The "Transition Period" (1946)

From the January 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are many people who cannot shake themselves clear of the Labour Party because they believe that Socialism cannot be established as a complete and revolutionary revolution change. They believe that between Capitalism and Socialism lies a period of State ownership which, they contend, will be neither Capitalism nor Socialism. Consequently they pin their faith to the Labour Party as the party which will inaugurate this “transition period”.

The idea of a transition period, during which some fundamental features of capitalism would still remain, is old, and was taken for granted by the reform parties that sprang up during the second half of the last century and the idea has persisted until to-day.

The Utopian Socialists of the early part of last century proposed a complete break with capitalism by building a new society upon an entirely different basis. But this society, instead of growing out of the old, was to be built within present society but without having any connection with it at all. They were to be communistic oases in the desert of capitalism that would serve as an example and an inspiration to the world at large. This was Robert Owen’s early idea. When, later, it was found impossible to build these groups inside highly developed Western civilisation, attempts were made to set them up upon the relatively virgin soil of America and Australia. But even there they were failures; capitalism was too strong for them. Co-operative societies still remain a pale and stunted reflections of those grand old fantasies.

When the Utopian approach to the abolition of capitalism gave place to the scientific, and it became generally accepted that Socialism was a system that must grow out of capitalism and not be imposed upon it, the new attitude took three different forms, for which the low standard of education of the workers was partly responsible. One form was that capitalism must be subjected to repeated reforms until finally it was reformed out of existence and Socialism introduced without the mass of the people being aware of what was happening. The second form consisted of building up small, vigorous groups which would lead the workers into Socialism by a frontal attack upon capitalism. This was later the basis of the Russian Bolshevik movement and its early popularity as the Blanquist movement in France. The third and final form was one propagated by Marx and Engels in which the Socialist revolution was to be accomplished by a working class that realised the source and nature of the antagonisms within capitalism, and also the nature of the new social order they intended to build out of the ruins of the old.

From the beginning the two earlier methods were afflicted with the same old disease; an acceptance of the idea that the mass of the people are incapable of properly understanding the meaning of Socialism and therefore, in its early days, Socialism would be fraught with difficulties to solve which some forms of organisation similar to what we have to-day would persist for some time after the accomplishment of the revolution. The principal, and almost overwhelming, difficulty anticipated was how to get people to produce and distribute the needful things when private ownership of the means of production, and therefore wages, no longer existed. How would an equal share of work be performed and a fair share of needful things be provided without some principle analogous to what exists under capitalism? It was agreed that when Socialism had been firmly established and a new generation had grown up under free social conditions then no such arbitrary principle would be necessary, but until that time this hangover from capitalism must  remain.

This period between the overthrow of capitalism and the final establishment of a fully developed Socialist society has been called “the transition period”. Limited space will only permit us to discuss one aspect of the question here.

The troubles of the early Bolsheviks, who were endeavouring to build Socialism out of an undeveloped capitalist base, led them to exaggerate the nature and the importance of this transition period and their followers have given to State capitalism the unwarranted distinction of being the transition period. In defending their claims the early Bolsheviks—Lenin, Trotzky and their associates—appealed to the writings of Marx and Engels, and particularly to Marx’s criticism of the Gotha Programme of 1875.

In his criticism Marx argues that during the transition period between capitalism and Communism a worker will withdraw from the common pool a value in hours of labour equal to the hours of labour he has worked minus the contribution to the reserve for the aged, the sick, future production and repair. Whether this period will be long or short Marx does not say; in fact, it is not even clear that he accepted more than there will be a period of difficulty to be met by temporary expedients, as his statements are arguments against erroneous assumptions in the Gotha Programme, and he is showing that where there is unequal distribution their phrase “just distribution of the proceeds of labour” in that programme is meaningless wind. We may add that taking the most extreme view of what Marx says it certainly could not produce conditions that would give rise to anything approximating to Soviet millionaires!

Let us now consider what are likely to be the conditions existing, as far as the distribution of products is concerned, at the time when the new society is being born out of the present, as far as we can envisage it to-day. We must bear in mind that the change will not come “like a thief in the night”, but in full daylight with the understanding and agreement of nearly the whole of society.

First of all, people will be accustomed to receiving wages with which to buy what they produce.

Secondly, the means of production and distribution will have been converted into Social ownership by an immediate act. This must be so as there cannot be any gradual or partial transformation.

The problem, then, is how will production be arranged when people will not receive any wages for working, and how will distribution be arranged when people will have no money to buy?

