2009年2月25日

紀念達爾文誕生200周年 (5)

進化論在中國備受推崇的背後
張偉 劉暘
中國青年報
2009年2月25日

方舟子按:這篇報道的出發點有些問題,似乎是在批評中國人接受進化論的比例高於西方人。其實西方還有半數人不接受進化論,才是不正常的,乃是由於基督教勢力的影響,而不是那些人比中國人更有懷疑精神,恰恰相反,是更盲從——對宗教信仰的盲從,西方科教界人對此也是痛心疾首的。我們不應該怪中國人接受進化論的人太多,而是應該探究為何還有近30%的中國人不接受這個科學理論,為什麼對原子論、相對論、基因論等等其他科學理論就會幾乎一致接受?進化論在科學上的可靠程度和重要性並不亞於這些理論。中國的教育要求學生不加批判地接受進化論,不也要求學生不加批判地接受原子論、相對論、基因論?為什麼獨獨認為這麼教育進化論是不正常的?是不是也受到國外原教旨基督徒的影響,認為進化論是個在科學上還有爭議的理論?把「把宗教和科學看作對立的兩面」說成已是幾十年前的舊觀點也不對,西方還有這麼高比例的人由於宗教信仰的原因不接受進化論,正是宗教和科學對立的證明。當今許多傑出的生物學家、哲學家都認為宗教和科學,特別是和進化論,是對立的,不可調和的,例如E.O. Wilson, James Watson, Richard Dawkins, Niles Eldredge, Daniel Dennett等人都持這個觀點。國外有些科學家說進化論與宗教不衝突,是為了取悅信教的政客、公眾,我們沒有必要也跟著這麼做。】
查爾斯·達爾文未必能料到,他的進化論會在中國受到如此厚愛。

2003年,一份公眾科學素養調查顯示了進化論在中國有多麼流行:71.8%的中國公眾認可「人類是從早期動物進化而來」這個結論。

調查的主持者、中國科學院教授李大光,至今還對這個數字感到驚訝。要知道,即使是在達爾文的故鄉英國,情況也遠非如此。直到幾天前,「半數英國人不信進化論」的新聞,還頻繁出現在報紙上。

李大光的床頭,擺著剛出版不久、美國學者浦嘉珉寫的《中國與達爾文》。這本書詳細探究了進化論進入中國以後的傳播脈絡。儘管很忙,李大光還是會經常抽時間翻上幾頁。他覺得,這本書切中了他平日的思考。

當達爾文誕辰200週年到來之時,許多人開始對進化論在中國的流行進行思考。美國芝加哥大學進化學系教授龍漫遠認為,從嚴復到毛澤東,進化論在中國地位的確立,有一條清晰的主線。

進化論是以一種「謙卑」姿態進入中國的
最初,進化論是以一種「謙卑」姿態進入中國的。1897年4月12日,一份報紙在腳注裡介紹了嚴復和他的譯作《天演論》,並沒有引起太大的反響。

此時,達爾文的《物種起源》已發表近40年,進化論終於作為一個西方學術觀點,進入中國民眾視野。100多年後,龍漫遠仍覺得,如果他是嚴復,也會選擇翻譯《天演論》。

2月23日,他坐在芝加哥一家咖啡廳裡,回溯19世紀末的中國歷史。正當戰爭屢屢失敗、改革無功而返之際,1894年,甲午戰敗,曾長期在海軍任職的學者嚴復「想喚起改變貧窮落後的覺悟」,於是第二年便提筆翻譯《天演論》。

為什麼選擇《天演論》?龍漫遠認為,原作者赫胥黎在書裡,意在用《物種起源》裡面的一般規律、用「進化」這個科學觀點解釋人的事情,解釋社會問題。這種功能,在《物種起源》裡是找不到的。

「嚴復並不是學生物的,他翻譯的目的在於向人們傳達對社會的理解。」龍漫遠說。為了闡述自己的觀點,嚴復乾脆在書中做了大量批注。

在這些批注中,嚴復對社會達爾文主義努力鼓吹。「物競天擇、適者生存」成為這位翻譯家留給後世最著名的格言。

「歷史在這裡玩了個弔詭。」就讀於美國哥倫比亞大學政治學系的博士生林垚介紹,在原著中,作者赫胥黎對社會達爾文主義持批判態度,但譯作卻變成了鼓吹社會達爾文主義的經典文本。

「一方面,救亡圖存確是一時之亟,另一方面就世界範圍而論,社會達爾文主義倫理學也風頭正健,赫胥黎的倫理學正被越來越多人看作過了時的、溫情脈脈的理想主義空談。」林垚解釋說。

後世的反思,並不能阻止《天演論》在1898年出版後一紙風行。當年剛滿17歲的中學生魯迅,特意花了500文錢買回這本書,覺得很新鮮,一口氣讀了下去。同樣受到進化論思想影響的,還有青年時代的毛澤東。

在李大光看來,「這是近代科學文化的第一個高潮」。進化論成為街頭巷尾人們談論最多的話題之一,也是中學作文最常見的命題。而康有為、梁啟超等知識界人士對於進化論精神在社會問題上的應用,更是樂此不疲。一場「保種」的運動,隨即浩浩蕩蕩地開始了。

《天演論》風頭太盛,以至於20年後,當《物種起源》終於被翻譯到中國時,影響力反而大不如前者。這本書為中國留下許多遺產。經由維新變法、新文化運動等社會事件,社會達爾文主義的靈魂一直隨著中國知識分子救亡圖存的努力而流傳。浦嘉珉在《中國與達爾文》一書中評判說:進化觀念在中國的傳播,是「在政治學語境中發生的」,而基本上被從科學或博物學的傳統中剝離出來。

與此同時,在國外,另一場對達爾文和進化論的演繹正在發生,並且等待時機進入中國,準備接過進化論在中國傳播的大旗。

「沒有爭論,也不能有爭論」
小學的時候,龍漫遠在父親單位的藏書裡,發現過一本與進化論有關的書,是翻譯版,「文字寫得真美」。他立刻就被吸引了。

不過,真正接觸進化論,要等到讀中學時。那是上世紀70年代,進化論從兩個渠道進入他的生活,一個是在生物課堂上,另一個是在學習馬克思主義的時候。龍漫遠還記得,讀恩格斯《自然辯證法》時,也在裡面看到過進化論。

「馬克思、恩格斯和毛澤東都強調達爾文的進化論,並且有的時候把進化論的觀點演繹到社會問題。」龍漫遠回憶。從馬克思主義傳入中國那天起,進化論在中國的命運,就和這個新興的學說發生了關聯。

這種關聯很早就開始了。1883年,恩格斯在馬克思墓前發表講話時,曾經為他留下了著名的論斷:「正如達爾文發現了有機自然界的發展規律,馬克思也發現了人類歷史的發展規律。」

關於馬克思和達爾文之間的「惺惺相惜」,人們不難在報端上找到若干證據。其中一個例子,是1931年由蘇聯《在馬克思主義旗幟下》雜誌上發佈的。該雜誌聲稱發現了達爾文給馬克思的一封信,足以證明馬克思曾想把《資本論》第二卷題獻給達爾文,可見馬克思對達爾文思想之重視。

這個說法一直被用來證明馬克思的學說與達爾文進化論的密切關係,流傳甚廣。然而,許多人並不知道,早在1979年,美國明尼蘇達大學政治學系副教授泰倫斯·波爾已經發表文章,論證該信並非寫給馬克思的,而馬克思也從來沒有過要把著作題獻給達爾文的念頭。

事實上,馬克思本人未必真的看重進化論,當一些社會主義者試圖將自然選擇概念引入社會主義學說中時,馬克思還對他們大加嘲諷和批評。

不過,林垚認為,在馬克思之後,人們有意無意地強化了他與達爾文之間的聯繫。許多後來的社會主義者推重並借鑒自然選擇理論,對宣傳達爾文主義也「不遺餘力」,這是因為,在唯物主義者看來,進化論是他們「反對有神論的天然盟友」。

龍漫遠的解釋則是,在社會主義者眼裡,社會發展的方向是「進步」的。這和進化論者表達的「從低級到高級、從簡單到複雜」的觀念是一致的。

這種氛圍一定程度上延續到了中國。從一開始,進化論在新中國就獲得了崇高的地位。龍漫遠回憶,當時的進化論是以「官方」、「正宗」的面目出現的,他理所當然也認為,「沒有爭論,也不能有爭論」。

直到改革開放前後,「這一代人」才開始反思。龍漫遠讀到了一套《走向未來叢書》,介紹了西方的很多東西。從那時起,他才真正開始思考和比較,並第一次發現對於世界的解釋,除了進化論,還有宗教。

中國教科書裡的進化論是完美無缺的
在美國,龍漫遠曾經被叫上法庭,為一起家長起訴學校教授神創論的官司作證。作為科學家證人,他在庭上對法官和陪審團講解了基因是如何起源的。

他覺得,因為存在爭論,許多美國人從小就會仔細瞭解進化論講的是什麼。而在中國,進化論被作為一個事實來講授,大家都知道人是由猿進化而來,但「好多人其實理解得不深刻」。

「中國教科書裡的進化論是完美無缺的,學生不需要對其進行批判性的反思,只要接受即可。」林這樣反思自己在中學時學過的進化論。

2月12日,一場小型的討論在某個網站上進行,幾名30歲上下的年輕人,回憶起自己在中學課本裡學到的進化論。有人感歎:當時的教育十分有效,自己「從來不曾懷疑過進化論」。

進化論進入中國的過程中,始終沒有引起太大爭論,李大光覺得這「很要命」。

「爭論並不是胡亂否定,而是進行科學的探討。」李大光認為,「這種討論本身比進化論更有價值」,而沒有經過討論的進化論,「並不能作為靈魂進入我們的文化並固化下來,只停留在一種外來理論的層面」。

「在西方,進化論是在討論的情況下被接受的,而中國人則是不假思索地接受。」李大光據此認為,儘管中國人認可進化論觀點的比例更高,但這並不能說明進化論在中國更加成功。

林垚也發現,在美國課堂上,教師在講授進化論的同時,會告訴學生進化論在哪些環節上證據尚顯不足,對哪些問題的解釋力較弱,哪些方面易於遭受攻擊,這些攻擊對理論整體的破壞力如何,等等。

「由於沒有接觸過反面的觀點與論證」,中國學生對進化論這一信條的辯護能力,也就相應減弱了。

李大光觀察到,許多西方理論在中國有不同的命運。比如,與進化論備受擁戴相反,「人口論」在中國遭到了猛烈的批判。而在這截然相反的待遇背後,他看到了「相同的邏輯」。問題的關鍵在於,中國公眾通常並沒有判斷,而是「由政府和科學家判斷對錯」。當政治運動一來時,他們也更容易被利用,對某種觀點盲目地「批判和打倒」。

對於政治和科學的關係,龍漫遠看到了有益的一面。儘管科學有時候為政治服務,但他覺得,這不應該由科學負責。相反,一定程度上,「馬克思、毛澤東對進化的肯定,起到了積極作用」,因為無論過程如何,從結果上來看,傳播了進化論,能「幫助人們對自然界作出理性判斷」。

儘管他也承認,國內對進化論的認識「不夠準確,連翻譯都沒有翻准」。

「進化」學系的教授
在博士畢業論文答辯的時候,龍漫遠的主考官是個虔誠的基督徒。他擔心自己的答辯無法通過,於是試探地告訴教授,自己的演講將涉及進化論。教授一眼就看出他的顧慮,說:「年輕人,我從星期一到星期五信進化論,星期六和星期天信上帝。」

他逐漸發現,經過最初的激烈衝突,科學、宗教在西方國家的許多人心中已經可以互相包容,並不衝突。甚至連羅馬教皇本人也宣佈相信進化論。在達爾文誕辰200週年到來的時候,英國主教專程來到達爾文墓,獻上一大捧花。

不過,龍漫遠發現,在國內,人們通常還是把宗教和科學看作對立的兩面,看成敵對的。「我們一直被這麼告知。」他說。可那已是幾十年前的舊觀點了。

許多誤解還圍繞在進化論的周圍。龍漫遠指出,甚至連「進化」這個約定俗成的稱謂,也是一種誤讀。

嚴復在翻譯《天演論》的時候,用的是「演化」來表達達爾文「evolution」的概念,為了防止誤解,他曾特意在註解裡註明,這個詞不僅有「進化」,也有「退化」的意思。龍漫遠解釋,這就是說,除了「從簡單到複雜」,演化還有「從複雜變簡單」、「變單一」的可能。

不過,當後來北大教授馬軍武翻譯《物種起源》時,他從日文版翻譯成了「進化」,並從此沿襲到今天。學術界曾經對此有過討論,很多人試圖扭轉這個翻譯,但在公眾中,這個誤讀並沒有改變。

甚至,他自己對別人介紹自己的身份時,也不得不告訴別人,自己是「進化」學系的教授。

在種種誤讀中,中國和世界一起,迎來了達爾文的第200個生日。

從2月12日開始,英國各地舉行了許多大大小小的紀念性聚會。而在中國,人們並沒有感到什麼異常,甚至很難看出,這是個一直流行著進化論的國家。

紀念達爾文誕生200周年 (4)


