Marxism: an anti-capitalist view? (2004)

Book Review from the December 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anti-Capitalism. A Marxist Introduction. Edited by Alfredo Saad-Filho. Pluto Press.

If you proclaim yourself to be “anti-capitalist”, it is a good idea to have some idea of what capitalism is. Alfredo Saad-Filho has gathered together here contributions from people considering themselves Marxists to produce “a Marxist introduction” to capitalism and anti-capitalism. His opening article on “Value, Capital and Exploitation” is excellent as is the closing article by Paresh Chattopadhyay, who understands that the abolition of capitalism involves the disappearance of money, wage-labour, commodity production and buying and selling generally and that “Marx does not distinguish between communism and socialism. Both stand for the society succeeding capitalism. (The distinction was first to be made famous, if not introduced, by Lenin)”. A number of the others make valid points, as, for instance, Ellen Meiksins Wood when she points out that many in the “anti-capitalist movement”:

  “are not so much anti-capitalist as anti-‘globalisation’, or perhaps anti-neoliberal, or even just opposed to particularly malignant corporations. They assume that the detrimental effects of the capitalist system can be eliminated by taming global corporations or by making them more ‘ethical’, ‘responsible’, and socially conscious.”

Others, despite their reputations, are obviously mere reformists, especially two ex-members of a Communist Party, Ben Fine and Suzanne de Brunhoff. The former, who can’t have known about Chattopadhyay’s contribution, talks of “some form of wage labour persisting” in the first stage of socialist/communist society while the latter opines that “a new public regulation of markets and financial institutions is necessary”.

   

In fact, all through the book there is an underlying tension between an analysis of capitalism as a profit-driven system governed by its own economic laws which preclude it working in the interest of the majority class of wage and salary workers and proposals to try to make it do precisely that.

   

You would have thought that the main aim of an anti-capitalist movement would be to end capitalism and establish socialism (as the sort of society described by Chattopadhyay). Apparently not. If this book is anything to go by, this is not advocated, except rhetorically, even by those within it who consider themselves Marxists. The aim seems to be to bring pressure on existing governments to introduce reforms and to change their policy so as to tame multinational corporations and/or return to the state interventionism of pre-Reagan and Thatcher times. Even Saad-Filho himself claims, in his introduction:

“Pressure for or against specific policies can be effective, and the ensuing policy choices can improve significantly the living conditions of the majority” (his emphasis).

“Improve significantly”? We can only retort “Prove it”, since all the evidence of experience as well as a Marxian analysis and understanding of capitalism goes against this. That’s why, in our view, coherent anti-capitalists should be campaigning for socialism not changes of policy.

Adam Buick

Ellen Meiksins Wood and ‘Political Marxism’ (2016)

From the February 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

On 14th January 2016 Ellen Meiksins Wood, a prominent Marxian historian and political economist, died. Her book 'The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View' presented a compelling argument that the roots of our present system of society lay not, as is often presumed, in  a steady and inevitable increase of mercantilism, but instead with the historically specific conditions that existed in 17th century rural England, where traditional fixed rights to land gave way to variably priced market based leases. For tenants, this meant having to respond to market imperatives by taking an interest in agricultural ‘improvement’ and increasing productivity, which often involved the enclosure of common lands and an increased exploitation of wage labour. The effect being that producers and landowners became solely dependent on the market for their own sustenance.

This set the dynamic through which our world has been transformed, with market imperatives rather than market opportunities being the driving force. Tenant farmers specialised in competitive production for the market because they needed to in order to be able to continue leasing. Those who failed to compete successfully were eventually made landless. The landless became not only labourers but also consumers as they needed to buy goods in the market which they had previously been able to produce themselves. And so began the cycle where more and more people, and eventually the whole world, is brought under the sphere of market dependence.

Along with Robert Brenner and other colleagues, Ellen Meiksins Wood was associated with ‘Political Marxism’ which was developed in reaction to more mechanistic and teleological tendencies in Marxism. Political Marxism seeks to highlight the importance of the class struggle and the active social role that groups played within this as they reshaped society. The transition from feudalism to capitalism was the result of a process that was far from automatic. Such a change could only be brought about by a complete rupture with the old relations of human interaction, by forcibly removing the rights that peasants had to their land. The subsequent dependence of both the producer and consumer on the market, something which is specific to capitalism, creates the conditions in which all social struggles are fought.

In order to simply avoid being driven out of the market, employers must maximise profits and cut their costs; this means that there is a constant pressure to cut expenditure on wages and other employee benefits. It is the logic of the market, not the greed or callousness of executives, that causes the interests of the capitalist and the wage worker to become mutually antagonistic. Far from being a neutral place where good enterprise is rewarded, the market is a highly coercive mechanism which dominates both capitalist and worker.

Her other work included studies of ancient Greek society and an Isaac Deutscher Memorial Prize-winning criticism of postmodernism. For anyone interested in history and modern society her work remains an essential resource.

Darren Poynton