Back to the Nineties

This last week the BC household took a trip back to the nineties - the 1890s! I'm all for a bit of retro, but spending seven days without power while electricians rip up your carpets and floors, forcing you to boil water on the stove and read by candle light isn't anyone's idea of fun. We'd been having problems with the lecky for a few months. Lights would dim and flash back on. The TV would blink in the middle of those all-important Celebrity Big Brother episodes. The internet would switch off abruptly. And then it all came to a head last Saturday. We walked in and groped around for the switch, but the bloody thing wouldn't turn on! We went to the electric box and, dangerously, the trip hadn't, erm, tripped. Out came the engineer who told us we had two problems. First, our antiquated wiring system was probably arcing somewhere, causing the lights etc. to cut out. Second, the feed into our house was similarly ancient ... and was a serious fire hazard!!! His advice (British Gas engineers no longer have the power to turn a supply off, all they can do is "advise" the customer) was to get the service providers to replace their cabling and then get the place rewired.

Seven days later, here I sit with piles of dusty books and furniture still draped with covers. The plaster around the switches and sockets is more or less dry (disappointingly it's a grim-grey colour rather than the pleasingly warm pink of "traditional" plaster). An endless day of dusting, hoovering and tidying stretch awaits. Sisyphus has nothing on the labour confronting me.

Still, one shouldn't be downhearted. How about a silly, bouncy, kitschy track from our nineties to get the day off to a bounce. Anyone remember this?

Yes pop pickers, that is Deuce with their cheese-friendly 1995 hit, Call It Love. I sometimes wonder what happened to lead singer Kelly O'Keefe - she had proper star power. 

With all the cleaning, blogging will be sporadic for the next several days. I also need time to catch up on the news and what's been tickling the belly of leftyblogland this last week. I see last week's demo in London against Israel's murderous rampage in Gaza went well, while, simultaneously, the conference on workers' political representation twiddled its thumbs (some belated reflections on this next week). There's been more doom and economic gloom, the dreadful reign of George W. Bush is in its final days, Tina got evicted and Mutya walked from CBB, and The Scum is inexplicably leading with a Mars story that's been doing the rounds in popular science journals for years. It's not as though there's nothing going on in the world!

Get Your Voting Fingers Out!

Blogging polls might not mean anything in the real world, but they're still nice things to win. And would you Adam and Eve it, there happens to be one ongoing as I write! The 2008 Weblog awards is probably the biggest going, so for any finalist and the eventual winner the prize is many hundreds and thousands more visitors to their blog. To give you a clue about the numbers we're dealing with, since Monday, the awards claim to have had 950,000 visits. That might not be a number of absolute uniques, but it's still a bloody lot of people!

For this reason there are three bloggers who need your support.

First is my comrade and friend Madam Miaow. She has been nominated in the best culture blog category, and is, as far as I know, the only left-winger in sight. If everyone who visited this blog in the last week voted for her she would easily cruise into the lead. So get your voting fingers out and support a comrade! Vote for Madam Miaow here.

Neil Clark caused a bit of an upset last year by pipping Iain Dale and Guido to the post in the best UK blog award category. He's up again, but this time the right have concentrated their support on the arch reactionary, Melanie Phillips. Neil offers a take on current affairs and international relations less based on wishful thinking than Mad Mel, so give him your support.

Lastly, in the Middle East or Africa category, there is only one blog offering an alternative to the Gaza slaughter cheer leader brigade, and that's Juan Cole's Informed Comment. So give him a click!

I never endorse multiple voting, but if you are so inclined you can vote once every 24 hours. But remember, in these instances proxy servers can be your friend!

Relocation, Relocation

When the housing market is more Repossession, Repossession, Repossession than anything else, do we need grinagogs like Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer mooning all over our TV screens, chasing after ridiculously-priced properties for hoorays and sloanes? Channel Four think so and have brought the hideous Relocation, Relocation back to our screens last night. Well, it might not be such a bad time. The housing market is heading down the tubes. House prices fell almost 16 per cent during the course of 2008, and the government has stepped in and bought 379 "surplus" houses from Bovis Homes for £18 million. A bit of help for buyers and sellers would be especially welcome. But none was forthcoming.

