From: "Greg Schofield" <g_schofield-AT-dingoblue.net.au>
Subject: Re: AUT: What could "proletarian socialism" possibly mean?Part 3
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 17:34:04 +0800


Chris this is a somewhat forced reading. Marx is dealing with a separate topic in this, he focusing on the transformation of the state from capitalism, through communism and its own demise. Otherwise why would he use the expression "the transformation of the state"?

Marx said:
The question then arises: What transformation will the state undergo in
communist society? In other words, what social functions will remain
in existence there that are analogous to present state functions?

Greg:
Once the state has been transformed then surely, yes, there would be analogous functions carried on by society in general without the state. That is consistent with all of Marx's writings. But you take this a step further and overlook the transformation altogether and consentrate on its end product alone:

Chris says:
Read his lips.  "What social functions will remain in existence that are
ANALOGOUS TO present state functions?"  ANALOGOUS.  Analogous:  Similar in
function but not in structure and evolutionary origin.  In other words, Marx
is not even talking about the state being analogous, but the social
functions which would have been carried out by the state.  This is very
clearly not about a state within communist society, although contra Harald,
Marx prolly did suspect that larger means of organization would exist for
coordinating certain social functions on a global and regional scale.

Greg:
Of course I agree with you under full communism there can be no state, Marx has not introduced his concept of two phases at this point he merely uses the expression "under communist society" (ie both phases not yet mentioned lumped together - hence it is perfectly logical about talking about the the state being transformed into nothingness - that is taking the whole process from capitalism today through to final communism with proletarian class victory being the defining point).

The problem with you rendition above is that you attempt to have a transforming state and no state at the same time, again getting the cart before the horse, making the end product identical to the means of obtaining it.


Marx said:
Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the
revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding
to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be
nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.

Greg:
The phrase here is corresponding, not proceeding, he echoes the sentiment "Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other." later when he introduces the concept of the first phase, when no reference is made to the corresponding to the political transition.

Chris says:
Clearly, the dictatorship of the proletariat, which Hal Draper has clearly
shown Marx to understand as 'social dominance' not a specifically
'dictatorial' and not specifically a state, is limited to the transition
between capitalist and communist society.  In fact, this is only really a
state in so far as it involves the armed suppression of the capital's
minions and the abolition of the institutions of capitalist society, which
Marx does not put a time line on, but which hardly seems likely to be long
since it is the 'revolutionary' period, and Marx knew enough to know that
revolutions do not go on indefinitely.

Now in effect you have introduced another period into Marx, a short-lived revolutionary dictatorship occuring before the first phase (I may be misreading you here so please correct me). Marx used revolutionary period in many different ways in his writting, one referring to a period of revolutionary potential within capitalism, but the other reserved for class revolution taking place on larger historical scale - how often he referred to the revolutionary role of the bourgeoisie in transforming social conditions long after itr had assumed a leading political role.

Hal is right if we misread the concept of class dictatorship and make this political dictatorship (ie such in the worst years of Soviet history - not that the working class had much to do with except being its victims).

I think another way of expressing Draper's point (not knowing the reference) would be to say hey look we live under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie already the dictatorship of the proletariat will be no worse and probably much better for everyone, it is a technical term not a political attribute.

But you then make a qualification I cannot except, we will use armed forces but it will not be a state, but don't worry it is only for a short period. This I cannot agree with, it is just so many words. Call a spade a spade, it is a state even if it is only a body of soldiers, even if these were drawn sponateously from the working class it would still amount to the same thing.

Let us flatten everything - get rid of the state altogether and then raise of body of proletarian fighters to combat recalcetrant bourgeois types. Do you really think that one day would go past without this body, or society in general recreating state functions and cobbling together a state (no matter how democratic), in fact how could such a body of soldiers function effectively without one?

But where does this short period come from? Why should it be a short period? What was done to eliminate the contradictions of capital-labour in this period? Indeed what could be done, abolish private property, eliminate the ruling class, but how does that change everything overnight, could it really be done quickly?

Seriously, Chris this creates far more problems then it solves. Running society in a mass way, by a new class will take time, and mistakes will be made, and new class forces will be pushing to establish themselves, pushing out proletarian insterests and furthering their own sectional ambitions. This takes time to resolve and the new abilities to produce take time and most of all alienated labour has to disappear in reality not just not in form.