達爾文的革命
方舟子
方舟子的BLOG (http://blog.sina.com.cn/fangzhouzi)
2009年2月22日

如果我們要給生物學找一個生日的話,可以把它定在《物種起源》出版那一天——1859年11月24日。

難道在那之前沒有人從事生物研究嗎?當然不是。人類研究生物現象已有漫長的歷史,但是在達爾文之前,生物研究其實只是神學的附庸,是上帝在科學研究領域的最後一個據點。當時從事物理學、化學研究的科學家已不需要假設上帝的存在,但是生命現象要比物理現象複雜得多,上帝還可以賴在那裡。從事生物研究的學者,基本上都是神創論者,他們的研究前提是神創造並精心設計了生物。其中許多人本身就是牧師,為了通過研究上帝的「作品」來領悟上帝的旨意。即便有少數學者不相信神創論,也往往相信目的論,認為在冥冥之中有一個神秘的目的在指導著生物的進化。比如進化論的先驅拉馬克就相信生物體本身有一種內在驅動力在促使它們越變越複雜,向更高級形態進化,直到進化成人類。

達爾文用大量證據證明生物是進化而來的,推翻了形形色色的神創論,上帝才被徹底地驅除出科學領域。達爾文還用自然選擇解釋了生物體的複雜結構是怎麼起源的,這是一個完全自然的、無意識的進化過程,無需求助於智能的設計或神秘的目的,因而也否定了目的論。有了達爾文進化論,生物研究才擺脫了所有的超自然現象和神秘因素,才有可能像物理科學那樣成為一門科學。

在達爾文之前,生物研究屬於博物學,只是對生物現象進行觀察、描述、分類和做解釋性的敘述,不試圖去探究生物現象背後有什麼規律,也不做實驗來驗證假說。真正的科學研究則必須根據觀察的結果,提出可以驗證的假說,然後以新的觀察或實驗加以證明。達爾文首次把科學方法引進到生物研究中,不僅繼承了傳統的博物學方法,細心地觀察和勤勉地收集事實進行歸納,而且使用了現代的科學方法,善於提出可檢驗的假說,並用新的觀察和設計實驗來檢驗它。限於當時的條件,沒有多少進化實驗可做,但達爾文還是盡量用實驗來驗證某些假說。例如,在《物種起源》第十二章,他詳細敘述為了驗證植物種子能夠通過海洋漂流和鳥類被帶到與世隔絕的島嶼上,是如何精心實驗的。達爾文還做了大量的植物生理學實驗(最著名的是通過一系列實驗巧妙地證明胚芽鞘的尖端含有導致植物向光性的信號物質),影響很大,被認為是實驗植物學的創建者。

達爾文進化論的誕生,統一了生物學的各個學科,為生物研究提供了第一個可用於預測和檢驗的科學大理論,從此對生物的研究不再只是單純的數據收集,雜亂無章的生物現象也有規律可循,對生物現象的研究由博物學變成了科學,生物科學由此誕生。大生物學家杜布贊斯基曾說過一句名言:「若無進化之光,生物學毫無道理。」沒有進化論,也就無所謂生物學。

生物學中有許多規律、定律,它們或者只是對現象的描述,或者能從物理、化學定律推導出來,都不是真正的規律。通過研究生物體內的各個組成部分的物理、化學作用,可以解釋生物體的一切功能。這不免讓一些生物學家擔心,生物學研究是不是有一天會被完全還原成了物理學、化學研究,生物學不再是一門獨立自主的科學?這種擔心是多餘的。生物學研究並不只是研究生物體的功能,還要研究這些功能是怎麼起源的。對後者,就必須用到進化論,特別是自然選擇規律。自然選擇規律是不可能從物理、化學原理推導出來的,是一個獨立的自然定律。既然自然選擇規律是不可還原的,生物學就不可能被徹底還原成物理學、化學。達爾文進化論不僅為生物學奠定了基礎,而且還確保了生物學的自主地位。

達爾文進化論也給人文領域帶來了一場顛覆性的革命。在達爾文之前,人們普遍認為人是萬物之靈,並非自然界的一部分,而是超越了自然。例如猶太-基督教神學把人看成是上帝根據自己的影像創造出來的特殊作品,在世界萬物中只有人才被賦予了靈魂,世界萬物都是被創造出來為人服務的。偉大的哲學家,像亞里斯多德、笛卡兒和康德等人,不管他們的哲學觀點是多麼不同,也都堅持人類中心說,認為人與其他動物存在不可逾越的鴻溝。

達爾文進化論則指出,人類是生物進化過程中的偶然產物,是大自然的產物,是大自然的一部分,人類與大自然是同一的。今天的一切生物都是人類的親屬,人類與其他生物、特別是與類人猿並無本質的區別,我們認為是人類特有的屬性——例如智力、道德觀等精神因素——都可在其他動物中找到雛形,也必定有其自然的起源。

達爾文進化論讓我們更深刻地理解了人類與大自然的關係,更深刻地理解了人性。但是在某些人看來,它沉重地打擊了人類的自尊心。進化論的正確性在科學界實際上早已沒有爭議,做為生物學的基礎,如果推翻它就會讓生物學大廈坍塌。但是在人文學界,一直有人激烈地批評、否定進化論,正是因為他們認為進化論傷了其自尊心,而不是他們比生物學家更懂生物學,掌握了生物學家不知道的證據。

Will Keynesianism Be Enough to Halt the Investment Decline?

Socialist Economic Bulletin
(Republished in MRzine)
February 25, 2009
Socialist Economic Bulletin is a Bulletin of Socialist Economic Analysis published by Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London, UK.
The 4th quarter US GDP figures confirm that the economic downturn, in its domestic aspect, is taking the classic form of an investment-led decline.

As seen in Figure 1 US fixed investment already started to fall from the 1st quarter of 2006 onwards -- US consumer expenditure and GDP, in contrast, continued to rise until the 2nd quarter of 2008. Government consumption is still rising.

Figure 1


US GDP has so far declined by 1.1 per cent since its peak. Consumer expenditure has fallen by 1.8 per cent -- also since its peak. However US fixed investment has already declined by 8.8 per cent since the first quarter of 2006.

In order to illustrate the 'classic' form of the current downturn Figure 2 shows the decline in US GDP after 1929.

Figure 2

As may be seen the pattern of the current decline is almost identical to that after 1929 -- with, of course, the dimensions of the latter case being much greater than those so far during this downturn.

US GNP (Gross National Product) fell by 29.7 per cent between 1929 and 1933. Personal consumption fell by 19.7 per cent in the same period. US government expenditure continued to rise throughout the depression. But US private domestic fixed investment fell by 73.9 per cent from its 1929 level.

Given the classic form of the present recession the decisive issue is therefore whether the decline in investment can be halted by indirect, Keynesian, means.

Keynes, as an explicit defender of the capitalist system, believed that a decline in investment, driving a recession, could be halted by indirect means -- reduction in interest rates, government spending etc. It was not necessary for the state to directly control investment.

As Graham Turner has rightly and consistently stressed neither the US nor Britain is as yet applying real Keynesian methods. The most crucial issue in a Keynesian perspective is not primarily large budgetary deficits but driving down borrowing costs -- in the present situation by central bank purchase of government debt. Governments are, agonisingly slowly, being forced to consider this through 'quantitative easing' -- precisely direct central bank purchase of state debt.

But a further issue then arises. Will any indirect, Keynesian or other, method of halting the investment decline work? Because there is an alternative. This is the model which applies in China where a large state sector means that investment can be directly controlled.

This is coupled with a nationalised banking system in which financial institutions can be directly instructed to increase lending not simply to the state but to the private sector. China does not have to rely on indirect methods to attempt to persuade banks to expand credit -- indirect methods which in the US and Britain have so far proved an almost complete failure compared to the rapid expansion of credit which is now taking place in China. But to employ these methods would require taking decisive sectors of the economy out of private ownership -- that is proceeding from a Keynesian to a socialist solution.

This is now the decisive practical issue of economy management facing every country. In only three months the economics of neo-liberalism has theoretically and practically disintegrated under the impact of the worst financial crisis since 1929. There is not a single government in an advanced economy, one which enjoys some freedom of action, which is attempting to meet the present crisis by neo-liberal methods. Neo-liberalism is now confined to fringe monetarist fanatics and the British Conservative Party. All major governments are attempting to meet the economic downturn by what they essentially conceive of as Keynesian methods -- and are, far too slowly, being gradually forced along a route from the running of crude budget deficits to more properly Keynesian 'quantitative easing'.

The issue is whether any of these Keynesian methods will suffice. Or whether only a 'Chinese' style solution will work -- that is state ownership of a sufficiently large sector of the economy to directly reverse the investment decline.

This will not be decided by economic theory but by how far and how deep the economic downturn goes. China will pursue its own path, which is more effective, but in the US, Europe and Japan if the downturn is 'moderate', which in current terms means the worst recession since World War II, then Keynesian methods may control it. If the downturn becomes worse than that then only 'Chinese' methods will suffice.
This article was appeared in the Socialist Economic Bulletin, a bulletin published by Ken Livingstone, on 1 February 2009; it is reproduced here for educational purposes.

2009年2月23日

文輯:中國需要再一次的啟蒙? --- (1)

「新啟蒙」與新時期的知識生產
胡景敏
《粵海風 》 (http://www.yuehaifeng.com.cn/)
2009年第1期
胡景敏,中國社會科學院文學系博士,現為河北師範大學文學學院講師。主要研究方向為中國現當代文學與文化,以及巴金研究。
18世紀西方啟蒙思潮高揚人的理性力量,主張以理性超越自然人性對人的束縛,反對封建王權、宗教神權的束縛,為社會發展掃清道路。中國近現代特別是「五四 」以來的啟蒙思潮與此不同,它沒有走上理性至上的道路,也沒有主張以理性超越人性,而是要衝破封建禮教(以理性面目出現)對自然人性的束縛,要反對封建王權對人的自由的束縛,二者僅在反封建上找到共同點。「五四」時期的啟蒙思潮蔚為大觀,成為思想文化界的主流,但經過六十年的努力,即使就反封建而言,啟蒙仍然是「一個未完成的任務」。「文革」之後,知識界重新呼籲思想解放,啟蒙潮頭再起,學界名之「新啟蒙」。

1988年10月,王元化、王若水主持的《新啟蒙》論叢由湖南教育出版社出版,[1]此刊在80年代末期的思想解放運動中產生了廣泛影響。於是「新啟蒙」 作為描述後「文革」時期思想運動解放特徵的詞彙受到知識界的廣泛認可。啟蒙無所謂新舊,無論是人類群體還是生命個體,都需要不斷走向成熟理性的狀態,所以也就必然一直伴隨著啟蒙過程。小兒初識文字稱之為「發蒙」,這是以知識照亮心靈,也是一種啟蒙。但是,現在「啟蒙」一詞卻更多用於以思想理念影響人,以知性照亮人的心靈,它的核心是使人成為按照理性思考和行動的「成熟的人」。康德和黑格爾都曾經論及人之自由意志問題,認為人的自由意志的獲得一方面要擺脫內在的慾望、情緒等自然人性的支配,另一方面要擺脫外在的宗教、政治等異己力量的支配。獲得了自由意志,人也就獲得了運用自己理智的勇氣和信心。

新啟蒙與「五四」啟蒙思潮之間最主要的相通之處是都以反封建作為目標訴求,其努力方向是使人擺脫外在的異己力量的支配,獲得自然人性的解放,並在人性解放的基礎上走向自由意志的獲得。但應該看到,啟蒙最終所要達成的從來都不是個體自由意志和理性能力的獲得,也從來都沒有把啟蒙對像局限在某個或某些個體,它要求由眾多個體的自由意志和理性能力生成的改造社會的力量(如啟蒙思潮產生的反封建力量)。因此,卡西勒傾向於從啟蒙的社會效果分析它的性質,他說:「啟蒙思想的真正性質,從它的最純粹、最鮮明的形式上是看不清楚的,因為在這種形式中,啟蒙思想被歸納為種種特殊的學說、公理和定理。因此,只有著眼於它的發展過程,著眼於它的懷疑和追求、破壞和建設,才能搞清它的真正性質。」[2]自由充分的理性能力是啟蒙思想的核心「形式」,但理性只保證個體思維過程的合理性,卻不能保證思維結果以及由此導致的行動是否具有改造社會的善的力量。啟蒙對像獲得理性能力還必須獲得善的理性前提(或道德意志),它是理性思維的出發點,對保證啟蒙目的完成具有決定性作用。對個體而言,啟蒙的理性前提表現為來自啟蒙主體啟迪灌輸的某種現代性理念,雖然這與諸如封建禮教等舊有觀念都是外在於主體的,但並不具有異己性,不構成束縛。新啟蒙和「五四」啟蒙思潮在使啟蒙對像獲得理性前提方面具有一致性,均以人性論、人道主義、自由、民主等現代理念作為啟蒙的思想資源,並且大有將其神化意識形態化的氣勢。個體獲得理性前提,勇敢地在慣例化的社會運用理性能力,個體間互相影響,啟蒙由個體及於群體,進而在公共領域產生影響。福柯在論述康德啟蒙哲學時說:「當人只是為使用理性而推理時,當人作為具有理性的人(不是作為機器上的零件)而推理時,當人作為有理性的人類中的成員而推理時,那時,理性的使用是自由的和公共的。『啟蒙』因此不僅是個人用來保證自己思想自由的過程。當對理性的普遍使用、自由使用和公共使用互相重疊時,便有『啟蒙』。」[3]顯然,福柯非常看重理性使用的社會化,甚至把它視為啟蒙得以成立的關鍵因素。也就是說,社會如果沒有理性的普遍使用,那根本就不存在所謂「啟蒙」。

