What would a rational Marxist current look like?

Posted on Friday 26 October, 2007
Filed Under The left

 


Marx.jpg

With the meltdown in Respect, the implosion of the Scottish Socialist Party and the collapse of the Labour left, the proposition that organised Marxism in Britain is weaker than at any time for a century hardly requires much elaboration.

But if an intelligent, rational, humanist Marxist current were to exist – and it very plainly doesn’t – what would it look like? Here are a few thoughts.

Ideologically, it would need to base itself on the realisation that answers to the political questions facing us do not come gift-wrapped in the classical theoretical works of the tradition.

Marx’s dissection of Victorian capitalism and Trotsky’s exploration of the political situation in 1930s, for instance, remain unparalleled analyses of these topics. But both were marred by the expectation of ‘revolution round the corner’, and in any case, no political literature can be expected to transcend its times, at least not indefinitely.

In a world that has changed in so many ways in my adult lifetime – globalisation, the demise of Stalinism, the dramatic resurgence of religion and nationalism, global warming, the communications revolution – it really is necessary to sit down and think things through, rearticulating the categories of Marxism for the present day.

Luxemburg’s insistence on democracy and Gramsci’s take on hegemony are probably more relevant to Marxists drawing up tactics for use in western Europe right now than anything that proceeded from the pen of Lenin.

Discussion and debate should be completely public, and take full advantage of the possibilities opened up by the internet, as well as more traditional forms of getting our ideas across, such as journals.

Rather than scorn anarchism, feminism, ecology and other schools of radical thought, we should take on board their genuine insights.

Organisationally, the toytown Bolshevism that the forerunners of the SWP once rightly derided should be junked immediately. A modern Marxist grouping needs to be loose, libertarian and Luxemburgist; there is no need for Elvis impersonator Lenin wannabes handing down ‘the line’ from on high.

Such a current’s orientation should of course be towards promoting basic socialist ideas in the organisations of the working class, including the community organisations of the working class. Members may belong to the Labour or Green parties, leftwing parties or no party at all, to whatever extent holding a card facilitates such tasks.

Sadly, I guess sanity is rather too much to ask for right now. And hey, it wouldn’t be half as much fun as petty bickering over minor sectarian quiddities, would it?


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Comments

70 Responses to “What would a rational Marxist current look like?”

  1. Mike
    on October 30th, 2007 at 14:01

    Janine wrote “Yes, women’s oppression did begin with the rise of class society. And yes, that means that women’s liberation can only come with the abolition of classes. However, that does NOT mean that:

    (a) seixst prejudices will automatically vanish on the dawn of the glorious revolution; or

    (b) socialists don’t have to bother with that feminism mullarkey cos the revolution will deal wih that.”

    In reply to Janine’s point (a) I note that as a Marxist, not as she seems to think an anarchist, I’m quite aware of the need for a transitional period between the assumption of state power on the part of the working classes and the arrival at a comunist society. A period that is during which a new human society free of such deformations as sexism will be created.

    In reply to her point (b) I note Marxists have traditionally argued that it is due to the formation of a female proletariat that womens liberation becomes a practical reality. In part because male workers no longer find themselves with more than marginal priviliges as a result of womens inferior role in society. Meaning that both male and female workers have a common interest in fighting womens oppression. In other words contrary to Janines ignorant assertion I see the combating of sexist prejudices as a task for all workers in the here and now. A task which feminism is unable to even contemplate properly.

  2. Miles
    on October 30th, 2007 at 14:12

    Mike

    What pratical steps do you suggest that we all take today to get us closer to the “transitional period”‘

  3. Phil P
    on October 30th, 2007 at 15:44

    Given the way the comments have been going I felt the need to share some of Bookchin’s ‘Listen, Marxist!’ (1971)

    —

    [Marxism,] a theoretical corpus which was liberating a century ago is turned into a straitjacket today. We are asked to focus on the working class as the “agent” of revolutionary change at a time when capitalism visibly antagonizes and produces revolutionaries among virtually all strata of society, particularly the young. We are asked to guide our tactical methods by the vision of a “chronic economic crisis” despite the fact that no such crisis has been in the offing for thirty years. We are asked to accept a “proletarian dictatorship”–a long “transitional period” whose function is not merely the suppression of counter-revolutionaries but above all the development of a technology of abundance–at a time when a technology of abundance is at hand. We are asked to orient our “strategies” and “tactics” around poverty and material immiseration at a time when revolutionary sentiment is being generated by the banality of life under conditions of material abundance. We are asked to establish political parties, centralized organizations, “revolutionary” hierarchies and elites, and a new state at a time when political institutions as such are decaying and when centralizing, elitism and the state are being brought into question on a scale that has never occurred before in the history of hierarchical society.

