"Andean Mode"

"AMP column"

forms of contemporary popular asian culture from a second generation perspective

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http://www.haussite.net/

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FEW: [Working_Class_News] Bolivia Gets a New Constitution 57% to 43%

a step in the right direction; at least in terms of achieving indigenous majority rule (i.e. “indigenismo”), as there is no objective difference between the status of indigenous people in bolivia and the status of black africans under south african apartheid. yet, the idea of "andean capitalism" is a chimera. the masista theorists and propagandists that came up with the idea are basing their proposal on a misinterpretation of the premises associated with the heretical marxist concept of an "andean mode of production" attributed to the incas. the inca political economy was neither primitive communist - because the incas where civilised (in the sense of having a city based society and economy) - nor was it slavery, since there where no slaves in the inca empire. the incas believed that the land belonged to the inca who was the incarnation of the sun. they worked the land collectively and shared the produce.

like the notion of an alleged "asiatic mode of production" attributed to imperial china and the Byzantines (i.e. “the bureaucratic administration of peasant labour exploitation to support a militarist ‘oriental despotism’...”), or the "bureaucratic collectivist" system in the ussr and eastern bloc; the "andean mode of production" was a historical dead end. i.e. progress towards industrial urban based socialism, in the sense that karl marx advocated, could not be achieved from that starting point. in all cases it was required that a political economy that could serve as developmental precondition for progress, in the sense described by karl marx, was introduced from the outside through conquest. specifically (and respectively): the spanish conquest introduced into the inca dominions the iberian form of european feudalism; the latin seizure of constantinople ( a precursor to the turkish conquest) introduced western feudalism to the byzantine dominion; the western penetration of china in the 19th century introduced western imperialist capitalism to east asia (the maoist revolution of 1949 replaced this mode of production with bureaucratic collectivism); British and French investment in the 19th century Russian empire attempted to introduce industrial capitalism into a society functioning on the basis of the Byzantine version of the Asiatic mode. the attempt failed, resulting in the revolution of 1905 which sought to replace the Tsar with a liberal republic (a form of the state better suited to enforce capital preservation). Subsequently - through the successful application of the theory of permanent revolution-; the revolution of 1917 replaced that initial attempt at “progress” with bureaucratic collectivism; the voluntary dissolution of the Soviet Union (the USSR never “fell”) in 1989-1991 (re-) introduced the experiment of industrial capitalism into Russia on a neo-liberal republican form. The current putin-medvedev government has modified the project of re-introduction of capitalism towards a national-corporatist basis - with Russian ethnicism (in context of multipolar enforcement) as ideology. In so far as the Russian Federation is the political-economic product of the dismantling of the bureaucratic system in favour of Industrial Capitalism, the Russian Federation is a historically progressive entity; as it is the national-corporatist RF - and not the bureaucratic collectivist USSR - which embodies the necessary Industrial Capitalist historical precursor to possible Industrial Socialism.

Etc…

so what is the likely fate of "andean capitalism" in bolivia ? at best it will become a lot like south africa after apartheid, with features of zimbabwe under mugabe. the hispanic political class and financial oligarchy in la paz will be replaced by an indigenous political class and financial oligarchy organised around the MAS; just like in south africa the afrikaner white dutch elite was replaced by a black african ruling elite organised around the ANC. - n2

ref: the orthodox "marxist" modes of production:

(heretical "marxist" modes of production -understood to be divergences- in parenthesis)

Industrial Communism
Industrial Socialism
(bureaucratic collectivism - the leninist ussr)* [Nordic mode of production? **]
Industrial Capitalism and Imperialism (with fascism as a form of capitalist government)
Mercantilist Capitalism
Feudalism
(asiatic mode - imperial china, byzantines)
Slavery
(andean mode - incas)
Primitive Communism

* p.s. those who deny "bureaucratic collectivism" fall into three cathegories: those who say the leninist ussr was "really existing socialism"; those who say it was a "bureaucratically deformed workers state"; and those who say it was "state capitalism".... – n2

[** p.s.s assuming the existence of a “nordic mode of production” in Scandinavia (perhaps, “the technocratic administration of mass consumption to facilitate capital preservation and bureaucratic despotism”); while understanding that by nature modes of production premised on bureaucratic administration are historical dead ends (as demonstrable by the fate of the asiatic mode and bureaucratic collectivist variables), and that necessary MUST be the introduction FROM THE OUTSIDE - through CONQUEST- of an alternate mode of production that could function historically as a developmental precondition for progress towards industrial socialism - in the sense karl marx advocated – I propose that a Russian Federation military conquest of Scandinavia would be historically progressive for the Scandinavian region, because it would dismantle the Nordic mode of production (a historical dead end) and would in its place establish in Scandinavia (through the annexation of Sweden and Norway into the Russian Federation) the Industrial Capitalist mode of production which would be THE necessary precondition for possible progress towards industrial socialism.]

