Will Marxism Help Or Hinder Resistance?

For history’s arc to continue forward activists must stop Israel, stop Trump, speak, write, cogitate, organize, and collectively end fascism and then struggle on until we implement new relations for a new world. But how should we think about what’s going on to understand it? How should we think about what’s going on to decide what to do about it? How should we think about our potentials to arrive at shared program and vision? How should we evaluate our actions to steadily improve them?

This is where theory, ideology or a bag of useful, shared, continually updated concepts comes in. We don’t want to start over from scratch every month, week, or day. We want substantial continuity. We want to hear each other. We want to understand each other. We need to be on the same page. We want to speak the same accessible language. We want to accumulate and retain shared useable insights. We want to come at the world with a lasting framework of concepts and a rich understanding of their interrelations that together speedily focus us on and explain what’s important in ways that help us determine what we want and how to attain it.

There are a number of such frameworks we can choose among: liberalism, feminism, anarchism, intercommunalism, environmentalism, and more. One of them is very developed. It offers lots of concepts. It offers whole libraries of associated commentary. It offers historical implementations. It is a massive tradition. It is called Marxism—or often Marxism Leninism—and its advocates say that it can greatly inform us, guide us, shield us from errors, and provide us well-tested wisdom about what we should want and how we might best attain it.

An advocate of the massive Marxist tradition might say to us, here, take this book or even examine this lengthy reading list. The references will help you understand the world. The references will help you change the world. Imbibe the substance. Learn the lingo. Join the tradition.

But should we follow the Marxist’s advice? Can Marxism usefully help us understand the world to change it? If we immerse ourselves in the Marxist tradition will it help or hinder our activism? Illuminate or darken our prospects?

In early June I offered a RevolutionZ episode and also published an article on ZNet that each considered whether we should immerse ourselves in the Marxist tradition to help us deal with today’s crises and possibilities. I said no, we shouldn’t. I said the tradition’s economism too often diminishes gender, race, and power attentiveness and subtlety. I said the tradition’s class analysis focuses too exclusively on property relations as the sole cause of class division. I ridiculed the labor theory of value and I dismissed dialectics. I said that while historical materialism has insights, on balance it does harm. I savaged the tradition’s oppressive economic vision and rejected the tradition’s inattentiveness to broader social vision. With all that heresy visibly on the table, I thought surely some of Marxism’s best informed advocates would forcefully reject my case but six weeks on, that hasn’t happened.

For Marxism’s advocates to ignore my heresy would be appropriate if my criticisms were so ignorantly deluded that they did not require agreement or disagreement. If my criticisms were not even wrong of course Marxists should ignore them. If they were less than zero, dismissive silence would be sensible. If there was no there, there, by all means ignore the heresy. But so far I am unconvinced that has caused the silence. I doubt that in the article or the episode I so missed the point, I was so misled by some superficial confusion, or I was even just a foolish old man rambling nonsense—so to reply would have been superfluous.

Instead, I think my arguments were highly controversial but also, if valid, highly consequential. I think the presentation was reasoned, relatively calm and studiously non-sectarian. If my claims weren’t sensibly reasoned, then Marxists should be able to easily demonstrate their ignorance and/or illogic. But so far no one has openly rebutted any of it. Maybe it is just that six weeks isn’t enough time and a reaction is on the way. After all, Marxists—and particularly Leninists and Trotskyists since I quoted Lenin and Trotsky celebrating the flaws that I rejected—are typically quite quick to rebut what they consider unwarranted criticisms. So why not rebut my heretically contentious offerings?

The need to have a shared conceptual toolbox that can wisely inform our collective efforts grows daily. I anticipate that advice from Marxism’s advocates to immerse ourselves in the Marxist tradition will grow in parallel. So I ask, will to follow that advice help or hinder our activism? It seems like a fair and pivotal question—doesn’t it?