Watching this week's Relocation, Relocation, you could be forgiven for thinking the housing market isn't in crisis. As per usual, it featured an overprivileged couple with hundreds of thousands to spend - not a common situation during the "boom" times, let alone today. "Dom" and "Steph" had lived in three properties in the past five years around the Bristol area and were scouting around for a £500 grand(!) home. Alas, they weren't able to bring home the bacon and decided upon an alternative strategy. Their half a million budget was split in two - a cool £350K was allocated to finding a family home and the rest for a holiday let on the Cornish coast. Steph's specification for Kirstie was four beds, off road parking, a massive garden and for it to be in a 'nice' area. The first house didn't suit this spec. It had period features but lacked a "smooth finish" (what do you expect?) The area was "grim", and you could "hear cars". That's one down. The next was more to her taste - a five year old three-story town house with four beds, which came in at £335,000. On the basis of a few smudges on the laminate flooring Steph thought it needed a "lot of work". The final property had Dom's coveted period features but was a massive £38K over budget. Steph also pronounced the need for it to be redecorated, a new kitchen and a first floor extension, all of which would cost a further £40,000. After some umming and aahhing, they went for the "compromise" new build at a knock-down price of £310,000.

And then came the bombshell. Behind the backs of our chinless hosts they pulled out and plumped for a comparatively pokey bungalow. After the grief they'd suffered, it's a wonder Kirstie and Phil didn't kill them in the face. But that was an end to the ordeal. Our fantastic four hit Cornwall in search of the holiday rental. The plan was to buy a house they could rent out and use themselves. I could have told them that wasn't the wisest of moves - meeting personal requirements and the needs of the rental market aren't necessarily compatible. And so it was in the first house they were shown. It clearly didn't meet Steph's exacting standards, despite being decently furnished. The promise such a holiday rental could command a £1,000/week rent(!) peak season didn't phase her. But at least they were savvy enough to realise we're in the early phase of a severe economic downturn and might have problems seeing that sort of money in the immediate future. Instead they did the wise thing and hung on to their money, which they'll no doubt do until a repossessed bargain comes along.

Privilege and smarm oozes from every Relocation, Relocation pore. It's horribly irritating. But more than that, it, its Location, Location, Location sibling, Property Ladder, House Doctor, Homes Under the Hammer and even the otherwise interesting Grand Designs all rode the property bubble and spread the housing love around. If Thatcher aimed to create a nation of home owners, these programmes went a step further than her wildest dreams and encouraged a land of multiple home owners. How many bought into their propaganda, had a go at the property developing lark and are now staring ruin in the face? I'm sure few socialists will be losing sleep over these people. But the likes of Kirstie and Phil helped this layer along, but will Relocation Relocation reflect on their plight? Not on your nelly. Just as working class folk with tight incomes and modest budgets never figured on Kirstie and Phil's radar, the losers of the property crash, will be shunned. On their planet, there are lifestyles to buy and people with cash to burn. But for the rest of us, well, there's always the off button.

Science and Islam

These days, religion and science aren't thought of as easy bedfellows, but as a new three-part series on BBC Four demonstrates, this hasn't always been the case. In Science and Islam, prof. Jim Al-Khalili demonstrates the intimate bond that once existed between the development of science and the rising power of Islam. And along the way he helpfully (if unwittingly) demolishes some myths that have grown up around Islam.

Between the 9th and the 12th centuries, the Islamic world experienced its own scientific enlightenment. By the time of Muhammad's death in 632, Islam had spread through conquest across the Arabian peninsula. By 750 it stretched from the Pyrenees to the Indus. In 762, Baghdad was founded as the capital of the empire on major trade routes running from east and west. It was also around this time that the empire began to rationalise its bureaucracy. According to Al-Khalili the way it tried to avoid the centrifugal forces nibbling at the extremities was by making Arabic the standard, official language. By coincidence, the intimate relationship between Arabic and the Qur'an made the language well-suited to its task.

One of the key instructions regarding the Qur'an is that as the word of God, its text must be meticulously preserved. As a set of religious instructions it needed to be as clear as possible to avoid problems of misinterpretation and understanding. The injunction that each Qur'an be copied clearly, carefully and without changes made written Arabic a precise script. Therefore it was well suited for the language of imperial administration. But its adoption as the empire’s official tongue had the happy unintended effect of providing a common and precise language for its scattered scholastic communities. Administrative rationalisation allowed the geographically isolated savants of Islam to correspond without linguistic barriers getting in the way. As time passed these circles of correspondents circulated ideas and developed new discoveries and ways of thinking, wealthy patrons and the Caliph got involved for their own reasons, such that the Islamic world went through a renaissance of its own.

