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Title: Anarchism Author: Alan Carter Date: October 11, 2011 Language: en Topics: introduction, theory, introductory Source: *Journal of Political Ideologies*, 16:3, 245–264. DOI:10.1080/13569317.2011.607291 Notes: Alan Carter (2011): Anarchism: some theoretical foundations, Journal of Political Ideologies, 16:3, 245–264 Philosophy, School of Humanities, University of Glasgow, Oakfield Avenue, Glasgow, G12 8QQ, Scotland, UK ISSN 1356–9317 print; ISSN 1469–9613 online/11/030245–20 q 2011 Taylor & Francis.
This article considers two different, yet related, theoretical
approaches that could be employed to ground the anarchist critique of
Marxist- Leninist revolutionary practice, and thus of the state in
general: the State-Primacy Theory and the Quadruplex Theory. The
State-Primacy Theory appears to be consistent with several of Bakunin’s
claims about the state. However, the Quadruplex Theory might, in fact,
turn out to be no less consistent with Bakunin’s claims than the
State-Primacy Theory. In addition, the Quadruplex Theory seems no less
capable of supporting the anarchist critique of Marxism-Leninism than
the State-Primacy Theory. The article concludes by considering two
possible refinements that might be made to the Quadruplex Theory
Anarchists have, on the whole, been highly critical of Marxist-Leninist
revolutionary practice, which has traditionally been willing to employ
centralized and authoritarian means in order to bring about a
post-capitalist society. [1] In its willingness to employ such means,
Marxism-Leninism, of course, explicitly assumes that those means will
not adversely shape the form taken by post-capitalism—an assumption that
anarchists have consistently rejected. The reason Marxist-Leninists are
so seemingly cavalier (at least from an anarchist perspective) in their
attitude to post-revolutionary political power is their reliance on Karl
Marx’s political theory—in particular, his theory of the state. But if
anarchists are to provide a cogent critique of Marxism-Leninism, then
they require a compelling political theory of their own in
contradistinction to Marxist theory in order to ground that critique.
They also require a cogent reason for rejecting Marx’s political theory.
In what follows, I adumbrate two different, yet related, political
theories that may suffice to justify the anarchist rejection of
Marxist-Leninist revolutionary practice and of the state in general: the
State-Primacy Theory and the Quadruplex Theory. In addition, during the
course of discussing those theories, a reason will emerge for rejecting
Marx’s theory of the state.
The most famous anarchist critic of Marx is, without doubt, Mikhail
Bakunin. [2] So allow me to begin by noting some of Bakunin’s arguments
that are either direct or implied criticisms of Marx and his
collaborator Friedrich Engels—fellow revolutionary figures whom Bakunin
judged to be potentially authoritarian, centralist and elitist—for those
criticisms can readily be deployed to target Marxist-Leninist
revolutionary practice.
Now, it is worth observing first of all that, although Marx and Bakunin
shared a similar ideal of an egalitarian post-capitalist society, there
are certainly grounds for Bakunin’s suspicions regarding Marx’s and
Engels’ authoritarianism, centralism and elitism, especially regarding
the process of revolutionary transformation. For example, with respect
to the Paris Commune, in a draft of a letter that Engels wrote to Carlo
Terzaghi, he writes:
If there had been a little more authority and centralization in the
Paris Commune, it would have triumphed over the bourgeoisie. After the
victory we can organize ourselves as we like, but for the struggle it
seems to me necessary to collect all our forces into a single band and
direct them on the same point of attack. And when people tell me that
this cannot be done without authority and centralization, and that these
are two things to be condemned outright, it seems to me that those who
talk like this either do not know what a revolution is, or are
revolutionaries in name only. [3]
Engels’ lament, here, for what he clearly perceived to be a lack of
authority and centralization within the course of a potentially
revolutionary transformation of society assumes, of course, that such
authority and centralization would pose no substantial political
problems after the hoped-for revolution. But as Bakunin acutely asks:
‘Has it ever been witnessed in history that a political body ...
committed suicide, or sacrificed the least of its interests and
so-called rights for the love of justice and liberty?’ [4] In short, can
it safely be assumed that those enjoying centralized and authoritarian
power will simply relinquish it?
Moreover, Marx and Engels professed that their variety of socialism was
scientific, rather than utopian. [5] Unfortunately, in Bakunin’s view:
A scientific body to which had been confided the government of society
would soon end by devoting itself no longer to science at all, but to
quite another affair; and that affair, as in the case of all established
powers, would be its own eternal perpetuation by rendering the society
confided to its care ever more stupid and consequently more in need of
its government and direction. [6]
Yet, as Marx makes clear in his marginal notes to Bakunin’s Statism and
Anarchy, the dictatorship of the proletariat, which Marx and Engels
predicted and advocated, would utilize a form of centralized
governmental power. [7] Bakunin, in contrast, regards any assumption
that a centralized government would hand power to the masses after a
revolution as itself highly utopian.
Furthermore, Marx quite clearly believed that he knew where the
interests of the working class lay better than the working class itself,
for as he explicitly admitted in 1850:
I have always defied the momentary opinions of the proletariat. If the
best a party can do is just fail to seize power, then we repudiate it.