與西方對啟蒙的理解不同,在「五四」啟蒙思潮和新啟蒙中,啟蒙主體更看重它在思想文化方面足以「破舊」的社會效果,而理性的使用並沒有得到重點強調。「五四」時期強調以現代理念反對封建禮教,反對封建制度(如政治制度、家族制度等),甚至整個知識界都沉浸在對「封建」的「懷疑」和「破壞」中,但側重理性的 「追求」和「建設」卻薄弱得多。在新時期思想解放運動中,反封建仍然是啟蒙最為切要的任務,但是由於啟蒙語境發生了很大變化,「五四」時期原本明確要反掉的封建對象,到了新時期卻變成面孔模糊的龐然大物,人人感到封建力量的強大,同時也感到這是無處不在但又無法把捉難以言說的「無物之陣」。出現這種狀況的原因是:一、經過多年的思想文化禁錮和意識形態教化,不但知識者的理性能力大幅度萎縮,而且整個知識界幾乎失去了作為理性前提的現代性理念,這是新時期開始知識者的群體精神缺陷,是啟蒙主體的原因。二、雖然從「五四」始知識界就高張反封建大旗,但結果勞而無功,封建性因素一直頑固地附著在政治構架和社會生活中。 1949年後封建性因素不但沒有因為新型意識形態的衝擊而稍減,反以新形式,在進步、革命的幌子下變本加厲,至「文革」而造其極。由於在反封建上關涉到很多政治禁忌,存在著啟蒙思潮不可觸碰的政治底線,因此,新啟蒙必須要面對大塊晦暗不明的領域,是啟蒙語境或者啟蒙客體的原因。

「文革」後開始的新啟蒙一直試圖突破各式政治禁忌。正是因為新啟蒙和政治禁忌的博弈使新時期的啟蒙思潮經歷曲折反覆、逐漸深化的過程。啟蒙者「破舊」的熱情受到壓抑,在無法擺脫外在束縛的情況下,啟蒙者的自由意志和理性勇氣受到更大程度的局限,所以知識者陷入無力「破舊」又不足以「立新」的尷尬。面對如此境遇,知識者的啟蒙策略是:一、堅持自我啟蒙,打破了「五四」時期知識者等於啟蒙主體(即啟蒙者),民眾等於啟蒙客體(即啟蒙對像),「我」說「你(們)」聽的傳道模式。曾經的啟蒙者不再自居啟蒙主體,認識到自我啟蒙的重要,主要是因為1949年後知識者群體對自身公共責任的逐漸放棄以及由此帶來的理性能力和勇氣的喪失。「文革」之後,知識者必須在不斷的自我啟蒙中為自己爭回(或保持)啟蒙主體的資格。邵燕祥在《夢醒後的啟蒙》中說:「誰啟蒙?啟誰的蒙?所有意識到啟蒙的意義的人,都既是啟蒙者,又是被啟蒙者。不是少數自稱『精英』的人充當啟蒙說教者,連這些自稱『精英』其實也同整個知識界一樣身上帶著老傳統和新傳統深深淺淺的戳記的人們,也要跟『非精英們』一起接受時代的啟蒙。」[4]邵燕祥認為啟蒙過程中啟蒙者和啟蒙對象的角色應同時集於一身,知識界人人概莫能外。他的看法不僅挑戰了某些新啟蒙者的「精英」姿態,而且對整個知識者群體的精神缺陷有著清醒的認識。二、雖然知識者在新啟蒙中以突破意識形態禁忌為目的,但是在啟蒙實踐中一般不直接捲入政治問題,而是在其知識領域對當時的思想解放做出回應。許紀霖曾把新時期思想解放運動定義為「路德式新教革命」,認為思想解放「首先意味著從傳統教條主義中解放出來。從這一意義上說,它可以被視作馬克思主義內部一場路德式的新教革命。」[5]新時期,意識形態內部出現自上而下的變革要求,知識分子的啟蒙熱情逐漸強烈起來。意識形態要求向不傷政治根本的原教旨意義上的馬克思主義回歸,[6]意識形態自我鬆綁需要一場「 新教」啟蒙,而不是真正現代理念的啟蒙,目標是形成有利於國家改革的新型的政治意識形態,而不是現代思想的廣泛傳佈。因此,新時期的啟蒙實踐不具備「五四 」啟蒙的自由語境,只是帶著鐐銬跳舞,在劃定的意識形態邊界中言說思想。

在突破舊有的意識形態束縛上,思想解放的政治訴求和知識者的啟蒙實踐一致。但新啟蒙不但要突破舊有的意識形態束縛,而且要突破新的思想禁忌,因此又存在著對抗關係。汪暉在《當代中國的思想狀況與現代性問題》一文中說:「『新啟蒙主義』思潮並不是統一的運動,這個思潮中的文學和哲學方面與當時的政治問題沒有直接關係。我想特別指出的是,如果簡單地認為中國當代『啟蒙思想』是一種與國家目標相對立的思潮,中國當代『啟蒙知識分子』是一種與國家對抗的政治力量,那就無法理解新時期以來中國思想的脈絡。儘管『新啟蒙』思潮本身錯綜複雜,並在80年代後期發生了嚴重分化,但歷史地看,中國『新啟蒙』的基本立場和歷史意義,就在於它是為整個國家的改革實踐提供意識形態的基礎的。中國『新啟蒙知識分子』與國家目標的分歧是在兩者之間的緊密聯繫中逐漸展現出來的。」[7] 這段話描述了新啟蒙與國家意識形態變革既一致又分歧的關係狀態。但也應該看到,在新時期的啟蒙實踐中,人文知識部門均表現了對思想解放的強烈關注,「政治正確」成為知識活動的首要原則,完全非政治的知識創造幾乎沒有;它們對政治問題的介入有各自不同的方式,有直接或間接,介入程度或思想影響也有深淺之別,因此以介入的方式判斷其介入的程度或影響就有欠周延。同時,啟蒙思潮中的各知識部門對政治問題的介入也往往限於自己的知識領域。新時期最急於通過啟蒙解決的現實政治問題是社會主義意識形態與經濟模式的相容問題,這有點類似於韋伯在《新教倫理與資本主義》中頗費心思地論述新教教義與資本主義並不排斥。顯然,不可能要求每一種人文知識的創造都去參與類似這樣的現實政治問題。文學與哲學確實與現實政治問題不直接相關,但它們卻不是非政治的,它們對政治的介入或影響也不可以與之直接或間接相關而論。

此外,認為中國「新啟蒙」的基本立場和歷史意義,就在於它為整個國家的改革實踐提供意識形態的基礎的說法稍嫌籠統。一方面,新啟蒙思潮內部情況非常複雜,傳統意識形態內部需要創造「新教」的啟蒙,這一工作由體制內傾向於變革的開明知識分子擔綱,而更多知識者則傾向於現代性理念的傳播普及,表現出非正統的、民間的、獨立的特點;另一方面,國家意志本身也不是鐵板一塊,不能理解為統一的國家意志,對於改革開放實踐的理解,對於思想解放運動的理解,國家或黨的內部存在著不可小覷的分歧,特別對前一個問題更是存在著所謂保守派與改革派之爭。[8]那麼,當談論新啟蒙思潮與國家意志的一致或者分歧時,二者在哪些方面一致?哪些方面分歧?何以一致何以分歧?在一致的方面是否還存在著分歧?在分歧的方面是否包含著一致?

把新啟蒙的「基本立場和歷史意義」定位在與國家意志的一致性上似乎也有失偏頗。在新時期啟蒙實踐中,雖然有主動追求啟蒙話語與國家意志相一致的情況,但更多是在大方向上的客觀一致,而不是知識者主觀迎合緊跟的一致。也就是說,知識者的啟蒙話語仍具有一定程度的獨立立場。那麼,新啟蒙的歷史意義是體現在與「 整個國家的改革實踐」的一致還是體現在分歧上呢?我認為改革(也包括開放)的意識形態基礎主要來自對舊有的社會主義意識形態的「路德式新教變革」,這雖是一種啟蒙(馬克思主義的新啟蒙),但與繼承了「五四」傳統的新啟蒙畢竟有差異。新啟蒙對改革的意識形態基礎的形成雖然有促進作用,但是它的歷史意義既體現在這種與國家意志相一致的方面,更體現在與國家意志相分歧的方面。總之,對現代性理念的傳佈是新啟蒙運動的根本,也是評價其歷史意義的標準,促進改革意識形態的形成只不過是新啟蒙現代性理念傳播的客觀後果,不能作為評價其歷史意義的標準。當然,在新時期仍未有多少放鬆的思想控制中,新啟蒙思潮與國家意志中傾向於思想解放的一支並沒有、也不可能形成明顯分歧,但這並不表明分歧不存在。相反,在思想解放運動逐漸深入人心和三番五次的思想整肅運動的反向作用下,分歧越來越明顯。在新啟蒙的話語實踐中,對與國家意識形態分歧方面的言說一直較為隱晦,多使用隱喻、暗示、假借等表現方式。新啟蒙思潮的很多部門在其知識領域內展開啟蒙實踐,雖不直接捲入現實政治問題,不挑動政治的敏感部位,但不觸時忌不等於不砭時弊,不等於不做思想啟蒙,因此,新啟蒙在現代性理念傳播方面作出了歷史性貢獻。

汪暉先生說在新啟蒙思潮中文學與(現實)政治問題「沒有直接關係」,但文學確實又是啟蒙實踐不可缺少的重要一翼,「五四」時期如此,新時期也是如此。新時期的傷痕文學、反思文學、改革文學、尋根文學,甚至先鋒文學,以及後來的新寫實、新歷史、新女性等各種「新」字號文學,無不參與新啟蒙進程,借文學以啟蒙也成為很多知識者的自覺追求。文學參與啟蒙有它自己的獨特方式和特點,它反映現實生活,同時也向現實提問,它以人的現實或可能生活訴諸人的感性世界,但目的卻是引出人對現實的理性認知。因為是以現實的或可能的生活圖景為中介來傳播現代理念,以達到啟蒙目的,所以生活圖景的豐富蘊含就使文學表現出思想傾向的多義。國家意志是黨派利益的意識形態化,是籠統而抽像的存在,即使是滲透力再強的國家意志也不可能規約生活的方方面面,即使是大體合乎歷史發展路向的國家意志也必然存在很多反歷史的意識形態因素。新時期啟蒙文學思潮在國家意志無法完全涵蓋的生活領域,在國家意志中的非現代方面發現了國家意志的薄弱之處,以及與現代性理念相左之處。文學啟蒙的責任首先在推動順應歷史潮流的國家意志,做改革意識形態的啟蒙,補國家意志籠統抽像的不足。但更重要的,文學啟蒙同時還要祛除國家意志對現代性理念的政治遮蔽,啟迪意識形態造成的現代的思想蒙昧成為啟蒙文學的根本目的所在。新啟蒙思潮中的文學部門並非不關乎政治。

新時期文學雖然很少直接關涉現實政治問題,但卻不能不干預現實生活,因此必然要介入當代政治。「文革」之後曾經出現過一股「非政治」的文學思潮,倡導文學本體論、文學的文學(藝術)性,主張減輕多年來文學超載的政治負荷,廖沫沙的詩句「若是文章能誤國,興亡豈用動吳鉤」,正好道出了文學即政治、文學萬能論的弊害。但這股文學思潮的實質不是主張文學生產去政治化,而是試圖改變文學與政治的關係狀態,探索文學應該如何表現政治,以及表現何種政治,前者解決的是文學為政治的方式問題,後者解決的是政治的歸屬問題。實際上新時期文學一直為政治,只不過政治內涵已經發生轉化而已,因為很難想像真實存在著「回到文學的文學」,單純追求「文學性」的文學生產是對文學部門的貶低,而打起文學本體論的旗幟不過是文學生產方式變革的策略。

