{"id":637,"date":"2019-07-29T08:24:53","date_gmt":"2019-07-29T06:24:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/antithesi.gr\/?p=637"},"modified":"2019-10-02T17:04:46","modified_gmt":"2019-10-02T15:04:46","slug":"class-nation-people-and-the-real-movement-within-the-crisis-of-reproduction-of-capitalist-social-relations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/antithesi.gr\/?p=637","title":{"rendered":"Class, nation, people and the real movement within the crisis of reproduction of capitalist social relations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Download the article as a pdf file<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This text aims at a critique of recent left (and \u201cultra-left\u201d) analyses that use the concepts of \u201cmiddle class\u201d, \u201cinterclassism\u201d and populism in order to describe or even polemicize against social movements such as the \u201cmovements of the squares\u201d and the \u201cyellow vests\u201d movement. We will specifically focus on a narrative that has become prevalent in the Greek autonomous \/ anarchist milieu and connects the political nationalism which emerged in the \u201cmovement of the squares\u201d in Greece with recent extreme right-wing mobilizations against the agreement between the Greek and the Macedonian states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The crisis of\nthe reproduction of Greek society<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Initially we\nwill provide a brief outline of the crisis of\nthe reproduction of capitalist social relations in Greece. The violent struggle\nbetween proletariat and capital that erupted in Greece between 2010 and 2013\nwas the main form of appearance<\/strong> of this deep crisis along with the\neconomic forms it assumed in the previous decade. However, when we say that the\nclass conflict during that period was a form of appearance of the crisis we do\nnot mean at all that class struggle is a \u201cdependent variable\u201d which is\nconditioned by the \u201cobjective course of capitalist accumulation\u201d, according to\nwhat is argued by some neo-structuralist analyses that have reappeared\nrecently. On the contrary, the historical process of the development of\ncapitalist social relations on a global level is immanently a process of\ncontinuous struggle between capital and proletariat. The history of global\ncapitalism is nothing but the history of class struggles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capital is not a thing but a social relation. The\nexpanded reproduction of capital is necessarily a process of reproduction of\nthe proletariat, not as a passive servant of capital but as a barrier to this\nsame process. The proletariat threatens to disrupt the circuit of the\nreproduction of capital in each of its stages. The reproduction of total social\ncapital can proceed only through class struggle. This is the basic\ncontradiction and the permanent source of instability of capitalist social\nrelations and, in this sense, the process of reproduction of capitalist social\nrelations is a constant process of crisis and restructuring<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reason why the last eruption of the global\ncapitalist crisis took such a severe form in Greece must therefore be sought in\nthe history of the class conflicts of the previous decades and in the forms of\nreproduction of social relations that were constituted through this history. We\nmust be clear on this point: when we are talking about class struggle we do not\ninvoke a mythical, constantly revolutionary proletarian subject but a process\nof constant decomposition and recomposition of the class as the subject of the\ntransformation and, potentially, the abolition of established social relations\nincluding the proletarian class itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we first of all note that during the period of\ngrowth the Greek state failed to impose all the reforms that were necessary for\nthe maintenance of the competitiveness of Greek national capital and for\nupholding the position of the Greek state within the global state hierarchy. This\nfailure was due to the particular forms of the reproduction of capitalist\nsocial relations in Greece, which constituted the basis for the outbreak of\nclass struggles that delayed and obstructed the process of capitalist\nrestructuring. Beyond, though, moments of struggle, these forms of reproduction\nwhere characterized by certain particularities that hindered restructuring\nwithout challenging the rule of capital: e.g. the clientelist party and union\nnetworks, the presence of strong sectional and corporatist unions in central\ngovernment and the wider public sector, the existence of a very big number of\nsmall and very small family capitalist enterprises, a very high rate of\nself-employment (30%), a very high rate of home ownership (80%) and the role of\nthe (extended) family as the main welfare and protection provider for its\nmembers. Even if we cannot proceed now to a more detailed analysis, we must,\nnevertheless, stress the fact that the specific forms of social reproduction on\nthe one hand resulted in the existence of increased social aspirations and on\nthe other hand restricted the availability and the mobility of cheap labour\npower. The exploitation of the devaluated labour power of immigrant\nproletarians after the collapse of the Eastern bloc in the beginning of the 90s\nprovided a solution for capital only in specific production sectors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the fiscal crisis of the Greek state and the\ncrisis of competitiveness of Greek capitalist enterprises are not only\nconnected with the internal \/ national contradictions of capitalist\nreproduction. They are simultaneously an expression of the global crisis of the\nreproduction of capital as it is manifested on