Medicine was a focus of much of this scientific activity. In the Hadith, the collection of Muhammad’s sayings and deeds, he reportedly said “God did not send down disease without sending a cure”. There were then powerful religious reasons that made medicine a worthwhile scientific pursuit. The empire, bordering Europe and India and on the overland trade routes to China drew on the medical traditions of all three, as well as the herbalism that was (and to an extent, still is) the preserve of Arabic women. Islamic medicine also developed hospitals, introduced the pharmacy and developed tools and masks for surgery. It was also the first to make use of anatomical drawings as surgical aids. The synthesis of traditions and the new practices culminated in Ibn Sina's 1025 encyclopedia, The Canon of Medicine. This landmark work established principles such as diagnosis and cure, and formed the basis of medical knowledge that lasted until the early 19th century.

With the system of patronage, valuable discoveries were made in the course of meeting the ruler’s demands. One achievement of Islamic science, only recently acknowledged by modern scholarship, was its translation of Egyptian hieroglyphics into Arabic some 1,000 years prior to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone. The historian, Ibin Washiyya managed this by realising that the Coptic alphabet, which as a living contemporary language could easily be translated into Arabic, was in fact a descendent of these hieroglyphs. Unfortunately the caliph who sponsored the project was disappointed. Egyptian tombs and stone carvings yielded no hoped-for magical and alchemical secrets.

Islam’s contribution to mathematics is probably its best-known contribution to science. From India Muslim scholars took the numbers system (which, as we saw, was then introduced into mediaeval Europe), and from ancient Greece came geometry. But they did more than just preserve these achievements. They built on them. The noted Persian scholar, al-Khwārizmī, combined the two and opened an entirely new continent of mathematics: algebra. It’s difficult to overstate the importance of this scholarship. At a stroke principles of abstract mathematical thought independent of numbers were established with innumerable applications. Equally crucial was the introduction of the decimal point to denote fractions of numbers.

By the end of Science and Islam, Al-Kalili concluded that the great achievement of science’s relationship with Islam was confirming its independence as a mode of thought from religious and local/cultural traditions. Science wasn’t essentially Islamic. Neither was it essentially Indian, Greek or Chinese. It was a synthesis of all these sources. Without this synthesis and the discoveries Islamic scholars built upon it, the subsequent renaissance and enlightenment in Western Europe that came centuries later may never have happened, or at least proceeded at a much slower pace.

But importantly for today, the role Islam played in the history of science demonstrates it is no more barbaric or anti-intellectual than any other major religion. It conclusively disproves the euro-centric and racist contention that nothing of consequence happened outside of Europe that caused it to rise to global prominence from the 16th century onwards. In short, without the Arabic contributions to science modern Europe would look very different to the one we have today.

The next two episodes will be broadcast on BBC Four at 9pm on the 12th and 19th January.

Luxemburg and the Organic Conception of Socialism

In the final two pieces in History and Class Consciousness, Lukacs turns his attention to the problems of socialist organisation. The final piece is a general meditation on the revolutionary party, but this, ‘Critical Observations on Rosa Luxemburg’s ‘Critique of the Russian Revolution’ is, not surprisingly, a polemic against her views on the Bolsheviks. But this is not a point-by-point contestation of ‘the facts’ – it is a deep philosophical critique of her method.

The critique begins from what Lukacs argues is a misreading of the character of proletarian revolution in her remarks on the agrarian question in revolutionary Russia (or, to put it differently, what were socialists going to do about the peasantry?) Luxemburg criticised the Bolshevik solution for not laying down the prerequisites of socialist agricultural reform. Instead they did the reverse and made it more difficult in the long run. A socialist government should have centralized land ownership via nationalization. Instead the Bolsheviks adopted the peasant demand of land redistribution and stood by as it was parceled out chaotically into millions of individual plots. As far as Lukacs was concerned, it wasn’t really a question of right or wrong. What mattered was the extent to which the mass movement of peasants, in the context of dissolving bourgeois society, could be won for the revolution as opposed to the counterrevolution. Before the October revolution the land question was being resolved by the peasants themselves and was more or less an accomplished fact when the soviets became the governing power. Had the Bolsheviks turned their face against the movement, the revolution would not have been won.

Luxemburg does acknowledge it as an astute tactical move on the Bolsheviks’ part – but remained steadfast in her belief that it didn’t advance agriculture toward socialism. For Lukacs, Luxemburg’s “impatience” is an outgrowth of her overestimation of the revolution’s proletarian character. She overestimated the clarity and maturity of the Russian working class at that historical conjuncture, and therefore its ability to stamp its will on other classes. By extension Luxemburg underestimated the strength of those classes and the power their ideologies exert within the working class itself. As a result, “she constantly opposes to the exigencies of the moment the principles of the future stages of the revolution” (1968, pp.276-7).

