💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › wayne-price-the-alternative-to-capitalism.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 14:50:07. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
➡️ Next capture (2024-07-09)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Title: The Alternative to Capitalism? Author: Wayne Price Date: November 2013 Language: en Topics: review, marxism, capital, the state Source: Retrieved on July 2, 2014 from http://anarkismo.net/article/26446?search_text=wayne%20price&print_page=true
In my last book, I provided an anarchist introduction to Marx’s economic
thought, from the viewpoint of a “Marxist-informed anarchist.” Peter
Hudis’ volume (2013) is written as if to disprove part of the dual
assertion I make in my book’s opening. I had claimed: “When it comes to
an analysis of capitalist economy, Marx’s economic theories are superior
to others, including what there is of anarchist economic
thinking….However, when it comes to presenting a post-capitalist vision,
a socialist goal, then anarchism…is superior to Marxism” (price, 2013;
p. 2). Instead of my second assertion, Hudis declares the virtues of
Marx’s vision of a post-capitalist, post-revolutionary, economy. This is
even though, in practice, movements calling themselves “Marxist” have
created totalitarian, state-capitalist, mass murdering regimes, before
eventually collapsing back into traditional capitalism—as Hudis
acknowledges.
Hudis should be in an excellent position to carry out an analysis of
Marxism’s humanistic and working class goals. He comes out of the
“Marxist-Humanist” theoretical school established by Raya Dunayevskaya
(which itself evolved out of the “Johnson-Forrest Tendency”). He is
general editor of “The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg.” This history
situates him in the libertarian-democratic trend within Marxism, a
minority trend which rejects social democracy and Stalinism (and
Trotskyism).
The first problem Hudis, or anyone else focusing on Marx’s vision, must
face is that Marx did not emphasize his vision or his goals. In a
multi-volume analysis of Marx’s politics, Hal Draper (who shares with
Hudis a view of Marx as radically democratic) writes:
“…From early on, Marx and Engels habitually stated their political aim
not in terms of a desired change in social system (socialism) but in
terms of a change in class power (proletarian rule)….Marx and Engels
took as their governing aims not the aspirations for a certain type of
future society, but the position of a social class as an embodiment of
humanity’s interests…. It is not the form of organization of future
society that is at the center of his theory of revolution” (Draper,
1978; pp. 24 & 27).
Therefore we should not be surprised that Marx’s comments on a future
society are few and far between, scattered among his writings, which
have to be scoured to find the references. As anarchists see it, there
is a problem with focusing on the workers and other oppressed people
taking power, unless we also hold a clear vision of what they will do
with that power. Will they establish a radically democratized,
decentralized federation of self-governing communities and industries,
becoming the self-organization of the producers? Or will they set up a
centralized, bureaucratic, socially-alienated military machine to rule
over the rest of the population? That is, will they create a new state
(even a “workers’ state,” whatever that means)? Anarchists do not accept
the counterposition of workers’ revolution to the need for programmatic
vision. Lacking such a libertarian and humanistic vision, it is not
surprising that most revolutionary Marxists have accepted Stalinist
tyrannies, once they appear, as “really existing socialism.”
Hudis’ solution to this problem is to make his argument fairly abstract,
with a hefty dose of Hegelian terminology. He states his agreement with
Dunayevskaya “that the realities of our era make it imperative to return
directly to Hegel’s Absolutes in working out a conception of the
alternative to capitalism” (p. 33). He criticizes Draper for his “scant
attention to [Marx’s] Hegelian inheritance…” (p. 59).
He asserts that Marx wanted a post-capitalist society to be free of
alienation, commodity fetishism, and the law of value. But these
assertions (undoubtedly true) require Hudis to make explanations about
what alienation, fetishism, and the law of value actually
are—explanations which are not always of the clearest. It does not occur
to him that, while a knowledge of Hegel’s work may conceivably help
Hudis himself to understand Marx, it does not necessarily lead him to be
better able to explain Marx to others.
Hudis declares, “There is little doubt that Marx’s critique of
capitalism centers upon a critique of value-production. What is less
clear, however, is exactly what is needed, in Marx’s view, to surmount
value-production. My aim is to discover the elements, however implicit,
that he thought are needed to overcome value-production” (p. 8). So
Hudis admits that Marx’s vision is “implicit” at best and “less clear”
(or unclear or even murky) about what social changes are necessary “to
overcome value-production.” (“Value-production” refers to an economy
dominated by the market, with the buying and selling of commodities,
including the “commodity labor power,” the ability of workers to work
for wages—the ultimate controlling factor of commodity exchange being
the amount of socially necessary labor it takes to produce each
commodity.)