the level of the national social\nformation through the movement of global money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, nation-states derive both their revenue\nand their power from capital. In order to increase the chances of attracting\ncapital within their borders, nation-states pursue a number of policies\n(economic and social policies, recuperation and repression, etc.) and provide\nincentives for investments. However, the success of national policies is dependent\nupon the establishment of appropriate conditions for the expanded reproduction\nof capital on a global level. The main contradiction faced by<\/strong> the\nnational states is that while their participation in multilateral trade and financial\nagreements and organizations is necessary to enhance the accumulation of\ncapital on the global level, such participation may severely undermine the\nsmooth course of the accumulation of national capital.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The process of the so-called Economic and Monetary\nUnion (EMU) is the most characteristic example of the movement of this\ncontradiction. On the one hand, the process of EMU was the particular strategy\nof the European Union for the imposition of discipline on government spending\nand for the increase of the rate of exploitation of the European working class.\nOn the other hand, the process of EMU led to divergence between the \u201ccentral\u201d\nand the \u201cperipheral\u201d states within the Eurozone with respect to their\ncompetitiveness and, at the same time, temporarily increased the flow of credit\ntowards the \u201cperipheral\u201d states (but also their current account deficit). After\nthe global recession in 2008, this asymmetric dynamic was expressed through the\noutbreak of the so-called \u201csovereign debt crisis\u201d in the \u201cperipheral\u201d states \u2013and\nmost acutely in Greece\u2013 as well as with severe turbulence within the Eurozone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The movement of world money transmits therefore the\nglobal conditions of capital accumulation and imposes the discipline of\ncapitalist competition to the national spheres of valorization and the\nrespective states through the balance of payments, through the exchange rate\nregime (or the absence of the possibility of currency devaluation as in the\ncase of Eurozone) and through the credit terms and ratings of each particular\nstate. These mediating mechanisms transform the deterioration of the present\nconditions and the future prospects of the domination of capital over labour\nand of the rate of exploitation of labour power into fiscal and financial\ncrises. The forms of financial and fiscal crisis turn into the form of\npolitical crisis as the respective state is increasingly pressured to\nfundamentally restructure social relations in order to ensure the expanded\nreproduction of capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the specific framework in which the acute\nexpression of the global crisis of reproduction with the outbreak of the global\nfinancial crisis in 2007 was belatedly manifested in 2009 in Greece by assuming\nthe forms of the so-called sovereign debt crisis and the crisis of competitiveness.\nTherefore, the specific forms of the capitalist crisis in Greece and its\nseverity had to do with the contradictions of the reproduction of the Greek\nnational social capital that we briefly mentioned before but also with the\nposition of the Greek state and capital within the global division of labour\nand within the global hierarchy of states \u2013and, particularly, with the\nasymmetric dynamic of the process of Economic and Monetary Union in EU. The\nGreek capitalist state responded immediately and in cooperation with the IMF\nand the institutions of the European Union unleashed a total attack which aimed\nat the devaluation of labour power and unproductive capital in order on the one\nhand to reconstitute on new bases the circuit of total social capital <\/strong>and\non the other hand to internalize within proletarian subjectivity <\/strong>the\ndiscipline and \u201crealism\u201d of reduced aspirations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the\nmovement against the restructuring of capitalist social relations after 2010 in\nGreece, the \u201cnew middle classes\u201d and the proletariat<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cmovement\nof the squares\u201d was the culmination of the wider social movement against the\nrestructuring of capitalist social relations in Greece after the outbreak of\nthe \u201cdebt crisis\u201d. The main demand of that movement was the cancellation of the\nmeasures for the devaluation of labour power. A demand which was necessarily\naddressed to the state due to the character of the particular attack against\nthe working class. Some comrades have argued that claiming concessions from the\nstate leads to the political binding of the working class to the state and to\nthe creation of interclass alliances. For us, however, the relation of the\nworking class with the state is always contradictory. On the one hand, the\nmobilization of the working class forces the state to respond to its material\ndemands. On the other hand, the \u201cwelfare state\u201d can never satisfy the needs of\nthe working class because welfare provisions and benefits remain conditional on\nthe subordination of the working class to the alienated forms of wage labour and\nof the capitalist state. All the more so that in the particular conjuncture the\nstate was obliged to cut the \u201csocial wage\u201d due to the crisis. The relationship\nof every individual worker, either he is considered \u201cincorporated\u201d or she is\nconsidered \u201cmarginalized\u201d, and of every part of the class with the state is\ncontradictory. The division between \u201cintegration into\u201d and \u201cstruggle against\u201d\nthe