Perspectives of Modern Reformism

...The real issue is, and will continue to be, between totalitarianism and reformism, not only in the ranks of labor, but in all rlasaea of capitalist society...

...We are already rather advanced on our evolution towards a new society,- with labor becoming a more and more decisive class...

...The totalitarian trend emerges basically from the crisis of capitalism, modified by the special conditions existing in different countries...

...Therefore, there is no way back to "free enterprise" in the classical, liberal sense of the term...

...Decisive impulses for the .creation of the organizational basis and...

...Despite obvious weaknesses and confusion within the free labor movement, especially in regard to questions of international strategy, the reformists should be able to muster superior strength in this struggle and become a decisive force in safeguarding the foundations of western democracy against destruction by the totalitariani, arrayed now mainly around the Communist skeleton...

...Plans against Plan" and "Cooperation against forced labor" could be the slogans of such »n evolution...

...Argentina, end Japan, all rather product*, either of the bittkwardnees of thene tonntriei, or of extreme, difficult iet due to »perial hin...

...However, are riot the totalitarian die-tatorehipt in Ruttiu, in the t'atcitt conn-tiiet, in Turkey, China...

...In parenthesis I would like to say that this evolution is explained ?? terms of the Marxist theory of crisis and there is no reason to discard it...

...Although well-advanced in practice, iU main weakness la its lark of a conscious political policy and of an adequate theory...

...even if the compromise is arrived at only after hard and bitter and sometimes violent struggle...

...On th* present level of society, not only one but several solutions of the problem of full employment are within our reach...

...This discrepancy in the development of reformism results in an ideological uneasiness which, in turn, causes political Irresi'ition and setbacks...

...Since ther* is and can be no security in a world of competitive free enterprise (which ig th* basis of that individualistic freedom of a liberal democratic society) all the classes menaced in their very existence by unhampered free competition and unhampered crisis will violently tend towards totalitarian security...

...tin a purely formalists level this reasoning seems perfectly sound...

...They represent the future, perhaps, for most of the backward regions of Europe and Asia, but not at all for the most advanced industrial cottntries of western civilization...

...This means that the problem of crisis is no longer faced under the single aspect of procuring profits on capital but under the prospect of securing minimum living standards also...

...Abolition of this kind of controlled economy would mean aggravation of the next cyclical crisis, with all its well-known social and political consequence*, and might well lead to the establishment of * totalitarian dictatorship...

...The simple fact is that no one is in a position to make a "choice" between planning with totalitarian control over the people on the one hand, or capitalism with civil liberties on the other...

...Against the totalitarians, this meam an unequivocal reformistic altitude...

...However, Eastman does not state the problem in its correct, realistic form...

...This reformist position is not limited to one single sector of society...

...There is not the slightest reason for labor to renounce its social airas in favor of capitalist concepts, which have already compromiseed with labor to a high degree...

...But they derive their strength largely from the theoretical and political confusion in the ranks of reformist...

...All the planning measures instituted since the introduction of war economy in World War I are, in the last analysis, to be understood a* measures against capitalist crisis (except in Russia, where they are the ronseqnence of the collapse of the entire society...

...It offers a real challenge to those who cling to formulae no longer adequate to th* complexities of 20th century society, and to the various groups of "planners" who hopelessly confuse Socialism, planning, and state ownership and control...

...The totalitarian.forces achieved an important victory over the reformist wing of trade unionism by the organization of a World Federation of Trade Unions which disregarded the difference between free unions and state-controlled unions...

...Therefore, totalitarianism remains tb« dangerous alternative precisely to th* extent that the competitive capitalist sector in our society remains uncontrolled...

...Backward social organization often is combined with extreme aggressiveness and, in periods of weakness of the more developed countries, may have the appearance of progressiveness...

...Krom this view, therefore, it i* a contradiction to plead for free capitalism as against the kind of controlled economy practiced in the western world...

...What they all have in common in the elimination or canalization of certain rules of capitalist automatism, either for the entire economy or for limited sectors, and sometimes for a limited time only...

...The totalitarian wing of labor was able to extend its field of influence enormously during the war, and especially since the breakdown of the Fascist frame of totalitarianism, while the reformist labor movement has been forced to retreat from one position after another...

