Teaching Capital this semester has had the effect of focusing my attention once again on the central theme of Karl Marx’s work, which is the exploitation of workers. At the same time, my considerable age and physical infirmities, combined with the death lately of so many persons whom I knew and who were, in one way or another, important to me, has led me to reflect on all the struggles to which I have lent my assistance over the past 70 years.
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the union movement, the
Civil Rights Movement and Black Liberation, Women’s Lib, Gay Liberation – what
would the world look like today, I asked myself, what would America look like
today, if all of these struggles had been completely successful? I lay in bed
last night at about 1 AM turning this question over in my mind.
I tried to imagine an America in which a bit more than half of
the members of the House of Representatives and the Senate were women, in which
African-Americans, Latinx Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans were
represented at every level in the pyramid of jobs in proportion to their
numbers in the population. I tried to
imagine an America in which every citizen had guaranteed healthcare, an America
in which the cost of education at every level was socialized so that no one
carried a student debt, in which all workers were unionized and the guaranteed
minimum wage was $25 an hour, an America in which all elections were free and
fair, with no gerrymandering at any level in the electoral process, an America
in which all parents, both male and female, had paid parental leave. Suppose, just to take specific one example, that
the principal shareholder of Amazon were not Jeff Bezos but a lesbian Native
American. Would this not be the
fulfillment of my dreams? Could I then die, if not happy, at least with the
sense that, in the words of Isaiah, every valley had been exalted, and every
mountain and hill made low: and the crooked had been made straight, and the
rough places plain?
But then I thought, even in such an Eden, it would still
take a well-paid unionized Amazon worker 3 million years to earn as much as
that lesbian Native American “Bezos” would be worth today. It would still be the case that the grotesque
inequality of income and the vastly more grotesque inequality of wealth would
remain. It would simply no longer be the case that the inequality was color-coded
or gender coded. We would be no closer in that imagined ideal world to the
collective ownership of the means of production that Marx correctly identified,
a century and a half ago, as the essential next step in the social relations of
production.
Troubled and unsettled, I drifted off to sleep.
11 comments:
Latinx? Oh god. From Wikipedia:
"The term was first seen online around 2004. It has since been used in social media by activists, students, and academics who seek to advocate for non-binary and genderqueer individuals. Surveys of Hispanic and Latino Americans have found that the vast majority prefer other terms such as Hispanic and Latina/Latino to describe themselves, and that only 2-3% use Latinx. A 2020 Pew Research Center survey found that roughly three-quarters of U.S. Latinos were not aware of the term Latinx; of those aware of it, 33% said it should be used to describe their racial or ethnic group, while 65% said it should not."
Can we drop it?
Sorry you had a bad night, Professor. I can see your point, though, how the aspirations of all the various liberation movements could have been met without necessarily leading to a socialist revolution. However, looking back at the 1960s to 1980s versions of those movements, pretty much all the leaders were Marxists of one stripe or another, to one degree or another. So though the changes may not have been revolutionary, they certainly would have had a negative impact on the capitalist ruling class's power and we probably would not be where we are today. Maybe.
I'm sorry as well. At first I thought you were building up to something like this, from J.S. Mill -
In this frame of mind it occurred to me to put the question directly to myself: "Suppose that all your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you are looking forward to, could be completely effected at this very instant: would this be a great joy and happiness to you?" And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered, "No!"
With the usual disclaimers (I'm not well-studied in these things, I'm sure I'm not saying anything new or deep...), I wonder if inequality of wealth could be morally tolerable under certain conditions: namely, on the condition that it did not interfere with anyone else's fulfillment of their needs.
Personally, I think I'd be "okay" with a world where individuals could satisfy whatever weird urges they might have to compete in a marketplace for the sake of optional luxury goods, the sense of prestige, and the like - but only if this didn't mean that some of their neighbors would have to toil long hours just to hope for the basics of a safe, healthy, happy life. ("Okay" meaning it would be unideal, in that people could still be greedy, vicious, vain - but it wouldn't be quite so appalling; and it might perhaps be attainable, eventually...?)
What does it mean that "collective ownership of the means of production" is "the essential next step in the social relations of production"?