Marx said:
That, in fact, by the word "state" is meant the government machine, or the
state insofar as it forms a special organism separated from society
through division of labor, is shown by the words "the German Workers' party
demands as the economic basis of the state: a single progressive income
tax", etc. Taxes are the economic basis of the government machinery and of
nothing else. In the state of the future, existing in Switzerland, this
demand has been pretty well fulfilled. Income tax presupposes various
sources of income of the various social classes, and hence capitalist
society.

Greg:
There is a lot in this paragraph above. I cannot help but point out that if you link this statement (the inherent capitalist nature of the modern state) with the previous quote about transforming the state (rather then abolish it immediately) then Marx is pretty well supporting my interpreation, that during the period of transition we have to deal with a state resting upon alienated labour and reflecting the divisions inherent in this by its own special structure (quite independant of who might be running it - the tendency of the state is to reflect social existence in its own form - it disappears when classes do, classes disappear when alienated labour does and this disappears with the end of the blind economic relations typified by the capital labour relation likewise dissapate - the process of dissapation in the first phase of communism).

Chris says:
This little quote is useful.  Marx considers the state to be a special
organism separated from society.  Since Marx earlier discussed communism as
involving the abolition of the division of labor (1844 Manuscripts, for
example), but not here, what has changed?

Greg:
Exactly - under full communism and NOT the period of transitioin from capitalism. Marx is making no excemption and niether am I. Somehow however the transition period just keeps dropping off the screen, as if it were not talked about as the persistence of capitalistic relations until their final dissolution. One thing nice about Marx is his consistency since 1844, but he eloborates and the Gotha program critique is a part of this active eloboration. In1844 Marx dealt with the general philosophical concepts of social evolution, it spent the rest of his life filling in the details. It is his conceptual consistency which is staggering, something not served well by relying on quotes.

I know you agree with this, even if not with my rendition and that you to are seeking a complete concept with which to work. The disagreement here is not really about what Marx did or did not say, but about the concept of Historical Materialism. Our specific disagreement is two different conceptualisations of the bit between now and future communism. Lets look at the points where we have absolute agreement.

We both maintain almost identical concept of full communism, we both know the working class plays a central role in this transformation and no other class can, we both understand the social implications  of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and we both seek revolutionary relief from it.

Our disagreements are sandwiched in between. We can battle for ever over quotes, but there is another way.  I pose a simple question based not on our disagreement but on our points of agreement.

Given today's society and given that full communism is classless, stateless and unalienated social production, what is the social contradiction that drives the transformation?

My answer to this is that the contradiction is the persistence of an alienated labour being overcome by the alienated labourers - self activity in self (collective) interest. The contradiction is for the entire period of transition the only tool availabe to these alienated toilers is their own aliented labour. The solution of the dilemma is that this contradictions dissolves itself in practice, but long historical practice where reality is not always correctly percieved and illusions are also produced alond the way.

Now my reading of your solution would be that no real transition takes place, that some or another system is employed and alienated labour can be declared no-existent.

I have rendered your position into an absurdity and you would be rightly displeased, the solution to our disagreement lies in whether you are able render it into a logical form which supplies a motivating historical contradiction which does not use any "systems" at all. In otherwords not a "how to" manual, but rather a theortical understanding - just as a step by step procedure for making a car run is not of the same order of importance as a clear understanding of the logic of internal combustion engine. 

One allows you to drive a car until something unexpected happens, the other may mean learning to drive by a much more experiemental method (probably making many more mistakes) but with the knowledge to deal with unexpected problems such as running out of fuel that might not be covered in the manual (and before anyone points out that this is ridiculous I have made the analogy because I know of a case of a number of tribesmen in New Guinea in the 1970's being taught to drive etc, and bought cars only to abandon them when they ceased to work - no fuel or oil. They were not stupid, they just had a utopian concept of what made the thing move - which worked well enough for a while
 but made them completely helpless when it refused to move any longer).