...The Socialist International broke down under the strain of this war, and the teformist political labor movements on the European continent are ideologically confused and weakened by the inroads made into the ranks of labor by the new totalitarian compound of nationalism, laborism and militarism which appeared in the wake of the fight against Fascism...

...It boils down to the problem of developing and maintaining a social status where full employment and security are based upon the deliberate cooperation of th* decisive social groups of our society...

...The political and ideological crisis of the democratic labor movement is determined by the ambiguous stage of present social developments in the western world...

...That is to say, the solution of critical quegtioni is achieved by compromise and bargaining between various social groups of our society...

...Labor problems and problems of employment -or unemployment are focal points in all social controversies...

...This is an entirely new principi* and foreign to capitalist economy in ita classical sense...

...But, at the same time, the Moscow-centered totalitarianism laid open its stratagems and forced reformism to reexamine its own position and to face a struggle for survival...

...But we are not far enough advanced to have these n*w principle* accepted generally and without question...

...This is not to say that they do not represent a danger to western society...

...torical and social condition!, at in tier-many, or of both, at in Italy, Spain and Portugal...

...Do they not represent a primitive slope of controlled tociety rather Ihan a ripe ttagel For an unbiased eye, the compromise form of partial and flexible control as practiced in various degrees in Britain and parts of the British Commonwealth, in the Scandinavian countries and in the United States, must be looked upon as much more representative of Hie major trends of our time, opening much' wider possibilities of development than the totalitarian form...

...This means, not a central government plan, but a variety of "plans," coordinated and combined in the permanent process of compromise between* the various socill and regional groups...

...We can assume that the question of full employment will remain the crucial social question of our century...

...Ik we want to safeguard those fundamental liberties which were the most valuable political and cultural achievements of the rise of capitalism, we have to look for ways and means not contradictory to the general evolution towards cont ? oiled economy...

...ThE controversy carried on in The New Leader between Max Eastman and Sidney Hook over the possibility of democratic Socialism illustrate* the fruit less-ness of cuunterposlng the unreal issue of "free capitalism" or' "democratic Socialism," and clouded Ike reef t«*u« of totalitarian revolution vertut reformat trant-formation of our society...

...Therefore, Eastman concludes, if we deem these liiierties essential, we h»ve to preserve capitalism...

...Of course, there are totalitarian undercurrents traceable everywhere...

...Perspectives of Modern Reformism New Trends Towards Social Democracy By Helmut Wickel THE international situation is developing rapidly towards a showdown between totalitarian and democratic reformist concepts...

...Like the totalitarian ideology, it penetrates all classes and groups, and all sectors...

...This is especially true for those modern totalitarian systems which combine their social backwardness with some of the latest achievements of modern organization and technology...

...Th* totalitarian* advance the governmut-enforced plan, with variou* form* of forced labor a* a fundamental social institution...

...We use the term reformism instead of the vague term democratic Socialism here to indicate the real antithesis to totalitarianism...

...And in these countries the social, economic and political position of labor is relatively strong, guided still by fundamentally reformist concepts of social and political policies...

...No ideal of freedom can, in such a situation, successfully compete with the security offered by the totalitarian...

...A close and critical analysis in these western countries, both of their economic and political trends, seems to me the main prerequisite for the defining of a political, social and economic policy capable of preserving the civil liberties and, at the same time, adjusting our society to changed economic and social conditions...

...Eastman's view is that the development of greater control over economy, and as s consequence, greater control of society as a whole, is necessarily the road to serfdom and dictatorship...

...For the achievement of full employment this i* without doubt on* solution and will be a very seductive on* in each new crisis of what is left of free capitalism in the western world...

...But Max Eastman's challenging arguments against the cherished dream of a democratic Socialism, have the merit of unveiling the uneasiness which pervades the whole of the Socialist movement...

...While the Socialist movement proper, ideologically and politically, became either a prey of left- I totalitarianism or fell apart into dosen* of bickering sects, reformism ss a social tendency—not as an ideology—is vigorously alive...

...This in order to safeguard the fundamental atructure of capitalist society...

...Eastman argue*, since democracy and liberalism, individual freedom, etc., are products of bourgeois society, of capitalism, of "free enterprise" it is quite natural that they should be endangered by the decline of capitalism...

...Nor is there any reason to think of the totalitarian forces as the irresistible wave of the future...