‘Critique of the Russian Revolution’ criticises the Bolsheviks on the dispersal of the constituent assembly, the foundation of the soviet system, the red terror, and the denial of civil rights to the bourgeoisie. Lukacs response is to dig more thoroughly into Luxemburg’s method, this time by going back to her famous polemic with Eduard Bernstein. She writes, “the relations of production of capitalist society become increasingly socialist but its political and legal arrangements erect an ever loftier wall between capitalist and socialist society” (cit p.277). Luxemburg agrees with the need for revolution, for a violent break with the old order, but the way she sets up revolution – as being against the ‘political and legal arrangements’ that are preventing socialism from emerging within the womb of capitalist society – is very close to resembling a political revolution (see Legality and Class Consciousness). What Lukacs is getting at here is that Luxemburg seemingly believed that if the bourgeois barriers are removed (through revolutionary means), the socialist tendencies in the economy would be free to develop. But more than just a violent break is needed – violent social revolution, the forced expropriation of the expropriators is the necessary precursor to the society of associated producers. This is more thoroughgoing than anything Luxemburg envisaged. She overplays the mechanical or ‘organic’ movement of history relying on it to bring socialism is about.

Luxemburg’s organic conception of socialism is the root of her critique of soviet power. In the Russian revolution, and revolutionary situations before and since, soviets, or workers’ councils, have been a tried and tested method of organising the class. This reached its highest mode of expression in the early phase of the Russian revolution when the soviets seized power under a Bolshevik and Left Socialist Revolutionary coalition government. This state, the workers’ state, then organises its power against the bourgeoisie. Unlike capitalist states, which, on the whole, are reactive and tend to intervene economically and politically after the fact, the workers’ state is an activist state. It consciously fights the class struggle and seeks to steer development in the socialist direction, which in turn will lead to further, conscious socialist construction, and thereby gradually undermining the basis for its existence. This is not socialism by decree, but, initially, the workers’ state is the primary agent for organising and building the democratically planned economy. Thus socialism comes into the world as the fruits of conscious action. It cannot be otherwise. Luxemburg did not see things this way. For her the soviet organisation of the workers’ state was “premature” – rather it is the form of governance proper to the higher phase of developed socialism.

Lenin and Luxemburg’s differences on the party question turn on the conscious and organic perspectives. Lenin and the Communist International insisted upon the organisational independence of revolutionaries to better contest for the leadership of the working class. For Luxemburg the struggle against opportunism and reformism should remain within the mass workers’ parties. These bodies had been thrown up organically by class struggle and were, therefore, the mass repositories of proletarian experience. Social democracy (as was) provided a party home for all kinds discontented anti-capitalist elements of non-proletarian origin as well. In a revolutionary situation, she supposed the spontaneous revolutionary spirit of the class would well up and cause the entire working class to join battle simultaneously, dragging all its social democratic allies in its wake.

Unfortunately, Luxemburg’s commitment to the organic perspective of organising workers meant she overlooked the extent to which the mass workers’ parties had been compromised by the first world war, despite her frequent and trenchant polemics with revisionist elements.

The fact was that almost without exception an influential section of the leadership in the workers’ parties openly went over to the side of the bourgeoisie while another group was tacitly and secretly in league with it. That both these groups have succeeded in retaining their hold on the crucial strata of the proletariat both intellectually and organizationally must be made the point of departure for the analysis of the situation and the tasks of the revolutionary workers’ party (p.288).

The lesson to be drawn from this that ideological struggle in the mass parties would not resolve the situation. They cannot be “reclaimed”. Nor will the working class adopt a revolutionary leadership as a result of the blind play of capitalist laws of motion. It has to be consciously fought for, and this is only possible if the revolutionary party has the freedom and independence to intervene in struggle and win over the working class by virtue of its actions (more about communist organisation in the final post).

The organic conception of socialism is a tendency that needs combating. In Luxemburg’s case, her commitment to revolutionary politics was able to mitigate its effects. But she was very much on the extreme left wing of this tendency. For others of a more centrist or reformist persuasion, the organic conception of socialism was a recipe for fatalism and non-activity. However, it is tempting to suggest that Lukacs makes the opposite error – that his emphasising the conscious basis of socialism is another way of advancing an essentially voluntaristic perspective. I think this would be a mistake. Throughout History and Class Consciousness Lukacs has philosophically sketched out a conception of the working class struggling through history and gradually becoming aware of its position in capitalist society, its interests, and the possible destiny that awaits it. Trade unions, labour parties and communist parties are milestones in the development of this consciousness. The argument could be made that this process of becoming is itself an organic process driven forward by blind social forces. But Lukacs is absolutely clear that the class-conscious proletariat is the fundamental prerequisite of socialism. There comes a historical point where conscious activity has to take over if the socialist potential capitalism has made possible is going to be realised.