If the proletariat could gain control of the government the measures it
would introduce would be those of the petty bourgeoisie and not those
appropriate to the proletariat. Our party can only gain power when the
situation allows it to put its own measures into practice. [8]
Given such seeming elitism, it is hardly surprising, therefore, that
Bakunin should observe:
it is clear why the dictatorial revolutionists, who aim to overthrow the
existing powers and social structures in order to erect upon their ruins
their own dictatorship, never are or will be the enemies of government,
but, on the contrary, always will be the most ardent promoters of the
government idea. They are the enemies only of contemporary governments,
because they wish to replace them. They are the enemies of the present
governmental structure, because it excludes the possibility of their
dictatorship. At the same time they are the most devoted friends of
governmental power. For if the revolution destroyed this power by
actually freeing the masses, it would deprive this pseudo-revolutionary
minority of any hope to harness the masses in order to make them the
beneficiaries of their own government policy. [9]
What is more, according to Bakunin:
men who were democrats and rebels of the reddest variety when they were
a part of the mass of governed people, became exceedingly moderate when
they rose to power. Usually these backslidings are attributed to
treason. That, however, is an erroneous idea; they have for their main
cause the change of position and perspective. [10]
However, there is an alternative, or a supplementary, explanation that
could be mooted to account for this phenomenon. Hierarchical state
structures might be such that only those who are, at least to some
degree, ruthless in their striving for political power will eventually
succeed in attaining it or in retaining that power.
But what is most important for our present concern is that Bakunin’s
disagreement with Marx and Engels was fundamentally theoretical in
nature. Marx tended to reduce political power to the power of an
economic class—the dominant class—which is partly why he referred to it
as the ruling class. [11] For example, in The Communist Manifesto, Marx
confidently declares that ‘[p]olitical power, properly so called, is
merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another’, [12]
thereby deducing that
[i]f the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is
compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organize itself as a class,
if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as
such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it
will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for
the existence of class antagonisms and classes generally, and will
thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class. [13]
And from this, Marx concludes that, with the establishment of a
communist economic structure, ‘[i]n place of the old bourgeois society,
with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in
which the free development of each is the condition for the free
development of all’. [14] In a nutshell, the crucial implication of
Marx’s conceptualization of political power is that once an egalitarian
economic structure has arisen, all problems of political power will
vanish. [15]
Later, we shall see that there seems to be historical evidence for
holding Marx’s theory of the state to be woefully inadequate at this
point. Bakunin, clearly, viewed acting on such a theoretical presumption
as being fraught with danger; for reducing political power to economic
power is to disregard the highly significant
and malign influence that the state can assert. As he writes:
To support his programme for the conquest of political power, Marx has a
very special theory, which is but the logical consequence of [his] whole
system. He holds that the political condition of each country is always
the product and the faithful expression of its economic situation; to
change the former it is necessary only to transform the latter. Therein
lies the whole secret of historical evolution according to Marx. He
takes no account of other factors in history, such as the ever-present
reaction of political, juridical, and religious institutions on the
economic situation. He says: ‘Poverty produces political slavery, the
State’. But he does not allow this expression to be turned around, to
say: ‘Political slavery, the State, reproduces in its turn, and
maintains poverty as a condition for its own existence; so that to
destroy poverty, it is necessary to destroy the State’! And strangely
enough, Marx, who forbids his disciples to consider political slavery,
the State, as a real cause of poverty, commands his disciples in the
Social Democratic party to consider the conquest of political power as
the absolutely necessary preliminary condition for economic
emancipation. [16]
Bakunin is certainly being uncharitable in caricaturing Marx as taking
no account of other historical factors, ‘such as the ever-present
reaction of political, juridical, and religious institutions on the
economic situation’. This notwithstanding, Bakunin offers a very
interesting suggestion here, namely that ‘[p]olitical slavery, the
State, reproduces ... and maintains poverty as a condition for its own
existence’, for such a claim sounds very much like a functional
explanation. In other words, Bakunin appears to be arguing that states
choose economic inequality because it serves their interests—in short,
because it is functional for them. This is especially interesting
insofar as the most sophisticated defender of Marx’s theory of
history—G. A. Cohen—found it necessary to deploy functional explanations
in order to present Marx’s theory in a non–self-contradictory form. [17]
And given that, with today’s hindsight, we can see how prescient were
Bakunin’s observations regarding the course of an authoritarian
revolution, it would surely be odd to see no merit whatsoever in his
political theory.
In order to develop Bakunin’s suggestion further, let us distinguish
between, on the one hand, political and economic categories, and, on the
other, between forces, and relations. From this pair of distinctions, we
can derive four components of a modern society that can be combined to
form a complex functional explanation. The four components are: the
political forces, the political relations, the economic forces, and the
economic relations (Table 1). The political forces and political
relations together comprise the state, whereas the economic forces and
economic relations together comprise what has, since Hegel’s time, been
traditionally referred to as civil society.