新時期的文學與後「文革」時代的國家政治有著「剪不斷,理還亂」的複雜關係,巴金的《隨想錄》創作也不例外。新時期文學的自我啟蒙(武器的批判)和思想啟蒙(批判的武器)遠比國家政治內部自發的變革要求來得決絕。不管是政治還是文學,在當時前行的參照背景都是十年「文革」,「文革」雖然被視為政治和文學變革共通的否定性前提,但是二者對「文革」的否定態度並不一致。文學是以「五四」以來由西方輸入中國、在新時期又一次掀起熱潮的現代性理念為思想資源,對「 文革」持「徹底否定」的態度;而國家政治內部對「文革」的否定態度則要曖昧含混得多,它是以維護政權的合法性為出發點,既要否定「文革」,同時又不能割斷中共執政合法性的歷史連貫性,這種否定不可能徹底。不僅如此,國家政治在後「文革」時代一直試圖規範對「文革」的歷史或文學的敘述,伴隨時間推移,本有可能出現的對「文革」的深入反思並沒有如期而至,主要是國家政治壟斷「文革」的解釋權,「文革」的敘述由最初的憤怒揭批、聲討,後來流於對「文革」黑幕、慘劇的嗜痂之癖,再到最後被無形禁止,一直缺少認真嚴肅的研究和反思。因此,新啟蒙文學思潮在初起階段既與所謂國家意志有著本質分歧,而且這種分歧幾乎沒有因時間而消弭。除了本質分歧,二者還存在著時差造成的分歧。由於文學對「文革」十年採取徹底否定的態度,它對生活的思考和對十年鬧劇的反思,對1949年後十七年歷史的省察都沒有自設的樊籬。而國家意識形態的變革雖有總方向,也有自上而下自發改變的願望,但最終實踐卻是由下帶上的應變式變革,也就是新啟蒙思潮造就了變革趨勢,而意識形態的調整繼之。確實,意識形態的調整除了給新啟蒙思潮的各部門(包括文學)設置新的政治樊籬之外,就是「應」新啟蒙思潮的推動而「變」。但在新啟蒙的輿論壓力(或曰要求)與意識形態最後改變的結果之間往往存在著時間先後差別,而且有時時差會拉得很大。意識形態對新啟蒙思潮並非總是有「變」必「應」,二者緊張對抗時有發生。有的情況下,意識形態則是被新啟蒙思潮推上不得不變的尷尬境地,結果是延長應變時差。歷時來看,時差分歧會自然消失,從而表現為二者歷史方向一致;但從共時來看,時差分歧則變得非常明顯。關注啟蒙文學思潮與政治的複雜關係時,不管是一致還是分歧,不管是本質分歧還是時差分歧,都不應該被忽視。

 

[1]《新啟蒙》創刊於1988年10月,先後出版發行四輯,後停刊,已出者分題為《時代與選擇》(1988年10月),《危機與改革》(1988年12月),《論異化概念》(1989年2月),《廬山會議教訓》(1989年4月),均由湖南教育出版社出版。

[2] [德]恩斯特‧卡西勒:《啟蒙哲學》(顧偉銘、楊光仲、鄭楚宣譯),山東人民出版社1988年1月第1版,第5頁。卡西勒也譯為卡西爾。

[3][法]福柯:《何為啟蒙》,《福柯集》(杜小真編選),上海遠東出版社2002年版,第532頁。

[4]邵燕祥:《夢醒後的啟蒙》,《新啟蒙》(第四輯),湖南教育出版社1989年4月出版。

[5]許紀霖:《另一種啟蒙》,花城出版社1999年8月第1版,第251頁。

[6]在當時的意識形態背景下,所謂「原教旨意義上的馬克思主義」就是鄧小平反覆強調的「要完整地準確地理解和掌握」的毛澤東思想。

[7]汪暉:《當代中國的思想狀況與現代性問題》,此文最初以韓文發表於韓國《創作與批評》1994年「東亞細亞的近代與脫近代的課題」專號,中文稿初刊於《天涯》1997年第5期,後被多家國內外刊物轉載、譯載,引起很大反響。本文引自作者文集《死火重溫》,人民文學出版社2000年1月第1版,第55 頁。

[8]汪暉先生在《當代中國的思想狀況與現代性問題》一文的第10條參見《死火重溫》,人民文學出版社2000年1月第1版,第89頁。

2009年2月20日

Fetishizing the Zapatistas: a critique of "Change the World Without Taking Power"

Louis Proyect
June 7, 2003
Louis Proyect is the moderator of the Marxism mailing list and marxist writer, blogging as "The Unrepentant Marxist".
As should be clear to even the most casual observer on the left, the Chiapas rebellion has become as much of a paradigm for the post-Marxist left as October 1917 was for an earlier generation of Marxists. The collapse of the USSR, the difficulties faced by socialist Cuba and an ostensibly brand-new way of doing politics in Chiapas put wind in the sails of ideological currents that never were committed to classical Marxism to begin with, including the autonomist and anarchist movements. In contrast to the anarchists, autonomism has positioned itself as retaining the emancipatory core of Marxism, while disposing of the dross. This is one of the central messages of John Holloway's "To Change the World Without Taking Power". We will assess this claim in due time, but first some background on the Zapatista left in general and how it took shape.

Although the Chiapas revolt grew out of Mayan resentment over unemployment, land hunger, racism and other injustices that face indigenous peoples everywhere in the world, it transformed itself very rapidly into a global movement that at time appeared as spokes radiating from Subcommandante Marcos's laptop, just as an earlier generation rotated around the Kremlin.

The Zapatistas became hosts of a series of 'encuentros' (encounters) in Mexico and elsewhere, the first of which was held in Chiapas in August 1996, two and a half years after the start of their revolt. Some 3,000 guests from 43 different countries came together as part of an International Encounter Against Neoliberalism and for Humanity to discuss how to "change the world".

With the armed revolt at an end, the EZLN had begun to explore nonviolent options. According to the August 5, 1996 Guardian, some high profile guests including Danielle Mitterrand (the wife of the French social democratic leader), Eduardo Galeano and Douglas Bravo were encouraged by this transition. Bravo was himself a former guerrilla fighter in Venezuela during the 1960s but became committed to a kind of "civil society" reformism that eventually led him to join the opposition to Hugo Chavez.

When asked what he expected from the gathering, Subcommandante Marcos said: "I haven't a damn clue." This led French intellectual Regis Debray to comment. "This is a return to the essential resistance." Debray, like Bravo, was once part of the foquismo left in Latin America but in more recent years has become part of the French cultural establishment, serving for a time as adviser to President Mitterand whose wife shared Debray's enthusiasms for heterodox leftisms.

These encuentros had a tremendously energizing effect on the post-Marxist left in the same way that Comintern conferences in the early 1920s had on people like John Reed. Unlike the Comintern, these gatherings adopted the discourse of the anti-globalization movement. Instead of hearing Bukharin presenting an analysis of the latest stage of imperialism, the delegations focused on 'neoliberalism', privatization and other symptoms of the underlying capitalist crisis. The search for solutions in Chiapas stopped short of obviously passé measures such as socialist revolution.

Even though the imagination-challenged Marxist movement tended to shy away from these gatherings, as early as the second--held in Spain in 1996--some stodgy participants were beginning to get impatient and think in terms of goals, even though this was the last thing on Subcommandante's mind. As Gustavo Esteva writes in the collection "Auroras of the Zapatistas" (Midnight Notes, 2001), a tension arose between those "who fully enjoyed the opportunity to meet and share with others" and those who sought "a manifesto, an organization, a political platform…"

By 1998, the encuentros began to shift perceptibly toward becoming the anti-globalization movement of today (well, perhaps not post 9/11, but of a couple of years ago at least). Yale Professor David Graeber, who has become a highly visible opponent of Marxism and defender of this new way of doing politics (or rather not doing politics), claims that this movement was born in Barcelona that year:

"The real origins of the movement, for example, lie in an international network called People's Global Action (PGA). PGA emerged from a 1998 Zapatista encuentro in Barcelona, and its founding members include not only anarchist groups in Spain, Britain and Germany, but a Gandhian socialist peasant league in India, the Argentinian teachers' union, indigenous groups such as the Maori of New Zealand and Kuna of Ecuador, the Brazilian landless peasants movement and a network made up of communities founded by escaped slaves in South and Central America."

http://flag.blackened.net/pipermail/infoshop-news/2001-November/000276.html

One year later the Seattle protests erupted and the world's attention became riveted on this new movement that apparently had its origins in Chiapas, Mexico. While some of the popularizers of this new movement put their message across in the mass media, a significant number were based in academia. At the University of Texas, Harry Cleaver synthesized autonomist Marxism and fashionable ideas about the power of the Internet in order to advance the idea that Subcommandante Marcos's laptop represented something entirely new. He writes:

"The rhizomatic pattern of collaboration has emerged as a partial solution to the failure of old organizational forms; it has --by definition-- no single formula to guide the kinds of elaboration required. The power of The Net in the Zapatista struggle has lain in connection and circulation, in the way widely dispersed nodes of antagonism set themselves in motion in response to the uprising in Chiapas."

While it would be foolish to underestimate the power of the Internet, one might plausibly raise the question of whether technical-organizational dichotomies between hierarchies and networks get to the heart of the challenges facing the left. As we move into a period of deepening social and economic crisis punctuated by brutal imperialist adventures, the Internet will eventually become part of the political landscape just as the mimeograph was in years past. But technology can be no substitute for a careful assessment of the relationship of class forces on the ground and intelligent strategies and tactics based on that analysis.

A balance sheet on the progress made by the EZLN in overcoming historic injustices to the Mayan people must be made on the basis of tangible gains. It is doubtful whether the Internet can ever serve as a panacea for problems that nag away at the Mexican left, Chiapas included. While the telephone and mimeograph machine undoubtedly did a lot to empower the trade union and social movements in the USA, it was ultimately strategy and tactics that determined the outcome.

Turning now to John Holloway's "To Change the World Without Taking Power", we enter a terrain where such mundane matters seem to matter little. Taking Subcommandante Marcos's refusal to specify goals or the methods necessary to achieve them as a starting point, Holloway has written a book that effectively inflates the Zapatista style of politics into a post-Marxist Communist Manifesto.

For narrow-minded technicians like myself who like to keep databases of such things, this is now the third new communist manifesto to occupy a place on my bookshelf alongside Hardt-Negri's "Empire" (Zizek, "Nothing less than a rewriting of the Communist Manifesto for our time") and Guattari-Negri's "Communists Like Us" which purports modestly to "rescue 'communism' from its own disrepute."

At first blush, all of these books seem driven by the need to proceed directly to something called communism without passing go. All the sordid business associated with what Bukharin called "the transition period" will somehow be leapfrogged by a monumental act of will, especially the bugbear of the autonomist movement: the state.

In chapter two (Beyond the State), Holloway argues that it doesn't do any good for working people to create their own state: "If the state paradigm was the vehicle of hope for much of the century, it became more and more the assassin of hope as the century progressed." Correctly observing that China and Russia failed to "promote the reign of freedom", Holloway manages to avoid any reference to Cuba. Since Cuba defies any easy pigeonholing as a totalitarian dungeon, it tends to be swept under the rug in autonomist literature.

Holloway explains that Marxist assumptions about transforming society fail to take into account that "capitalist social relations, by their nature, have always gone beyond territorial limitations". So, it becomes an exercise in futility to smash the capitalist state and replace it with a workers state of the kind conceived by Lenin in "State and Revolution" for to do so would simply re-introduce oppressive power relations, especially those refracted through a nominally socialist society's ties to the outside capitalist world. Or, as the Who once put it in "Won't Get Fooled Again":

We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgement of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

Holloway expresses the same sentiments in a more polished manner: "You cannot build a society of non-power relations by conquering power. Once the logic of power is adopted, the struggle against power is already lost."

Far be it for me to even suggest that something as passé as Marxist dialectics can still have some value, it would appear to me that speaking in terms of power versus non-power cedes too much to formal logic. While it is true that a woman cannot be pregnant and not pregnant at the same time, certain social phenomena have contradictory aspects. For example, when Father Gapon organized a demonstration to present a petition to the Czar, some 200,000 St Petersburg workers marched behind him with pictures of the Tsar, religious icons and church banners. Instead of dismissing this as a genuflection before Czarism, Trotsky saw the other side of the process: "Gapon did not create the revolutionary energy of the workers of St Petersburg, he merely released it and events completely overtook him."

Oddly enough, despite a tendency toward cryptic formulations, Subcommandante Marcos himself can be quite specific on the value of power:

"When we governed, we lowered to zero the rate of alcoholism, and the women here became very fierce and they said that drink only served to make the men beat their women and children, and to act barbarically, and therefore they gave the order that no drink was allowed, and that we could not allow drinking to go on, and the people who received the most benefit were the children and women, and the ones most damaged were the businessmen and the government...

"The destruction of trees also was prohibited, and laws were made to protect the forests, and the hunting of wild animals was prohibited, even if they were from the government, and the cultivation, consumption and trafficking in drugs were prohibited, and these laws were upheld. The infant death rate went way down, and became very small, just like the children are. And the Zapatista laws were applied uniformly, without regard for social position or income level. And we made all of the major decisions, or the 'strategic' ones, of our struggle, by means of a method that they call the 'referendum' and the 'plebiscite'. And we got rid of prostitution and unemployment disappeared as well as begging. The children had sweets and toys. And we made many errors and had many failures. And we also accomplished what no other government in the world, regardless of its political affiliation, is capable of doing honestly, and that is to recognize its errors and to take steps to remedy them."