A complete list of History and Class Consciousness postings can be found here.

Why Bother With Ideology Critique?

From time to time I'm asked why I bother writing stuff like this, this and this. It's tempting to give the bourgeois reply and say "Because it's my blog and because I can".

But it's not that. Really. I think Terry Eagleton, the well-known Marxist literary theorist, offers a position that explains why criticism of seemingly inane cultural phenomena can be useful:

Marxist criticism is part of a larger body of theoretical analysis which aims to understand ideologies - the ideas, values and feelings by which men [sic] experience their societies at various times. And certain of those ideas, values and feelings are available to us only in literature. To understand ideologies is to understand both the past and the present more deeply; and such understanding contributes to our liberation (Marxism and Literary Criticism 1976, p.viii).

Substitute 'literature' for film, TV, music, etc. and you've got a powerful justification for teasing out the ideologies curled up tightly in the likes of Mamma Mia, The Sopranos and Eric Prydz videos. And what's more, you have a critical practice that is very well suited to the blogging format.

That is why I occasionally write about tat.

Gaza and the Fog of War

The global demonstrations against Israel's assault on Gaza have been a magnificent display of solidarity with the Palestinians. I wasn't there but a comrade on the march estimates some 50,000 demonstrated in London yesterday - and that wasn't even a national demonstration (that, according to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign is pencilled in for next Saturday). Thousands also demonstrated in Manchester and Preston, and many more protests were scheduled throughout the country over the weekend. Many, many more made their opposition felt with demonstrations tens of thousands strong across Europe and the Islamic world. The Israeli government knew it could rely on their allies to equivocate or back it, but the numbers on the streets show it's losing the media front.

Truth, as the old adage goes, is the first casualty of war. It's no less true in this case. Since the ground invasion began yesterday, the pro-Hamas English language news source, the Palestinian Information Centre at the time of writing claims to have killed 13 Israeli soldiers, captured two (including a high-ranking officer) and destroyed seven tanks. For its part, the Israeli army army confirms one dead and 30 injured. On top of all this, a group of Norwegian doctors claim to have recovered traces of depleted uranium from the bodies of several Palestinians. How to separate what is true from what is propaganda?

Media organisations aren't helping matters. In the West, they mostly rely on Israeli state sources, and have their own blind spots and ideological biases. The BBC have been doing a fine job of letting the official Israeli narrative go unchallenged - that the blitz and invasion of Gaza is morally justified after Israel has "lost patience" with completely unprovoked rocket attacks by Hamas militants. The main criticism of Israel that does appear is the disproportionality argument, which, of course, does little to challenge the official grounds of the invasion itself. Surprise, surprise, Fox has been the Israeli state's vocal friend in the US media, saying it has the "moral high ground" and that Hamas could easily end the bloodshed ... by surrendering. Other satellite news sources, namely Al-Jazeera and the Iranian-sponsored Press TV offer takes unencumbered by pro-Israel bias, but that isn't to say they do not have their own agendas. Press TV, reflecting Iran's geopolitical strategy, gives Hamas the kind of free-run Israel gets from Western news outlets.

What the media confusion attempts to do is extend the fog of war back before the conflict began. In an excellent post at Lenin's Tomb explains, Hamas is not an organisation committed to permanent war with Israel. It has hinted at peace deals, offered cease fires, observed unilateral cease fires, and so on. And at every stage, Israel have interfered in internal Palestinian affairs, abducted activists, carried out assassinations, and turned Gaza into an open air internment camp. The rockets Hamas have launched against Israel prior to the present war did not happen without reason. There are material reasons for everything, and in this case, it's in the years of low-level warfare Israel has subjected Gaza to. This is why, much to the exasperation of the Israeli state and its apologists, tens of thousand have marched, and millions across the world are turning against it.Socialist Struggle Movement (Tnu`at Maavak Sotzyalisti/Harakat Nidal Eshteraki – CWI in Israel) statement here.Socialist Party statement here.

Tommy on the Telly

Hands up, how many tuned in to watch Tommy Sheridan enter the Celebrity Big Brother house last night? Yes, probably the worst-kept rumour in Scottish politics has turned out to be true. But has Tommy, as "post-war Scotland's most iconic socialist" got anything to fear? After all his friend, George Galloway acquitted himself with dignity and gravitas when he went on the show three years back. It didn't do his political career much harm, did it?