[]
Following Cohen’s lead, we can define the economic structure of a
society as consisting of the set of its economic relations; and we can
specify those relations as comprising relations of, or relations
presupposing, effective control over production. Such relations of
production can be defined as relations of, or as relations that
presuppose, effective control of the forces of production. These
economic forces—the forces of production—can be defined as comprising
economic labour-power (that capacity which the agents of production
supply in return for wages) and the means of production (e.g. tools and
machinery). We might also find it advantageous to go beyond the majority
of Marxist theorists by including within the set of economic relations
those relations of, or presupposing, effective control over economic
exchange. [18]
Given that, at least in modern societies, the ability to control
effectively the economic forces depends, in part, on the accepted
legality of the economic relations and, perhaps even more importantly,
on the ability of the political forces to preserve them, control of the
forces of production requires relations of, or relations presupposing,
political power—in short, political relations. We might then define the
political structure of a society as consisting of the set of its
political relations. And the relevant aspects of political power might
be argued to include: the power to introduce legislation, especially
legislation that is viewed by a sufficient number of people as
legitimate; the power to enforce that legislation; and the power to
defend the political community against external threats. [19]
These political relations are embodied in the various legal and
political institutions of a society. To be more specific, political
institutions comprise relations of, or relations presupposing, effective
control of the society’s ‘defensive’ forces. In the modern state, these
forces of ‘defence’ (which are usually more offensive than defensive)
take a coercive form—such coercive forces comprising political
labour-power (that capacity which the agents of coercion supply, namely
the work offered by policemen and policewomen, military personnel, etc.,
in return for wages) and the means of coercion (e.g. weaponry and
prisons). And political labour-power and the means of coercion together
constitute a society’s political forces. [20]
Before fitting the political forces, the political relations, the
economic forces and the economic relations into a complex functional
explanation, we need to be clear about the nature of functional
explanations. According to Cohen, [21] functional explanations are a
subset of consequence explanations; and consequence explanations are
justified by consequence laws. Consequence laws take the form:
(1) If (if Y at t₁ , then X at t₂ ), then Y at t₃ ,
where ‘X’ and ‘Y’ are types of events, and where ‘t₁ ’ is some time not
later than t₂, and where ‘t₂’ is some time not later than time t₃ . A
consequence explanation such as
(2) b at t₃ because (a at t₂ because b at t₁),
where ‘b’ is a token of type Y, and ‘a’ is a token of type X, is
justified by (1). And if b is functional for a, then (2) is a functional
explanation.
So, consider the following consequence law:
(3) If it is the case that if predators were to develop better
camouflage then they would be able to hunt better, then they would come
to develop better camouflage.
This would justify the following consequence explanation:
(4) Tigers developed stripes because they were better hunters as a
result of having stripes.
Given that having stripes that provide better camouflage is functional
for better hunting, (4) is a functional explanation.
Now, a consequence law such as (3) might seem implausible on its own.
But with the addition of some elaboration it becomes extremely
plausible. For if we add a theory of natural selection, where those most
fitted to survive within their environment are the ones naturally
selected, as well as adding a theory of genetics that allows chance
variation, then something like the following story can be told: Due to
chance variation, tigers will have some offspring that are better
camouflaged than others. Those with better camouflage will be better
hunters. And those that are better hunters will, because of competition
for food, be the ones that tend to survive and have offspring, some of
whom, due to chance variation, being better camouflaged than their
parents and some having poorer camouflage. Those with even better
camouflage than their parents will be even better hunters, and so on. In
short, over time, tigers will become better camouflaged because better
camouflage is functional for being a more successful hunter.
So, now consider this complex consequence law:
(5) If it is the case that if the political relations were to select
economic relations that better develop the economic forces that better
develop the political forces that better empower the political
relations, then those economic relations would come to be selected.
This would justify the following consequence explanation:
(6) A particular set of economic relations was selected because the
political
relations were better empowered as a result of having such economic
relations.
Given that having economic relations that better develop the economic
forces that better develop the political forces that better empower the
political relations is functional for the political relations, (6) is a
functional explanation. Moreover, (5) could be elaborated by reference
to the fact that states ordinarily exist within a world of competing
states. [22] Because novel weaponry—a political force—is occasionally
invented, those states that develop better weaponry will tend to be the
ones that survive. But in order to develop better weaponry, a more
productive economy is required. Hence, those states that tend to survive
will be ones where their political relations selected economic relations
that better developed the economic forces that better developed the
political forces. The mooted revolutionary process from one epoch to
another whereby political relations select new economic relations that
develop the economic forces that develop the political forces that
empower the political relations is represented in Figure 1. Figure 1
also models the stabilization of the economic relations by the political
relations within an epoch because, in developing the economic forces
that are required to
develop the political forces that empower the political relations, those
economic relations are, at that time, functional for the political
relations. It is when the prevailing economic relations become
dysfunctional for the political relations that new economic relations
are selected. But while they remain functional for the political
relations, the prevailing economic relations are stabilized.
[]
Now, when the political relations display political inequality, as they
ordinarily do, and when the economic relations also display economic
inequality, as they, too, ordinarily do, then this can be hyperbolically
described as a case where ‘[p]olitical slavery, the State, reproduces
... and maintains poverty as a condition for its own existence; so that
to destroy poverty, it is necessary to destroy the State’. The complex
functional explanation modelled in Figure 1 could thus be regarded as
explicating Bakunin’s very interesting suggestion. And the
terminological clarifications supplied above could be regarded as
filling in the requisite detail to make adequate sense of the model.
