Bookchin's "Listen, marxist!"

[Black Sheep]

I was super-excited to get this book,as i was looking for an anarchist head-on criticism on marxism, and having read Murray's excellent "Social vs lifestyle anarchism: an unbridgable gap" , my expectations were high.
I finished my 1st read , and, having a strong marxist backround, i was like wtf at many points.
Since i want to shrug off any sensationalist reactions i might have, let's discuss it.
I don't care that much about its historical analysis of the SU - it will also spark a flame war- but more about the theoretical criticism.

(One of ) the main point(s) in the book was that marxism's recipe is largely irrelevant, as it was written in a time of scarcity, and with a society of scarcity in mind.
Because of that its call for an intermediate stage of state socialism is irrelevant.
other points, which are rather cloudy in my mind and i can't recall their full explanation are:
-the working class' "historical role" and protagonist place in class struggle.
-it claims that all kinds of people are oppressed and are a revolution-medium

What's your opinion comrades, especially anarchists, and especially^2 anarchists who've read the book.

If you have in mind another topic from the book with which you agree/disagree bring it up.

Thank you comrades. :)
(please no gargantuan quotes from articles)

[manic expression]

We don't live in a society of scarcity?

[Savage]

Because of that its call for an intermediate stage of state socialism is irrelevant.

Are there a lot of strawman arguments like this in the book?

[hatzel]

Yo yo yo nice to see we're addressing the OP and the text mentioned. I haven't actually read it, but I feel that I'd might as well say something about it, even if just to ask...
-the working class' "historical role" and protagonist place in class struggle.
-it claims that all kinds of people are oppressed and are a revolution-mediumDo you remember at all whence these claims came? I know I've read a lot of people who have suggested that the whole proletariat / class war...ah...thing is a necessary part of capitalism, and that by acting according to it, it's kind of...playing according to the rules of those who desire a class system, by distinctly dividing people into classes and, in the process, isolating those non-proletarians who may, in acknowledging that socialism is a more fair organisation of society, be willing to cooperate in achieving its implementation, but I don't know if Bookchin was talking about that specifically. Maybe it rings a bell somewhere in the clouded back of your mind?

Of course it is true that there have been many Marxists who have attacked other political ideas (Proudhon springs to mind, as do the narodniks) for their supposedly petit-bourgeois nature (I won't get into that debate, or the suggestion that Proudhon's system was suitable for its time as France was at that time a nation of the petty-bourgeoisie and -peasantry, with a much weaker proletariat than in Germany and Britain), but perhaps Bookchin was suggesting that even elements of the (petit-)bourgeois may be aware that they are themselves not free, having to worry about stress, anxiety, the threat of bankruptcy and so on, and could perhaps even be willing to become socialists, had socialism not pitted itself directly opposed to them? And in refusing to acknowledge that the bourgeois too would find themselves in an arguably better society post-revolution, and instead by setting up a proletariat vs. bourgeois situation, Marxism discourages those 'socially conscious' members of the non-proletarian classes from taking an active involvement in the struggle for socialism based on their own ideas of morality and fairness?

Before anybody calls me an idiot or a class-traitor or whatever, I'm not necessarily advocating the above-cited position. I'm just trying to guess Bookchin's without having read the book, based on my readings of other writers who expressed similar concerns. Yup! :)

[Black Sheep]

I know I've read a lot of people who have suggested that the whole proletariat / class war...ah...thing is a necessary part of capitalism, and that by acting according to it, it's kind of...playing according to the rules of those who desire a class system, by distinctly dividing people into classes and, in the process, isolating those non-proletarians who may, in acknowledging that socialism is a more fair organisation of society, be willing to cooperate in achieving its implementation, but I don't know if Bookchin was talking about that specifically.

I m not sure what he means exactly either, that's why a 2nd read is essential.

Also, the book is translated by , ehm "The bandal group of thessalonica":blink:, so i'm a bit suspicious too.
Lol.

[LibertarianSocialist1]

Are there a lot of strawman arguments like this in the book?
That´s not a strawman argument.

[hatzel]

That´s not a strawman argument.It is if somebody says 'you have a transitional phase because there is scarcity, there is no longer scarcity, therefore you need no transitional phase.' This ignored any other possible reason for a transition phase, and, if the argument is as simple as Black Sheep outlined (though I'm sure it's somewhat more in-depth in the book itself), it is, for all intents and purposes, a strawman argument, if a Marxist claims that there are other reasons for which to have a transitional phase.

