Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 22:58:31 -0700 (MST)
Subject: Re: Marxism: meat and potatoes questions




Dear List Members:

Well, I am a little puzzled as to why many members think fundamental
questions are unreasonable, and what they think constitutes a reasonable
answer to such questions.  I suspect that if this were a libertarian
list and I asked fundamental questions about libertarianism, I would be
overwhelmed with substantive (if not particularly convincing) arguments,
not a bibliographic list and a bon voyage to the local library.  

A number of the respondents seem quite defensive and appear to be more 
interested in vituperation than discourse.  I presume that this vice
is peculiar to the individuals involved, and not of Marxists in general.
The good news is that there were some substantive remarks in the latest
round of replies.  I will now turn to these.

I posed the following questions, definitions, and analyses, which
Rahul Mahajan (rahul-AT-peaches.ph.utexas.edu) replied to as follows:

>
>>By democratic socialism, I mean genuine socialism which strategically
>>works through political organizing and the election of socialists to
>>positions of political power to achieve its goals, although nonstandard
>>tools of civil disobedience, strikes, occupations, etc. might be used
>>tactically, just as they are in non-socialist political/social 
>>movements.  This can be contrasted with revolutionary socialism which
>>views the political system as incorrigible and which expects socialism
>>to be implemented by some catastrophic means.  How do modern Marxists
>>view Marxism with respect to these alternatives?
>
>You seem to have succumbed to social-democratic propaganda. You simply
>cannot build anything that any human being would consider to be 
>socialism while keeping the political structure and the economic system
>intact.

Perhaps you can build it *while* changing the political structure and
economic system?  That's perfectly consistent with democratic socialism
as I defined it above.  

But perhaps you would elucidate?  Dealing for the moment with the U.S.
case, the obvious question seems to be: if you can't even organize
a political party whose positions people are willing to vote for, how
can you organize a revolution?  And how democratic is it likely to be in
the sense of being the kind of change that a majority of the public 
wants?  How practical and sturdy will it end up being, and if it's not
held together by the glue of popular consensus, the only other way it can
be held together is by repression and force, in the form of hierarchical,
authoritarian military and police bodies.  Or are you naive enough to 
imagine that the armies and police forces of a socialist 
post-revolutionary state, unlike any other armies and police forces in 
the history of mankind, will be based upon egalitarianism rather than 
the orders given by an administrative structure of bosses, and will use
flower power (or perhaps love potion #9) to gain the submission of 
otherwise unwilling parties?

Also, can't you see what a plausible excuse -- not to mention precident
-- you are affording reactionary authoritarian forces?  If you ask me,
any kind of revolutionary power struggle in this country is going to
end up with a right-wing dictatorship, not a "dictatorship of the
people" (whatever the hell that means).  The right is out there with
money, with organization, with weapons, and with the expertise in and
will toward violence, whereas so-called revolutionary leftists are
more typically honing their bon mots on isolated little Internet mail
lists, attacking each other for real or imagined sectarian differences
and anyone else who dares to make them think.

In some cases, it may be preferable to exchange one military
dictatorship or authoritarian police state for another.  Where
the new regime sincerely attempts to improve the lives of the 
oppressed and impoverished and is not more repressive itself than
what it has replaced, the trade might be a bargain.  I don't see
that applying to the contemporary United States or places like
it.

>The question of whether the revolution will be or will need to be 
>violent or non-violent is a tactical one, though generally one that 
>cannot be planned in advance. To the best of my understanding, the whole
>idea of an armed insurrection, or any movement that involves more than
>incidental violence, here in the US is absurd.

Well, the latter statement is perfectly clear.  The question then
remains, if you insist on a true revolutionary movement in the U.S.,
what means would such a movement (under Marxism as you see it) employ?
Why are such means necessary (or even practical), and why should I 
support them, even philosophically, if they do not enjoy democratic 
support?  If they do enjoy democratic support, why are they necessary?
I insist that I'm open minded on this issue.  Try to explain the 
necessity, as you see it, of the course you recommend. 

