Can Reform ever be Radical?
The short answer is no, but there is also a need to acknowledge the deep complexities of bringing about structural change.
Within spheres of contemporary radical political thought, it is largely recognised that the systems of oppression and inequality faced by marginalised groups are of a structural nature. That is, the power dynamics that produce instances of violence against certain members of society on account of their race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, age and disability –amongst other factors — are not symptomatic of a failure within and in spite of the colonial capitalist system; rather, they are the manifestation of its underlying principles. The Western societies that we live in (and arguably the rest of the world also, to varying degrees and within specific socio-historic contexts) were built to serve the interests of a narrow portion of the population, and are predicated on the exploitation, to different degrees depending on the given social group, of those who do not fit within this dominant model.
What this means is that the hierarchisation of lives and the differentiated accumulation of privilege permeate, and are inherent to, every sphere of society, from our political and economic institutions to media representation, via the justice system and individual psyche. Having established this as a postulate, the logical continuity to this reasoning is that structural oppression of this sort calls for structural change. A mere reform of the system and its institutions comes across as insufficient, since the mechanisms of oppression are built into its very foundations. Only a complete dismantling of the system can put an end to the structural inequalities that are produced by it.
Considering the immense complexity and interconnectedness of the societies that we are a part of, how do we bring about this needed structural change and what place does reform have within the long-term struggle for systemic transformation? Are reformist measures, which aim to modify and redress certain issues within an institutional context without actually overthrowing the latter entirely, and radical acts of revolutionary change mutually exclusive? Can reforms, if they are implemented with the knowledge that they are participating in the system, but with the clear intention of advancing urgent political rights for marginalised groups, not contribute to a revolutionary agenda in the long run, with revolution being understood here as the overthrowing of the current system of oppression? Can reforms create the conditions for radical transformation, or do they merely strengthen the status quo beneath a façade of positive change and greater inclusion?
These questions are divisive amongst radical political thinkers and activists, and carry a host of implications with regards to whether we judge political actions by their intent or their impact, and how to disentangle the means from the ends when it comes to political mobilisation and change. The problem that I’ll attempt to address encapsulates most of these concerns: having acknowledged and established the need for structural change in order to dismantle systems of oppression, can reform contribute to this cause or is it inevitably counter-productive?
Drawing on historical thinkers to establish the contours of the problem
Although addressing this issue without grounding it in the political reality of specific social and historical contexts would render any response to it futile, it is useful to approach it by first exploring the work of key thinkers who attempted a response drawn from their own lived reality.
One of the radical thinkers who exposed the complexity of the question surrounding reform was Rosa Luxemburg, a Polish revolutionary socialist and Marxist from the beginning of the Twentieth Century. In the introduction to her work Reform or Revolution (1899), Luxemburg acknowledges the validity of reform, stating that “between social reforms and revolution there exists for the Social Democracy an indissoluble tie. The struggle for reforms is its means; the social revolution, its aim.” This passage implies that reform and revolution are two different instances of a unique political process. Yet, in her critique of reformist thinker Eduard Bernstein, which she fleshes out in the subsequent chapters, Luxemburg brings nuance to, and eventually disavows, this initial claim. She does so by conceptualising different political moments marked by the domination of one ideology over another, and explaining that reforms –which she primarily understands as legislative measures– are only desirable and effective insofar that they can improve a political system that is already in place, but not actually bring about a new one. This observation means that any reforms attempted within the capitalist system will not contribute to its dismantling but to its perpetuation. In this sense, there is a context in which reform is a valid political tool, and another in which it becomes a hypocritical means of claiming to want change whilst actually serving the current system and attempting to fit radical agendas within it by washing them down and stripping them of their value. The following passage from chapter eight captures the subtlety of this argument:
People who pronounce themselves in favour of the method of legislative reform in place and in contradistinction to the conquest of political power and social revolution, do not really choose a more tranquil, calmer and slower road to the same goal, but a different goal. Instead of taking a stand for the establishment of a new society they take a stand for surface modifications of the old society. If we follow the political conceptions of revisionism, we arrive at the same conclusion that is reached when we follow the economic theories of revisionism. Our program becomes not the realisation of socialism, but the reform of capitalism; not the suppression of the wage labour system but the diminution of exploitation, that is, the suppression of the abuses of capitalism instead of suppression of capitalism itself.
