A.R.Amistad
26th July 2010, 19:35
From Mandel's How to Make No Sense of Marx.
Ernest Mandel
And the man who wrote this flaming indictment of capitalism, based on tremendous moral indignation, is accused of regarding pre-communist individuals – including capitalist workers! – as ‘so many sheep for the slaughter’! How can Elster be so blinded by his rejection of the dialectic as not to notice what a deep injustice he commits against Marx by attributing to him absurd short-sighted mechanistic notions of ‘progress’ and ‘realpolitik’ (as industrialization necessarily prepares society for communism, industrialization is unilaterally good, regardless of the price humankind and the workers pay for it)?
In the eyes of Marx what is always decisive is the need to develop self-confidence, the abandonment of servility and resignation, the spirit of rebellion and contestation, the freely developed cohesion and unity of all the oppressed and exploited, precisely because, in the long run, all circumstances in which human beings are oppressed have to be overthrown, and that can only be done by the oppressed themselves. That is the ‘categorical imperative’ which guided Marx’s politics all his life, and which often appears ‘ultra-left’ to Elster.
But the contradiction is Elster’s, not Marx’s! For the alternative is arrogant, paternalistic elitism, in which ‘scientists’ (or ‘scientific politicians’) take it upon themselves to determine in a sovereign way, including against those involved, what is ‘possible’ and what is ‘impossible.’ The parallel with the Jesuits and the Stalinists is obvious, once that imperative and its necessary concomitant imperative – the ‘emancipation of the toilers can only be the work of the toilers themselves’ – is even partially and momentarily abandoned. It is my contention that, to his great honour, Marx never abandoned these two imperatives in his political action throughout his life. Nor should anybody claiming to be socialist.
http://marxists.org/archive/mandel/1989/xx/nosense.htm
This is one of my favorite Marxist essays. I agree with Mandel's response to the charge from the Analytic Marxists that Marx proposed some sort of schema of history in which all societies where simply "sheep for the slaughter" on the way to industrialization. Socialism, or at least lasting socialism or civilized socialism, would have been impossible with the industrialization and socialization of labor characteristic of capitalism. But for example, Mandel discusses Marx's admiration for ancient characters like Spartacus. Again, I hate to speculate on things that happened long ago and cannot be changed, but concerning revolutionary characters like Spartacus, where there rebellions totally useless? Did people have to suffer the ills brought about by Slave society and later Feudalism on the way to industrialization? I'm not agreeing with the charge of the analytic's here, but I think Mandel should have elaborated on this more. Where there (dare I say) more humane methods of living under class society before capitalism that people could have fought for? For example, even if a peasant revolt under feudalism may not lead to a more progressive form of society, aren't they right to rebel for a better life or at least a more humane society then what they lived under? If this makes no sense let me know and I will try to clear it up, but the issue has been bugging me lately as to what pre-capitalist societies could have done to improve their conditions on the road to socialized labor and hopefully socialism in our time.
Ernest Mandel
And the man who wrote this flaming indictment of capitalism, based on tremendous moral indignation, is accused of regarding pre-communist individuals – including capitalist workers! – as ‘so many sheep for the slaughter’! How can Elster be so blinded by his rejection of the dialectic as not to notice what a deep injustice he commits against Marx by attributing to him absurd short-sighted mechanistic notions of ‘progress’ and ‘realpolitik’ (as industrialization necessarily prepares society for communism, industrialization is unilaterally good, regardless of the price humankind and the workers pay for it)?
In the eyes of Marx what is always decisive is the need to develop self-confidence, the abandonment of servility and resignation, the spirit of rebellion and contestation, the freely developed cohesion and unity of all the oppressed and exploited, precisely because, in the long run, all circumstances in which human beings are oppressed have to be overthrown, and that can only be done by the oppressed themselves. That is the ‘categorical imperative’ which guided Marx’s politics all his life, and which often appears ‘ultra-left’ to Elster.
But the contradiction is Elster’s, not Marx’s! For the alternative is arrogant, paternalistic elitism, in which ‘scientists’ (or ‘scientific politicians’) take it upon themselves to determine in a sovereign way, including against those involved, what is ‘possible’ and what is ‘impossible.’ The parallel with the Jesuits and the Stalinists is obvious, once that imperative and its necessary concomitant imperative – the ‘emancipation of the toilers can only be the work of the toilers themselves’ – is even partially and momentarily abandoned. It is my contention that, to his great honour, Marx never abandoned these two imperatives in his political action throughout his life. Nor should anybody claiming to be socialist.
http://marxists.org/archive/mandel/1989/xx/nosense.htm
This is one of my favorite Marxist essays. I agree with Mandel's response to the charge from the Analytic Marxists that Marx proposed some sort of schema of history in which all societies where simply "sheep for the slaughter" on the way to industrialization. Socialism, or at least lasting socialism or civilized socialism, would have been impossible with the industrialization and socialization of labor characteristic of capitalism. But for example, Mandel discusses Marx's admiration for ancient characters like Spartacus. Again, I hate to speculate on things that happened long ago and cannot be changed, but concerning revolutionary characters like Spartacus, where there rebellions totally useless? Did people have to suffer the ills brought about by Slave society and later Feudalism on the way to industrialization? I'm not agreeing with the charge of the analytic's here, but I think Mandel should have elaborated on this more. Where there (dare I say) more humane methods of living under class society before capitalism that people could have fought for? For example, even if a peasant revolt under feudalism may not lead to a more progressive form of society, aren't they right to rebel for a better life or at least a more humane society then what they lived under? If this makes no sense let me know and I will try to clear it up, but the issue has been bugging me lately as to what pre-capitalist societies could have done to improve their conditions on the road to socialized labor and hopefully socialism in our time.