Interstitial strategies
Tinalakay ni Erik Olin Wright sa kanyang bagong akda (Envisioning Real Utopias, 2010) ang limitasyon at halaga ng tinatawag niyang interstitial strategies sa pagpapalitaw ng sosyalistang alternatibo sa kasalukuyang sistemang panlipunan.
Link sa website ng proyektong ito ni Wright: http://realutopias.org/
Mabilisang makita ang sentral na ideya ni Wright sa sumusunod na klasipikasyon ng ‘tatlong modelo ng pagbabago’, ang ruptural (lusubin ang estado), interstitial (lumikha ng mga larangan sa labas ng estado, o di-kaya’y ‘loob’ din: pagkilos sa ‘mga puwang at giwang ng kasalukuyang nangingibabaw na kaayusang panlipunan/pangkapangyarihan (in the spaces and cracks within some dominant social structure of power)—na interesanteng tinitingnan ni Wright bilang mas kumikiling sa ‘anarkistang tradisyon’), at symbiotic (gamitin ang estado):
Ganito ang buod ng ini-endorsong estratehiya ni Wright:
If one believes that systemic ruptural strategies of emancipatory transformation are not plausible, at least under existing historical conditions, then the only real alternative is some sort of strategy that envisions transformation largely as a process of metamorphosis in which relatively small transformations cumulatively generate a qualitative shift in the dynamics and logic of a social system. This does not imply that transformation is a smooth, non-conflictual process that somehow transcends antagonistic interests. A democratic egalitarian project of social emancipation is a challenge to exploitation and domination, inequality and privilege, and thus emancipatory metamorphosis requires struggles over power and confrontations with dominant classes and elites. In practice, therefore, an emancipatory metamorphosis will require some of the strategic elements of the ruptural model: the history of the future – if it is to be a history of emancipatory social empowerment – will be a trajectory of victories and defeats, winners and losers, not simply of compromise and cooperation between differing interests and classes. The episodes of that trajectory will be marked by institutional innovations that will have to overcome opposition from those whose interests are threatened by democratic egalitarianism, and some of that opposition will be nasty, recalcitrant and destructive. So, to invoke metamorphosis is not to abjure struggle, but to see the strategic goals and effects of struggle in a particular way: as the incremental modifications of the underlying structures of a social system and its mechanisms of social reproduction that cumulatively transform the system, rather than as a sharp discontinuity in the centers of power of the system as a whole.
Sa tingin ni Wright, habang masasabing ang kapitalismo ay isang di-sinasadyang epekto ng mga kagilirang proseso ng mga artisano at mangangalakal sa loob ng sistemang pyudal, isang kinusa at sistematikong pinag-iisipang pagkilos ang (pangalanan nating muli bilang) ‘estratehiyang puwang-giwang’:
An interstitial strategy, in contrast, involves the deliberate development of interstitial activities for the purpose of fundamental transformation of the system as a whole.
Hindi nakaligtaang banggitin ni Wright ang kadalasang kritika ng mga Marxista sa estratehiyang ito—dahil mismo umiiral ito sa mga maliliit na mga giwang at puwang ng panlipunang larangan, hindi talaga ito seryosong humahamon sa kapangyarihan ng estado, bagkus isa itong ‘pag-urong sa tunggaliang pulitikal’ (they may even strengthen capitalism by siphoning off discontent and creating the illusion that if people are unhappy with the dominant institutions they should just go off and live their lives in alternative settings)—gayumpaman, tinitingnan niyang napaka-pisimistiko at napakalupit ng husgang ito. Habang wala siyang nakikitang totohanang alternatibo at komprehensibong estratehiya sa kasalukuyang panahon mula sa modelong ruptural, mas nagbubukas siya sa interstitial na mga posibilidad:
The fact is that in present historical conditions no strategy credibly poses a direct threat to the system in the sense that there are good grounds for believing that adopting the strategy today will generate effects in the near future that would really threaten capitalism. This is what it means to live in a hegemonic capitalist system: capitalism is sufficiently secure and flexible in its basic structures that there is no strategy possible that immediately threatens it. The strategic problem is to imagine things we can do now which have reasonable chances of opening up possibilities under contingent conditions in the future. Interstitial strategies, of course, may ultimately be dead-ends and be permanently contained within narrow limits, but it is also possible that under certain circumstances they can play a positive role in a long-term trajectory of emancipatory social transformation.
May mga ehemplo ng kasalukuyang praktika na, para kay Wright, ay mahalagang isa-teorya bilang mga interstitial strategies:
Wikipedia is the result of people building an alternative noncapitalist form of knowledge production within the extraordinary space of interstitial activity called the Internet. Many projects within the social economy are the result of interstitial strategies, even if as in Quebec some of them receive important subsidies from the state. Worker-owned cooperatives are the quintessential form of interstitial organization at the center of classical anarchist strategies of interstitial transformation. To this list many other empirical examples could be added: a wide variety of internet-based strategies that subvert capitalist intellectual property rights (eg. Napster, the music-sharing site); open-source software and technology projects; fair trade networks designed to link producer cooperatives in poor countries to consumers in rich countries; efforts to create global labor and environmental standards through various kinds of monitoring and certification projects. Within each of these interstitial activities, many of the actors involved see what they are doing as part of a strategy for broad social change, not simply as self-limiting activities motivated by life-style preferences or the desire to “do good works”. The question then is how these kinds of interstitial activities could have broad transformative, emancipatory effects for the society as a whole? What is the underlying logic through which they might cumulatively contribute to making another world possible?
