By Michael A. Lebowitz
Michael Lebowitz will be a featured guest at the World at a Crossroads conference, to be held in Sydney, Australia, on April 10-12, 2009, organised by the Democratic Socialist Perspective, Resistance and Green Left Weekly. Visit http://www.worldATACrossroads.org for full agenda and to book your tickets.
February
16, 2009 -- It is well known that when Karl Marx heard what people
calling
themselves Marxists were saying, he commented, ``all I know is that I
am not a
Marxist’’. It is not as well known, however, that Marx had little
respect for
disciples in general. A theory disintegrates, he said, when disciples
try to ``explain
away’’ problems in the theory -- when they engage in ``crass
empiricism’’, use ``phrases
in a scholastic way’’, and employ ``cunning argument’’ to support the
theory. A
theory disintegrates, he said, when the point of departure of the
disciples is ``no
longer reality’’ but the theory that the master produced.
Although Marx had
in mind what had happened to the theories of Hegel and Ricardo at the
hands of
their disciples, the problem he detected applies to his own theory. Marx has had too many
disciples --
too many people who simply
repeat the theory, too many people who argue endlessly that it is
correct in
the form that Marx left it. These are people whose mantra is the ``two
whatevers’’
-- whatever is in Capital is right, whatever is not in
Capital
is wrong. With a dialectical perspective, however, we recognise
that what
is outside Capital is essential to understand what is inside
it.
I began to wonder about
what was not in Capital when
I was reading the Grundrisse, Marx's notebooks from 1857-8.
Among other
things, those rich notebooks are filled with a discussion of needs.
And,
indeed, Marx noted there that the contemporary power of capital is
based upon
the creation of new needs for workers. (Can we deny the significance of
the
constant generation of needs by capital, of the power that consumerism
gives
capital?) But, where was the discussion of the needs of workers in Capital?
Further, Marx explained that he would assume that the standard of
necessity of
workers was given for a given time and place, but that this assumption
would be
removed in the book on wage labour. What book on wage labour?
In the Grundrisse, Marx indicated that the book
on wage labour would be one of his six books (of which Capital was
only
the first).
And so I began to explore
the question of what
happens if we remove the assumption
that Marx intended to remove? What happens if we allow the standard of
needs of
workers, that set of needs which underlies the value of labour power,
to vary?
Let me tell you that it was like pulling on a loose thread. The more I
pulled
on this thread, the greater the implications that were revealed (and
continue
to be revealed). Except this is really not a good analogy. Because the
theory
did not unravel. On the contrary, the
theory in Capital became so much more consistent with the bulk
of Marx's
work on politics and struggle. In short, it was more like a chemical
experiment
-- adding an element and producing exciting results.
Let me tell you about a few of those results in the time available to me today.
We need to recognise, for example,
that Marx's Capital is a critique of
the political economy of capital --
that it is an inner examination and critique of the way things look
like from
the perspective of capital. That book looks at things from the side of
capital
and not from the side of the working class. It articulates and develops
the
goal and impulse of capital, its drive for surplus value, but it does
not articulate
and develop the alternative goal,
what Marx called the worker's own need for development.
Thus, we can see that
there is a
whole set of alternative categories which are not developed which we
need to think
about. The concept of productive labour introduced, for example, is
productive labour
for capital -- labour which produces
surplus value. What is not explored
is productive labour for the worker
-- labour which supports the education, health and the nurturing of
human
beings, and which aids in the development of human capacities. The
concept of
wealth introduced is wealth from the perspective of capital --
an accumulation of commodities, an accumulation of
money. What is not considered,
though, is wealth from the perspective of workers -- the full
development of
their capacities, the creation of what Marx called rich human beings.
However, we do get little
glimpses
of that alternative political economy of which Marx spoke -- the
political
economy of the working class, the political economy which points to a
society
in which people are able to develop all their capacities. In that
society, ``all
means for the development of production’’ do not cripple
workers and turn them into fragments of human beings, ``alienated
from the intellectual potentialities of the labour process’’. That is a
society
in which productive forces are not infected by
capital's need
to divide workers; that is a society in which ``the original sources of
wealth’’,
human beings and nature, are not destroyed because they are only means
to
capital's goal.
Marx refers
repeatedly to capitalism and capitalist
relations as an inversion, an
inversion of this alternative society. Nowhere, though, does he describe
that society; rather, it is his
premise. In this respect, Marx's Capital is not neutral
science. Rather, Capital is filled with
indignation, hatred
of the system that exploits and, even worse, destroys human
beings. How can we read Capital
without recognising that his condemnation of capitalism is from the
perspective
of that inverse situation in which means of production are used to
satisfy ``the
worker's own need for development’’? When you recognise Marx’s
understanding of
real wealth as the development of human capacities, you understand the
horror implied
in the opening sentence of Capital,
where he describes a society in which wealth appears as ``an immense
collection
of commodities’’.