It therefore appears that reforming a broken system is detrimental to efforts of bringing it to an end. Instead, it contributes to making it a little more bearable for a few more people for a while longer, which helps to justify its existence whilst further entrenching its mechanisms of oppression and injustice. Painted in this light, reform comes across as a political trap that ends up causing more harm than good. Luxemburg was writing in the context of important political turmoil in Europe, where socialism seemed almost within reach for those who believed in it. Yet, more than a century later, we are still existing within the same capitalist system that Luxemburg and others were denouncing; the social, environmental, economic damages of which have only become clearer with time. Should reform therefore continue to be refused as a political tool in our contemporary setting? If we were to follow Luxemburg’s logic, it should. However, other radical thinkers differ, and propose compelling arguments in favour of reform, even when acknowledging the structural nature of the inequalities produced by capitalism and the western political systems that abide to it. One such example is W. E. B. Du Bois and the case he makes in the chapter “Of the Ruling of Men” from his work Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil (1920).
Through a thorough analysis of the industrialisation occurring in the United States at the time of his writing and the racist dynamics that the former is predicated on, Du Bois argues for the urgent necessity of extending the right to vote to those to whom is was still being denied: white women and all Black people. From the outset, it is evident that Du Bois’ demand for universal suffrage is not a denial of the white supremacist nature of the political system in which he seeks to participate. His analysis of the Reconstruction period in the US makes this abundantly clear: “Reconstruction became in history a great movement for the self-assertion of the white race against the impudent ambition of degraded blacks, instead of, in truth, the rise of a mass of black and white laborers.” Yet, political representation carries the promise of significant improvements for oppressed people, and it is therefore necessary to fight for, even within a structurally unjust system. Du Bois’ belief in the virtues of democracy is grounded in the fact that it is the only existent political system in which people can voice and defend their own needs, as opposed to having them dictated for by dominant society members. He also anticipates the pitfalls of participating in a democracy in a white supremacist society by deconstructing the myth of the “divine right of majorities”, which would supposedly allow the latter to disregard the rights of the minority simply because they are a minority.
Du Bois’ account presents an instance in which reform seemingly contributes to the process of dismantling the oppressive system. Indeed, the solution he offers fits within the category of reform because it demands the inclusion of previously excluded people into the existent system. This demand, however, is cognisant of the fact that racial inequality is built into the foundations of the system, which will therefore eventually have to be replaced with another. Universal suffrage, Du Bois argues, can help bring this about, as it fragilises the oppressors’ position and makes violence against the oppressed harder to justify and thus harder to carry out.
These two authors’ diverging views and the distinct socio-historical contexts in which they were writing point to the complexity of determining the validity –or lack thereof– of reform within the fight for radical change. Applied to the Twenty First Century, the question remains just as thorny and difficult to answer.
Apprehending reform in the context of 21st Century North America
The question of whether reformist measures and actions can contribute to revolutionary transformation calls for a relative answer, rather than an absolute one. Within the context of specific political struggles, however, I venture to argue that a response can and perhaps should be determined, as it is foundational in establishing the direction and area of application of political mobilisation.
In the face of excessive state-sanctioned violence and growing inequalities, it is tempting to fight against a supposed form of “revolutionary purity” and declare that any form of progress, even reformist, is worth taking. A concrete application of this argument would be in encouraging to vote for a certain candidate despite disagreeing with their politics because their victory would prevent a more dangerous candidate from accessing power. The importance of voting and the very real impact that elected officials have on the population should not be underestimated and should be treated with the gravity that it deserves. However, when it comes to addressing the underlying systemic causes for inequality, the victory of one candidate over the other makes little difference; they are both actively engaging in, and therefore trust in the fundamental worth of the system that they are a part of. This, by definition, is contrary to wanting to establish a new political and societal model. What about, however, people who fundamentally believe in the structural nature of the problem, and decide, much like Du Bois encouraged, to actively engage in established politics nonetheless to slowly bring about change from within existing structures to better prepare them for later, more radical transformation?
I will draw on the work of Glen Coulthard, a Yellowknives Dene scholar, as well as the current political mobilisation calling for the abolition of the police, in order to defend the viewpoint that both theoretically and practically, reformist measures hinder rather than facilitate radical systemic change, regardless of intentionality. In his text Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition, Coulthard argues that politics of recognition in the context of Canadian relations with colonised Indigenous nations are a deeply pernicious tool used to further legitimise the settler colonial state under a guise of reconciliation. Citing Kanien’kehá:ka professor and activist Taiaiake Alfred, Coulthard states that “colonial recognition politics serves the imperatives of capitalist accumulation by appearing to address its colonial history through symbolic acts of redress while in actuality ‘further entrenching in law and practice the real bases of its control.’” This is revelatory of the consequences of reformist measures that claim to be addressing deep-rooted instances of violence and inequality whilst in fact providing a façade of accountability that allows for the Canadian state to avoid engaging in real and concrete acts of decolonisation. Reform, in this case, is counter-productive, as it actually distracts attention from implementing policies that would lead to structural change.
