Why Marx Was Right
Page 19
Conclusion
So there we have it. Marx had a passionate faith in the individual and a deep suspicion of abstract dogma. He had no time for the concept of a perfect society, was wary of the notion of equality, and did not dream of a future in which we would all wear boiler suits with our National Insurance numbers stamped on our backs. It was diversity, not uniformity, that he hoped to see. Nor did he teach that men and women were the helpless playthings of history. He was even more hostile to the state than right-wing conservatives are, and saw socialism as a deepening of democracy, not as the enemy of it. His model of the good life was based on the idea of artistic self-expression. He believed that some revolutions might be peacefully accomplished, and was in no sense opposed to social reform. He did not focus narrowly on the manual working class. Nor did he see society in terms of two starkly polarized classes.
He did not make a fetish of material production. On the contrary, he thought it should be done away with as far as possible. His ideal was leisure, not labour. If he paid such unflagging attention to the economic, it was in order to diminish its power over humanity. His materialism was fully compatible with deeply held moral and spiritual convictions. He lavished praise on the middle class, and saw socialism as the inheritor of its great legacies of liberty, civil rights and material prosperity. His views on Nature and the environment were for the most part startlingly in advance of his time. There has been no more staunch champion of women's emancipation, world peace, the fight against fascism or the struggle for colonial freedom than the political movement to which his work gave birth.
Was ever a thinker so travestied?
Notes
PREFACE
1. Peter Osborne, in Leo Panich and Colin Leys (eds.), The Communist Manifesto Now: Socialist Register (New York, 1998), p. 190.
2. Quoted by Robin Blackburn, ''Fin de Siècle: Socialism after the Crash,'' New Left Review, no. 185 (January/February 1991), p. 7.
CHAPTER ONE
1. Though some Marxists doubt how vital they were. Alex Callinicos, for example, in Against Postmodernism (Cambridge, 1989), Ch. 5.
2. Fredric Jameson, The Ideologies of Theory (London, 2008), p. 514.
3. Tristram Hunt, ''War of the Words,'' Guardian, 9 May 2009.
CHAPTER TWO
1. See Joseph Stiglitz, Globalisation and Its Discontents (London, 2002), p. 5.
2. Quoted in Slavoj ZZizek, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce (London, 2009), p. 91.
3. Isaac Deutscher, The Prophet Armed: Trotsky 1879—1921 (London, 2003X P. 373.
4. See, for example, Alec Nove, The Economics of Feasible Socialism (London, 1983), David Schweickart, Against Capitalism (Cambridge, 1993), and Berteli Oilman (ed.), Market Socialism: The Debate Among Socialists (New York and London, 1998). A more philosophical defence of market socialism is to be found in David Miller, Market, State and Community: The Theoretical Foundations of Market Socialism (Oxford, 1989).
5. Melvin Hill (ed.), Hannah Arendt: The Recovery of the Public World (New York, 1979), pp. 334-35.
6. Quoted by Robin Blackburn, ''Fin de Siècle: Socialism after the Crash,'' New Left Review, no. 185 (January/February 1991), p. 29.
7. See, for example, Pat Devine, Democracy and Economic Planning (Cambridge, 1988), David McNally, Against the Market (London, 1993), and Michael Albert, Parecon: Life After Capitalism (London, 2003). A useful summary of this case is to be found in Alex Callinicos, An Anti-Capitalist Manifesto (Cambridge, 2003), Ch. 3.
8. See Ernest Mandel, ''The Myth of Market Socialism,'' New Left Review, no. 169 (May/June 1988), p. 109 n.
9. Devine, Democracy and Economic Planning, pp. 253, 265-66.
10. Albert, Parecon, p. 59.
11. Raymond Williams, Communications (Harmondsworth, 1962).
CHAPTER THREE
1. Quoted in Alex Callinicos (ed.), Marxist Theory (Oxford, 1989),
p. !43.
2. Marx, Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, in Marx and Engels: Selected Works (London, 1968), p. 182.
3. The most effective defence of the theory is to be found in G. A. Cohen, Marx's Theory of History: A Defence (Oxford, 1978). Rarely has a wrongheaded idea been so magnificently championed. For an excellent account of Marx's theory of history, see S. H. Rigby, Marxism and History (Manchester and New York, 1987), a work I have drawn upon here.
4. Quoted in Alex Callinicos and Chris Harmon, The Changing Working Class (London, 1983), p. 13.
5. Marx, The Holy Family (New York, 1973), p. 101.
6. Marx & Engels, Selected Correspondence (Moscow, 1975), pp. 390-91.
7. Ibid., pp. 293-94.
8. A point made by John Maguire, Marx's Theory of Politics (Cambridge, 1978), p. 123.
9. Marx, Capital, vol. 1 (New York, 1967), p. 9.
10. Quoted in T. Bottomore (ed.), A Dictionary of Marxist Thought (Oxford, 1983), p. 140.
11. Quoted in Umberto Melotti, Marxism and the Third World (London, 1972), p. 6.
12. Marx, Theories of Surplus Value (London, 1972), p. 134.
13. Quoted in Alfred Schmidt, The Concept of Nature in Marx (London, 1971), p. 36.
14. Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures (London, 1992), p. 228.
