Boundless Possibilities
Simply reiterating the slogan “another world is possible,”
as occurs so often today, hardly adds up to a convincing vision of a society
that points beyond the limits of both “free market” capitalism and the failed
“socialist” regimes that once competed with it for world dominance. Why have so
many movements stopped short of challenging capital itself, in favour of
instead emphasizing relatively restricted social reforms and self-limiting
revolutions? Socialists should take some responsibility for failing to
providing a viable alternative to capitalism. The discontent with the many ills
of existing society falls short of a serious challenge to the system as a
whole.
A common cliché in regards to the writings of Karl Marx is
that he had little to say about what might replace it. This is not quite true.
For sure the technical details of socialist society or a comprehensive
blueprint for such is missing but there has been more than one attempt to
clarify the nature of the post-capitalist classless society, which Marx
alternately labeled “socialism” or “communism” from what he actually wrote.
Raya Dunayevskaya wrote back in 1950, the important
“opposition is not between ‘anarchy’ and ‘plan,’ but between the plan of the
capitalist, which is always despotic in form, and the plan of freely associated
labor, which is always cooperative.”
Socialism can be defined as the democratic management of
society’s vital resources. Socialists
condemnation of capitalism is not be that promote excessive individualism. On
the contrary: This market society is far from individualistic enough. We should
ask: How liberating, for the individuals, is a world economy that plunges
millions of people into unemployment and poverty? Is it out of consideration
for the individuals that those who remain in waged labour are exposed to ever
higher work pressures, enforced overtime or equally as damaging, contracts that
cut hours? And what on earth has it got to do with individualism when the
marketing and advertising business put billions of dollars into a most cynical
manipulation and exploitation of the emotions and social insecurities of
individuals?
Socialists assert that for us common people, increases in
individual liberty has always been achieved through collective struggle.
Personal sacrifices were made for a concrete, attainable goal of increased
liberty and dignity for all individuals. The same holds true for the labour
movement: The worker surrenders some part of his or her individual time and
resources to the collective movement because this in return strengthens her or
his position as an individual in a society dominated by capital. It holds true
for any example of this enlightened form of self-interest we call solidarity.
The unions and reform organisations fight to defend what already exists. To
socialists, the welfare state is not sacred. But neither is it to be dismantled
and privatised. But socialists fight for what does not yet exist.
Marx nowhere in any of his writings distinguishes between a
socialist and a communist stage of history. Marx used the word socialism and
communism completely interchangeably in his work. In his later work, Critique
of the Gotha Program written at the very end of his life, for instance, Marx
speaks of a lower and a higher phase of communism, the first, the lower phase,
still bearing the birthmarks of the older society, where the higher phase does
not bear those birthmarks. But the notion that socialism and communism are
distinct stages in history, was alien to Marxist thought because he was really
saying a lower and higher phase of socialism.
Marx never identified the dictatorship of the proletariat, a
stage in which the working class assumes political control over society with
socialism. For Marx the “dictatorship of the proletariat” refers not to “apolitical
social relations of production” but to a political form that exists prior to
the emergence of a socialist or communist society. He wrote in Critique of the
Gotha Program “between capitalist and communist (or socialist) society there
lies the period the revolutionary transformation from one into the other.
Corresponding to this is the political transition period in which the state can
be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship or the proletariat."
Marx clearly refers to this dictatorship which meant to him
NOT the dictatorship of the party on behalf of the workers, but rather the rule
over society by the working class as a whole democratically. He explicitly says
“this lies between capitalism and socialist or communist society.” The failure
to distinguish between the political form of transition, between capitalism and
socialism, from socialism itself, is extremely widespread in a lot of
discussions on Marx and on contemporary issues, but it has no basis in Marx’s
writings.
Nor did he refer to it as rule by a state at all in the
conventional sense. For Marx and Engels, the most outstanding exemplar of the
dictatorship of the proletariat was the Paris Commune of 1871, which “was a
Revolution against the State itself, this supernaturalist abortion of society.”
The dictatorship of the proletariat was for Marx a thoroughly expansive
democratic form, which aspired for the “reabsorption of the State power by
society.”
