Discussion on State_Achin Vanaik

[A Seminar was held by 'The Diligent' on 21st August, 2021 at Bhupesh Bhavan Auditorium. 

Topic: Discussion on the idea of 'State'

Speakers: Com. Achin Vanaik and Com. Kunal Chattopadhyay of 'Radical Socialist'

Participants: Representatives of PDSF, Osamprodayik, Counter Era, The Diligent, Radical Socialist and some individual activists

Below is a Summary of Com. Achin Vanaik's Talk.

'The Diligent' is organizing a series of seminars related to the socio-political and economic queries of present day activists, inviting speakers from a wide array of progressive & pro-working people organizations, to accumulate a theoretical database for near-future political activism. 

The words of the speakers are their sole responsibility. 'The Diligent' neither accepts nor rejects the views expressed, but intends to cater an enriched debate which can act as a guide for near-future field activism.]  

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sDTpic9c38&t=2270s

Capitalism: The Separation of the Economic and Political

An economic dynamic based on 'free' labour and not requiring extra-economic coercion.

A basic separation of class power and state power. Two different kinds of politics (workplace and society) with two different kinds of resistances not automatically connected, hence requiring revolutionary organisational interventions.

The state in capitalist society is a class state that is dependent upon and autonomous from capitalist ruling classes. This autonomy allows it to more effectively promote and protect these ruling classes---the state is the vanguard organisation of, and for, the ruling classes.

Why dependent---its own practical-financial reproduction relies on a 'healthy' capitalist accumulation process that is primarily motored by private investment and business confidence.

It is effective on the economic and socio-political fronts.

Economic:

(i) State is the principal arbiter in intra-ruling class and inter-capitalist tensions and conflicts.

(ii) macro-economic and crises manager.

(iii) Promoter and protector of Indian TNCs globally.

Socio-Political: 

(i) Responsible for controlling and policing 'losers'

(ii) Strong w/c struggle and also by other oppressed social groups can push the state in the 'general interest' of ruling classes  to make concessions (e.g., welfare measures) that defuse dangerous situations and help co-opt sections of the wider public at least for some time. These gains are never permanent and reversible since they depend on the rhythms of capitalist accumulation and the changing relationship of forces between the classes above and below.

(iii) Organise consent (3 forms). In liberal democracy also to be done via civil society instns.

Capitalist Liberal Democracy

This separation of the economic and political 'permits' but does not 'enable' the rise of a liberal democratic polity as the 'best political shell' for capitalist rule. Historically everywhere the establishment of the basic features of liberal democracy have come from popular struggles from below. 

These defining features are a) universal adult suffrage & free and fair elections; b) freedom from arbitrary arrest, an independent judiciary and rule of law; c) civil liberties; d) absence of religious control over the state and equality of citizenship rights irrespective of religious affiliation.

In some periods and places popular struggles and pressures from below have pushed for a deeper conception and practice of democracy, namely democratisation of power relations within industry and institutions of all kinds be these in firms and other workplaces as well as in hospitals and colleges/universities. 

Yes, even at its best it remains a bourgeois democracy because a) some rights/laws/rules are bourgeois; b) the institutions on which democratic rights and laws and practices are based and sustained, are all structurally class-biased. Nevertheless, even a minimalist form of liberal democracy remains the 'best political shell'  because (i) it allows for genuine and worthwhile, if qualified, exercise of certain class-transcending universal rights. (ii) It creates a broader and more dispersed network of different power nodes, i.e., thereby helping to de-centralise resistances themselves.

Neoliberal globalisation is a new system of capitalist accumulation, different from Keynesianism and state developmentalism, made possible by the great weakening of w/c power in the main capitalist countries. The enormous increase in the inequalities of income, wealth and therefore of power, has meant the steady erosion of the substantive content of liberal democracy everywhere.

Making liberal democratic polities  increasingly authoritarian and undemocratic is one thing. Eliminating it completely is much more tricky because today 'Democracy' not Socialism nor anti-imperialist National Liberation is the main expression of an emancipatory public ideal. Classical Marxist revolutionaries historically under-estimated three things--- the productivity of capitalism, the staying power of nationalism and its popular appeal, the durability of the democratic polity even as it is eroded.

