tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post8013661044809077967..comments2024-03-27T09:14:27.496+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: Overcoming ReificationPhilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-35313395370670664242008-12-28T17:29:00.000+00:002008-12-28T17:29:00.000+00:00Cheers, Phil.I remember many an SWP rally when Cha...Cheers, Phil.<BR/><BR/>I remember many an SWP rally when Chanie R would get up on the platform and tell us how every comrade was like gold dust — each one precious to the movement. Yet this did turn out to be lip-service.<BR/><BR/>Sadly, I see no sign that they are ever going to reverse this.Madam Miaowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10237951918529887305noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-71491336635790217712008-12-28T17:13:00.000+00:002008-12-28T17:13:00.000+00:00MM, you're entirely correct. Socialist struggle wi...MM, you're entirely correct. Socialist struggle without developing bonds of solidarity and comradeship isn't a very attractive option. How to beat reification if your interest in your comrades is strictly instrumental? As our deputy general sec is fond of saying, the party must be the germ of the future in the present. Nice sentiment, but lip service if comrades are left to hang.Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-32370450689841301272008-12-27T13:09:00.000+00:002008-12-27T13:09:00.000+00:00I like this idea:"because the party is the very vi...I like this idea:<BR/><BR/>"because the party is the very visible insitution responsible for this state of affairs, the social pathologies...are...more likely to be laid at the door of the ruling party, which makes Stalinist social formations very unstable indeed."<BR/><BR/>One might say, rather paradoxically, that the dictatorial nature of the party makes it more 'democratic', because it 'responds to the popular will' by collapsing when things go badly, because people see it as the source of their problems and throw it off.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-25569856084526380392008-12-27T11:55:00.000+00:002008-12-27T11:55:00.000+00:00Phil: As reification is a process, not a condition...Phil: <I>As reification is a process, not a condition, there needs to be a constant struggle against it.</I><BR/><BR/>But what form does that take? When we are actually in struggle against it and get no back-up, debate or even an acknowledgment that you are engaged in that struggle then these words seems empty. <BR/><BR/>Yes, great in theory but heaven forfend we should experience the real thing in action.<BR/><BR/>BTW, I find your writing very clear and now have a better handle on wtf Lukacs is on about.Madam Miaowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10237951918529887305noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-36321684919981781532008-12-27T09:12:00.000+00:002008-12-27T09:12:00.000+00:00Reification certainly existed under Stalinism, but...Reification certainly existed under Stalinism, but in all likelihood operated in different ways than say the advanced capitalism of the West. For example, the "decentered" character of capitalist reification that comes through commodity fetishism could not pertain in regimes where bureaucratically "planned" property relations held sway. Here, I would suggest reification was rooted more in the division of labour, in the separation of the working class from the surplus product. But because the party is the very visible insitution responsible for this state of affairs, the social pathologies associated with reification in capitalist societies (but attributed, in the most part, to everything but commodity fetishism) are more likely to be laid at the door of the ruling party, which makes Stalinist social formations very unstable indeed. <BR/><BR/>I don't know if anyone ever wrote anything about alienation in Stalinist socieites from a Marxist perspective, but I would imagine some similar themes crop up in emigre/anti-communist philosophical attacks on the USSR and its ilk.Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-66108484637467427482008-12-27T00:58:00.000+00:002008-12-27T00:58:00.000+00:00In that case, what occurs to me is how this analys...In that case, what occurs to me is how this analysis applies to the USSR and other Stalinist/Leninist/Maoist countries. On the one hand they don't have market economies but rather planned ones, but on the other hand they hardly seem like inspiring examples of what 'overcoming reification' means. <BR/><BR/>I'm wondering both what Lukacs thought, given that I understand he had an ambivalent but very close relationship to the USSR, and what you/I/anyone else thinks.<BR/><BR/>For what it's worth, I would suggest that overcoming reification, seeing people as people, their actions as human actions, can take a variety of forms. I relate to someone as a person if we interact as equals, but also if they give me an order that I have obey. <BR/><BR/>Consequently there can be planned economies based on dictatorship or planned economies based on radical democracy, and they can both to some extent remove the material basis for reification, but what they replace it with is different. <BR/><BR/>This makes me wonder if there isn't (a) parallel process(es) to reification that are based not on the specifics of commodity production and the market economy but on the relative constant of state oppression.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-6986187454324093612008-12-26T19:47:00.000+00:002008-12-26T19:47:00.000+00:00Hi directionless, yes, the society of associated p...Hi directionless, yes, the society of associated producers is about the conscious regulation of the social forces human activity produces through various levels of democratic planning. Reification in the Lukacsian sense would not be able to exist because society is no longer in thrall to the independent existence reified forms take.