Full: http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/ezln/marcos_one_year.html

In a certain sense, attempts to seize power and transform all of society along the lines described by the Subcommandante are doomed to failure unless humanity overcomes something called "fetishization" which functions in Holloway's schema as a kind of tragic flaw, like Oedipus's pride or Dr. Frankenstein's mad desire to create life from the parts of dead bodies.

As most people are probably aware, fetish is a term that has its origins in anthropology. It is a charm or amulet that has magical powers for so-called primitive peoples. It is etymologically related to the word factitious, which means artificial. Freud and other experts on abnormal psychology have used the word to describe sexual attachments to objects like shoes and other garments. For example, according to the tell-all memoir of his mistress, President Salinas of Mexico had an Imelda Marcos-like fetish for charro suits, the silver-buckled outfits and matching sombrero, boots and spurs worn by mariachi singers. She reported that over 70 were hidden away in his closet.

Holloway uses the term in its Marxist sense, which he describes as a "central category" in Capital even though "it is almost completely ignored by those who regard themselves as Marxist economists". As understood by Marx and by Holloway as well, it is tied up with alienation, especially that between the worker and the commodity he or she produces. He sees fetishization as the main target for those who would change the world: "Any thought or practice which aims at the emancipation of humanity from the dehumanization of capitalism is necessarily directed against fetishism." But Holloway takes Marx one step further. It is not simply the separation between worker and commodity; it is also by extension the separation between doing and done, and between subject and object. Thus, what begins as an attempt grounded in political economy to elucidate how capitalism appears to the ruled as a permanent system shades off into a kind of philosophical critique of Cartesian dualism:

"Constitution and existence are sundered. The constituted denies the constituting, the done the doing, the object the subject. The object constituted acquires a durable identity. It becomes an apparently autonomous structure. This sundering (both real and apparent) is crucial to the stability of capitalism. The statement that 'that's the way things are' presupposes that separation. The separation of constitution and existence is the closure of radical alternatives."

Leaving aside the question of how to translate this sort of thing into a punchy leaflet that will grab the attention of the average worker, it does not really convey what Marx was all about in philosophical terms. As a materialist, Marx saw human beings as part of the physical universe: "The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals. Thus the first fact to be established is the physical organisation of these individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature." (German Ideology)

Within this context, ideas arise from social relationships: "The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking, the mental intercourse of men, appear at this stage as the direct efflux of their material behaviour." (German Ideology)

While expressed in somewhat different terms than Holloway's heterodox views on "fetishization", the notion ideas arising from material conditions conveys much more accurately Marx's understanding of the relationship between humanity, ideology and class society. Historical and material conditions govern the way we think. In order to become free human beings unconstrained by bourgeois ideology, it is necessary to abolish commodity production, which is the substratum of bourgeois society. Struggles against "fetishism" are rather futile as long as commodity production is generalized throughout society.

For Marx, the only way to overcome alienation (and fetishism, by implication) is to change material conditions:

"This 'alienation' (to use a term which will be comprehensible to the philosophers) can, of course, only be abolished given two practical premises. For it to become an 'intolerable' power, i.e. a power against which men make a revolution, it must necessarily have rendered the great mass of humanity 'propertyless', and produced, at the same time, the contradiction of an existing world of wealth and culture, both of which conditions presuppose a great increase in productive power, a high degree of its development. And, on the other hand, this development of productive forces (which itself implies the actual empirical existence of men in their world-historical, instead of local, being) is an absolutely necessary practical premise because without it want is merely made general, and with destitution the struggle for necessities and all the old filthy business would necessarily be reproduced; and furthermore, because only with this universal development of productive forces is a universal intercourse between men established, which produces in all nations simultaneously the phenomenon of the 'propertyless' mass (universal competition), makes each nation dependent on the revolutions of the others, and finally has put world-historical, empirically universal individuals in place of local ones." (German Ideology; emphasis added)

This is the reason that Marxists have historically targeted the state. In order to achieve a classless society, it is necessary to develop the productive forces to such a high degree that competition for goods becomes more and more unnecessary. As leisure time and the general level of culture increases, human beings will enjoy a level of freedom that has never been attainable in class society.

For a variety of reasons, socialist revolutions have occurred in backward countries where the development of productive forces has been hampered by a number of factors, including imperialist blockade, technological and industrial underdevelopment, low productivity of labor and the need to stave off invasions and subversion--in other words, the kinds of conditions that make a country like Cuba fall short of communist ideals. Notwithstanding Cuba's difficulties, the revolution has made a significant impact on peoples' lives, so much so that it earned the praise of James Wolfensohn, the president of the World Bank, in May of 2001: "Cuba has done a great job on education and health and if you judge the country by education and health they've done a terrific job."

Wolfensohn was simply recognizing the reality of statistics in the bank's World Development Indicators report that showed Cubans living longer than other Latin Americans, including residents of the US Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Literacy levels were on a par with Uruguay, while the life expectancy rate was 76 years, second only to Costa Rica at 77. Infant mortality in Cuba was seven deaths per 1,000 live births, much lower than the rest of Latin America.

While it is true that Cuba is enmeshed in a myriad of ways within the world capitalist economy, it did withdrew from the World Bank and its sister lending agency, the International Monetary Fund, in 1959. Despite the collapse of the USSR and continuing efforts to destroy the country economically by the USA, Cuba continues to develop its productive capabilities and raise the cultural level of the people.

Turning to Chiapas, the general picture is far less encouraging. In a February 3, 2003 Newsday article titled "Infant Deaths Plague Mexico", we learn that the Comitan hospital serves nearly 500,000 people in Chiapas. Burdened by inadequate staffing and supplies, babies die at twice the national rate. Meanwhile, the February 21, 2001 Financial Times reported on a study conducted by the Association for the Health of Indigenous Children in Mexico in the village of Las Canadas, Chiapas. It found that not one girl had adequate nutritional levels compared with 39.4 per cent of boys. Female malnutrition has actually led to physical shrinking over the last decade from an average height of 1.42 meters to 1.32 meters. At the same time, more than half of women who speak an indigenous language are illiterate - five times the national average.

While nobody can blame the EZLN for failing to make a revolution in Mexico, we would be remiss if we did not point out the obvious material differences between the two societies, especially in the countryside where poverty has traditionally been extreme. With its abundant natural resources, including oil and fertile farmland, it is not too difficult to imagine how much of a difference a socialist Mexico would have made in the lives of the poor.

For John Holloway, access to decent medical care seems far less important than "visibility", a term that he sees as practically defining Zapatismo and presumably missing altogether in dreary Cuban state socialism. This is expressed through the balaclava, the mask that Subcommandante wore at press conferences and which has since been appropriated by Black Block activists breaking Starbucks windows in the name of anti-capitalism: "The struggle for visibility is also central to the current indigenous movement, expressed most forcefully in the Zapatista wearing of the balaclava: we cover our face so that we can be seen, our struggle is the struggle of those without face."

While every movement certainly needs an element of mystique, it is doubtful that the Zapatista movement could sustain itself over the long haul using such symbols. Nor is it likely that it could succeed without linking up to a dynamic, rising mass movement in the rest of Mexico. Localized peasant struggles have a long history in Mexico going back to the 19th century. If you strip away the balaclava and Subcommandante Marcos's laptop, you will find all the elements that ultimately frustrated the efforts of the original Zapata, namely the failure of a regional uprising to become part of a general assault on state power and the social and economic transformation of society.

To fetishize these sorts of incomplete and partial rebellions as a new way of doing politics not only does a disservice to the valiant efforts of the Mayan people, it also creates obstacles to those of us who also want to change the world but on a more favorable basis. For in the final analysis, it requires a democratic and centralized movement of the working class and its allies to take power in a country like Mexico.
Fetishizin

Reflections on Marc Saint-Upéry

Louis Proyect
The Unrepentant Marxist
February 17, 2009
Louis Proyect is the moderator of the Marxism mailing list and marxist writer, blogging as "The Unrepentant Marxist".
Last Sunday I put an article written in 2004 titled “The Limits of Social Movements: An untimely reflection” by Marc Saint-Upéry on the Marxmail website. It was translated by Ethan Young, a Marxmail subscriber, who quite rightly viewed it as an important contribution to an ongoing debate, even though history has more or less superseded it.

In the late 1990s the “anti-globalization” movement spawned efforts to theorize revolution on non-Marxist terms, even though lip-service was occasionally paid to Marx. In works such as Hardt-Negri’s “Empire” and John Holloway’s “Change the World Without Taking Power” there was an attempt to write off traditional Marxist concepts of taking state power in order to construct a more just economy based on human need rather than private profit. Evoking ideas found in autonomism, ultraleft or council communism and anarchism, Hardt-Negri and Holloway became fixated on the act of struggle itself rather than the goal of seizing power. In its aversion to centralized political power through the dreaded “Leninist” party, this sector of the left squandered opportunities to make a revolution in Argentina. Setting up piquetero roadblocks became an end in itself, while the need to coordinate strategy on a national level was dismissed as outmoded Leninist thinking.

Saint-Upéry writes:
As soon as they take part in the dispute over the common good and the social order, social movements move openly and directly to politics and contribute to the definition of the political agenda. Nevertheless, the relation of the social movements with politics - much less politicians - is not usually understood in the sense of state institutions, public policy and electoral competitions. In the latest debates on social movements in Latin America, there was a certain tendency to presuppose the existence of an emphatic split between social self-organization and political institutions. This absolute dichotomy often reflects a slippery attempt at moralizing the strategic debate, and a new version of old fundamentalist impulses. Nowadays, the question is: just what is the revolution, who are the revolutionaries and the reformists, how best to distinguish the “pure” from the “impure” in order to defend the virginity of idealized social movements against any institutional contamination. The most extreme form of this purism is found in a curious book by John Holloway. However, I believe that Holloway’s thesis is only the hyperbolic crystallization of a vague but insistent ideological mood that other authors offer in more qualified forms.
He also points out certain internal contradictions in the Zapatista movement, which in Holloway’s sector of the left amounts to a kind of model:
The case of the Zapatistas is very particular for its creation of armed “self-limited” insurrection and its subsequent trajectory. In any context outside of pure coercion or institutional anarchy, the most general problem of social movements is that their essential “internal institutionality,” while original and autonomous in form, cannot overlook “external” institutionality and the problems that it raises: Who holds sovereignty? Who is the legitimate representative? - and so on. The autonomy of social movements from the political-electoral market, especially its corrupt, “for sale to the highest bidder” versions, is indispensable. To believe, all the same, that this autonomy lessens the problems of the struggle for state power, of the contentious formation of the general will, of the institutionalization of the rules of social coexistence and of public deliberation, of the equitable administration of resources, of the representation of citizens and of their active participation in public matters, is the coarsest of illusions.
I weighed in on Holloway and the Zapatistas in a 2003 article titled “Fetishizing the Zapatistas: a critique of ‘Change the World Without Taking Power‘”. The fact that my article and Saint-Upéry’s are more than 5 years old might tell you something about how its relevancy to today’s world. In a series of blows following the 9/11/2001 events, the “anti-globalization” movement of the imperialist nations has been superseded more or less by the “war on terror” and economic crisis. In the first instance, the tasks of the antiwar movement were simply of no interest to the more ideologically-driven foot soldiers of the “anti-globalization” movement who preferred fighting in the streets over maximalist demands like “Stop capitalism” to mass actions designed to force the U.S. out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the 3rd world, there were even more powerful forces at work that would render Holloway’s schemas obsolete. In a series of countries in Latin America, radical governments came to power through elections, a means of struggle that the Zapatista left regarded as irredeemably tainted.

A few days after sending me Saint-Upéry’s article, Ethan Young followed up with a translation of an interview that the author gave to “Le Monde Diplomatique” in November, 2008. Despite the 2004 article’s aversion to “social movement” ideology, it is clear from the interview that Saint-Upéry is less than enthusiastic about 21st Century Socialism.
Q: Regarding this crisis, does the “21st century socialism” preached in Latin America represent an alternative?

A: Let me tell you a little story. There is a leader, extremely popular in the lowliest subsets and the least educated population sectors who explains that “here, the citizens own the natural resources collectively and we share the wealth when the development of these resources occurs.” This same leader fought a battle without quarter to force the private oil companies to pay more taxes and royalties for the exploitation of the oil wells. Moreover, this person is perceived by the people as somebody “who understands our problems and speaks like us, not like the arrogant elites.”

This leader is named… Sarah Palin (her again), ultra-reactionary governor of Alaska and McCain’s running mate, who makes a gift each year of a four-digit check ($3,269 in 2008 ) to each citizen of this subarctic petro-state. Frankly, the idea that a new form of socialism will be invented from a nondescript experiment in neo-development, of caudillismo, extractivism and hyperdependence on the worldwide market and prices of raw materials, seems to me a joke in bad taste.