>
>>How would the dictatorship of any class be more democratic, whether
>>this class consists of plutocrats or workers?  And please define this
>>term, "dictatorship of the working class."  Who are the working class?
>>Everyone except current owners of business assets?  Business assets
>>above a certain amount?  Factory workers only?  Factory workers
>>plus the lumpen proletariat?  What percentage of the population,
>>roughly, do you envision this "working class" to consist of?  And
>>what do you mean by "dictatorship" in this context?
>
>Because the working class is the immense majority. Not a tough one. 
>The term "dictatorship" implies that the dictating group, in this case
>the proletariat, has absolute power, not that decisions within that 
>group will be made in an undemocratic way. I have rather a severe 
>quibble with this myself, although something approaching dictatorship
>of the proletariat will be needed in the initial period, when the 
>displaced capitalists will most definitely wage war on the new society...

If the working class is the immense majority, why does it need to
rule by dictatorship?  An immense majority can impose its will through 
parliamentary, plebiscitary, or other means.  Or are you simply
indulging in abuse of language by referring to popular democratic
rule as a "dictatorship"?

Assuming that capitalists (who, logically enough, must be a tiny 
minority) actually do wage war, or rather, violent revolution,
why should this require a *dictatorship* of the working class?  Why
should we impose this dictatorship in the absence of an actual civil
war (in which the capitalists are outnumbered by the "immense majority"
in charge of the nation's institutions)?  Martial law is easily enough
abused during times of actual national threat (as the internment of
Japanese Americans during WW II shows), much less as a means of
enforcing unpopular political decisions during peacetime -- and 
that's the only reason martial law is ever imposed in the absence of 
an immediate, mortal threat to national security.  I am continually
astonished by the complete ignorance of history and of human nature
demonstrated by those who pooh-pooh civil-liberties as bourgeois vices.

And the term "working class" still hasn't been defined.  This is not a
trivial question.  Even Lenin, as I understand it, defined the 
proletariat in terms of factory workers and excluded all others,
including farmers, peasants, and non-capitalist clerical, 
professional, and other workers.  Given the developments since 
Lenin's time, properly defining the "working class" is even more 
important if Marxism (or any other socialist movement) is to be an
agent of popular democracy.  Otherwise, your "immense majority" shrivels
into a minority.

>
>>The problem with well meaning dictatorships, or their formal organs
>>of political control, is that by their very nature the most ruthless,
>>most selfish, and least idealistic people are the ones most likely to
>>rise to power through them.  We see this to a certain degree in the
>>security services even of relatively democratic countries (e.g., United
>>States), where the significant abuses of power by the FBI and police
>>intelligence squads are well known.  These organizations are at
>>least hampered by the need to reconcile their image with the
>>democratic ideals they are supposed to serve and with the (sometimes
>>nominal) public accountability they are subject to.
>
>First of all, the scum rises to the top in any political system...
>
>The abuses of power by the security services have nothing to do with
>aberrations by a few ruthless, selfish realists within them, but with
>the policy of the state.  The government of the United States is run by
>a bunch of ruthless, selfish people on behalf of a group of even more 
>ruthless, selfish people, the capitalists. The fact that there must be
>the occasional nod to public accountability should not lead one to 
>confuse the structural and the incidental.

I said nothing about "aberrations."  I said that one can expect abuses
of power in proportion to the institutional latitude afforded to this
scum.  The more power you vest, formally or actually, in such organs,
the more likely power-hungry, ruthless scum are to be attracted to it,
and the more likely it will be that they will express their natures 
through it, and eventually come to control it.  To see this, one need
only contrast the average behavior of the security services of the United
States, as bad as this has often been, with the average behavior of 
comparable services in more authoritarian states (regardless of political
orientation).

The fact that insufficient genuine public control and accountability
of the police and security organs of the United States results in 
such abuses is good evidence that increasing such control and 
accountability, through hard political work and defended with
continued vigilance, is the best that can be done under any political
system.  History shows that, however flawed such solutions are, they
are frequently effective as long as they are vigorously applied.  The
notion that abuse of police power can be decreased by granting police
agencies even more far reaching powers -- provided we somehow insure 
that they are run by shining, happy people with the correct political
ideology -- is naive in the extreme.  

