Freedom Not Yet: Liberation and the Next World Order

Freedom Not Yet: Liberation and the Next World Order (New Slant: Religion, Politics, Ontology)

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Finally, Surin specifies the material conditions needed for liberation from the economic, political, and social failures of our current system. Sign In or Create an Account. Advanced Search. User Tools. Sign In. New Slant: Religion, Politics, Ontology.

Freedom: The Philosophy of Liberation

Kenneth Surin Kenneth Surin. This Site. Duke University Press. This content is made freely available by the publisher.

It may not be redistributed or altered. All rights reserved. Publication date:. Read more Read less. Buy This Book. Introduction Doi:. Part I. Producing a Marxist Concept of Liberation Doi:. And it could accomplish all this without abandoning the hold of total administration over the people.

On the contrary, the contradiction between the growing productive forces and their enslaving organization — openly admitted as a feature of Soviet socialist development even by Stalin [43] — is likely to flatten out rather than to aggravate. The more the rulers are capable of delivering the goods of consumption, the more firmly will the underlying population be tied to the various ruling bureaucracies. But while these prospects for the containment of qualitative change in the Soviet system seem to be parallel to those in advanced capitalist society, the socialist base of production introduces a decisive difference.

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And yet it is not the motor of the productive process itself; it is not built into this process as is the division between capital and labor, derived from private ownership of the means of production. Consequently, the ruling strata are themselves separable from the productive process — that is, they are replaceable without exploding the basic institutions of society. Inasmuch as this change would leave the material base of society the nationalized productive process intact, it would be confined to a political revolution. If it could lead to self-determination at the very base of human existence, namely in the dimension of necessary labor, it would be the most radical and most complete revolution in history.

Distribution of the necessities of life regardless of work performance, reduction of working time to a minimum, universal all-sided education toward exchangeability of functions — these are the preconditions but not the contents of self-determination. While the creation of these preconditions may still be the result of superimposed administration, their establishment would mean the end of this administration.

To be sure, a mature and free industrial society would continue to depend on a division of labor which involves inequality of functions. Such inequality is necessitated by genuine social needs, technical requirements, and the physical and mental differences among the individuals. However, the executive and supervisory functions would no longer carry the privilege of ruling the life of others in some particular interest.

The transition to such a state is a revolutionary rather than evolutionary process, even on the foundation of a fully nationalized and planned economy. Can one assume that the communist system, in its established forms, would develop or rather be forced to develop by virtue of the international contest the conditions which would make for such a transition?

There are strong arguments against this assumption. This is a highly dubious psychological concept and grossly inadequate for the analysis of societal developments. In order to do so, they would have to arrest material and intellectual growth at a point where domination still is rational and profitable, where the underlying population can still be tied to the job and to the interest of the state or other established institutions.

Again, the decisive factor here seems to be the global situation of co-existence, which has long since become a factor in the internal situation of the two opposed societies. The need for the all-out utilization of technical progress, and for survival by virtue of a superior standard of living may prove stronger than the resistance of the vested bureaucracies.

In terms of the preceding discussion: is there any evidence that the former colonial or semi-colonial areas might adopt a way of industrialization essentially different from capitalism and present-day communism? Is there anything in the indigenous culture and tradition of these areas which might indicate such an alternative? I shall confine my remarks to models of backwardness already in the process of industrialization — that is, to countries where industrialization coexists with an unbroken pre- and anti-industrial culture India, Egypt.

These countries enter upon the process of industrialization with a population untrained in the values of self-propelling productivity, efficiency, and technological rationality. In other words, with a vast majority of population which has not yet been transformed into a labor force separated from the means of production.

Do these conditions favor a new confluence of industrialization and liberation — an essentially different mode of industrialization which would build the productive apparatus not only in accord with the vital needs of the underlying population, but also with the aim of pacifying the struggle for existence? Industrialization in these backward areas does not take place in a vacuum. It occurs in a historical situation in which the social capital required for primary accumulation must be obtained largely from without, from the capitalist or communist bloc — or from both.

Fixation to Freedom: The Enneagram of Liberation

Moreover, there is a widespread presumption that remaining independent would require rapid industrialization and attainment of a level of productivity which would assure at least relative autonomy in competition with the two giants. In these circumstances, the transformation of under-developed into industrial societies must as quickly as possible discard the pre-technological forms. This is especially so in countries where even the most vital needs of the population are far from being satisfied, where the terrible standard of living calls first of all for quantities en masse, for mechanized and standardized mass production and distribution.

The machine process as social process requires obedience to a system of anonymous powers — total secularization and the destruction of values and institutions whose de-sanctification has hardly begun.

Can one reasonably assume that, under the impact of the two great systems of total technological administration, the dissolution of this resistance will proceed in liberal and democratic forms? That the underdeveloped countries can make the historical leap from the pre-technological to the post-technological society, in which the mastered technological apparatus may provide the basis for a genuine democracy?