[Zanthorus]

In response to the comments by Rabbi K, I would like to point out that Marx did not think that the peasantry and petty bourgeoisie were incapable of supporting a working-class government, on the contrary, with respect to the Paris Commune he writes that it "was the first revolution in which the working class was openly acknowledged as the only class capable of social initiative, even by the great bulk of the Paris middle class – shopkeepers, tradesmen, merchants – the wealthy capitalist alone excepted. The Commune had saved them by a sagacious settlement of that ever recurring cause of dispute among the middle class themselves – the debtor and creditor accounts." (The Civil War in France) And again, regarding the peasantry this time: "The Commune was perfectly right in telling the peasants that “its victory was their only hope.” Of all the lies hatched at Versailles and re-echoed by the glorious European penny-a-liner, one of the most tremendous was that the Rurals represented the French peasantry... The Commune would have delivered the peasant of the blood tax – would have given him a cheap government – transformed his present blood-suckers, the notary, advocate, executor, and other judicial vampires, into salaried communal agents, elected by, and responsible to, himself. It would have freed him of the tyranny of the garde champêtre, the gendarme, and the prefect; would have put enlightenment by the schoolmaster in the place of stultification by the priest."

Marx's position is not that the petty bourgeoisie and peasantry should be disdained as non-proletarian classes, but that the solution to their opression under capitalism only finds it's solution in the programme of the revolutionary working-class. The concrete example for Marx is, as I just quoted, the Paris Commune. The Commune occured in a country where the majority of the population fell into either the peasantry or the petty bourgeoisie. Nevertheless, Marx's perspective was that a proletarian revolution was possible in France and in West European countries in a similar situation if the proletariat carried such measures as to alleviate the situation of the non-proletarian but non-bourgeois classes. His conspectus of Bakunin's Statism and Anarchy is also fairly clear in stating his position on the subject:


...where the peasant exists in the mass as private proprietor, where he even forms a more or less considerable majority, as in all states of the west European continent, where he has not disappeared and been replaced by the agricultural wage-labourer, as in England, the following cases apply: either he hinders each workers' revolution, makes a wreck of it, as he has formerly done in France, or the proletariat (for the peasant proprietor does not belong to the proletariat, and even where his condition is proletarian, he believes himself not to) must as government take measures through which the peasant finds his condition immediately improved, so as to win him for the revolution; measures which will at least provide the possibility of easing the transition from private ownership of land to collective ownership, so that the peasant arrives at this of his own accord, from economic reasons.

[hatzel]

I was merely repeating an argument I vaguely remember reading somewhere, which was probably based on a critique of early 20th century 'Marxist' currents, and guessing that Bookchin may have drawn similar conclusions based on a similarly inaccurate interpretation of Marxism coloured by this or that group. As Black Sheep said, somebody with an in-depth knowledge of Marxism reading Bookchin's text may have been a bit 'wtf' every now and then. Presumably this means that the object of criticism may not have been entirely accurate...I'm not expressing my own opinion, yet still it's good to dispel such myths which have cropped up every now and then throughout the history of anti-Marxian thought.

[Aurora]

We don't live in a society of scarcity?
We do in most respects but i think it's interesting to note that capitalism seems to have eliminated scarcity in some areas, food, water and housing come to mind. In respect to the OP i don't think this changes Marx's analysis at all in fact i think it brings to the front how overripe capitalism is and lays out the contradiction between private ownership and social need for all to see.

[Gorilla]

Basically LM! comes out of liberal discourse in the 60's where America was supposed to have achieved "abundance" (see e.g. Galbraith, Marcuse, David Reisman etc.) and basically satisfied everyone's wants so now people were just sitting around watching TV and being stupid in a spiritual/existential funk and grand politics had to be about opening up new possibilities and providing Meaning now that scarcity had been conquered.

This was associated with a line that the working class were especially well-fed TV idiots and now totally non revolutionary.

It was dumb as hell for obvious reasons but this was a huge idea at the time. I have included illustrations for visual learners:

The American working class as seen by Marcuse et al. circa 1960's:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iYhXgtbtp1s/SXaTLrc8byI/AAAAAAAABVQ/bsG9e3u5MKs/s400/fred+flintstone.jpg

The actual American working class circa 1960's:
http://media.metropulse.com/media/img/photos/2009/01/07/coal_miners_protest_t300.jpg

[black magick hustla]

Basically LM! comes out of liberal discourse in the 60's where America was supposed to have achieved "abundance" (see e.g. Galbraith, Marcuse, David Reisman etc.) and basically satisfied everyone's wants so now people were basically sitting around watching TV and being stupid in a spiritual/existential funk and grand politics had to be about opening up new possibilities and providing Meaning now that scarcity had been conquered.


This is interesting. I think what happened is that the post world war two boom meant to a lot of marxists that "crisis theory" was discredited, and therefore the theoretical framework earlier marxists operated (that capitalism was decadent and was unable to yield positive demands, this was more or less the comintern line) was rendered useless. So now you had a bunch of academic wrangling about the role of artists and "alienation" and "boredom" etcetera (frankfurt school, situationists) marxists abandoning class discourse for a discourse about power instead (castoriadis socialism ou barbarisme) etcetera. unfortunately, their assumptions got kicked in the teeth by 1968 when the proletariat rose again as a historical agent and crisis hampered the economy in the 70s.

[black magick hustla]

snip, edited out factually incorrect info