Date: 	Sat, 20 Sep 1997 19:37:50 -0800
From: bhandari-AT-phoenix.princeton.edu (Rakesh Bhandari)
Subject: Re: M-I: Marxism  vs. Maoism & nationalist "socialism"


I submit here for discussion some analysis by critical realist theorist
Andrew Collier:

"Viewed in the perspective of the strugles for liberation of all exploited
classes and other oppressed groups throughout history, scientific socialism
can be seen as characteristed by a doctrine of *proletarian
exceptionalism*, i.e. that whereas all other oppressed groups have only
been able to achieve partial liberation, and that under the leadership of
historically progressive exploiting classes (as e.g. the labouring poor in
the English Puritan revolution, the peasantry in the French Revolution) the
proletariat can project, and under favourable conditions carry out, its own
complete liberation, and therewith that of other oppressed groups. This is
because the proletariat is unique in being at once: (i) free from personal
dependence, (ii) exploited as a class, (iii) a class of producers,
(iv)engaged in a cooperative work process, and (v)present at a
technological level that could make substantial free time available to all.

"This is not to overlook the great achievements of non-proletarian
revolutions in China, Cuba, Vietnam, and elsewhere. But they all
necessarily lack the institutions of 'bottom-upwards' self-government that
are typical of proletarian organizations, and have consequently bequeathed
to their societies--along with huge economic and cultural
advances--political structures that do not belong to the people, and form
obstacles to the development of international socialism.

"Nor is it to deny that the issues of Third World poverty, the probability
of ecological disaster and the threat of nuclear holocaust are so immense
in human terms as to pale all other political issues into insignificance by
comparison. But it *is* to point out that movements aiming 'directly' at
these issues can never storm the ramparts of capitalism. Scientific
socialism directs us to the narrow pass of class politics as the necessary
condition for conquering the system that inexorably generates these horrors
as long as it lives."
>From Scientific Realism and Socialist Thought, p. 172.

Comment: As is well known, Marx's fundamental contribution included a
doctrine of a "universal social dynamic" of structural changes in society,
valid for all 'antagonistic societies' and a theory of the objective
development tendencies of capitalism.

But the  main result of Marx's theoretical efforts is the clarification of
the historical role of the proletariat as the carriers of the
transformative principle and the creator of socialist society. (See Henryk
Grossmann, Journal of Political Economy, vol 51, 1943)

While in desperate need of elaboration, Collier's analysis here is one of
the few finely reasoned defenses I have seen of Marx's class-struggle
theory.

I am interested in whether Professor Blaut is abandoning this doctrine of
proletarian exceptionalism or arguing that indeed a sufficiently latently
powerful revolutionary working class exists in any and every semi-colonial
country.

Rakesh




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