Marx cubed
Again, I have to apologize for the ad hoc nature of these posts, I have been inundated with practical life garbage lately and unable to completely pursue a post. I would like to first suggest you look to the idea suggested by Derrida, (and I believe Levi-Strauss) of bricolage. The question is, once a system or structure has been decentered what do you do with the leftover system. Well you can do several things I suppose, you can just toss the whole system out, or you can try to replace the center and achieve fixity (Derrida and poststructuralism would suggest this is impossible, every center is a concept and not an absolute truth so there is always some play, and it can be deconstructed). The other option is suggested by the idea of bricolage, you can just use the system as a tool for whatever task is at hand, while denying the center is an absolute truth.
As applied to Marxism (I will use economistic Marxism) the center is perhaps the idea of Historical Materialism, the necessary and inevitable march of economic structures through history and the given superstructures that emerge inevitably from them. At some point the economic structure will begin to fetter the mode of production and a contradiction arises and this contradiction is necessarily cast into the epiphenomenomal superstructure...men's consciousness, political institutions, laws, etc. The proletariat will then overthrow the capitalist ruling class and begin to move the means of production into a position where all will stand equal, and as this happens the epiphenomenal superstructures will accordingly adjust to mirror the changing structure. Now the fact that "men" need to make the revolution is not in itself problematic for materialism because men are material beings and part of the changing structure, the problem arises when one looks at the world and sees that men did not do this when industrialism was wreaking the most havoc on the living standards of the working class.
Instead what happened is what was called, by Gramsci and Lenin, reformism or trade union consciousness. Rather than "becoming conscious" of the need to make a socialist revolution the working class worked within the existing system to make piece-meal reforms and slight advances in their living conditions, they were not "becoming conscious." Lenin poses, in an essay entitled "What is to Be Done?," the idea that a revolutionary vanguard of intellectuals needed to use theory as a means of making men conscious. This is a problem for Marx's epiphenomenalism, why would theory, or ideology, be needed to make men become aware, should not this awareness just emerge from the contradictions in the structure...how can ideology change material conditions? This is where economistic Marxism ran dry, all the socialists in Europe who thought they could just sit back and await the working class to become aware of the contradictions in capitalism and overthrow the ruling class kept waiting until about 1991, then they became bitter, rich conservatives. This is again, the old problem of the relationship of base and superstructure and I will not again go into Gramsci's step toward resolving it unless it is directly requested of me.
I will say though that the "inevitability" of "orthodox" Marxism is an illusion. First of all, history has born out that the conditions that would "inevitably" bring about the collapse of capital can be perpetually put off with counter-propanganda and reform (hegemony). Secondly, historical materialism is itself flawed, and this will be continued later, but one must begin to consider a different method if this is the path they wish to travel. "Orthodox" Marxism is a nice way of saying dogma, but Marx intended to create a "science" so one should ask why we need to feel bound to any part of Marxism that is not useful, and the answer is that we do not. Finally, I will suggest that the kind of "economistic" Marxism I used for an example above was never what was intended by Marx. First of all, there is the oft-quoted phrase from the "Thesis on Feuerbach" where Marx suggests that the point of philosophy is to change the world, for philosophy to change the world the base-superstructure relationship must be considerably more complex than a direct, linear and causal one. The article Gramsci points to is "The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte," again where a direct and causal relationship from structure to superstructure cannot be made to fit. It is in the work done by Engels and his commentaries on Marx that one begins to see the economistic view of Marxism emerge and it is prevalent on the Continent during the first part of the 20th century (also in Marx's rhetorical excess of polemics like "The Communist Manifesto" one sees an economistic tendency, but just ask, why would Marx need to write a Manifesto for the working class if the structure would necessarily yield revolution on its own).
Now if one accepts the more complex view of the base-superstructure relationship suggested by Gramsci and others, then one can see that there is absolutely nothing inevitable about the socialist revolution, in fact, it is even unlikely in the West according to Gramsci. What is still inevitable is the idea that the structure will at times have contradictions that will vary in intensity, but can be offset with a healthy dose of ideology (consumerism) and reform (most clearly, Roosevelt's "New Deal," et sequitur). But quickly to "deconstruct" historical materialism...the neat binary of structure and superstructure does not hold up. There is no clean split and clearly prior relationship, the two poles are not always poles, at times they overlap, shift, clash or work together. So if we assume the center of Marx's theory to be historical materialism, then its easy to see that the foundation is not an absolute, it is what "God" is to deconstructed Christianity. The question is then what to do with a system whose absolute truth is no longer valued, and the post-structuralist answer is bricolage. This is why people can use tools of systems like Freudianism or Marxism without trying to bring the unconscious into the conscious or overthrow capitalism. One can just "play" with the systems and address things through their perspective.
