From: Howard Engelskirchen <howarde-AT-wsulaw.edu>
Subject: RE: BHA: Radical Chains Indeed
Date: Tue, 2 May 2000 21:45:57 -0700 


I told Colin that I too had to bow out, and anyway, Carroll Cox, cutting to
the chase, has pretty much said what there is to say.  Things I have already
said respond to most of Colin's post -- e.g. I think I have made clear that
I do not believe that the market came into existence when capitalism came to
be.  But on reflection, I did think that the last paragraph of his post,
raising a critical political point, needed response.  

I had written that 

> For the autonomy of
> productive units, we substitute their coordination.  This is what is meant
> by abolishing private property.  That is what I mean by taking
> conscious and
> voluntary social control over the production of our commonwealth's common
> wealth.

Colin responds

>Well, each to our own Howard. I have to say, and speaking personally, this
>vision terrifies me. Fortunately, one can argue for a more just socialist
>world in different ways. Don't you worry just a little bit about who is
>going to coordinate the coordinators?

I think we don't sufficiently recognize that the law of value operates
necessarily, as Marx establishes, beyond our control.  This is an inevitable
consequence of the commodity relationship.  As Marx makes clear in the first
section of capital, commodity owners, insofar as they remain commodity
owners, simply cannot coordinate their production.  They lack the ability to
talk to one another; they have to let their commodities speak for them.  So
where the law of value operates we are subject to the oppression of laws
imposed on us from without.  It is legitimate to call this the dictatorship
of the market since these forces operate whatever we think or intend.  As
Marx says, the law of gravity asserts itself when the house falls around our
ears.  

Against this it is the aspiration of socialism to substitute the conscious,
voluntary, and coordinated arrangements of associated workers.  Direct
producers.  No one should minimize the difficulty of this task.  We think we
know far more than we actually do about democracy really.  Maurice Bishop,
the Grenadean revolutionary, once challenged the notion that the idea of
walking into a voting booth once every four years constituted a great deal
in the sum total of what we might expect of democracy.  As important as this
acquisition has been historically, he said the more fundamental skills of
democracy were to be found in the democratic organization of womens groups
and workers groups, student groups and farmers groups, etc.  So I take it
for granted we still walk with only baby steps as far as democracy is
concerned.

Nonetheless, it is possible to imagine our democratic coordination as a
better way of arranging our affairs than leaving them subject to the
dictates of the market.  And here is a point of attention: it is possible
also to notice that it is a classic theme of liberal political thought  to
take refuge in the dictatorship of the market for fear of what the full and
free democracy of associated workers might mean.  

This will be my last use of the address above, incidentally.  If you want to
post to me personally please use lhengels-AT-igc.org.

Howard




-----Original Message-----
From: Colin Wight [mailto:Colin.Wight-AT-aber.ac.uk]
Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2000 2:06 AM
To: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Subject: RE: BHA: Radical Chains Indeed


Hi Howard,

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I'll keep this brief cos I've got other
stuff to sort out.


>
> You say markets won't go away because "there will still be systems where
> objects are produced and exchanged."  Later you say "we cannot live in a
> marketless world due to our social being."  I take it in this
> last quote you
> mean the same thing as in the first -- that is, it is in the nature of our
> social being to produce and exchange objects, therefore, we will
> always have
> markets.

In general yes.

>
> Notice that this is exactly like saying that the Stone Age hunter is a
> capitalist because he uses a spear.

No, this is exactly what it does not mean. If the spear he uses was one from
Roman times, he would be a Roman. Spears are not unique to Stone age men
anymore more than markets are unique to capitalist societies. Spears have
changed over time as have markets; the form of market we might have is not
necessarily the one we have now. The market we have now is a capitalist
market, the market we could have under socialism would not be a capitalist
one, but it would still be a market. You say in your reply to Ruth that "For
Marx, where there is a distribution of use values only, without the
operation of the law of value, then production and exchange must be
conscious and coordinated and you do not have markets." Well if Marx says
this I think he is also wrong. This would still constitute a market and what
about consumption? Who would coordinate that? Symbolic exchange who will
coordinate that?

