring the world. The present form of imperialist globalisation which widens divergences and leads to polarisation is bound to flounder under its own contradictions; the only form of globalisation that can be sustained in the long run is an alternative, people-oriented, equitable and ecologically sustainable globalization. Self-determination can only be a social process of a knitting together of collective processes of self-determination.
(The author is an Independent Researcher and Activist, also associated with Forest Rights & Indigenous People issues)