Therefore most of Hudis’ book is not directly about alternatives to
capitalism but about how capitalism works in Marx’s theory. Some of this
I found interesting, such as the comparisons among schools of Marxist
theory, particularly the “objectivists” versus the “subjectivists” or
“autonomists.” He also denies the “socialism” of the “Bolivarian”
program of the late Hugo Chavez and claims that state planning as such
was not a “Marxist” goal. But this does not really advance us very far
into the nature of a possible post-capitalist society.
Marxism and anarchism both developed out of the socialist and working
class movements of the early nineteenth century. Yet Hudis rately
contrasts the two trends (or other libertarian socialist conceptions,
such as guild socialism or Parecon). The closest he gets is a discussion
about “time-chits or labor vouchers.” Marx expected such labor credits
to be used as to pay workers during the “lower phase” of communism.
Hudis argues that this is very different from the proposals for labor
credit payments made by Proudhon (the first person to call himself an
anarchist). I do not find his arguments persuasive (like most Marxists
who write about Proudhon, he seems to have studied what Marx wrote about
Proudhon, but not what Proudhon actual wrote). But in any case, he does
not go on to contrast Marx’s “higher phase of communism” with the
anarchist-communist program of Kropotkin and others. Yet anarchists have
written much more clearly and specifically on the methods by which a
stateless, moneyless, economy might be organized.
Oddly, Hudis does not mention Marx’s view of a post-capitalist society
as going beyond the capitalist division of labor, a view shared with
anarchist-communists. In particular, Marx foresaw the end of the split
between mental and manual labor, between order-giving and order-taking
in the process of production. Marx and Engels expected this to result in
a classless society, with new relations between men and women. They saw
it as ending the division between “town” and “country,” which they felt
was a cause of pollution and ecological crises.
Hudis claims that Marx advocated “a communal network of associations in
which value-production has been superseded…” (p. 110). “Marx now
conceives of an association of freely-associated cooperatives as the
most effective form for making a transition to a new society” (p. 186).
Did Marx hold such views, which are fully in agreement with socialist
anarchists? There are numerous passages in which he briefly makes such
remarks. This was particularly true when he discussed workers’
cooperatives or the extreme democracy of the 1871 Paris Commune. But
there are also numerous passages in which he appears to imply the value
of centralized planning by a state. As Hudis recognizes, the heritage is
often unclear.
In Marx and Engels’ post-capitalist vision, their biggest failing was
their failure to consider the possibility that the stock-owning
bourgeoisie might be replaced by a class other than the working class.
This is unmentioned by Hudis. From Bakunin on, anarchists have warned
that the Marxist program might result in a new, collectivized, ruling
class of intellectuals, bureaucrats, and the “aristocracy of labor.”
Marx denied it.
Yet there were undeveloped aspects of his theory which might have led to
such a prediction. For example, in the studies of so-called “Oriental
Despotism” in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, Marx and Engels described
societies with collectivized economies and bureaucratic ruling classes.
(These were not capitalist, because they were generally stagnant and
non-dynamic.) And they analyzed the tendency of modern capitalism to
become ever more centralized, bureaucratized, and statified. (These
would be managed by “salaried employees,” with stock-owning bourgeoisie
hanging on as parasites.) But the founding Marxists did not foresee the
danger that a centralized, planned, economy might evolve into a fully
state capitalist regime with a totally collectivized ruling class—at
least for an extended period.
Peter Hudis concludes his book, “…The realities of our time…call on us
to develop a much more explicit and articulate alternative to capitalism
than appeared necessary in Marx’s time, and even to Marx himself” (p.
215). I fully agree on the need for a more “explicit and articulate
alternative to capitalism” than was developed by Marx—without abandoning
the insights of Marx. But there were others at the time who also began
to work out a participatory, cooperative, humanistic, and freedom-loving
“alternative to capitalism,” namely the revolutionary anarchists. To
ignore this is to abandon a great tradition.
Draper, Hal (1978). Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution; Vol. II: The
Politics of Social Classes. NY: Monthly Review Press.
Hudis, Peter (2013). Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism.
Chicago IL: Haymarket Books.
price, wayne (2013). The Value of Radical Theory: An Anarchist
Introduction to Marx’s Critique of Political Economy. Oakland CA: AK
Press.