Making Amends II & Chapter 6

I did not feel terribly good about my performance last Thursday (3/24) just before the break, so I am going to post my lecture notes, streamlined somewhat and hopefully clarified. Time permitting, I may also post my notes on Chapter 6, which I planned to cover quickly anyway. That will bring us up to Section IV: Sociological Theories of Complexity and Form and Chapter 7, which will be where we will pick up when we get back together again next week.
________________________

Before getting back to where I started last Thursday, with Jonathan Safran Foer's quote about alienation in our industrialized agricultural system, let me give you a couple nice passages on Marx's MATERIALISM (in general):

"Like other 19th-century social scientists from Comte to Spencer, he (rightly) insisted that societies, like organisms, were systems, composed of parts (social institutions). Each part was influenced by its relationship to the rest, and the whole was greater than the sum of the parts. But this left open the question as to whether all institutions were of equal weight, and of how the different institutions fitted one another. The search was on for a master principle analogous to natural selection in biological evolution. For idealists, the dynamic of social development was humanity's intellectual capacity. For Marx, it had to be 'material' -- and he found it, eventually, in the concept of the mode of production."

And....

"Marx's analysis of capitalism concentrated on the economy. As for the rest of the social order, he saw it as inevitable that the laws, the forms of the family, the political institutions, the belief systems, religious or secular, had to conform to the basic requirements of the economy: that the laws would protect property above all else, and work to the advantage of the rich, and would take contract -- developed to govern commercial relationships -- rather than say, custom or birth-right as the prototype of all other relationships, even of marriage; that workers' children would be educated only sufficiently to enable them to do manual jobs and to respect property and their superiors; that religion would tell the poor their troubles were due to their own sins, and would preach rewards for good living only in another life, etc." (This gives you some idea of how Marx thought these other institutions were shaped by the economy or material conditions. Unfortunately, Marx did not really flesh out these connections very much, but focused more specifically on exposing what he thought were the inherent contradictions of the capitalist system.)

And now back to where I began in class last Thursday (3/24):

5. To overcome this alienation (such as described in Foer's passage from the midterm exam), one would need to overthrow the system that produces it. Replace capitalism with communism, or private property with common ownership of the means of production, which ultimately would restore meaningful labor to the masses of workers.

6. This change would also entail giving the masses the ability to develop all of their skills and talents (sometimes called Marx's "dream of the whole person"). And the passage from "The German Ideology" the authors quote (middle, p. 129) is one of Marx's most "dream-like" visions of a communist future. (Indeed, it sounds completely fanciful and unrealistic.)

H. The authors then go on to describe how Marx saw that capitalist system working -- how it necessarily leads to a situation where the rich become richer (eg., how the wealthy make money with money, "through investments and loans, the capitalist lives from the SURPLUS VALUE produced by the worker") and the poor become poorer, relatively speaking.

I. Marx's theories and predictions for the future are based on an optimistic view of human nature. He believed men to be good, essentially; it is society which has oppressed and alienated human beings that is bad. So, again, we need to re-make society (overthrow capitalism) in the image of the good in humanity.

J. "Marx and Engels,...can be viewed as both practical and ideological radicals stating that capitalist society ought to not just be tinkered with, but overthrown. Of course, they would argue that they were not ideologues at all, but only observers and interpreters -- theorists -- of the course of human history." (p. 133, top) (The above passage fits well with what the authors describe as "CRITICAL THEORY," which seeks to envision a better society and is critical of exisitng society but is also based on scientific observation.)

K. It's in the section on "Class, Gender, and Race" that the authors lay out Marx's view of revolution, as outlined in "The Communist Manifesto," which I stressed was basically an extreme political document intended to rally the workers to revolt, and not some scholarly treatise on capitalism and its fatal flaws.

1. Basically, historical change can be explained on the basis of class struggle (dialectical materialism). And what was happening in capitalism, Marx theorized, was that this class struggle was basically coming to a head -- two classes were becoming predominant: the bourgeoisie or capitalist and the proletariat or working class.

2. Although the authors do not use Marx's famous phrase, the capitalists were creating "the seeds of their own destruction." Creating the factories, bringing the masses of workers together in these factories, exploiting the workers for profit (which the system really demands)exacerbates alienation. Under the leadership of a few defectors form the bourgeoisie (such as Marx and Engels themselves) who understand this historical process, revolution will ensue. (Marx also referred to this leadership group as "the advanced sector of the proletariat.")

a.) Marx also recognized the need for an intermediate stage between capitalism and communism -- a "dictatorship of the proletariat" (socialism), which will have to manage things until conditions are ripe for the emergence of a classless, stateless communist society. (Which, as I noted, NEVER happened in the 20th or 21st century, for that matter. Most of the so-called "communist" states became just plain old dictatorships -- the revolutionaries who led the way just held on to power, and so Marx's goal was never realized, perhaps it is unrealizable.)

b.) The authors note that one reason the state did not wither away, as Marx predicted, is because the revolution was not worldwide and other (capitalist) states such as the U.S. saw this revolutionary socialist state as a threat. So they had to build up their military to defend themselves and sacrifice necessary economic development.

