De Leonism and its detractors

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Posted: 29 Dec 2006 04:15 pm Post subject: Questions/Comments about DeLeonism and its detractors.

Hello, this is my first post on these boards.

I would like to know, for one thing, why Bolshevists call DeLeon Lasallean? Another question I have is on the silence of the SLP/Deleonists on social issues. Marx and Engels both commented heavilly on issues of the day, including slavery, Ireland, and the length of the working day.

Modern day DeLeonists tend to be very silent on social issues. I believe that is handing things over to the anarchists/bummery, as DeLeon would have put it. Perhaps Marx and Engels commented on social issues because they saw the revolution coming in the not too distant future, and they could more easily work the agitation into the dialectic without it being mere reformism. With the complete co-optation of any "left" movements at all by post-modernism/identity politics, perhaps the SLP is in a hibernation mode, thinking it's not the best time to be involved when that group wields such power. I can't speak for the SLP or their spinoffs, of course.

I have noticed the taking over of at least one DeLeonist group by identity politics. That group no longer considers itself DeLeonist, no mention even of socialism. I don't wish to link the site to here, but I'm sure some, if not all, know what I am referring to.

On a personal note, I think that the 1960s pretty much killed off the chances of any real movement. Most didn't see the true NECESSARY REFORMIST AS OPPOSED TO REACTIONARY FEUDALISM essence of the civil rights movement and continue to look to certain segments of the population other than workers. The identity politics plays into the hands of those who are turning the world into warring tribes that are easier to control, such as in Balkans and Near East.

Forgive the somewhat disjointed nature of this post.

Comments? Thank you.

The Greenman

Posted: 29 Dec 2006 08:25 pm Post subject:

I would not know why the Leninist would call DeLeonism Lasallean. But they throw a lot of shit around in the name of Marx anyhow.

I have never been a menber of the SLP and I do believe I have asked why they are silent on many things. Perhaps the membership is afraid of being excommunicated since their adoption of democratic centralism from the Leninist.

On the other hand, I came to this site by invintation from Vince a few years ago. I became very interested not only in the SIU but the Time Labor Vouchers which I call the Time Labor Unit since it is a new form of currency.

davesearles

Posted: 29 Dec 2006 08:39 pm Post subject:

I didn't know that there were any more Bolshivists around.

Lasallian, Deleonists?? Well who knows, anything can be called anything else. Any particular reason that you know of?

Deleonists not comment on social issues? I guess that we always could do a better job. We don't hang on the events of the day but then again we don't pretend that we are in control of them either.

Hope that you write back.

dave

mikelepore

Posted: 30 Dec 2006 12:11 pm Post subject:

I haven't heard anyone call the SLP Lassallean. It's the Lenin-influenced groups that make lists of incremental political demands and call it the path to socialism. That was Lasalle's viewpoint.

"Put people's needs before corporate profits and greed. Full employment with decent jobs at good wages for all. Massive public works jobs programs to rebuild the country and put everyone back to work. Fund this program with drastic cuts in the military budget and a sharp increase in taxes on the corporations and the super rich. Eliminate all taxes on working people making less than $60,000 a year." -- Communist Party USA, web site, 1996

That is Lassallean.

"The SLP's single-plank platform -- capitalism out and socialism in." -- from an SLP leaflet

The latter is not Lassallean.

mikelepore

Posted: 30 Dec 2006 12:34 pm Post subject: Re: Questions/Comments about DeLeonism and its detractors.

questing wrote:

silence of the SLP/Deleonists on social issues

Do you look at the SLP's monthly newspaper? I see discussion of all kinds of issues. The articles in the last issue (12/2/06) were: global warning, health insurance, the three R's, Hungary's revolution, trucking accidents, Ford layoffs, the class struggle in China, world war, industrial carnage, and an excerpt from Rosa Luxemburg.

I don't see a lack of comment on social issues. What I see in the SLP is a tendency to "preach to the choir", a great discomfort with talking to non-members. For example, there is a nonpartisan quarterly magazine entitled "Rethinking Marxism", which is exactly about the SLP is about -- the idea that Marxism is popularly misunderstood and requires "rethinking", and yet the SLP chooses not to associate with them --- why? -- apparently because the RM staff are not members of the SLP.

mikelepore

Posted: 30 Dec 2006 01:13 pm Post subject:

I think postmodernism (and "Marxist semiotics", and the Frankfort School, and so on) is a bunch of meaningless gibberish generated by people who are impressed with their own use of clever combinations of words. If people want to write poetry then they should write poetry. If people want to study social science then they should study social science. What people should not do is compose a lot of poetic cleverness and claim that it's an improvement to social science.