The global crisis will clarify the limits of so-called “21st century socialism.” In practice they are clear already, and they will be more and more so as the situation worsens. As for the “theory,” I have very closely followed some of the debates on 21st century socialism in Venezuela and Ecuador , among others. One can only be struck by the vague, spell-binding, purely emotional or abstract and sometimes quite simply delirious character of the speeches that circulate on this subject.

Beyond some well-intentioned but warmed-over declarations on the virtues of participatory democracy (which, however, functions today in Venezuela either as pure vertical manipulation, or as a security valve for popular frustrations with the feverish inefficiency of the central administration, and in general as an ambiguous mixture of both), I see no conceptual tool emerging, no proposal for a concrete institutional construction that could guide us in the search for an alternative to capitalism.

Despite everything, the socialist imaginary* seems to have recovered a certain role.
Although Saint-Upéry strikes me as a bright fellow, the comparison between Sarah Palin and Hugo Chávez is rather foolish. We should not forget that his government is a direct outgrowth of a working-class rebellion in 1989 called the Caracazo. Furthermore, Chávez has attacked the privileged bourgeois elements in the oil industry in order to reallocate profits to raise the standard of living of the poor. If he wants to equate this with Sarah Palin fighting “a battle without quarter to force the private oil companies to pay more taxes and royalties for the exploitation of the oil wells”, then who am I to quibble with a journalist using his imagination for literary effect. But the facts militate against this flight of fancy.

In fact, all Palin did was send $1200 checks to the citizens of Alaska in an obvious effort to bribe the taxpayers in an effort to secure her reelection. In contrast, Chávez’s use of oil has been as much about international solidarity as it has been about improving the living conditions of Venezuelans. In an effort that mirrors Cuba’s medical aid to poorer nations, Venezuela has supplied oil to countries on the front lines of struggle in Latin America in defiance of U.S. efforts to strangle them. Chávez has also built alliances with Iran and other OPEC nations in order to prevent the imperialist nations from exploiting a precious resource to their own advantages. This, more than anything, is what earns their reputation as “rogue states”. One supposes that Saint-Upéry missed this dimension because it did not satisfy his rather high standards for a “socialist imaginary”.

At the risk of sounding like Sarah Palin, I for one thing it is a very good thing that Venezuela uses oil to benefit the poor and that Bolivia intends to use natural gas and lithium for the same purposes. Here’s what indigenous peoples had to say about the discovery of enormous reserves of lithium in the February 2, 2009 N.Y. Times:
At the La Paz headquarters of Comibol, the state agency that oversees mining projects, Mr. Morales’s vision of combining socialism with advocacy for Bolivia’s Indians is prominently on display. Copies of Cambio, a new state-controlled daily newspaper, are available in the lobby, while posters of Che Guevara, the leftist icon killed in Bolivia in 1967, appear at the entrance to Comibol’s offices.

“The previous imperialist model of exploitation of our natural resources will never be repeated in Bolivia,” said Saúl Villegas, head of a division in Comibol that oversees lithium extraction. “Maybe there could be the possibility of foreigners accepted as minority partners, or better yet, as our clients.”
I regret that comrade Saint-Epuréy is left cold by this sort of thing, but this has a rather stimulating effect on my own “socialist imaginary”.

The Limits of Social Movements: An untimely reflection

Marc Saint-Upéry
ALAI, América Latina en Movimiento
November 5, 2004
Marc Saint-Upéry is a French journalist and translator residing in Ecuador . He has translated works of Mike Davis, Amartya Sen, Jeremy Rifkin and Robert Fisk, as well as Michael Moore the Yes Men. He is author of El sueño de Bolívar. El desafío de las izquierdas sudamericanas [Bolivar's Dream: The Challenge of the South American Lefts] (2008).
In the 1950s and 1960s, people in the French left sometimes avoided speaking certain truths (on the Soviet system, for example) so as to “keep hope alive in Billencourt”[1] for the pro-Communist workers. While I do not share this Jesuitical conception of the truth, I offer these very incomplete and imperfect reflections on the limits of the social movements with no intention of denying hope to the militant cadres that work to construct and to fortify these movements. I intend, rather, to oppose the deceptive and unspoken fallacy that underlies a certain enthusiastic movimientismo, that in my opinion is an uncritical exaltation of the social movements, that is often just a cheap substitute for, and only barely disguises, the comfortable and monolithic certainties of Leninist or foquista [guerrilla] vanguardism. This fallacy takes a correct and extremely important premise – "without the social movements, nothing is possible" – and surreptitiously derives from it an invalid conclusion: "with the social movements, everything (or almost everything) is possible."

In calling a debate on the unanswered questions surrounding social movements, I wanted to concentrate on three subjects: the problem of the relation of social movements to politics; the relation between their "demographic" weight and their political weight; and the question of the "antisystemic" character, or the anticapitalist potential, of these movements.

The dilemma of politics
As soon as they take part in the dispute over the common good and the social order, social movements move openly and directly to politics and contribute to the definition of the political agenda. Nevertheless, the relation of the social movements with politics – much less politicians – is not usually understood in the sense of state institutions, public policy and electoral competitions. In the latest debates on social movements in Latin America, there was a certain tendency to presuppose the existence of an emphatic split between social self-organization and political institutions. This absolute dichotomy often reflects a slippery attempt at moralizing the strategic debate, and a new version of old fundamentalist impulses. Nowadays, the question is: just what is the revolution, who are the revolutionaries and the reformists, how best to distinguish the “pure” from the “impure” in order to defend the virginity of idealized social movements against any institutional contamination. The most extreme form of this purism is found in a curious book by John Holloway.[2] However, I believe that Holloway’s thesis is only the hyperbolic crystallization of a vague but insistent ideological mood that other authors offer in more qualified forms.

One of them is Raúl Zibechi, who has published an article on the "dangerous relations" between social movements and state power.[3] For Zibechi, the contrast between the brief and ill-fated governmental participation of the Ecuadorian indigenous movement, once powerful and now debilitated by this experience, and the practice of electoral and institutional participation of the Brazilian landless movement MST, verifies that the real alternatives are constructed essentially outside state spaces, in the “stubborn autonomy” of social and community base areas. However, the reality is a little more complex. Like many social movements, the Ecuadorian indigenous movement was built in large part based on the political, institutional and symbolic reserves of the state – as well as those of the para-state or supra-state constituted by the multilateral and international cooperation agencies [non-governmental organizations]. Its real militance, although cyclical, could almost be characterized in the terms used by García Linera Alvaro to describe the old Bolivian labor movement: “a deep-rooted, accusing spirit confronting the state, bellicose certainly, but demarcated within the boundaries of meaning and modernization propagated by the state.”[4] In general, the diagnosis of Pablo Ospina applies: “The [Ecuadorian] Indian movement navigates between various options that interconnect, separate and diverge: to oppose the power of the state, to turn to the power of the state, to create more or less autonomous spaces of power inside the state.”[5] Yet these “separations” and “divergences” hardly ever break out between the spurious professional politicians and the heroic supporters of social mobilization; rather, the ambivalences of its relation with power systematically cut through every instance of a social movement, from the leadership to the base.[6]

At the heart of this mythical dichotomy between political power and social anti-power, there is, in Zibechi’s words, a noticeable confusion between two not necessarily congruent strategic options: a rigorous distancing from market competition and electoral obligations, as is the case with MST; and an actively driven, separate and autonomous institution, like the Zapatista “caracoles” [local government assemblies] (but not with the Ecuadorian indigenous municipalities, which promote participation within the framework of the prevailing legal-administrative order). But the situation on the ground in Chiapas is much more subtle. In a recent document, for example, Subcomandante Marcos, while fully supporting the autonomy and radical democratic practices of the Zapatista Good Government Assemblies, pointed out that they: (a) recognize the penal jurisdiction of the Mexican State; (b) have cooperative relations with many of the official municipalities with which they share territory; (c) maintain a communications channel with the state government of Chiapas through the Secretariat of Indian Peoples; (d) although “they do not think that the elections are in truth a path for the people’s interests,” they recognize the right of the administrators to participate in the official elections and are ready to facilitate the work of the electoral authorities on Zapatista turf.[7]

In addition, after some very stormy attempts, the Zapatista municipalities renounced the imposition of taxes in the territories under their control, to live essentially on international solidarity and cooperation.[8] Zapatista “counterpower” is kept in a curious ambiguity in the face of the coercive and expropriatory prerogatives that traditionally characterize state power. This ambiguity can be interpreted as a weakness, or as a fertile area of institutional innovation. It demonstrates, at least, that reality does not affirm the twofold schemes of the ideologists of counterpower or antipower.

The case of the Zapatistas is very particular for its creation of armed “self-limited” insurrection and its subsequent trajectory. In any context outside of pure coercion or institutional anarchy, the most general problem of social movements is that their essential “internal institutionality,”[9] while original and autonomous in form, cannot overlook “external” institutionality and the problems that it raises: Who holds sovereignty? Who is the legitimate representative? – and so on. The autonomy of social movements from the political-electoral market, especially its corrupt, “for sale to the highest bidder” versions, is indispensable. To believe, all the same, that this autonomy lessens the problems of the struggle for state power, of the contentious formation of the general will, of the institutionalization of the rules of social coexistence and of public deliberation, of the equitable administration of resources, of the representation of citizens and of their active participation in public matters, is the coarsest of illusions.

The contribution of social movements is not in the unilateral promotion of a spontaneous “direct” or “participatory” democracy against a purely “formal” representative democracy. It takes just a minimum of reflection to understand that workers’ democracy, the soviets, the popular assemblies, or any form of democracy with strong participation of the base populations, should not become spaces for turning militants into professional apparatchiks or for plebiscites of acclamation for the great leader. They need to have rigorous rules and delegative and representative mechanisms, simultaneously impartial, transparent and efficient. In other words, they need to be even more “formal” than representative “bourgeois” democracy. Beyond its anthropologic ingenuousness, the fetishization of the “constituent power” in opposition to the “constituted power” – to use Toni Negri's lexicon – demonstrates a complete miscomprehension of, and maybe a certain scorn for, the dynamics of the democratic institution as the social construction of a public space where the rules give rise to conflicts, and conflicts restructure the rules and transform the actors and their interests. The real political challenge of social movements is there, not in the deceitful dilemma between social purity and institutional contamination.

The dilemma of size and scope
Some of the more important and active Latin American social movements are rural movements acting in majority urban societies. It is certain that, despite the furious smear campaigns carried out by the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso and the media, a movement like the MST has great acceptance in Brazilian opinion. However, we can't confuse popularity with hegemony. The case of the Zapatistas is illustrative.

Are social movements the majority or the minority in society? And if they are the minority, to what extent does this condition their capacity for political and moral leadership in the subaltern sectors? This question, which, at bottom, brings us back to the classic problem of the “dialectic of quantity and quality,” is usually ignored or ultimately silenced in the current debates on social movements in Latin America. Empirically, nobody would question the fact that, in general, organized social sectors – including organizations as powerful as the Brazilian MST – are demographically the minority not only in the overall population, but even in their own popular sectors.[10] A notable partial exception are movements like the Argentinian “puebladas,” the Cochabamba Water War, the Peruvian Arequipazo or the case of certain particularly homogeneous indigenous zones, like the Norpaceño Aymara in Altiplano, where the organized social actors are able to move almost an entire population, strongly identified with a “dense” geographic or cultural space, in defense of a claim or of a local resource endowed with great material and symbolic resonance. However, these cases, while significant, are relatively exceptional.

Generally, while it may appear a trivial consideration, the frequently minority character of social movements does not receive the attention it deserves. The silent removal of the subject contributes the same motivational dynamics as the middle-class intellectuals who are considered allies of, or close to, social movements and who participate in them in various ways (solidarity, advice, training, communication, political mediation, etc). Often, the uprootedness and discomfort of professional intellectuals are due to their ambiguous social location ("the dominated fraction of the dominant class," to use Bourdieu's term), to the decline of the moral authority of book learning and to the relative loss of prestige of specialists not in directly 'productive' areas, resulting from the joint influence of mass audiovisual culture and neoliberal technocratic economics. In this frustrating and disillusioned social universe, to be alongside or within the social movements is like taking a bath of authenticity, recharging the moral batteries in the warmth of the popular community and feeling the pulse beat of a sometimes idealized and sentimentalized people.