Finally, what will be the position of those who work in unnecessary occupations that will be abolished, and also of those who have never worked at all?

Before answering these questions let us first clear some of the ground.

We have absorbed what Marx and his co-workers gave to the world from their painstaking studies and we have added a good deal ourselves from our own studies since Marx, seventy years ago, criticised the Gotha Programme. We have profited from the development that has gone on since his day. One of the most important things we have learned is that the mass of people are essentially reasonable, once they understand a problem. For instance, workers will put up with considerable hardship and privation during strikes if they are convinced that the strike is necessary.

Our appeal is to all types of workers and our ranks include people from all occupations. In our propaganda we make it clear that the abolition of capitalism means the common ownership of the means of production which in turns involves from each according to his capacities, to each according to his needs. We point out that the workers must capture political power for the immediate purpose of introducing Socialism; and we further insist that there must be a majority of people understanding and desiring Socialism before it can be established.

Our propaganda, therefore, solves the problems of the transition period. From the outset the majority of workers will be satisfied with the meeting of their elementary needs; they will not expect everything at once. Furthermore workers inspired with the desire for Socialism will not be worried whether they are doing more work than somebody else. The enthusiasm for the change will spur many to work harder than they have ever done for capitalism. If for a time the tradition of capitalism weighs so heavily upon some that they shirk doing their best, what will it matter? Time itself will soon iron out this problem. At the worst there are very few people thick-skinned enough to be content to remain permanently objects of scorn.

When the movement reaches the point when Socialism is imminent it will contain within itself the organisation and the people capable of assessing the various needs of the population and how and where to organise production to meet those needs. At first the road may be rough, but it will be rapidly smoothed with the powers of production society will have at its disposal.

It is the nature of production, or the productive form, that determines the nature of the distribution. A freely associated productive form will involve a free distribution.

At first some occupations that are unpleasant may have to continue until there is time to remould the whole of production from top to bottom and eliminate what is burdensome and unpleasant. Thus some people may have unpleasant jobs for a while and others pleasant. But our propaganda will have made the necessity of this clear before the change takes place.

Thus the transition period will not be another social form but only the difficult time of reorganising production and distribution on a Socialist basis; settling down to Socialism. There will be no need for labour tickets or anything of that kind, as the workers as a whole are intelligent people.

The progress of Socialist understanding in the advanced countries proceeds at about the same pace. A revolutionary change in one of them will inspire a similar change in the others. Consequently there need be no lack of essential products or break in international supplies.

The Socialist movement is a working class movement, a movement in the interests of the great majority. Workers support each other internationally on the industrial field during strikes. There will be no lack of mutual assistance when the greatest working class movement of all, the movement to free the toilers for ever from the domination of a master class, reaches the point that it can call upon them for international solidarity in striking the final blow.

Gilmac.

Answers to a correspondent: Marx and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. (1946)

Letter to the Editors from the January 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marx and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

A reader of the Socialist Standard (W.D.B., Cardiff) criticises the S.P.G.B.'s attitude to Dictatorship and to the problem of distribution immediately after the abolition of capitalism. On dictatorship he writes:—

"I find that the S.P.G.B. does not attempt to deal with Marx’s and Engels’ repeated references to the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' (see Marx-Engels correspondence, pages 57, 337, 484, and 'Critique of the Gotha Programme' p. 28), nor does it attempt to reconcile this conception with its own conception of 'democracy.’ " 

Our critic, who says he has been a reader for two years, is correct to the extent that this question has not been dealt with during that period, but in earlier years it has been dealt with repeatedly. For example, it was dealt with in the following issues: June and September, 1932; December, 1936; August, 1937 and January, 1938.

Limitations of space prevent us from dealing with it again at length, but our position can be made sufficiently clear by the following points.

While we are opposed to the Communist Party's distortion of the term dictatorship of the proletariat, we are in agreement with Marx’s and Engels' view. Engels in his 1891 introduction to the German edition of "Civil War in France," wrote: —

"The German philistine has lately been thrown once again into wholesome paroxisms by the expression 'dictatorship of the proletariat.' Well, gentle sirs, would you like to know how this dictatorship looks? Then look at the Paris Commune. That was the dictatorship of the proletariat."

(See translation published by the New York Labour News Co. in a pamphlet called "The Paris Commune.") 