Did you every see pseudo-intellectuals gazing at a painting of amorphous blobs of color, and pretending that they too can see the nude on the staircase, and the artist's obvious capture of the universal in the particular? This is the kind of game that goes on with the "Marxism" of the New Left. People nod, and watch each other nod, as they all pretend that they see a meaning in each random strings of words.

Some of the post-Marx commentary is not bad but there is nothing new in it. Lenin's imperialism as a late stage of capitalism -- straight from Marx. Debord's analysis of the mass media -- straight form Marx. Freire's critical pedagogy -- straight from Marx. Chomsky's manufacture of consent -- straight from Marx. So college freshmen can read about this or that supposedly brand new idea, just discovered very recently, that the state and the schools and the media and the advertising business are tools of the ruling class for manipulating the working class. It's great if putting it into different words helps people understand it now, but socialists have been saying these things for about a hundred and fifty years.

Then there's some literature that's pure gibberish. I have this thin book by Marcuse entitled "The Aesthetic Dimension" which i have read about twenty times during the past twenty years. I cannot form one sentence to restate a thought that was presented in the book. I conclude that there wasn't a thought in the book for me to find. I believe now that the book is a bunch of random combinations of words that the author believed sounded cool.

questing

Posted: 30 Dec 2006 05:59 pm Post subject:

davesearles wrote:

There are Bolshevists still. They are Trotskyites/Leninists, and any other vanguardist types.

The Wikipedia page on DeLeon calls him a Lasallean, supposedly something to do with his alleged support of Lasalle's "Iron Law of Wages." I have also seen attacks on DeLeon various other places coming from that direction. It seems to be "left fabians" who attack the most.

As for DeLeonist silence on issues of the day, there is too much in-groupism in their discussions. Why do they not reach out to others? Perhaps it is as I said earlier, they are in a hibernation mode because the loudmouthed/bummery crowd, along with their pomo/identity politics allies, have the stranglehold on everything.

mikelepore

Posted: 30 Dec 2006 10:26 pm Post subject:

I think I can explain that attribution of Lassallean.

Calling it the "iron law of wages", Lassalle believed that union organizing to improve wages was completely pointless because the buying power of wages is automatically readjusted, leaving most workers with a subsistence wage afterwards, just as they had a subsistence wage before. The fact that the buying power of wages is automatically readjusted in this way *is* basic to Marxism, and Marx said this much many times, but Marxism says that this tendency doesn't make the effort pointless. Union struggle is worth the effort if it gets workers a wage increase for a couple years, even though the automatic readjustment makes it necessary after a couple years for the workers to repeat the effort. No workers would or should turn down a raise in wages on the grounds that the rising cost of living will take it back a few years in the future. On this point, Marx and De Leon coincide, and it's Lasalle who differs from both Marx and De Leon.

The Leninists groups are outraged that De Leonists believe that the most important purpose of workplace unionism is to build the foundation of the workers' assembly that will take control of the workplace as the new management. Leninists oppose this suggestion because they believe that management should be performed by the appointees of a POLITICAL PARTY that is to govern THE STATE "in the name of" the workers. De Leonists say that the socialist political party is to have nothing whatsoever to do with industrial management, that the assembly of workers in the workplace is to perform all of the management, and that when the workplace organization takes over the industries then that is the day that the socialist political party is to *abolish itself*, because it will have nothing more that it needs to accomplish.

How would the members of a Leninist party summarize this difference, from their own perspective? Obviously, they're not going to perceive that they view themselves presumptuously as an intellectual elite that is rule over the innately stupid "masses", like the philosopher-kings in Plato. Instead, they're going to perceive it that the De Leonists are some kind of kooks for failing to realize that collective bargaining is the one and only valid purpose of union organizing. Now, how shall they plug this into their preexisting compartments of thought? Someone may conclude that that the De Leonists are Lassalleans. After all, both De Leonists and Lassalle had this much in common - that both are critical of the currently existing kind of labor unions. It's a very shallow "analysis" that is unable to discern that De Leon and Lassalle were critical of the currently existing labor unions for entirely different reasons -- that Lassallean was opposed to workers striking for a raise, and De Leon was opposed to unions accepting the permanent existence of capitalism. If that make De Leon "Lassallean" then we might as well say that any two things are the same if they are different from some third thing; perhaps, a fish and a bird are the "same thing" because neither is a cat.

As for Wikipedia containing errors -- I expect that this is because anyone can write anything into it. We could go there right now and write the instructions for how to perform brain surgery.

mikelepore

Posted: 30 Dec 2006 11:27 pm Post subject:

questing wrote:

Why do they not reach out to others? Perhaps it is as I said earlier, they are in a hibernation mode because the loudmouthed/bummery crowd, along with their pomo/identity politics allies, have the stranglehold on everything.

