Don't Go by Numbers, Organize According to Interests! Current Questions of Organization

Abstract

The following considerations, which I presented in October, 1972, at the central working conference of the Socialist Bureau (Sozialistisches Bfiro) make no claim to provide a thorough analysis of all the issues raised. This inconclusiveness stems from the problems inherent in the subject matter itself. A major deficiency is the lack of a political-economic analysis of the capitalist power structure, and it is in this context that the question of organization must be discussed. In fact, a definitive Marxist theory of advanced capitalism to which one could refer for the solution of organizational problems is not yet available. While various attempts have been made to develop such a theory, considerable work remains to be done. Even the theory of state monopoly capitalism is only a minor contribution to the resolution of current organizational questions. To be sure, this lack of clarity about trends in the development of the power structure of advanced capitalism must not lead us to the false assumption that urgent questions of organizational praxis, i.e., socialist politics, ought to be tabled, pending the development of a mature theory. The principle of first clarity, then unity is false. And the fear of error, as Hegel says, is error itself. The specific historical relationship between theory and praxis of organization should not be weighted at the expense of one side of this dialectical relationship; for the definition of this relationship is itself a product of political experience. The following discussion on organization should be understood as a possible program or as the direction within which a viable theoretical conception of organization should be formulated.