Soundings a journal of politics and culture |
The pervasive power and scope of capitalist social relations
provides a
magazine like Soundings with much to criticise and qualify. The
left in
its various forms is principally engaged these days in such criticism,
whether in relation to very broad phenomena such as globalisation,
or more locally - for example in relation to the apparent endorsement
of
capitalism as a way of life by the New Labour government in Britain.
Our theme for the second half of this issue, One-Dimensional Society,
characterises an invasive market monoculture as a central issue, and
points to alternative ways of thinking which have potential for development.
It is, however, a serious problem for the left that it is uncertain
any longer of what alternatives to the present order it stands for.
The effects of the collapse of Communism in Europe, and of the end of
the
Cold War, are still potent and deep-seated. The prolonged failure of internal
reform in state socialist Russia and Europe leaves room for doubt
that a benign, organic evolution of this system was possible, desirable
as
it was. In reality, the defeat of this 'revisionist' possibility of reform
in the east was a blow to the democratic left everywhere, even when, as
often, its opposition to authoritarian communism was a defining principle
of its separate existence as a democratic or libertarian left. This
defeat, rendered decisive, if not final, by the events of 1989, had the
consequence of removing any substantial global alternative to the regime
of capital.
This victory for capitalism also greatly lessened the risk of world war
and
nuclear destruction, an unqualified good, and it has opened up political
spaces within the dominant global system which has made possible many
changes for the better. It seems unlikely that the ANC would have found
itself in government in South Africa, without catastrophic conflict and
disruption, if the broader global threat of Communism had not already
been almost at its end. Fred Halliday presciently suggested, soon after
the transition of 1989, that several peripheral conflicts which were in
effect theatres of the Cold War would now be capable of negotiated
settlement; and so, in this general lessening of tension, it has proved.
Even the government of Angola now seems somewhere near the point of
defeating its barbarous Unitá enemy, this now having at last lost the
support of its former South African and United States allies. Creeping
moves towards settlements between Syria, Israel and the Palestinians,
and even perhaps the resolution in Northern Ireland, are related to this
change of climate. Judgements about interventions are no longer being
made solely in terms of a global balance of power - though these issues
remain decisive in some regions, such as the Balkans. Instead such
mundane considerations as whether or not a territory offers opportunities
for profitable investment have acquired more weight in deciding what
levels of intervention are deemed necessary by the American government
and its allies. Similarly, within the metropolitan countries, the defeat
of the left, in the large, and the replacement of many governments of
the
right with those of the centre, has reduced the necessity for the left
to
be persecuted. The moderate left can even be permitted to achieve some
small gains, though small they certainly are.
It is however little consolation to the left to be tolerated largely because
it is harmless. (New Labour continues to fight its battle against it with
undiminished zeal, but representing Ken Livingstone as an extremist or
revolutionary does not make him into one.) The deep question the left
faces is to know what it fundamentally stands for, and to know what
vision it now has for a society that is not to be for ever predominantly
capitalist. Redefining its maps of potential change, in both society and
politics - the former the larger sphere - is now the fundamental task
of
the 'thinking left'.
Soundings has been trying to address these questions since its
launch. It has
worked on this positive part of its task in a polymorphous way, sphere
by
sphere or fragment by fragment. We won't repeat here why we decided that
this would be a more fruitful strategy than attempting to devise a unified
theory or programme, but we have no regrets about having done so. Our
Theme issues on, Windrush Echoes, Transversal Politics, and Emotional
Labour ('bringing feelings back in') are just four examples of our
explorations of new agendas. Active Welfare discussed whether the
idea of
participatory democracy could be given an embodiment in everyday welfare
practices. A memorable article showed that even patients who had been
severely mentally ill could take a great deal of responsibility for a
democratic process of consultation, if public services had a sufficient
commitment to this. Windrush Echoes explored the transformation
of Britain
over fifty years into a multi-ethnic nation, and the new conceptions of
nation, race, identity and home that this has initiated. Transversal
Politics argued for new ways of approaching differences - ethnic,
religious, or political - and the conflicts that are often focused on
them.
