Chapter 7 Reformism, class consciousness and class action

The term reformism has been in frequent use by leftist critics who have seen reform as the biggest enemy of the revolution. If the capitalist system were proved to be in danger of collapsing under its own weight, then intervention by the “bourgeois” state to reform the system and to make concessions to, say, labour, then the system would continue essentially unchanged. Examples of reformism are, therefore, free elementary and secondary education for all, the welfare state generally, trade union legislation permitting collective bargaining and so on. The main philosophical ideologist of such reformist strategy was originally John Stuart Mill, simultaneously a classical economist and utilitarian and proponent of reformist tendencies and government intervention. The term reformism is also applied to the political process whereby socialism might be implemented through parliamentary means. The working-class interest could be introduced into a parliamentary system via the electoral process and lead to reform progressively that would result in steps or increments to a socialist society. This was very much the view of Sidney and Beatrice Webb and their Fabian followers in the Britain. One of the main opponents of reform or social reform, as she put it, was Rosa Luxemburg who saw such a process as leading to the death knell of the German socialism and, by extension, of socialism everywhere (Howard, 1971, p. 52).