    —

    Whole text at: http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/listenm.html

  4. Mike
    on October 30th, 2007 at 17:06

    Abandonment of daft hopes for socialist or left unity would be a good starting point Miles.

    Respect for the principles their party claims would be a good starting point for SWP members.

    Abandonment of the idea that the Labour or Workers movement consists of organisations and institutions.

  5. Miles
    on October 30th, 2007 at 17:10

    Mike

    Ok – so when I’ve given up everything I believe in what should I do next?

  6. Rosa Lichtenstein
    on October 30th, 2007 at 17:59

    Modernity:

    “Rosa,

    could you provide a 100-200 words summary of your theory on this topic.

    thanks”

    You are asking the impossible, I am afraid!

    I did write a 2000 word summary published in ‘Weekly Worker’ a few weeks back, but, because of a scurrilous attack on the SWP in the same issue, I have washed my hands of them, and so I do not link to them any more.

    I reposted that article here:

    http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/disclaimer.htm

    Replies here:

    http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Weak-Replies.htm

    There is a 5000 word summary here:

    http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Anti-D_For_Dummies%2001.htm

    A 20,000 word summary here:

    http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Why%20I%20Oppose%20DM.htm

    This is just about the most relevant summary for your purposes, but to cut to the chase, click on Quick Links (9) and (10), on that page — and that will take you right to the sections you want.

    I have posted numerous summaries of various parts of my work at RevLeft, where I am a moderator.

    For example here:

    http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=69128&view=findpost&p=1292398454

    Finally, on my opening page, there is a brief précis (about 500 words long — right hand column about twenty lines down), but it does not go into much detail, or give many reasons:

    http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/

    Hope that helps! :)

  7. Mike
    on October 31st, 2007 at 00:20

    Put your feet up and have a nice cup of tea.

  8. Rosa Lichtenstein
    on October 31st, 2007 at 00:57

    I posted this earlier, but it might have been rejected because it had too many links in it (so I have removed nearly all of them):

    Modernity:

    “Rosa,

    could you provide a 100-200 words summary of your theory on this topic.

    thanks”

    You are asking the impossible, I am afraid. I did write a 2000 word summary published in ‘Weekly Worker’ a few weeks back, but, because of a scurrilous attack on the SWP in the same issue, I have washed my hands of them, and so do not link to them any more.

    I reposted that article here: (see A)

    Replies here: (see B)

    There is a 5000 word summary here: (see C)

    A 20,000 word summary here:

    http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Why%20I%20Oppose%20DM.htm

    For the issues of relevance to this debate, click on Quick Links (9) and (10), on the above page.

    I have posted numerous summaries of various parts of my work at RevLeft, where I am a moderator.

    Finally, on my opening page, there is a précis about 500 words long (right hand column), but it does not go into much detail, or give many reasons. Link under my name at the end.

  12. modernityblog
    on October 31st, 2007 at 02:11

    Rose wrote:

    You are asking the impossible, I am afraid.

    fair enough, then I suspect your work will go unread

    which is a bit of a shame as I like interesting ideas, but perusing the odd research papers before I found that most original ideas can be summarised in a couple of hundred words, when the verbiage is removed

    if you are contending that the reason for the failure of the Left in Britain is dialectical materialism, and I’m assuming that because I haven’t read any of your pages, just from your remarks, then I suppose you would have to answer at least two questions:

    1. how does such are contention affect Left groups which do not employ dialectical materialism in Britain, they are equally as unsuccessful

    2. how would such a point take account of the size in the comparison between British (and Irish) groups with those in Europe, because if you view dialectical materialism has a problem then that doesn’t explain the disparity between the relative large size of European left groups and the miniscule grouplet in Britain

    there are probably many other questions, but as your work isn’t terribly inaccessible I can’t comment further

    shame, because I am one of those few working class Lefties still around and I love a good read :)

  13. Rosa Lichtenstein
    on October 31st, 2007 at 10:34

    Modernity:

    “fair enough, then I suspect your work will go unread”

    Not so, I have received numerous e-mails from comrades across the planet who have read, and are still reading, my work –, and who thank me for it.

    If people haven’t the stamina or patience to read what I have to say, then I would rather they did not visit my site.

    When I have attempted to write very short summaries of my ideas, comrades berate me for their ‘superficiality’. When I go into detail, they say they ‘can’t be bothered’, and yet those same comrades will read page after page of Hegel/Heidegger/Zizek/Lacan… of unparalleled obscurity, all the while our movement continues to fragment (while they wring their hands over the reason).

    I will not make any compromises to superficiality, even if that means that those who read my Essays number only in the thousands (as of now) rather than in the tens of thousands.

