Modern industry creates the conditions in which, not only is the proletariat created, but in which it is brought together in large concentrations, as Lenin pointed out in his polemics against the Narodniks, not necessarily just in factories, but in the towns and cities.
“Competition divides their interests. But the maintenance of wages, this common interest which they have against their boss, unites them in a common thought of resistance – combination. Thus combination always has a double aim, that of stopping competition among the workers, so that they can carry on general competition with the capitalist. If the first aim of resistance was merely the maintenance of wages, combinations, at first isolated, constitute themselves into groups as the capitalists in their turn unite for the purpose of repression, and in the face of always united capital, the maintenance of the association becomes more necessary to them than that of wages. This is so true that English economists are amazed to see the workers sacrifice a good part of their wages in favour of associations, which, in the eyes of these economists, are established solely in favour of wages. In this struggle – a veritable civil war – all the elements necessary for a coming battle unite and develop. Once it has reached this point, association takes on a political character.” (p 159)
Some time ago, in response to one of my posts, where I had described this function of capital as progressive, a US reader objected, citing the fact that US employers had sought to prevent the unionisation of workers and so on. But, as I responded, had there been no industrial capital, nor would there have been a modern proletariat, and no unions! And, in fact, as Marx describes, here, in response to Proudhon, the bosses never are able to prevent the combination of workers, particularly in times of economic expansion.
“This mass is thus already a class as against capital, but not yet for itself. In the struggle, of which we have noted only a few phases, this mass becomes united, and constitutes itself as a class for itself. The interests it defends become class interests. But the struggle of class against class is a political struggle.” (p 160)
Again, this emphasises the difference between the class struggle, as a political struggle, as against the purely sectional, distributional struggle of unions for higher wages. In fact, as Marx and Lenin set out, this latter struggle, whilst inevitable, is itself an acceptance of bourgeois ideology, and the trades unions, like the social-democratic parties that rest upon them, are bourgeois institutions. Workers must break from the limitations of these bourgeois ideas and institutions, if they are to become a class for themselves, and bring about their own liberation.
Marx compares the process with that of the bourgeois revolution, and its liberation from feudalism.
“In the bourgeoisie we have two phases to distinguish: that in which it constituted itself as a class under the regime of feudalism and absolute monarchy, and that in which, already constituted as a class, it overthrew feudalism and monarchy to make society into a bourgeois society. The first of these phases was the longer and necessitated the greater efforts. This too began by partial combinations against the feudal lords.” (p 160)
The organisation of workers into trades unions and social-democratic parties, represents this same phase of development, into a class in itself, but it has yet to become a class for itself. The fact that these bourgeois workers' organisations exert such a dead weight upon it is one reason for that, but so too is the crisis of political leadership, as those that call themselves Marxists so frequently pass off these actions of bargaining within the system, by the unions and social-democrats as actual class struggle.
“An oppressed class is the vital condition for every society founded on the antagonism of classes. The emancipation of the oppressed class thus implies necessarily the creation of a new society. For the oppressed class to be able to emancipate itself, it is necessary that the productive powers already acquired and the existing social relations should no longer be capable of existing side by side. Of all the instruments of production, the greatest productive power is the revolutionary class itself. The organization of revolutionary elements as a class supposes the existence of all the productive forces which could be engendered in the bosom of the old society.” (p 160)
Note that Marx does not speak, here, of such transformation coming from above, by the state, but by the workers emancipating themselves, a point he also emphasises in The Critique of the Gotha Programme. It follows on from his view set out, in Capital III, Chapter 27, of the socialised capital representing the transitional form of property. In other words, the social revolution, creating these new material foundations and social relations of the new society has already taken place. As Lenin pointed out to Mikhailovsky and others, Marx's theory of historical materialism does not make predictions of the future, but only describes what has already occurred, and its inevitable completion.
No comments:
Post a Comment