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Passage to Socialism: The Dialectic of Progress in Marx
... Considering crisis from a communist perspective also implies looking into a communist future, which is to come largely as an outgrowth from the current anti-capitalist struggles and the institutions developing within and against capitalism (see Chattopadhyay 2006;Wallis 2008). The specifijic social and institutional confijiguration of such a society will proceed through a cohesive integration of all these revolutionary struggles and newly constituted forms of social organization and cooperation. ...
... On materialist grounds, we should expect a full-fledged development of the institutions of a communist society, a society of freely associated producers, only upon and after a revolutionary transformation of the capitalist relations of production, and there should not be any doubt that such a society can become viable only through a social revolution. This prolonged historical period of transformation will entail a proletarian 'seizure of power', perhaps as only a fijirst or major step in this process (see Chattopadhyay 2006Chattopadhyay , 2010. The major agent of this transformation process, however, should not be the state, which would wither away together with the supersession of social classes, but rather the working class itself, transformed in the process into fully developed individual actors and freely associated producers. ...
The exacerbated (economic and ecological) crisis and the failure of conventional theories and policies aiming at eco-regulation and sustainable development of capitalism make it imperative to consider this socio-ecological crisis from an anti-systemic, communist perspective. This article is an attempt to articulate a unified and integrated interpretation of this socio-ecological crisis, based on a dialectical conception of the relationship between society and nature. The over-accumulation, rising organic composition of capital, and falling rate of profit play a central role in the analysis of this crisis and the articulation of its particular forms. As argued, capital’s strategic response to crisis and the deep restructuring of capitalism cannot ensure ecological and social sustainability, and more importantly the requirements of a socially acceptable human development. While there is some evidence of a recurrent accumulation and crisis, we are rather witnessing a secular downturn of capitalism and all attempts or tendencies towards “dematerialization” or “decoupling” of capitalist production (and growth) from its detrimental ecological impact fail to effectively encounter the root causes of crisis. An attempt is finally made to draw the “broad contours” of an alternative, communist outlook in overcoming this socio-ecological crisis, and a working-class strategy ensuring the conditions of sustainable human development and an ecologically compatible society.
... Based on a critique of the dominant nation-state centrism, this article will argue that working class internationalism and transnational class struggle is more relevant and urgently required, under present conditions, than ever before. Considering the revolutionary transformation toward a communist society of associated producers as a dialectical outgrowth of the capitalist mode of production (Marx 1967a, 592, 763;1967b, 819-20;Chattopadhyay 2006), I will stress the need to move from a nation-state centric approach, largely associated with the theories of imperialism, to a more class-based approach entailing a redefinition of working-class strategy for social emancipation. ...
... In this sense, revolution should not be considered as a momentary event of taking state power, or simply about the (juridical) ownership of the means of production, but as a social process of a total transformation of social relations. In the same sense, communism should be conceived, not simply as a state of social organization, but mainly as a struggle for social emancipation which does not come after the revolution but rather evolves simultaneously with revolution as one and the same process of negation and creation (see also Lebowitz 2006;Barker 2006;Chattopadhyay 2006). ...
In the context of a rapidly globalizing and tightly integrating capitalist economy ushering to a new stage of ‘totalitarian capitalism’, it is argued that the dominant nation-centric approach is theoretically flawed, historically outmoded, and politically ineffective in serving a revolutionary emancipation of the working-class social majority. After a theoretical substantiation of the emerging new stage of capitalism and a brief exploration of the relation between state and revolution, it is stressed that the currently exacerbating crisis of capitalism and the pressing need of social change point to an urgent need for a new transnational strategy pivoted on the capital–labour contradiction, which acquires an increasing significance under present conditions. A first attempt is also made to articulate the basic elements of such a class strategy.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted and deepened the capitalist system's contradictions, leading to the reappearance of the debate on system restructuring in political and economic discussions. In this context, the article aims to highlight the unsustainability of capitalism – due to such contradictions being inherent to the system –, and discuss options for overcoming inequality, unemployment, exploitation, and environmental crisis. Such as the Associated Mode of Production and the Economy of Francisco and Clara. Models in which the needs of human beings, their development, and environmental preservation are the central objectives of the production process.
