A perspective on solidarity in a ‘post-socialist’ world

Abstract

The dissolution of the Soviet Union following the August 1991 coup detat concluded the Bolshevik experiment to bring about socialism ‘from without’ and realise a society unencumbered by the ‘logic of capital’. It reflects the failure of communism to engineer human emancipation and rationally dominate nature. Conservatives have heralded the ‘end of socialism’ as such, rejoicing in claims of the ‘fulfilment of history’ in liberal, capitalist democracy, preferably that of the American persuasion. A number of socialists have acquiesced to the ‘capitalist victory’ and have jettisoned their hopes for the emancipatory potential of any ‘socialist project’.’ Save for a few exceptions* discussion within the democratic Left that puts the communist experiment into the historical perspective of the long tradition of democratic socialism has yet to emerge. The continued silence of the democratic Left3 must be broken with the unmistakenly clear rejection of a narrow economic definition of socialism as ‘socialisation plus planned economy’. Socialism, understood as the complete ‘abolition of the commodity form’-a utopian ‘other’ to some form of market economy-has indeed come to an end. At the same time, the end of Soviet totalitarianism has vindicated the democratic tradition of socialist figures like Eduard Bernstein, Karl Kautsky, Jean Jaurb and Olof Palme. Democratic socialism remains the sole heir to the Enlightenment ethos of the socialist movement, an ethos that always championed the approximation of the liberal ideals of liberty, equality and solidarity that still await a wider expansion in capitalist society. Starting with demands for democracy in all aspects of life, this socialist ethos defines ‘socialism as a movement toward, or the state of, a cooperative order of society’.4 In a move reminiscent of Friedrich Schiller’s restoration of an ethical totality that would protect the moral and economic autonomy of individuals from the atomising and dehumanising tendencies of a bourgeois-capitalist society,5 social democracy has emphasised ‘civic’ instead of ‘bourgeois’ values, seeking to ‘continuously uplift the worker from the social position of a proletarian to that of a citoyen, thus universalising citizenship’.6 Social democracy has developed into a reformist ‘people’s party’ that formulates socialist objectives within a language of rights and ethics. The market is taken for granted, and the critique of the capitalist production process has given way to questions that centre on a more equitable distribution of the social product. In the Scandinavian case, despite its achievements, this development has led to a form of a welfare-state Keynesian socialism, currently under attack from neo-classical supply-side forces. Working class cohesion has ceased to be