To answer, we might first determine, is this topic even worth pursuing at all during such a chaotic, crisis-ridden, dangerous time as the present. Won’t to give this question attention divert us from more urgent tasks? If we get past that objection, we might next briefly review the criticisms offered earlier to try to make them a still better defined target for disagreement. Along the way for a little entertainment and to clarify we might also provide an anecdotal story. Finally, to conclude, we might directly invite some actual real world, living, well known, very capable Marxists to address our contentious issues. We might even offer some specific questions we hope they will explicitly address. Okay, however succinctly, let’s now do all those things.

Whether to immerse or not in the Marxist tradition is important to decide because, as Marxists would themselves rightly argue, to possess collectively shared worthy concepts can help us understand our circumstances. A shared framework can help us flexibly conceive worthy goals. It can help us develop effective organization and strategy able to help us navigate to where we want to arrive. In contrast, to have no shared concepts, no shared vision, and no shared strategy would severely reduce our prospects to operate collectively. The choice to immerse or not in the Marxist tradition matters because informed collectivity matters. But what criticisms of the Marxist tradition did I offer?

First, when utilized by real world actors who carry as baggage the oppressive effects of current society the Marxist tradition’s historical materialism’s economism tends to diminish and distort how we think about extra economic race, gender, sexual, and power relations. Why not address all these critical focuses as well as class without a priori elevating any one above the rest? Why not highlight how they intersect?

Second, Marxism is exceptionally astute about the ills of private ownership of the means of production but the Marxist tradition defines and deploys class analysis in a way that constricts our economic understanding. We become unable to even perceive a third centrally important class much less to address the broad consciousnesses it tends to have and the material and social interests it tends to pursue. Ironically, Marxism’s class concepts diminish our ability to address different class’s potentials to rule in different types of economy right up to the Marxist tradition disastrously advocating, establishing, and enforcing institutions that generate class division and class rule by empowered employees who I call the coordinator class. Indeed, the Marxist tradition does this so forcefully that I ironically and controversially assert that Marxism in practice tends to repeatedly become Marxism Leninism which in one of history’s most ironic and harmful twists tends to become less an ideology of the working class, or of classlessness, and more an ideology of rule by the coordinator class.

Third, while the Marxist labor theory of value identifies some insightful truths, it simultaneously ignores much about what actually determines wages, prices, and profits. It ignores much that is central about the oppressive structure and consequences of real world production and consumption. The Marxist tradition then tends to accept either markets, central planning or a combination of the two for allocation and to accept a corporate division of labor to define jobs. In turn, regardless of grassroots desires each of these choices obstructs rather than produces classlessness.

Fourth, Marxism urges us to become adept at dialectics. We should study the associated literature. Yet this obscure journey offers nothing essential to those who seek to win a new, worthy and viable world beyond capitalism, sexism, racism, authoritarianism, war, and ecological suicide. Even worse, the obscure academicism of such a journey tends to intimidate and disempower many potential activists.

Finally, as a fifth critical focus, just as I think the Marxist tradition’s concepts tend to diminish and distort attention to extra-economic matters and to ironically promote coordinators over workers, it seems to me it’s concepts also induce or at the very least don’t sufficiently prevent an incredibly damaging drift of too many Marxists into sectarian inflexibility and even mutual annihilation.

Anecdotally, Robin Hahnel and I published a book Unorthodox Marxism in which we tried to stay in the heritage but also to enrich it, in 1978. The book had a broad focus but initially presented what we called the basics of orthodox Marxism as a theory of history and economy. We made the presentation only positive and hopefully totally accurate. We thought that would make clear what we were challenging and that we knew its features well and accurately. In the book, there then followed a critique of the offered orthodox Marxism, and then an attempt to refine it. Interestingly, after a time we heard that some faculty teaching Marxism used the part of the book that presented Marxism to themselves present Marxism. We took that to mean they thought our presentation was fair and on point. The same faculty, however, did not assign the subsequent critique or the extensions. So we apparently did a good job describing what those faculty wanted to teach, but then they did a better job of avoiding any need to counter our criticisms by simply ignoring them.