<BR/><BR/>I haven't finished the book yet. None of the remaining essays are about reification, but some of the themes might crop up. I will talk about them if that is the case.Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-1657047915936864842008-12-26T19:41:00.000+00:002008-12-26T19:41:00.000+00:00MM, I agree reification is a potential problem for...MM, I agree reification is a potential problem for full time layers of revolutionary left organisations, and there is no magic bullet for dealing with it. As reification is a process, not a condition, there needs to be a constant struggle against it. As I discussed in my post below on John Rees's factional document, the SP try and balance the distortions that can afflict the position by grounding full timers in branch life. The friendships and comradeships that grow up in this setting with comrades not immersed in the party full time (mostly) mitigate the effects of having to adopt instrumentalist habits of thought, IMO. As Lukacs argues, widening socialist political practice helps us overcome reified relationships produced by capitalism and it can do the same on the left too. Unfortunately, this is lost on Rees - a man who's read and written about Lukacs, but appears not to understand him. If he did he wouldn't be harping on about "bending the stick" or have promoted a profoundly alienating culture in the SWP.<BR/><BR/>Re: your remaining comments, these posts on <I>History and Class Consciousness</I> are written to help me understand my reading of the book, and as such are a bit on the rough side. The apply-side of things will come later in future blog posts and perhaps some academic work. As part of my PhD is about engagement and commitment, in future research I will be looking at 'independent' activism, 'dropping out' and disengagement. This will necessarily involve elaborating a critique of the left's culture, backed up by accounts of why so many comrades drop out of far left groupings. This will, with our comrade's permission, be informed by theirs as well as others' experiences.Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-8960487116295856362008-12-26T18:37:00.000+00:002008-12-26T18:37:00.000+00:00Does Lukacs talk much about how socialism overcome...Does Lukacs talk much about how socialism overcomes reification? <BR/><BR/>What jumps out at me is (as I say in my latest post) that if reification is the dominance of people-understood-as-things, then non-reification means the dominance of people-understood-as-people, i.e. human beings relating to each other by discourse and discussion. And for that to control the economy would have to mean humans discussing their economic needs and collectively deciding on the allocation of resources - i.e. a 'rational plan'. So economic planning in a certain sense is the necessary antidote to reificaton. <BR/><BR/>Is that roughly what Lukacs means? He doesn't seem to talk that much about the positive un-reified sort of society, from my very brief scan.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-37500798326968927022008-12-26T15:04:00.000+00:002008-12-26T15:04:00.000+00:00Phil:The abstract position of the individual vs an...Phil:<I>The abstract position of the individual vs an object-oriented social world can easily be read off from the competitive relationships between capitals and the relation capital has with the inputs that enable accumulation. Reification for the bourgeoisie endows them a subjective position that broadly corresponds to their objective relationships and allows them to function in them. </I><BR/><BR/>That's all very well, Phil. But we see that this outlook is deeply embedded in the left groups, especially the SWP. <BR/><BR/>How can all this theory be turned into practice when this goes unchallenged? Even in the current debate I see few trying to tackle the bedrock mindset that perpetuates exploitation of working-class activists in the movement.<BR/><BR/><I> Its experience of reification engenders a sense of disempowerment and being-dehumanised.</I><BR/><BR/>Yet when real flesh and blood challenges the status quo we run into all sorts of rationalisations and other devices that maintain power within an elite. <BR/><BR/>You write great articles, Phil, and I know you're a great activist on your turf. But I don't see you applying this to the experience of a real comrade whose case you know about.<BR/><BR/>BTW, I have on several occasions (such as in A Bad Case of the Trots) defended the SP, especially as I saw how the fight went in the SA. But, in common with many other leftists, you seem to want to keep your lily-whites lily-white.<BR/><BR/>Why is that? Just asking as a proven comrade, like.Madam Miaowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10237951918529887305noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-54225874191364859752008-12-24T23:01:00.000+00:002008-12-24T23:01:00.000+00:00Previous discussions of History and Class Consciou...Previous discussions of <I>History and Class Consciousness</I> are as below:<BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/2008/08/lukacs-and-orthodox-marxism.html" REL="nofollow">Lukacs and Orthodox Marxism</A><BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/2008/08/luxemburg-revisionism-and-revolution.html" REL="nofollow">Luxemburg, Revisionism and Revolution</A><BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/2008/09/class-consciousness-and-false.html" REL="nofollow">Class Consciousness and False Consciousness</A><BR/><BR/>And the two preceding posts on 'Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat':<BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/2008/11/commodities-and-reification.html" REL="nofollow">Commodities and Reification</A><BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/2008/12/structure-of-bourgeois-philosophy.html" REL="nofollow">Structure of Bourgeois Philosophy</A>Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.com