Keywords: Crises; COVID-19; Associated Mode of Production; Sustainability; Economy of Francesco.
To orthodox Marxists socialism means central planning. Capitalist accounting is, however, integral to Marx’s socialism that envisages universal worker co-operatives, initially accountable to workers and society for value, but with the interim aim of increasing the ‘productive forces’ to make every labour hour ‘directly’ of equal social value. This study tests the implication that implementing Marx’s socialism requires understanding capitalist accounting by examining its role in the Russian revolution. Lenin failed, it argues, because he did not understand capitalist accounting, Marx’s explanation of it, or his interim aim. Lenin stressed accounting’s centrality, but equated it with budgeting, and confused Marx’s interim aim with Day 1, which led him to support ‘centralisation’ and ‘workers’ control’. Lenin admitted a ‘mistake’ in 1921 when he had understood, apparently intuitively, the necessity of accountability for profit, which underlay his ‘New Economic Policy’, the reintroduction of double-entry bookkeeping in 1922, and his 1923 vision of socialism built from co-operatives. Lenin failed to overcome his comrades’ orthodoxy, and after his death in 1924 Stalin dropped his ideas, which the study hypothesises had important implications for twentieth-century geopolitical history.
Marxism involves a much darker and more complex philosophy of progress than is often thought. According to it, historical development is a contradictory process that takes place through the action of negative as well positive forces. These ideas are traced in accounts by Marx and Engels of the development of capitalism, and discussed critically with particular focus on Marx’s descriptions of the British rule in India. The charges that Marx’s concept of progress ignores environmental issues, that it is eurocentric, and that it implies a unilinear theory of history are discussed.
Anchored in contemporary debates on capitalism and political economy, this study reconsiders the major trends which are currently shaping a new stage of capitalism. With chapters examining globalization, the role of technology and environmental degradation, George Liodakis constructs a politico-economic approach on contemporary capitalism from within a classical Marxist framework of political economy. The volume provides a fitting balance between theory and empirical evidence and significantly enriches the existing scholarship on contemporary capitalism and the potential for social change. This is an important contribution to those interested in international political economy, in particular with developing a new political strategy for going beyond capitalism: a 'reinvention' of a communist perspective.
This article argues that further development of John Holloway’s approach in Change the World without Taking Power and Crack Capitalism needs to address two objections: first, some of the tendencies and practices described by Holloway as ‘screams’ and ‘cracks’ may contribute to the emergence of communism (that is, universal human emancipation), but may not cause the demise of capitalism; second, some practices that are (subjectively or objectively) anti-capitalist may not be emancipatory but, to the contrary, reactionary. The need is suggested to take reactionary forms of anti-capitalism, especially fascism, stronger into account. It is proposed to distinguish two dimensions of the negation of capitalism, namely in the sense of, on the one hand, revolution that ends capitalism, and, on the other hand, revolution that ushers in communism, in order to be able to keep both dimensions in sight simultaneously.
This paper discusses Marx's concept of alienated (or estranged) labour, focusing mainly on his account in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. This concept is frequently taken to be a moral notion based on a concept of universal human nature. This view is criticized and it is argued that the concept of alienation should rather be interpreted in the light of Hegelian historical ideas. In Hegel, alienation is not a purely negative phenomenon; it is a necessary stage of human development. Marx's account of alienated labour should be understood in similar terms. It is not a merely subjective discontent with work; it is an objective and historically specific condition, a stage in the process of historical development. Marx usually regards it as specific to capitalism. The criticism of capitalism implied in the concept of alienation, it is argued, does not appeal to universal moral standards; it is historical and relative. Overcoming alienation must also be understood in historical terms, not as the realization of a universal ideal, but as the dialectical supersession of capitalist conditions of labour. Marx's account of communism as the overcoming of alienation is explained in these terms.
