As I considered my earlier post on the definition of “meaningful development” I realized that a lot of what I said could also be stated in terms of the Marxian theory as I understand it.

My second-last paragraph pointed out that individuals often have an individualized perspective on development (e.g., the necessity for education) even though these perspectives may be widely shared. Here we have an example of the dialectic between immediate needs and objective needs. The immediate need of many in Mozambique is an increase in income by which they can sustain themselves. Many have realized that being educated, or getting their children educated, leads to an increase in income. They thus strive to get at least some of their children (if they survive) educated. We’re still at the level of immediate needs here, the necessity of education is individualized and it becomes dependent upon a transaction. Compare to Adorno (though he isn’t talking about a society like Mozambique’s):

Not only are needs satisfied purely indirectly, by means of exchange-values, but within the relevant economic sectors produced by the profit-motive, and thus at the cost of the objective needs of the consumers, namely those for adequate housing, and completely so in terms of the education and information over the processes which most affect them.

However, I’m sure (though I don’t know) many Mozambicans realize that the conditions of provision of education have changed dramatically over the past twenty years as a result of circumstances that are external to their own individual situations. Notably, a transition from a socially-based society to a market-based society led to the introduction of user fees for education. That this impacts most negatively upon the workers, the unemployed and the peasants (who are often both workers and unemployed) is evident, and once it’s realized that the discrimination in this sphere is systematic, one can also proceed to understand that education is not only an individual interest, but a class interest. There is an immediate need for the individual to acquire education, which has to be mediated by user fees, and an objective need for the vast majority of Mozambicans for the provision of free education. While the immediate need can be satisfied through an exchange transaction, the objective need can only be satisfied by organizing and mobilizing in concert with or against the state’s machinery.

The discourse of immediate and objective needs can also be translated into neoliberal language. Hence, although the immediate needs are of poverty alleviation, the objective need is a free market structure that will, supposedly, facilitate wealth creation. State intervention, though perhaps necessary for the immediate needs of citizens, is contrary to the objective needs. Needless to say, the dangers are present not only in neoliberal discourse but in Marxian discourse as well. The subordination of immediate needs to objective needs, especially around industrialization, is something that impacted heavily in Mozambique. Consider this quotation from a 1982 bulletin, as quoted in one of John Saul’s books (A Difficult Road: The Transition to Socialism in Mozambique, p. 108):

If we buy those products which we need (it’s true, we need them), then the money we spend is merely used up and is not going to be productive.

If, on the contrary, we make a sacrifice in this phase, such that instead of buying rice, meat, fish, flour we use that money for the construction of factories, then four or five years down the road the sacrifice we’re making today is going to permit the production of all the material goods that we have mentioned. We think that to escape from poverty and underdevelopment, such sacrifice is necessary.

To be fair, Saul is critical of this language and notes that the Mozambican government’s discourse was generally more nuanced than this. I’m not too sure about this kind of moral calculus, and that likely has to do with not being involved in running a country mired in poverty, surrounded by hostile neighbours, etc. I’m glad, also, that my writing this paper is not necessarily going to have to focus on these kinds of specific questions. Nevertheless, an evaluation of the socialist project will have to take these things into account (like Saul does).

Returning to my earlier post, I conclude it by mentioning that my approach to determining some kind of definition of “meaningful development” would attempt to examine the immediate needs of people in Mozambique through ethnographic and sociological data, but also try to mediate this with my own perceptions of global economic processes and how these impact upon countries like Mozambique. While writing this, I was thinking of mass line politics. Several of Mao’s writings stress the need for party cadres to conduct social investigation into the particular problems and concrete situations of particular areas, rather than relying off-hand on theoretical knowledge (that is to say, Oppose Book Worship). The hard research into the historical and material circumstances is important. This isn’t rocket science, it’s basic historical materialism. Mao’s emphasis is on learning from the masses for translation into political (rather than merely academic or theoretical) work:

We should go to the masses and learn from them, synthesize their experience into better, articulated principles and methods, then do propaganda among the masses, and call upon them to put these principles and methods into practice so as to solve their problems and help them achieve liberation and happiness.

