The Second Rehearsal - Part Duh

 “Revolutionary Rehearsals in the Neoliberal Age” edited by C. Barker, G. Dale, N. Davidson, 2021

Part II:

This is a follow-up to the prior review of this book on recent proletarian involvement in social upheavals, focusing on the theoretical conclusions of Neil Davidson, now deceased.  The book counters the narrative that the working classes are moribund, weak and no longer a possible revolutionary subject.

Tunisian political revolution.

This is Davidson’s analysis: 

Lenin pointed out that the moment of revolution is marked by 3 things:  1, a crisis, leading to fissures between the ruling class and the population and even within the ruling class; 2, increased suffering by the majority of people; and 3, increased activity by the masses of people. Trotsky maintained that it was not always ‘increased suffering’ but sometimes a lessening after a long period of oppression that stimulates opposition.  Gramsci added that a significant downturn in living conditions after a period of prosperity might function in the same way.  Althusser and others have pointed out that many contradictions and groupings have to cohere into a single oppositional / revolutionary current for any chance at success.

Trotsky’s concept of “uneven and combined development” is occurring all over the world still, as capital inserts itself into village, almost feudal, patriarchal, bazaar-based, theocratic, slavish, ethnic, war lord and autocratic social structures – just as Czarism or Chinese tribute society were grafted onto capitalist development in an earlier period.  This patchwork development can actually increase class conflict, as many of these ruling classes do not have the sophisticated economic and cultural flexibility of more mature capitalist economies.

Yellow Vests in Paris

Exploitation and Oppression  

Davidson addresses the question of how exploitation and oppression interrelate – i.e. the link between exploitation of the proletariat and damages to small holders or small businessmen - and the oppression of specific skin color, ethnic, national, religious or gender groups. The answer is that the capitalist mode of production produces exploitation and oppression in various forms, as it functions as a totality. Not all workers are even exploited in the sense of commodity surplus value, though their labor might be.  Davidson goes on to investigate this relationship between specific oppression and exploitation in detail.  In the process he quotes Terry Eagleton as to the limits of ‘classism’ – as class is an economic category, unlike skin color or gender.  People’s experience of class may be lived through skin color or gender, but that is a different thing.

Davidson discusses whether gender or skin color discrimination could ever be gotten rid of under capital – the Nordic social-democracies being the closest example.  He concludes that in practice and in history, no.  He also addresses the limitations of academic ‘intersectional’ theory, which does not treat society as a unified whole.  This is why arguments against identity politics and intersectionality are essential to unifying a revolutionary movement.  Marxism understands the world as ‘one.’

U.S. Anti-police racism Demonstration

Revolutionary Conjunctures

Davidson goes on to discuss his ‘4^th actuality’ – revolutionary conjunctures, where revolution is possible, but the issue of taking state power is not always advanced.  He thinks recent conjunctures happened in 1917-1923; 1943-1949; 1968-1976. These conjunctures are extended processes, are international, and give rise to a revolutionary situation.  Some crises, like 2007-2009, led to various partial international movements against capital, but he thinks not to a revolutionary conjuncture.

Davidson mentions the greater ability to use violence by present capitalist states; their surveillance powers; their hegemonic control of the narrative; their level of international organization – which are different than in the past.  But at the same time the enormous growth of the world proletariat, the maturation and decay of capitalist profiteering; the slow environmental collapse; the continued threat and reality of war; the exhaustion of the bourgeois democratic governing narrative; the rise of authoritarian ‘democratic’ governments; the issue of rising inequality and anti-competitive oligopolies; the necessity of mass migration – all indicate a weakening of the ruling classes and their system. 

He ends with the watchword:  “Be ready for the unexpected” as a revolutionary situation might evolve out of something quite unpredictable…  The benefit of this book is that it takes seriously the issue of revolution – a topic ‘mentioned’ but not really investigated by many.

Prior reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 15 year archive, using these words or names mentioned in the book: The word ‘revolution’ or “McNally,” “Lukacs,” “Trotsky,” “Althusser,” “Harvey,” “Lenin,” “Roediger,” “Graeber,” “Marx,” “Jameson,” “Gramsci,”  “Du Bois,” “Butler,” “Moody,” “Fisher,” "Klein," “Berger.”   

And I bought it at May Day Books!

Red Frog

January 8, 2022