Seth_John
a Marxist Catholic
Registered: Dec 2004
Location: Masssachusetts, USA
Posts: 37 |
"Quite simply through the misintepretation of the term "revolution" as it appears throughout The German Ideology. Marx's critique in that text is his most extensive on the materialistic dialetic and the foundational tenets of his social theory of history. What becomes strikingly apparent when read is that when Marx refers to "revolution", he is not referring to a consciously orchestrated act by a politically motivated group. He is merely referring to a social phenomenon which results in a change to the mode the production of a given society by virtue of the dialetic tensions between the means and ownership of that production. What is key to each change he observed in history was consent. Engels, and all those that followed have been wrong not because the end was necessarily somehow unjust, but instead were wrong because they all ignored the essential fact that Marx was a democrat. Ironically it even led Marx himself to label them as "unthinking communists". The misrepresentation did not begin with Lenin, it began with Engels and the rest of the groupies (Lenin included) who simply did not understand their hero"
the dialetic and class tensions still exist even today with all the industrial/technological and means of production changes that have come and gone since the time of Marx's writings, which makes
there exist today dialectical materialists who consider Lenin's writings to be the next step in actualizing Marx's world view through a political party formation, however; one can't be so deterministic when bringing about change in a materialistic world/society such as what Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament sang about social change in "Undone"
"The world has come undone.
Another day and who can wait.
Change don't come at once.
It's a wave building before it breaks.
All this hope and nowhere to go.
This is how I used to feel but no more.
The world has come undone.
Like a game that you can play.
Change don't come from one.
It's a wave building before it breaks"
i enjoyed reading this piece on utopian versus scientific socialism in Workers World newspaper...
Socialism: from utopian to scientific
By Gene Clancy
Just off Interstate 64 in southwestern Indiana, near the Wabash River, is a small town of about 1,000 people called New Harmony. It is located in the "heartland" on the northern edge of the "Bible Belt." It has, for a long time, been considered a cultural center in a largely agricultural region.
New Harmony represents a milestone in the evolution of socialist thought. It retains practical political significance, even today. Nearly 175 years ago, when it was still a frontier town, an attempt was made to build a communist society there.
Many similar ventures were made at the time, both in the United States and in other countries. New Harmony is notable because it was organized and inspired by one of the truly great figures of the 19th century: Robert Owen.
Conventional historical writing in the United States is very big on "great men," par ticularly straight white men. However, you would be hard put to find much mention of Robert Owen in public-school textbooks, except as a footnote. And that footnote would almost certainly try to show how mistaken, wrongheaded and, of course, unsuccessful Owen's experiment at New Harmony was. But let's look at a few facts.
From 1825 to 1827, New Harmony attracted many of the most idealistic and inventive reformers of the day, as well as women and men of the natural sciences. In addition, many jobless people found their way there, inspired by public lectures Owen gave in many Eastern cities.
The principles of the community were as follow: "Within the community all work was to be equal. One was to receive that which was necessary to him or her. The teacher's work was to be on the same footing with the laborer, the farmer the equal of either. All were to perform to the best of their ability and receive the same compensation." (Don Blair, "The New Harmony Story")
In its few short years of existence, the communist society at New Harmony introduced into the United States the first kindergarten, the first infant school, the first trade school, the first free public school system, the first women's club, the first free library and the first civic dramatic club. It was also the seat of the first geological survey.
These are remarkable achievements. They are even more remarkable when viewed against the historical backdrop.
Half of the United States at that time was under slavery: Slavery and racism had been enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Nowhere did women have the right to vote, or any legal rights at all. The Indian Remo val Act was soon to be passed, breaking solemn treaties and forcing most Native nations west of the Mississippi, where they would again be assaulted. Labor unions were outlawed. Anti-immigrant political parties attacked the mainly Irish and Ger man immigrants who made up the bulk of factory workers in some cities. Social services and even such institutions as municipal fire departments were non-existent.
The progressive achievements of this little utopian colony became the basis for important demands later taken up by the working class movement. What was considered utopian at that time has now become very practical and indeed necessary.
To the extent that such social services are today more generally available to the workers, it is owing to bitter class battles across the country. And many are now under attack again.
What made it utopian
Long after it ceased to be a communist colony, New Harmony was a social and cultural oasis. It was to become a center of both the abolitionist and women's movements.
Why did it disintegrate? The common explanation given by bourgeois critics at the time and ever since is that these early communist experiments failed to reward personal incentive, that equality is fine in theory but unworkable in practice. Of course, "rewarding personal initiative" is just a substitute phrase for profit.
Actually, the most important reason for the failure was that it was in competition with the capitalist mode of production and dependent upon it for the purchase and sale of materials. Owen had based his conception of communism on the view that the success of his colonies would enlist the cooperation of the capitalists, who would join in when they saw how superior those societies were.
He and the other great utopians, like Claude Henri Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier, overlooked the characteristic feature of the capitalists: their unlimited greed driven by the profit motive. Not only does that prevent their conversion to the idea of a utopian society, but they cannot be persuaded to grant the workers even the most meager demands without a struggle.
One of Owen's contemporaries descri bed the profit motive this way:
"With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10 percent will ensure it employment anywhere; 20 percent certain will produce eagerness; 50 percent, positive audacity; 100 percent will make it ready to trample all human laws; 300 percent, and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged. If turbulence and strife will bring a profit, it will freely encourage both. Smuggling and the slave trade have amply proved all that is here stated." (T.J. Dunning, as quoted by Karl Marx in "Capital")
In his book "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific," Frederick Engels, the co-worker of Karl Marx, described the personal price which Robert Owen paid for his utopian ideals.