Well there are those who think Sheridan's move might not prove to be his wisest. The Socialist Party was quick off the mark, making, I think, a pretty measured series of criticisms. Solidarity has put out a statement that neither "endorses or condemns" his appearance. His other allies, the SWP have yet to put anything out on their website. Whatever they end up saying, I doubt they won't feel the need to defend Sheridan in the same way they did Galloway.

The question Sheridan's comrades will ask when he leaves the house will be one word: why? The SP statement offers what some might see as a generous explanation.

The consequences financially [of the court action against News of the World, and subsequent perjury charge] for Tommy and his family have been dire. It has proved impossible to find paid work and undoubtedly these difficulties and other associated financial pressures have played a key role in his decision to take part in CBB.

And offers a non-BB solution to these dire straits;

We understand these pressures but it would have been better, via the large support that exists in the socialist and trade union movement for him, to find an alternative solution. When the Liverpool 47 councillors were surcharged and banned from office for the "crime" of standing up for the people of Liverpool in the1980's an appeal to the Labour movement raised more than £100,000.

Others are not so charitable. Kevin Williamson, formerly of the SSP, writes in his December 14th blog:

Fame is a drug. Its not as good as proper drugs - and the side-effects can be horrendous - but each to their own I suppose. An addiction to facile superficial fleeting celebrity can surely be the only explanation for Tommy Sheridan's decision to take part in Channel 4's Celebrity Big Brother. (Unless there's a fat cheque at the end of it).

There are elements of truth in both. Tommy's family may well be hard up. But then again, Sheridan has never really been averse to the spotlight. Remember this? And this? How about the comedy career? And it would be an injustice if this was forgotten too.

Some will use this as an opportunity to take potshots at Militant, SML, the pre-split SSP, and Solidarity, as each have a responsibility for promoting Tommy as a distinctive political personality. But becoming a celebrity is a process, the length of which depends on the avenue taken to fame. These comrades put Sheridan forward to build their organisations, which enabled him to capture a media profile, but then different processes come into play. He started to play the celebrity game, albeit partly limited by his eight years as a Holyrood MSP. But once he lost his seat at the 2007 election, he turned toward celebrity to make a living. From that point it was probably only a matter of time before appearing on Big Brother.

Unfortunately for Sheridan, even if his conduct in the house is irreproachable, this celebrity will be difficult to overcome if he wants to return to Holyrood. Galloway's speaking tours are successful, but for the majority of working class people he is remembered for his Big Brother antics, and saluting Saddam. There's no reason to believe it will be any different for Sheridan. CBB will offer Sheridan opportunities, but only in the celebrity system where fame equals exposure equals money. A world of OK!, Strictly Come Dancing, Cash in the Celebrity Attic, etc. is there for the taking.

This whole affair should be a warning to the socialist movement. In the future when our movement throws up charismatic figures, we must be on our guard. The celebrity system will be open to these comrades and may go as far as courting them. But be under no illusions. Playing the celebrity game will damage the standing of any prominent activist. In effect, celebrity can nullify the danger they represent to the system.

Now, that's quite enough of that. Time for the really important discussion. What are Sheridan's chances? Will he bond with Coolio? Is class conflict with "Tory bird" Lucy Pinder in the offing?

Legality and Class Consciousness

Lukacs's essay, 'Legality and Illegality' is more than just a meditation on the revolutionary party's adoption of legal and illegal methods of work. He looks at the law as a potent ideological weapon used by the bourgeoisie in the class struggle, the level of drag it has on proletarian class consciousness, and the changing functions of legalism once the working class have assumed power. But Lukacs begins not with the question of black letter law, but how laws, in the social scientific sense, function to reproduce the capitalist state and society. He argues "the organs of authority harmonise to such an extent with the (economic) laws governing men's lives, or seem so overwhelmingly superior that men experience them as natural forces, as the necessary environment for their existence. As a result they submit to them freely. (Which is not to say that they approve of them) (Lukacs 1968, p.257).

For example, we are not forced to go to work and perform a set of tasks in the workplace on pain of legal sanctions, we do so because we need the wage to reproduce ourselves as physically, and as individuals with the necessary set of basic cultural competencies. But that millions upon millions do this every day without a gun held to our heads reproduces the appearance of this as a force of nature, which, of course, grants the exploitative relations that stand behind it a (mostly unacknowledged) legitimacy that is very difficult to dislodge. Contrast this with societies whose rulers depended heavily on the use of force, such as with capitalist dictatorships. Its reliance on force to meet oppositional upswells from below means they are more prone to revolutionary situations than liberal democracies. Repeated state violence does not allow for the appearance of natural harmony between authority and the economy to emerge. Instead power appears as something illegitimate, and that threatens not just the regime, but can lead to a revolutionary movement against capitalism itself.

