Bourgeois Political Economy in Shambles (2010)

Pamphlet Review from the April 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bourgeois Political Economy in Shambles. By Stefan Engel. Verlag Neuer Weg, 2009

This is an English translation of a pamphlet originally published in Germany, with the subtitle “Some additions to the Marxist-Leninist crisis theory.” ‘Marxism-Leninism’ was the official political theory of the former Soviet Union and was enforced throughout most of the former Eastern European satellite governments of the twentieth century. ‘Marxism-Leninism’ is often synonymous with Stalinism.

Engel gives a reasonable account of the current global crisis of capitalism, which began in September 2008.  Crises are inevitable under capitalism because, as Karl Marx pointed out, “a rift must continually ensue between the limited dimensions of consumption under capitalism and a production which forever tends to exceed this immanent barrier” (Capital, Vol. III). German chancellor Merkel, like politicians everywhere, blamed the “financial excesses with no sense of social responsibility, the abandonment of moderation and the middle course by a number of bankers and executives” which “steered the world into this crisis”. As Engel rightly says, this way of arguing “turns attention to the – undeniable – subjective failings of bankers and executives, and distracts attention from the essentials, from the laws of the capitalist mode of production. These laws compel every capitalist, whether factory owner or manager of a stock corporation, whether privately owned or state-owned company, to act, under penalty of ruin”.

But it is the ‘Marxism-Leninist’ understanding of the state, among other things, where it falls down. Engel quotes Engels on the state:

“The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers – proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head” (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch03.htm).

This should have made Engels (and Marx’s) position abundantly clear, but Lenin stood this argument on its head and claimed that capitalism and the state could be made democratic and that this is what socialism means. Engel cites a passage from a pamphlet written by Lenin in 1917:

“… socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased be capitalist monopoly” (original emphasis, www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/ichtci/11.htm).

However, the whole thrust of Marx and Engels’s critique is that capitalism and the state, whatever form they take, can never be made to serve the interests of the whole people. For the same reason, the idea of a “socialist state” is a nonsensical contradiction in terms. Lenin was never clear about the need for a “socialist state” as he knew it flouted the basics of Marxism, though it is implicit in some of his writings. Leninists have no such qualms and here we read of the need for a “socialist state of genuine democracy”. But  Leninist states have an abysmal record on democracy, preferring instead a dictatorship over the proletariat as they grapple with the contradictions of managing capitalism. In theory and in practice, ‘Marxism-Leninism’ is a shambles.

Lew Higgins