The strongest glue tying the w/c and ordinary public to bourgeois capitalist rule in a parliamentary/presidential democracy is not the persuasive power of some ideological discourse but simply the existence of parliament/elections. This is the key ideological factor that masks the deeper reality of minority capitalist rule.

Please note: After WWII, some military regimes have held free and fair elections and conceded to rule by civilian regimes which are not simply puppets. No country with a continuous 30 year macro-level experience of democracy has yet suffered an enduring assertion or re-assertion of completely authoritarian rule. Chile remains the exception that proves the rule.

The Lesson---we have to think of how to work within liberal democracies no matter how strong or weak.

Elections and the Left

The Leninist perspective of revolutionary groups/organisations needing to participate in some way in elections and parliament is even more valid today given the historically unanticipated durability (time-wise) of such polities in so many countries. As such, participation within bourgeois liberal democracies is all the more necessary to expose the umbilical link of these governing structures to the ruling class and to reveal the real limits to freedom and popular power. Moreover, participation by w/c parties and organisations can win needed  reforms even as the pressures to reduce or rescind these always remain.

Participation in these bourgeois structures should be at all levels from the local to the provincial to the national. The forms taken by such participation will vary according to context and with respect to the relative strengths and sizes of revolutionary groups and their social bases. This can mean making calls for boycott or NOTA or for votes to specific independent progressive candidates or for w/c parties, be they social democratic or further left, or even for putting up one's own candidates (having real chances of being elected) or simply to secure wider recognition of one's politics and to attract members and sympathisers through one's radical messages directed at those already more open to radical and revolutionary ideas and beliefs.

For revolutionary groups one must combine electoral with extra-electoral, parliamentary involvement efforts, legal with illegal activities (not so much underground or armed actions) as wildcat strikes, occupation of public spaces, blockages and other forms of breaking the law.

Achieving elected positions of authority and influence at more local levels of governance is useful and easier than at higher sub-regional, regional or national levels. In any case for revolutionaries achieving electoral successes at higher levels is always much easier in proportional representation than in first-past-the-post (FTPT) electoral systems. Indeed, the FTPT 'winner takes all" system de-politicises and narrows down both the range and terms of public political discourse and of available policy options. all the more reason, therefore  to emphasize the centrality of extra-electoral/extra-parliamentary activity. This is the main arena of revolutionary activity and it is successes here that most effectively can feed into possible successes at the electoral-parliamentary levels.

The primary purpose of achieving office in a bourgeois governance system at any level is not just to push for and secure needed reforms. Yes this is important but even more important is to use what capacities our offices have to try and shift as much as  possible authority and power to the outside institutions of w/c self-governance to better enable the w/c and oppressed sections of society to struggle and win. The temptation to make unprincipled compromises of various kinds so as to get elected or re-elected because then one can hope to carry out reforms for the public is dangerous. As it is voting is the most passive form of public participation. A top-down and manipulative approach to try and bring about reforms (which is not guaranteed to even succeed) only reinforces  this passivity to the benefit of the overall stability of bourgeois rule. Promoting the establishment of networks of democratically self-administered structures of decision-making and execution  in workplaces and neighbourhoods is what will have the strongest and most durable impact in shifting the social relationship of forces  against the ruling class and its allies.

Finally, for two reasons the left, revolutionary or even reformist, must not excessively rely on electoral politics or see it as a major indicator of success or growth for two reasons. First, territorially-marked constituencies separate regular workplace motivations from the broader issues why w/c votes as it does. So support for unions/unionizing does not translate into electoral or other political support for left forces. Other concerns shape w/c consciousness and loyalties where they live. So other social oppressions and concerns here must be taken up but also connected to workplace politics and organizing. 

Second, giving top priority to the electoral path and accumulating reforms---as the reformist left invariably does---is a recipe for disaster. This is because the objective up-and-down as well as crisis-prone rhythms of capitalist development periodically promote intra-w/c competition for survival and livelihood as real incomes fall and reforms are prevented and even reversed by employers and the state. Left forces, reformist or radical, will always face downswings which will demoralise cadres and members unless they understand that there is no substitute for continuing the everyday work of steady implantation in the w/c because the pattern of growth for the left is always sudden and dramatic, related to the size, unity and power of mass struggles which in unanticipated circumstances can become truly revolutionary upheavals.