Date: Mon, 3 Nov 1997 10:30:32 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: Post-Marxism and Paleo-Marxism



Now that James and Leo have sketched out the extremes, maybe I can occupy
the middle. I'm still a Marxist after all that has happened, but probably
a pretty minimalist one. I agree with Leo that "Marxism" is not a natural
kind but a diverse and contradictory tradition compatible with many
positions, some of which I am more antagonistic toward than some
non-Marxist perspectives. I'd take Leo's postMarxist radical democracy
over Stalinism any day. 

I agree with Jim that Marx is more right than not, at least in the
questions he posed and the broad outlines of the key answers he suggested
to them. One basic reason I'm still a Marxist and not an ex-Marxist or
post-Marxist is that I agree with Jim that Marx correctly identified the
working class as the social basis for socialism, the group with the
collective interest and potential power to overturn capitalism and
establish a noncapitalist society based on common ownership of productive
assets. Sometimes I wonder whether this conviction isn't blind faith, but
I don't see an alternative lever for the transformation of society. I
don't believe that what I take to be Leo's alternative would work, that is
a loose coalition of subordinate groups (maybe including the workers, or
some of them), united by a commitment to democratic ideals.

I disagree with Leo that Marxism requires some sort of hybristic, if
that's a word, belief in the power of theory to transform the world or
guide a political movement. I don't think that Marx thought it did,
although whether he did or not is not to the point; if he did, he was
wrong. But I think he didn't. I take my cue in part from his comment that
the working class doesn't need theories handed to it a priori; it develops
them in practical struggles with pose problems to be solved, foes to be
defeated, accomplishment secured (this is a paraphrase). The notion of a
movement guided by a theory in the heads of a party leadership, expressed
most clearly in, e.g., Lukacs' early writings, is an invention of the
Bolsheviks once in power (and not even shared by them in their
insurrectionist period). It is a pernicious idea, refuted in practice. AT
the same time I have a lot of respect for Gramsci's insistence on the
need for leadership by people with intellectual and moral vision, and
agree with Lenin that some sort of disciplined organization is necessary
to produce change.

I think James is wrong to follow Marx on the notion of communism as a sort
of immanent force within capitalism rather than ideal. James and Marx
think that because part of what's wrong with capitalism is that our social
relations operate behind our backs to rule us and that because this
produces resistance that it follows somehow that this resistance will
produce a "transparent" society in which we are in complete control. This
doesn't follow, of course. I think that there are very serious questions
as to whether the sort of transparency Jim and Marx want is possible. 

One set of doubts derives from the concern that replacing markets with
planning is inconsistent with the material prosperity necessary for
socialism. I suspect that Hayek was largely right about the limits of
planning. If that's so, even were a planned society "transparent," it
would not be stable and rich enough to sustain socialism.

Another set of doubts concerns whether a planned society of the sort that
Jim and Marx envision would be as transparent as they think. The
imperatives of planning, if Hayek is right, the impossible demand that the
planners know everything, will prevent this transparency because the plans
will not work to realize our collective will; we will be subject to the
limits of the plan operating behind our backs. Further there are deep
questions, most profoundly formulated by Kenneth Arrow, about the
possibility of formulating a coherent collective will. The Arrow paradoxes
suggest that the constraints on democratic decisionmaking will operate
behind our backs to constrain and limit our behavior.

These sorts of considerations lead to me think that the ideal of
socialism ought to be formulated modestly, as a better alternative rather
than as the riddle of history solved. We can get rid of class rule and
exploitation. We have a society without a ruling class and one in which
impulses to various sorts of oppression (sexism, racism, etc.) are sharply
constrained. That's worth fighting for even if communism is unattainable.
And I think the working class organized is an absolutely essential
component of that struggle. So I'm still a Marxist, or as Marxist as it's
still sensible to be.

--Justin  

Jim said:
> 
> The main idea of paleo-Marxist politics is to see "Communism" not as an
> ideal for the future in the sense of utopian approaches or ideal societies,
> but as a movement developing within the present society.  Das Kapital was a
> sort of theoretical ultra sound for discerning the outlines of a new
> society developing within the existing one.  The long-term projection on
> this basis is for a society in which private ownership of the social means
> of production will eventually disappear.  
> 
> re 4:  The "transparency" involved here is that instead of seeing the
> economy as a seemingly natural process operating independently of the
> activities of individuals, and to which individuals have to adapt
> ourselves, people will increasingly tend to see it as what it in fact is,
> an expression of they way they relate to one another in their productive
> activities.  This is a matter not only of theoretical insight but of
> practical actions embodying such recognition.  But this is a future ideal
> only in the sense of a development already taking place in the present.
> There is a "logic" here in the sense that this present incipient
> transparency, in which people can begin to see how apparently autonomous
> economic processes in fact stem from their interrelated activities, will
> have to develop further (under pain of great suffering if this is not done).  
> 
> Marx argued that the Ten Hours Bill and related legislation, in which
> conditions of work were regulated consciously by society in the interests
> of workers, was the first great step toward "transparency" in 19th century
> capitalist societies.  Worker coops were the second big step involving
> greater "transparency", although still with opacities because of its local
> character.  We might try to add to this list for the 20th century:
> anti-trust legislation, trade union rights, social welfare legislation,
> world agreements regarding production of ozone-depleting chemicals??
>