Now what does it all mean for me? Well, I would first argue that the "right" socialism is still yet to be found, and may never be found. There is no reason why something has to be dropped because it does not conform to the thoughts of its first theorist unless it is dogma or dictatorial principle you are working with. Marx's grand system is not what he thought it was, but I still have no doubt that economic prosperity is alienating, is pervasive, and even to an extent mirrored in our political and cultural landscape. I believe that for democracy to be democratic people must be equal at least in the realm of political power at elections. "Formal equality" does not exist because it is always substantiated by "real" people and some of those people enter the room owning corporations and others do not even own houses. There is no reason why we should have 250 million dollar lotteries that people feel is there only chance at prosperity...and why doesn't anyone ever ask what would happen if we just distributed that $250 million amongst the population of the state so that everyone wins big. There is something incommensurate when capital can move across borders at the click of a mouse, but labor has to be smuggled thirsty and hungry through deserts only to be treated like second rate human beings when they get to their destination. There is a problem when American workers spit vitriole and hatred at Mexican and Chinese laborers for taking "their" jobs. Put yourself in the shoes of a Chinese worker who gets nothing but an ideology for their work, or a Mexican worker who lives in holes in mountains in southern California so they can stand, bent-over, all day and pick strawberries at 25 cents an hour. They hate foreign workers, but see nothing wrong in a set-up where capital can flee in a second to exploit a new labor frontier while they sit and rot in the American mid-west. Out of three subjects; the American worker, the foreign worker, and the owner of the factory, who is consistently coming out on top? What would happen if international living standards were as good as they are in America, would a factory owner flee to Mexico to pay a Mexican worker the same wage and benefits he/she is paying the American worker? Why not work for international social justice where there is no unexploited frontier of human beings left to sap dry, commodify and then alienate the second their use-value drops below their cost? Why not say efficiency is great, but what about human decency? Marx is still relevant to me because the modus operandi is still the same...how much are civilian contractors in Iraq being paid, and how much are the soldiers being paid? Where do you think those soldiers overwhelmingly come from, the upper class, NO! The incentive for fighting wars is upward mobility, the GI Bill, stable benefits, who does this appeal to? Marx is relevant as long as I can convince myself that temporary material comfort is not enough, and I still can.
As applied to Marxism (I will use economistic Marxism) the center is perhaps the idea of Historical Materialism, the necessary and inevitable march of economic structures through history and the given superstructures that emerge inevitably from them. At some point the economic structure will begin to fetter the mode of production and a contradiction arises and this contradiction is necessarily cast into the epiphenomenomal superstructure...men's consciousness, political institutions, laws, etc. The proletariat will then overthrow the capitalist ruling class and begin to move the means of production into a position where all will stand equal, and as this happens the epiphenomenal superstructures will accordingly adjust to mirror the changing structure. Now the fact that "men" need to make the revolution is not in itself problematic for materialism because men are material beings and part of the changing structure, the problem arises when one looks at the world and sees that men did not do this when industrialism was wreaking the most havoc on the living standards of the working class.
Instead what happened is what was called, by Gramsci and Lenin, reformism or trade union consciousness. Rather than "becoming conscious" of the need to make a socialist revolution the working class worked within the existing system to make piece-meal reforms and slight advances in their living conditions, they were not "becoming conscious." Lenin poses, in an essay entitled "What is to Be Done?," the idea that a revolutionary vanguard of intellectuals needed to use theory as a means of making men conscious. This is a problem for Marx's epiphenomenalism, why would theory, or ideology, be needed to make men become aware, should not this awareness just emerge from the contradictions in the structure...how can ideology change material conditions? This is where economistic Marxism ran dry, all the socialists in Europe who thought they could just sit back and await the working class to become aware of the contradictions in capitalism and overthrow the ruling class kept waiting until about 1991, then they became bitter, rich conservatives. This is again, the old problem of the relationship of base and superstructure and I will not again go into Gramsci's step toward resolving it unless it is directly requested of me.