CHAPTER FOUR
1. For one of the finest studies of the more positive meanings of the idea, see Fredric Jameson, Archaeologies of the Future (London, 2005).
2. Marx and Engels, The German Ideology (London, 1974).
3. Marx, The Civil War in France (New York, 1972), p. 134.
4. Raymond Williams, Culture and Society 1780-1950 (Harmonds-worth, 1985), p. 320.
5. Norman Geras, Marx and Human Nature: Refutation of a Legend (London, 1983).
6. Terry Eagleton, The Illusions of Postmodernism (Oxford, 1996),
p. 47.
7. See Len Doyal and Roger Harris, ''The Practical Foundations of Human Understanding,'' New Left Review, no. 139 (May/June 1983).
8. For a counterargument, see Eagleton, The Illusions of Postmodernism.
9. Norman Geras, ''The Controversy about Marx and Justice,'' New Left Review, no. 150 (March/April 1985), p. 82.
10. Quoted by Norman Geras, ''The Controversy about Marx and Justice,'' New Left Review, no. 150 (March/April 1985), p. 52.
CHAPTER FIVE
1. John Gray, False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism (London, 2002), p. 12.
2. Marx and Engels, Selected Correspondence (Moscow, 1965), p. 417.
3. Theodor W. Adorno, Negative Dialectics (London, 1966), p. 320.
4. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, A Discourse on Inequality (London, 1984),
p. 122.
5. John Elliot Cairnes, ''Mr Comte and Political Economy,'' Fortnightly Review (May 1870).
6. W. E. H. Lecky, Political and Historical Essays (London, 1908), p. 11.
7. Arthur Friedman (ed.), Collected Works of Oliver Goldsmith (Oxford, 1966), vol. 2, p. 338.
8. For an excellent discussion of this point, see Peter Osborne, Marx (London, 2005), Ch. 3.
9. Marx, Theories of Surplus Value (London, 1972), p. 202.
10. Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, in Selected Works of Marx and Engels (New York, 1972).
11. Marx, Grundrisse (Harmondsworth, 1973), pp. 110—11.
12. Marx, Capital (New York, 1967), vol. 1, p. 85.
CHAPTER SIX
1. Etienne Balibar, The Philosophy of Marx (London, 1995), p. 2.
2. Quoted in Alfred Schmidt, The Concept of Nature in Marx (London, 1971), p. 24.
3. Ibid., p. 26.
4. Ibid., p. 25.
5. Jürgen Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests (Oxford, 1987),
p. 35.
6. Marx and Engels, The German Ideology (London, 1974), p. 151.
7. See Alex Callinicos, The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx (London and Sydney, 1983), p. 31.
8. Marx and Engels, The German Ideology, p. 51.
9. A phrase which does not of course mean ''to
raise too many questions.'' Readers who think it does are referred to the Oxford English Dictionary.
10. John Macmurray, The Self as Agent (London, 1957), p. 101.
11. Quoted by Jon Elster, Making Sense of Marx (Cambridge, 1985),
p. 64.
12. For two interesting studies of the relations between the two thinkers, see David Rubinstein, Marx and Wittgenstein: Knowledge, Morality and Politics (London, 1981), and G. Kitching and Nigel Pleasants (eds.), Marx and Wittgenstein (London, 2006).
13. Marx and Engels, The German Ideology, p. 47.
14. In his Notes on Wagner, Marx speaks in strikingly Freudian terms of human beings first distinguishing objects in the world in terms of pain and pleasure, and then learning to distinguish which of them satisfy needs and which do not. Knowledge, as with Nietzsche, begins as a form of mastery over these objects. It is thus associated by both Marx and Nietzsche with power.
15. William Empson, Some Versions of Pastoral (London, 1966), p. 114.
16. Theodor Adorno, Prisms (London, 1967), p. 260.
17. Hannah Arendt (ed.), Walter Benjamin: Illuminations (London, 1973X pp. 256-57.
18. Marx, Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, in Marx and Engels: Selected Works (London, 1968), p. 182.
19. G. A. Cohen, History, Labour and Freedom (Oxford, 1988), p. 178.
20. See S. H. Rigby, Engels and the Formation of Marxism (Manchester, i992X p. 233.
21. For an excellent biography of Marx, see Francis Wheen, Karl Marx (London, 1999).
22. See Max Beer, Fifty Years of International Socialism (London, 1935), p. 74. I am grateful to Marc Mulholland for this reference.
23. Quoted in Tom Bottomore (ed.), Interpretations of Marx (Oxford, i988X p. 275.
CHAPTER SEVEN
1. Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity (London, 1998),
p. 85.
