It’s Time Now To Demand True Freedom!

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.