Morpheus
21st August 2004, 06:32
KARL MARX'S THEORY OF CAPITAL
by Ron Tabor
Part 1 (http://www.utopianmag.com/archives/aug2000/pdf/theoryofcap.pdf)
Part 2 (http://www.utopianmag.com/archives/dec2001/marxistcritique.pdf)
Marxism claims to be the outlook (the true interests and the natural point of view) of the international working class, the laboring class created by capitalism that owns no property except its ability to work, its labor-power. By virtue of this, Marxism believes it is both the true, scientific theory of history and the program for the liberation of humanity. What Karl Marx and his cothinker, Friedrich Engels, claimed to have done was to discover the underlying logic of history that would necessarily result in the establishment, through a working class revolution, of human freedom, embodied in the classless and stateless society they called communism.
Despite these claims, revolutions led by Marxists have not led to the creation of the communism that Marx and Engels envisioned, nor even to the dictatorship of the proletariat they predicted and advocated as the transition to socialism, which they called the first stage of communist society. Instead, such revolutions have resulted in totalitarian regimes in which bureaucratic elites have ruled over the working class and other social strata in the name of the workers. These systems I believe can best be described as state capitalism.
To be sure, the systems that emerged from Marxist revolutions were/are in many respects the antithesis of Marx and Engels' vision of communist society. But as I see it, these outcomes were not the result of mistakes by Marxists or of unexpected “objective conditions,” as Trotskyists and other Marxists critical of Communist societies contend. They flow from the underlying logic of Marxism itself. Thus, instead of being the perversion or negation of Marxism, these regimes represent its true meaning.
PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE OF MARXISM
I did not always see the question this way. For many years, I was a committed Marxist, a firm believer in its validity and deeply steeped in its theoretical assumptions. In addition to confirming my moral outrage at the barbarity of contemporary society, Marxism's analysis of capitalism and its theory of history seemed to me to explain a great many things in a scientific way. They did so far better, in any case, than the alternative theories, which struck me as uninformative, blatantly apologetic of capitalism or just plain stupid.
For much of this period, I was involved with organizations, particularly the Revolutionary Socialist League, that claimed to defend the libertarian vision of Marx and Engels and to oppose Communist-ruled societies as perversions of that ideal. Yet, as a result of attempting to understand how such terrible social systems could have arisen from such a well-intentioned worldview, I came to the conclusion that Marxism itself was a major cause of the establishment of such totalitarian regimes.
I am therefore no longer a Marxist, although Marxism has had a major impact on my thinking, including, hopefully, my ability to analyze it. But unlike many other former Marxists, I have not embraced capitalism. I still consider modern industrial society, despite its economic, social and scientific achievements, to be a brutal social system that condemns millions of people to poverty, disease and premature death and a breeding ground of racism, sexism, ecological destruction, fascism and war. Consequently, I continue to believe in the necessity of a radical social transformation to replace global capitalism with a democratic, egalitarian and cooperative society.
Yet, as a result of my reevaluation of Marxism, I have also come to the conclusion that a truly revolutionary anti-elitist program is only possible within the framework of anarchism, that is, a radical liberatory and egalitarian outlook that stresses decentralization, direct democracy and cooperation, and that explicitly rejects the use of the state as a vehicle to promote its goals.
Although it may seem that Marxism today is an insignificant social factor and likely to remain so, I believe this is temporary. Sooner or later, struggles against capitalism's injustices will intensify, and Marxism and Marxist organizations, or something very much like them, will be revived. For this reason, I think it is crucial that radicals who remain committed to libertarian and egalitarian ideals understand both the content of Marxism and its social significance.
In the following article and another which will appear in a later issue of this journal, I will attempt to lay out how I now understand Marxism, through an examination of the centerpiece of the Marxian world view, Marx's analysis of capitalism. I want to make it clear here that I do not claim to be proving my case. In my opinion, most of the questions involved cannot be proved or disproved (which is part of my argument against Marxism). What I am trying to do is put forward an interpretation of what Marxism is and why it has led to the results it has. If this analysis helps to explain Marxism and its historical outcomes, it will have served its purpose.
A SUMMARYOF MY ARGUMENT
I will present my overall argument first.
