Old and New—A Declaration of Intent

This is a moderated website. We will consider your contribution based on the following criteria, along with the principles spelled out in the "Old and New" declaration itself:

1) We welcome the  participation of everyone. In that context the editors are mandated to make sure we do not overprivilege the contributions of white men.

2) We share the  goal of displacing and dispersing the imperial bourgeois state power and replacing it with an institutional reality based on alternative social forces. In other words, we seek discussion that places itself in a consciously revolutionary framework.

3) We will give priority to articles and comments in which the author is clearly engaged in active listening and a search for commonalities or convergences, in contrast to those which primarily restate already well-established views (though  restatements that are particularly clear, or that raise new issues in the context of a particular conversation, will be given consideration). The overall goal of our project is not just to recapitulate pre-established ideas but to transcend them if/when we can in order to pursue a stronger collective synthesis of revolutionary thought.

4) We understand that a purely intellectual exchange cannot achieve the goal outlined in point 3 above. Our intellectual exchange has to be combined at some point, when we are able to move to the next stage of this process, with a level of collective practice that can then feed back on and help to shape the intellectual exchange. In the meantime, as a step in this direction, we offer links below to activist-oriented websites which promote goals we believe in. We will also give priority to written contributions which offer creative approaches to collective action in addition to useful thoughts about revolutionary theory and history.

    

     (see: The First Ecosocialist International

Weaving Ourselves to Mother Earth)

   
     
Activist Links:

Anti-Racism:
   Southern Anti-Racism Network
   
Free All Political Prisoners
    thejerichomovement.com
   
Ecosocialism
    ecosocialisthorizons.com
    systemchangenotclimatechange.org

Labor Notes
    labornotes.org
     
 
     

Old and New 2016 forum series in New York. Watch the video: MARCH 2: “Old Left and New Left – Key lessons for Today”        APRIL 13 (in three different segments): Here, Here, and Here “New Left to Next Left – Paths for Future Victories”

     
     
     

Can you identify these individuals from revolutionary herstory and history? (Original portraits by Carlito Rovira)       Click Here to Take the Quiz

     
  

"Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground"—Frederick Douglass

     

1) Background and motivation

March 2014―The anticapitalist revolutionary project has been in crisis for some time. The anticapitalist revolutionary left exists today only in the form of scattered tiny groups, each competing with all of the others and none wielding any significant influence in active struggles. A consciously anti-capitalist mass movement has all but disappeared. Occasionally phenomena like Tahrir Square or Occupy Wall Street flare up. But even these fail to pose a meaningful threat to the power of the global corporate establishment or those state institutions which serve it.

Yet there remains a great legacy of past experience, along with a wide range of current struggles (inspired by national self-determination, the rights of indigenous peoples, gender and sexual liberation, communism, anarchism, radical green consciousness, prison abolition, and more) that have helped shape the consciousness of multiple generations and will continue to do so, stimulating ideological discussions and developing thousands of conscious revolutionaries.

2) Joint declaration

We remain among those who continue to recognize the need to overthrow capitalism and create an egalitarian world. The crisis of species survival (including our own species), brought about by human destruction of our planet's ecology, some elements of which are now acknowledged even by capitalists themselves, has emerged in recent decades to compound the previous imperative for revolutionary change.

But there seems to be a strong, perhaps even overwhelming, tendency for the anti-capitalist/revolutionary left to divide into two camps:

● those who declare that a new world reality changes everything today and that the revolutionary project must therefore be invented anew;

● those who declare that nothing fundamental has changed about capitalism and exploitation, that the laws of social development and revolution therefore remain unchanged as well.

In our judgment the basic premise of each camp is unassailable. The task is to reconcile them.

In our experience, however, there seem to be very few who are willing to acknowledge and act on both of these truths at the same time. If they affirm one it is considered an exclusive and sufficient truth, to be used as a bludgeon against those who embrace the other. This is a false counterposition, however, which severely undermines our ability to generate the kind of revolutionary project humanity needs today.

The most central problem facing those presently seeking revolutionary social change is one that has been confronted repeatedly during the last century and a half: A mass movement can spontaneously arise to challenge the current political regime, creating the social basis for a meaningful alternative. But if no alternative power is actually put in place, if the old state power is not dispersed, the previous social relationships inevitably re-establish themselves, perhaps using different political forms―the problem in South Africa and Egypt, for example. Whether and how to respond to this truth was a key element in the differentiation of diverse ideological trends during the previous century. It remains as a reality that we have to respond to today.