Call the political theory thus modelled—the theory, that is, which
claims that political relations select and/or stabilize economic
relations that develop the economic forces that develop the political
forces that empower the political relations, because that is functional
for the political relations—‘the State-Primacy Theory’. [23]
But does the State-Primacy Theory actually provide a plausible
explanation of epochal transitions? Well, consider the transition from
feudalism to capitalism. Robert Brenner has pointed to the growing need
of feudal political relations to develop their political forces. As he
observes:
In view of the difficulty, in the presence of pre-capitalist property
relations, of raising returns from investment in the means of production
(via increases in productive efficiency), the lords found that if they
wished to increase their income, they had little choice but to do so by
redistributing wealth and income away from their peasants or from other
members of the exploiting class. This meant they had to deploy their
resources towards building up their means of coercion by investment in
military men and equipment. Speaking broadly, they were obliged to
invest in their politico-military apparatuses. To the extent they had to
do this effectively enough to compete with other lords who were doing
the same thing, they would have had to maximize both their military
investments and the efficiency of these investments. They would have
had, in fact, to attempt, continually and systematically, to improve
their methods of war. Indeed, we can say the drive to political
accumulation, to state building, is the pre-capitalist analogue to the
capitalist drive to accumulate capital. [24]
And as Samuel Finer writes:
Military forces call for men, materials, and, once monetization has set
in, for money, too. To extract these has often been very difficult. It
has become easier and more generally acceptable as the centuries have
rolled on .... Troops extract the taxes or the forage or the carts, and
this contribution keeps them in being. More troops—more extraction—more
troops: so a cycle of this kind could go on widening and deepening. [25]
And we might conjecture that when the state’s coercive capacity had been
developed to a sufficient degree, the political relations would have
been able to secure the capitalist economic relations that succeeded
feudalism. Moreover, given the greater productivity of capitalism, it
would be more functional for the political relations than the preceding
feudal economic relations. [26]
In a similar vein, Samuel Huntington observes with respect to European
history that
[t]he prevalence of war directly promoted political modernization.
Competition forced the monarchs to build their military strength. The
creation of military strength required national unity, the suppression
of regional and religious dissidents, the expansion of armies and
bureaucracies, and a major increase in state revenues. [27]
In a word: ‘War is the great stimulus to state building .... The need
for security and the desire for expansion prompted the monarchs to
develop their military establishments, and the achievement of this goal
required them to centralize and to rationalize their political
machinery’. [28] But this required new economic relations—more
productive ones—in order that state revenues could be increased. So, as
Huntington notes:
The centralization of power was necessary to smash the old order, break
down the privileges and restraints of feudalism, and free the way for
the rise of new social groups and the development of new economic
activities. In some degree a coincidence of interest ... exist[ed]
between the absolute monarchs and the rising middle classes. [29]
Now, as the selection and then preservation of new economic relations
that offered greater revenue to the state would also serve the interests
of whichever class most benefited from the new economic relations, there
would be a correspondence of interests between what would become the new
dominant class and those occupying dominant positions within the
political relations. But that would not make a dominant economic class a
ruling class. Rather, the contingent correspondence between state
interests and those of any dominant economic class is the reason why
that class has the appearance of being a ruling class. Importantly, the
fact that states can act so as to facilitate the rise of a new class
that better serves state interests shows the notion of a ‘ruling class’
to be misguided.
But even more interesting, perhaps, than the transition from
pre-capitalism to capitalism is the transition from capitalism to
post-capitalism. Recall the theoretical dispute between Marx and
Bakunin, outlined in Section II, above. Engels characterizes the
disagreement as follows:
Bakunin ... does not regard capital, and hence the class antagonism
between capitalists and wage workers which has arisen through the
development of society, as the main evil to be abolished, but instead
the state. While the great mass of the Social-Democratic workers hold
our view that state power is nothing more than the organization with
which the ruling classes—landowners and capitalists—have provided
themselves in order to protect their social privileges, Bakunin
maintains that the state has created capital, that the capitalist has
his capital only by the grace of the state. And since the state is the
chief evil, the state above all must be abolished; then capital will go
to hell of itself. We, on the contrary, say: abolish capital, the
appropriation of all the means of production by the few, and the state
will fall of itself. The difference is an essential one: the abolition
of the state is nonsense without a social revolution beforehand; the
abolition of capital is the social revolution and involves a change in
the whole mode of production. [30]
In other words, the introduction of egalitarian economic relations will
ostensibly suffice for problematic political relations to disappear,
which is precisely what we would expect Engels to argue, given the
theoretical difference between Bakunin and Marx. But the disappearance
of problematic political relations following the introduction of
egalitarian economic relations is certainly not what happened in the
1917 Russian Revolution. But this is not because egalitarian economic
relations failed to arise. For they did: a form of egalitarian economic
relations was introduced in 1917 when the workers set up their own
factory committees. But after Lenin seized power late that year, he
replaced those committees with ‘one-man management’. And in 1918 he
explained why: ‘All our efforts must be exerted to the utmost to ...
bring about an economic revival, without which a real increase in our
country’s defence potential is inconceivable’. [31] In other words, the
political relations selected inegalitarian economic relations (shaped by
Lenin’s personal admiration for Taylorism) that developed the economic
forces so as to develop the political forces, because that was
functional for the political relations. But this is precisely what the
State-Primacy Theory asserts. Moreover, also consistent with the
State-Primacy Theory and wholly at odds with Marxist theory, the
political relations themselves became increasingly authoritarian. [32]
Ironically, then, an actual historical event that is near-universally
regarded as a Marxist revolution, by friend and foe of Marxism alike,
seems patently to contradict Marx’s theory of history. And this can only
be because of Marx’s inadequate theory of the state. It is far from
surprising, therefore, that formerly committed Marxists should have
given up on their ‘grand theory’ and embraced postmodernism. But given
the explanatory power of the State-Primacy Theory, the relatively recent
widespread rejection of theory building was surely premature. For the
historical event that has proved so troubling to Marxist political
theory simultaneously provides clear corroboration for an alternative,
anarchist theory.
