Letter: Right of reply (1991)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Right of reply

Dear Editors,

I refer to the review of my book Althusser and Feminism by SC (Socialist Standard, December 1990) which. I am sad to say, contains more by way of gratuitous insult than serious critique.

I would like to point out that the first three chapters of the book were largely written whilst I was a member of the SPGB (as it was then known) and when the writings of Louis Althusser were having a profound effect on many people on what those outside the Socialist Party call "the left”. Althusser, a prominent member of the PCF in the Sixties, set out to "revise" Marx’s historical materialism in such a way as to make it compatible with the occurrence of a "revolution" in Russia in 1917, but incompatible with the rise of "Stalinism". His "non-economistic" (as it became known) reading of historical materialism struck a cord with many radicals, feminists and members of the working class in France and England in the Seventies. I set out, from an SPGB perspective, to counter Althusser’s claims to have remained true the "spirit" of Marx's thinking. I argue in the book:

(a) that Althusser's "structuralist” re-reading of Marx is incompatible with some central tenets of this theory;

(b) that his "non-economistic" interpretation of historical materialism does not conform even to the spirit of Marx’s writings; and

(c) that his view of human needs is misguided.

I then go on to consider the implications of Althusser’s thought for an outlook on feminism that is inspired by my reading of Marx’s historical materialism.

SC’s insulting claim:

it is a pity that philosophers who want to offer abstruse language and cleverly-formulated abstract propositions as signs of their own brightness do not stick to writing about Aristotle or Descartes.

implies a philistinism about theoretical readings of Marx that will do little to advance the cause of the Socialist Party. Political activity, as Marx was well aware, takes place in the theoretical domain as well as on the streets and the soap boxes. Theoreticians are members of the working class.

There are only two— extremely minor—points of substance made in SC’s review:

1. that I refer, mistakenly, on page 35 of my book to “the working classes”; and
2. that the back cover refers to Foucault but the book does not.

The first point is my mistake and it should be corrected. As for the second, if SC read the back cover—the publishers’ blurb—properly, he (for I know it is he) would realise that the publishers are describing a school of thought, and no claim is made that all members of that school are dealt with in the book.

I write at such length because, despite my non-membership, I am broadly sympathetic to much of the case of the Socialist Party, and I am sad to see that two of the reasons for my resignation in the early Eighties—a certain arrogant philistinism about theory and an insulting manner of expressing this philistinism; and an antipathy towards feminism—seem to be manifested in this review.

Alison Assiter 

London, WC2

Reply:

Readers interested in the development of our theoretical position on feminism should study our tape “What Socialists Can Learn from Feminist Theory” (price £3) and the chapter on “What’s Wrong With Feminist Theory” in our pamphlet Women and Socialism” (price 55p), both available from our Head Office.

Editors.

Blogger's Note:

I have to say it: that is a rather underwhelming response from the Editorial Committee. Actually, rather dismissive, if truth be told. The reviewer, 'SC', was Steve Coleman, and Alison Assiter wrote under the name 'Alison Waters' when she was a member of the SPGB.

Alison Assiter's Revisiting Universalism (2003)

Book Review from the December 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Revisiting Universalism. By Alison Assiter. Palgrave Macmillan. 2003.

This is a book that re-asserts that there are universal values applicable to all human beings. It is directed against the “post-modernists”, “multi-culturalists” and some feminists, who assert that, on the contrary, there are no universally shared values by which to judge conduct, that any group’s view is as good as any other’s and ought to be respected as such (i.e. not criticised), or, as one wit has put it, “cannibalism is a matter of taste”.

Assiter starts from a materialist position. What all humans share in common, she says, is the basic need for a minimum level of food, clothes and shelter as essential to their physical health:

“(i) All human beings have needs which must be satisfied, if they are to act in any way at all;

(ii) These needs therefore ought to be satisfied, and this is a universally valid ‘ought’”.

Therefore “each one of us has an equal right to have our basic needs satisfied”. At the abstract level at which the argument is being conducted, Socialists can go along with this. But then Assiter extends this by adding that it means that every human being therefore has a “moral obligation” to do what they can to ensure that every other human being has their basic needs met.

This would make the case for socialism (as one among possible actions to try to ensure that every human has their needs met, the only effective one in fact) a moral case whereas we have always argued that socialism is based on interest, class interest to be more precise. It is in the material interest of the working class to have their needs met; these cannot be properly met under capitalism; therefore it is in the interest of the workers to abolish capitalism. So, when we approach our fellow workers, we don’t say “You should be a socialist because you have a moral duty to ensure that the basic needs of all your fellow humans are met”. What we say is: “You should be a socialist because only socialism can assure that your basic needs are met”.