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Question posted at RevLeft History Discussion forum:   [October 15th, 2010]

The Inca Empire representative of an "Andean Mode of Production"

[http://www.revleft.com/vb/inca-empire-representative-t143357/index.html]

The lattest development of "Andean Marxist Thought"; a historiographical tendency within the Bolivian MAS, is the development of a "Theory of the Andean Mode of Production" to describe the functioning of the Inca polity from a Historical Materialist perspective.

The Masista historiographers are basing their proposal on the premises associated with the "heretical marxist" concept of an alleged "Asiatic Mode of Production" attributed to the Han Chinese. According to the argument proposed; the Incan political economy was neither primitive communist - because the incas where ''civilised'' (in the sense of having a city based society and economy) - nor was it slavery, since there where no slaves in the Inca empire. The incas believed that the land belonged to the incanato who was the alleged incarnation of the Sun-God. they worked the land collectively in a cooperative fashion and shared the produce; which arguably does not make their political economy an example of Feudalism.

Like the notion of an alleged "Asiatic Mode of Production" attributed to Imperial China and the Byzantines (i.e. “the bureaucratic administration of peasant labour exploitation to support a militarist ‘oriental despotism’...”), or the "bureaucratic collectivist" system in the ussr and eastern bloc (the Bolivian M.A.S. official line on the "soviet question"); the "andean mode of production" is defined by the Masista historiographers as a historical dead end. i.e. progress towards industrial urban based socialism (via political liberalism and mercantilism), in the sense that karl marx advocated, could not be achieved from that starting point. In all cases it was required that a political economy that could serve as developmental precondition for progress, in the sense described by karl marx, was introduced from the outside through conquest. specifically (and respectively): the spanish conquest introduced into the inca dominions the iberian form of european feudalism; which was objectively ''more progressive'' since it could eventually lead to the emergence of capitalism and then socialism.

Is this sound historical materialist analysis ?, or a capitulation to internalised eurocentrism derived from five hundred years of cultural domination by Spanish colonialism and USA neo-colonialism, which dovetails with the formulation of a dangerous apologetics of Pizzaro's conquest of the Inca ?

Your thoughts ?


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"21st Century Socialism"

The following commentary on the ongoing drama of the so-called "Venezuelan Road" was posted at >>>

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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/redsquare2/message/4454

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Re: Draft program of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela
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thank you for this posting. i guess you could say this is as close aswe come to a manifesto for "21st century socialism" ?

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>>"[Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez made his first public call for the creation a political instrument to unify the country'srevolutionary forces in December 15, 2006. Convened on January 12,2008, some 1676 congress delegates elected from almost 15,000socialist battalions -- local units of the PSUV -- will discuss and debate this draft program, as well as the proposed priniciples and statutes of the new party, over the next two months. In between congress sessions, delegates will return to their local regions and battalions to ensure the widest possible discussion of these documents among the ranks of the new party."

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in principle this is a good move. the MVR and the coalition associated with it is much to disparate to be able to effectively handle a reinvigorated neoliberal opposition. the recent defeat of the constitutional rerform referendum was a warning that the war is not won yet for chavismo. i only hope that this political realignment leaves room for the independent movilisation of forces to the left of chavez. the neoliberal opposition has eclipsed the left opposition in venezuela.

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>>"Taking as its starting point the championing and unconditional defence of the government of the Bolivarian revolution, led by President Hugo Chavez, and the will of the Venezuelan people to construct the socialism of the 21st century, the program of the PSUV is the instrument with which to set out the objectives, forms and methods of this revolutionary project, and express them at each moment through slogans that can facilitate the transition from the immediate reality to the end goal; slogans that, by definition, adapt themselves permanently to the immediate circumstances........."

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this sounds like a step forward, but i am not comfortable with the equation of the personality of hugo chavez with the revolutionary process underway. the transformation of society - for it to genuinely evolve in a socialist direction - must be directly associated with independent efforts by the working class, farmers and the urban poor in venezuela. a flaw of the venezuelan road is the association of process with personality cults. this was a mistake in the ussr and remains a weakness in context of 21st century socialism.

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>>"The program of the PSUV has as its objective making reality the slogan "in order to end poverty you have to give power to the poor", or better said: the people. That is to say, build a government based on Councils of Popular Power, where workers, campesinos, students and popular masses are direct protagonists in the exercising of political power."

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the ostentible aim of socialism is to end the social condittion of poverty created by capitalism. my question would be: at one point do the councils replace chavez as focus of political power ? is the process thereby which chavez transfers power to these councils specified ? at what point does the process let go of political forms associated with capitalism - such as parliament ?

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>>"The program of the PSUV proposes the socialising of political power, establishing the direct exercising of decision-making power by the masses in their organisations; their unrestricted right to scientific research and the free artistic creation, and the democratisation of access to all cultural policies."

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a while back i was arguing in favour of the perspective that chavez should have delegated economic desicion making powers to the left sectors of the UNETE. i insist that the most advanced sectors of the liberated working class movement should be empowered as a first step towards socialising political power in venezuela.

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more comments on this document will follow soon...

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- neo.

The Bankruptcy of the Western Left.

”La apariencia de administracion profesional es en realidad la administracion profesional de apariencias.” - El Libertario.