state is not a division between two parts of the working class, the\n\u201cintegrated\u201d and the \u201cexcluded\u201d one, but a division which permeates class struggles:\nevery struggle within or around the state contains as a latent possibility the\nopposition or even the rejection of the state form, even when such a tendency\nis not obvious or dominant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Usually, the analyses of the Greek anarchist \/ autonomous milieu about\nthe occupation of the Syntagma square do not go further than a reference to the\nparticipation of extreme right militants in the \u201cupper part of the square\u201d\ngiving the false impression that the content and the tone of the movement was\nset by them. However, such a view completely erases from history the role\nplayed by the apparatuses of the left parties. Actually, the left, and in\nparticular SYRIZA and, to a smaller degree, ANTARSYA, were not only present in\nthe square but they had dropped anchor in the basic organizing groups that had\nbeen created in a systematic attempt to manipulate the general assemblies and\nthe content of the mobilization. Their main aim was to channel the discussion\nto the level of the central political arena through the promotion of demands\nsuch as the demand for the \u201cfall of the government\u201d and the demand for the\n\u201ccancellation of the debt\u201d, through the organization of public discussions with\ntalks by \u201cprominent\u201d left economists and sociologists that spoke of a supposedly\n\u201cnational problem\u201d and propagandized possible \u201csolutions\u201d and, of course, through\nthe condemnation of the riots and of the conflicts of the demonstrators with\nthe police. Therefore, their manifest aim was the transformation of the class\nquestion into a national question that could be resolved through a \u201cpro-people\ngovernment\u201d that would cancel the sovereign debt and would support the national\neconomy and the \u201cpeople\u201d through the implementation of social-democratic\npolicies against \u201cthe vultures of the markets\u201d. And eventually that was the\ndiscourse that became dominant within the occupation of the Syntagma square in\ncontrast with the anti-capitalist \/ anti-state tendency which raised the social\nquestion in class terms, i.e. in terms of the immediate satisfaction of\nproletarian needs through the promotion of direct actions such as the \u201crefusal\nof payments from below\u201d and through the confrontation with the forces of\ncapitalist order, a tendency which criticized the capital as a totality of\nsocial relations, and not \u201cthe troika, the markets and the governments exploiting\nus\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The prevalence of left democratic nationalism in the movement of the\nsquares had the result that the practice of the \u201cdelegation of power\u201d and of\nrepresentation also became eventually prevalent. Delegation and representation both\nregarding the resolution of the crisis that pushed all these people to take to\nthe streets and regarding the organization of the struggle itself. Certainly we\nare not implying that there was no self-determined initiative and activity on\nthe part of the proletarians that participated in the movement. The occupation\nof public space itself and its defense vis-\u00e0-vis the state and the police\nforces as well as the mass participation in the daily and lengthy assemblies\nand in the everyday life of the occupation were important forms of autonomous\nactivity. However, passivity was not really superseded in the movement, since\nparticipation did not go further than the self-contained processes and groups\nin the square, which did not manage to take any substantial initiative for its\nexpansion to the sites of production and reproduction that would challenge the\nrule of capital and its state. Moreover, the key positions in the groups of the\nSyntagma square movement were occupied by leftists who often managed to\nmanipulate the discussion and the decisions of the assembly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further, even if an important portion of the participants in the\nmovement expressed a critique against the state and to the political system, the\ncontent of the critique did not go further than the preoccupation with issues\nof form, juxtaposing \u201cdirect democracy\u201d to \u201crepresentative democracy\u201d. This\ncondition had implications for the wider content of the struggle: politicians\nand parties were denounced as an elite that does not truly represent and does\nnot care for the \u201cproblems of the people\u201d. In this manner, \u201cdirect democracy\u201d\nwas presented as the method that would permit people to take their lives in\ntheir hands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, the occupation of the Syntagma square remained a protest <\/strong>movement\nagainst the political system. The state was not recognized as the political\nform of capital<\/strong>. It was not understood that the interventions of the state\nare confined to the limits set by the circuit of the reproduction of capital.