This is a third and final blog on Erik Olin Wright’s elegant and enlightening How to Be An Anti-capitalist in the 21st Century. Its focus is on what I have previously called ‘triggers for change’ and Wright terms ‘agents for transformation’. It is important to register at the outset a point made by Michael Burawoy in his Afterword, namely, that Wright was very ill with acute myeloid leukaemia while completing this work. As a result, his final chapter on agents for transformation is possibly truncated. Nevertheless, it contains a fascinating discussion of structural ‘enablers’ and ‘constrainers’ relevant to collective agency.
‘Ultimately … the strategy of eroding capitalism depends on the existence of a web of collective actors anchored in civil society and political parties committed to such a political project’. So, Wright is advocating a combination of action emanating from what I have called the ‘protest sector of civil society’ and action resulting from penetration of the apparatus of the state. This sets the scene.
Wright then confronts the notion of ‘collective agency’ from a sociological perspective. He is here as tellingly lucid and concise as, for example, Bourdieu. He quotes Therborn (from The Ideology of Power and the Power of Ideology) to insist that people are ‘conscious, reflecting initiators of acts in a structured, meaningful world.’ Such agency is of course constrained, both by the social structures within which people act, and by the internalised constraints embodied in beliefs and habits.
Wright sensibly side-steps age-old, abstruse sociological debates around agency ‘versus’ structure (on which, incidentally, I favour Bhaskar/Archer over Giddens et al). Instead, he contends that three concepts require elucidation before the notion of the collective actor can be rendered credible. There are: identities, interests and values.
- Identities: people have multiple identities, and the subjective salience of any of them is dependent on context. But identities are not simply descriptive: ‘they are closely linked to social relations and power’. Identities may be both imposed and cultivated. Identities play a crucial role in the formation of collective actors. Strong shared identities can increase trust and predictability among potential participants in collective action and facilitate the formation of durable collective actors. Especially salient for the formation of ‘emancipatory collective actors’ are identities rooted in those forms of socially imposed inequality and domination leading to ‘real harms’ (eg disrespect, deprivations, disempowerment, bodily insecurity and abuse). Identities change over time; moreover, identities cultivated within social movements can lead to deep connections with other collective actors engaged in struggles (eg political parties, social movement organisations, labour unions).
- Interests: ‘Identities are subjectively salient classifications of persons. Interests refer to things that would make a person’s life go better along some dimension important to that person. Interests are anchored in the solutions to the problems people encounter in their lives; identities are anchored in the lived experiences generated in part by those problems.’ People can be mistaken about their interests (giving credibility to the idea of ‘false consciousness’). Life is complex, as are people’s identities, so people can have interests which are in tension, and even incompatible (eg religious and sexual). They also have short- and long-term interests.
- Values: People act in a meaningful world, so values are involved (ie beliefs about what is good and right). ‘Values have fraught relationship to interests. For example: ‘When political conservatives defend tax cuts for the rich by saying that, through increasing investment and thus economic growth, this is the best way to help the poor, they are invoking a general social value: poverty is a bad thing and a good society is one in which the lives of the least advantaged improve over time. Most people would agree with this affirmation of values. If it were true that cutting taxes for the rich was the best way to help the poor, this would be a powerful reason to support such policies. Of course, this view of tax cuts is a rationalisation for the interests of the rich.’ Values can be powerful sources of motivation, and a robust source of identity. They can also fuel emancipatory ‘ideologies’ (though I personally prefer to preserve the old distinction between science and ideology).
How are these three concepts of special relevance to collective agency? Identities, interests and values do not after all spontaneously precipitate the formation of collective actors. Wright posits three principal challenges to the task of constructing collective actors capable of sustained political action:
- Overcoming privatised lives;
- Building class solidarity within complex, fragmented class structures;
- Forging anticapitalist politics in the presence of diverse, competing non-class based forms of identity.
With reference to 1, there is typically a gulf between private lives and public involvement; and consumerism only widens this gulf. (In this context, to add my bit, and drawing in part on Habermas, the challenge is to translate talk in the ‘enabling sector of civil society – which belongs in the private sphere of the lifeworld – into solidary/collective togetherness and action in the ‘protest sector of civil society – which belongs in the public sphere of the lifeworld. Oldenburg’s ‘third places’ can be functional here.)
As far as 2 is concerned, I agree wholeheartedly with Wright’s statement that ‘class is at the very heart of the strategic configuration of eroding capitalism; I have consistently argued this, though less eloquently than Wright. There is a need to forge strong working-class identities. ‘The identity-interests of workers would then form the core of progressive politics that embraced the more universal interests linked to values of equality, democracy and solidarity.’ But here Marx was unduly optimistic in thinking that capitalism’s own dynamic would push people in this direction. As things stand, it is necessary to navigate a multiplicity of intersecting identities that share common underlying emancipatory values ‘but nevertheless have distinct identity-interests’. A notable challenge is the emergence of right-wing populism, which is mobilising people on the basis of interests tied to exclusionary identities around race.
As for 3, Wright argues that effective, politically organised collective action is essential for eroding capitalism. Pressing obstacles are people’s privatised lives, the fragmented class structure and competing identities. He stresses the importance of political parties ‘to pass needed legislation and implement new game rules’. Political rules of the game matter; for example:
- Rules governing political representation – winner-take-all; single member districts (with runoff elections, including distant runoffs); various forms of proportional representation; nonpartisan elections (especially at the local level); etc.
- Rules governing the drawing of boundaries of electoral districts – party-controlled gerrymandering; independent commissions.
- Rules governing the selection of candidates – systems in which political parties control the selection of candidates; primary election systems in which voters select candidates; nonpartisan elections in which candidates get on the ballot through petition signatures.
- Rules governing campaign finance – the degree of restriction on private financing of elections, including prohibitions on contributions by corporations; various forms of public finance.
- Rules governing eligibility to vote – automatic registration of all adult citizens; various rules that restrict or suppress voter registration (‘felon’ disenfranchisement, voter ID laws, voter list purges, and so on).
(NB – in the UK the Labour Party has a long way to go in more than one of these areas. I agree with Ralph Miliband that top-down, parliamentary democracy cannot deliver socialism; but also with Wright that – ‘multiple fronts’ – supporting Corbyn, via what Fraser calls ‘progressive populism’, matters.) Wright eschews formulae, acknowledging that countries and contexts vary. But he nevertheless insists: (a) that values – ‘equality/fairness, democracy/freedom and community/solidarity’ – should remain at the centre of progressive politics; (b) that values can provide ‘a vital connection between the class interests at the heart of eroding capitalism and other identity-interests with emancipatory aspirations’ – ‘identity politics’ should be seen as an integral element of the emancipatory project rather than a secondary issue; (c) that the value of democracy should be given particular emphasis in relation to articulating a concrete programme of progressive politics; and (d) that the ‘overall plan of eroding capitalism is not exclusively state-centred. I would re-assert the significance of (d) to avoid any doubts.
I commend Wright’s text whole-heartedly. In my own contributions I have put the emphasis on ‘permanent reform’ and ‘alliance formation’. I think this stands and is entirely consonant with Wright’s analysis. We are when all’s said and done both neo-Marxists! But what Erik Olin Wright has done is frame, deepen and more eloquently convey our messages. I salute him, regret his passing and welcome the fact that his writings will live on. He may have passed on, but long live Erik Olin Wright.