I will say though that the "inevitability" of "orthodox" Marxism is an illusion. First of all, history has born out that the conditions that would "inevitably" bring about the collapse of capital can be perpetually put off with counter-propanganda and reform (hegemony). Secondly, historical materialism is itself flawed, and this will be continued later, but one must begin to consider a different method if this is the path they wish to travel. "Orthodox" Marxism is a nice way of saying dogma, but Marx intended to create a "science" so one should ask why we need to feel bound to any part of Marxism that is not useful, and the answer is that we do not. Finally, I will suggest that the kind of "economistic" Marxism I used for an example above was never what was intended by Marx. First of all, there is the oft-quoted phrase from the "Thesis on Feuerbach" where Marx suggests that the point of philosophy is to change the world, for philosophy to change the world the base-superstructure relationship must be considerably more complex than a direct, linear and causal one. The article Gramsci points to is "The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte," again where a direct and causal relationship from structure to superstructure cannot be made to fit. It is in the work done by Engels and his commentaries on Marx that one begins to see the economistic view of Marxism emerge and it is prevalent on the Continent during the first part of the 20th century (also in Marx's rhetorical excess of polemics like "The Communist Manifesto" one sees an economistic tendency, but just ask, why would Marx need to write a Manifesto for the working class if the structure would necessarily yield revolution on its own).
Now if one accepts the more complex view of the base-superstructure relationship suggested by Gramsci and others, then one can see that there is absolutely nothing inevitable about the socialist revolution, in fact, it is even unlikely in the West according to Gramsci. What is still inevitable is the idea that the structure will at times have contradictions that will vary in intensity, but can be offset with a healthy dose of ideology (consumerism) and reform (most clearly, Roosevelt's "New Deal," et sequitur). But quickly to "deconstruct" historical materialism...the neat binary of structure and superstructure does not hold up. There is no clean split and clearly prior relationship, the two poles are not always poles, at times they overlap, shift, clash or work together. So if we assume the center of Marx's theory to be historical materialism, then its easy to see that the foundation is not an absolute, it is what "God" is to deconstructed Christianity. The question is then what to do with a system whose absolute truth is no longer valued, and the post-structuralist answer is bricolage. This is why people can use tools of systems like Freudianism or Marxism without trying to bring the unconscious into the conscious or overthrow capitalism. One can just "play" with the systems and address things through their perspective.
Now what does it all mean for me? Well, I would first argue that the "right" socialism is still yet to be found, and may never be found. There is no reason why something has to be dropped because it does not conform to the thoughts of its first theorist unless it is dogma or dictatorial principle you are working with. Marx's grand system is not what he thought it was, but I still have no doubt that economic prosperity is alienating, is pervasive, and even to an extent mirrored in our political and cultural landscape. I believe that for democracy to be democratic people must be equal at least in the realm of political power at elections. "Formal equality" does not exist because it is always substantiated by "real" people and some of those people enter the room owning corporations and others do not even own houses. There is no reason why we should have 250 million dollar lotteries that people feel is there only chance at prosperity...and why doesn't anyone ever ask what would happen if we just distributed that $250 million amongst the population of the state so that everyone wins big. There is something incommensurate when capital can move across borders at the click of a mouse, but labor has to be smuggled thirsty and hungry through deserts only to be treated like second rate human beings when they get to their destination. There is a problem when American workers spit vitriole and hatred at Mexican and Chinese laborers for taking "their" jobs. Put yourself in the shoes of a Chinese worker who gets nothing but an ideology for their work, or a Mexican worker who lives in holes in mountains in southern California so they can stand, bent-over, all day and pick strawberries at 25 cents an hour. They hate foreign workers, but see nothing wrong in a set-up where capital can flee in a second to exploit a new labor frontier while they sit and rot in the American mid-west. Out of three subjects; the American worker, the foreign worker, and the owner of the factory, who is consistently coming out on top? What would happen if international living standards were as good as they are in America, would a factory owner flee to Mexico to pay a Mexican worker the same wage and benefits he/she is paying the American worker? Why not work for international social justice where there is no unexploited frontier of human beings left to sap dry, commodify and then alienate the second their use-value drops below their cost? Why not say efficiency is great, but what about human decency? Marx is still relevant to me because the modus operandi is still the same...how much are civilian contractors in Iraq being paid, and how much are the soldiers being paid? Where do you think those soldiers overwhelmingly come from, the upper class, NO! The incentive for fighting wars is upward mobility, the GI Bill, stable benefits, who does this appeal to? Marx is relevant as long as I can convince myself that temporary material comfort is not enough, and I still can.
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