    “if you are contending that the reason for the failure of the Left in Britain is dialectical materialism, and I’m assuming that because I haven’t read any of your pages, just from your remarks, then I suppose you would have to answer at least two questions”

    That is precisely what I am *not* claiming, as even a brief perusal of the opening page of my site would have told you.

    “how does such are contention affect Left groups which do not employ dialectical materialism in Britain, they are equally as unsuccessful”

    Because I am not claiming what you say.

    “how would such a point take account of the size in the comparison between British (and Irish) groups with those in Europe, because if you view dialectical materialism has a problem then that doesn’t explain the disparity between the relative large size of European left groups and the miniscule grouplet in Britain”

    Same comment.

    Dialectical Marxism has been a universal failure, and for 150 years –, the causes of which are many and varied, but any claim that its core theory (i.e., dialectics) has nothing to do with this is, frankly, ludicrous.

    The fact that no one has addressed some of the issues I raise over the last 150 years (as far as I am aware) also suggests I have hit on something: that dialecticians refuse even to consider the issues i have targeted as a possible cause (notice the indefinite article here), and they do so for well-known psychological reasons (connected with Marx’s claims about the need for consolation, and Lenin’s claim that defeat breeds in Marxists a need for just such consolation).

    The fact that they become abusive toward me so quickly (and refuse to read my essays), but invent things about me, also confirms I have hit on a deep-seated problem

    “shame, because I am one of those few working class Lefties still around and I love a good read”

    I am working class (and a trade union rep – unpaid), and take the view that if comrades cannot be bothered to read a novel and well-worked out reason why we continue to split, and will continue to do so, and thus fail, then our movement deserves all it is surely going to get.

  14. modernityblog
    on October 31st, 2007 at 18:45

    Rosa wrote:

    That is precisely what I am *not* claiming, as even a brief perusal of the opening page of my site would have told you.

    I did peruse your web site, it seemed to me like an obsessives’ rant against dialectical materialism

    it strange that you can’t seemingly summarise these ideas in less than 5000 words

    because if you scan the Web you will see that most ideas including nuclear fission, fusion and the ideas of Kant, etc can be summarised and made accessible (which you surely the idea of getting across your thesis)

    I don’t know why you can’t summarise your views? possibly they are not worthwhile dissecting? who knows and frankly who cares?

    you wrote:

    if comrades cannot be bothered to read a novel

    you haven’t quite got this idea

    you’re the one selling your idea of why dialectical materialism is at fault, therefore, it is incumbent on you to make your ideas accessible and digestible, not on others to wade thru your reams looking for pearls of wisdom

    PS: you might consult someone on web design, the use of red, strange fonts and lurid design doesn’t do you any favours

  15. Rosa Lichtenstein
    on October 31st, 2007 at 20:19

    Modernity:

    “I did peruse your web site, it seemed to me like an obsessives’ rant against dialectical materialism”

    You see, this is just going to make me be nasty to you. There really is no need for that.

    As I said, when I am brief, you lot moan. When I am more thorough than anyone has ever been in over 150 years (by several orders of magnitude), it’s a ‘rant’

    And was Kapital a ‘rant’ against Capitalism?

    “it strange that you can’t seemingly summarise these ideas in less than 5000 words”

    Can’t you read!??

    I said above that I had done this in less than 2000, and I even posted you the link!

    “because if you scan the Web you will see that most ideas including nuclear fission, fusion and the ideas of Kant, etc can be summarised and made accessible (which you surely the idea of getting across your thesis)”

    It really is a waste of time talking to you. Put the cat on next time, I might get more sense.

    “I don’t know why you can’t summarise your views? possibly they are not worthwhile dissecting? who knows and frankly who cares?”

    Well, perhaps those who care not to make the same mistakes we have made over the last 150 years.

    But, if you prefer to blunder on, that’s your problem.

    I have no interest in communicating with numpties like you.

    “if comrades cannot be bothered to read a novel”

    You missed the rest of that comment out.

    “you haven’t quite got this idea”

    You haven’t quite got the brain power.

    “you’re the one selling your idea of why dialectical materialism is at fault, therefore, it is incumbent on you to make your ideas accessible and digestible, not on others to wade thru your reams looking for pearls of wisdom”

    As I said, total waste of time talking to clowns like you.

    “PS: you might consult someone on web design, the use of red, strange fonts and lurid design doesn’t do you any favours”

    Since my essays are rather long, I have done that to break them up.

    If you do not like it, stay away.

    I am sure I will get over the loss.

  16. modernityblog
    on October 31st, 2007 at 20:54

    Rosa wrote:

    You haven’t quite got the brain power.

    probably not, but then I don’t have your condescending middle-class mannerisms either :)

    but taking up your argument (as far as I understand it), that dialectical materialism for the past 150 years has been wrong?

    let’s agree that, for the sake of your argument, but so what, what is the logical conclusion that you draw from this??

    is there one?

    let’s agree that dialectical materialism was wrong, what follows?