From this idea – generally implied – it is very easily extrapolated that social movements are the potential center of gravity of the popular or subaltern, or that the supposed “alienation” or “false consciousness” of the unorganized, nonmobilized sectors of the people are only the distorted image, while the militant popular movements are the teleological truth. However, a little sociological realism would show that this is not the case. Several other factors can be mentioned, without resorting to invoking a capitalist conspiracy to demobilize the masses, with a much more determinant weight than social movements in the moral, intellectual and political formation of the subaltern sectors. We mention only two of them: television and its complex relations with the dynamics of urban popular culture; and the extraordinary rise of Pentecostal movements. The important subject of the changes in social consciousness and the public space by audio-visual means – which are not, nor must they be, unilaterally “negative” and “alienanted” – are too complex to deal with here. As for the new, neo-Pentecostal forms of popular religion, they are seen by many observers as a sui generis form of modernization-individualization, all combining a range of socio-economic, therapeutic and ethical-spiritual functions, whose meaning is not univocal. However, not only their quantitative dimension – they reach between 15% and 20% of the Latin American population, and proportionately more in the subaltern sectors[11] – but more importantly, their impact on the moral and material economy of the popular classes may make them the most massive movement of self-organization and popular self-advancement in the history of the continent. This phenomenon, which is just beginning to be explored by religious sociology experts, is still totally beyond the horizon of reflection of the Latin American left.[12]

So it is not only that the “pulse of the people” beats in all these spaces, but also that the same increasing plurality, the incongruity and the relative immeasurability of the various spheres of the popular “lifeworld” considerably complicates the panorama. That said, while a symbolic, ontological or sociological “center of gravity” of the people does not exist, that fact does not mean that the subaltern sectors are evolving in a kind of postmodern limbo of fluidity and hybridity, forever changing and resistant to any formalization. In spite of the destructurization of working hours and of the “symbolic precariousness” imposed by the informality and the socioeconomic complexity of peripheral post-Fordism, the same exigencies of survival and reproduction against neoliberal penetration themselves trace lines of fracture and of partial recomposition, and favor the emergence of plebeian democratic narratives around expressions like “those who do not live on other people's work”, “the simple and working people”[13] and the various "sins" (sin tierra, sin empleo, sin viviendo; without land, jobs, housing). In this sense, in decisive circumstances, social movements can still function as what used to be called “vanguards of the people.”

However, only if the concrete sociological contexts – the more or less routinized forms of coordination between the movements' protest and political work and the everyday life of the great majority – are taken into account, will we be able to rationally evaluate the relative effectiveness, the scope and the hegemonic and transformative potential of their intervention. For the same reason, the question (merely "demographic" in appearance) of size, quality, regularity, cohesion and density of individual and collective participation in social movements cannot be neglected, as if it is too self-evident to be analyzed carefully and without ideological or sentimental populist prejudices. On the other hand, only organizational ingenuity and concrete experimentation in the "internal institutionalization" of social movements (while decidedly rejecting the illusion of abstract counterposition of "formal democracy" and "real democracy," or "participatory democracy" and "representative democracy"), can give us instruction as to finding the best way to relate to the (nonmobilized, or less mobilized) rest of society, and simultaneously to face the dangers of dilution, opportunism and cooptation, as well as those of professionalization of militants, sectarianism and disconnection from reality.

The dilemma of anticapitalism
Are social movements necessarily “antisystemic”? Do they foreshadow, in some way that is not purely rhetorical, the overcoming of the present patterns of production and redistribution of social wealth? In reality, this question divides into two: (1) Can social movements exist without being politically progressive and/or socially emancipatory? (2) Are progressive social movements enscribed with a credible perspective of overthrowing capitalism?

In order to answer the first question, it seems to me difficult to deny that mobilizations like, for example, those that were fomented against lawlessness by Juan Carlos Blumberg in Argentina, or the “March of Silence” against delinquency in México City[14], display all the classic social movement characteristics defined by sociology.[15] The existence of clearly “reactionary” social movements - and perhaps of reactionary values in some progressive movements - can only strengthen my line of argument. However, for reasons of space and convenience, I am limited to examining the problem of anticapitalist or socialist potential of social movements generally recognized as "progressive." The problem has two aspects: the beliefs and rational expectations of the movements, and the concrete content of its practices in action and organization.

James Petras, the verbose U.S. academic, dedicated most of a recent article to preaching to the Latin American left about its dearth of revolutionary dynamism, unleashing his fury at the Salvadoran FMLN leader Schafik Hándal, who had confessed to him, speaking of socialism, “that it will take centuries, it's very far off.”[16] In a more diplomatic tone, the farabundista leader expressed his point of view on the subject: “In fact, our supposed radicalism cannot be defined at present as total anticapitalism. […] we do not call for the immediate abolition of capitalism in general, of every form of capitalist relations of production, distribution and exchange [but] to abolish dependent neoliberal capitalism and to assure national development with social justice and participatory democracy, that it overcomes poverty, deep and chronic unemployment, and educational, cultural and scientific-technical backwardness, that guarantees health, housing, the environment, gender equity; that reactives the economy, restructures and fortifies the underlying national productive, agricultural and industrial structure, supports small and medium-sized enterprises, cooperative enterprises and the development of regional integration.”[17]

This is highly symptomatic of the present ideological situation of the left in that nobody in Latin America, however radical their political genealogy – even a guerrilla movement like the FARC – seriously proposes another perspective.[18] I do not have any principled objection to Schafik Hándal's exposition, although it would be possible to discuss it in detail forever. What worries me is that the more or less tacit conformity – or confused silence – on proposals of this type, reflects not only the poverty, but the flat-out nonexistence of any serious and coherent debate on the form and content of a possible postcapitalist society, neither in the ranks of the so-called revolutionaries or those of the so-called reformists.

I see two reasons for this slight omission. First, beyond superficial and unconvincing reactions – like: "the Soviet Union was the victim of an imperialist conspiracy," or the reverse: "we never had anything to do with the Soviet model"[19] – in Latin America, the resounding failure of the regimes of Eastern Europe and some of its clients and allies in the third world – not to mention the paradoxical evolution of the People's Republic of China – was never processed properly by the left on the level of theoretical and strategic reflection. This applies a fortiori to a subject that is completely taboo in the Latin American left, what some Cuban official economists discreetly call "the exhaustion of the regime of extensive growth," meaning the catastrophic performance of the Soviet-style command economy on the Caribbean island – subsidized before by the USSR, now by emigration and tourism dollars.[20]

The second reason, intimately tied with the first, is that on the continent there is no reflection, not even the yearning to seriously reflect on the institutional forms, the economic and anthropological incentives and the motivational mechanisms that could make viable, in the medium and long term, a democratic socialism in the world in general, and third world countries in particular.[21]

However, the Latin American anticapitalist and anti-imperialist left share a tendency to frequently make an escape from problematizing the concrete institutionality of postcapitalist society by postulating the existence of an anthropological communitarian and solidaristic substratum that would recover and revitalize the ability to define the essential characteristics of an indigenous socialism or an alternative development model. There exist, obviously, philosophical and ideological antecedents of this thesis in several syntheses of socialism and romantic populism that emerged in nineteenth century Europe – we recall the famous debate between Marx and Vera Zasulich on the Russian mir (traditional peasant community) – and various equivalent formations working the same way in other geographic-cultural spaces. Likewise, in Latin America one can cite innumerable conceptions and variations on this theme, from more or less articulated theoretical hypotheses with references to Karl Polanyi, Marcel Mauss, or historical and anthropological works on resistance to capitalist modernization by the peasantry's moral economy or by popular sectors, to a plain and simple essentialist rhetorical cliché.

It will be enough to mention the emblematic formulation – midway between a theory and a catchphrase – of one of the principal opinionmakers of the continental left, Eduardo Galeano: "It is based on hope and not nostalgia that we must recover a mode of communitarian production and a way of life founded not on greed but on solidarity, on ancient liberties and the identification of human beings with nature. […] A lethal system for the world and its inhabitants, it befouls the water, annihilates the Earth and poisons the air and soil, is in violent contradiction with the cultures that maintain that the Earth is sacred because we, its children, are sacred. These despised and negated cultures deal with the Earth as their mother and not as raw material and a source of income. Against the capitalist law of profit, they propose a life of sharing, reciprocity, mutual aid that in the past inspired Thomas More's utopia and that today helps to discover the American face of socialism, whose deeper roots lie in the tradition of the community."

In the same way, but with a more precise lexicon, Anibal Quijano maintains that “the socially oriented private sector and its nonstate public sphere,” as they are found in Andean communities, can serve more as a basis for a “noninstrumental reason” focused "more on the ends than on the means, and more on liberation than on power.”[22] The apparent ideological plausibility of this exposition has been considerably strenghthened by the emergence in several countries, in particular Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador and Bolivia, of powerful indigenous-rural mobilizations which laid the foundations for a politically autonomous indianismo – rejecting the paternalism and "ventriloquism"[23] of traditional indigenous currents promoted by white-mestizo intellectuals – with the practices of self-managed organization and reproduction/survival of popular movements like the Brazilian MST (productive settlements, systems of skills development and training), the Argentinian piqueteros (various dining halls, schools, cooperatives and enterprises), or their worker compatriots of the empresas recuperadas (worker cooperatives in occupied workspaces). Naturally, to those who would tar the advocates of a community-inspired indigenous socialism with naivete or atavism – particularly from the point of view of defending representative democracy and liberal modernity (either in its neoliberal or more or less social-democratic variants) and economic and social efficiency – Indianists and neo-communalists answer in general that they don't seek to return to an idealized communal agrarian life themselves, nor do they reject the essential conquests of modernity, but that they arrive at a harmonious synthesis according to the social and cultural conditions of the Latin American people. In summary, socialism no longer would be “Soviets plus electricity,” but “ayllu [Incan political unit] plus optical fiber,” or “self-management plus the Internet.”

Unfortunately, at this level of sociological abstraction, arguments pro and con can be posed indefinitely without ever reaching a substantial conclusion. I want to bring them down from the stratospheric heights of this civilizational debate on modernity and tradition, or on efficiency and autonomy, and try to land it on the solid ground of concrete interactions and social evolutions, without teleological prejudices about its content being either alienating or emancipatory. For that, it is essential to settle accounts with three systematic tendencies of the Latin American social-comunitarian discourse: moralism, ideologism and abstract utopianism.

1. Moralism. There is a systematic confusion of anthropological and economic categories – like the notions of "reciprocity," "redistribution" and "market" – or social categories – like "collectivism," "communitarianism," and "individualism" – with ethical or motivational categories – like "egoism" and "altruism." This confusion is very much connected to the fact that, in the left, debate about collective values, individual motivations, and forms of social organization, is usually implicit and emotional, rather than explicit and rational. In addition, the cheap moralism of certain sides of the left is an indirect effect of the theoretical amoralism of officially recognized marxisms and, in large part – although with a greater theoretical and philological complexity – of Marx himself.[24] This is not the place to enter this complex debate, but it is enough to mention two significant aspects: a) in epistemological terms, it is well known that, in the ecological and demographic-cultural context generally used by Marx, "reciprocity" is a category that can be perfectly reinterpreted in terms of "rational egoist" strategy[25]; b) on the more normative level, it is no coincidence that the resurgence of ethical debate in contemporary neo-Marxism should involve an exhaustive confrontation with liberal – in the political sense – of theories social and economic justice, nor that it should be marked by a noticeable convergence with their most radical ideas.[26]

2. Ideologism. When, for example, the Bolivian kataristas call on their followers to "remove Marx and Jesus from their head" and to replace them with the indigenous cosmovisión [worldview], they bring about a surreptitious denaturalization of the anthropological-cultural bosses of perception and interpretation of the current reality in the rural-indigenous communities of the Andean altiplano. The “cosmovisión” of precapitalist peoples is a contextualized symbolic practice, not a quasi-universalist doctrine like those of monotheist religions or modern political philosophies. Notions of "reciprocity" and "community" lose a great part of their real substance and material effectiveness when they rise to the status of ideological concepts. I don't want to deny that, in the dialectic of the "traditional" and the "modern," very often the emotional coloration that the identitary memory of ancient practices brings to such-and-such type of "modern" social or economic aspiration plays an important role, in that the partly imagined past is transformed into a criterion of the desired future by means of a complicated alchemy of necessities and expectations. In this sense, the presence and/or recovery of precapitalist communitarian practices can have a strong emancipatory meaning, and not just for those who directly live or lived with these practices. However, purely ideological exaltation of a solidaristic “cosmovisión” of original peoples entails the danger of double talk and double standard, in particular when the rhetoric of community and reciprocity cover a perfectly classical and “occidental” strategic rationality,[27] including maximized collective or individual behaviors that could be absolutely legitimate if they were taken on as they are, instead of being mystified.

3. Even without getting into the slight problem of the interaction between the local/national and the global, we can say that not only is society not a grand ayllu – including societies like Bolivia, Ecuador or Guatemala – but it cannot be, and does not have to be.[29] On the other hand, the possible organizational form of a complex postcapitalist society – and anyone who thinks getting beyond capitalism, alienation and the division of labor, much less eliminating them completely, requires unilaterally reducing social complexity, is deeply mistaken – cannot consist of a simple reproduction of the societal scale of local interactions based on minga [indigenous community gathering], ayni [culture of reciprocity] or mutirão [Brazilian collective], but requires a sui generis combination of elements of centralized (state) redistribution, mercantile interchange and communitarian reciprocity. The fact is, as I indicated, we do not have a detailed prescription, nor do we know all the ingredients in this combination – and there is no certainty that they can even be obtained in a humanly conceivable horizon of possibilities – that would enable us to build castles in the air, even castles of beautiful pre-Columbian architecture.