At the same time everything now exists in a context which is entirely different from what it was during most of the last century―ranging from the relationship between various potentially revolutionary social forces to the strength of imperialism and the destruction of our planet's biosphere. We must deal in a way that is completely new with questions that did not exist for, or (perhaps better) were never properly acknowledged by, revolutionaries during the 19th and 20th centuries, realities such as patriarchy, heteronormativity, social reproduction in addition to wage labor as a key element in the creation and survival of capitalism, etc. The finite nature of planet earth is a reality which always existed, but until very recently egalitarian projects did not even begin to consider how this must affect our vision of what revolutionary change is going to look like.

One very significant difficulty has been the development, in many sectors of the revolutionary left, of theories and proposals for struggle that root themselves almost exclusively in a European experience and/or discourse. More schematic versions of Marxism are, clearly, among these problematic ideologies. (Some would argue that Marxism as a whole is inevitably flawed in this way.) But Marxism is not alone in suffering from such tendencies.

There is a rich history and tradition, going back to the earliest days of resistance against colonial conquest in the Americas, in Africa, and in Asia. Further, it should be obvious that the pre-conquest cultures of these continents can provide us with essential insights into the kinds of social relationships a modern-day egalitarian society must strive for, thereby providing a concrete demonstration that "another world is possible."

Signers and supporters of this statement identify with more than one historical tradition. Something we share in common, however, is an understanding that whatever tradition or trend each of us might identify with, there are aspects of its ideology which must inevitably be discarded as historical relics at the same time that other aspects need to be affirmed and carried with us into the future. Our objective in this conversation is to figure out which is which―based on a broader collective assessment of history than any one current can achieve by itself, combined with present-day experience.

In our search for a new synthesis of revolutionary thought we consider it essential, therefore, to consider the insights that can be provided by a wide range of historical and contemporary trends, including anarcho-communists, autonomists, council communists, ecofeminists, and those who are or have been engaged in revolutionary-nationalist or indigenous struggles―in addition to individuals or groups who might self-identify as Leninists and traditional Marxists. The only requirement we insist on is that the ideology or trend in question represent a genuine quest for human liberation through social revolution.

The primary goal of this declaration is to find others who are willing and able to act on this need for both a continuity of revolutionary understanding and a revolution in that understanding at one and the same time, referencing a wide range of ideological/theoretical inputs in order to achieve that goal, so we can begin to gather ourselves together into a coherent and meaningful political project. We recognize that this is a global need, and we do not exclude the possibility of individuals from other countries participating in the process we have begun. But for now it is a big enough task to try to gather together individuals from across the USA, so that is where our attention will be focused. Such a project needs to start with the affirmation of certain fundamentals, implied above but which we make explicit in closing:

a) We must be open to a reconsideration of old ideas, including those which may, in fact, turn out to be prejudices flowing from the ideological dominance of Marxism as the prevailing (and for some the only possible) revolutionary paradigm for the last century and a half. Obviously those who still identify as Marxists are welcome to contribute their ideas and thoughts to this process, as are all others. But they should do so understanding that the assumptions made historically by self-identified Marxists are not necessarily shared by everyone engaged in the present conversation.

b) At the same time we do agree that there can be no revolutionary practice without revolutionary theory. We require a deep and meaningful theoretical conversation in order to sort through the relationship between the old problems and the new ones, establishing in this way common reference points that might constitute the basis for a renewal of the revolutionary movement.

c) There is, it should be obvious, no great leader who will resolve all questions for us. We reject any form of sectarian or cult-based organization (the belief that my group and my group alone has a franchise on “the truth”) along with the “struggle for hegemony” by any one current―over other political forces or over the mass movement. There may come a time when revolutionaries in the USA will need to struggle for hegemony again. Whether and when this might be appropriate in the future is one conversation we ought to have. But now is, clearly, not that time. Our project does not seek to be in competition with existing groups. We invite participation by members of such existing left groups and desire close friendly relations with any group that is willing to establish such a relationship with us.

d) To reach the collective solution we seek will, therefore, require that we listen to each other with respect―even (especially) when at first we seem to be quite far apart in our assessments or conclusions. The search for commonalities and points of convergence should have at least an equal weight in our practice with the struggle over our differences.

3) Process

If you agree with point 2 above please add your name as a supporter of this declaration. (Point 1 only provides a context.) When we have reached a critical mass (at least 50 people from across the USA reflecting a diversity of ages, genders, and nationalities) the original signers pledge to propose ways in which we might generate a further discussion of next steps.

We also welcome comments about our declaration. These comments will be posted in this space―after review to be sure they meet the four basic criteria just cited. We plan to make other discussions available on a similar basis.

Signed (Click here for bios):

loren anderson, Steve Bloom, Joaquin Bustelo, Theresa El-Amin, Deborah Engel-DiMauro, Salvatore Engel-DiMauro, Kate Hibbard, Matt Hoke, Dequi Kioni-Sadiki, Tekla Lewin, Ana Lopez, Thano Paris, Carlito Rovira, Meg Starr, Sean Sweeney.