Chris I will have to read  Paresh Chattopadhyay very carefully (I have not sat down to read the previous reference you gave me) it looks very impressive and tightly thought out to say anything at this time would be a mistake. Please do not be offended by my response in these postings I am not accusing you of anything but just questioning the full logic of the ideas you have put forward - I cannot see why this cannot go further on towards some form of productive resolution unfortunately it covers the widests grounds - but pehaps this is a good thing  ;  )

Greg



--- Message Received ---
From: cwright <cwright-AT-21stcentury.net>
To: aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 12:12:27 -0600
Subject: Re: AUT: What could "proletarian socialism" possibly mean?


> Now in the bit below I am wondering if we need to clear things up. I am
stateing that the first phase of communism is politically Proletarian
socialism, socially the Dictatorship of the proletariat, economically a form
of state capitalism. I don't stick the DoP in as another stage, rather these
are all aspects of the same thing - a period of historical transition.

Ok, here we go again.

Marx said:
The question then arises: What transformation will the state undergo in
communist society? In other words, what social functions will remain
in existence there that are analogous to present state functions?

Chris says:
Read his lips.  "What social functions will remain in existence that are
ANALOGOUS TO present state functions?"  ANALOGOUS.  Analogous:  Similar in
function but not in structure and evolutionary origin.  In other words, Marx
is not even talking about the state being analogous, but the social
functions which would have been carried out by the state.  This is very
clearly not about a state within communist society, although contra Harald,
Marx prolly did suspect that larger means of organization would exist for
coordinating certain social functions on a global and regional scale.

Marx said:
Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the
revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding
to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be
nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.

Chris says:
Clearly, the dictatorship of the proletariat, which Hal Draper has clearly
shown Marx to understand as 'social dominance' not a specifically
'dictatorial' and not specifically a state, is limited to the transition
between capitalist and communist society.  In fact, this is only really a
state in so far as it involves the armed suppression of the capital's
minions and the abolition of the institutions of capitalist society, which
Marx does not put a time line on, but which hardly seems likely to be long
since it is the 'revolutionary' period, and Marx knew enough to know that
revolutions do not go on indefinitely.

Marx said:
That, in fact, by the word "state" is meant the government machine, or the
state insofar as it forms a special organism separated from society
through division of labor, is shown by the words "the German Workers' party
demands as the economic basis of the state: a single progressive income
tax", etc. Taxes are the economic basis of the government machinery and of
nothing else. In the state of the future, existing in Switzerland, this
demand has been pretty well fulfilled. Income tax presupposes various
sources of income of the various social classes, and hence capitalist
society.

Chris says:
This little quote is useful.  Marx considers the state to be a special
organism separated from society.  Since Marx earlier discussed communism as
involving the abolition of the division of labor (1844 Manuscripts, for
example), but not here, what has changed?