Let me suggest two reasons.

(1) The SLP views itself as the only socialist organization in existence, certainly in the U.S., and perhaps in the world. All others are fakes, in that the "socialism" they advocate wouldn't really be socialism, or that the methods they advocate couldn't succeed, or both. The SLP exaggerates the extent to which it alone has a completely clear understanding of all subjects. Everyone else should abandon everything they have believed before, and just go directly to the SLP to obtain the complete truth. To even acknowledge the existence of any non-SLP author or publication or conference, why, that would be like a scientist sending people to a voodoo magician. Evereone else does nothing but mislead. The SLP alone is the beacon of enlightenment.

(2) The SLP -- and the SLP isn't alone in this -- it has been an unfortunate tendency of all Marxism, starting with Marx and Engels -- they have always tended to act as though there wouldn't be any repercussions to any hot-headed actions that they may perform. Marx expelled Moses Hess and other associates of his, as though he had the power to see to it that these decisions would never reflect back to causes future problems. Marx would rather see the International destroyed than see Bakunin have any growing influence, even though such influence might be temporary. The SLP abandoned the IWW for the flimsy reason that IWW members might join the SLP as individuals, without official IWW endorsement, and the SLP demanded that IWW endorsement be official. Well, guess what - there are always repercussions to one's actions. If the SLP were to have public discussions that aren't carefully moderated by itself, then the discussion is likely to go something like this --- SLP speaker: Let's talk about how the SLP is the only genuine socialist group, and all others are phonies. Questioner: No, let's talk about why the SLP expelled it's entire Bronx section, the party's largest section, thus producing an undesirable split into two parties. Imagine how such a dialogue is going to be perceived by a group that has always assumed that there would never be any negative repercussions as a result of its administrative decisions. So they decide not to have such public discussions at all! There was an SLP yahoo forum, but some people went there and criticized the SLP, so, instead of debating the subjects, the party closed down the forum. This is the general pattern. Silence is better than blasphemy. Never allow any repercussions to past decisions except for one -- always allow shrinkage of membership. Shrinkage of the size of the membership is the one cost that is considered bearable, as long as the party remains pure. If another organization criticizes the party, then never even mention the name of that organization. If an author criticizes the party, then never speak the name of that author. You end up with a close-knit group of a few hundred members who are all hugs'n'kisses and are, to some extent, UNITED BY WHAT THEY DON'T KNOW. The roster of events that they haven't yet heard about, the commonness of having not yet read certain books, etc., is one of the cements that holds them together.

Oh, well, that's it for me. Now the SLP members will never, ever, ever use this web site that I have registered, or even be mention its name. I just couldn't shut up.

I believe that criticism is a form of doing someone a favor. Someone who gripes, complains, yells at or otherwise criticizes someone or something is performing a great service for that someone or something. It is the giving of a valuable gift. Ann Coulter may think that uttering the remark "Gee, I can see an imperfection" is an act of High Treason, but I do not think so. From now on I'm not going to tolerate the equivalents of Ann Coulter in the socialist movement. If you don't want to be criticized, then go live as a monk in a cave in Tibet.

questing

Posted: 31 Dec 2006 12:41 am Post subject:

Gee, I thought that Marx repudiated Hess because he was a racial chauvinist. Hess was basically the founder of Zionism, which is a form of racial fascism. I've not read anything by either Marx or Engels that would have me believe they thought the movement towards socialism would be a cakewalk. As for the IWW, they became infected with anarchism/reformism. They were more interested in the idea, most recently expressed by liberals and their lickspittle "minorities" that somehow the lumpen were some sort of vanguard, and the class struggle was to be ignored in favor of promoting "minorities." Those "minorities" would, of course, be led by Bolshevists. Notice the constant harping on "racism" by liberals of all shades, and the willingness of "minorities" to coon dance and do Massa's bidding. That was the main problem with the "New Left," they took a struggle for BOURGEOUS equality to be a harbinger of revolution. The black struggle for civil rights was much like the Jewish emancipation in Germany. Marx said that civil rights could only emancipate to the status of a civil society, as in Hegel's Bismark. true emancipation could only come about through socialism.

The best way to keep workers fighting with each other is to keep talking about nonsense such as "white privilege."

Yes, the wealthy such as Jesse Jackson are oppressed, while someone who is struggling to keep from being on the street is living the high life because they are "white." Haha.

Meanwhile, the reactionaries who run the USA are gleefully rubbing their hands because they have what has become hereditary lumpen to send out to burn and loot when they wish to have an excuse to terrorise the
main populace. Ann Coulter laughs up her drunken, fascist sleeve when liberals sputter and can't criticise Condi Rice in any way but to call her some sort of "Mammy."

