Andrew,
Thanks for your reply. Given its length, I'll go through it piece by
piece cutting, pasting and inserting my responses where appropriate.
Please don't misinterpret such use of the cutting and pasting features of
this email program as any kind of "back in your face" antagonism on my
part. I'm just using it to help keep track of your points.
>
> Bill Haller,
>
> I am afraid that my argument has been misconstrued. Perhaps I am wrong
> about this, but allow me for a moment to proceed on that assumption and
> clarify what I believe to be the misunderstood part of my argument: the
> part expressing my support for a mass democratic movement propelled by
> the collective power of the world proletariat.
O.K., but misconstrual suggests to me that you don't believe the
disagreement I expressed is honost. Let me beg to differ at the outset.
>
> So let me respond to your post by first noting that the term "utopia" means
> (to me) an ideal world (or social arrangement) that one or more persons has
> envisioned based on their ethical and value systems. It remains an ideal,
> and as such a goal to strive for. It is the answer to an *ought* question,
> that is "What ought the world be like?" Perhaps a utopia is never realized
> (certainly if you subscribe the mystical view of the imperfectability of
> man), but a utopia can a signpost to guide us on our path to whatever
> social order we envision. And this is my point.
I think the crux of the disagreement we have is in the text within the
parantheses immediately above. I'm with you on the signpost conception
of a utopia, but not on human perfectability--at least not any time soon.
> I recognized that when I
> used the term "utopia" (it was the term that came with the post to which I
> was responding) that I would hear back the usual arguments concerning
> utopian thinking, arguments born in the believed reification of men and
> women's strivings for justice and peace in the ideal. "A world without
> war is utopia." "A world without hunger is utopia." "A world without
> exploitation is utopia." Can we have these worlds? I don't know. Certainly
> we can't have them by sitting around and attacking these utopian visions
> simply based upon their utopian character. And arguing that working
> towards these utopias is a sign of either naive strivings or destructive
> thinking is neither fair nor true nor productive.
I didn't mean to suggest that any kind of work towards these utopias is a
sign of naivete or destructiveness, but I do think it's naive to believe
that such utopias can be realized based on a solution which holds the "bad
minority" responsible for preventing the rest of us from creating any
kind of dramatically better situation for all, whether that minority be a
racial, ethnic or religious group or even whether that minority be a
numerical minority which holds a disproportionate share of the wealth and
power. I think your recognition of the scope and severity of the
problems which have flourished because of, under, or within the world
system is on target. I think the passion you obviously feel about it is
appropriate. Where we differ is on diagnosis and treatment. The idea
that undoing the capitalist class with the presumption that everyone
else will then simply embrace the higher ideals necessary for a better
world and actually live them out is just too simple. The reason that
approach to changing the world is just too simple, in my view, is that
success would hinge entirely on an extraordinary amount of strength,
goodness, and trust. Marx's rebuttal, I believe, would have been that
without the exploitation of a capitalist class the forces of production
made available through the Industrial Revolution are more than enough
make up the deficit of strength, goodness and trust. I probably would've
have bought that argument in the middle of the 19th Century, but at this
point I do not. The rest of your commentary presupposes that it is not
an honost disgreement that you and I have, as far as I can tell, so I'll
leave it alone. Please don't presume to know me better than you do. I
may have more experience with the Western Left than you realize. Please
also reflect on how you generous you are with the credit you're willing to
give yourself, the workers, and people generally and how little you seem
to be willing to give to me just because I have an honost disagreement
with your position. What we are in disagreement about is a fundamental
and extremely important issue so I'm not particularly bothered by the
disagreement itself or by the tone you seem to have taken with me. If the
tone of my earlier response to you was out of line then please forgive
me for that. After all, I shouldn't presume to know you better than I
do.