The Commune was an instance of majority control based upon democratic elections. There was no suppression of newspapers or of the propaganda of the minority, and no denial of their right to vote. This is markedly different from the Communist Party dictatorship in Russia to-day, where opposition political parties and newspapers are forbidden. The Communist Party is the only political party that may nominate candidates. For what it is worth non-political organisations, trade unions, co-operatives, cultural Societies, etc., are allowed to nominate candidates under the Election Regulations, but the same regulations provide that the nominations have to be approved by the election commissions. (See "Regulations Governing Elections," published by Soviet News, 23rd October, 1945.) The Central Election Commission, which has the final decision if appeal is made against the rejection of nominees by lower commissions (see article 67), is appointed from above by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and of its membership of 15, five are from Communist organisations pnd five from trade unions. All, of course, are from officially approved bodies only.

Distribution immediately after the abolition of capitalism. 

Our critic’s second point is:—

"The S.P.G.B. totally ignores the passages in the 'Critique of Gotha Programme' wherein Marx states, 'What we have to deal with is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it has emerged. Accordingly the individual producer receives back from society exactly what he gives to it. . . . He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such and such an amount of labour (after deducting his labour for the common fund), and with this certificate he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as costs the same amount of labour.' "

Our critic goes on to quote from Marx's "Critique on the Gotha Programme" that passage in which Marx says that it will be later on, "in a higher phase of communist society," that society will inscribe on its banners, "From each according to his needs," and adds: "The contrast between Marx's views on the nature of Socialism (or Communism) and those expressed in the Socialist Standard is so glaring that I am quite unable to reconcile them.”

Again our critic is in error. The question which, according to him, the S.P.G.B. totally ignores, was dealt with fully in the issue for August, 1936, to which he and other interested readers are referred. The article dealt with Marx's views, the distortion of those views by the Communists, and their applicability under the altered conditions of to-day. 70 years after Marx wrote.

It is not clear from our critic’s letter exactly in what respects he thinks that the S.P.G.B.'s attitude on this point glaringly contrasts with the attitude of Marx. If he will be more explicit his criticism will be dealt with.

Ed. Comm.

Cooking the Books: Should tokens make the world go round? (2024)

The Cooking the Books column from the August 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 2022 Jan Philipp Dapprich, a researcher at a German university, published a paper entitled ‘Tokens make the world go round: socialist tokens as an alternative to money’ in which he argued that ‘non-circulating tokens should be used as an alternative to money for distributing consumer products to the population in a socialist economy’.

That he is talking about a socialist or communist society (terms which he says can be used interchangeably) is clear from how he envisages the production of all goods taking place. The places where they are produced ‘are collectively administered by the people or by institutions accountable on their behalf. Since all firms would share the same owner, there is no need for firms to exchange goods, as the general public would remain the owner of those goods either way’; ‘production units would simply receive raw materials and pass on their finished products, as specified by the plan without paying or receiving payment. There would thus be no need for money as a medium of exchange within the realm of production’; ‘The constraints, benefits and costs of production are to be evaluated in purely physical terms.’

So, he is recognisably talking about what we (and Marx) mean by socialism.

Marx, writing 150 years ago in some private notes published after his death as The Critique of the Gotha Programme, did discuss the possible need for a system of non-circulating tokens (vouchers that would be cancelled after being used to redeem some product) to distribute consumer products in the early days had socialism been established at the time, though he envisaged it eventually being abolished in favour of distribution according to self-determined needs.

Marx may have had a point had socialism been established in 1875 but it wasn’t, so this could be regarded as an academic issue. Dapprich, however, thinks that some token system (not necessarily the one mentioned by Marx) would still be required if socialism were to be established today; in fact he thinks that this should be a permanent feature of a society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production. He goes so far as to describe free access as envisaged by Marx as ‘pie in the sky’.

His argument is that this is unnecessary anyway ‘because the ‘needs principle’ of the higher phase can be sufficiently realised within the token system’. This can be done, he suggests, by the wider provision of free services such as health care and by giving tokens to those unable to work or to work fully. But why? His hidden assumption is that, with free access, there might not be enough to go round and that therefore the consumption of some will need to be limited, even if at a generously high level, so as to ensure that more urgent needs of others are met.

He does mention the argument that ‘since we have seen significant increases in productive capacities since the nineteenth century, during which Marx was writing, perhaps the token system is already outdated’. This is precisely a point we have made but Dapprich dismisses this, rather too offhandedly, as ‘unconvincing’ without saying why.

But whether or not society has the capacity to produce enough consumer products to satisfy likely self-assessed needs is the crux of the matter at issue. If it has, as we contend, then the case for a permanent non-circulating token system falls.

