Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 09:14:48 -0600
Subject: [pablo-AT-carrenet.com] Re: the state (fwd)]



- ---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 24 Sep 96 04:08:52 -0300
From: Pablo Gilabert <pablo-AT-carrenet.com>
To: marxism2-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
Subject: Re: the state (fwd)


 Adam wrote:


 AR> Pablo,

 AR> I AM having difficulty understanding your arguments.


I'll try to be clearer.


 AR> Whether this is because of your English, which is far
 AR> superior to my Spanish, or because of what you are saying,
 AR> I am not sure. I have difficulty getting a cup of coffee
 AR> in Spanish; I would never attempt to discuss Marxism and
 AR> the state, so please don't take this in the wrong way.

What are you trying to say, mister?

 AR> By "atomism" do you individualism ie acting in a selfish
 AR> manner rather than in the interests of society as a whole ?

By 'atomism' I am refering the way in which social relations exist under
capitalism: as indirect, nonpersonal and instrumental relations (again, look
at "Fetishism" section of chapter one of Capital), where each one sees him or
herself as desconected individual who has against him or her the whole world as
field of battle. This is the view of society that appears in iusnaturalist
tradition of political philosophy (and extends to economics). As Marx points
out, this vision emerges spontaneously from a historical form of society in
which individuals develope themselves more than before but still in an
abstract fashion because of the difficulty for social coordination
produced by disconected organisation of needs and capacities'functions under
capitalist mode of production.

 AR> And what do you mean by "opacity" ?
 AR> I say "opacity" when I manage to remember "opaqueness"
 AR> isn't the correct way of saying "the extent to which I can
 AR> see through it". What do you mean by this in the social
 AR> context ? Something like "accountability" ?

Marx says that communism will be radically different from capitalism in part
because there will be no more social alienation. This implies that will be
possible that eachone will be able to intervene in the planification of the
prouduction and distribution. This will be possible, according to Marx,
because will cease the atomistic organisation and representations of
capitalist world. I think this is dessirable, but highly difficult: complex
societies involve necessarily that none will be able to consider everything
everytime. And this is a serious problem that a radical democratist such a
real Marxist have to face if he wants to present more than archi-known slogans.
I don't have the answer to the question about how to organise a complex
society like a democratic communist one, but at least I want to state the
relevance of the problem itself. Your forgeting that God died make this
extremely difficult.


 AR> In general, you do seem to disagree with aspects of the basic
 AR> Marxian arguments on the state. And perhaps underlying this,
 AR> it seems to me you do not agree with the Marxist explanation
 AR> of the cause of things like rape or petty criminality. And
 AR> WHY do you see the continuation of relative scarcity as
 AR> inevitable ? Ecological reasons, like Justin, or something
 AR> more fundamental ?

I'm not denying class causes of criminality. But I'm not sure that
capitalism is the cause of all the bad things we see in the capitalist world
we live in.
Of course I desagree with 'basic aspects'of Marxian argument on the State. I
think Marx points out the problem of the relation between politics
and social conflictive life (refutating fetishist views of politics and
morality). But I also think that Marx didn't clarify the mechanisms through
which that relation goes actually. We should not forget that, in fact, Marx
never presented a tout-court theory of State (he wanted to do so, according
his plans, but he couldn't): we only have insights, that consist of a rather
inconsistent (although  enormously powerful and rich) conjunct of
functionalist, epiphenomenalist, instrumentalist, institutionalist, etc,
appreaches. Bob Jessop made excelent analysis about this matter in Marx.



 AR> Finally, you charge that my Marxian understanding of the state
 AR> is somehow akin to Stalinism is actually the complete opposite
 AR> of the truth : the Stalinist regimes do not satisify any single
 AR> one of the Marxian criteria of a workers state. This Marxian
 AR> understanding of the state is precisely the bedrock of my
 AR> tendency's critique of Stalinism as State Capitalism. One of
 AR> the greatest distortions of Stalinism was the obscuring of the
 AR> revolutionary, Marxian, tradition re: state and revolution.

I'm not saying that your arguments are the same as Stalin's & co. What I am
saying is that they have in common a teological view of history. The
apparently available end of Paradise tend to justificate the worst hellish
means. At this point, would be good to re-read Adorno's Negative Dialectics.



Pablo Gilabert,
Buenos Aires, Argentina.




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