And more:

To link oneself with the masses, one must act in accordance with the needs and wishes of the masses. All work done for the masses must start from their needs and not from the desire of any individual, however well-intentioned. It often happens that objectively the masses need a certain change, but subjectively they are not yet conscious of the need, not yet willing or determined to make the change. In such cases, we should wait patiently. We should not make the change until, through our work, most of the masses have become conscious of the need and are willing and determined to carry it out. [….] There are two principles here: one is the actual needs of the masses rather than what we fancy they need, and the other is the wishes of the masses, who must make up their own minds instead of our making up their minds for them.

There’s a strange tension here between paternalism (“wait patiently” because the masses don’t yet know what’s good for them) and respect for the immediate needs and concrete circumstances of people. I’m not doing anything particularly political here, but I am partial to mass line politics and the theory behind it, which can also be found in modified form in Paulo Freire’s theories of pedagogy. (It’s also interesting to note how many people hostile to Marxist theory accept — often without reading him — Freire’s credentials. It’s effectively an extension of Marxian theories into pedagogical terrain.) At any rate, the point, my point, is to translate this into a basis for understanding, academically, the objective direction in which Mozambique needs to go.

The problem with mass line politics, theoretically and practically, is that there are many different kinds of masses. Masses (indeed, revolutionary masses) are not only proletarian — workers — as some strands of Marxian parties and groups would insist, but extend far beyond. The peasantry (in India, Nepal, Philippines, for example), the lumpenproletariat — unemployed, homeless, and even criminal elements (as Fanon insisted and as the Black Panther Party showed), and even particular sections of the petty bourgeoisie — the middle-classes (students, for instance, and intellectuals as Amilcar Cabral indicated through his conception of “class suicide”), all fall under masses. The question is, what on earth do you do with all of that.

I suspect the answer has something to do with some kind of universal standard. For me, that has to do with food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, education, etc. I’m not convinced that giving everyone a basic income (whether by government or assuming that the market is going to do it) is a particularly useful approach here. In political terms, the mass line has to do with demonstrating how the immediate needs of particular groups are linked to the systemic operations of the capitalist system. This might seem very abstract, but it’s actually very plain to see sometimes. The gutting of social services (like parks and recreation) led to the introduction of user fees, which impacted negatively upon working-class people. The reason for this gutting was because taxes for rich corporations were cut. The tax cuts did not lead to reinvestment in communities, but led, rather, to profit-maximization. Profit-maximization is the essential element of a capitalist system. Yeah, it’s that direct.

But it’s not that easy in a country like Mozambique. Mozambique’s integration into the capitalist sphere has been uneven and tremendously problematic. Capitalist industry is not particularly advanced or widely prevalent inside the country, and the vast majority of the population relies upon agricultural production. Nevertheless, it is tied up directly into the processes and flows of international capital. Thus, we see thousands of Mozambicans serve as migrant labour in neighbouring countries (most notably South Africa). The theoretical danger here is in focusing exclusively on international flows of capital, and therefore focusing on (international) exchange, rather than examining the modes of production that operate within Mozambique. Then again, there is a dialectic between production and exchange, and separating them is not easy, either. What mode of production is predominant in Mozambican society? (We know that capitalist production predominates upon Mozambican society, as it does upon virtually every other society.) What kind of class relationships proceed from this (these?) organization(s) of social production?

These questions may be beyond the scope of my paper, but I don’t think they are, in that they have a lot to do with “meaningful development.” And what I’m going to try to do is go from the immediate needs of many of the people of Mozambique, and examine how they interact with the objective or broader situations of production and exchange in Mozambique. Maybe? Something like that? Maybe it’s too ambitious? Perhaps all I should do is rail against neoliberalism and structural adjustment programmes. Stuff like that.

I don’t think I’ve exhausted the discussion on development, but I want to move on. My idea was to end with Mao’s quotations and move into an examination of the origins of FRELIMO, the movement which fought Portuguese colonialism and then became the government after independence. The segue would be good, because FRELIMO organized — at least initially — on principles of mass line and involvement with the masses, eschewing base commandism. There are also lessons in FRELIMO’s development as a Marxist-Leninist organization that break significantly with the experiences of anti-imperialist nationalist communist parties in other parts of the world (like China, Iraq and Iran). I’ll discuss this more in the next post. So far I have been moving in broad strokes, bringing in certain aspects of Mozambique which may not seem to make much sense because I haven’t provided a proper historical grounding. I’ll try to do that more in the next post.

(This post is so unabashedly Marxist….)