Is that a moral imperative?
Or does that mean that historical necessity dictates that the next historical step will be colllective ownership? If so, why sweat it because it will come when it comes.
Or does the phrase "essential next step" means something else?
Genuinely puzzled.
I also don't see inequality per se as inherently bad (politically, morally, whatever). Freddie de Boer makes a point often missed by putative Leftists - equality is not a Marxist goal (because humans are inherently unequal in ability, and also, everyone could be equal and still be immiserated).
Marx may have had an ideal theory of revolutions ensnared in millenarian assumptions current in the 19th century cultural context that it was in the nature of human revolutions to be final transformations, clean breaks from previous history, or events that finish one era of history and then start a new era (= the successful revolution, or finished revolution ideal). Capitalism era would be finished by a socialist revolution led by the working classes and it would successfully liberate them from their masters, giving them permanent political power over them thereafter. The missing socialist community would be born by a successful class struggle and revolution that finally overthrew the oppressor class. But what if the nature of human liberation and revolution is much more complex that Marx theorized?
Contrast Marx with Paul Goodman, Growing Up Absurd, Ch. XI, "The Missing Community" and Goodman's interpretation of about 27 human revolutions he associates with the old radical-liberal agenda (including Marx's class struggle as only one of many missed, compromised, or unfinished revolutions) which represent lost causes left over for the youth to bring to greater completion than previous generations. Fallible human beings working out their revolutions will always make mistakes and compromise their ideals due to political negotiations and pressures. What Goodman observes is a hypocritical pattern in that we claim to buy into an important ideal in history, but then in practice when it comes time to apply it fully, we compromise and fake out the revolution.
Paul Goodman writes: "Some revolutions fail to occur; most half-occur or are compromised, attaining some of their objectives and resulting in significant social changes, but giving up on others, resulting in ambiguous values in the social whole that would not have occurred if the changes had been more thoroughgoing. For, in general, a profound revolutionary program in any field projects a new workable kind of behavior, a new nature of man, a new whole society.... But a compromised revolution tends to disrupt the tradition without achieving a new social balance" (p 194).
Goodman also observes: "A successful revolution establishes a new community. A missed revolution makes irrelevant the community that persists. And a compromised revolution tends to shatter the community that was, without an adequate substitute" (p 195).
Not being a loyal Marxist himself, Goodman in 1960 is not trying to make a clean break from America and its capitalist culture, possibly because he is more wary of the failed side of revolutions than Marx. Goodman writes: "If we are to have a stable and whole community in which the young can grow in manhood, we must painfully perfect the revolutionary modern tradition we have. This stoical resolve is, paradoxically, a conservative proposition, aiming at stability and social balance. For often it is not a question of making innovations, but of catching up and restoring the right proportions" (p 207).
Human being may be revolutionary animals, but they also never finish their many revolutions and compound social problems by faking reform, leaving a mess of unfinished revolutions to overwhelm the next generation, and so endless compromises replace effectively realizing the ideal and the revolution fails again.
Hurricane Fiona is coming my way and is going to blow our houses down if you believe social media. But I am trying to escape with comedy, and sometimes it works. "RPW" also stands for "revolutionary philosophy workshop" if you think about it! It is always what you do that really defines you.
I thank Robert Paul Wolff for creating this blog to talk about radical philosophy and passing subjects and his own idealism about writing philosophy/composition, which is what drew me to his blog (wanting to know how to edit yourself as a philosopher). Now I am going to hide and I am thinking about sleeping in the basement until Hurricane Fiona blows over this island.
Tony Couture,
I hope that the hurricane does not damage your house. Keep us posted on how things go.
Tony Couture. So, you live on PEI. Do you plan on driving across the Confederation Bridge during the storm? Many years ago (back in the 1980s), I found myself on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in an unexpected white-out in the winter. I am still here, and my memory is still there.
Jeff Bezos is a lesbian Native American, but she's not out about it.
'the collective ownership of the means of production that Marx correctly identified, a century and a half ago, as the essential next step in the social relations of production'
correctly identified? As the what now? 'The ideas I wish to describe are old ideas.'
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