The Future of Historical Materialism in Theory and Practice
I was
genuinely moved by the most recent highlight article in Historical Materialism’s 23.2 edition by Leo Panitch and Sam
Gindin. For those unable to obtain a
copy of HM 23.2, or for those who don’t have a University Proxy, I hope that
this summary will provide at least the key points; because this is an argument
and assessment of historical materialism that cannot be overlooked. While I will do my best to explain my own
thoughts, reactions, and perceptions of the article, nothing can substitute
reading the author’s own words. I highly
recommend a subscription to Historical Materialism Journal, which can be
purchased for about $50-80 depending on your student status. Otherwise, you can always purchase individual
copies of their journals on their website from Brill Publishing (link will be
posted at the bottom).
So let’s
dive right in. The title of the article
is aptly put: Marxist Theory and Strategy:
Getting Somewhere Better.
Some might read that and be confused by the title, but for the vast
majority of Marxists out there it need not be said that presently the work of
historical materialists, Marxist scholars, and social activists need a more
grounded understanding of how theory transforms into practice; and vice versa.
On a
basic, general level, the article calls for “better historical-materialist
theorisations of capitalist competition, capitalist classes and capitalist
states, and in particular the institutional dimensions of these—which is
fundamental for understanding why and how capitalism has survived into the
twenty-first century.”[i] This is in part a rallying call for Marxist
intellectuals and social activists to reassess their understandings of the
capitalist world-system by integrating more advanced theories of socioeconomic
development. A critical example of this
would be Giovanni Arrighi’s The LongTwentieth Century—a text that I have reviewed and given much praise. Secondly, it is also a criticism of the
existing theorisations by implying that there could be something “better.” This is something we must take to heart and
consider seriously: What about existing
theorisations are limiting? The rest of
the article spends most of its time explaining these limitations.
The
first major limitation suggested by the authors is the attempt by social
theorists to explain capitalist competition through “market predominance,” or
the relative size and growth of multinational corporations throughout the
twentieth century. Coca Cola, for
example, holds a relative dominance over a specific market of commodities and
goods, thereby limiting the expansion of more commodities in that market (it’s
quite difficult to start up a new soda product). But what exactly does the predominance of a
multinational corporation tell us about capitalist competition other than that
it generally creates conditions to destroy competition? It’s one thing to point out a tendency for
market predominance to come into fruition over time and another—even more
revolutionary—thing to point out that this is a law of capitalist development,
not a feature of it. The “structural
relationship between industry and finance” should be understood as a
monopolistic fact of economic development under capitalism. Laws exist suggesting that monopolies are not
beneficial for the economy and should be broken up, but the fact remains that
monopolization of a market is a canon feature of all industrial and financial
production. Few scholars and activists,
the authors suggest, have addressed this fact and instead focus on the
anti-monopoly laws as a feature for a greater society—wholly ignoring that
political laws do little to disrupt entrenched economic laws.[ii]
The
second limitation put forth by the authors is the jargon-laced assessment of “class”
done by Marxists from 1900 to the present.
Too often do we hear people break down “class” into abstract and ideal
categories: 99% and 1%; rich and poor;
proletarian and bourgeoisie. Indeed,
Marx himself used this sort of abstract dichotomy to explain the complex nature
of class struggle. But none of Marx’s
writings ever suggested that these class groups were solidified and unchanging;
in fact the very notion of a lack of quantitative and qualitative change over
time would flip everything Marxism is based on upside down. Instead, the authors suggest that “classes
must be conceived as real collectivities whose changing formation based on
common experiences and activities can be traced historically.” It is thus the role of historical
materialists to “investigate the changing capacities of classes to express
their identity and interests over time, and the effects this has on the
relative balance of class power.” Now
here’s a radical proposition that few Marxists have expressed: Classes identity and class position do not
necessarily coincide. Someone might be
an industrial proletarian but identify with their rich and affluent high school
friend who now owns a major business. Class, therefore, has two central
components to it: 1) the economically-determined
actuality of social position; and 2)
the culturally and socially-determined perception
of social position. Classes change, and
so do their understandings of themselves and their relationships to
others. Historical materialists must
accept this and continue to investigate the mechanisms that cause the shift from one generation to
another.[iii]
Probably
one of the best criticisms put forth by the authors is the limited assessment
made by 21st century Marxists to explain the full nature of
capitalist states. The authors charge
that “Marxism’s traditional weakness as a theory of the state was that it never
went far beyond the assertion that ‘the state is merely a device for
administering the common affairs.’” I
hear this argument repeated ad-nausium on Facebook groups: ‘The state is a tool to be used by whatever
class is in power.’ Such a notion is
built off a façade; it’s an attempt to justify and defend the Marxist-Leninist
practices of the Soviet Union and China from 1930-1980. The authors, however, point to Ralph
Miliband, who insisted on “the need for distinguishing between state power and
class power, and the importance of clearly delimitating state institutions
within capitalist societies.” Consider
America for example, which was a critical nation-state in the formation of the
contemporary capitalist world-system after WWII. The state did not merely wield control over
its own territory, it also manifested conditions of capitalist development on
all corners of the globe. However, the
conditions it created did not expand the power of the state and those employing
it—rather, it expanded the power and reach of multinational corporations. This built a symbiotic relationship that had
previously only existed in infancy: “capitalist
states are dependent on capital accumulation for securing their own tax
revenues and legitimacy, and their actions must always be located within the
social field of class forces, but state power is not the same as class power.” In short, we cannot fool ourselves into
believing that the state is merely a pawn of one class or another; it is
independent in many ways. Attempts to
negate this independence is an idealistic endeavor to ignore complexity for the
sake of simplicity.[iv]
The two
final criticisms are broken into sections, but they essentially encapsulate the
same question: Why has capitalism
survived? Why has the proletarian
industrial class not assumed their roles as the system’s ‘gravediggers’? Building off previous arguments by
World-Systems scholars and Autonomous social activists, the authors pose us to
question our own understanding of the role played by the proletarian class. Marxism
has been charged in the past for being deterministic,
in that it suggests an inherent downfall in capitalism because of visual and accountable
contradictions. P, the so-called ‘tendency for the rate of
profit to fall’, is a prime example of this.