\nIt was not understood, thus, that the state-guaranteed growth of the national\neconomy and the \u201cprotection of the public wealth\u201d can mean nothing else than\nthe expanded reproduction of the national capital within the global capitalist\neconomy. Therefore, the essential unity of particular national capitals within\nglobal accumulation despite the (sometimes fierce) competition between them was\nnot recognized, since the spectacle of “foreign powers” hankering\nafter “national wealth” prevailed. For this reason, the people and\nthe nation, i.e. the illusory interclass national community, were not radically\nchallenged as social forms. The critique was limited to the decision making\nprocess and to the search for an alternative \/ direct democratic constitution\nof the political community as a separated sphere. And all the above led\neventually to the defeat of the movement and to its subsequent subsumption\nunder the political and ideological forms of capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a conclusion, since the movement had not taken any practical\ninitiative that would directly challenge the rule of capital in the spheres of\nproduction and reproduction, it ended up merely protesting against the\ngovernment. It was defeated as a protest movement since it did not manage to\ngain any concessions from the government. Given the fact that the revolutionary\ntransformation of social relations was not practically posed, the only road\nthat seemed open to most proletarians after the defeat of the movement was the\nchange of the government through elections, so that the new party in power\nwould at least negotiate the reduction of the debt and the imposed measures with\nthe \u201cdebtors\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Class composition of the movement of the squares<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All those who\nfelt that the politics of devaluation threatened their own reproduction\nparticipated both in the movement of the squares and in the demonstrations and\nthe general strikes that preceded it: full-time and part-time workers from the\npublic and the private sector, unemployed workers whose numbers at that period\nwere continuously increasing, pensioners whose pensions were continuously\ndecreasing, university students who experienced the cancellation of their aspirations,\nself-employed who were hard hit by the increase of taxation, as well as small\nbosses and small shop-owners who were proletarianized due to the devaluation of\ntheir unproductive capital. Excluding therefore small bosses, the vast majority\nof the participants in the movement came from the proletarian class, i.e. the\nclass whose only means of subsistence is to sell their labour power. This\nposition comes into direct opposition with the view that the movement of the\nsquare was a movement of the \u201cmiddle class\u201d that saw its \u201cprivileges\u201d\nthreatened and, as such, it was electorally capitalized by SYRIZA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The concept of the middle class is so vague that it can lump small\nfarmers, small bosses, artisans together with retail workers, public sector\nworkers, white collar workers and service workers, in sum all the workers in\nthe tertiary sector. The justification why a huge part of the wage workers,\nespecially in the western capitalist countries, are not proletarians but a part\nof the \u201cmiddle class\u201d, as argued by certain analyses, necessitates a series of\ntheoretical acrobatics and jugglery which we will briefly expose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nicos Poulantzas, the basic initiator of these views, argued that\nclasses in capitalism are not defined on the basis of the ownership of the means\nof production, and therefore by the relations of exploitation, but according to\nthe position <\/em>and the function<\/em> of someone within the production\nprocess. Regarding the position and the function within the production process,\nhe defined as a basic structural criterion for the distinction between the\nworking class and the waged middle class the distinction between productive and\nunproductive labour. In other words, between the workers that directly <\/strong>produce\nsurplus value and the workers that do not. The first constitute the working\nclass and the second the \u201cwaged middle class\u201d. Based on this technical\nseparation (which was actually conceptualized in a wrong way, but we cannot say\nmore here), the greatest part of wage workers in contemporary western\ncapitalism is excluded from the working class, deliberately ignoring the fact\nthat all these categories of workers (retail workers, public sector workers,\nservice workers) do not have their own means of production, and therefore are\nobliged to sell their labour power and to be exploited since they provide\nsurplus labour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore the question remains: what is the reason why this part of the\nworking population does not belong to the proletariat but is a part of the middle\nclass? The answer provided by Poulantzas is that these workers are permeated by\nthe dominant bourgeois ideology and support the political rule of capital and\nthat\u2019s the condition that makes them part of the middle class. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The definition of the working class on the basis of productive labour\nshort-circuits given the fact that parts of the so-called middle class\naccording to Poulantzas such as engineers perform productive labour. On the\nother hand, the classification of workers into the waged middle class on the\nbasis of their ideology is completely arbitrary. Actually, such a\nclassification indirectly introduces vanguardism: the role of the guardian of\nthe correct ideology is always played by parties and\/or informal organizations\nof any kind. These organizations may subsequently qualify in any particular\ncase which is the pure proletarian subject and strategy disregarding and even\nattacking the real proletarian movement with all its contradictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Class and\nalienation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nsociological approach of Poulantzas defines the class as a \u201cgroup\u201d or as a\n\u201cposition\u201d which is occupied by the individual within society. However, the\nclass is neither a \u201cgroup\u201d nor a \u201cposition\u201d: it is a social relation <\/em>of\nthe capitalist mode of production. Class is the constant process of the\nseparation of the great mass of the population from the means of production and\nsubsistence, a process which was not completed once and for all in the period\nof the so-called primitive accumulation but is continuously repeated through\nthe accumulation of capital and, from time to time, through the direct exercise\nof state violence. Class is a relation of struggle<\/em>, i.e. a constant\nstruggle, inconspicuous or pronounced, in and against the constant effort of\ncapital to subordinate every aspect of life to the law of value. Class is not\nan \u201cidentity\u201d, it is the dialectical relation <\/em>between the objective\nconditions of the relations of production and the subjective terms of the\nexperience of struggle against these relations of production and exploitation.