One of the main arguments I am going to try to make in this blog is that the reformist centre-left and the radical left are both being held back by the same fundamental problem: the lack of a ‘dialectical’ approach. In this post I am just going to throw together a broad outline of what I mean by this.
In a capitalist economy, capital and labour find themselves locked in mutual opposition, each side compelled necessarily to push back against the other in order to maintain its position.
The nature of this conflict is such that it is impossible for either side simply to impose its will on the other. Capital cannot simply subjugate labour to the status of worker drones; labour cannot simply abolish the power of capital. Instead, the two co-exist in a state of contradictory tension.
A dialectical analysis tells us that at any given time, the viable options open to each side for advancing its position are delimited by the relative strength of the other side, by the balance of power between the two sides.
Further, it tells us that this equation is one that evolves through time as the interactions between the two sides result in a continual remaking of the balance of power between them: the actions of today creating a new set of conditions for action tomorrow.
What this means for the political forces supporting labour, i.e. for the left, is that at any given moment, there is an optimum course of action available that will lead to the best possible set of circumstances for taking further action.
Since this involves moving from one situation of contradictory tension to another, it represents, to some extent, a deliberate compromise with -- or at least a proactive acknowledgement of -- the power of capital.
As the dialectical process progresses through time, it ought to be possible to find a path of optimum tension that results in the greatest possible increase in the relative power of labour.
Such a strategy of evolving contradiction is one that I will call a ‘pro-dialectical’ approach, since it involves intervention into the dialectical process, rather than an attempt to impose a state of affairs onto that process.
This is not an approach that is being applied by any part of today’s left.
It seems to me that the root cause of the impasse facing each section of the left today is a falling back in one direction or another from that path of optimum tension: in other words, an absence of dialectical thinking.
On the centre-left, there has effectively been an abstention from any attempt at intervening in the dialectical process, on the basis that the interests of capital and labour can be reconciled and the need to perpetuate a tension between them does not therefore arise.
In the case of the radical left, the issue is one of entrenched counter-dialectical tendencies: railing against contradiction rather than working with it, unrealistic goals, fragmentary rather than integrated strategies and a focus on mobilising too narrow a range of social forces.
The theory I will try to pursue in the following posts is that a new, pro-dialectical, strategy of contradictory tension could map out a way to build up the political and economic power of labour, even in the globally competitive world of today.
Without such a strategy, the centre-left will have nothing to offer beyond a managed decline in living standards, and the radical left will have nothing to offer other than ineffectuality and ghettoisation.