Date: Fri, 2 Jan 1998 12:15:39 +0000
From: James Heartfield <James-AT-heartfield.demon.co.uk>
Subject: M-I: Albert Michael


Once again on Albert Michael

>*********************
>
>        1.Marxist dialectics at its best is an overly obscure
>          methodological reminder to think holistically and historically;
>          at its worst it's a philosophically absurd drain on creativity
>          and range of perception.

It wasn't Marx who made the world dialectical, but man, in his
interaction with nature.



>        2.Historical Materialism's main claims are denied by history. Its
>          lesser claims are not entirely wrong, but when "real existing
>          people" utilize the concepts of historical materialism they
>          inexorably arrive at an economistic and mechanical view of
>          society, systematically under-valuing and mis-understanding
>          social relations of gender, political, cultural, and ecological
>          origin and import.

Which claims are denied by history? That the 'free market' would lead
inexorably towards monopoly? That capitalism is not a static-state
economy? That the growth of the working class went hand in hand with the
accumulation of capital? That capital accumulates by the exploitation of
labour?

And how does Engels' Origin of the Family fit the caricature of
indifference to the family? Or Marx's unique contribution to
intrnational solidarity fit the caricature of indifference to national
or race questions?

What Marx would never allow is the Weberian claptrap that *separates*
culture and gender from relations of production; nor that "economics" is
the main determinant in society, since it, like gender, culture and
politics is only a fetishistic expression of the social relations of
production.

>
>        3.Marxist class theory has disguised the importance of the
>          coordinator (professional-managerial or technocratic) class
>          and its antagonisms with the working class and with capital,
>          and has in this way long obstructed class analysis of the
>          Soviet, Eastern European, and Third World non-capitalist
>          economies, and of capitalism itself.
>
Anyone who was foolish enough to impose Marx's critique of Capital onto
non-capitalist societies deserved every misunderstanding he got.

>
>
>        4.The Labor Theory of Value misunderstands the determination
>          of wages, prices, and profits in capitalist economies and
>          turns activists=92 thought away from a needed social-relations
>          view of capitalist exchange. The dynamics of the workplace
>          and market are largely functions of bargaining power and
>          social control, categories essentially ignored by the labor
>          theory of value.
>
>Michael Albert is playing stupid here.  Marxism does not use the
>Labour Theory of Value (this existed well before Marxism).  Marxism
>uses the Socially Necessary Labour Theory of Value and once you
>put in the "social" the determination of wages, prices, and profits
>fall into place.   However in Capital, Marx excluded the effect of
>trade and credit in his analysis.  (But see the Grundrisse).

Indeed.

>
>        5.Marxist crisis theory, in all its variants, distorts
>understanding
>          of capitalist economies and anti-capitalist prospects by
>          seeing intrinsic collapse where no such prospect exists and
>          orienting activists away from the importance of their own
>          organizing as the basis for change, that is far more
>          promising.
>
There is no theory of collapse in Marx, only one of an increasingly
perverse development, through crises, devaluations and the destruction
of the productive forces. More than ably supported in the IMF's campaign
against Korean industry.

>
>        6.Regarding visions of desirable societies, Marxism is
>          particularly obstructive. First there is Marxism's general
>taboo
>          against "utopian" speculation. Second, Marxism presumes
>          that if economic relations are desirable other social relations
>          will fall into place. Third, Marxism is permanently confused
>          about what constitutes an equitable distribution of income --
>          "from each according to ability to each according to need" is
>          not a viable economic guide (it is utopian and curtails needed
>          information transfer) and "from each according to work and to
>          each according to contribution to the social product" is not a
>          morally worthy maxim (it rewards productivity, including
>          genetic endowment, beyond effort and sacrifice). And fourth,
>          Marxism approves hierarchical relations of production and
>          command planning as means of allocation.
A simple democratic point that eludes Michael: If your goal is a society
of freely associated producers, you cannot bind them in advance to a
particular path of development.



>        7.Marxism's injunctions regarding economic goals taken
>          cumulatively amount to advocating what we call a coordinator
>          mode of production that elevates administrators, intellectual
>          workers, planners, etc., to ruling class status. This Marxist
>          economic goal uses the label socialist to appeal to workers,
>          but does not structurally implement socialist ideals (much as
>          the political goal of bourgeois movements uses the label
>          democratic to rally support from diverse sectors, but does not
>          structurally implement democratic ideals).

You do not have to do anything more than to read Marx on the state, in
the Paris Commune to see that this is simply reading back the experience
of the Stalinist state into Marx - an interpretation which any honest
reading would refute. Marx's critique of the state always saw is as a
formation seepcific to class society, and insofar as socialism abilished
class society, the state becomes an historical anachronism.
>
>
>        8.Finally, Leninism is a natural outgrowth of Marxism employed
>          by people in capitalist societies, and Marxism Leninism, far
>          from being the "theory and strategy for the working class," is,
>          instead, by its focus, concepts, values, and goals, the "theory
>          and strategy for the coordinator (professional-managerial,
>          technocratic) class."
>
True, Lenin's thought (though not the Epigones' 'Leninism') is a
coherent development of Marx's. But then Lenin's thought was more
extensive than the theory of democratic centralism, which was specific
to the circumstances of overthrowing the capitalist state. The real
divide comes between Lenin and Stalin, largely as a result of Stalin's
adaptation to imperialism.

Fraternally
James Heartfield


     --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---