In a word, Marx understood the dictatorship of the
proletariat as a political transitional form between capitalism and
post-capitalism. It did not refer to a post-capitalist society. A socialist
society would have no proletarian “dictatorship”—since with the abolition of
classes the proletariat ceases to exist!
Marx left no room for a “transition” to socialism based on
the principles of the old society. He conceived of a sharp break between
capitalism and socialism.
Marx insisted that only “freely associated people” could put
an end to the dominance of capital. Simply replacing the domination of the
market by the state is no solution at all. Marx is explicit on this:
“The money system in its present form can be completely
regulated … without the abandonment of the present social basis: indeed, while
its contradictions, its antagonisms, the conflict of classes, etc. actually
reach a higher degree….” This anticipation of state-capitalism that called
itself socialism could not be clearer.
“Now if this assumption is made, the general character of
labor would not be given to it only by exchange; its assumed communal character
would determine participation in the products. The communal character of
production would from the outset make the product into a communal, general one.
The exchange initially occurring in production, which would not be an exchange
of exchange values but of activities determined by communal needs and communal
purposes, would include from the beginning the individual’s participation in
the communal world of products […] labor would be posited as general labor
prior to exchange, i.e., the exchange of products would not in any way be the
medium mediating the participation of the individual in general production.
Mediation of course has to take place.”
Here, Marx contends that labor in a new society would be
radically different than in capitalism, where discrete acts of individual labor
are connected to one another (or are made general) through the act of commodity
exchange. In a new society, labor becomes general (or social) prior to the
exchange of products, on the basis of the “the communal character of
production” itself. The community distributes the elements of production
according to the individuals’ needs instead of being governed by social forms
that operate independently of their deliberation. Marx was not referring to the
existence of small, isolated communities that operate in a world dominated by
value production. He never adhered to the notion that socialism was possible in
one country, let alone one locale. He was pointing instead to a communal
network of associations in which value production has been superseded on a
systemic level. Moreover, while exchange of some sort would exist in a new
society, it would be radically different than what prevails in capitalism,
which is governed by the exchange of commodities. Instead of being based on
exchange values, prices, or markets, distribution would be governed by an
exchange of activities that are “determined by communal needs and communal
purposes.” People are no longer controlled by the economic mechanism; the
economic mechanism is instead controlled by the people. Marx is envisioning a
totally new kind of social mediation, one that is direct instead of indirect.
Within the collective society based on common ownership of
the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products. Marx is
not describing a higher phase of socialism or communism, in which “from each
according to their ability, from each according to their needs” prevails. He is
describing the lower phase of socialism or communism, “just as it emerges from
capitalist society, which is in every respect, economically, morally and
intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose
womb it emerges. And yet even here, at this defective stage of a new society,
there is no value production. Indeed, he even says that as of this initial
phase “the producers do not exchange their products.” Marx’s is not suggesting
that the operative principle of the lower phase of socialism or communism is
“from each according to their ability, to each according to their work.” No
such formulation appears either in the Critique of the Gotha Program or in any
of Marx’s work. Marx’s concept of socialism or communism is based on the abolition
of wage labor, capital and value production. The workers are not “paid”
according to whether or not their labor conforms to some invariable standard
over which they have no control.
Marx gave us an inspiring vision of the future we're
fighting for. The more attractive that vision, the more others will wish to join
us in the struggle. We have been trained to obey those with money and power,
and where it seems natural to spend many hours a day being bossed around while
doing labor that others have defined as necessary for profits. We have also
been blessed with the traditions of movements that have taken over workplaces
and neighborhoods and, in one way or another. It will be the working people of
the world who will have to develop ways to make decisions, ways to work
together, and ways to protect ourselves and everyone from the damages that
capitalism will have created. Given our different histories and different
geographical areas plus varying make-ups of the working class, we will have
different conceptions of our immediate needs and interests, and of which problems
it is most urgent to solve. We will also disagree over the best ways to
organize decision-making at workplaces, in localities, and globally. All these
disagreements will lead to political disputes within the working-class that we
hope and expect will become the united in solidarity across the world. If
successful, we will create a world of freely associated labor where we decide
what use values need to be produced, make them available to those who need or
want them, and do this in an environmentally sustainable way in which we find
ways to enjoy our lives and fulfill our potentials through actions that are
sociable and helpful to ourselves and others as well.
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