L. Regarding gender and the role of women, clearly Marx and Engels were more focused on class oppression. They did recognize women as oppressed but did not clearly identify women as members of the working class. Unfortunately, gender inequities remained in socialist countries after their revolutions. (Although I would say, on balance, women (especially in China) had more opportunities than generally was true in the West up until recent times.)

(Marx, and later Marxists, also saw class as more important than race. But W.E.B. DuBois was highly critical of this, noting that white working people in the U.S., even in the labor movement, were among the most racist. And he was not hopeful that some sort of working class revolution would inevitably lead to racial harmony.)

M. In general, Marx and Engels were big on ABOLISHING things such as private property, capitalism, religion, nationality, etc. But they were not so big on describing what would replace all these things they felt needed to be abolished. The nature of communist society was only superficially defined (eg., that vague, dream-like vision from "The German Ideology").

N. In relation to other theorists, the authors draw an instructive contrast with Durkheim and his concept of the DIVISION OF LABOR. *See top, p. 141. (can you run modern society without a complex division of labor, as Marx seems to imply?)

O. Clearly, Marx has been criticized or dismissed by capitalist writers who have pointed out the absurdity of his vision of a communist society. Of course, such criticism has the benefit of being promoted in the pervasive capitalist media.

1. Another writer (Ollman) suggests that distortions of Marx may be due, at least in part, to the limitations of our minds -- inability to grasp the whole picture.

P. I agree that "...we must not dismiss all questions about Marx and Engels as coming from either the unenlightened or those with a vested interest in capitalism." (p. 142) (but the immediate issues the authors, then, go on to to raise do not strike me as the most profound. More significant issues might be: Marx and Engels' failure to see how a communist revolution might fail, or exactly how would we make a transition to a communist social order.)

Q. Very generally, Marx and Engels can be given credit for bringing needed attention to the role of economics and class struggle in human affairs. And I don't believe it can be denied that they were perceptive about how business would come to dominate many aspects of society, such as Foer brings out in the case of agribusiness.


CHAPTER 6: MARXISM EXTENDED: LENIN AND LUXEMBURG

In this chapter we encounter two important thinkers and activists who not only were involved in trying to carry out Marx's ideas, but also added to Marx's analysis and critique of capitalism.

A. Lenin, of course, led the successful Russian revolution in 1917, and was the first leader of socialist Russia.

1. One thing that stands out about his leadership was his PRAGMATISM. Lenin was not a rigid ideologue who tried to institute socialism regardless of circumstances. *See bottom two paragraphs, p. 148.

B. Lenin also extended Marx's analysis of capitalism to include IMPERIALISM, which extended capitalism's control to underdeveloped parts of the world in Asia, Africa, and Latin America: "Such colonialism (or imperialism), accompanied by uneven economic development, is the essence of modern monopoly capitalism, the international version of the class struggle within nation states." (p. 150) That is, the ultimate clash would be between capitalist nations and poor nations. (This aspect of Lenin's thought impressed Ho Chi Minh, the Vietnamese leader who was seeking support to oust the French who were the colonial oppressors of the Vietnamese at the time.)

1. Today, of course, colonialism has largely been replaced by multinational corporations operating independently, with little national allegiance.

2. Also interesting is how Lenin saw the connection between Western capitalism, colonialism, and racial oppression such as was evident in the U.S.. He influenced the American Communist Party in the 1920s to take a strong stand against racism and segregation in this country.

C. Lenin defended the need for a "VANGUARD" and a "DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT" to lead the new fledgling socialist state in the direction of a truly classless, communist state.

D. Unfortunately, toward the end of his life, Lenin saw this proletarian dictatorship becoming increasingly bureaucratized; the Communist Party was "displaying a passion for bossing." Of course, with Stalin's rise to power, this bossing becomes institutionalized.

E. Rosa Luxemburg was a formidable Marxist interllectual and activist who concentrated her efforts in Germany. Among her more perceptive contributions were:

1. Her criticism of REFORMISM -- that is, tinkering with capitalism, allowing some "bourgeois-granted goals" -- that this would only forestall the revolution, which would be the working class's only real salvation. (Could say, today, that the working class has largely been "bought off" by such concessions, and the capitalists are still essentially in control.)

2. Luxemburg also recognized imperialism (is "globalization" today masquerading as imperialism?) as a new phase of capitalist control. As such, imperialism was the mortal enemy of the proletariat of all countries.

3. She saw MILITARISM as a necessary development in capitalist society to relieve some of the economic pressures created by overproduction (not all that different from President Eisenhower's warning about the growing power of the "military-industrial complex"). See mid., p. 159. "Thus, Luxemburg explained imperialism, militarism, and war as a single phenomenon of capital expansion and profit-making." (p. 159)

4. Finally, Luxemburg perceptively criticized Lenin's "dictatorship of the proletariat" as being nothing more than a plain old dictatorship, and not the true workers' revolution. (Which is one of the themes of Warren Beatty's film "Reds" which came out in 1980.)

F. Rosa Luxemburg (and perhaps to a lesser extent, Lenin) foreshadows the later development of a variety of different Marxisms in the 20th century, some of which were highly critical of the Soviet Union and China, among other so-called Marxist states. (e.g., the Frankfurt School covered in Cahpter 16 of our text.)
_____________________________

That's all for now. Also be looking for a decription of our next short essay soon, either on this blog or in a blast email.