\nClass is class struggle<\/em> itself, a historical process<\/em> with\ndefeats, attacks, setbacks and pyrrhic victories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the class is perceived as a social relation <\/em>no \u201cpure workers\u201d,\n\u201cideal revolutionary subjects\u201d exist. The wage relation itself is a form of mystification\nthat obscures exploitation: \u201cwhoever lives under its sign\u2026lives a life\ndivided in and against itself. So to say, his or her feet remain mired in exploitation\neven while his or her head breathes in bourgeois ideological clouds<\/em>\u201d.[i]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s why the concept of alienation<\/em>, as it was developed by Marx\nin his work, occupies a central place in our understanding of capitalist social\nrelations. The experience of the individual, separated worker in capitalism is\nshaped by the totality of the world of commodities. All the mystified forms\nassumed by the capital relation stand in front of her as an alien power that\ndominates her while at the same time she is the one that reproduces this alien\npower every day. The illusory fixedness of capitalist forms and categories, the\nappearance of capital as a natural and eternal reality, shape the convictions\nof the worker. This process of alienation <\/em>permeates the proletariat as a\nwhole, including both \u201cproductive\u201d and \u201cunproductive\u201d workers, to use the false\n\u2013from the standpoint of the struggle against capital\u2013 separation utilized by\nPoulantzas, actively shaping hierarchical relations within the proletarian\nclass. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast with the \u201cpolitico-ideological\u201d factors of Poulantzas which\nare supposedly determined in a consistent and unambiguous manner by the type\nand the concrete character of wage labour, alienation is not an accomplished\nfact but an antagonistic process<\/em>. The concept of alienation implies its\nopposite, that is resistance, refusal and rejection of alienation in our daily\npractice, in the course of the inconspicuous or pronounced struggles of the\nproletariat. And it is exactly the processes and sites of struggle, and,\nespecially, mass struggles, which reveal all the contradictions of the\nproletarian class and which open up perspectives for the collective practical\ncritique of capitalist alienation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Returning to the movement of the squares, its characterization by a part\nof the ultra-left milieu as a \u201cmiddle class\u201d or an \u201cinterclass\u201d movement is an\neasy way to get rid of the tormenting question: why proletarians are not able\nto overcome the alienating forms of capital and move towards a radical,\ncommunist direction, even when they are facing such a harsh and unprecedented\nattack by capital? The practical answer to this question can only be given\nwithin struggles and through the study of their history and not through\nready-made recipes from the position of an external observer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

People and Nation in general<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starting the third and last part of our presentation, we will\ninitially note that we understand the categories of the nation and the people\nas social forms, <\/strong>that is, as particular modes of existence <\/strong>of the\nclass antagonistic relations. Therefore, the categories of \u201cthe people\u201d and of \u201cthe\nnation\u201d, as concepts which express capitalist forms of social life <\/strong>in a\nsocially valid and historically determined and determining manner,<\/strong> are\ncontradictory in themselves, since they exist as differentiated<\/strong> forms constituted\nthrough class struggle. <\/strong>Perhaps, in the activity of the \u201cpeople\u201d as a mass\nmovement <\/strong>the possibility of its internal split may become actual, i.e. the\npossibility of the formation of the class, leading to a rupture within the\nnation. The difference of the people-form from the nation-form is that in the\ncase of the latter every class activity and social conflict appears to have\ndissolved\/vanished in its result, within the representation <\/strong>of national\nunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More particularly, the rule of capital has been founded and\nreproduced since its early emergence through the incorporation of proletarians\nwithin the national\/political community not as a class <\/strong>but as citizens\nof a nation-state. The social hegemony of the capitalist class is established\nonly with the political <\/strong>reconstitution of the working class on a\nnational basis through the state, i.e. when the nationalization <\/strong>of the\nclass question is achieved. It is important to point out from a class\nstandpoint that since its appearance at the forefront of history, the working\nclass has been in-and-against <\/strong>the state and all the capitalist forms of\nobjectivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the one hand, the nationalization of class struggle, that is\nthe nation in-and-against <\/strong>the