From: "Harald Beyer-Arnesen" <haraldba-AT-online.no>
Subject: Re: AUT: What could "proletarian socialism" possibly mean?
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 15:43:13 +0100



-----Original Message-----
From: Greg Schofield <g_schofield-AT-dingoblue.net.au>
Date: Thursday, March 21, 2002 3:27 PM
Subject: Re: AUT: What could "proletarian socialism" possibly mean?



Maybe I rather should get back to your more extensive reply. But this
sidetrack might also help us clarifying further what we do _not_
disagree on.


"In otherwords Marx is saying in this first phase (as poperty of any kind,
including co-operative worker's property, cannot exist in the communist mode
of production) something like worker's control over means of production acts
to change distribution automatically without labour certificates or any such
scheme."

Nice try to save the old man out off this one. Marxh has written much that
has given us increased insight. But far from everything he wrote stands
up to critique. And however much you dislike it, he in the "Critique of the
Gotha program  wrote the exact opposite of what you think he should
have written. Not to important, maybe, but since this is among the texts of
the
man most often referred to, and you have chosen yourself to give it great
importance in relation to your two stage theory, the only concrete thing
Marx actually said about these prophetised first stage of communism
(apart from the so-called dictatorship of the proletariat) refers to a
system
founded on labour certificates and individul renumeration. This is not
changed by there being two threads within Marx line of argument. I am
well aware of this, and have no disagrements with what is argued in the
other thread. But maybe he did not really mean what he actually said.
That is very possible. What he did write is however clear enough.

"What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as
it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just
as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every
respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped
with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it
emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back
from society -- after the deductions have been made -- exactly
what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual
quantum of labor."

"Accordingly ... "  Not to be misunderstood, if you are not also
suggesting that Marx invented a grammar distinct from the one
used by the rest of us.

Further, "one worker is married, another is not;" writes Marx, and
continues: "one has more children than another, and so on and so
forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an
equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more
than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid
all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have
to be unequal.
        "But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist
society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from
capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure
of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.  In a higher
phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the
individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis
between
mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only
a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have
also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all
the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly -- only then then
can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and
society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to
each according to his needs! "

Notice that passage "are inevitable in the first phase of communist
society ..." "Inevitable" is not a word to be misunderstood. Of course
history has proven Marx wrong on this. Even within the framework
of capitalist societies this has not been "inevitable"  In Scandinavia,
for instance, while the the wage you recieve from your place of work
does not increase or devrease with the number of children to
provide for, there is a difference in the taxes paid, and there are also
other economical benefits depended on number of children,
including in Norway for instance, 42 weeksfree with full pay linked to
pregnancy and child-birth, alternatively 52 months free with 80
per cent pay.

I have hard to see why our ambition for a society beyond capitalism,
even in its first  phase, should be less than what has showed itself
possible to achieve within capitalism, if not everywhere. While
I can understand why Marx believed in this inevitabilty in his time, I
have very hard to see why this text  in the beginning of the 21st
century should be a guidance for what is possible. If anything, it
shows the weakness of the two stage theory. It is not particular
radical to claim that every child should be given the same econo-
mical security regardless of how many sisters and
brothers they have, for instance.

What's left is the general banality, however well articulated, that:
"What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it
has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just
as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every
respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped
with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it
emerges."


While I am at it. What do you think of these paragraphs from the
same text?

    "Prohibition of child labour!" It was absolutely essential to give
    an age-limit here.
            The general prohibition of child labour is incompatible with
    the existence of large-scale industry. It is thus only an empty,
    pious wish.
            The implementation -- if possible --would be a reactionary
    step. With strict regulation of workers hours according to age and
    with other precautionary meausures to protect the chilldren [evi-
    dently not just an empty, pious wish?], the early combination of
    productive labour with education is one of  the most poweful
    means for the transformation of present society:"

Somehow it strikes me that Marx could have been a bit more "utopian"
at times,  at least as much as the social democrats who served
reaction by advocating the abolishment of wage-labour for children.

Harald








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