In any event, to say that every human has this moral duty towards all other humans is pointless since ineffective. It would mean that the capitalist class has some moral obligation towards the working class. Tell them that and they’ll laugh in your face. And why should we assume any moral duty to the capitalist class, who exploit us? Not that workers are likely to respond to appeals to a supposed “moral duty”; they will establish socialism out of material self-interest, individual and collective. Socialism is a class issue not a moral issue.

To tell the truth, this book will have little relevance outside the academic world, indeed outside university philosophy departments. Academics are wage-slaves like the rest of us and one of their conditions of employment is “publish or perish”. As a result publishers’ lists are clogged up with books written just for this purpose. Something marginally different about this book is that we get a mention (even if our address is wrongly given).

Assiter, a leading feminist intellectual who was once a Socialist Party member, quotes Slavoj Zizek as writing that

“when the ‘left’ makes its demands ‘for full employment’ ‘retain the welfare state’ ‘full rights for immigrants’ . . . it is bombarding the capitalist state with demands it cannot fulfil. The left, he writes, is ‘playing a game of hysterical provocation, of addressing the Master with a demand it will be impossible for him to meet’”.

And contrasts this with the approach of

“the British SPGB, a political party that has operated in the UK, and elsewhere, since 1904. Members of the SPGB reject Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky as ‘impure’ versions of Marx, and believe that they must argue the socialist case in as many venues as possible, in order to convince a majority of the working class of the veracity of their case. They adopt the strategy of believing that rationality will prevail and that once people see and understand the logic of their case, just like the believer in decision procedure, then those people will convert to their cause and there will be no more capitalism, no more wars and no more wage slavery”.

A bit over-simplified in that we are not trying to “convert” people to our “case” as such, but to convince our fellow workers that it is in their material interest to establish socialism. But perhaps we shouldn’t look a gift-horse in the mouth.

Adam Buick

Turgid Philosopher (1990)

Book Review from the December 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

Althusser and Feminism by Alison Assiter. (Pluto Press. £17.50.)

Who cares what Althusser has to say about feminism or, for that matter, what feminists have to say about Althusser? Had the French philosopher, Louis Althusser, never written a word, socialist thought would be none the poorer.

Like many books which claim to illuminate the hidden meanings of Marxist thinking. the pages are filled with references to the “esteemed" theoretical interpreters of Marx. Do these academic Marxologists not care that Marx urged philosophers to become actively involved to change the world rather than merely interpret the word? The turgid volumes of these Althusserian and anti-Althusserian commentators, whose outpourings are referred to by Assiter as "the literature", have played no role in stimulating working-class understanding of the need for socialism. They have played with Marx's ideas.

It is a pity that philosophers who want to offer abstruse language and cleverly-formulated abstract propositions as signs of their own brightness do not stick to writing about Aristotle or Descartes: at least that would keep them out of the way of the real struggle. Professional academics tend to prove themselves by taking relatively difficult ideas and making them appear incomprehensible. For example, take Marx's view that the forces of production tend to determine the relations of production. Here is Assiter explaining Althusser's description of "the relation between the various levels in the structure":

How are we to understand these relations? The answer, surely, is by referring to the Spinozist conception of causality. Economic and non-economic practices will be related, not by means of Humean or Liebnizean causality, but by Spinozist "metonymic" causality, (p.26).

Bet you'd never looked at it that way before! This book is full of such tortuously expressed utterances.

As for the analysis—insofar as it begins to emerge after two or three readings of what is a sadly disorganised book—there are some good bits (such as Chapter Three on 'Needs and Production' which lays the foundation for a worthwhile study of how needs are determined) and some others which reflect poor thinking. Why is the working class referred to as "the working classes"? (p.35). There is only one. Why does the back cover say that the book deals, amongst others, with Foucault— who did have something stimulating to say for himself—but there is no mention of him in the text or even the index? Why does Assiter state that “since the forces of production were insufficiently developed, socialism could not have come about in Russia in 1917"? (pp.43-4). Surely Assiter knows that even had they been so developed. socialism in one country was out of the question. Anyway, the overwhelming majority of Russians lacked any socialist consciousness. To the book's credit, it includes a satisfactory definition of socialism as a social system in which "people will have free access to all that is produced: they will be able to take what they want or need from the available wealth" (p.52). The writer does not say whether she favours this objective and is prepared to do anything practical to bring it about.

Steve Coleman