2. See Mike Davis, Planet of Slums (London, 2006), p. 25.
3. Marx, Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, in Marx and Engels: Selected Works (London, 1968), p. 219.
4. Quoted in Leo Panitch and Colin Leys (eds.), The Socialist Register (New York, 1998), p. 68.
5. I have drawn for the account which follows on (among other sources) Alex Callinicos and Chris Harman, The Changing Working Class (London and Melbourne, 1987); Lindsey German, A Question of Class (London, 1996); and Chris Harman, ''The Workers of the World,'' International Socialism, no. 96 (autumn, 2002).
6. Jules Townshend, The Politics of Marxism (London and New York, i996), p. 237.
7. Quoted by Tom Bottomore (ed.), Interpretations of Marx (Oxford, 1968), p. 19.
8. John Gray, False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism (London, 2002), p. iii.
9. Chris Harman, ''The Workers of the World.'' For a contrary case about the working class, see G. A. Cohen, If You're an Egalitarian, How Come You're So Rich? (London, 2000).
10. See Perry Anderson, New Left Review, no. 48 (November/December 2007), p. 29.
11. For the enlightenment of readers unfamiliar with British upper-class crime, Lord Lucan is or was an English aristocrat who is alleged to have murdered his au pair and who disappeared without trace some decades ago.
12. A point made by Slavoj ZiZek in In Defense of Lost Causes (London, 2008), p. 425. For a superb account of today's slums, see Mike Davis, Planet of Slums (London, 2006).
CHAPTER EIGHT
1. Isaac Deutscher, Stalin (Harmondsworth, 1968), p. 173.
2. G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (New York, 1946), p. 83.
3. In the militant 1970s, the purity of a socialist's beliefs was sometimes assessed by his or her answer to such questions as ''Would you use the bourgeois law courts if your partner was murdered?'' or '''Would you write for the bourgeois press?'' The true purists or ultraleftists, however, were those who were able to return an unequivocal No to the question ''Would you call the bourgeois fire brigade?''
4. Quoted in Christopher Hill, God's Englishman: Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution (London, 1990), p. 137.
CHAPTER NINE
1. Jacques Rancière, Dis-agreement (Minneapolis, 1999), p.113.
2. Marx, The Civil War in France (New York, 1972), p. 213.
3. Quoted in Tom Bottomore, Interpretations of Marx (Oxford, 1988),
p. 286.
CHAPTER TEN
1. For a flavour of these debates, see Juliet Mitchell, Women's Estate (Harmondsworth, 1971); S. Rowbotham, L. Segal and H. Wainwright, Beyond the Fragments (Newcastle and London, 1979); L. Sargent (ed.), Women and Revolution (Montreal, 1981); and Michèle Barrett, Women's Oppression Today (revised edition, London, 1986).
2. Robert J. C. Young, Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction (Oxford, 2001), pp. 372—73.
3. Ibid., p. 142.
4. Michèle Barrett, in T. Bottomore (ed.), A Dictionary of Marxist Thought (Oxford, 1983), p. 190.
5. Jules Townshend, The Politics of Marxism (London and New York, i996), p. i42.
6. Kevin B. Anderson, ''The Rediscovery and Persistence of the Dialectic in Philosophy and in World Politics,'' in Lenin Reloaded: Towards a Politics of Truth, ed. S. Budgeon, S. Kouvelakis and S. Zizek (London, 2007), p. i2i.
7. Quoted in ibid., p. 133.
8. For Indian historiography, see Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures (London, 1992), Ch. 6.
9. Quoted by Ahmad, In Theory, p. 228.
10. Quoted in ibid., p. 235.
11. Ibid., p. 236.
12. Marx and Engels, German Ideology, p. 33.
13. Marx, Capital, vol. 3 (New York, i967), p. i02.
14. John Bellamy Foster, ''Marx and the Environment,'' in In Defense of History, ed. E. M. Wood and J. B. Foster (New York, i997), p. i50.
15. W. Leiss, The Domination of Nature (Boston, 1974), p. 198.
16. Quoted in ibid., p. 153.
17. Frederick Engels, The Dialectics of Nature (New York, 1940), pp. 291—92.
18. Marx, Capital, vol. 3, p. 218.
19. Ibid., p. 219.
20. See Ted Benton, ''Marxism and Natural Limits,'' New Left Review, no. 178 (November/December 1989), p. 83.
21. For a classic account of Marx's ideas on this subject, see Alfred Schmidt, The Concept of Nature in Marx (London, 1971).
22. See, for example, the closing paragraphs of Trotsky's Literature and Revolution.
23. Benton, ''Marxism and Natural Limits,'' p. 78.
24. G. A. Cohen, Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence (Oxford, !978X p. 307.
25. Ellen Meiksins Wood, ''Capitalism and Human Emancipation,'' New Left Review, no. 67 (January/February 1988), p. 5.
26. Ibid., p. 5.