Thursday 25 February 2021

The Economic Content of Narodism, Chapter 3 - Part 4

Instead of seeing the expansion of this large-scale, monopoly capital, and its destruction of the old, small scale production, as progressive, the petty-bourgeois socialists, instead, seek to hold back, or even turn back the former, and, in the process, thereby, slowdown the process of the transition to Socialism. The only consequence of the “anti-monopoly” position they put forward is strengthening of the petty-bourgeoisie, and reactionary forms of capital

“... it is clear that only the producer employed in the “artificial,” “hothouse” conditions of factory industry can be the representative of the working handicraftsmen.” (p 428) 

And, Lenin adds, quoting Struve

““The entire process is expressed in the fact of petty production (handicraft) approximating to ’capitalism’ in some respects, and in others to wage-labour separated from the means of production” (p. 104).” (Note *, p 428) 

In other words, it is only the industrial worker, employed in the large enterprise, that can lead the way. That is because, only here is the condition between capital and labour expressed in its mature form. The small handicraft producer still sees themselves as in some way an independent producer, an owner of “capital”, even though they are in various stages of dependency on the buyers up etc. And, for these small producers, who themselves employ a few wage workers, this is all the more the case. They see any policies aimed at raising wages as directed directly at their heart, because, unlike the large producers, who have a higher organic composition of capital, wages form a larger proportion of their cost of production, and they are less able to afford these wages, or better conditions of employment that the big employers can provide. 

Lenin turns to Struve's argument in relation to agriculture. It shows again the limitations of objectivism as against materialism, and of Struve's failure to delve into the realities of the Russian economy. 

“Steam transport compels a transition to exchange economy, it makes agricultural production commodity production. And the commodity character of production unfailingly requires “its economic and technical rationality” (110).” (p 428) 

Again, this requires some explanation that Lenin does not provide. Its quite clear that its not steam power or steam transport that leads to an exchange/commodity economy. Commodity production and exchange goes back 10,000 years, and money itself goes back thousands of years, showing that extensive commodity production and exchange itself is not a modern phenomenon. Indeed, even the capitalist production and exchange of commodities goes back several centuries prior to the introduction of steam-power, let alone steam transport. Rather, it is the growth of markets alongside an extension of the division of labour that makes possible the profitable use of machines, and it is the continued expansion of markets, on the basis of this increased division of labour, and increased commodity production, that makes possible the profitable utilisation of steam-power, to drive a much greater volume of machinery. What steam transport does is to make large markets in towns and cities more readily accessible to agricultural producers, and this fact means that agricultural producers get a huge incentive to produce agricultural commodities to sell in those markets. That, in itself, encourages agricultural production on a larger, more rational, i.e. capitalist basis. 

This is the argument that Struve puts forward, on the basis of objectivism, as against the Narodniks who argued that the benefits of large-scale agriculture had not been proved. This same reactionary, petty-bourgeois argument against large-scale, capitalist agriculture can be found today. Its common amongst environmentalists, as well as amongst “anti-imperialists”, for whom it forms part of the argument against supposedly “unnatural” monoculture.


No comments: