“Socialist Planning Beyond Capitalism”
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How can people like him — in fact all left and council communists and other assorted libertarian communists — get away with this when after Marx wrote the passage they misquote or misinterpret he made it clear in a speech a year later that he thought that it might even be possible in some countries and in certain conditions for the working class to win political power by peaceful means:
“Someday the worker must seize political power in order to build up the new organization of labor; he must overthrow the old politics which sustain the old institutions, if he is not to lose Heaven on Earth, like the old Christians who neglected and despised politics.
But we have not asserted that the ways to achieve that goal are everywhere the same.
You know that the institutions, mores, and traditions of various countries must be taken into consideration, and we do not deny that there are countries — such as America, England, and if I were more familiar with your institutions, I would perhaps also add Holland — where the workers can attain their goal by peaceful means.”https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/09/08.htm
Of course this is Marx’s view and it doesn’t make it right just because he said so. But these people want to claim the authority of Marx for something they advocate but which he did not.
Why don’t they come out openly and say that Marx was wrong on this point?
For one thing the “use of parliament= reformist and extra parliamentary activiy= revolutionary” people have simplicity and romanticism on their side. The revolutionary use of parliament argument requires more explanation, especially since the “socialist” parties that have engaged in parliamentary activiy have tended to be reformist and leadership based.
I was expecting to see a review of the Bernes book in the May SS. No.
But here in the Mattick-edited section of the May Brooklyn Rail, there are three reviews of it, along with a rejoinder to them by Bernes.
https://brooklynrail.org/section/field-notes/
I find useful to read his rejoinder first. (Partly out of fear of fatigue from reading ‘this kind of thing’.)
By the way, from his rejoinder it seems he was mistaken for something of an Impossiblist because he rejoinds (if there is such a word):
‘When I speak of the necessity of an immediate plan for common production for common use, I do not mean, as Frits Janssen argues, a “variation of the well-known view that the workers can only make a revolution when they are ‘conscious’…when they have studied piles of books” but rather an intensive and extensive network including “the vast majority” in the activity of planning and producing in common for common use.’
I don’t think that Janssen was accusing Bernes of adopting a position similar to ours as he goes on to say that those who hold the view he is criticising conclude that workers need leaders to tell them what the books mean. Actually, it is not clear who he is getting at since I don’t know any group that holds that position.
In any event, it is not our view that workers need to have studied piles of books to become a socialist. All someone needs to do is (of course) understand what socialism is and want it, and that capitalism cannot be reformed so as to work in the interests of the workers (which is something people could workout for themselves, though talking to others and reading a few pamphlets would help someone to come to his conclusion). No need to understand the materialist conception of history or the labour theory of value unless you want to.
Incidentally, the question of “workers councils” is dealt with briefly in this month’s Socialist Standard in a reply to a letter from someone who promotes the idea.
I finally got a copy of the Jasper Bernes book. “The Test of Communism” is chapter two, of three. The first chapter is something about workers councils, where he seems to be shoehorning the Paris Commune into that. Will report back…
I’ll try to write a proper review but the short answer is better explanation of what was meant by the transformation of the state in Marx is in Liepold’s book. Bernes’s is worth reading as a history of the ideas of the various groups that inspired the present day “communisation” writers.
But if you’re looking for any new insights into political theory or strategy there’s nothing there. These people seem to have their own version of minority revolution – workers councils are seen as way for the communist minority to insert itself into positions of power above the non-communist majority.
There also seems to be some kind of belief that every crisis or disruption presents some kind of latent tendency towards communism. For example, they think that communism could start by an inssurection that takes hold of warehouses and logistics distributes the goods according to need – wishful thinking in other words.
It’s us who are the realists – there is a real need to consider the political questions of legitimacy and control of the coercive forces of the state. The “communisisers” just seem to think that such things will unfold by themselves due the pressure of events and this unfolding will work to the advantage of communism.
A non-favorable review of the Bernes book by the Anarcho-Syndicalist Network in the most recent issue of its organ, Rebel Worker: https://files.libcom.org/files/2025-09/RW%20Sept-Oct%202025.pdf . On PDF-page 16
Hermann Lueer reviews part of the Bernes book. The review has these parts:
Abstract;
1. Marx against Labor Money;
2. Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution;
3. Bordiga against the GIC;
4. Dauvé – Councils without workers in the land of milk and honey;
5. Paul Mattick’s famous introduction to the 1970 reissue of the Fundamental Principles;
ConclusionIn capitalism the productivity of labour is increased for the purposes of increasing surplus value. In communism, the productivity of labour is increased for the purpose of increasing free time.
If “labour time accounting” (meaning the counting of actual concrete hours of labour) is the means by which individuals can draw from the stock of consumer goods (i.e if the longer hours you work means the more consumer products you can get) then where’s the incentive for this reduction of working time? And wouldn’t the tendency be for workers to inflate working hours and for productivity levels to drop?
Has Lueer even entertained this real possibility?
Any society needs to keep track of how long it takes to make things and how much labouring capacity it has in order to allocate this between different branches of production. The difference between socialism and capitalism is that in socialism this calculation takes place before the fact of production. And the amount of labour it takes to make something would just be one, amongst many, considerations not the sole guiding principle.
Unless I’ve missed something, Lueer seems wide off the mark.
From the Lueer review: “Without transparent accounting, decisions about distribution are made by self-proclaimed representatives of the associated producers, such as experts, bureaucrats, and moralists.”
Obviously, this is a false dichotomy. There are more options than just between workers councils co-ordinating based on ‘labour time accounting’ or ‘self-proclaimed representatives’ dictating who gets what.
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