Okay, we have now reached the invitation stage of this article. But what does that even mean? Well, I want to invite a number of Marxism’s current most productive and insightful advocates to a cordial, uncompromising and “let’s get to the heart of it” discussion in hopes that one or more of them will give some time to the concerns.

So far it is distinctly possible, in fact I suspect it is very likely, that few if any of the people I will here invite have even seen much less read the article titled “Should Our Resistance Enhance or Transcend Marxism” or heard the subsequent podcast episode titled “Marxism and Us, Or Not,” both of which are accessible from ZNetwork.org

And while I hope those who I now invite will look at one or the other of those efforts and choose to write a piece that either delineates, debates, debunks, or even demolishes the case I offered—I should acknowledge that I am not so delusional as to think that the folks I hope to engage with in whatever manner they might prefer are likely to read this essay. You might then reasonably ask, “in that case what’s your point, here, in extending the invitations?”

Well, on the one hand, the invited Marxists might not see this directly, but they might hear about it if some of you who have read it decide to write to one or more of them about the invitation and the articles to urge them to take up the issues in whatever way suits them. For that matter, maybe one or more of you who read this will take up the issues yourselves, perhaps with comments appended to this article, or with queries, comments,or corrections offered in ZNet’s Discord channel, which can also be reached via ZNetwork.org—or in whatever other way suits you.

So, with all that preamble, who from the Marxist tradition would I like to engage with?

How about Kali Akuno, a founder of Cooperation Jackson and an extraordinary organizer who has been a guest on RevolutionZ in the past?

And how about Tariq Ali with whom I have had some very modest interaction and who is of course not only a partisan of the tradition that I am urging activists to transcend, but also, like me, long involved in alternative media and thus a frequent participant in public advocacy of and sometimes critique of diverse intellectual approaches?

Or how about, and you can no doubt already discern that I am listing these alphabetically,  Ben Burgis? Ben taught in the on line school I hosted some years back, so again there is some connection, and Ben is certainly a serious and very capable advocate of Marxism.

Next, how about Vivek Chibber? My memory is weak, but I don’t think he and I have had much or perhaps even any contact. But he is certainly a serious, careful, and frequent advocate of Marxism and perhaps still more relevantly he has already been quite involved in discussions that bear on some of the issues arising from what I called economism that I and many others have raised.

Or how about Angela Davis? I am not sure how much Davis’s Marxist background, roots, and studies play a role in her more recent work, but she might be another accomplished advocate for views that I urge us to in many core cases transcend.

Terry Eagleton would be another eloquent partner for such an exploration though I don’t think I have met him either. Or how about Max Elbaum and Bill Fletcher? They have each been on RevolutionZ and would each be excellent contributors to a discussion of Marxism, the Marxist tradition, and whether to enrich or transcend It.

John Bellemy Foster of Monthly Review would be another excellent contributor. Monthly Review, after all, is one of the foremost Marxist media operations in the world, along with Verso and New Left Review, and we could engage there or via podcasting, or wherever.

Or how about Nancy Fraser who I would say is already an enricher of the tradition and with whom I think I would probably have quite a few views in common but also some differences to explore?

Or how about David Harvey or Doug Henwood, both accomplished Marxist economists, neither of whom I know but one or both of whom might be interested? Or how about Boris Kagarlitsky who I do know somewhat, and who  might be interested as well?

And then there are Robin Kelly, Vijay Prashad, and Kshama Sawant who are activist and intellectual practitioners of the highest order and great energy, and who might wish to rebut my charges as a useful way to advocate for the Marxist tradition.

And then how about Bhaskar Sunkara of Jacobin and now the Nation and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor of Hammer and Hope, both also prominent Marxists of great repute and achievement?