But does anarchism have to rely on a State-Primacy Theory if its
rejection of Marxist-Leninist revolutionary practice is to be adequately
grounded? As we have seen, it seems quite possible that the political
relations select economic relations that develop the economic forces
that develop the political forces, because that is functional for the
political relations. But it seems, in principle, possible that,
simultaneously, the economic relations develop economic forces that both
increase returns to those dominant within the economic relations and
develop the political forces that stabilize the political relations,
because that is functional for the economic relations insofar as they
require those particular political relations for support. Such a theory
would incorporate two principal functional explanations. Call a theory
that incorporates more than one functional explanation a
‘Multiple-Explanatory Theory’ or ‘Multiplex Theory’ for short. Call a
theory that incorporates only two functional explanations a ‘Duplex
Theory’. Would such a Duplex Theory provide adequate grounding for the
anarchist rejection of Marxist-Leninist revolutionary practice?
It would appear that it would not. For even though inegalitarian
political relations might be able to select inegalitarian economic
relations that were functional for those particular political relations,
if egalitarian economic relations were able to select political
relations that were functional for them, then Marxist –Leninist
revolutionary strategy might be justified after all. And this is because
egalitarian economic relations might well select egalitarian political
relations; and they might do so because they may well not require
authoritarian political relations to stabilize them.
So, if such a Duplex Theory will not suffice, let us consider a
different Multiplex Theory, for it also seems, in principle, possible
that:
develop the economic forces that develop the political forces, because
that is functional for those political relations (as modelled in Figure
1); while, simultaneously,
stabilize economic relations that develop the economic forces, because
that is functional for the development of those political forces (as
modelled in Figure 2); while, simultaneously,
relations that select and stabilize certain economic relations, because
that is functional for the development of the economic forces (as
modelled in Figure 3); and, simultaneously,
political forces that empower certain political relations, because that
is functional for those economic relations (as modelled in Figure 4).
forces.
[]
Call such a Multiplex Theory containing four functional explanations a
‘Quadruplex Theory’. Such a theory is, at least in its effects, modelled
in Figure 5, although it should be remembered that it is built out of
the four complex functional explanations modelled in Figures 1 through
4. Would such a Quadruplex Theory provide adequate grounding for the
anarchist rejection of Marxist-Leninist revolutionary practice?
Here the answer would appear to be Yes. And this is because, while the
economic relations would have some power to develop different economic
forces, if those particular economic forces were dysfunctional either
for the present political forces or for the present political relations,
then they would receive support from neither (as represented in Figure
6). However, if the present political relations were functional for both
the present political forces and the present economic forces, then they
could expect support from both (as represented Figure 7). In other
words, the political relations would likely have more power to transform
altered economic relations into those more suited to their requirements
than the economic relations would be of transforming the whole social
structure. [33]
forces.
[]
relations.
[]
[]
[]
In addition, it would take a considerable period of time for the
economic relations to develop and introduce new economic forces, whereas
the political relations, by enacting a change in legislation, could
transform the economic relations relatively quickly. This, too,
indicates that the political relations would be more likely to transform
effectively any altered economic relations into ones that are more
suited to the needs of the political relations than the economic
relations would be of transforming the rest of society. Thus, such a
Quadruplex Theory provides clear grounding for the anarchist rejection
of Marxist-Leninist revolutionary practice, given that if egalitarian
economic relations fail to provide sufficient surplus to finance the
development of the political forces that empower the political
relations, then the political relations will effectively transform those
economic relations into inegalitarian ones that would more likely
provide sufficient surplus.
[]
It should also be noted that Bakunin can not only be interpreted as
writing in a manner that is, to some degree, consistent with the
State-Primacy Theory but also be interpreted as writing in a manner that
is, to some degree, consistent with something like the Quadruplex
Theory. For recall that he claims both that ‘[p]overty produces
political slavery, the State’ and that the ‘[p]olitical slavery, the
State, reproduces in its turn, and maintains poverty as a condition for
its own existence’. [34]
All this notwithstanding, there is a refinement that could be made to
the Quadruplex Theory that would enable it to provide even stronger
grounding for the anarchist rejection of Marxist-Leninist revolutionary
practice. Thus far we have only considered a version of the Quadruplex
Theory that accords equal weighting to the four component functional
explanations (as modelled in Figures 1 through 4) that combine to
produce the theory as a whole (whose effects are modelled in Figure 5).
