Lenin notes that Struve correctly says that “peasant semi-natural economy” could also still be found in the West, but that didn't change the fact of the predominance of commodity production, or the dominance of capital over labour. Before this domination of capital over labour reaches its highest peak in large-scale machine industry, it goes through many stages, a point the Narodniks ignored as they tried to present capitalism as only this large-scale factory production.
“The subordination begins with merchant’s and usury capital, then grows into industrial capitalism, which in its turn is at first technically quite primitive, and does not differ in any way from the old systems of production, then organises manufacture—which is still based on hand labour, and on the dominant handicraft industries, without breaking the tie between the wage-worker and the land—and completes its development with large-scale machine industry. It is this last, highest stage that constitutes the culminating point of the development of capitalism, it alone creates the fully expropriated worker who is as free as a bird, it alone gives rise (both materially and socially) to the “unifying significance” of capitalism that the Narodniks are accustomed to connect with capitalism in general, it alone opposes capitalism to its “own child.”” (p 438)
Lenin then turns to Struve's comments on the transition from capitalism to Socialism, and the question of reforms. Again, as with the comments regarding the precipitate nature of the rise of capitalism, both Struve and Lenin are wrong. Struve says that Marx conceived the transition as a sudden downfall, and collapse of capitalism. Lenin says that, according to Struve there are “certain passages” that give grounds for this view. Lenin's disagreement with Struve is that he believes that rather than there being just certain passages, this view runs throughout Marx's work. You would have thought that, in that case, Lenin would have been able to cite at least one example, to support this claim, but he does not. And, no wonder, because Marx says no such thing.
As set out in the earlier quote, from the Grundrisse, Marx talks about Socialism developing over a long period as capitalism had done. Engels writing to Bebel talks about his and Marx' view that worker owned cooperatives would play a central role for a long period in the transition to Socialism, and this is a transition they saw unfolding after workers had become the dominant social class, and established a workers' state. In Capital III, Chapter 27, Marx also describes this lengthy period of transition, as credit is utilised to gradually extend the worker-owned cooperatives, initially, on a national basis. And, nowhere does Marx talk about a sudden collapse of capitalism. In fact, he emphatically rejects such a notion, criticising Adam Smith's view of such a crisis resulting from falling profits as wages rise.
“When Adam Smith explains the fall in the rate of profit from an over-abundance of capital, an accumulation of capital, he is speaking of a permanent effect and this is wrong. As against this, the transitory over-abundance of capital, over-production and crises are something different. Permanent crises do not exist.”
(Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 17, Footnote)
For Marx, the evolution of socialist productive relations evolve out of capitalist productive relations, and supplant them. What may be precipitate is the political revolution, the permanent seizure of control over the political regime by the working-class, which itself is simply the reflection, in the realm of the superstructure, of the fact that the working-class has already become the ruling social class, just as happened with the bourgeois revolution. Yet, experience of the bourgeois revolution indicates its not likely to be that precipitate. It had many false starts, and failed attempts before it succeeded. The English bourgeoisie made its attempt before it was truly dominant, and was led to resort to Cromwell's dictatorship. Its ideas dominated the state, and it moved forward in the political regime as a result of the Glorious Revolution, but it was another 150 years before it even secured the franchise for itself, and even then, the landed aristocracy continued to dominate parliament. A similar fractured progress could be seen in France, where the bourgeoisie only secured permanent control over the political regime with the creation of the Third Republic. A similar path can be seen in Germany. Even in the US, its revolution had to be supplemented nearly a century later by a Civil War to establish the predominance of the Federal State, acting in the interests of the industrial bourgeoisie, over the individual states.
Lenin offers no examples to support his contention on this point, instead focusing his attention on a different line of argument – Struve's assertion that Marx's followers introduced a modification into Marx's views by arguing for reforms. On this, of course, Lenin is correct. There is no amendment, here, because the concept of fighting for reforms is wholly consistent with Marx's view, and Marx himself did so. It was the basis of Marx's disagreement with Guesde. The question is what kind of reforms are proposed, and to what end? The whole point of the reforms that Marx proposes is that they should facilitate the working-class in pursuing the goal of its own self-activity and self-government. In other words, they are reforms that enable the working-class to achieve its mission of becoming the dominant social class, as the precondition for establishing a workers' state.
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