The conception of contracts as the outcome of a free choice generalises to all sorts of contracts, including contracts of employment. Liberal legalism, or the pure or general theory of contract that developed in the nineteenth century, grounded the almost limitless subordination of the wage-labourer in the anodyne fictions of consent. Marx himself defined free labour primarily in terms of the dispossession of labour, and then, of course, its ability to make valid contracts. Vulgar Marxists have worked with a rigid dichotomy between free and unfree labour, suggesting that lack of coercion is a defining feature of wage-labour. Sartres references to free labour in the Critique work in terms of an implicit contrast between the real freedom of the worker, identified as the workers human reality, and the abstract or mystified freedom of the wage-contract.Keywords: liberal legalism; Marxist theory; wage-contract; wage-labour
Ich betrachte das System der bürgerlichen Ökonomie in dieser Reihenfolge: Kapital,Grundeigentum, Lohnarbeit; Staat, auswärtiger Handel, Weltmarkt. Unter den drei ersten Rubriken untersuche ich die ökonomischen Lebensbedingungen der drei großen Klassen, worin die moderne bürgerliche Gesellschaft zerfällt; der Zusammenhang der drei andern Rubriken springt in die Augen. Die erste Abteilung des ersten Buchs, das vom Kapital handelt, besteht aus folgenden Kapiteln: 1. die Ware; 2. das Geld oder die einfache Zirkulation; 3. das Kapital im allgemeinen. Die zwei ersten Kapitel bilden den Inhalt des vorliegenden Heftes. Das Gesamtmaterial liegt vor mir in Form von Monographien, die in weit auseinanderliegenden Perioden zu eigner Selbstverständigung, nicht fir den Druck niedergeschrieben wurden, und deren zusammenhängende Verarbeitung nach dem angegebenen Plan von äußern Umständen abhängen wird.
Western and Soviet scholars have generally maintained different interpretations of the period between 1905 and 1917 in Russia, describing it respectively as a time of amelioration or of immiseration for the masses. Both groups, however, have stressed the progress of capitalism in prerevolutionary Russia. Despite standard references to the agrarian problem, most of the attention given to socioeconomic development in this period has focused on industrialization and the urban sector. Yet 87 percent of the population was rural when revolution broke out in 1905, and 85 percent still rural when it erupted again in 1917.
During the interrevolutionary period the imperial government adopted a program that was intended to provide a take-off base for agriculture. Prime Minister Stolypin’s policy was aimed at the replacement of the archaic communal structure by a new order of individualized peasant landholdings that would give scope to personal initiative and technological innovation.
The Communist Manifesto is the best known of all writings by Marx and Engels. Indeed, with the sole exception of the Bible, no other book has been translated so often or republished so many times. But what does it have in common with the Bible? Not very much, except for the denunciation of social injustice in some of the prophetic books. Like Amos or Isaiah, Marx and Engels spoke out against the vileness of the rich and powerful and raised their voices in solidarity with the poor and humble. Like Daniel, they read the writing on the walls of the New Babylon: Mene, Mrne, Tekel Upharsin : thy days are numbered. But unlike the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, they put none of their hopes upon any god, any messiah, any supreme savior: the liberation of the oppressed is to be the work of the oppressed themselves. This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website , where most recent articles are published in full. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.
Marx's 1850s writings on non-Western societies, especially those on India, are far better known than his post-1872 ones. The later writings, some of them still unpub-lished, lend support to the notion that Marx moved away from the unilinear and often Eurocentric perspectives that are frequently cited in critiques of his work. Unfortu-nately, some of these late writings are still unpublished, although there are plans to issue them as part of the new Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe (MEGA 2).
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Randglossen zum Programm der deutschen Arbeiterpartei
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Briefe über 'Das Kapital
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Soziales aus Russland
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