class, unifies the class on a wider scope\nthan sectional struggles in local enterprises and against individual\ncapitalists, and produces the objective preconditions for the supersession of\nthe national limits and for the creation of the global human community. On the\nother hand, the nation-form constitutes a moment of subsumption of class\nactivity under the capitalist social forms as well as an internal division of\nthe class and, thus, a temporary suspension of the possibility to supersede\nnational limits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The negation of class antagonism through the nationalization of\nthe class question is realized by the politics of the state which organizes the\nprocess of atomization of the working class and strives to ensure that the\ncapacity for labour will retain its commodity form and that exploitation will be\nmediated by the free and equal exchange between individual commodity owners.\nThis process is complemented by the recollectivization <\/strong>of individual\nproletarians not as a class with autonomous aspirations but as a sum of\ncitizens without class distinctions, namely through a process of fetishization\nof class antitheses which is expressed in their abstract grouping in the form\nof the \u201cpeople\u201d. Nationalism as the objective site of the constitution of the\ncontemporary forms of social consciousness on the ground of the nation-state,\nthat is, as a moment of capitalist ideology and of the practices that reproduce\nit, is the flip side<\/strong> of this subsumption of the working class. But we\nmust necessarily make a distinction between this, let\u2019s name it, political\nnationalism <\/strong>and the nationalism of the extreme right <\/strong>which\nsubstitutes all forms of social identification with itself, producing a priori\nthe totalizing framework of the nation-form as a precondition for every social\nactivity and as a naturalized generator of all political events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People and Nation in the squares<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To clarify our position from the beginning, we must note that we\ndon\u2019t see any immediate connection between the movement of the squares and the\nrecent nationalist rallies in Greece against the agreement with Macedonia,\nunder the umbrella of the \u201crevolt on the right\u201d. However, we will say again\nthat there was a specific <\/strong>form of appearance of the national identity\nand of the citizen identity in the squares, on the one hand as an element of\nself-identification of a part of the participants in the movement of the\nsquares and, on the other hand, as a sign of the confinement of this\nmajoritarian part within the limits of the established social relations. We\nquestion though the assertion that this specific form shaped the general <\/strong>content\nof the struggles which foreshadowed the monolithic nationalism of the\n\u201cMacedonian rallies\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This specific form of appearance of nationalism did not challenge\nthe development of national economy but attempted to reestablish it on firmer\ngrounds and to funnel some of the expected gains more democratically into the\nwhole citizen body. A citizen body which was on the one hand positively defined\nin national terms but which, on the other hand, was not <\/strong>constituted negatively\n<\/strong>against non-citizens, in this specific case. It is true that in the\nsquares, the critique of capital did not go further than its reified<\/strong> and\nfetishized <\/strong>appearance as money-generating-money and as public debt,\nwhile at the same time the critique of politics did not go further than a personalized\n<\/strong>indignation against political representatives. Nevertheless, a movement\nwhich is situated in civil society, and therefore presents the struggle between\nclasses in a distorted way, contains contradictions which are not a priori resolved.\n<\/strong>And they are not resolved because the constitution of civil society must\nconstantly reproduce its preconditions, i.e. to suspend the activity of the\nworking class as class.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the contrary, in the case of the nationalist \u201cMacedonian\nrallies\u201d, the mobilization took as its point of departure<\/strong> the universal\n<\/strong>form of the nation and of the abstract national interest. In this way, it eradicated\nwithin its process every possibility of rupture and of the promotion of\nproletarian needs \u2013which are immediately <\/strong>constituted as particular <\/strong>class\ninterests against the appearance of the reproduction of capital as the general\npurpose of social reproduction. The rupture that can be produced by the\nnation-form can be nothing else than the conflict with another \u201cuniversal\u201d, i.e.\nwith another nation.[ii]<\/a>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, the very forms of the nation and of nationalism are not\n\u201crelatively autonomous\u201d social forms but the mode of existence of either the defeat\n<\/strong>or of the absence <\/strong>of class struggle. <\/strong>In the movement of the\nsquares, the rise of nationalism did not indicate the absence of class struggle\nbut its defeat, <\/strong>since the fetishized discourse about debt and democracy\nultimately prevailed; a discourse that transforms the aim of the satisfaction\nof needs into an alternative proposal for a formally <\/strong>differentiated\nreproduction of capitalist social relations. Besides, that\u2019s why there was also\nroom for the active participation of tendencies that posed the issues from a\nproletarian, anti-capitalist standpoint, which we cannot even imagine for the\nnationalism of the \u201cMacedonian rallies\u201d, where the absence <\/strong>of class\nstruggle was from the beginning a hard fact due to the displacement of the\nconflict as one between nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We must add that while \u201cobjectively\u201d perceived, the flip side of\nthe abolition of the memoranda agreements appears to be the growth of the\nnational economy, such a fact does not invalidate the subjective moment of the\ntemporary reappropriation of the capitalist space-time. And this is true, despite\nthe fact that this reappropriation was realized with the alienated means of the\ncritique of the bankruptcy of the economy instead of the critique of the\nbankrupt social life due to the existence of economy. Consequently, the\nmovement of the squares did not manage to challenge the alienation of capital\nas a social relation <\/strong>that assumes an economic <\/strong>and a political <\/strong>form.