But as I’ve addressed in previous articles and the authors do in their own,
the contradictions of capitalism should not be understood as the faults upon
which a breakdown is inevitable.
Instead, they should be understood as the mechanisms which force
capitalist economic systems to continuously revolutionize and expand their own
production. Some scholars, like Arrighi,
argue that a bounce-back between financial and industrial investment accounts
for at least part of the sustainability of capitalism through periods of
sustained crises—such as the 1880s, the 1930s, the 1970s, and the current
situation around us today. The authors
of the article suggest another powerful argument: that the crises necessitate shifts to “alter
the balance of class forces and change institutional infrastructures in ways
which renew capital accumulation.” In
other words, the social institutions that we associate with capitalism (banks,
reserves, productive centers) undergo massive quantitative and qualitative
shifts to cope with the conditions of crises generated by capital’s
contradictions.[v]
All
these limitations lead the authors to posit 9 “strategic guidelines,” which
they say expresses the “nine lives we would like to think Marxism has before it
really deserves to be pronounced dead.”
The first is that “capitalist crises cannot be counted on to produce
conditions for socialist transformation.”
A powerful argument, one that many will not swallow easily.
The second is that “there is no
possibility of a return to the Keynesian welfare state.” Too often do we hear individuals, liberal and
conservative, express a desire to return to the old days, when the conditions
were more pure for social change and the welfare state stood as an example for
future development. In light of
globalization, the welfare state is increasingly seeing its own power dwindle
in comparison to multinational corporations.
The third guideline is that “the
working class as the agency of socialist transformation needs to be
problematized.” This attacks the idea
that once a class, or representatives of a class, obtain power that they
immediately have begun transformation of social conditions. As Deutscher wrote on the success of the
Bolshevik’s seizing of power, their power “at best represented the idea of the
class, not the class itself.”
The fourth strategy is one many are
familiar with but hesitant to take to its full completion: historical materialists, Marxists, and social
activists must “build institutions which are directly engaged once again in
organizing the proletariat into a class.”
The emphasis here is on organizing and representing the proletariat “broadly
rather than narrowly” (such as only organizing industrial workers, or only
organizing service workers, and not finding ways to link together the
relationships of both groups). This
would ultimately prove that the “proletariat”, the “precariat” (affluent
working class, or middle class), and “cybertariat” (laborers who’s input is
solely on the internet) “are not in fact different classes.”
The fifth strategy is also
familiar, but again riddled with complexity:
“making the public goods and services required to meet workers’
collective needs the central objective of class struggle.” The authors do not mean within the confines
of the nation state; but rather to the services and public institutions which
extend beyond the state—unions, revolutionary political parties, social
activist groups, internet cooperatives…etc.
The sixth strategy is something
American workers in particular, along with European workers from Germany and
France, have had a particular difficult time accepting; which is the rejection
of “the goal of economic competitiveness.”
Too often is the competition between working groups utilized by the
state and multinational corporations to curb interests into their favor. By pitting the steel workers of America, for
example, against the steel workers of China, the state and corporations void
themselves of blame for poor economic conditions and instead open up a
side-tracked competition that typically results in social and cultural racism
and exclusion.
The seventh strategy, which is the
idea that “international solidarity” should be advanced into the twenty-first
century, is a pretty easy idea to understand.
In my opinion it could have been integrated with other points from other
strategies, but I nevertheless understand the author’s desire to highlight it
as well as build up the 9-lives metaphor.
The eighth strategy builds off the
idea that “the most salient conflicts amidst capitalist globalization are within states rather than between states.” As such, the authors suggest to us a strategy
of transforming “the state in the context of a fundamental shift in the balance
of class forces [that] must centrally involve transforming public institutional
forms, purposes, and capacities.” The
previously mentioned notion that state power and class power must, then, be
understood as an obstacle to overcome.
State power must, ultimately, become the expression of class power by “transforming”
the institutional systems that makeup the nation-state.
Finally, the last strategy also
builds off a powerful thesis that should be explored in more depth: that “the types of parties that can transform
working classes into leading agents of social transformation have yet to be
invented.” Again, this is an argument
many Marxists and social activists will have trouble accepting—but at the very
least they should consider its plausibility.
The final strategy, then, is “to start anew at creating the kinds of
working-class political institutions which can rekindle the socialist
imagination, make the goal of socialism relevant, and develop the socialist
capacities to get there.”[vi]
I hope that this summary at least
sparked some thoughts and ideas from readers, and ideally it urged a few to go
and find the actual article. All
Marxists, intellectuals and social activists, could benefit from this healthy
and ruthless criticism of the existing theorisations of historical
materialism. It forces us to question
ourselves and consider what we may have missed amidst the massive social
transformations made by capitalist development over the past 25 years. Too often do I feel that we find ourselves
relegating arguments with conditions to the 1930s, or arguing in the abstract
about the potentiality of a proletarian revolution without the need to assess
capitalist development in 2015. The
authors, Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin, offer a fresh and stark assessment to push
us forward and leave behind the failed theorisations of the twentieth century.
Links:
http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/1569206x/23/2 (online copy of journal)
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