1. Marxism is a philosophical worldview, a speculative interpretation of the world. By this I mean that it embodies a set of beliefs about such “deep” questions as the nature of the universe and human beings' place in it, the meaning and goal of history, the origin of human consciousness and the accuracy of our knowledge, the definition of freedom and how it can be achieved. These issues have been discussed and debated by philosophers and others for thousands of years, but neither by Marx's time nor by ours have these issues been settled—proved or disproved—by science (or anything else). Nor, in my view, can they ever be resolved. They are ultimately matters of judgment and choice for every human being.
2. Despite the fact that his theory is philosophical in the sense described, Marx presents it as scientific, as if it has been verified in the same way that the accepted theories of physics, biology and other realms of scientific inquiry have been. Although it has its own philosophical presuppositions, science is an open process: it is a cooperative endeavor, occurring over time and space, that involves many individuals from different nations and cultures who hold a variety of religious and philosophical beliefs. (This cooperation is one of the reasons it is successful.) It also entails accepted rules of procedure and the continual testing of its data, methods, hypotheses and theories. These serve to create, at any given time, a broad level of acceptance of its dominant theories and to provide the means by which new theories may challenge and possibly replace the old.
In contrast, Marxism is a closed system whose practitioners share the same philosophical credo. It has no standardized rules of procedure, and despite its assertion that it is the “unity of theory and practice,” never allows itself to be tested. (Whatever the historical results of Marxism, those Marxists who remain committed to it exonerate it. Those who judge it a failure cease being Marxists.) Moreover, its discussions usually resemble theological debates which, where Marxists have had the means to do so, have often been decided in blood. Stripped of its pretenses, Marxism's claim to be scientific is little more than an attempt to give it an aura of authority that it would not otherwise possess.
3. Although Marxism is not scientific, it makes a convincing case that it is, at least to enough people over the years to have made it a historically significant force. In addition to presenting a plausible theory of history, its elaborate critique of capitalism and its call to overthrow it make Marxism particularly attractive to middle class intellectuals and others of intellectual bent who are already disturbed about the injustices of contemporary society.
4. The claim that Marxism is scientific rests to a considerable degree on Marx's analysis of capitalism, particularly as elaborated in his magnum opus, Capital. In addition to presenting an analysis of the dynamics of the capitalist economic system, Marx's work is meant to demonstrate what Marxists call the “materialist basis” for socialism. Specifically, it is intended to show that capitalism contains tendencies that will create the social conditions that will render the socialist revolution, as Marx describes it, inevitable.
(Despite Marx and Engels' frequent use of such terms as “inevitable” and “necessary,” Marxists have continually discussed whether socialism/communism is inevitable and whether Marx and Engels thought it was. To avoid futile debates on this issue, let me say here that I believe my analysis of Marxism applies both to the belief that socialism is inevitable as well as to the view that it is highly probable.)
5. Despite the prodigious labor involved in its production, despite the fact that it contains reasonable explanations of a great many aspects of capitalism and despite its vast scholarly apparatus, Marx's analysis of capital, like the rest of his theory, is a philosophical construct, not a scientific theory. Rather than being an objective confirmation of his broader worldview, it is infused throughout with the philosophic assumptions and precepts of that outlook.
6. Despite making many assumptions and employing procedures that further his conclusions, Marx does not prove his case. What he does do, in a manner of speaking, is to find what he's looking for. Steeped in the Idealist philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel, Marx searched for, and thought he found, human freedom as an immanent principle embedded in the nature of humanity and in the structure of human history and society.
7. In addition to representing a body of theory, Marxism insists that it is a guide to revolutionary action. Beyond the general demand that Marxists organize the workers to overthrow capitalism, it mandates that specific measures be taken by revolutionaries should they be in a position to do so. These include the establishment of a dictatorial state, the nationalization of all property in its hands and the repression of all those who resist. When carried out, such measures lead to the establishment of a totalitarian society.
8. Rather than representing the outlook of the proletariat and the path to freedom, Marxism can best be understood as an ideology that expresses the aspirations of certain socially-concerned intellectuals and others to reorganize and rule society according to their values. Rightly offended by the inequities of global capitalism, such people are attracted to a worldview that promises to replace it with what they see as a rational, just and truly democratic industrial system, one in which private property and social classes have been eliminated, and economic production and distribution are carried out according to a conscious, scientific plan rather than by means of the market.