Again, the struggle was part of the necessary dialectic for Marx and Engels. You are contradicting what you posted above. If I didn't know better, I would swear you are trying to feel me out.

I'm a scholar, not a lickspittle liberal who whines and sheds tears for "minorities" while despising workers. Duchess of Sutherland, anyone?

questing

Posted: 31 Dec 2006 12:49 am Post subject:

...and I've also done labor-intensive work with immigrants, and I see how the pitting of various groups only helps to diffuse the possibility of various sections of the workers pursuing their common interests.

I've worked in warehouses*doing actual labor*.

*Edit*

davesearles

Posted: 31 Dec 2006 03:09 am Post subject:

Everyone has their own disagreements with one thing or another. The socialist industrial union program, are you familiar with that? Do you agree that the workers should operate the means of production for themselves (ourselves)?

davesearles

Posted: 31 Dec 2006 02:45 pm Post subject:

Marx wrote in the Jewish Question

Man emancipates himself politically from religion by banishing it from the sphere of public law to that of private law.

dave comments, it seems that racial bigotry was a religion of the state which the civil rights movement has largely abolished as the state religion. It was not the revolution, not even a harbenfer of the revolution but still it was a thing to be desired, it seems to me.

dave

questing

Posted: 31 Dec 2006 06:01 pm Post subject:

Dave~

Of course it was a good thing. In reading my "polemic" above I realised I perhaps didn't make myself clear regarding the fact that, while I say a grave error was made by the "New Left" in thinking blacks were some sort of ipso facto revolutionary force they were going to lead, the civil rights struggle was absolutely necessary to bring CIVIL emancipation to blacks. The error was in thinking that blacks were some sort of substitute for the proletariat. The damned Frankfurt crowd had their most poisonous influence there. The vanguardism didn't help, either. That all got tied in with the Bolshevist romantisation of "minorities" and helped to create a new caste of people who are pretty much allowed to function like the Cossacks of Russia were in the Tsarist times.

All of that helps to keep workers divided.

What I'd like to say would take a few hundred pages, perhaps more later.

More later.

questing

Posted: 31 Dec 2006 06:10 pm Post subject:

davesearles wrote:

Of course the workers should operate and own the means of production. As for SIUs, it makes sense. The thing is, how would it be done? I don't believe that the elite would just hand its power over to workers because of an election. It would have to be done all at once or not at all, which is one reason why the "Little Icarias" can't work for very long.

I'm more or less trying to come to an understanding of why DeLeonists tend to distance themselves from daily life. Yes, the bummery crowd has been appointed spokespersons for socialism, but that is all the more reason for more direct involvement. Involvement as opposed to "direct action," of course.

mikelepore

Posted: 31 Dec 2006 11:12 pm Post subject:

questing,

What kind of "direct involvement" would you recommend?

Do I understand you correctly - are you saying that the SLP decided to become isolationist as a response to leftist "identity politics"? If so, why did they respond in this way? How far back in the timeline did this occur?

Thanks for correcting my errors about Moses Hess. I was unaware of the facts about him that you posted.

I don't consider the IWW anarchist. They say that political party membership is just like religious membership -- a personal choice. In the opinion of the SLP, that *is* opposition to politics. To me it isn't.

Quote:

I don't believe that the elite would just hand its power over to workers because of an election.

Capitalists don't possess the industries in a physical sense. The workers operate the industries entirely, and the capitalist are legally the owners, on paper, absentee owners. What the workers already occupy and operate every day doesn't need to be handed over to the workers. The workers need to recognize new management, their own, and cease to recognize the capitalists' management as having any authority to instruct the workers in what to do. In case it becomes necessary, the working class should be prepared to physically remove uncooperative individuals from the workplaces. De Leon called this the "lockout of the capitlaist class."

The Greenman

Posted: 02 Jan 2007 05:52 pm Post subject:

It's good to see intelligent people posting their views here. I still lack considerable knowledge of most of the subjects. That is because I became interested in Socialism 5+ years ago.

Questing wrote:

Quote:

You are correct, the elite will not hand over the means of production just because of an election. I believe the idea that DeLeon had was that workers had to organize on both fronts. The SIU up and running in most industries and that the workers are organized politically to win elections from the bottom up as a party. But the party has to be organized to remain democratic and appealing to the working class. But workers would have to organize industrially in much the same fashion as the IWW. In other words, the involvement comes on two fronts rather than one. I am wondering if there should be more than one SIU. If workers don't like the policies of one they have the choice of chosing another.

John Trimbath