>From 'Manifesto of Emancipation' by Paresh Chattopadhyay
The third point about labour in Marx's critique of the "Program" is how Marx
envisages labour in the new society after capital has disappeared from the
scene. At its initial phase the new society cannot yet completely get rid of
the legacy of the mode of labour of the old society - including the division
of labour, particularly the division between physical and mental labour.
Now, in one of his early texts Marx speaks of the "abolition of the division
of labour" as the task of the "communist revolution," even of "abolition of
labour" tout court (1973a: 70, 364). However, in the Gothakritik Marx's
stand does not appear to be quite the same on this question. Referring to "a
higher phase" of the Association which will have completely transgressed
"the narrow bourgeois horizon," Marx does not say that either labour or
division of labour would be "abolished." He stresses that labour in that
society would not simply be a means of life but would itself become life's
"first need." Similarly not all division of labour would be abolished, but
only the division of labour which puts the individuals under its "enslaving
subordination" (knechtende Unterordnung). Let us examine to which extent
there is a "break" ("coupure") between the early Marx and the late Marx in
this regard. In his Parisian excerpt notebooks of 1844 Marx distinguishes
between two types of labour. The first is labour in the absence of private
property in the means of production where "we produce as human beings." Here
labour is a "free manifestation of life and therefore enjoyment of life,"
where the "particularity of my life is affirmed." Here labour is "true,
active property." Contrariwise, the second type of labour, that is labour
exercised under private property, is the "alienation of life." Here "my
individuality is to such an extent alienated that this activity is hated by
me and is a torment. It is only an appearance of activity imposed only by an
external, contingent necessity, and not enjoined by an inner necessary need"
(1932: 546, 547). One year later, in another manuscript, Marx observes that
the labourer's activity is not "a free manifestation of his human life," it
is rather a "bartering away (Verschachern), an alienation of his powers to
capital." Marx calls this activity "labour" and writes that "`labour' by
nature (Wesen) is unfree, inhuman, unsocial activity conditioned by and
creating private property," and then adds that "the abolition of private
property only becomes a reality if it is conceived as the abolition of
`labour'" (1972a: 435-36; emphasis in text).
                        Now, labour as a pure process of material exchange
between human beings and nature is a "simple and abstract" category and as
such does not take account of the social conditions in which it operates.
However, all production, considered as "appropriation of nature from the
side of the individual," takes place "within and is mediated by definite
social forms" (Marx 1958: 241, 280). When labour's social dimension is
brought in, labour takes on a new meaning. The question becomes relevant as
to whether the labour process operates "under the brutal lash of the slave
supervision or the anxious eye of the capitalist" (1962a: 198-99). In fact
these two broad forms of labour epitomize, by and large, at least the
dominant type of labour that has operated in all class-societies.
Traditionally, labour has been a non-free activity of the labouring
individual - either as directly forced labour under "personal dependence" as
in pre-capitalism or as alienated labour under "material dependence" or
"servitude of the object" (Knechtshaft des Gegenstandes) in
commodity-capitalist society (Marx 1953: 75; 1966a: 76). Such labour has
reduced the labourer into a "labouring animal" (Marx 1962b: 256).
Consequently, the division of labour practised so far has been absolutely
involuntary where the "human being's own activity dominates the human being
as an alien, opposite power" (Marx 1973a: 33). It goes without saying that
such labour is totally incompatible with the human being's "free
individuality" under the Association. This labour in the sense of the
"traditional mode of activity" (bisherige Art der Ttigkeit) ceases to exist
in the Association, it is "abolished" (Marx 1973a: 70). Referring to Adam
Smith's idea of labour being "sacrifice of freedom," Marx notes that labour,
as it has appeared "in its historical forms of slavery, serfdom and wage
labour," always appears "repulsive, forced from outside;" labour has not yet
created the "subjective and objective conditions in which labour would be
attractive and self-realising for the individual." However, labour could
also be seen as an "activity of freedom," as self-realizing and indeed as
"real freedom" when labour is exercised toward removing the obstacles for
reaching an end (not imposed from outside) (1953: 505). Thus when Marx
speaks of "abolition" of division of labour and labour itself in his
writings anterior to the Gothakritik, it is precisely with reference to the
different forms of hitherto existing modes of labour which far from being a
self-realizing activity of the individual, unimposed from the exterior, a
free manifestation of human life, has been their negation. This is the
labour which has to be abolished along with the associated division of
labour. Thereby labour, transformed into a "self (affirming) activity"
(Selbsttigkeit), becomes, as the Gothakritik says not only a means of life
but also life's "prime need" in a higher phase of the Association.[i] Again,
it is about this hitherto existing type of labour that Marx observes in the
Gothakritik that the "law of the whole hitherto existing history "has been
that "in proportion as labour is socially developed and thereby becomes a
source of wealth and culture, there develops poverty and demoralization on
the side of the labourers, wealth and culture on the side of the
non-labourers."

[i].          Quite in the spirit of the Gothakritik Marx writes in an
earlier text: "As if the division of labor would not be just as much
possible if the conditions of labor belonged to the associated laborers and
they act in relation to them as these are in nature, their own products and
the material elements of their own activity" (1962b: 271).

Therefore, the idea that the first phase of communism involves 'state
capitalism' in any form is absurd.  Marx rejects this completely.  I think
that Harald also does a good job of finishing off this conception.

The issue of 'two stages' is again not dealt with clearly except by Harald,
who rejects it.  I happen to think that it makes a certain degree of sense
once we get away from the nonsense that the first stage is the dictatorship
of the proletariat, rather than actual communism dealing with a world
suffering from 'the muck of ages'.  Even the destruction of the
capital-labor relation will not have ended all of the problems which might
give rise to distribution along the lines of bourgeois right.  but this can
be gotten into further later, maybe.


Greg Schofield
Perth Australia
g_schofield-AT-dingoblue.net.au
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