9. Like all programs advocating an ideal society, Marxism contains an elitist potential. Believing itself to be the truth, it posits its vision as the only truly rational society and its strategy as the only way to achieve it. It simultaneously assumes that the purported agents of the socialist revolution, the working class, will automatically come to agree with it. It thus defines away the possibility of a conflict between the Marxist program and the desires and interests of those it claims to represent.
10. The elitist potential of Marxism becomes actual when, after a successful revolution or some other event that enables them to assume power, Marxist revolutionaries, pursuing the strategy prescribed by their theory, set up a centralized state they call and believe to be the dictatorship of the proletariat. They then have both the opportunity and the power to impose their vision on the rest of society, including the workers. When the workers (or anyone else) resist, they are defined as suffering from “false consciousness” (or just plain “counterrevolutionary”), and repressed.
11. Generally speaking, Marxists do not recognize the elitism entailed in their worldview. Trapped in the presuppositions of Marxism, they honestly believe that the revolution they seek to lead will eventually result in a stateless and classless society—the true liberation of humanity—or at least in a society far more efficient, just and democratic than capitalism. It is precisely this delusion that gives them the moral fervor and self-discipline to carry out the Marxist program and the repressive measures it mandates.
12. Therefore, although Marx claimed that his worldview would liberate humanity, the logic of his program is to recreate and reinforce the relations of domination and oppression he claimed to have transcended.
The seeds of the historical results of Marxism can be seen in Marxist theory if one looks beneath the surface. This includes Marx's theory of capital, which, surprisingly, has often been held up by anarchists and other anti-Marxist radicals as a convincing critique of capitalism, somehow independent of the authoritarian content of the rest of the Marxian worldview. It will be the purpose of this article and its companion to demonstrate the erroneousness of this view.
Part 1 (http://www.utopianmag.com/archives/aug2000/pdf/theoryofcap.pdf)
Part 2 (http://www.utopianmag.com/archives/dec2001/marxistcritique.pdf)
by Ron Tabor
Part 1 (http://www.utopianmag.com/archives/aug2000/pdf/theoryofcap.pdf)
Part 2 (http://www.utopianmag.com/archives/dec2001/marxistcritique.pdf)
Marxism claims to be the outlook (the true interests and the natural point of view) of the international working class, the laboring class created by capitalism that owns no property except its ability to work, its labor-power. By virtue of this, Marxism believes it is both the true, scientific theory of history and the program for the liberation of humanity. What Karl Marx and his cothinker, Friedrich Engels, claimed to have done was to discover the underlying logic of history that would necessarily result in the establishment, through a working class revolution, of human freedom, embodied in the classless and stateless society they called communism.
Despite these claims, revolutions led by Marxists have not led to the creation of the communism that Marx and Engels envisioned, nor even to the dictatorship of the proletariat they predicted and advocated as the transition to socialism, which they called the first stage of communist society. Instead, such revolutions have resulted in totalitarian regimes in which bureaucratic elites have ruled over the working class and other social strata in the name of the workers. These systems I believe can best be described as state capitalism.
To be sure, the systems that emerged from Marxist revolutions were/are in many respects the antithesis of Marx and Engels' vision of communist society. But as I see it, these outcomes were not the result of mistakes by Marxists or of unexpected “objective conditions,” as Trotskyists and other Marxists critical of Communist societies contend. They flow from the underlying logic of Marxism itself. Thus, instead of being the perversion or negation of Marxism, these regimes represent its true meaning.
PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE OF MARXISM
I did not always see the question this way. For many years, I was a committed Marxist, a firm believer in its validity and deeply steeped in its theoretical assumptions. In addition to confirming my moral outrage at the barbarity of contemporary society, Marxism's analysis of capitalism and its theory of history seemed to me to explain a great many things in a scientific way. They did so far better, in any case, than the alternative theories, which struck me as uninformative, blatantly apologetic of capitalism or just plain stupid.