In any event, once common ownership and production directly for use have been established, should there arise some temporary shortage of some products it would be up to those around at the time to settle how to deal with it. Drawing up a blueprint for this now, without knowing the exact circumstances or the preferences of people then, is literally academic.

Question Marx (1983)

'What did you put for question 7?'

From the January 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

The quotes below have been taken from some of the celebrated texts of the socialist movement and arranged in the form of a short multiple-choice quiz. Pit your wits against the forces of reaction and reformism, and discover in the process that not everything which labels itself (or is labelled) “Marxism”, actually is! Answers (with explanations) are found on a later page.

The first five questions all have to do with criticisms of the following passage:

The (...) workers' party, in order to pave the way to the solution of the social question, demands the establishment of producers’ co-operative societies with state aid under the democratic control of the toiling people. The producers' cooperative societies are to be called into being for industry and agriculture on such a scale that the socialist organisation of the total labour will arise from them.

1. To the ideas of which political figure does the following refer?

"In place of the existing class struggle appears a newspaper scribbler's phrase: ‘the social question , to the 'solution' of which one ‘paves the way’. Instead of arising from the revolutionary process of transformation of society, the ‘socialist organisation of the total labour’ ‘arises’ from the ‘state aid’ that the state gives to the producers’ co-operative societies and which the state, not the worker, 'calls into being'."

a) Mao Zedong

b) Joseph Stalin

c) Edouard Bernstein

d) Ferdinand Lassalle

2. To which country does this quotation make reference?

“From the remnants of a sense of shame, ‘state aid’ has been put - under the democratic control of the ‘toiling people’ [However,] the majority of the ‘toiling people* in consists of peasants, and not of proletarians."

a) Germany in 1875

b) France in 1848

c) Russia in 1917

d) China in 1950

3. The working class in which country is being indicated in the following passage?

“. . . ‘democratic’. . . means ‘by the rule of the people', but what does ‘under the control of the toiling people organised so as to rule themselves' mean? And particularly in the case of toiling people which, in making such demands on the slate, expresses its full consciousness that it neither rules nor is ripe for ruling!”

a) Russian workers before 1917

b) Russian workers after 1917

c) German workers in the third quarter of the 19th century

d) Spanish workers during the 1854 Revolution

4. What type of organisation is being indirectly criticised by the author?

“The chief offence does not lie in having inscribed this specific nostrum in the programme. but in taking, in general, a retrograde step from the standpoint of a class movement to that of a sectarian movement.”

a) Owenite communities (c. 1840)

b) National workshops (c. 1848)

c) An organisation of revolutionaries (c. 1902)

d) Workers’ soviets (c. 1917)

5. Who was the head of state in the regime referred to below?

“. . . a state which is nothing but a police-guarded military despotism, embellished with parliamentary forms, alloyed with a feudal admixture, already influenced by the bourgeoisie and bureaucratically carpentered . . . ”

a) Tsar Nicholas II

b) Kaiser Wilhelm I

c) Anton Novotny

d) Nikita Krushchev

6. “The indirect dependence of man on man, which is now the basic feature of conditions which are most fully developed economically, cannot be understood and explained from their own nature, but only as a somewhat transformed heritage of an earlier direct subjugation and expropriation."

Who made the above statement?

a) Hua Guofeng

b) Enrico Berlinguer

c) V. I. Lenin

d) Eugen Dühring

7. “Recently, however, since         adopted state ownership, a certain spurious socialism has made its appearance - here and there even degenerating into a kind of flunkeyism - which declares that all taking over by the State, even the Bismarckian kind, is in itself socialistic."

To which political regime was the writer of these lines addressing himself?

a) Bismarck’s Prussia

b) Mussolini's Italy

c) The Bolshevik state

d) The Popular Front in France

8. “The publicistic (ie, public] right of an economic commune in its instruments of labour is an exclusive right of property at least as against every other economic commune and also as against society and the State. But this right is not to entitle the commune ‘to cut itself off from the outside world, for among the various communes there is freedom of movement and compulsory acceptance of new members on the basis of fixed laws and administrative regulations . . .”’

Which sort of economic organisation do you think most closely fits this description?

a) A commonly owned and democratically controlled world-wide system of wealth production and distribution

b) A system based on New Lanark-style factory communities (as in 19th- century Britain)

c) A collective farm in a proletarian state (for example Russia)

d) An advanced co-operative or people's commune during a protracted period of socialist transition (China)

9. The “equality in principle of economic rights does not exclude the voluntary addition to what justice requires, of an expression of special recognition and honor . . . Society honors itself, in distinguishing the higher types of work by a moderate additional allocation for consumption."

