From: michael a. lebowitz (mlebowit@SFU.CA)
Date: Tue Dec 16 2003 - 20:41:21 EST
Hi Paul,
I didn't send this in relation to the Cuba list that we are on;
that may be a confusion. Rather, it was a bit of information to add to the
material that Rakesh sent from Paresh and is, I think, a good indication of
where Paresh's reading of Marx has taken him. In the Preface to the new
edition of 'Beyond CAPITAL', I referred to this perspective as follows: 'Of
course, in one of those ironies that Marx would have appreciated, it was
possible to find conservatives of various hues quoting scriptures and
declaring that capitalism's successes and the failures of AES ['Actually
Existing Socialism"] confirmed that Marx was right.'
in solidarity,
michael
At 18:12 16/12/2003, you wrote:
>Michael,
>why have you sent this? what was the point of the paper in relation to
>Cuba now?
>
>Paul B.
>----- Original Message -----
>From: <mailto:mlebowit@SFU.CA>michael a. lebowitz
>To: <mailto:OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU>OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU
>Sent: Monday, December 15, 2003 2:50 AM
>Subject: Re: OPE-L Paresh Chattopadhyay CAPITAL, THE PROGENITOR OF
>SOCIALISM: PROGRESS AS THE DIALECTIC OF NEGATIVITY
>
>Apropos, here's the abstract for the paper that Paresh wrote for this
>year's Marx conference in Havana. You'll note his closing line re the
>Soviet experience--- "Marx, indeed, had the last laugh."
>
> Two Approaches to Socialist
> Revolution :Marx vs.Lenin-Trotsky
>
>Russia 1917
>
>Abstract
>
>Following Marx,a society of free and associated producers---socialism---is
>a product of history,not of nature or arbitrary will.Individuals cannot
>bring their own social relations under their proper control before having
>created them.Indeed,new,hier relations of production do not appear before
>its matériel conditions of existence have already been hatched within the
>womb of the old society itself.And if in the existing society we do not
>find in a latent form the matériel conditions of production and
>corresponding relations of circulation for a classless soceity,all
>attempts at exploding the present society would be don Quixotism.These
>conditions are basically,first,the existence of the proletariat---« the
>greatest productive power »----occupying at least a significant position
>in society,and,secondly,the universal development of productive forces and
>socialization of labour and production.Given these conditions,socialist
>revolution begins when capital has reached a situation where the
>productive powers it has generated---including its « greatest productive
>power »---can no longer advance on the basis of the existing relations of
>production.Socialist revolution itself is seen as an immense emancipatory
>project---based on workers’ self-emacipation leading to the emancipation
>of the whole humanity---whose very first step is the « conquest of democracy »,
>the rule of the immense majority in the inter est of the immense majority.
> Against this profound materialist perspective Lenin(and Trotsky)
> avanced the thesis that socialist revolution could(would) break out where
> the chain of world capitalismsubject to the law of unevenand combined
> developmenthas its weakestlink,that is,its productive powers are least
> developed .This ‘weakest link’ thesis became a canon of the dominant Left
> as well as of those sympathetic to the Bolshevik regime. However,they
> were dismissing Marx too rapidly.Lenin soon real ized that a largely
> pre-capitalist country with a low level of productive forces and a
> backward working class required the development of capitalismof course
> under a ‘proletarian’ statein order to reach socialism later.This is
> seen in Lenin’s own pronouncements of the post-1917 period as well as the
> corresponding measures undertaken by the new regime.It need not be
> stressed that the development of capitalism is not the task of
> a SOCIALIST REVOLUTION.
>Similarly,far from inaugurating a socialist revolution as a
>self-emancipatory act of the toilers themselves,’conquering democracy’ as
>a ‘first step’,October 1917 saw the seizure and monopolisation of power by
>a tiny minority in the name of the toilers independently of and,in
>fact,behind the back of their already established organs of self
>administrstion,putting a définite brake on the immense pluralist and
>democratic process started by the spontaneous revolutionary upheaval of
>the entire mass of the Russian toilers,,rapidly destroying in the process
>thetoilers own organsof self-rule.In the event,never able to
>suppresscommodity and wage relations,the regime,particularly after the
>civil war,took conscious measaures to widen them rapidly and in the
>process consummateda bourgeois non-democratic revolution.Marx,indeed,had
>the last laugh.
>
>Paresh Chattopadhyay
>
>University of Quebec at Montreal
>
>
>---------------------
>Michael A. Lebowitz
>Professor Emeritus
>Economics Department
>Simon Fraser University
>Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
>Office Fax: (604) 291-5944
>Home: Phone (604) 689-9510
>
---------------------
Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
Office Fax: (604) 291-5944
Home: Phone (604) 689-9510
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Dec 19 2003 - 00:00:01 EST