In this sense, the very real vernacular practices[30] of communitarian reciprocity and solidarity found in the daily life of the Latin American popular sectors should not function as the ideological standard in getting beyond the neoliberal model of development, but more modestly, and in circumstances that have to be determined cautiously, like (1) the forms of social capital that they can contribute, on a par with other social forms and dynamics, to a mode of alternative development or to the fight against dependency and subalternity, and (2) within a concrete sociological substratum - among other moral and material factors - of an ethical imaginary able to deconstruct, at least in part, the illusion of the "naturality," the "necessity" and the "eternality" of capitalist relations of production and domination. However, no existing linear sociological determinism exists that can guarantee that, by itself, such-and-such traditional or communitarian solidaristic practice, or even such-and-such practice of "modern” and urban popular self-management, has a potential that is “pansocietal” (in the sense of being applicable to a broad range of social interactions beyond its own ecological context) or "intermodal" (in the sense of concretely prefiguring the possible postcapitalist political and economic institutionalization of a mode of production and social organization[31]). It is not even necessary to support Hernando de Soto's defense of popular capitalism[32] to understand that the community networks in which lower-class social actors are involved can serve as social capital to spur the spontaneous development of unequal relations of mercantile accumulation within the popular economy.

And so we return to the problematic character and the ambivalence of the supposed “antisystemic” character of social movements; not only on the level of its relative ideological indetermination (uncertainties of socialist perspective), but of the movements' pattern of “alternative” practices that seem to justify extrapolations on their anticapitalist potential. I do not mean that social movements are totally prisoners of the visible range of prevailing relations of production and domination, to be modified only in extremely limited and perhaps ephemeral spaces; however, this assumed anticapitalist or postcapitalist potential cannot be evaluated without taking into account the totality of political and ideological mediations, on the one hand, and on the other, of “infrastructural” socio-economic and anthropological conditions that condition their content and range of influence.

Provisional Conclusions
As I said at the outset, the viability of social movements is a sine qua non for any transformative dynamic, but the existence of powerful and aggresive social movements is not enough to infinitely expand the boundaries of the possible. We see in this illusion a rather anemic, or falsely humble version of the historical optimism of the traditional socialist workers' movement--one no longer looks to the infinite wisdom of the party, but to the infinite creativity of the movements--that was founded on excessively simplified philosophical and epistemological premises: everything desirable is possible, and, by virtue of the “laws of history,” everything supposedly possible is inevitable. Nowadays, movements that take part in the dynamics of the World Social Forums are happy to affirm that 'another world is possible,' without taking the trouble to define the paths to this other world. This caution is not so questionable in itself, but lack of definition can be another form of “living a lie” for a left that often has to deal with emergencies involving power and leadership. So, new forms must be found to outline and articulate “minimum program” and “maximum program,” an intensely political task that no social movement can deal with in isolation.

I will probably be accused of advocating a mixture of “politico” elitism and vulgar reformist “posibilismo,” thus demonstrating the pettiness of my utopian imagination. As the Argentinean comrades of the Movement of Unemployed Workers (MTD) of La Matanza say, the accusation of reformism does not worry me much, since “It's tough to be attacked as a reformist when you don't know you are one. But it's good to know it, because then people can't guilt-trip you."[33] I am perfectly willing to submit to this type of challenge as long as it comes with a minimum of developed argument and empirical illustrations. That is why, in a later article that will be able to perhaps pick up on observations and possible criticisms provoked by these reflections, I will set out to develop a more positive agenda and try to apply the famous questions of Kant – What can I know? What ought I to do? For what may I hope? – to the strategic perspectives of the social movements.

NOTES
[1] The large Renault auto factory, labor stronghold of the French Communist Party.

[2] Change The World Without Taking Power: The Meaning of Revolution Today, University of Michigan Press, 2002.

[3] Raúl Zibechi, “Movimiento social y poder estatal: relaciones peligrosas”, ALAI, 10/08/2004.

[4] Alvaro García Linera, “Sindicato, multitud y comunidad. Movimientos sociales y formas de autonomía política en Bolivia”, in AA.VV., Tiempos de rebelión, Muela de Diablo Editores, La Paz, 2001. García advanced the concept of “movilización pactista”, later adapted, with certain nuances, by indigenous Ecuadorians.

[5] Fernando Guerrero y Pablo Ospina, El poder de la comunidad. Ajuste estructural y movimiento indígena en los Andes ecuatorianos, CLACSO, Buenos Aires, 2003. Ver también Augusto Barrera, Acción colectiva y crisis política. El movimiento indígena ecuatoriano en la década de los noventa, Abya Yala, Quito, 2001.

[6] In fact, participation in the government of [coup leader and Ecuadorian President] Gutiérrez was not the cause of the crisis and of the division of the movement, as Zibechi suggests. To the contrary, the internal divisions of the CONAIE [Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador], and the electoral appetites of some “social” leaders that oriented [CONAIE’s] Pachakutik “political” movement toward alliance with Gutiérrez, were only a little worse than the lack of a candidate chosen by consensus, and the division of the center-left.

[7] Subcomandante Marcos, “Leer un video,” published in various electronic media.

[8] As reported by Pablo Ospina.

[9] Alvaro García Linera, op. cit.

[10] Some of the more important and active Latin American social movements are rural movements working in majority urban societies. It is certain that, in spite of ferocious slander campaigns carried out by the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso and the media, a movement like MST gained great acceptance in Brazilian opinion. However, one should not confuse popularity with hegemony. The case of the Zapatistas is quite illustrative.

[11] It is possible to make (obviously imprecise) estimations, on the bases of the approximate aggregation of national data and the rate of exceptional growth observed in several countries. See David Martin, Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America, Blackwell, Oxford, 1990. The Pentecostal boom is far from being exclusively Latin American.

[12] The Brazilian sociologist Clara Mafra, for example, deplores the fact that left feminists are unable to perceive the potential for self-organization and social reconstruction of women's lives offered by evangelical churches in the marginalized sectors, in spite of their relatively conservative conception of gender relations (interview with the author). In many depressed favelas and barrios, they are the only organizations able to fight against the tremendous unravelling of the social fabric. See Clara Mafra, Os evangélicos, Jorge Zahar Editor, Rio de Janeiro, 2001.

[13] The quoted formulas are from Álvaro García, op. cit.

[14] See Subcomandante Marcos, op. cit.

[15] See, for example, Erik Neveu, Sociología de los movimientos sociales, Abya Yala, Quito, 2000. The fact that Blumberg or other players can have “moorings” with the organized political right changes nothing. That progressive social movements often have links to the political left doesn't make them any less social movements.

[16] Mario Hernandez, interview with James Petras, revista La Maza, reproducido in www.rebelion.org, abril de 2004.

[17] Schafik Hándal, “El FMLN y la vigencia del pensamiento revolucionario en El Salvador”, www.rebelion.org, September 2004. Hándal adds that it is trying “to construct the economic and social base that makes transition to a socialist society possible” and refers to the example of Hugo Chavez's "Bolivarian revolution," but nevertheless declared recently to the London Guardian: “I do not hold with dogmatic postulates of the Marxist revolution. I do not believe we live in a period of proletarian revolutions. All this must be reexamined, reality demonstrates this every day. Will our objective in Venezuela today be the abolition of private property or a society without classes? I don't believe it."

[18] Nobody except proponents of the subversive “exodus” of the movements [Hardt, Negri], and “changing the world without taking power.” Although they are rarely explicit, I suppose they start from the hypothesis that popular organizations in radical rupture from any form of political institutionality or systemic functionality spontaneously exude comunism, like spiders spinning webs. Mutant spiders from science-fiction movies, probably, since one assumes that they could little by little cover the entire planet and radically remodel its material and spiritual infrastructure with this web of self-management.

[19] In a debate in Quito on the future of the left after the fall of the Berlin Wall, I heard it said that “it is not that Marxism-Leninism is mistaken, but that it has been applied badly.” This demonstrates that the creation and the poscapitalist social consolidation of a Soviet-type formation is preceded by the social appeal in the traditional labor movement of a statist, verticalist and unanimist imaginary, alongside the deeply democratizing and emancipatory elements – conquest of rights, self-education, civic participation, valorization of the work force and creation of proletarian public spaces (see Marc Angenot, L’Utopie collectiviste. Le grand récit socialiste sous la Deuxième Internationale, PUF, París, 1993). Far from being a simple “deformation” or bureaucratic “betrayal,” it reflects the same conditions of accumulation and class and organizational composition of union and political movements shaped by the material and cultural infrastructure of capitalism in a given period.

[20] The formula "exhaustion of the regime of extensive growth" comes from Luis Suárez Salazar, former director of Centro de Estudios sobre América in Havana. I do not want to speak here of human rights in Cuba, a subject of innumerable hypocritical and opportunistic rationalizations, as much on the part of certain anti-Castroites as of confirmed Castro fans. It's enough to cite Marx: "In order to combat freedom of the press, the thesis of the permanent immaturity of the human race has to be defended" (Rheinische Zeitung, 1842).

[21] A notable exception is the Brazilian economist Paul Singer, historical militant of the PT and specialist of the third sector, that often mentions classic books of Nove and Kornai: Alec Nove, The Economics of Feasible Socialism, Allen & Unwin, London, 1983; János Kornai, The Socialist System: The Political Economy of Communism, Princeton University Press, 1992. On market socialism, see for example: John E. Roemer, A Future for Socialism, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.), 1994; Frank Roosevelt and David Belkin, Why Market Socialism? Voices from Dissent, M. E. Sharpe, Armonk (N.Y.), 1994; and the series Real Utopias from Verso. In Castillian, Roberto Gargarella y Félix Ovejero Lucas, Las razones del socialismo, Paidós, Barcelona, 2001, offers a beginner's guide to these debates.

[22] Both authors – Galeano and Quijano – are cited in Jorge Larrain, Identidad y modernidad en América Latina, Oceano, México, 2004.

[23] The notion of political "ventriloquism" comes from the Ecuadoran anthropologist Andrés Guerrero.

[24] See, in particular: Steven Lukes, Marx and Morality, Oxford University Press, 1985; Norman Geras, “The Controversy about Marx and Justice,” New Left Review, 150, March-April 1985.

[25] Literature on the subject is considerable, although little has spread outside specialized academic atmospheres. See, among others: Robert Axelrod, The evolution of cooperation, Basic Books, New York, 1984; Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, “Is Equality Passé? Homo reciprocans and the future of egalitarian politics,” Boston Review, December 1998. For two decades the French magazine of the Anti-Utilitarian Movement in the Social Sciences has explored this subject matter. See Revue du MAUSS, Éditions La Découverte, París.

[26] On the subject, Bolivian readers can consult my article, “El pensamiento filosófico de John Rawls”, in El Juguete Rabioso, 80, La Paz, May 2003, and my introduction to Amartya Sen, La libertad como compromiso social, Plural, La Paz, 2003. A good introduction in Castillian, with ample mention of the Marxist debate, is Will Kymlicka, Filosofía política contemporanea, Ariel, Barcelona, 1995.

[27] That is to say, in fact, universal, in my modest opinion (not very popular in these times of postcolonial relativism).

[28] Naturally, the indigenous leaders do not have a monopoly on this type of behavior, by far, and often they must “command obedience” and respect perfomance mechanisms of accounts and of democratic assembly control which the traditional political or union leaders are not subject to. Nevertheless, that does not change anything of substance in my argument.

[29] I cannot develop this subject in the space of this article. I will only mention that it conforms to much of the minimum exigencies of sociological realism such as the Marxian conception – totally ignored by various orthodox Marxisms and a large part of the heterodox – of the full development of the individual. On the liberal-romantic type of philosophical individualism of Marx and his aporias, see, among others: Louis Dumont, Homo aequalis. Genèse et épanouissement de l’idéologie économique, Gallimard, París, 1977; Pierre Rosanvallon, Le capitalisme utopique. Essai sur l’idée de marché, Seuil, París, 1979; Jon Elster, Making Sense of Marx, Cambridge University Press, 1985; Gianfranco La Grassa, Costanzo Preve, La fine di una teoria: il collasso del marxismo storico del Novecento, Uncopli, Milán, 1996.

[30] See Ivan Illich, Shadow Work, Boyars, Boston (Mass.), 1981, and Le Genre vernaculaire, Seuil, París, 1983. I use the term coined by Illich to insist on the socially and ecologically contextualized character – embedded, as the anthropologists would say – of these practices. Nevertheless, I do not exclude the possibility of producing virtuous circles connecting local communitarian practices with dynamic global democratization in the political and the economic domains.

[31] The term "intermodal" is used by Costanzo Preve, op. cit., to describe the classic Marxist conception of the industrial working class, whose historical-structural location anticipates the overthrow of class society.

[32] Hernando de Soto, El Otro Sendero, Editorial Diana, Mexico 1986; El misterio del capital, Sudamericana, Buenos Aires, 2002.

[33] “Seduciendo al capital: el MTD de La Matanza y sus alianzas con los empresarios”, 13/7/2004, www.lavaca.org.