Indeed, one of the most important findings flowing from this particular intellectual experiment is the recognition that Marx's focus upon human development and the development of human capacities is present in Capital as a spectre haunting the political economy of capital. The importance of human development is essential there just as it is in his other works. Of course, Marx does not think of human development as falling from the sky, as coming as a gift from above, or as a present for those who have been good enough to develop productive forces. Always central to his conception is that people produce themselves through their activity -- in other words, that ``simultaneous changing of circumstances and human activity or self-change’’, which he defined as ``revolutionary practice’’.
Here, then, is what I call the key link -- human development
and practice. People transform
themselves through their activity. The particular kind of activity in
which
people function within capitalism produces a particular kind of person:
when
you work under capital's direction for capital's goal, you are
capital's
product. Understand this key link, and you recognise that the full
development
of human capacities cannot occur without producers functioning as
collective
subjects under their own direction with their own goals. This concept
of the
key link of human development and practice, which is Marx's concept of
revolutionary
practice, thus points to the importance for the development of
socialist human
beings of democratic practices and protagonism at the level of
neighbourhoods,
communities, workplaces and society as a whole. It points to the
necessity for
the simultaneous development of socialist productive forces and
socialist human
beings -- that concept of which Che Guevara spoke.
Can we
have the full development of human capacities without protagonism?
Without
democracy from below? I suggest that Karl Marx speaks to us today and
that he
is very relevant to the reality we face -- the task of going beyond
capital and
building socialism for the 21st century.
Several
years ago, one of the finest Marxist theorists, Istvan Meszaros,
presented a
paper here in
[This
was a presentation
on the Cuban edition of Beyond Capital: Marx’s Political Economy of
the Working Class, which was delivered at the Havana Book Fair,
Ernesto Molina: `Workers have to learn to construct a more universal space in its struggle against capital'
By Professor
Ernesto Molina, translated
by Federico Fuentes for Links
International Journal of Socialist Renewal. Presentation
on the book, Beyond Capital: Marx’s
political economy of the working class by Michael A. Lebowitz, at
the 2009 Havana
Book Fair.
In Michael Lebowitz’s book, we can identify a creative
focus on the analysis of those aspects that Marx left incomplete as
part of his
grand plan to write six works that he was unable to finish due to the
adversities of life. He was only able to partially prepare the first
work – Capital – because, as is known, the
final draft of volumes II and III were done by Frederick Engels.
Marx fundamentally conceived of Capital as a way
to expose the enemy of the working class: capital.
The merit of Michael Lebowitz resides, precisely, in his identification
of another
pole of analysis necessary to carry out: the struggle of the working
class
against capital, for which Marx proposed to write “Wage labour”.
The more capital divides workers, the more it can
exploit them. Workers want time to themselves, they want to still be
able to do
things after work, reduce the work day and increase real salaries: that
is, reduce
the level of exploitation. Capitalists push in a contrary direction.
That is
why they introduce new technologies: to increase the level of
exploitation. Technology is an instrument of class
struggle. Technology is not neutral: it can be put at the service
of
capital or at the service of the working class.
When workers compete among themselves, it strengthens
capital. If capital acts as one in the face of many unions, it is
strong. If
the trade union demands a lot, capital moves to another country. When
unions in
the North are very united, capital emigrates to the South and the
situation of
the workers in the North worsen, unemployment increases and salaries
deteriorate. But unions in the North frequently convert themselves into
complices of capital, against the unions in the South.
The greater the level of division among workers is,
the lower real wages are. In Capital,
Marx assumes a constant wage. He knew that the struggle meant it was
not
constant. The necessities of the workers grow, and that is where the
power of
capital resides. This idea of the role
played by the necessities of workers as an arm of domination by capital
is
fundamental in Michael Lebowitz’s conception.
The working class has to have a strategy to raise the level
of satisfaction of its growing necessities. The study of the working
class, of
ourselves, demands that we know how people produce themselves through
their
activity, through the struggle. Workers that don’t struggle belong to
capital; they
are faithful slaves, immoral instruments of capital, apathetic beings,
non-thinking.
The struggle is also a process of production of
people, of historic subjects. Capitalist productive forces are created
to
divide the workers.
