Local Diversity™ versus Global Diversity – and the teleological question

[Ike Pettigrew]

A distinction I suggested in an exchange with Alan Johnstone:

Alan emphasises how he values cosmopolitanism, as a good in itself.  I agree that cosmopolitanism is a good thing, and I even see myself as cosmopolitan, but I have different reasons for liking and favouring it, and I have a very different understanding of what cosmopolitan means.

Alan seems to think that cosmpolitanism is about having diversity on your doorstep – what I will loosely call Local Diversity™, a capitalist agenda that the SPGB seems to support.

I would suggest that Local Diversity™ by its very nature is something that must be imposed on workers against their will, whereas Global Diversity is inherently organic and 'democratic' because its respects natural boundaries and the possibility of organic social evolution. 

Workers could not possibly agree with Alan's cosmopolitanism – Local Diversity™ – at least not the majority, because of the harm and destruction it represents to their lives.  It means different types of people and alien cultures being spored and propagated within their 'safe zones' (the countries that capitalism turned into modern nation-states), these people then competing with them for jobs, space and resources, etc., and worsening and immiserating their lives.  Also, migrants themselves do not agree with this and do not enjoy the experience.  It is only liberal middle-class condescension that imagines they do.  In truth, Local Diversity™  is a post-modern slave trade and is not truly cosmopolitan.  Moreover, it's a recipe for trouble and conflict, but oddly you support it, which to my mind makes about as much sense as a socialist calling for more profits at British Gas or the setting-up of co-operatives on the railway.  Accelerating and intensifying capitalism's problems does not, in my view, provide a sane basis for socialism, instead it strengthens the hand of capitalists.

Or perhaps you disagree?  Perhaps you think that Marxism is teleological, sort of like an apocalyptical religion, and in order for socialism to come about, capitalism must first exhaust its inherent regressions to the nth, at which point class consciousness among workers will be awakened, and among the ruination and misery of late capitalism, the world's resources will be legislated into common ownership by good-natured delegates.  I admit there may be something in this.  Marx was not anti-capitalist per se, as he regarded capital as a progressive force that must eventually regress and exhaust itself before socialism can be possible, but at the same time, that was Marx writing at the height of the Industrial Revolution and believing that mechanisation would destroy surplus value forever in double quick time.  Marx was to be disappointed, and I had always taken it that the SPGB's case for socialism is more refined and based on education and propaganda and the notion that socialism can happen Now, not in a hundred years when everything is co-operatively designed and workers all have brown skin and are sociologically-ready for a leaderless society.  Which is it?

To me, socialism and Global Diversity is the correct position.  They are not incompatibles, and in an adjusted form of socialism, can be aligned.  I regard cosmopolitanism as something involving the protection of true human diversity and separate development, not its eradication through imposed diversity.  This type of diversity has a number of benefits: it's culturally enriching and provides an evolutionary hedge for the entire species, but to agree with me would in turn require an acceptance on your part that imposing one system on all (whether by democratic fiat, as you want, or some other way, as capitalists do) might not be wise.  I do not expect that, as you seem to regard humanity uniformy: as I see it, an obstinately asinine and simple-minded position.

[Anonymous]

Ike Pettigrew wrote:

 as you seem to regard humanity uniformy: as I see it, an obstinately asinine and simple-minded position.

Has anyone actually claimed this 'asinine and simple-minded position'?  

[alanjjohnstone]

Quote:

Alan seems to think that cosmpolitanism is about having diversity on your doorstep – what I will loosely call Local Diversity

On my doorstep, i seek an Italian, an Indian, a Chinese restaurant and yes, even a Greggs, Vin, because I happen to enjoy diversity in my daily diet.

[jondwhite]

No. The SPGB is not accelerationist,No. Marxism is not teleological.No. Capitalism will not collapse.i should be able to live and work whereever in the world I please, as should any other person, regardless of skin colour.There is no such thing as "natural boundaries". There hasn't been "natural boundaries" two hundred years ago, a hundred years ago, fifty years ago or at any point throughout history.One of the least ethnically diverse states is North Korea and its hardly a workers paradise, quite the opposite in fact.

[Author]

Posts