Give in or move in

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Soviet model of socialism, the capitalist model reigned in triumph. "There is no alternative!" (TINA), proclaimed British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, meaning that a free market economy and capitalism is the only way societies can be organized in the modern world.

But the unquestioned era of TINA lasted less than two decades. With the mounting disasters of Iraq and Afghanistan, with the planet spinning toward runaway global warming, and now with the biggest economic crisis since the 1930s threatening the livelihoods of millions, many people are wondering whether the capitalist system can ever again deliver peace, prosperity, security, and human development.

These people organized and voted in the hope that a modern, smart, energetic politician like Barack Obama will lead the way to fixing the problems and to a more humane capitalism. "President-elect Obama is a centrist at a time when centrism means energy independence and green jobs and universal healthcare and massive economic stimulus programs and government intervention in the economy," Katrina vanden Heuvel writes in today's Nation.

Perhaps so, but the fightback of capital against these measures will not be long in coming. For one thing, except for the national security apparatus the U.S. government has been so decimated by privatization that it would have to be radically overhauled before it could be used to supervise large scale projects. By the time capital agrees to take the government's money and build the projects the taxpayers are paying for, the rakeoffs, ripoffs and compromises are likely to so dilute the impact that there is a real danger of further disillusioning the supporters of the reform program.

To prepare for this struggle, the left must develop its vision of the transition to socialism. This statement may seem strange, because that transition is not at all on the horizon in the U.S. But it is precisely the awareness of possible alternatives that sharpens the struggle for implementation of the reform program. An example is the current discussion that nationalizing the auto industry is a viable alternative to bailout or bankruptcy. Nationalization of industries is not socialism, but it is the straitjacket of TINA that refuses to consider it. TINA leads to narrowness and defeat of the struggle for reforms.

The international left has struggled since the fall of the Soviet Union to learn the lessons so that it can answer and defeat TINA. Among many there is convergence on a view that Karl Marx' critique of capitalism is accurate, but that the Soviet model of planned, bureaucratic economy under vanguard party control is not a viable model for the transition to socialism. A discussion of socialist transition which is democratic, which builds from below, which addresses both economic and political development concurrently, is a requirement.

Michael Lebowitz offers one exposition of the new socialist project in Build it Now: Socialism for the Twenty-First Century. While a full evaluation of his arguments are beyond the scope of this article, his comments on "The Failure of Social Democracy" are directly relevant to the current situation of U.S. progressives as they prepare to engage in inside-outside struggle with the Obama administration.

"Understanding the responses of capital means that a capital strike can be an opportunity rather than a crisis. If you reject dependence upon capital, the logic of capital can be revealed clearly as contrary to the needs and interests of people. When capital goes on strike, there are two choices, give in or move in. Unfortunately, social democracy in practice has demonstrated that it is limited by the same things that limit Keynesianism in theory -- the givens of the structure and distribution of ownership and the priority of self-interest by the owners. As a result, when capital has gone on strike, the social-democratic response has been to give in.... The result has been the discrediting of Keynesianism and the ideological disarming of people who looked upon it as an alternative to the neoclassical wisdom.... With this acquiescence to the logic of capital, its hold over people was reinforced; and the political result was the popular conclusion either that it really doesn't matter who you elect or that the real solution is to be found in a government unequivocally committed to the logic of capital."