Therefore Lukacs makes a distinction (familiar to Trotskyists) between political revolutions, whose outbreak effects only the political form of the state and, in capitalist societies, replaces the old regime with a legal superstructure more in tune with the 'natural' motion of the economy. Social revolutions, on the other hand, are more thoroughgoing: they aim to change the system itself. Unsurprisingly, "any such change violates the instincts of the average [bourgeois] man so deeply that he regards it as a catastrophic threat to life as such, it appears to him to be a blind force of nature like a flood or earthquake. Unable to grasp the essence of the process, his blind despair tries to defend itself by attacking the immediate manifestations of change that menace his accustomed existence" (p.258). The revolution does not appear as such to the movement of our class, provided it has become fully conscious of its position in capitalist society and the role it will be playing in the construction of socialism.

The existence of Marxism, as the theoretical distillation of the experience of the proletariat, and awareness of its theoretical and practical consequences does not means its outlook has been incorporated in the consciousness of the class. Some layers are more passive than others. Parts of the working class are concentrated in large workplaces, others may lead a more solitary work life. In short the variations among our class in conditions when consciousness is low can leave it prey to the effects of reification and alien ideologies. This helps explain how the differences in working class politics, between the Marxists, and the reformists, social democrats and labourists, are sustained. The objectives of the two camps are qualitatively different. The Marxists seek to organise against the state. Reformist politics struggle against their bourgeois counterparts for control over the state - not to strike a blow for workers' power but for the privilege of managing the common affairs of the capitalists. In so far as class enters the reformist world view, the state is an organ that rises above and is neutral in the struggle between the classes. It fetishises the trappings of authority, especially those that appear in congruence with the "natural" appearance of capitalism. The law, which is the ideological guarantor of legitimate authority, is likewise defended as something that is above class struggle. They collude in capitalism's naturalist conceit.

Obviously, Marxists differ:

What is essential is to realise that the capitalist state should be seen and evaluated as a historical phenomenon even while it exists. It should be treated therefore purely as a power structure which has to be taken into account only to the extent to which its actual power stretches. On the other hand, it should be subjected to the most painstaking and fearless examination in order to discover the points where this power can be weakened and undermined. This strong point, or rather weak point in the state is the way in which it is reflected in the consciousness of the people. Ideology is in this case not merely a consequence of the economic structure of society but also the precondition of its smooth functioning (p.261)

When capitalism is in a relatively stable period it's unsurprising that the working class can be found occupying ideological positions within the limits of the system. The job of Marxism is to create a frame of mind in which the common sense natural view of capitalism and the state are seen for what they are: the products of history. This knowledge (defined as practical-critical political activity) strips both of their reservoir of latent "spiritual" strength. Spreading these insights are the key task because ideology, accepting capitalism's naturalism, is what stymies opposition. But doing this is premised on Marxists themselves achieving a revolutionary understanding of the law in relation to strategy and tactics. As we saw, reformism fetishises the legal apparatus. The flip-side of this, the ultra-left romanticism of illegality, associates all legal activity with opportunism and sees the state as a straight forward condensation of class power. This, for Lukacs, is counter-productive because the investment of illegal methods with an aura inadvertently confers the state more legal legitimacy. Thus grand gestures that vocally declare the breaking of the law can actually reinforce the preservation of its authority.

The party escapes the closed game of legality and illegality by granting special status to neither: in itself it has decisively broken with legal ideology. This is very different from movements who "specialise" in illegality. Lukacs cites the example of the Socialist Revolutionaries before and after the Russian revolution. Under Tsarism, they and their forerunners participated in several assassinations, bomb plots, peasant uprisings, etc. But this did not prevent the majority of the party from passing into the camp of capitalist counterrevolution during the civil war. For Lukacs, their commitment to illegality signified their adherence to legal ideology. But the party's indifference to legalism, its treatment of legality and illegality as merely a matter of tactics is necessary for proletarian self-education. "For the proletariat can only be liberated from its dependence upon the life-forms created by capitalism when it has learnt to act without these life-forms inwardly influencing its actions" (p.264).