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Anti-globalisation has died a quiet death in its sleep…

Total ideologies and total solutions are obsolete. They became obsolete in the mid 1990’s. The anti-globalisation ‘upsurge’ of 1999-2003 was the last hurrah of the 20th Century Western Left. It is “objectively true” that “another world is always possible” and that such a world COULD BE built on the basis of “social and ecological solutions”, but it is clear now that the so-called ‘movement of movements’ calling on these slogans failed. It simply evaporated. The demonstrations against global capital and war became ritualised. Social democrat careerists penetrated the organisational networks and degraded the programmatic horizon to the level of electoral work in favour of the social-liberal wing of capitalism. These finks were aided in the process by “Trotskyist” opportunists more interested in selling their propaganda and paraphernalia than in advancing the cause of anti-capitalism. Former members of the Black Bloc mutated into armchair activism pretending to be “anarchist”, “feminist”, or “green”; illustrating what Situationist social critic Guy Debord once denounced as “the spectacle”. The Western Left has retreated to the ‘safe’ confines of Academia and Media. I do not mean to say that it is not worth it to read the works of Noam Chomsky or to listen to Pacifica Radio, to browse the pages of World Socialist Website or surf the Indymedia domains. All this is necessary to get “The Truth”. Yet, in doing so one must remember that one is interacting with narratives and symbols that have no objective substance.

The war is coming and there will be no ‘general strike’ to stop it. There will be no second coming of Lenin, Trotsky, Mao or Che before the tactical nukes and white phosphorus begin to hit. ‘Shake and Bake’ with no Soviets. The coming war will decide if the neoliberal capitalist world of the 21st century is going to be unipolar or multipolar. It cannot be both. Looking at the recent historical pattern it is likely that the Real War is just around the corner. The 2001/2003 invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the 2006 Israeli war against Hizbollah (and subsequent asymmetrical warfare continuums) are only a precursor for the horrors that are to come. In all cases: The 20th Century Left is DEAD. It tried to save itself in the 1999-2003 period of anti-neoliberal ‘upsurge’ by co-opting information technologies and by modifying its traditional “class warfare” narrative with language and concepts borrowed from Ecology and Feminism; and it did accomplish in this manner the brief flash of an anti-capitalist mood – but it did not stop the imposition of neo-liberal capitalism (so-called “market democracy” sic.) as the official ideology of globalisation. The ‘Multitude’ of Negri fizzled out into the mass of consumers.

The bankruptcy of the Western Left

It is clear that the Western Left has no theoretical solutions; save to appeal to recycled social democrat formulas. Tactically it has become suicidal. In the United States, the “Turtle-Teamster” project opted for exactly this course by following Kerry in 2004. With the possible exception of the few principled elements who bravely followed Ralph Nader, the bulk of the “1999 Movement” of “Battle of Seattle” lore died on November 2, 2004. Kerry destroyed the North American anti-globalisation and anti-war movements – with the help of the anti-globalisation and anti-war activists themselves. The Democrat party was able to – once more- perform its systemic and historical role as gravedigger of social movements. The same process of co-option happened again in lieu of the brief upsurges of social outrage in the aftermath of the Katrina disaster and with the recent Immigrant Rights movement. As long as North American anti-capitalists and progressives do not take the step to admit that there is no “lesser evil” they will never advance. The United States anti-capitalist progressive community is still under the influence of Liberalism: The belief in “constitutional rights” and related illusions. “We The People” really means “We the WEALTHY people”. The United States anti-capitalist intelligentsia and progressive media workers know this fact, but they continue to prefer to not draw appropriate conclusions.

In Western Europe the official death of the upsurge came in the summer of 2005 with the Glenn Eagles-7/7 fiasco in the UK. A mixture of ritualised demonstrations in context of police repression (cynically dubbed “post-anarchism” by some), “Make Poverty History” co-option (orchestrated by Bono, Madonna and the Labour Party), and well-timed ‘false flag’ terrorism did the job. And it was over. Fast forward to 2007: “Everyone is a Feminist” has become fashion in the West European “left” café scene. Lately the German and French “Greens” are working closely with their respective neo-Conservative parliamentary counterparts in Berlin and Paris. There is a widespread and blatant upsurge of anti-Arab (and anti-Russian) racism throughout Western Europe. The term ‘Islam fascism’ is making the rounds in the editorial pages of the mainstream news media. The European presidency is fast working to introduce “American conditions” into the Euro zone, meaning that a wave of continent wide mass lay offs with no or drastically reduced unemployment benefits will impact the working class. The truth is that a depressingly demoralising form of lifestyle ‘anti-capitalism’ has become the norm among former anti-war and anti-globalisation activists. The social-liberals have joined the political Right.

Meanwhile – on both sides of the Atlantic- the targets of neoliberal repression and austerity – immigrants and the unemployed – find themselves with no organised movement to appeal to for redress. No hope but a crude survivalism in context of overall post-social erosion and grotesque narratives of “national security” and “generational war” …

Unless socially and ecologically concerned people (re-)act.