[Reader-list] What is Dead in Marx
Pawan Durani
pawan.durani at gmail.com
Sun Feb 21 00:16:42 IST 2010
http://ih52.stier.net/notes/marx/dead.htm
What is Dead in Marx
1. Although many people continue to call themselves Marxists, and Marxism
remains a vital intellectual and, to some extent, political tradition, there
is broad agreement among even leftist intellectuals, that some of Marx’s
theories and ideals are, however attractive, misguided or wrong. But there
is also a great deal of disagreement about where and when, if at all, Marx
goes wrong. This note is my own accounting of some of the greatest
difficulties with Marx and Marxism.
2. Some fairly obvious problems
1. As we saw in *The Failure of Revolution *Marx’s account of how
communism would come about is flawed, in large part because of
his mistaken
view about the prospects for economic inequality.
3. Marx on political and social life: the tension between individual and
collective freedom.
1. Marx would like to reconcile two conceptions of freedom:
1. Individual freedom. Taken in its fullest sense, individual
freedom would encompass:
1. Civil rights and liberties: We are each able to make our own
choices in life about what ends to pursue. We can decide
what work to do,
what relationships to create, where to live and so forth.
2. Political and social opportunities: We have the resources and
educational opportunities to do whatever work we have an
interest and for
which we have the natural talents.
3. Educational and psychological opportunities: We have the
psychological strength and education to honestly and
thoroughly grasp our
opportunities.
2. Communal freedom: Taken in its fullest sense, communal freedom
would encompass:
1. A radical democracy in which
1. Each person had more or less equal influence on public
policy
2. Public policy were determined by majority rule
2. Public deliberation and debate shaped the development of
political and social life in all essential matters.
3. Rational planning of political and social life is carried
out.
2. It does not seem possible to fully reconcile these two ideas.
1. Both individual freedom and effective politico-economic
coordination require the use of markets.
1. Individual freedom does not seem to be possible if
governments can tell individuals what jobs to do or what
commodities to
purchase. So there must, at least, be a labor and consumer
goods market.
2. As we have seen in *Control Over the Means of Production
Under Capitalism and Communism, *efficient politico-economic
coordination of a complicated, highly advanced,
technological economy is
very difficult, if not impossible to achieve, by means of
a authoritative
planning system or command economy.
3. As we saw in the notes on *Nationalized Business
Enterprises, *there are reasons to doubt the efficiency of such
business enterprises.
2. Communal freedom is not entirely possible, especially if markets
are used for politico-economic coordination.
1. Democratic planning is impossible if we cannot make some
reasonable predictions about the future.
1. How can we plan the future if we can’t predict the outcome
of various public policies?
2. The connection between planning and prediction is seen in
the history of Marxist thought.
1. Marx’s confidence that a communist revolution is based
upon predictions about the future that rest on his
theoretical analysis of
capitalism.
2. As I argued in *Marxism and
Leninism<http://ih52.stier.net/notes/marx/ml.htm>
*, Lenin justified the rule of the communist party based
upon the supposed truth of his theoretical doctrines.
2. But, prediction is difficult, especially about the future.
1. Given that all sorts of natural phenomena can influence
political and social life, prediction is very difficult.
1. We cannot predict natural disasters or the illnesses
and deaths of individuals.
2. Prediction is especially difficult in a dynamic, growing
political economy in which new knowledge is continually
created and new
forms of technology are developed.
1. We cannot, in principle, predict the development of new
knowledge or technology.
2. Nor can we predict all the ways which will be
discovered for using or abusing knowledge and
technology or all of the
byproducts of such use.
3. Individual freedom, and the use of markets, makes
political and social planning even more difficult.
1. Freedom, and the use of markets, creates many
unintended consequences in political and social life.
2. When people are free, they interact in many unplanned
and unforeseen ways.
3. In part, we may understand the failure of combining the
greatest individual and communal freedom as the result of the romantic
radicalizing of enlightenment ideals.
1. Enlightenment philosophers sought both individual and communal
freedom.
2. But enlightenment typically did not demand the greatest possible
freedom.
3. And, faced with a choice, most (but not all) enlightenment
philosophers would emphasize individual freedom. This is
certainly the case
with Locke, who, like most liberal political philosophers,
were inclined to
minimize the role of government beyond the protection of our
right, and let
political and social outcomes be the result of the unintended
consequences
of human interaction.
4. Many (but, again, not all) romantic political and moral
philosophers sought to realize both ideals of freedom, to the highest
degree.
4. It may be that the inability to reconcile the ideals of individual
and communal freedom accounts, in part, for Marx’s inability to
give a full
account of what a communist political community would look like.