After all capital is the way we refer
> to means of production, the spear is a means of production, and
> it is in the
> nature of our social being to use means of production.  So
> therefore we will
> always have capitalism.

First, I don't agree that the spear is a means of production. The spear is a
tool  which is produced and which is used to acquire. Just because it is in
our nature to use produced things it does not follow that we will always
have capitalism, because little yet is implied about who controls the means
of production and how they produced goods are to be distributed, or the
social relations which underpin such a system.

Socialized capitalism, no doubt, democratized
> capitalism too, but capitalism always, can't get around that
> because we will
> always need to use means of production. I mean we are not just
> going to rip
> things off trees with our hands.

Sorry, Howard, you have lost me here. And if I understand you correct this
is your position. There will always be capitalism because there will always
be a market. The fact we use tools is completely unrelated to capitalism for
me.


> So the first problem with your statements is that they are ahistorical and
> unscientific insofar as they say any time human beings exchange objects
> there is a market.

Yes, any time humans engage in exchange they will be a market.
Pre-reflective (non-scientific) understanding takes this as unproblematic.
Scientific understanding wants to examine particular markets forms and
understand how they are constituted, but note that there has to be
"something" in common such that it is deserving of the name "market".  It is
good that you say "human beings always have and always will exchange objects
among themselves" because this is the market. And now we have an object that
we can "try to specify the form of a thing as it is transformed through
history, and trying to present the distinctions of
social form which occur in words we use". Now, you couldn't do this for the
market because for you I assume, the market came into existence when
capitalism came to be. There was no market in stone age, and presumably
Roman times so we couldn't chart the historical development of various forms
of market. Or has there always been capitalism. If we define the market in
the manner you do then we cannot "specify the form of a thing as it is
transformed through history, and trying to present the distinctions of
social form which occur in words we use", because for you the market is and
always will be the same. So now I am afraid the ahistoricism is on the other
boot.

 But now what you are saying is that we
> can't live in a world without some form of private property.

Well I have already make clear my commitment to the distinction between
private property and control of the means of production. But yes, understood
as objects which we consider our intentions and decisions are paramount,
then yes, we can't live in a world without private property.

  By contrast, if we democratically coordinate
> production
> and distribution with others, we still exchange things, but not through a
> market.

THis will still be a market to me Howard, I think we are by now talking past
each other. But what will you call this "system of exchange"? Much like
Bhaskar says of a spade in any society, not to call it a spade is to
misdescribe it. However, since you accept that in socialism there will still
be a system of exchange, for me there will still be a market, for you the
market will have been abolished and socialism will have been achieved. There
is the same thing we are calling it different names. I think your desire to
abolish the word market in socialism is a political commitment not a
scientific one. As politics however, it worries me. It gives you no market
to critique in this new space, where for me, the market form needs constant
regulation and monitoring. It needs, yes even in socialism, critique. The
"general will" is a nice utopian ideal, but one doesn't have to be a
postmodernist here (in fact it is implicit in CRs commitment to
differentiation) to worry about the flattening out of differences here.

>
> Marx is typically criticized for not realizing that, e.g. greed is part of
> human nature.

No, I am not saying greed, the desire/need to possess is not the same as
greed.

>
> The point is that the transition to socialism is not just about overcoming
> the social relation of capital, but of bringing an end to the operation of
> the law of value, also.

And I take it for you all markets operate according to this law?

For the autonomy of
> productive units, we substitute their coordination.  This is what is meant
> by abolishing private property.  That is what I mean by taking
> conscious and
> voluntary social control over the production of our commonwealth's common
> wealth.

Well, each to our own Howard. I have to say, and speaking personally, this
vision terrifies me. Fortunately, one can argue for a more just socialist
world in different ways. Don't you worry just a little bit about who is
going to coordinate the coordinators?
>



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