For much of this period, I was involved with organizations, particularly the Revolutionary Socialist League, that claimed to defend the libertarian vision of Marx and Engels and to oppose Communist-ruled societies as perversions of that ideal. Yet, as a result of attempting to understand how such terrible social systems could have arisen from such a well-intentioned worldview, I came to the conclusion that Marxism itself was a major cause of the establishment of such totalitarian regimes.
I am therefore no longer a Marxist, although Marxism has had a major impact on my thinking, including, hopefully, my ability to analyze it. But unlike many other former Marxists, I have not embraced capitalism. I still consider modern industrial society, despite its economic, social and scientific achievements, to be a brutal social system that condemns millions of people to poverty, disease and premature death and a breeding ground of racism, sexism, ecological destruction, fascism and war. Consequently, I continue to believe in the necessity of a radical social transformation to replace global capitalism with a democratic, egalitarian and cooperative society.
Yet, as a result of my reevaluation of Marxism, I have also come to the conclusion that a truly revolutionary anti-elitist program is only possible within the framework of anarchism, that is, a radical liberatory and egalitarian outlook that stresses decentralization, direct democracy and cooperation, and that explicitly rejects the use of the state as a vehicle to promote its goals.
Although it may seem that Marxism today is an insignificant social factor and likely to remain so, I believe this is temporary. Sooner or later, struggles against capitalism's injustices will intensify, and Marxism and Marxist organizations, or something very much like them, will be revived. For this reason, I think it is crucial that radicals who remain committed to libertarian and egalitarian ideals understand both the content of Marxism and its social significance.
In the following article and another which will appear in a later issue of this journal, I will attempt to lay out how I now understand Marxism, through an examination of the centerpiece of the Marxian world view, Marx's analysis of capitalism. I want to make it clear here that I do not claim to be proving my case. In my opinion, most of the questions involved cannot be proved or disproved (which is part of my argument against Marxism). What I am trying to do is put forward an interpretation of what Marxism is and why it has led to the results it has. If this analysis helps to explain Marxism and its historical outcomes, it will have served its purpose.
A SUMMARYOF MY ARGUMENT
I will present my overall argument first.
1. Marxism is a philosophical worldview, a speculative interpretation of the world. By this I mean that it embodies a set of beliefs about such “deep” questions as the nature of the universe and human beings' place in it, the meaning and goal of history, the origin of human consciousness and the accuracy of our knowledge, the definition of freedom and how it can be achieved. These issues have been discussed and debated by philosophers and others for thousands of years, but neither by Marx's time nor by ours have these issues been settled—proved or disproved—by science (or anything else). Nor, in my view, can they ever be resolved. They are ultimately matters of judgment and choice for every human being.
2. Despite the fact that his theory is philosophical in the sense described, Marx presents it as scientific, as if it has been verified in the same way that the accepted theories of physics, biology and other realms of scientific inquiry have been. Although it has its own philosophical presuppositions, science is an open process: it is a cooperative endeavor, occurring over time and space, that involves many individuals from different nations and cultures who hold a variety of religious and philosophical beliefs. (This cooperation is one of the reasons it is successful.) It also entails accepted rules of procedure and the continual testing of its data, methods, hypotheses and theories. These serve to create, at any given time, a broad level of acceptance of its dominant theories and to provide the means by which new theories may challenge and possibly replace the old.
In contrast, Marxism is a closed system whose practitioners share the same philosophical credo. It has no standardized rules of procedure, and despite its assertion that it is the “unity of theory and practice,” never allows itself to be tested. (Whatever the historical results of Marxism, those Marxists who remain committed to it exonerate it. Those who judge it a failure cease being Marxists.) Moreover, its discussions usually resemble theological debates which, where Marxists have had the means to do so, have often been decided in blood. Stripped of its pretenses, Marxism's claim to be scientific is little more than an attempt to give it an aura of authority that it would not otherwise possess.
3. Although Marxism is not scientific, it makes a convincing case that it is, at least to enough people over the years to have made it a historically significant force. In addition to presenting a plausible theory of history, its elaborate critique of capitalism and its call to overthrow it make Marxism particularly attractive to middle class intellectuals and others of intellectual bent who are already disturbed about the injustices of contemporary society.
