06.01.2011
Old thinking and new bottles
Paul Greenaway asks what the liberal media see in Laurie Penny and explains why Alex Callinicos is talking sense
What the bourgeoisie fears above all is that the recent wave of student militancy will strengthen the left. Hence besides kettling, arresting and witch-hunting student militants we see attempts to confuse, divert and derail the student movement through promoting supposedly new, really radical ideas. Surely this is why the 23-year old Laurie Penny is being given generous amounts of space to express her views.
Despite being a fervent supporter of the student protestors she is viewed as useful by the liberal wing of the media. Thus she regularly writes for the New Statesman - having her own blog there - and often makes relatively lengthy contributions to the ‘Comment is free’ section of The Guardian. Indeed, her various political writings have been short-listed for the Orwell prize. Bearing all that in mind, some of her left critics are being extremely ungenerous - almost curmudgeonly - when they describe her as “mediocre” or “shallow”. She is clearly a talented and energetic individual, but does have the great advantage of being very confused.
So, in The Guardian Penny colourfully writes: “It is highly significant that one of the first things this hydra-headed youth movement set out to achieve was the decapitation of its own official leadership. When Aaron Porter of the National Union of Students was seen to be ‘dithering’ over whether or not to support the protests, there were immediate calls for his resignation - and in subsequent weeks the NUS has proved itself worse than irrelevant as an organising force for demonstrations. Of course, the old left is not about to disappear completely. It is highly likely that even after a nuclear attack, the only remaining life-forms will be cockroaches and sour-faced vendors of the Socialist Worker. Stunningly, the paper is still being peddled at every demonstration to young cyber-activists, for whom the very concept of a newspaper is almost as outdated as the notion of ideological unity as a basis for action.”[1]
What we have here is classic ‘new’ old thinking. Old wine in new bottles. For Penny the real dividing line seems to be between spontaneity and social networking on the one side and “old left” newspaper sellers with their top-down, centralist, hierarchical approach on the other. Yet the ‘law of the excluded middle’ rears its head - ie, the ‘principle’ that for any proposition, either that proposition is true or its negation is.[2] Nothing else is possible. Life, especially political life, is reduced to a few simple magical answers that appear like a bolt from the blue. Hence activity that issues apparently from out of the ether is worshipped; activity produced by conscious organisation is decried.
Thus in this spirit of thinking the unthinkable, even if it has been said many times before, Penny glowingly informs us: “For these young protesters, the strategic factionalism of the old left is irrelevant. Creative, courageous and inspired by situationism and guerrilla tactics, they have a principled understanding of solidarity. For example, assembling fancy-dress flash mobs in Topshop to protest against corporate tax avoidance may seem frivolous, but this movement is daring to do what no union or political party has yet contemplated - directly challenging the banks and business owners who caused this crisis.”
Frankly, Penny is seriously mistaken. New technology, no matter how marvellous, or invading shops in fancy dress, no matter how enjoyable, is not going to seriously challenge capitalist rule. In her bold ‘new’ thinking and critique of the British far left she is - whether out of sheer inexperience or a definite ideological instinct - giving voice to a deep-seated anti-leadership, anti-organisation prejudice which (inevitably) exists in some parts of society. The most obvious example being the anarchists, fetishising essentially spontaneous political outbursts in the doubtlessly sincere belief that by such methods they can bypass the absolute necessity for mass organisation and democratic leadership and accountability. Such sentiments came to the fore after the November 10 student protests, with the trashing of the Tory HQ in Millbank Tower being hailed as a model that needs to be copied by the wider anti-cuts movement.
Naturally, communists perfectly understand the genuine frustration of activists like Penny - who come up against the bureaucracy and control-freakery of “old left” organisations like the SWP. Plenty of centralism, yes, but precious little democracy. To instinctively kick out against such deadening norms has an undeniably healthy side. Penny is quite right, of course, to castigate the SWP for its conception of “ideological unity” - which in reality means forbidding the open expression of contending viewpoints. Which is to say, the construction of an ideological-confessional sect, whereby all its members have to pretend to agree on a particular historical and theoretical interpretation of the Soviet Union, for instance (state capitalism).
That is truly a road to nowhere and one which we have consistently opposed, arguing for a party which not only permits the free and open expression of political differences and perspectives, but insists that it is a party member’s duty to voice them - whether at meetings or in our press. Therefore communists can only sympathise with her follow-up comments in the New Statesman, where she posits: “This new wave of unrest is happening at a similar turning point in the history of communications technology. New groups can exchange information and change plans via Twitter and text message in the middle of demonstrations. It’s no longer about edicts delivered by an elite cadre and distributed to the masses, or policy voted on at national meetings and handed down by delegates. It’s not the technology itself so much as the mentality fostered by that technology that is opening up new possibilities for resistance.”[3]
But at the end of the day there are very real limitations to this kind of structurelessness. By its very nature, it tends towards minoritarian or secretive politics. And, logically, the more people are involved in deciding to do something that might be illegal, the more likely it is that they will get fingered by the state and its agents. Which in turn produces fragmentation and disillusionment. Ultimately then, structureless campaigns are almost by definition run by an unaccountable minority - whose inner debates and deliberations can never become the public property of the workers’ movement. Meaning they can never truly educate, organise and agitate in a real, long-lasting political sense. Rather the crux for communists is this - what are the politics and organisational forms that will allow us to win?
To replace the aristocratic rule of capital obviously requires organisation. There is no way of getting round this. The only way to get things done is to organise - it is as simple as that. Regardless of whether it is doing the shopping, running a business or organising a revolution. So everyone organises - anarchists included. Logically then, the burning question is how we organise - not whether we do so.
From that perspective, which history has taught us to be the only correct and viable one, we can only conclude that Alex Callinicos of the SWP was more right than wrong in his commendably patient and considered reply to Penny’s argumentation:
“The important question now is how the student movement can maintain its forward momentum - despite the passage of higher tuition fees through parliament - and invigorate much broader resistance to the coalition’s austerity programme. Penny rightly welcomes the support that Len McCluskey, the new general secretary of Unite, has given the student movement. But his intervention underlines the fact that old political problems don’t simply go away when a new movement emerges ...
“So how to bring together the fighting spirit and imagination of the students and the collective power of organised workers? This is the challenge that faces anyone who has been involved in the protests of the past few weeks. To address it, we need to discuss and work together, transcending, yes, the sectarian squabbles of the organised left, but also flattering delusions of absolute novelty.”[4]
We sincerely hope that SWP as an organisation bucks the sectarian trend and starts to practise what comrade Callinicos preaches above.
Notes