Sincerely,
Bill Haller
> Should we strive for
> these utopias? Yes, of course we should (this is a moral argument; I have
> revealed my values). And this is where I stand, always have and always
> will. Theory is rather pointless unless it is acted upon--theory is
> validated in practice. I subscribe to Marx's charge: "Philosophers have
> only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to
> change it." I can tell you that there is no inevitability that the attempt
> at human freedom will find us living in a totalitarian society (on what
> theoretical or empirical grounds is this eschatology argued, anyway? On the
> failure of the Soviet Union to be what it was supposed to become?). But
> it *is* inevitable, if we sit on our hands for fear that some supposed evil
> lurking in all of humankind will deform our attempts at democracy into
> iron cages, that we will continue to be ruled by the power elite who
> exploit us for their own benefit. Either we rule ourselves (the promise
> of democracy advanced by the libertarian), or we are ruled by others
> (the capitalist or the bureaucrats). I find a certain detestable elitism
> in all this -- the belief that the worker cannot make decisions for
> themselves, that the worker is not capable of self-governance, that all
> worker attempts at freedom will wind up in dictatorships. I do not
> believe this. When we transform society, we transform ourselves. But
> if we allow an elite few, pursuing their own interests at the expense of
> others, to transform society, then we will allow unaccountable and unchosen
> others to transform us. And they will do so in a fashion congruent with
> their interests, needs, and desires. As C. Wright Mills noted, "Although we
> are all of us within history we do not all possess equal powers to make
> history." My advocation is to return the productive means, the land
> and resources, back to the producers of society, so that we can all
> equally make history together in a context of free and creative
> self-development. Utopia? Perhaps. But as a member of the "Western left"
> I feel as capable as you or any other human being in striving
> for democracy and freedom. I do not believe in a monolithic "Western
> left," and I furthermore do not believe this "Western left" possesses
> some special ignorance (or perhaps ideological inoculation?) when it
> comes to the horrors of Stalinism. Western Marxists, the neomarxist
> out of the Frankfurt School for example, have provided some of the most
> insightful criticisms of Soviet-style Marxism existing in the vast body of
> thinking about the deformation of worker's states in hyperrational
> contexts. I also do not believe that living in a former Soviet or state
> socialist country, or having parents who lived in a former Soviet or
> state social country gives anybody a special insight as to the validity
> of libertarian thought and strivings. Your subjective insights are
> important to historians. But as to the future? History is made by humans,
> and that is not by any means necessarily humans doomed to repeat the
> mistakes of former revolutionary vanguards.
>
> Andy
>
>
> On Tue, 5 Mar 1996, Bill Haller wrote:
>
> > Andrew,
> >
> > Having lived for a time in a post-revolutionary state which, at the time,
> > came nowhere near the totalitarianism of Russia under Stalin I remain
> > unconvinced by your reply to Nikolai Rozov. I don't think it's at all
> > possible for anyone to be "fully aware" of the excesses of Stalinism, and
> > the tendency among the Western left to discount the significance of such
> > excesses by thinking that we're necessarily somehow better than the
> > revolutionary experimenters of the past sends a chill down my spine. It
> > seems rather likely that there are very real trade-offs involved between the
> > various systems of production and distribution which have been manifest
> > in all human societies and that Utopia is Illusion. Societies will
> > always require systems of production and distribution, so we're left with
> > the question of whether the principle of "from each according to ability to
> > each according to need" is even viable for a human population under any
> > circumstances whatsoever (short of infinite prosperity, perhaps). At the
> > same time, there isn't a system of production and distribution which
> > can't be improved upon. Recognizing that paves the way for pragmatic
> > reformism. Gotta run, I'm late for work!
> >
> > Sincerely,
> >
> > Bill Haller
> >
> > -------------------------------- ------------------------------
> > Bill Haller ^ University Center for
> > Department of Sociology ^ Social and Urban Research
> > University of Pittsburgh ^ 121 University Place
> > Pittsburgh, PA 15260 ^ Pittsburgh, PA 15260
> > --------------------------------^------------------------------
> >
> >
>
>
-------------------------------- ------------------------------
Bill Haller ^ University Center for
Department of Sociology ^ Social and Urban Research
University of Pittsburgh ^ 121 University Place
Pittsburgh, PA 15260 ^ Pittsburgh, PA 15260
--------------------------------^------------------------------