It is important to note here that revolutionary actions can also call for change from within the system, just as reformist ones would. What marks the difference between reformist and revolutionary measures is not that the former work from within the system and that the latter attempt to dismantle it by creating alternative structures outside of the existing ones. Rather, the difference can be found in the impact of the actions carried out, as opposed to their intent. In his article “Being-in-the-Room Privilege: Elite Capture and Epistemic Deference”, philosophy professor Olúfémi O. Táíwó offers an argument that succinctly illustrates the distinction between reform and revolution.
How would a constructive approach to putting standpoint epistemology into practice differ from a deferential approach? […] It would be concerned primarily with building institutions and cultivating practices of information-gathering rather than helping. It would focus on accountability rather than conformity. It would calibrate itself directly to the task of redistributing social resources and power rather than to intermediary goals cashed out in terms of pedestals or symbolism. It would focus on building and rebuilding rooms, not regulating traffic within and between them — it would be a world-making project: aimed at building and rebuilding actual structures of social connection and movement, rather than mere critique of the ones we already have.
This passage sheds light on the fact that revolutionary acts can also be small, slow and incremental. As Luxemburg pointed out, it is not a question of differentiated rhythms, but the extent to which an action truly attacks the foundations of our political and societal models, that distinguishes reform from revolution.
Current calls to defund the police, in the wake of centuries of state-organised violence against racialized communities that result in the death of an inconceivable number of Black and Brown individuals both in the United States and Canada, also serve to demonstrate why reform is essentially incompatible with systemic change. The movement to abolish the police, as part of the larger political mobilisation to dismantle the prison industrial complex, has existed for decades and been spearheaded by a number of radical Black activists. In recent years, however, with the expansion of the Black Lives Matter movement, calls for abolishing police forces have multiplied and been exported to many different countries across the world. This demand is grounded in the observation that the police system is not broken; it is fulfilling the role it was initially created for in the context of slavery and colonisation, which is to protect white people and private property, and to control and terrorise Black individuals and communities. As human rights lawyer Derecka Purnell points out in the article “How I Became a Police Abolitionist,” “reforms cannot fix a policing system that is not broken.” Police reforms have occurred. Measures have been implemented. Officers are made to wear body cameras. Certain modes of physical control and arrest have been banned. Yet Black deaths at the hands of white policemen and women are not decreasing, let alone ceasing. In contrast to police reformists, who believe in the continued existence of the police, police abolitionists aim to dismantle the police altogether by creating the conditions in which its very existence becomes obsolete. In practice, this would mean investing in communities and developing other forms of intervention for conflict-resolution and accountability.
The abolition of the police is by no means an overnight process. A multitude of infinitely complex components contribute to the overall end goal. Defunding the police and allocating its budget to education, housing and health care in poorer communities (which are also the ones with the greatest police presence) is one step in the long process of police abolition. Although it is an action that engages with and addresses existent policies from within the system, it is a radical response whose objective is eventually a form of structural change. In this sense, it is at complete odds with calls for police reforms.
After attempting to demonstrate through various theoretical argumentations and applied examples that reform is overall counter-productive to structural change, I believe I should conclude by adding some nuance to this statement. If there are indeed instances where reform is harmful because it is performative and obstructs the access to systemic transformation, I do not intend to declare it irredeemable under every circumstance. There are certainly some political situations that necessitate reforms and in which the latter are able to advance the rights of oppressed and marginalised groups. When it comes to testing the logical and procedural value of reform in explicitly racist and colonial contexts, however, it fails to emerge as an adequate solution. What this non-committal conclusion points to is the complexity of both the reality of structural oppression and the nature and of structural change that can serve as the best response.
Works Cited
Luxemburg, Rosa. “Introduction,” in Social Reform or Revolution. https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1900/reform-revolution/intro.htm
Du Bois, W. E. B. “On the Ruling of Men.” In Darkwater : Voices from Within the Veil. Dover Books on Literature and Drama. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 1999.
Coulthard, Glen Sean. Red Skin, White Masks : Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition. Indigenous Americas. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014, 155.
Táíwò, Olúfémi O. “Being-in-the-Room Privilege: Elite Capture and Epistemic Deference.” The Philosopher, 108, no. 4. https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/essay-taiwo
Purnell, Derecka. “How I Became a Police Abolitionist.” The Atlantic, July 6, 2020. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/how-i-became-police-abolitionist/613540/#1
