This has certainly been the experience of the socialist parties in France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, the so-called Eurosocialists. These parties started out with commitment to democratisation, Keynesian economic restructuring, cultural renewal and independent foreign policy. However, in adapting to the requirements of getting elected and exercising power, they jettisoned their radical goals, while the social movements that supported them were disempowered. In all major areas — the economy, the structure of state power, and foreign policy — Eurosocialist governments have retreated from their initial goals and become much more like traditional ruling parties.[8]
Less ambitious than the quest for socialism is the use of state power to bring about social reforms that, among other things, ameliorate the worst effects of capitalism. Examples are minimum wages, unemployment insurance, occupational health and safety regulations, antipollution measures, maternity leave, advertising standards, unfair dismissal legislation and taxation on wealth. While many measures are designed to protect workers, consumers and the environment from the consequences of capitalism, others are intended (as well) to make the capitalist economy work better, such as job training, tariff policy and laws restricting monopolies. The strategy of state-led social reform is often called social democracy, but a better name might be “capitalism with a human face.” It has been the rubric for many reforms that are today seen as essential in a humane, enlightened society.
Social democracy relies routinely on the power of the state to implement and enforce reforms. In this it is not greatly different from the socialist electoral strategy, except that the intended reforms are usually far less sweeping.
The basic problem with social democracy is that it just manages capitalism, not changing its central dynamic. In recent decades, with the rise of a more aggressive procapitalist movement commonly called neoliberalism, many social democratic reforms have come under attack and been whittled away. For example, reforms in western industrialised countries such as the minimum wage, unemployment insurance and a progressive income tax, designed to bring about greater economic equality in society, have been undermined by casualisation of employment, corporate relocations to low-income countries and skyrocketing income for the wealthy.
Another shortcoming of socialist electoralism lies in the electoral approach itself. It seems to be an inherent dynamic of political parties that party elites develop a vested interest in their own power, often at the expense of the public interest. Party organisations over time tend to become more hierarchical and less participatory, a process that applies to labour parties, communist parties and green parties as well as others.[9]
Another side to elections is the legitimacy that they confer on states. When citizens can vote, they are encouraged to believe that state power can be used in their interests. This may have had some basis in reality when populations and states were much smaller, but today with enormous and complex states, popular control through elections is largely an illusion. Yet this illusion is deeply embedded and fostered by education systems and media attention to electoral politics.[10] Most people see government as the avenue for fixing social problems — even those problems created by government. Socialists see government as the ultimate means for dealing with capitalism, rather than as an essential prop for its survival.
Conclusion
Obviously there is considerable overlap between the strategies of Leninism, socialist electoralism and social democracy. For example, many vanguard parties contest elections and many socialist parties gradually become social democratic parties. Meanwhile, social democratic parties, such as the New Labour Party in Britain, become virtually indistinguishable from their conservative opponents.
From a nonviolence perspective, these strategies have several common problems.
They all rely on violence, especially the power of the state to implement socialist policies and social reform.
They all rely on party elites to lead the challenge to capitalism.
They are all built on productivist, managerial assumptions. The party, the state and the economy are all run on the same lines, with elites at the top to make key decisions, while others are supposed to reap the benefits and support the elites.
They all provide a key role for intellectuals. Although many intellectuals tie their careers to capitalism, others support the state in its management of society, since this puts intellectuals in a privileged position.[11]
Close scrutiny needs to be made of any anticapitalist movement led by intellectuals, to ensure the movement is not a way to put a group of them in privileged positions. Radical intellectuals may become involved in revolutionary parties.[12] Successful socialist revolutions almost always are led by intellectuals (Lenin and Mao are the most prominent examples) and result in power to a stratum of intellectuals.[13]
It is important to acknowledge that these strategies have been the most powerful source of challenge and reform to capitalism. Furthermore, socialist activists have a long record of organising and campaigning at the grassroots, often in a way that builds community solidarity and initiative more than it supports party elites. So socialist strategies, whatever their formal limitations, can provide a framework for day-to-day work that is quite compatible with a nonviolence strategy. The challenge is to link this sort of organising with a different goaclass="underline" the goal of a nonviolent alternative to capitalism.
5. Nonviolent alternatives to capitalism
To develop a nonviolence strategy against capitalism, it is essential that there be a nonviolent alternative: a system for economic production and distribution, including methods for making decisions. It is no good just being against capitalism without an idea of what is going to be better. From a nonviolence point of view, the trouble with the conventional socialist strategies is that they depend ultimately on violence, via reliance on state power, to both end capitalism and bring about a socialist alternative.
A useful way to proceed is to spell out the principles that the alternative should fulfil and then to examine some proposals and visions to see how well they measure up. The principles in the box were presented in chapter 3, where it was noted that capitalism does not satisfy any of them.
Principle 1: Cooperation, rather than competition, should be the foundation for activity.
Principle 2: People with the greatest needs should have priority in the distribution of social production.
Principle 3: Satisfying work should be available to everyone who wants it.
Principle 4: The system should be designed and run by the people themselves, rather than authorities or experts.
Principle 5: The system should be based on nonviolence.
The principles are simply a device for helping to think about what is desirable. There are other principles that could be proposed. Principle 5 alone is quite sufficient to rule out most economic systems, real or ideal.
8.
Carl Boggs,
9.
Robert Michels,
10.
Benjamin Ginsberg,
11.
Charles Derber, William A. Schwartz and Yale Magrass,
12.
For withering critiques, see Max Nomad,
13.
George Konrád and Ivan Szelényi,