From the theoretical-methodological point of view, Beyond
Capital constitutes well what the
author has used as a subtitle for the work: ``Marx’s political economy
of the
working class’’. It makes us think of a political economy of the
working class
before and after the socialist revolution.
Because the workers have to learn to construct a more
universal space in its struggle against
capital, when today it is assuming a character more global with new
instruments of domination. This demands the bringing together of a
large
diversity of legitimate interests of the peoples, cultures, struggles
and
proposals of the social organisations in opposition to capital and all
its
forms of domination.
This work is of special interest for
Not all the governments in
Is it
possible and necessary to establish alliances between revolutionary and
reformist movements? Under what conditions?
-
the human value of inclusive social policies;
-
the protagonist role and participation of the popular sectors in testing out new development models;
-
the differences between accumulation of electoral forces and accumulation of social, citizen and political forces, and
-
also demonstrating to what point a better world is possible despite all the aggressions and mainstream media campaigns at the service of transnationals.
There is a certain relationship between the emphasis
that Lebowitz gives to the importance of the subjectivity of the
working class,
and in general the workers, and the conception of Ernesto Che Guevara,
who in
the spirit of Marx’s ideas, recognised that it was not enough to just
increase
(productivism) the object on which socialist property rests, but also,
and with
more reason, it was necessary to develop the personality of the subject
that
exercises that property.
I’m not interested in the economic socialism without a communist moral. We fight against misery, but at the same time, we fight against alienation. One of the main objectives of Marxism is to make disappear the interest, the individual interest factor and profit factor, from psychological motivations. Marx was interested in the economic facts but also on their repercussions on people’s mind and the definitive result of this repercussion. He called it a `fact of conscience’. If the communism neglects the facts of conscience, it converts itself into a distribution method, but it will never be a revolutionary moral. [1]
It is better to build the new by building from our own
strengths, and not from our weaknesses, inherited from the old regime.
The new
socialist moral cannot come into being if we only rely on the “old”
capitalist
moral, that while old, continues persisting when we initiate the
transition to
the new society.
Evidently, Adam Smith faithfully reflected the moral
inherent to capitalist society when he wrote in The Wealth of
Nations in favour of not putting trust in human
solidarity, but rather in the egotistically and personal interests of
each one,
given that, in order to get what we want out of others, we have to
demonstrate
to them how much it will benefit them to do so:
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages [2]
It is as if conscious cooperation without coercion
between people was impossible, and effectively, this is the norm under
capitalism,
that is why it is so important to create, step by step, this
cooperation, with
the protagonism and initiative of all free and associated producers, in
the
community, the country, the region, with the consensus of all; starting
off,
with a certain level of economic coercion by the socialist state, and
education,
until public opinion sees as the norm that no producer (worker,
peasant) escapes
from work.
Capital imposes economic and extra-economic coercion
on labour. Social property will progressively eliminate all types of
coercion
as general norms. The workers themselves within each factory and within
society
will each time be more capable of cooperating in a conscious manner.
But for this it is necessary to create the required
favourable conditions. It would be very interesting to hear from
Michael
Lebowitz himself about his experiences in Venezuela at the community
scale and
of those factories under workers’ control that are developing there,
not without
some opposition and incomprehension from within the revolutionary
process
itself.
Lenin spoke of socialism as a society of cultured
cooperativists. When we consciously cooperate, we develop relations
based on
solidarity, we are democratic, we accustom ourselves to listening to
others, to
developing initiatives, we educate ourselves and others and we
self-educate
ourselves, we develop our capacities, we learn to struggle in an
organised
manner.
And when a democratic and popular government, such as
the one in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez, gains access to some quotas of
power, internal and external obstacles are raised
by reactionary forces, so that the wealth in the hands of the state
(oil) are
not put at the service of the people and to avoid the ever more
conscious
protagonism of the workers in all spheres of society. But above all, so
that
the socialist project does not advance and serve as a example for the
people of
the region and the world
When for many it appeared that “The end of history”
had arrived, that the Marxist utopia had been an impossible dream, the
Cuban
Revolution persisted.
[Ernesto Molina Molina was a professor of economics at
the
[1] Un reportaje al Che en Argelia. Entrevista con Jean Daniel titulada “La profecía del Che”, citado en Ernesto Che Guevara: La Economía Socialista: debate .Editorial Nova Terra, Tamarit 191, Barcelona 11, p. 46 – 47.
[2] Adam Smith, La Riqueza de las Naciones, Barcelona, Editorial Bosch, 1983. Reproducida por la UACA, San José, 1986, Libro IV, Cap. II, Sección I, Tomo II, pag. 54.