  17. Rosa Lichtenstein
    on October 31st, 2007 at 22:02

    Modernity:

    “probably not, but then I don’t have your condescending middle-class mannerisms either :) ”

    Still trying to commit more gaffes in one week than George Dubbya I see.

    I am working class, and a trade union rep (unpaid).

    You may be dense, but at least you are consistently so.

    “but taking up your argument (as far as I understand it), that dialectical materialism for the past 150 years has been wrong?

    let’s agree that, for the sake of your argument, but so what, what is the logical conclusion that you draw from this??”

    That is not my thesis, and if you knew any logic (which I doubt), you would also know that nothing (of interest) would follow from such a vague sentence.

    “let’s agree that dialectical materialism was wrong, what follows?”

    I actually contend that it is far too confused a ‘theory’ for it even to be described as ‘wrong’.

    But you’d know that if you bothered to check your facts before you mouthed-off.

  18. modernityblog
    on October 31st, 2007 at 22:55

    Rosa,

    you HAVE all of the mannerisms of the idle middle classes, whatever you are, you might try changing your poor and crass attitude if you wish to win people over to your views

    incidentally, you remind me of Lenin’s quote “…a few workers who ape the worst features of intellectualism…”

    it seems peculiar that you can waste a terrible lot of time arguing over nothing, but you’re not able to summarise your ownthesis, with any competence?

    you can tell us what it isn’t, but you can’t quite tell us what it is

    very peculiar, not exactly logical either

    nuff said

  19. Rosa Lichtenstein
    on October 31st, 2007 at 23:32

    Modernity:

    “you HAVE all of the mannerisms of the idle middle classes, whatever you are, you might try changing your poor and crass attitude if you wish to win people over to your views”

    You were unnecessarily nasty to me — and I am being even nastier in return.

    If you do not like it, I should care.

    If you had read my opening page more carefully, you would have seen this:

    “How Not To Argue 101

    This page contains links to forums on the web where I have ‘debated’ this creed with other comrades.

    For anyone interested, check out the desperate ‘debating’ tactics used by Dialectical Mystics in their attempt to respond to my ideas.

    You will no doubt note that the vast majority all say the same sorts of things, and most of them pepper their remarks with scatological and abusive language. They all like to make things up, too, about me and my beliefs.

    25 years (!!) of this stuff from Dialectical Mystics has meant I now take an aggressive stance with them every time — I soon learnt back in the 1980′s that being pleasant with them (my initial tactic) did not alter their abusive tone, their propensity to fabricate, nor reduce the amount of scatological language they used.

    So, these days, I generally go for the jugular from the get-go.

    Apparently, they expect me to take their abuse lying down, and regularly complain about my “bullying” tactics.

    So, these mystics can dish it out, but they cannot take it.

    Given the damage their theory has done to Marxism, and the abuse they all dole out, they are lucky this is all I can do to them.”

    Mod:

    “incidentally, you remind me of Lenin’s quote “…a few workers who ape the worst features of intellectualism…”"

    And you remind me of Trotsky’s quote about Lenin:

    “Whenever any Marxist attempted to transmute the theory of Marx into a universal master key and ignore all other spheres of learning, Vladimir Ilyich would rebuke him with the expressive phrase ‘Komchvanstvo’ (‘communist swagger’).”

    Mod:

    “it seems peculiar that you can waste a terrible lot of time arguing over nothing, but you’re not able to summarise your own thesis, with any competence?

    you can tell us what it isn’t, but you can’t quite tell us what it is

    very peculiar, not exactly logical either”

    You really are as dim as you sound — how many more times have I got to tell you I have done just that? And posted the links.

    “nuff said”

    No, I think we can all do with a few more laughs — please post a few more of your brainless comments.

  20. Jason S.
    on November 1st, 2007 at 22:01

    Getting back to the question of “why socialist-feminism and not simply ‘Marxism’ unmodified.”

    1) Because the Marxist movement has been an overwhelmingly male affair, and as long as it remains so, the particular concerns of (working-class) women will be under-valued.

    2) As Barbara Ehrenreich once pointed out, for too many Marxists, “the only ‘real’ and important things that go on in capitalist society are those things that relate to the productive process or the conventional political sphere. From such a point of view, every other part of experience and social existence–things having to do with education, sexuality, recreation, the family, art, music, housework (you name it)–is peripheral to the central dynamics of social change; it is part of the ‘superstructure’ or ‘culture.’” (From http://www.feministezine.com/feminist/modern/Socialist-Feminism.html)

    3) Reproduction is as fundamental to human relations as is production and this relation was (is) not exactly at the center of most Marxist writings. But it ought to be. We need a historical materialist history of reproduction, and thus the conditions for opression of women.

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