But if we had reason for according greater weight to the functional
explanation deployed by the State-Primacy Theory (namely that modelled
in Figure 1), then we would have even stronger reason for expecting the
political relations to play a reactionary role in replacing egalitarian
economic relations with inegalitarian ones that were more functional for
the political relations than we would have for expecting egalitarian
economic relations to succeed in transforming the whole social system
into a truly egalitarian one. In short, it seems, in principle, possible
that:
and stabilize economic relations that develop the economic forces,
because that is functional for the development of those political forces
(as modelled in Figure 2); while, simultaneously,
political relations that select and stabilize certain economic
relations, because that is functional for the development of the
economic forces (as modelled in Figure 3); while, simultaneously,
the political forces that empower certain political relations, because
that is functional for those economic relations (as modelled in Figure
4); while, simultaneously,
the system in selecting and stabilizing economic relations that develop
the economic forces that develop the political forces, because that is
functional for those political relations (as modelled in Figure 1).
Call such a complex of functional explanations a ‘Weighted Quadruplex
Theory’. (Such a theory is roughly modelled in Figure 8.)
[]
One argument that might be marshalled in support of a Weighted
Quadruplex Theory is an argument that also supports the State-Primacy
theory—one which we encountered earlier, and which can now be developed
further: Even if those holding dominant positions within the political
relations were extremely conservative with respect to the economic
forces, then, given that states are usually in military competition with
other states, they will face considerable pressure to select and then
stabilize new economic relations if they would be optimal for providing
the state with the revenue it needs to remain militarily competitive.
And any state that failed to introduce more productive economic
relations would fail to survive against a competitor state that had
succeeded in introducing economic relations which, at that period in
history, were optimal for providing the state with revenue.
Hence, we can posit a Darwinian-style explanation for political
relations selecting economic relations that develop the economic forces
that develop the political forces not merely because only those states
that, ultimately, succeed in so doing will eventually survive in an
environment of competing states but, in addition, because states that
are defeated by more militarily successful ones can expect to have their
economic relations transformed by the political relations of the
conquering state into ones similar to the economic relations selected
and stabilized by that state. As this is an outcome that any state will
want to avoid at all cost, even the most conservative of state personnel
will have an interest in selecting economic relations that are at least
as functional for their military requirements as the economic relations
of competitor states are for their political relations. In other words,
we might think of the functional component within a Quadruplex Theory
that the State-Primacy Theory focuses upon exclusively as determining
‘in the last instance’ the shape taken by modern societies.
But we could also provide Darwinian-style explanations for the other
three component functional explanations of the Quadruplex Theory. For if
the political forces did not empower the right kind of political
relations, then economic relations that developed the economic forces
that developed those political forces would not be selected and
stabilized. And such political forces would then fail to survive as
independent entities in a world of competing states. (They may well end
up being incorporated into the political forces of a conquering state,
for example.) Moreover, if the economic forces did not develop the
political forces that empowered the political relations that selected
and stabilized economic relations that were functional for the
development of the economic forces, then they would not survive in such
an environment, either. (For example, they might be replaced by economic
forces that were compatible with the requirements of a conquering
state). Finally, if the economic relations did not develop the economic
forces that developed the political forces that were capable of
empowering the political relations, then those political relations would
equally fail to survive in a world of competing states. (And they, too,
might well be transformed by a conquering state into ones capable of
selecting and stabilizing the economic relations that were functional
for that conquering state). Thus, the economic relations that would tend
to survive are those that are functional for the political relations in
a world of competing states.
In a nutshell, the political relations, the economic relations, the
economic forces and the political forces that survive will tend to be
those that are such that, in the last instance, the political relations
select and stabilize economic relations that develop the economic forces
that develop the political forces that empower the political relations.
Interestingly, just as strong a support for the anarchist rejection of
Marxist-Leninist revolutionary practice could be provided by a Weighted
Quadruplex Theory that accorded additional weighting to the political
relations only periodically. This would be the case if there were reason
to add weighting to the political relations at times of revolutionary
transition from one epoch to another, for it is precisely in times of
revolutionary transition that Marx believed that egalitarian economic
relations would transform the whole social structure. [35] If, during
periods of revolutionary transition, the political relations exercised
the greatest power within the system in selecting and stabilizing
economic relations that develop the economic forces that develop the
political forces, because that is functional for those political
relations, then egalitarian economic relations that were dysfunctional
for the political relations would be unlikely to survive. Call such a
complex of functional explanations that accords greatest weight to the
political relations during periods of epochal transformation a
‘Temporarily Weighted Quadruplex Theory’. (Such a theory would be
roughly represented by switching from Figure 5—roughly modelling stable
historical epochs—to Figure 8—roughly modelling revolutionary
periods—and back to Figure 5 once the new epoch had been established.)
Now, there are several reasons in favour of a Temporarily Weighted
Quadruplex Theory, for according greater weight to the role of the
political relations seems most appropriate at times of revolutionary
transition than within a stable epoch. Why? Because of some of the ways
in which revolutions can be of immense significance not only for the
society that is revolutionized but also for neighbouring states.
First, if a country undergoes a popular revolution, then it might
succumb to a revolutionary fervour to transform neighbouring countries
in a similar fashion. [36] And even if it did not, a neighbouring state
might very well fear that a revolutionary state on its borders would
invade in order to transform the rest of the world into its own image.
