Reform, Revolution, Resist? Aren't we missing an "r"..?
The differences between the disparate camps of leftists can sometimes be summed up by the way that they plan on going about the transition into a socialist or communist society. Of the questions raised immediately following the publication of Marx’s Manifesto, the longest lasting and most relevant to today’s left is “Reform or revolution?” Initially posited by Rosa Luxemburg’s seminal pamphlet of the same name, the answer is ostensibly, “Yes.” What Luxemburg means by this is that both reform and revolution are necessary components to overthrowing capitalism. The 1960’s saw the rise of the New Left; with that came the refuting of traditional Marxist and socialist schools of thought. When the counter-culture revolution failed, the New Left resorted to the newest of the three ‘r’s of leftism: resistance. However, this paper would conjecture that, while the three ‘r’s demonstrate excellent verbs for modern leftism, there is no subject, hence my focus on the fourth ‘r’ of leftism: rhetoric.
It is hard to understate the importance of “Reform or Revolution”. However, one must still remember that it was itself primarily a response to Bernstein and Konrad Schmidt, who argued on the side of pure reform. For the generation of leftists that straddled the 19th and 20th centuries, it made an compelling argument that socialist revolution would not (and moreover, could not) arise from pure revolution. However, she does not dispose of revolution in its entirety; rather, revolution is still a necessity, but it must be predicated on the basis of reforms made within the capitalist society. On the same hand, Luxemburg disagrees that reforms alone can lead to a socialistic society; she states that this is an idea that “finds itself from day to day in greater contradiction with reality.”
The importance, then, of this article is to show the opposition between reform and revolution as separate paths to a socialist society. However, it also introduced the idea of a third path: that of the “both”. The argument soon dropped the pure reform path; indeed, “reform” is now a pejorative word in leftist circles—unjustly in this paper’s opinion. Now, the contemporary argument is between strict revolution and a combination of reforms and revolution, with the latter being favored by many moderate and realist leftist groups.
Resistance came into play after the failure of the New Left. They achieved nothing through either reform or revolution and became laughingstocks of the political arena for the most part. The New Left’s members were labeled as draft-dodging hippies, instead of legitimate political theorists. What is really important about the New Left is that they split with the traditional Marxist base: the working class. The New Left was almost totally a student-run intellectualist movement. With no footholds in either the political or working class arenas, the New Left had to evolve a new strategy; what they came up with became known as the third ‘r’ of leftism: resistance. Resistance generally entails working outside of the political arena and not working towards a total overthrow of existing conditions via a violent revolution; it is primarily concerned with subversion.
Resistance has come into vogue in a big way again. It does not even strictly deal with leftism anymore; for instance, the “locavore” gastronomic movement promotes healthy eating habits and lower environmental impact by purchasing only local food. While this is certainly a worthy cause accomplished by subverting the established corporate order (usually by going to community organizations, such as farmers’ markets), it does not actually accomplished anything in the political arena; it is merely a means of spreading awareness and “good” morals. Awareness, however, is not necessarily translatable into gains for progressive politics. There are many examples of resistance, and, though the left may employ resistance tactics, resistance has become far from a strictly leftist stratagem anymore. To some extent, one could conjecture that the idea of resistance has been perverted to become “mainstream” and supporting, rather than challenging, the status quo; companies can adapt their strategies to exploit the resistance movement. For instance, with the locavore movement: one cannot forget that Whole Foods, a corporation, working for profits and listed on the NASDAQ stock market, is a middleman between the farmer and your plate.
That is not to say that resistance is useless. There are certain forms of resistance that fight corporations directly. There is the practice of blacking out billboards. There are other forms of civil disobedience. A person can sue a company. A grassroots campaign can still accomplish a lot. Continuing with my locavore example, if people go directly to the farmer at a farmer’s market, they are outsmarting the corporate system. The important thing to remember is that for every example of good and active resistance, there are several that have permuted by the corporate structure of America.
After discussing the three current ‘r’s of leftist politics, it should become obvious that there is something missing: a noun. While Leviathan is a reform and resistance based movement (radical revolution is completely out of the question), it is also a rhetoric movement. This is because the Leviathan movement is predicated on the idea of a smart socialism. Socialism can really only be understood when one comprehends the Hegelian dialectics that underpin the ideals of leftist politics. The most common and oft-cited dialectical system is that of the oppressor and the oppressed, or, more explicitly, the master and the slave. No leftist organization can escape the shadow of this idea, as it defines what all who support progressive politics are working against. The point that Leviathan makes is that there is a second primary dialectical system—one which has been harnessed by capitalists—that underpins leftist politics: the subject-verb dialectic.
The subject-verb dialectic exists because of human grammar. That being said, it is something that pervades almost every waking moment of our existence. Think of almost any sentence. “The hipster sneers.” The sentence would not make sense with just the subject, just as it would not make sense with just the verb. Even when you are talking about are talking about the mere existence of something, you need a verb. Despite the fact that I exist, if I want to state that fact, I cannot just say “I”; rather, I need a full subject-verb combination: “I am.” The subject must have a verb, and the verb must have a subject; they are in a state of entanglement and are in a dialectical relationship.
It was mentioned earlier that the plutocrats and oligarchs of today’s society have found a way to capitalize on the subject-verb dialectic, leaving leftists behind. When you think of capitalist theories, they revolve around verbs. For instance, you have to pay for something. Businesses sell goods. This sort of linguistic structure just makes sense to the human brain. From leftists, we receive only revolt, resist, and reform; verbs that make sense, yes, but, importantly, do not “click” in the human mind.
Therefore, if all leftists have to offer is verbs, what they need is a noun. Leviathan proposes that “rhetoric” be the fourth ‘r’ and noun of leftism. For one thing, leftists tend to pride themselves on being intellectuals. Leviathan recognizes that a vast amount of today’s leftists are not workers but are, in fact, intellectual members of the bourgeoisie that have joined up with the proletariat; in other words, the left is populated with students. In Marx’s day, this type of leftist was rare, but, in the New Left, when the students abandoned the workers, they became the overwhelming majority. Rhetoric, then, would seem to be a natural continuation of what today’s leftists associated themselves with.
Truly, we leftists need to have a rhetoric. We have all the verbs we need. The problem with today’s leftism is that it is populated with splintered groups because there is no central rhetoric to get behind. That is why rhetoric is so important to the members of Leviathan. Rhetoric is not something that will be easy to define for us on the left; it can only be brought about via the academic discussion and self-reflection pioneered by Platypus. However, we at Leviathan remain confident that with the four ‘r’s, the Left can rise again from its fallen state. The hard road to defining our rhetoric has only just begun, but, if we engage in critical discussion, behind strong intellectual heavyweights, we can find our way forward and succeed in the type of progressive politics our society needs. Leviathan’s motto is “Praetor rhetorica” (“Beyond rhetoric”), but, to be beyond rhetoric, we must first establish it as our foundation.