To whose ideas does this statement allude?

a) Deng Xiaoping

b) V. I. Lenin

c) Eugen Dühring

d) Edward Gierek

10. “On the world market gold and silver remain world money, a general means of purchase and payment, the absolute social embodiment of wealth. And this property of the precious metals gives the individual members of the economic communes a new motive to the accumulation of a hoard, to getting rich, to usury; the motive to act freely and independently of the commune outside its borders, and to realise on the world market the private wealth which they have accumulated."

What kind of society, in your opinion, is being discussed here?

a) A society of free access to the means of life

b) A system under the thumb of bankers and financiers

c) One variety or another or state capitalism

d) A traditional capitalist economic system

11. “Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labour employed on the products appear as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labour no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of the total labour."

How would you describe the type of social organism implied in the above passage?

a) One in which the state regulates production, pays wages to workers and turns a profit on investment

b) A society reorganised as a proletarian state, in which capital is accumulated for the benefit of the workers

c) One in which the bourgeoisie has been forcibly subdued by the proletariat and which is evolving into a communist society

d) A communist society, not as it has developed on its own basis, but as it is just issuing out of capitalist society

Answers and explanation on page 16

Answer key and explanatory notes. Since a score doesn't really prove that you understand a subject, the purpose of this quiz is not to have you tally up points but only to induce you to think a little. And since the quotations were all taken from either Marx's critique of the Gotha Programme or from the second and third sections of Engels' Anti-Dühring, it would be automatically impossible for any of the choices referring to persons living or events taking place after 1878 to be correct. Apart from this little technical (and historical) detail, however, many of the ideas which were articulated by Lenin and his followers and which have long been considered as forming part of the heritage of Marxism turn out to be the same ideas for which Marx and Engels reserved their harshest criticisms!

The answers are as follows:

1-d. (Although if you answered a, b or c, we can’t blame you.)

2-a. Russia and China were manifestly not ready for socialism at the time of their respective revolutions. However, you will note that neither the goal of merely establishing a bourgeois republic nor of overthrowing it and setting up a proletarian state in its place (both of which were successively advocated by Lenin) differs essentially from the formula put forward in the Gotha Programme, since “producers’ co-operative societies" is just a fancy term for factories, farms and other forms of socialised labour.

3-c. In German, “democratic” is volks-herrschaftlich. Marx was critical of the suggestion (here) that trade-unions are capable of ruling a capitalist state. “Rule" in economic terms means “administration of wealth"; it is the owners of the means of production who rule. Faced with such a large rival constituency as the (reformed) peasantry of Russia, the workers of Russia were in a poor position in 1917 to claim ownership of the means of production on behalf of society as a whole. Given that not even Lenin supported common ownership of the means of production for the Russian working class during his lifetime, and given also that he dismissed workers in general as being incapable of class-consciousness “by their own unaided efforts", both a and b are logically as well as historically impossible. (Spain, on the other hand, is a somewhat problematical case, with which we need not concern ourselves here.)

4-b. This refers, of course, to the 1848 Revolution in France and to Philippe Buchc in particular, a religiously oriented democrat who advocated the slogan (which Leninists have borrowed and called “socialist”) to the effect that “he who will not work shall not eat”. Marx, in other words, was raking the architects of the Gotha Programme over the coals for confusing economic with political objectives. “Sectarian" in this context means “parochial”; Marx was claiming that the Socialist Workers' Party —product of the uniting of Lassalle’s General German Workers’ Union and the Marxist Social-Democratic Workers' Party — ran a serious risk of losing its way in a labyrinth of economic projects — of becoming no more than a trade-union lobby. Robert Owen's efforts may have been amateurish, but —especially in his later years — he was certainly no glib-talking lobbyist. On the contrary, in Lenin's proletarian state, workers' soviets must necessarily serve only as a lobby for the “armed proletariat", while the “organisation of revolutionaries” (a euphemism for the Bolshevik Party) could only be promoted to a management position.

5-b. Like the Second French Republic, which could not break free of its Napoleonic, Orleanist and Legitimist inheritance, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic of Nikita Krushchev was (and remains) moulded along fundamentally Tsarist lines, so that in many respects this dictatorship of the secretariat promotes a kind of industrial neo-feudalism — as do its enthusiasts in Czechoslovakia. naturally.