One must begin with an institutional design which encourages respect of
constitutional rights, conducts tough background and psychological
screening of applicants, and holds its officers liable to criminal
charges in civilian court.  Then, if this is to be more effective
than sham, one should have the mechanism for some genuine degree of 
public control and accountability, (e.g., a democratically elected public
board of supervisors with strong legal rights to force officers and
police administrators to testify under oath before it (with the power
to levy criminal sanctions for contempt), the power to start formal
investigations (including grand jury investigations where necessary),
the power to examine internal records at will, etc.).  Finally, 
you need a populace which is angry and/or concerned enough to
pay attention and to demand vigorous action or enforcement.  There
is no absolute fix and no easy solution -- Marxist or any other ideology
notwithstanding.

>
>>I am not subject to naive delusions about the actual working of 
>>political systems, and it's clear that in the United States the
>>political system (and the interlocking socio-economic structures)
>>are corrupted by money and by the oligarchy which controls most of the
>>money and the money-generating institutions.
>
>Again, this is not true. There are a few cases where the political 
>system is corrupted by money, but they're really not worth talking 
>about. The political system is designed to be run by the oligarchy.

And how does this oligarchy control this political system if not
through the control of capital and the distribution of income?  Magical
powers?  I never imagined to meet a socialist (of any variety) who 
thought that control of wealth and wealth generating institutions was
not the fountainhead of capitalist political power.  Perhaps you
thought I was talking about outright, explicit bribes.  I agree that
this isn't the problem in the United States that it is in Mexico or other
places where the corruption of politics by money is considerably cruder 
than it is here.

>
>>But, while I can sympathize with revolutionary movements in more 
>>oppressed countries, I will take some convincing before I conclude
>>that revolutionary socialism is either practical or desirable in the
>>contemporary United States.  Well?
>
>This is one reason in itself. Imperialism, which leads to the existence
>of "more oppressed countries" and the rise of revolutionary sentiments
>therein, is a necessary part of statist capitalism, once it has passed a
>certain level. Capitalism must constantly expand to survive, remaining 
>in a state of constantly shifting disequilibrium.

I asked for a justification of revolutionary socialism in the United
States, not why any domestic socialist movement must or should work to
assist undeveloped and underdeveloped countries or to radically redefine
the rules of international trade and financial assistance.


Hugh Rodwell (m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se) wrote:

>I was surprised by the serious, tolerant answers Mark received, and 
>pleased at the chord his challenge seemed to strike in Rahul.

I will assume that this was sarcasm.  Otherwise, I must ask why you
were surprised, unless of course you have come to expect frivolous, 
intolerant answers here.

>And there ain't no such animal as 'the Marxian project'.
>
>*Marx* had a project -- helping society move from the historically spent
>capitalist mode of production to the collectively owned and 
>cooperatively managed socialist mode of production, the preconditions 
>for which had been put in place by the development of capitalism. The
>main instrument of this transformation he saw in an international, 
>proletarian, revolutionary socialist party.
>
>But Marxists vary from complete support for this line to complete
>opposition to it, depending on their degree of orthodoxy.

Well, can you help me to understand, then, exactly what "Marxists"
all *do* have in common, and what separates them as Marxists from 
other socialists?

>As others have said, Mark will have to decide for himself. From the
>determined nature of his many questions, and the rhetorical flourishes
>he's already shown in his response to one or two replies, I rather 
>suspect his mind is already made up and that he won't be with us for
>long. 

Heaven forbid I should express any determination in pursuing what I see
as questions of fundamental importance.  I apologize for demonstrating
any personal opinions whatsoever (whether in the form of "rhetorical 
flourishes" or not) instead of appearing here as a tabula rasa and 
uncritically accepting the comments of all other users. 

My understanding of the term "dialectic," at least as Hegel used the
it, is that it is a process whereby theses are opposed, with some
truths from each eventually recognized and reconciled into a new
thesis transcending both.  This thesis is then opposed by its opposite
and the process repeats, presumably resulting in a cycle by which
a more sophisticated understanding is reached.  I don't know if
"dialectical materialism" is anything like this, but if so I haven't
seen much of it in action.  

As for when I'll go, that will be whenever substantive discussion is
exhausted or whenever I get bored -- whichever comes first.  Then
you can return to the safe, snug, somnambulence of minor sectarian
skirmishes, carping about net censorship, and chit-chat about
side issues only marginally related to Marxism (if at all).  Zzzzzzz.

--
What a curse these social distinctions are.  They ought to be abolished.
I remember saying that to Karl Marx once, and he thought there might be
an idea for a book in it.



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