1. In part, Marx also wants to avoid the charge of utopianism. His
ideals are not meant to be goals we should try to establish, but the
inherent tendency of history.
2. And, in part, Marx was trying to avoid making utterly
unwarranted predictions about the future.
3. Still, one can’t help suspecting that Marx’s reluctance to
discuss the nature of communism reflects some problems that
he dimly saw but
never explored in depth.
1. Moreover, given that, as we saw above, rational planning
requires a theoretical analysis of political and social
life, the failure of
rational planning suggests the limits of Marx’s theory.
2. Unfortunately, rather than recognize these limits, Lenin hid
them, and justified his role in terms of his political and
social theory.
5. The tension between individual and communal freedom does not
undermine Marx’s ideals entirely.
1. It is certainly possible to have both individual and communal
freedom to a certain degree. And, indeed, we might have them
to a higher
degree than we do now.
2. But at some point we have to choose between them.
3. Recognition of the necessity of choice is important.
1. Doing so will keep us from making radical and perhaps
dangerous changes in our political and social life in the
hopes of attaining
unreachable ideals.
2. Doing so leads us to adopt safeguards to protect our own
ideals.
1. If we uphold the liberal political tradition of the United
States and choose the give a higher priority to
individual freedom, we would
take steps to protect that freedom even at the cost of
reducing communal
freedom.
1. We might, for example, limit the power of the majority
in order to protect individual rights, as we do by
giving the Supreme Court
authority to interpret the bill of rights.
6. We should not blame Marx for his failure to recognize the
limits of combining individual and communal freedom. We do the same thing
all the time.
1. When tend to assume that there is someone to blame for all
natural, as well as political and social, disasters.
2. That is, we neglect the possibility that some, unplanned and
reasonably unexpected things just happen, without anyone
wanting them to.
3. We are, that is, reluctant to acknowledge that, to some extent,
political and social developments out of our control.
1. That they are out of our control is why governments always
seem to be looking back, in order to deal with old problems.
4. Marx on Human Nature: Marx assumes, as we have seen, that
scarcity can be overcome. There are two good reasons to doubt this.
1. Even within the terms of Marx’s own theory of human nature,
scarcity can never be overcome.
1. The pursuit of free, productive activity is likely to be very
expensive, at least for some people.
1. For example, photographers and computer people will always
want the latest equipment.
2. There will be conflicts about common goods, such as what
architectural style to build the city hall in.
3. If Marx is right, these conflicts will not be all that severe.
1. People will be more concerned with their productive activity
than the accumulation of material goods for its own sake.
2. And they will have broad interests and concerns. Thus artists
will want photographers to have good equipment, and vice versa.
4. But conflict over scarce resources will not end.
1. People may be satisfied with using lesser equipment in their
productive activity. But, if given the opportunity, they
would undoubtedly
like to upgrade.
2. No one has the time to develop their faculties and capacities
in all directions. And they will naturally want to see a
greater share of
resources go to those activities in which they have a
particular interest.
2. Marx’s view of human nature may be partly wrong.
1. As we saw in other notes, Marx seems to assume that the desire
for esteem, prestige, pride, power, and domination is not
natural to human
beings, but results from the conflict between people over
scarce resources.
1. On this view, people only want esteem and power in order to
gain greater material resources.
2. But it may be that Augustine and Machiavelli were correct, and
these desires are much more deeply routed in our nature than
Marx realizes.
1. And, as we have just seen, conflict over scarce resources is
unlikely to be eliminated, even on Marx’s view of human nature.
3. What does that continued existence of political and social
conflict mean?
1. We must prepare for conflict. We need protection against those
Hamilton called "the ambitious rapacious."
1. This might, for example, justify restraints on both
government officials and the majority. These restraints
could limit communal
freedom.
2. It would lead us to be wary of concentrating power in the
hands of political authorities.
1. This is one of the best arguments for allowing business
enterprises, whether privately or socially controlled,
to be independent of
governments.
3. It might lead us to make room or space for the ambitious to
realized their aims in less harmful or dangerous ways. See
the discussion
in *Control of Work*.
2. We cannot expect to live our lives fully engaged in pursuing the
internal goods of free productive activity. We will always have to be
concerned about the external, instrumental goods of money,
esteem and power.
4. Again, this does not entirely undermine Marxist ideals.
1. We might be able to invent forms of political and social life
that tipped the balance towards a greater concern with free productive
activity and thus reduce alienation.
2. But we must be careful not to create greater problems than we
solve.
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