Zed Books Rebuilding the Left

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Rebuilding the LeftBy Marta Harnecker, Janet DuckworthZed Books LtdCopyright © 2007 Marta HarneckerAll rights reserved.ISBN: 978-1-84277-256-0ContentsIntroduction, 1, PART I The Left and the New World, 5, 1 Profound Changes in the World, 7, 2 Profound Discontent among Much of Humankind, 27, 3 Towards the Creation of an Alternative Social Bloc, 32, PART II The Crises of 'Party' and Why We Need a New Left Political Culture, 37, 4 Crisis of Theory, 39, 5 Programmatic Crisis and the Crisis of Credibility, 42, 6 The Organic Crisis, 45, 7 The Theory Underlying This Concept of Party, 56, 8 Politics as the Art of Making the Impossible Possible, 66, 9 Why We Need a Political Organisation, 73, PART III The New Political Instrument, 81, 10 The Characteristics of the New Political Instrument, 83, 11 A New Paradigm for Internal Organisation, 100, PART IV From Reforms to Revolution: The Bolivarian Revolutionary Process, 115, 12 Local Governments: Signposts to an Alternative Path, 117, 13 The Left and Reform, 130, 14 The Bolivarian Revolution — Is It a Revolution?, 139, Notes, 152, Index, 163, CHAPTER 1Profound Changes in the World1 We live in a world very different from the one that existed half a century ago at the beginning of the Cuban Revolution, not only because of the defeat of Soviet socialism in the East — which was an extremely hard blow for the Left — but also because of the effect of other events. We will mention only the discoveries made by a new scientific-technological revolution and their effects on the productive process and nature; the mass media's increasingly important role; neo-liberalism's installation as the hegemonic system; and the role played by foreign debt in subjugating Third World economies to the interests of the great powers.2 The machine tools that accelerated the development of industrial civilisation are being replaced rapidly by digitally controlled machine tools, and robots and computers — which allow data and knowledge to be automatically compiled, processed and produced — are becoming essential in the workplace.3 But it's not just computers: the electronic information revolution has caused fundamental changes in telecommunications, microbiology and other areas. Daily life in developed countries is swamped with information technology gadgets: credit cards, the electronic cards used as hotel keys, smart traffic lights, doors which open and close automatically and thousands of other things.4 The new technologies make it easier to disseminate ever greater quantities of data and enormously increase the power of calculation while reducing its cost. This in turn means that scientific knowledge evolves at an extremely rapid rate.5 An example of the growth of knowledge is the spectacular development in biotechnology and genetic engineering.6 The power to use 'genetic information to create "new" organisms and to put the forces that guide life's metabolism at the service of the production of wealth is a technological leap that has unimaginable consequences'.7 According to Jeremy Rifkin these technological-scientific developments hold up a mirror to a world where crops grown in laboratories could be harvested on a large scale. Nevertheless, some thought should to be given to the consequences this could have for the hundreds of millions of people who depend on agricultural work for their survival. Moreover, trade, finance, recreation, and research have been profoundly shaken by these new technologies.A unit in real time on a planetary scale8 Capital today not only moves into the most remote parts of the world — as it has been doing since the sixteenth century — but is capable of functioning, in real time and on a planetary scale, as a single unit. Vast quantities of money — billions of dollars — are transferred in seconds by electronic circuits which link the financial world. This is a phenomenon which only became possible in the last few decades of the t