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Marxism and needs
Does Marxism need to be
reinterpreted in the light of the ecological problem faced by humanity?
Is the “world of abundance” traditionally advocated by socialists
feasible? Not according to Claude Bitot, known as the author of a book
on the future of the movement for communism (see Socialist Standard,
December 1995), in his recent book Quel autre monde possible?
(“What other world is possible”?). Echoing the ideas of some Greens but
denying any affinity with them as “bobos” (trendies), Bitot argues that
the only viable form of communism (or socialism) today is the austere
pre-industrial communism advocated by Babeuf and his followers during
the French Revolution and first part of the 19th century.
His criticism of Marx – that he accepted the development of capitalism
as a necessary step towards socialism – can be traced back to the
influence of a “productivist” or technological determinist reading of
Marx, based on The Poverty of Philosophy and the Communist Manifesto,
which the great man was considerably qualifying by the time he got
round to writing the Grundrisse. According to this simplified version
of Marxism – faithfully trotted out by Bitot – it is the development of
the forces of production that drives history. Capitalism in the form of
merchant capital develops in the pores of feudalism, notably in the
towns. Over time the forces of production develop to the point where
feudal relations become fetters on the possibilities of further
development. Feudalism therefore disappears with the rise of the
revolutionary bourgeoisie whose task it is to abolish lordly privilege
so as to permit the further development of the forces of production.
Eventually the enormous development of the forces of production –
notably industrialisation and mass production – would enter into
contradiction with the limitations placed on the restricted consumption
capacity of the proletarians. The latter in their turn become the new
revolutionary class capable whose “historic task” is to overthrow the
capitalist class and unleash of the forces of production to meet a
greatly expanded range of human needs.
To further add to the confusion, the building of what was falsely
called ‘communism’ in Russia by the Soviet authorities popularized the
idea that a long transition period – misleadingly called ‘socialism’
– was required in order to bring about the communist utopia.
During the transition period working class consumption would be
sidelined to allow the breakneck development of the forces of
production, (tractor factories, dams, electrical power plants and the
like). And there was of course doctrinal justification for such a
position given that Marx was absolutely clear that in underdeveloped
countries like early twentieth century Russia ‘communism’ was not in
any way feasible. Although Marx never separated the ‘socialist’ stage
from the ‘communist’ one, the early enthusiasm for the Soviet
experiment led to the transitional stage idea sticking. Indeed, many
left-leaning thinkers became obsessed with technological development as
such, with Bordiga – as Bitot conveniently points out – in the
uncomfortable position of trashing the need for further technical
advance in capitalist Italy whilst recommending the rapid development
of the forces of production in Soviet Russia. This has created a good
deal of confusion about what progress towards socialism really
means.
Bitot’s objection to capitalist development seems in many ways to be an
attempt to overcome the legacy of these confusions in the light of what
he rightly considers to be a looming ecological crisis. But he adds a
few more confusions of his own. To begin with he goes back to the very
origins of communism as a political movement: the agrarian communism of
Buonarroti and Babeuf and he contrasts this with what he sees as the
consumerist interpretations of socialism popularized during the
twentieth century. As we know these pioneering communists were
imprisoned and – in Babeuf’s case executed – in the years following the
French revolution. Bitot sees in these interpretations an anticipation
of the errors which socialists would make in the second half of the
twentieth century.
Incorrectly believing that the emergence of agricultural capitalism
could be largely explained by the immoderate expansion of needs and
taste for luxury, the agrarian communists turned their backs on the
unconstrained development of industry and championed a system based on
fair but austere shares for all. In this communist utopia technological
development in the shape of machinery would take place simply as a need
to lighten manual labour, production being oriented toward the meeting
of a fixed standard of living.
The development of English commerce depended, Bitot tells us, on the
sharpening of acquisitive appetites and the introduction of machinery
to meet an ever-expanding sphere of consumption: the upward spiral of
capitalist production. This simplified depiction of capitalist
development has the advantage of wrong-footing Marx who notoriously
celebrated the technical achievements of the English industrial
revolution in the Communist Manifesto and castigated the narrow
material basis of the agrarian communists in France (he called them
“crude communists”). Indeed, since Marx was prepared to admit that
industrial capitalism provided the material preconditions for
communism, he had in effect became a de facto fellow-traveller in the
capitalist party, albeit a pretty unruly one. The solution, according
to Bitot was to have nipped the capitalist weed in the bud by a bit of
revolutionary action and Bitot appreciates the fact that French
agrarian communism was an extension of the revolutionary political
approach adopted earlier by Robespierre, the advocate of revolutionary
terror. If only, one thinks, the English had read these thinkers rather
than that scoundrel Adam Smith then they would have abandoned their
silly economic ideas and got us to socialism a
lot earlier.
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