"His advance in the direction of Com munism was the turning point in Owen's life. As long as he was simply a philanthropist, he was rewarded with nothing but wealth, applause, honor and glory. He was the most popular man in Europe. Not only men of his own class, but statesmen and princes listened to him approvingly. But when he came out with his Commu nist theories, that was quite another thing. ...
"Banished from official society, with a conspiracy of silence against him in the press, ruined by his unsuccessful Com munist experiments in America, in which he sacrificed all his fortune, he turned directly to the working class and continued working in their midst for 30 years."
Appealing to the inherent goodness of the capitalists is an exercise in futility. But the utopian socialists cannot really be blamed. At the time that they began to develop their ideas, said Engels, "the capitalist mode of production, and with it the antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, was still very incompletely developed."
To the utopians, communism was a logical outgrowth of the defining event of the 18th century: the French Revolution, the most thoroughgoing social upheaval that had ever been seen. Through this revolution capitalism had gained the upper hand over feudalism in Europe. At the time that Owen, Saint-Simon and Fourier began to write and organize--about 1800--the bourgeoisie was still locked in a relentless battle against the old feudal ruling classes.
In this battle, the new capitalist class claimed to be struggling for the emancipation of all oppressed classes, so as to enlist them as allies. The ideological basis for the French Revolution was what is sometimes called the Age of Reason, the Enlight enment. The philosophers and writers of the 18th century believed that all human problems could be solved by reason. They thought that a rational government, a rational society could and should be founded as though from a blueprint; everything that ran counter to eternal reason was to be remorselessly done away with.
However, even by the early 1800s, it was obvious to the utopian reformers that the new society was far from rational. Engels wrote:
"The development of industry upon a capitalistic basis made poverty and misery of the working masses conditions of existence of society. Cash payment became more and more ... the sole nexus between man and man. The number of crimes increased from year to year.
"Formerly, the feudal vices had openly stalked about in broad daylight; though not eradicated, they were now at any rate thrust into the background. In their stead, the bourgeois vices, hitherto practiced in secret, began to blossom all the more luxuriantly.
"Trade became to a greater and greater extent cheating. The 'fraternity' of the revolutionary motto was realized in the chicanery and rivalries of the battle of competition. Oppression by force was replaced by corruption. ... Prostitution increased to an extent never heard of. Marriage itself remained, as before, the legally recognized form, the official cloak of prostitution, and, moreover, was supplemented by rich crops of adultery."
The utopian socialists recognized that the new bourgeois world was irrational and unjust, but they did not recognize fully that this was the outgrowth of historical and economic forces. They believed, said Engels: "If pure reason and justice have not hitherto ruled the world this has been the case only because men have not rightly understood them. What was wanted was the individual man of genius, who has now arisen and who understands the truth."
Ruined by capitalist world market
Sam Marcy, writing on "Soviet Social ism: Utopian or Scientific?" (Workers World, Jan. 30, 1992), noted: "Above all, Owen and the other utopian socialists could not foresee the emerging anarchy of capitalist production. ... Owen started his first cooperative venture in 1800 at New Lanarck [in Scotland]. By 1825, when he tried to develop New Harmony as an island of cooperation in a world torn asunder by class antagonisms, the first worldwide capitalist crisis was under way."
Although short-lived, it was universal in character. It vitally affected New Har mony, because no community can stand alone in the face of such great devastation.
"The destructive force unleashed by the periodic paroxysms of capitalist crisis would not allow even a tiny oasis to carry out the systematic planning needed to build his egalitarian society," wrote Marcy. "Indeed, these cooperative ventures with their more limited resources are among the first to be swept away, as later history was to show. Many of the cooperative enterprises, built up by years of hard work and self-sacrifice, fell victim to the crises the capitalist mode of production inevitably brings. These crises eventually can sweep away even the largest of corporations and banks."
By the time Marx and Engels wrote "The Communist Manifesto" in 1848, the bourgeoisie had revealed all its basic social and political tendencies. Using the philosophy of Hegel and the scientific method of analysis, they determined that socialism was not the expression of some absolute truth, which had only to be discovered in order to conquer all the world by virtue of its own power. It was not independent of time, space and of the historical development of humanity.
Marx and Engels, and their successors, were able to see what was not clear to the utopians: that people "make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past." (Karl Marx, "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte")
One of the most important discoveries of Marx and Engels was that the mainspring of history is the class struggle. Moreover, they identified the new industrial proletariat, which was just then coming into being, as the class that is at the same time indispensable and yet most antagonistic to the capitalist class. Many progressive reformers, including the utopian socialists, had empathized with the working class and sincerely wanted to change the terrible conditions it was forced to endure. However, their attitude was generally paternalistic.
To Marx and Engels the working class was not merely an object of pity but was the revolutionary agent that, in its struggle to emancipate itself, would free all of humanity from class oppression.
But first the working class has to free itself.
Once they had identified the workers as the revolutionary class, Marx and Engels put themselves at the service of that class and its emancipation. In so doing they provided us with one of our most important weapons: a revolutionary theory and a guide to action.
Reprinted from the Nov. 18, 2004, issue of Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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“with each broken shoelace out of one hundred broken shoelaces, one man, one woman, one thing enters a madhouse” - Charles Bukowski
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12-08-2004 01:02 AM