And then, to finish with the names of invitees though of course the list could go on, there is also, alphabetically presented here last but arguably the dean and most visible of the current Marxist tradition’s advocates, Rick Wolff. I was actually in a class that Rick taught on Marxism at U Mass Amherst a long long time ago. I think he probably remembers how we clashed fairly often about various aspects of his course. Perhaps Rick could have me on his podcast or I would welcome him on RevolutionZ or he could address my concerns, widely felt by many others as well, in an essay, as could anyone I mentioned here, of course. Any exchange would be more than welcome and perhaps an essay would be most appropriate for such a broad topic.

I should say that I get that the people I just mentioned are all busy doing extremely important things. Still, I hope a few or even just one of them will think the question I pose is important and also timely enough to address even amidst our many other urgent current priorities. As resistance to fascism welcomes steadily more people into activism, should new activists immerse in the Marxist tradition, enrich it, or instead transcend it?

I should perhaps say that the first time I took up such issues was in a 1974 book titled What Is To Be Undone which was even longer ago than that course that I took with Rick Wolff at U. Mass. Amherst. That book’s title revealed that my desire to transcend Marxism and especially Marxism Leninism held sway back then. The effort garnered some attention but did not provoke the wide conversation I hoped to elicit. The second really substantial time I pursued these issues was in the earlier mentioned 1978 book that Robin Hahnel and I together authored titled Unorthodox Marxism in which we tried to enrich but also remain within the tradition. Again the effort got some attention but it didn’t generate much serious debate. And there have been many times since when I have revisited these issues, most especially but not only the criticisms of Marxism’s class concepts. And now, yet again.

So what would I like to hear from anyone who thinks that to address concerns about the Marxist tradition are warranted? Well, to summarize…

First, I would like to know why any of Marxism’s advocates feel that when used by real people in actual contemporary societies historical materialism doesn’t tend to lead to a harmful over emphasis on economy and why it doesn’t cause a still more damaging neglect and especially distortion and narrowing of attention to gender, kinship, sex, race, ethnicity, religion, power and polity.

Similarly, second, I would like to know why any of Marxism’s advocates feel that for Marxism to deny that class rule over working people can and does arise from an economy’s division of labor and its means of allocation and not solely from its ownership relations doesn’t severely cripple Marxism’s understanding of class, class consciousness, and class struggle. Why doesn’t to ignore and even to deny the existence of a class between labor and capital in capitalism and that rules over labor in the economies that Marxists have established when they have successfully overthrown capitalism, constitute an impeachable offense by the tradition?

For that matter, third, I wonder why any of Marxism’s advocates think the labor theory of value provides sufficient concepts and orientation for understanding wages, prices, and profits and for getting a good grip on workplace issues such as how decisions are made and how workers react toward calls to change society. Why, for example, do any Marxists think wages reflect embodied labor time as compared to relative bargaining power? Why don’t they even say what equitable remuneration would involve?

Fourth, what do Marxism’s advocates even mean when they refer to what they call dialectics, and in particular what if anything do they think that learning that lingo will help activists understand, do, envision, and enact that activists can’t more quickly and easily understand, do, envision, and enact without utilizing dialectics?

And finally, fifth, and perhaps least tractable but equally important, why don’t Marxism’s advocates even entertain the possibility that the Marxist tradition has at best inadequate concepts or advisories to ward off sectarianism and at worst elevates concepts that literally produce sectarianism?

Basically, I would like to know why those who urge immersion in the Marxist tradition don’t instead urge transcending it. Why do they think it would be ignorant or counter productive to seek to transcend the tradition’s horrible faults by investigating their conceptual sources? Put positively, why do they think the Marxist tradition provides sufficient otherwise unavailable wisdom and goals that we should identify with it and even immerse in it, despite the horrendous and I would say predictable historical record of its devastating implications for real world practice? Why do some Marxists ironically seem to act as though the historical record is beside the point?

 

Source: https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/will-marxism-help-or-hinder-resistance/