Hence, a revolutionary state, simply by its presence, provides reason
for neighbouring states to militarize. But once its neighbours
militarize, the revolutionary state will, itself, feel threatened, and
it, too, will feel compelled to militarize. The development of the
political forces will thus become especially crucial during times of
revolutionary transition.
Second, even if a state did not fear an actual military invasion from a
neighbouring state that had undergone a revolution, it might well still
dread that its revolutionary ideals would invade its society. In order
to safeguard itself from being infected by the ideals of its
revolutionary neighbour, a state might arm insurgents within the
revolutionary society, or assist an invasion by émigrés, or directly
invade the revolutionary society. [37] This would provoke a
revolutionary state to develop its military capacity. Again, we have
reason to hold that the development of the political forces will become
especially crucial during times of revolutionary transition.
Third, the course of a revolutionary transformation of a state might
well leave it temporarily weakened. [38] If this were the case, then
this would render a revolutionary state a more attractive target for
invasion by its neighbours than it would ordinarily have been. But the
fear of invasion by opportunistic neighbouring states would compel a
temporarily weakened revolutionary state to develop its military
capacity as fast as it could. Yet again, we have reason to hold that the
development of the political forces will become especially crucial
during times of revolutionary transition.
For reasons such as these, revolutionary transformations are likely to
act as a spur to increased militarization, both within and outside the
revolutionary state. But any such need to develop the political forces
will require the development of the economic forces. But the development
of the economic forces requires economic relations that are especially
suited to developing them. Given a widely perceived need to develop the
political forces at such momentous times, those located within the
political forces, the economic forces and the economic relations are
likely to be unusually supportive of the political relations selecting
economic relations that develop the economic forces that, in turn,
develop the political forces. Hence, revolutionary periods might well
require that greater weighting be temporarily accorded to one of the
four component functional explanations comprising the Quadruplex Theory.
But that particular component, namely the one focused upon by the
State-Primacy Theory, is precisely the one that best grounds the
anarchist critique of Marxist-Leninist revolutionary practice.
We can thus see that there are at least two related political theories
that might well prove to be independently compelling and that could be
deployed by an anarchist to ground a cogent critique of
Marxism-Leninism. The State-Primacy Theory performs that task well, but
so, too, does the Quadruplex Theory, especially when it takes a weighted
or a temporarily weighted form. Moreover, given its arguably greater
explanatory power, the Quadruplex Theory might well come to command more
widespread assent than the State-Primacy Theory.
[1] See, for example, V. I. Lenin, What is to be Done? (Peking: Foreign
Languages Press, 1975) and V. I. Lenin, One Step Forward, Two Steps
Back: The Crisis in Our Party (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1976).
For a critique, see A. Carter, ‘Marxism/Leninism: the science of the
proletariat?’ Studies in Marxism, 1 (1994), pp. 125– 141. On whether or
not Marxism-Leninism constitutes a deviation from the politics of Marx
and Engels, see A. Carter, ‘The real politics of Karl Marx and Frederick
Engels’, Studies in Marxism, 6 (1999), pp. 1 –30.
[2] Bakunin’s politics developed, in part, in response to Marx, while
Marx’s political thought developed, in part, as a response to the
anarchists Max Stirner, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Bakunin. As Marx’s
correspondence with Engels makes abundantly clear, he had a personal
antipathy towards Bakunin that bordered on hatred.
[3] Frederick Engels to Carlo Terzaghi, draft written after 6^(th)
January 1872, in K. Marx and F. Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 44
(Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1989), p. 293. Clearly, Engels was not
alone in holding this view, for Marx complained that ‘[t]he Central
Committee surrendered its power too soon, to make way for the Commune’.
Karl Marx to Ludwig Kugelmann, 12^(th) April 1871, in D. McLellan (Ed.)
Karl Marx: Selected Writings, 2^(nd) edn (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2000), p. 641. For one example of Marx’s authoritarianism,
centralism and elitism, see K. Marx, ‘Address to the Communist League’,
in McLellan, ibid., especially pp. 305– 311.
[4]
M. Bakunin, The Political Philosophy of Bakunin: Scientific Anarchism,
ed. G. P. Maximoff (New York: The Free Press, 1964), p. 217.
[5] See K. Marx and F. Engels, ‘The Communist Manifesto’, in McLellan,
op. cit., Ref. 3, especially pp. 255– 256, 268–270. Also see F. Engels,
Anti-Dühring, Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science (Peking:
Foreign Languages Press, 1976).
[6]
M. Bakunin, God and the State (New York: Dover, 1970), pp. 31–32.
[7] See K. Marx, ‘On Bakunin’s Statism and Anarchy’, in McLellan, op.
cit., Ref. 3.
[8]
K. Marx, ‘Speech to the Central Committee of the Communist League’, in
McLellan, op. cit., Ref. 3, p. 327.
[9]
M. Bakunin, Bakunin on Anarchy, ed. S. Dolgoff (London: Allen and
Unwin, 1973), p. 329.
[10] Bakunin, op. cit., Ref. 4, p. 218.
[11] And this is why Marx emphasizes that ‘[t]he executive of the modern
State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole
bourgeoisie’. Marx and Engels, op. cit., Ref. 5, p. 247.
[12] Marx and Engels, ibid., p. 262.