\nLikewise, the existence of the political demand for direct democracy which\ntargeted the sphere of the decision making process, without saying much about\nwhat kind of decisions are taken within this sphere, does not invalidate the\nfact that it was a moment of a practical critique of the constitution of the\nrelation between civil society and the political community of the state.\nTherefore, it was an insufficient <\/strong>rupture with the determination of citizenship\nby the state, which remained confined into the limits of the separated\npolitical sphere by demanding only its alteration through direct democratic\nprocedures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nationalism as the contemporary historical form of appearance of an\nimploded reformism <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ncrisis of the political and economic forms of social reproduction of the\nprevious decades generalized the tendency of proletarianization<\/strong>, which is\na part of the process of change of the mode of existence of the nation-states\nand their economies within the global circulation of capital. In combination\nwith a historical development where labour is regarded more as a cost <\/strong>than\nas an investment, <\/strong>the problem of the management and control of the\nautonomous needs of the proletariat which may go further than the passive\nacceptance of a \u201cnecessary fate\u201d becomes crucial. The reappearance of right\nwing <\/strong>nationalism in several capitalist social formations, either with an openly\nneoliberal program or with a national-conservative alternative not far from it,\ncannot be disconnected from this move which constitutes the material basis for\nthe tensions between proletarians. At the same time, it contributes to the\nideological concealment of the attack against the working class as a whole<\/strong>.\nTherefore, depending on the level of the class struggle within each national\nsocial formation, its position in the global division of labour and the\nrespective possible alternatives of capitalist accumulation, different\ncapitalist strategies are promoted. The content of these strategies is related\nto the degree that the incorporation \u2013in subordinate and devalued terms\u2013 of the\nimmigrant proletariat within the circuit of the reproduction of total social\ncapital may be utilized as a means for the devaluation of the working class\nas a whole<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, even in the cases where nationalism does stand firmly in favour of a new regulation-through-deregulation of class relations, it essentially does not<\/strong> provide an actual prospect for their reproduction with some \u201cpositive\u201d content. On the contrary, it provides only a negative response to some of the effects of their crisis. It appears<\/strong> therefore as a distinct response to the crisis of capital as a social relation but this distinction is rather confined within an ideological <\/strong>framework, since it is practically undermined by the common goal, of both nationalists and their liberal opponents, to transfer the cost and the consequences of the crisis on the back of the global working class. If nationalism is at the same time one of the methods for the realization of this transfer <\/strong>we think that it doesn\u2019t have a real and strong material basis for its possible future empowerment as a mass social movement that could call together and unite big parts of the proletariat under its flag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And we have such a position due to the fact that while a\ndifferentiation of the value of labour power may be reproduced temporarily\nthrough nationalisms, leading to the improvement of the standard of living of\nthe nationalized part of the proletariat and the reproduction of hierarchical\nrelations within the working class, the crisis-prone reproduction of class\nrelations makes this relative differentiation and hierarchy extremely unstable.\n<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, as we see it, the retreat <\/strong>of radical practices and\nperspectives and the reduction of the general aspirations <\/strong>of the working\nclass that could directly or indirectly threaten the established order, but\nalso the generalized discontent due to the fall of the standard of living, bring\nto the forefront the ostensible solution of a right wing nationalist reformism[iii]<\/strong><\/a>\n<\/strong>that confronts and simultaneously complements its left-wing versions. On\nthe one hand, this type of reformism remains a continuation of the capitalist\nassault by other means, as shown by the quick alternation in power between its\nleft and right-wing versions in several countries. On the other hand, it is the\ntemporary absence <\/strong>of another alternative, let alone a revolutionary one,\nwithin the broader front of class struggles, which reinforces practices that reproduce\nnationalism as one of the supposed, ostensible ways of improving the conditions\nof social