4. The claim that Marxism is scientific rests to a considerable degree on Marx's analysis of capitalism, particularly as elaborated in his magnum opus, Capital. In addition to presenting an analysis of the dynamics of the capitalist economic system, Marx's work is meant to demonstrate what Marxists call the “materialist basis” for socialism. Specifically, it is intended to show that capitalism contains tendencies that will create the social conditions that will render the socialist revolution, as Marx describes it, inevitable.
(Despite Marx and Engels' frequent use of such terms as “inevitable” and “necessary,” Marxists have continually discussed whether socialism/communism is inevitable and whether Marx and Engels thought it was. To avoid futile debates on this issue, let me say here that I believe my analysis of Marxism applies both to the belief that socialism is inevitable as well as to the view that it is highly probable.)
5. Despite the prodigious labor involved in its production, despite the fact that it contains reasonable explanations of a great many aspects of capitalism and despite its vast scholarly apparatus, Marx's analysis of capital, like the rest of his theory, is a philosophical construct, not a scientific theory. Rather than being an objective confirmation of his broader worldview, it is infused throughout with the philosophic assumptions and precepts of that outlook.
6. Despite making many assumptions and employing procedures that further his conclusions, Marx does not prove his case. What he does do, in a manner of speaking, is to find what he's looking for. Steeped in the Idealist philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel, Marx searched for, and thought he found, human freedom as an immanent principle embedded in the nature of humanity and in the structure of human history and society.
7. In addition to representing a body of theory, Marxism insists that it is a guide to revolutionary action. Beyond the general demand that Marxists organize the workers to overthrow capitalism, it mandates that specific measures be taken by revolutionaries should they be in a position to do so. These include the establishment of a dictatorial state, the nationalization of all property in its hands and the repression of all those who resist. When carried out, such measures lead to the establishment of a totalitarian society.
8. Rather than representing the outlook of the proletariat and the path to freedom, Marxism can best be understood as an ideology that expresses the aspirations of certain socially-concerned intellectuals and others to reorganize and rule society according to their values. Rightly offended by the inequities of global capitalism, such people are attracted to a worldview that promises to replace it with what they see as a rational, just and truly democratic industrial system, one in which private property and social classes have been eliminated, and economic production and distribution are carried out according to a conscious, scientific plan rather than by means of the market.
9. Like all programs advocating an ideal society, Marxism contains an elitist potential. Believing itself to be the truth, it posits its vision as the only truly rational society and its strategy as the only way to achieve it. It simultaneously assumes that the purported agents of the socialist revolution, the working class, will automatically come to agree with it. It thus defines away the possibility of a conflict between the Marxist program and the desires and interests of those it claims to represent.
10. The elitist potential of Marxism becomes actual when, after a successful revolution or some other event that enables them to assume power, Marxist revolutionaries, pursuing the strategy prescribed by their theory, set up a centralized state they call and believe to be the dictatorship of the proletariat. They then have both the opportunity and the power to impose their vision on the rest of society, including the workers. When the workers (or anyone else) resist, they are defined as suffering from “false consciousness” (or just plain “counterrevolutionary”), and repressed.
11. Generally speaking, Marxists do not recognize the elitism entailed in their worldview. Trapped in the presuppositions of Marxism, they honestly believe that the revolution they seek to lead will eventually result in a stateless and classless society—the true liberation of humanity—or at least in a society far more efficient, just and democratic than capitalism. It is precisely this delusion that gives them the moral fervor and self-discipline to carry out the Marxist program and the repressive measures it mandates.
12. Therefore, although Marx claimed that his worldview would liberate humanity, the logic of his program is to recreate and reinforce the relations of domination and oppression he claimed to have transcended.
The seeds of the historical results of Marxism can be seen in Marxist theory if one looks beneath the surface. This includes Marx's theory of capital, which, surprisingly, has often been held up by anarchists and other anti-Marxist radicals as a convincing critique of capitalism, somehow independent of the authoritarian content of the rest of the Marxian worldview. It will be the purpose of this article and its companion to demonstrate the erroneousness of this view.
Part 1 (http://www.utopianmag.com/archives/aug2000/pdf/theoryofcap.pdf)
Part 2 (http://www.utopianmag.com/archives/dec2001/marxistcritique.pdf)