It reported new kinds of democratic practice, based on the sharing of
experience across boundaries of conflict, and on the learning and
understanding that can come from this. Emotional Labour drew attention
to
a new dimension of exploitation in work settings; and the discussion about
emotional labour made it possible to identify a site of new demands and
aspirations - for the recognition of emotional needs and fulfilments,
as
well as of prospective injury. There will be a Soundings conference on
this topic, later this year (we will send subscribers details), and we
will also return to this topic in these pages.
Demands for human recognition and reciprocity are fundamental to a new
radical
agenda, and much of the work of Soundings has implicitly or explicitly
been about these and their denial. The universalist egalitarian demands
of
the traditional left, necessary as they were, were in certain respects
one-dimensional and 'flattening' - of claims to individual difference,
but
also of ideas of social and cultural variety. Virtual cultural homogeneity
(which is, confusingly, defined as consumer choice) is an inherent project
of capitalism, and calling this into question is one of the first tasks
of
its critics. Fundamental to these debates about recognition have been
the
spheres of gender and ethnicity, and the kinds of understanding and values
relevant to each. These central issues of modern radical politics have
never fitted comfortably into traditional socialist formulations,
constructed as these inevitably were by social movements at a particular
historical moment, and bounded as these were by implicit assumptions of
race, gender, and nation. It is now one of the primary tasks of radical
thought to attempt to clarify the relation between the necessary
equalities and uniformities of all human beings (of civil, political and
economic rights) and the recognition of desirable spheres of difference
- and their necessity for authentic self-development.
Soundings has hitherto published little explicitly theoretical discussion,
though there has been much implicit theoretical reflection in its pages
- for example about the Third Way. This was an early choice made from
a
commitment to avoid academicism, and from a wish to engage more directly
and accessibly with experience, which we have also explored through poetry,
documentary writing, and fiction. Wise or not as this choice against
theoretical writing may initially have been, we recognise that it has
had
some costs. The socialist tradition, and its 'new left' variant from which
Soundings derives, has always been intensely theoretical. It has sought
to construct general models and explanations, as a guide to understanding
the world, and the kinds of social action which are possible within it.
And though 'theory' can be an academic substitute for, or retreat from,
'action', it does not have to be. Indeed, without it - and this is one
of
the left's contemporary problems - there can be no sufficient orienting
principles or 'maps' at all.
We need to take stock, both as a magazine, and as a wider radical community,
of those ideas and theories which can provide illuminating ways of
thinking. One example of such work is that of Manuel Castells, whose
remarkable trilogy, The Information Society, is the most comprehensive
and sustained analysis and critique of informational capitalism to have
been produced in recent years. In the absence of an engaged theoretical
debate, there is a risk that powerful work like this can be appropriated
not as a critique of the global system, but as an apparent argument for
its inevitability. This indeed has happened with the concept of
globalisation, as we have been trying to show in these pages. This is
an
imbalance we propose to redress. We shall be seeking in future explicitly
to identify theoretical resources for critique, resources which can aid
the construction of new social imaginaries, alternatives to the present
global order.
Finally, Soundings needs to be more profoundly international, and
non-European, than it has been. It is not that this dimension has been
lacking - there have been special issues on States of Africa, and The
European Left, and we have published many individual articles (including
two in the current number) which focus on countries other than Britain.
But the issue is larger than the balance of articles on this or that
topic. The truth is that a radical politics today has to be global in
its
essence. What happens in South Africa, or Jamaica, or Mexico, or India,
is equally as defining for the future of any radical political or
cultural project in Britain as anything that happens in Paris, Berlin
or
London. Ecologically, this is now obvious. A global environmental
catastrophe now threatens, as a result of unregulated economic growth.
Culturally and economically, if not yet politically, there is in fact
one
world only. Our problem is that the market system has come to understand,
and adjust to this fact, much more quickly than the left has. This is
another issue that Soundings will be addressing more fully in future.
We would like to hear from readers who would like to write for
Soundings, or suggest topics, articles or themes for it. We hold
discussion meetings from time to time, though hitherto these have been
mainly for contributors. Readers who would like to have notice of these
should contact the Soundings office, by post or email.
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