reproduction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Returning to the Greek case, the question of if and how\nnationalist ideas and practices are produced within the totality of social\nrelations can be examined only through the concrete analysis of class relations\nas they are expressed in everyday life and within class struggles. Certainly it\ncannot be examined by lumping together parts of the society into some\nstructurally reproduced \u201cbackbone of the nation\u201d. We will certainly disagree\nwith interpretations that view nationalism as a transhistorical expression of\nthe interests of a hypostasized middle class. The concept of the \u201cmiddle class\u201d\ntells us more about the society\u2019s ideal self-image, i.e. the false\nconsciousness of class reconciliation<\/strong>, than about its reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As far as the potential of nationalism is concerned, we must note\nthat as much as the class of capital and its functionaries is international, it\nis also equally and necessarily national. Capital even in its internationalized\nform needs a basis for its operations. In other words, there is an organic\nconnection of capital with the nationalism of \u201cnational development\u201d which\nhelps the accumulation of capital in general<\/strong>, even if individual\ncapitalists do not see it in this way due to their limited perspective of\nindividual profit. However, when their own existence as a class is threatened,\nmany of them will rally behind the national flag in defense of the reproduction\nof total social capital as a relation of exploitation. Apart from the working\nclass which, as we argued, is constituted in-and-against <\/strong>the nation,\nseveral social groupings such as small owners of means of production and self\nemployed workers who own their means of labour, the so called \u201ccreative\nclasses\u201d and \u201cnew middle classes\u201d do not constitute a separate class with\ndistinct goals against <\/strong>some other class. The dynamic relation of proletarianization\/deproletarianization<\/strong>,\ni.e. the relation of capitalist accumulation itself which produces on the one\nside capital and on the other side the proletariat, in an expanded but not\nhistorically linear way, is the field where the class interests of these strata\noscillate and the class relation penetrates their social existence. Further, we\ndo not understand why a working class which struggles against capital, and has\ncreated through its struggles a proletarian public sphere, <\/strong>which enables\nthe circulation of the already produced experience of struggle in order to\nexpand the struggle, cannot integrate parts of these social strata, against any\nkind of left and right-wing nationalism. In order not create any false\nimpressions, we are not <\/strong>referring to the tactics of making \u201calliances\u201d\nwith individuals occupying class \u201cpositions\u201d, which fits exactly the\nsociological theory of class by Poulantzas as its logical and political\nconsequence. Being fully aware that within the material community of capital<\/strong>\nwhat unites us is simultaneously what divides us, the only alliance that can be\nmade is on the basis of the antagonism <\/strong>against this generalized separation\nand its false unity. National or any other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Antithesi<\/strong>, 01.07.2019<\/strong>
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[i]<\/a> R. Gunn, \u201cNotes on \u2018Class\u2019\u201d, Common\nSense<\/em> 2, 1987.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[ii]<\/a> \u201cSocially undesirable\u201d strata\n(marginalized proletarians, radical political minorities, minoritarian identity\ngroups etc.) may be excluded from this \u201cuniversal\u201d form as \u201cinternal enemies\u201d\nto be persecuted and cleansed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[iii]<\/a> When we use the concept of\nreformism we are not referring to the historical tendency of the socialist\nmovement. We use this admittedly vague concept to refer to supposed\nalternatives to neoliberalism as an economic policy containing doses of\nKeynesianism, protectionism and developmentalism. The programs of Trump,\nSYRIZA, Diem25, Lega Nord, etc. provide some examples about what we mean.\nCertainly, when the aforementioned political parties and fractions come to\npower their \u201calternative\u201d economic programs are watered down when they are not\ncompletely abandoned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u039b\u03ae\u03c8\u03b7<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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We will specifically focus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-637","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-3","8":"czr-hentry"},"yoast_head":"\nClass, nation, people and the real movement within the crisis of reproduction of capitalist social relations - \u0391\u03bd\u03c4\u03af\u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03b7<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/antithesi.gr\/?p=637\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"el_GR\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Class, nation, people and the real movement within the crisis of reproduction of capitalist social relations - \u0391\u03bd\u03c4\u03af\u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03b7\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Download the article as a pdf file This text aims at a critique of recent left (and \u201cultra-left\u201d) analyses that use the concepts of \u201cmiddle class\u201d, \u201cinterclassism\u201d and populism in order to describe or even polemicize against social movements such as the \u201cmovements of the squares\u201d and the \u201cyellow vests\u201d movement. 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