I was, I am, I Shall Be
Luxemburg, New Gear, Graeber, Bullshit Jobs and Hegel
Morning Comrades!
As promised, we are going to dive a little deeper into Rosa Luxemburg’s work and its relevance today as well as touch on a few other pieces of work all relevant to the betterment of humankind.
On that note, a heads up that this weekend’s drop is now ready to preview in the online store. The first one is for me as this cat also has bills to pay and the second one is going to a mutual aid project that gives aid to the local LGBT*IQ community here in Hamburg. More on that in Friday’s email.
Admittedly, it was a little daunting to select just one aspect of Rosa Luxemburg’s legacy to focus on for this email, simply because her work is so utterly important and far-reaching. Make no mistake, despite the focus on the German Revolution her work stands in equal measure to that of Lenin and Gramsci, for example and who both respectful contemporaries of hers. Her critique of Lenin and the Bolshevik Revolution is an absolute must-read in order to better put Lenin’s work, and ultimately, the Soviet Union into a better context. Her work on Marx’s “Capital” is crucial despite my disagreement with it.
We are going to focus on her absolutely timeless and vital work on Anti-Reformism today. If you wondering if this is worth your time, yes, of course it is but the longer answer is: Theory and History are important to those of us who are struggling to transform society because it offers distilled experience so we don’t have to repeat mistakes. A scientific materialist view of theory and history gives us a roadmap to find the path toward liberation. If you ever needed justification, doubtful as that may be, for getting into this.
Now, Anti-Reformism: Simply put, it’s the post-Marxist Revolutionary Practical Work to understand that working within the system does not work, should be avoided at all cost and identifies Capitalism and its agents as the clear enemy. That alone should make its relevance clearer than the sky for today’s times. The fact is, the the global Universalism of Capitalism works so well because it can co-opt any and all movements against it, utilising Greed as a motivator for anyone to “sell-out”, join the system and be utterly destroyed and thus become a genuine threat to working class mobilization against said system. Currently, and within the pop cultural narrative of politics I believe AOC to be a prime example of this, even though I doubt the sincerity of her messages from the get-go, that being besides the point though. The clear and critical reality is that Capitalism and the Pluto/Kleptocratic form of Government that currently serves to protect Capital does not allow reform and any signalling towards Reform in the name of humanity is just that, signalling without ever changing the material realities it requires to continuously increase profits.
Of all the attacks on reformism, one may venture to say that those of Rosa Luxemburg were the most powerful. In her polemic directed against Bernstein ( see R. Luxemburg: Social Reform or Revolution ) she pointed out once more, in opposition to the nonsense of pure legalism, that:
“the exploitation of the working class as an economic process cannot be abolished or softened through legislation in the framework of bourgeois society. Social reform, she insisted, does not constitute an invasion into capitalist exploitation, but a regulating, an ordering of this exploitation in the interest of capitalist society itself.”
Capital, says Rosa Luxemburg, is not heading for socialism, but collapse, and it is this collapse to which the workers must be adjusted – not to reform, but to revolution.
This is not to say, however, that we have to renounce the questions of the present; revolutionary Marxism, too, fights to improve the workers’ situation within capitalist society. But, in contrast to reformism, it is interested far more in how the fight is conducted than in the immediate objectives. To Marxism the matter of moment in the trade-union and political struggle is the development of the subjective factors of the working class revolution, the promotion of revolutionary class consciousness. The blunt setting of reform against revolution is a false statement of the question; these oppositions must be given their proper place in the whole of the social process. We must avoid losing sight of the final goal, the working class revolution, through the struggle for everyday demands.
Again, putting this into today’s context, this clear analysis of the nature of Capitalism illustrates how the so called Social-Democratic countries such as Germany, Denmark or Sweden for example are not a stage towards a workers-run egalitarian run society, but just another form of Capitalism as these countries and their so-called Welfare States, that they are absolutely not, are still based on the exploitative, destructive, imperialistic nature of Capitalism. As harsh as that may seem at this point, and the truth often is, a dialectical historical ( aka fate vs praxis ) reasoning towards said Brave New World, meaning that a revolution, which is utterly necessary, can be achieved through reforming the present state is wrong. Radicalizing yourself through this analysis is what Anti-Reformism is partly about and hence it being such a vital tool going forward into the 21st Century.
I highly recommend reading her book “Social Reform or Revolution” on this matter to further solidify not only your own radicalization but to help you centre your actions and thoughts on this matter and the entirety of working for a better tomorrow. Best part, this work is available for free and I have linked it below. Enjoy!
With thoughts on the pandemic still being very much at my own personal forefront, daily, I have recently come across the last essay written by David Graeber on what to do next that, in his typical brilliance, truly nails and offers a perspective, not only for our individual mental health but more importantly, our communal actions going forward. The link is in the picture above and I do implore you to read this.
Because, in reality, the crisis we just experienced was waking from a dream, a confrontation with the actual reality of human life, which is that we are a collection of fragile beings taking care of one another, and that those who do the lion’s share of this care work that keeps us alive are overtaxed, underpaid, and daily humiliated, and that a very large proportion of the population don’t do anything at all but spin fantasies, extract rents, and generally get in the way of those who are making, fixing, moving, and transporting things, or tending to the needs of other living beings.
It is imperative that we not slip back into a reality where all this makes some sort of inexplicable sense, the way senseless things so often do in dreams.
Continuing on with Graeber and his vital work “Bullshit Jobs” a comrade shared this with me yesterday. It’s a brutally honest, painful and brilliant comic by Issy Manley that encapsulates the insanity all of us face, not just within this pandemic but in before that and most likely afterwards of “working” bullshit jobs. By all means, hit that link above and get reading.
Seeing that we are slowly making Marx and this subsequent work more relevant by the day, yup, you guessed it, it is time to get in to Hegel - I know, it’s a big one to get into and it does come with a disclaimer from this end, you don’t have to to really make shit happen these days, yet, it helps, vastly - I have always considered Hegel’s work akin to being the God Mode of Thought behind much of Marxism. The above conference is free and run with some heavy hitters of Hegelian Current Discourse, so for anyone that wants to get into this level of meta-philosophy, this is an amazing opportunity. To quote Zohar Atkins here:
Rhetoric, like beauty, pertains to form. Machiavelli writes rhetorically, but not beautifully. Beauty is a rhetorical strategy. But the main goal of rhetoric is persuasion. Beauty’s aim is to stupefy and enliven.
I don’t just read for beauty. But beauty is what keeps me coming back. For as Plato knew, beauty speaks to the soul, and the goal of thought is to help the soul fly again.
That’s “It” for today, I know it is a lot to take in but I hope I made these subject, that are so utterly dear to me, more accessible and interesting for you. As that is the point, the share, help and teach, be taught and progress.
Until next time, I remain as always, yours and without compromise,
V