TheMediumDog
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« Reply #1 on: Wed 06 Feb 2008 12:42 » |
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I feel a little that M.P.’s contribution, ‘Agency for Change’, retains a basic emphasis on the political party, and upon its primary purpose as gaining access to and control over the traditional organs of government. The point of H.W.’s article was that this focus is radically insufficient; but M.P. doesn’t really seem to engage very closely with it. So the debate ends up feeling a little flat
Don’t get me wrong, the list of principles outlined by M.P. – pluralism, participatory democracy, pre-figurative practice, and politics as pleasure (plenty of “p”’s to much) – certainly shows evidence of the felt need to change the practicalities of politics in some fundamental ways. And of course, these principles are envisaged as a sort of deep code which will unite a very much expanded Left.
But one still has the impression that if asked what this expanded Left actually does on a day to day basis, and what it sees as the end goal of these activities, M.P. would reply with a fairly orthodox answer.
By contrast, is not H.W.’s vision (shared by quite a few others) something like: we can build institutions in all aspects of life that embody the way we would like to live; moreover our power, as a collective movement, summing all these initiatives together, resides in the depth, extent and rootedness of these institutions; and, pertinently, parliamentary activity will be but one avenue of this, and crucially, its vitality will be a function of the health of this wider institutional culture.
Its difficult to talk about in the abstract without falling back on hazy adjectives (as evidenced). But when one refers to the concrete examples of this kind of vision – from alternative media, to co-operatives, independent workplace organizations, LETS schemes, or participatory budgeting projects – its case seems suddenly weakened, given how marginal these examples are.
But then, the answer is…activity. To be simplistic about it, year’s concerted building of schemes like this – and anything else you can think of - by those currently ploughing their energy into demo’s, rallies and electioneering, might yield something far more tangible and healthy.
It would also get us away from the tendency to espouse increasingly meaningless “values”. Gradually the Left has moved from uniting behind something quite concrete and specific – communal ownership of the means of production – to championing vague formulae. I think the best tonic against this is involvement in practical schemes – such values only really have meaning in their institutional expression, and when thus embodied, are far more difficult to co-opt.
Two final points. First, I think that to accept this position, you first have to realize the sheer degree of rejection of politics-as-usual by my generation (I’m 27). Nobody in their right mind who wanted to appeal to their attention, would think they could best do it through parliament. And for good reason – the trajectory of society is determined by a much vaster range of much more powerful actors than parliament; and so it is control over these – or alternatives to these – that would entail proper, rather than merely formal, democracy.
I don't mean to imply that the under-30’s aren’t the only people around; but that their attitudes are an indicator of how society has evolved.
Second, to some degree the party which has cottoned on to all this is the Tories.
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