On the contrary, it rather seems that the superimposed development of these countries will bring about a period of total administration more violent and more rigid than that traversed by the advanced societies which can build on the achievements of the liberalistic era. To sum up: the backward areas are likely to succumb either to one of the various forms of neo-colonialism, or to a more or less terroristic system of primary accumulation. However, another alternative seems possible. Such indigenous progress would demand a planned policy which, instead of superimposing technology on the traditional modes of life and labor, would extend and improve them on their own grounds, eliminating the oppressive and exploitative forces material and religious which made them incapable of assuring the development of a human existence.

Social revolution, agrarian reform, and reduction of over-population would be prerequisites, but not industrialization after the pattern of the advanced societies. Indigenous progress seems indeed possible in areas where the natural resources, if freed from suppressive encroachment, are still sufficient not only for subsistence but also for a human life. And where they are not, could they not be made sufficient by the gradual and piecemeal aid of technology — within the framework of the traditional forms?

Self-determination would proceed from the base, and work for the necessities could transcend itself toward work for gratification. But even under these abstract assumptions, the brute limits of self-determination must be acknowledged. The initial revolution which, by abolishing mental and material exploitation, is to establish the prerequisites for the new development, is hardly conceivable as spontaneous action. Moreover, indigenous progress would presuppose a change in the policy of the two great industrial power blocs which today shape the world — abandonment of neo-colonialism in all its forms.

At present, there is no indication of such a change. By way of summary: the prospects of containment of change, offered by the politics of technological rationality, depend on the prospects of the Welfare State. Such a state seems capable of raising the standard of administered living, a capability inherent in all advanced industrial societies where the streamlined technical apparatus — set up as a separate power over and above the individuals — depends for its functioning on the intensified development and expansion of productivity.

Under such conditions, decline of freedom and opposition is not a matter of moral or intellectual deterioration or corruption. It is rather an objective societal process insofar as the production and distribution of an increasing quantity of goods and services make compliance a rational technological attitude. Late industrial society has increased rather than reduced the need for parasitical and alienated functions for the society as a whole, if not for the individual. Advertising, public relations, indoctrination, planned obsolescence are no longer unproductive overhead costs but rather elements of basic production costs.

In order to be effective, such production of socially necessary waste requires continuous rationalization — the relentless utilization of advanced techniques and science. Consequently, a rising standard of living is the almost unavoidable by-product of the politically manipulated industrial society, once a certain level of backwardness has been overcome. The growing productivity of labor creates an increasing surplus-product which, whether privately or centrally appropriated and distributed, allows an increased consumption — notwithstanding the increased diversion of productivity.

This is the rational and material ground for the unification of opposites, for one-dimensional political behaviour. On this ground, the transcending political forces within society are arrested, and qualitative change appears possible only as a change from without. Rejection of the Welfare State on behalf of abstract ideas of freedom is hardly convincing. The loss of the economic and political liberties which were the real achievement of the preceding two centuries may seem slight damage in a state capable of making the administered life secure and comfortable.

And if the individuals are pre-conditioned so that the satisfying goods also include thoughts, feelings, aspirations, why should they wish to think, feel, and imagine for themselves?

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True, the material and mental commodities offered may be bad, wasteful, rubbish — but Geist and knowledge are no telling arguments against satisfaction of needs. The sinister aspects of this critique show forth in the fight against comprehensive social legislation and adequate government expenditures for services other than those of military defense. Denunciation of the oppressive capabilities of the Welfare State thus serves to protect the oppressive capabilities of the society prior to the Welfare State.

At the most advanced stage of capitalism, this society is a system of subdued pluralism, in which the competing institutions concur in solidifying the power of the whole over the individual. Still, for the administered individual, pluralistic administration is far better than total administration. One institution might protect him against the other; one organization might mitigate the impact of the other; possibilities of escape and redress can be calculated. The rule of law, no matter how restricted, is still infinitely safer than rule above or without law.

However, in view of prevailing tendencies, the question must be raised whether this form of pluralism does not accelerate the destruction of pluralism. Advanced industrial society is indeed a system of countervailing powers. But these forces cancel each other out in a higher unification — in the common interest to defend and extend the established position, to combat the historical alternatives, to contain qualitative change. The countervailing powers do not include those which counter the whole.

The reality of pluralism becomes ideological, deceptive.

It seems to extend rather than reduce manipulation and co-ordination, to promote rather than counteract the fateful integration. Free institutions compete with authoritarian ones in making the Enemy a deadly force within the system. For the Enemy is permanent. He is not in the emergency situation but in the normal state of affairs. He threatens in peace as much as in war and perhaps more than in war ; he is thus being built into the system as a cohesive power.

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