[13] Marx and Engels, ibid. However, it has to be noted that Marx’s view
underwent at least some revision later. See ‘The eighteenth Brumaire of
Louis Bonaparte’, in McLellan, op. cit., Ref. 3.
[14] Marx and Engels, op. cit., Ref. 5, p. 262.
[15] Thus the end is strikingly different from the means, for as Marx
counsels: ‘The workers ... must not only strive for a single and
indivisible German republic, but also within this republic for the most
determined centralization of power in the hands of the state authority.
They must not allow themselves to be misguided by the democratic talk of
freedom for the communities, of self-government, etc.’, Marx, ‘Address
to the Communist League’, op. cit., Ref. 3, p. 310.
[16] Bakunin, op. cit., Ref. 9, pp. 281–282.
[17] See G. A. Cohen, Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1978), passim.
[18] Why include control over economic exchange as well as control of
production? One reason is that perhaps the most important exploitation
today is that between the First World and the Third World. And that does
not seem to be adequately theorized in terms of control of production.
See A. Carter, ‘Analytical anarchism: some conceptual foundations’,
Political Theory, 28(2) (2000), pp. 230 –253, here at p. 251, n. 9.
[19] Carter, ibid., p. 235.
[20] Carter, ibid., pp. 234–235.
[21] See Cohen, op. cit., Ref. 17, Ch. 9.
[22] See T. Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative
Analysis of France, Russia, and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1979), pp. 30– 32.
[23] For the fullest explication and defence of the State-Primacy
Theory, see A. Carter, A Radical Green Political Theory (London:
Routledge, 1999).
[24]
R. Brenner, ‘The social basis of economic development’, in J. Roemer
(Ed.) Analytical Marxism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1986), pp. 32– 33.
[25]
S. E. Finer, ‘State- and nation-building in Europe: the role of the
military’, in C. Tilly (Ed.) The Formation of National States in
Western Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1975), p. 96. Also see I. Wallerstein, The Modern World-System:
Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European
World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century (New York: Academic
Press, 1974), p. 356.
[26] And it is worth noting that Marx himself accepts that the state,
during the period of the absolute monarchy, ‘helped to hasten ... the
decay of the feudal system’. Marx, ‘The eighteenth Brumaire of Louis
Bonaparte’, in McLellan, op. cit., Ref. 3, p. 345.
[27]
S. P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 1968), p. 122.
[28] Huntington, ibid., p. 123.
[29] Huntington, ibid., p. 126. For example, it has been argued that
various European monarchies backed the cities (where capitalist economic
relations were developing) in order to subvert the power of feudal
lords. Put another way, the political relations backed a change in the
economic relations because it was in their interests to do so. Moreover,
Michael Taylor argues that it was state actors who were responsible for
selecting new relations of economic control in France from the 15^(th)
century and this was due to their need to obtain increased tax revenue
because of ‘geopolitical-military competition’. See M. Taylor,
‘Structure, culture and action in the explanation of social change’,
Politics and Society, 17(2) (1989), pp. 115– 162, here at pp. 124–126.
[30] Frederick Engels to Theodor Cuno, 24^(th) January 1872 in Marx and
Engels, op. cit., Ref. 3, pp. 306–307. It is worth comparing Engels’
remarks here with the following statement he co-authored with Marx: ‘The
material life of individuals, which by no means depends merely on their
“will”, their mode of production and form of intercourse, which mutually
determine each other—this is the real basis of the State and remains so
at all the stages at which division of labour and private property are
still necessary, quite independently of the will of individuals. These
actual relations are in no way created by the State power; on the
contrary they are the power creating it’. K. Marx and F. Engels, ‘The
German ideology’, in McLellan, op. cit., Ref. 3, p. 200.
[31]
V. I. Lenin, The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government (Moscow:
Progress Publishers, 1970), p. 6.
[32] See, for example, M. Brinton, The Bolsheviks and Workers’ Control
1917–1921: The State and Counter-Revolution (Detroit, MI: Black and Red,
1975).
[33] See A. Carter, ‘Beyond primacy: Marxism, anarchism and radical
green political theory’, Environmental Politics, 19(6) (2010), pp. 951
–972.
[34] Bakunin, op. cit., Ref. 9, pp. 281 –282.
[35] One reason why Marx presumed that egalitarian economic relations
would succeed in transforming the rest of society is his belief that
‘the whole of human servitude is involved in the relations of the worker
to production, and all relations of servitude are nothing but
modifications and consequences of this relation’. K. Marx, ‘Economic and
philosophical manuscripts’, in K. Marx, Early Writings, trans. R.
Livingstone and G. Benton (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1975), p. 333.
Put another way, ‘the economical subjection of the man of labour to the
monopolizer of the means of labour, that is, the sources of all life,
lies at the bottom of servitude in all its forms, of all social misery,
mental degradation, and political dependence’. K. Marx, ‘Provisional
rules of the International’, in K. Marx, The First International and
After, ed. by D. Fernbach (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974), p. 82. It is
also worth recalling at this point Engels to Cuno, 24^(th) January 1872,
op. cit., Ref. 30, pp. 306–307.
[36] Possible examples are the periods of the Napoleonic Wars and the
rise of fascism.
[37] Candidate examples being Cuba, Nicaragua and Granada, respectively.
[38] Russia immediately following the 1917 Revolution presents itself as
an obvious example.