IV - Practical Proposals of Romanticism
Sismondi's merit was that he had been one of the first to note the contradictions of capitalism, but he failed to go beyond that. He failed to analyse capitalism and so identify the basis of those contradictions, and where they inevitably lead. Instead he simply bemoaned the negative consequences of those contradictions, saw it as history somehow taking a wrong turn that the state had failed to correct, and so sought the existing development to be stopped and turned back. This same reactionary approach was taken by the Narodniks, and can be seen in the ideas of the proponents of Brexit, the “anti-capitalists”, “anti-monopoly alliance”, “anti-imperialists”, Trumpists, Faragists and so on.
Lenin gives a series of quotes from Sismondi, along with equivalent comments from Danielson, in the footnotes, expressing this petty-bourgeois approach. It sees the historical development only in terms of decisions made and handed down from above, which may be correct or false. It fails to identify that all such decisions are the result of the pursuance of particular class interests, interests which develop as the consequence of the formation of social classes resting upon different forms of property.
So, Lenin quotes Sismondi's comment,
““Their separation” (the separation of the property owning class from the working people), “the antagonism of their interests, is the result of the present-day artificial organisation which we have given human society. . . . The natural order of social progress did not by any means tend to separate men from things, or wealth from labour; in the rural districts the property owner could remain a tiller of the soil; in the towns the capitalist could remain an artisan; the separation of the working class from the leisured class was not absolutely indispensable for the existence of society, or for production; we introduced it for the greatest benefit of all; it devolves upon us (il nous appartient) to regulate it so that this benefit may be really achieved” (II, 348).” (p 234)
But, as Marx sets out, and as Lenin has also elaborated, this process of differentiation was not the consequence of deliberate decisions, but was the inevitable consequence of commodity production and exchange itself, as soon as the other required material conditions came into existence, i.e. the development of sizeable markets in the towns, and the development of technologies that enable capitalist producers to introduce machines alongside the division of labour, so as to undercut the individual handicraft producer.
Lenin notes Sismondi's comment that his difference with Adam Smith is that ““we nearly always , call for that very governmental interference which Adam Smith rejected” (I, 52). “The state does not rectify distribution” (I, 80). . . . “The legislator could ensure the poor man some guarantees against universal competition” (I, 81).” (p 235)
This is also the position of vulgar socialism, of crude economism and reformism, as described by Marx in The Critique of the Gotha Programme. In essence, it again amounts to holding back capitalist development, now by measures of taxation and redistribution. Today, it is seen in proposals to tax more heavily the more progressive and productive forms of capital, e.g. those based online, the large tech companies, so as to provide subsidies or support for those of their competitors who are being destroyed by its greater efficiency. Its seen in proposals to subsidise and support dying High Streets, which are a relic of the 19th and 20th centuries.
“Of the enormous historical importance of the development of the productive forces of society, which takes place precisely through these contradictions and disproportions, Sismondi has not the faintest idea!” (p 235)
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