Lukacs argues the successful struggle for power is only the start of the education against legalism. Once the working class has won power most are still affected by the lingering sense that capitalism is really the only properly authentic and legal social order. Thus if the soviet system can quickly seize the weapon of legality to legitimate itself it puts itself in an advantageous position vis a vis the less conscious sections of the working class. It also robs the restorationist bourgeoisie of a key ideological prop of its rule. But, Lukacs gloomily concludes, until our class has a sense of its own legality, it will be partly disarmed in front of its opponent. It would not be constructing the relations and institutions of socialism with assurance, but half-heartedly and with the guilt of the usurper.

This is probably the most problematic of Lukacs's essays. It sits rather uneasily with the thrust of the rest of the book. The emphasis up until now has rightly been on practical working class activity as the means of successfully waging class struggle., but Lukacs here falls into prioritising ideological struggle without reference to his previous insights. The essays on reification demonstrate how the relations of capitalist production give rise to the objectification of phenomena, and how class struggle is simultaneously the fight against reifying processes. But this is separated out. Reification is undoubtedly the wellspring of seeing and experiencing capitalism as a natural force, therefore his claim that ideology is the biggest obstacle to conscious opposition is erroneous to say the least. But understandable. The essay was written in 1920, after the failure of the Hungarian soviet but during the period when the revolutionary window of opportunity was open. It appeared the objective circumstances were favourable, so why wasn't the working class entering the struggle in greater numbers? Lukacs's emphasis on ideology in general and legalist naturalism in particular as his answer reflects an underestimation of the resilience of capitalism, typical of impatience. For all the thousands of words spent on the importance of totality, Lukacs loses sight of it. Even during periods of revolutionary crisis, the ideological resources of capitalism are constantly replenished to the extent waged labour exists and property remains in private hands. It is not enough to struggle against ideology, as important as that is. "Practical-critical activity" needs to patiently proceed on all fronts, and particularly in the workplace, which, after all, is where our class is concentrated.

A complete list of History and Class Consciousness postings can be found here.

Ten More Blogging Resolutions

Tradition dictates, I'm afraid:

1) PhD-related hermitage equals a curtailment of party activities. So there will be less time for blogging this coming year too. But how to make sure the show stays on the road? AVPS will never again have the kind of blogging gap it experienced in 2007. Unless my arms fall off, or something. The solution lies in shorter, pithier posts that can be knocked out in less than an hour.

2) But there is still the need for more "considered" posting! Plot blogging time more effectively if you want to get a bit thoughtful.

3) On the topic of this kind of posting, the series on History and Class Consciousness have been useful, if only for me. It would be a good idea to continue this sort of thing with future books. I've got a load of old notes from Althusser's For Marx that might be worth writing about. But I also quite fancy a bite of bourgie thought too. I've been meaning to read John Stuart Mill's On Liberty for a very long time. Ditto with Weber's From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. I'll head in this direction when H&CC is finally finished.

4) An audience, while not the be-all and end-all of blogging, is a nice thing to have. And a big audience is very nice. Not just for egotistical reasons either. More readers grow the number of commentators, which can lead to better discussions in the comment boxes. But remember, quantity is not the same as quality, as the bile regularly served up at Guido's shows.

5) Never one to labour the point, but large audiences are very, very, very nice. The aim is to massively increase the number of daily visits and repeat readers. Doubling the figures should be the oh-so modest minimum target to aim for (going up a few places in Iain Dale's annual blogging chart won't hurt).

6) Enough public parading of petit bourgeois individualism! AVPS is part of a loose blogging community, and should be more community-spirited. Already you are fairly good at giving shouts out to new left blogs, and long may you continue to do so. But time issues have meant spending those precious spare moments on writing posts and responding to debates on your own turf. You should endeavour to comment more on other folks' blogs. After all, they're kind enough to offer their pearls AVPS's offerings.

7) Yeah, so more community-minded stuff then. It seems the Carnival of Socialism has juddered to a halt - why not help get it going again? More coordinated and simultaneous blog posts, like that on Hicham Yezza are good. And don't forget you are a contributor to another two blogs. How about writing something for them?

8) And the last community thing - try and use the blog to promote decent discussion and aid understanding between the comrades who visit here.

9) Didn't manage to achieve much in the way of guest posts last year! Brother S has been too busy being an activist to write about it, but at least his infrequent musings are guaranteed. But if I want the comrade to write more I must lobby the BBC to get Keeley Hawes on the box more regularly. As I've said before, guest posts are welcome, and especially so if you're a member of the Socialist Party/CWI!

10) I said last year that blogging's only any good if it's fun and satisfying. I hope it doesn't become a chore this year. It's the nearest thing I've got to a hobby (sob!)

Have you made any resolutions, blogging or otherwise?

... And happy new year!