6-d. If “political power springs from the barrel of a gun” (Mao Zedong), as a result of having “smashed” the “bourgeois state” (Lenin), then what have you got but a “somewhat transformed heritage” of state-administered capitalism, whether by force (Dühring) or by compromise (Berlinguer)? A revolution whose immediate effect is other than to abolish the wages system is not a socialist revolution.

7-a. All four regimes demonstrate some tendency toward state capitalism, to one degree or another. Lenin himself identified state ownership and management of the means of production with socialism, proving only that if you run a capitalist system, then you must be a capitalist — either that, or you're some kind of flunkey.

8-d. Herr Dühring’s federation of economic communes bears an uncanny resemblance (on paper) to Chairman Mao’s people's communes. Since, on the other hand, common ownership (communism, or socialism) gives you the moneyless, worldwide community of producers, it would be economically impossible for any one locality to live in isolation. By the same token, remaking capitalism in the image of Owen’s New Lanark experiment would spell ruin for production based on profit. (As for the proletarian state, see below. No. 11.)

9-c. Quoted by Engels, the statement might easily have come right out of one of the platitude-filled speeches of either Deng Xiaoping or Edward Gierek; whereas Lenin’s concession to “reality” (the New Economic Policy, state capitalism) conceals the emergence of a new class of bureaucrat-capitalists, who decidedly believe society should honour itself by honouring them.

10-b. “Free access" means exactly that: no money. You cannot get rich in a socialist society; you are already born that way. If, conversely, “economic commune” is just a glorious nickname for “city" or “town", or even for agrarian state capitalism, then we already have them (choices c and d).

11-d. The first three choices respectively describe aspects or consequences of a proletarian revolution according to Lenin. First of all, wages, prices and profits signify commodity exchange; secondly, a “proletarian state" is a chimera — capital can only be accumulated for the benefit of capitalists; and thirdly, the working class cannot “subdue” the capitalist class without by the very fact abolishing its own status and becoming itself transformed into “society as a whole". Marx and Lenin very obviously disagree on whether a communist society can simply “issue out of capitalist society" or must first “develop on its own basis”. What Lenin describes as a "higher” phase, that is, developed communist society, Marx specifically mentions as pertaining rather to its merely having come into existence. He saw it as a political decision which cannot be put off until some remote future date or made by anyone else except the working class — in contrast to Lenin, who gave this “task” to the Party as part of its "leading role" and spoke of it as requiring decades to carry out.

Ron Elbert

(World Socialist Party of the United States)

* Questions 1, 2, 4 and 5 are quoted from Selected Works. International Publishers, 1969 ed.; question 3. because of the inadequacy and awkwardness of the translation, has been here reworded so as to bring out the sense of the passage, which otherwise degenerates into a meaningless conundrum. Question 11 is taken from the same source.

** Questions 6 to 10 are taken from the 1972 ed. of the International Publisher's version.

Letter: Labour-time ‘money’? (2023)

Letter to the Editors from the September 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Comrades,

Many thanks for the thoughtful review of the new edition of Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Program. I wish to respond to just a few points:

My introduction explicitly rejects the idea that ’the Critique offers a model of exactly how a post-capitalist society ought to be constructed’ (p. 27) so I surely do not think that the labor tokens discussed by Marx is immediately applicable to the modern world. But we do have to ask why he poses remuneration based on actual (as against abstractly universal) labor time as flowing from the initial socialization of the means of production. Three issues are involved:

(1) Class society has drummed into us the notion that we give to others and society based on what we get in return. It is the very principle of commodity exchange, a quid pro quo. Attaining ‘from each according to one’s abilities, to each according to their needs,’ transcends this state of affairs. However, Marx is realistic enough to know that ‘the muck of the ages’ will still stick to us as a new society emerges; it will take time to learn how to fully treat others (and nature) as ends in themselves rather than as means to an end. Some kind of quid pro quo will undoubtedly persist, but hopefully, not for long.

(2) The question is what kind. Prior to a communist society proceeding ‘from its own foundations’ a unit of exchange will be needed to clear transactions without utilizing such value-forms as money. If the issue is ignored, there is the risk of regressing into relying on an abstract equivalent.

(3) To be sure, the forces of production are much more developed today than in Marx’s time. But this is precisely what makes his discussion of a lower phase of communism so pertinent. The immediate task facing any communist society will be taking down and dismantling much of the forces of production, which are by now embedded with technologies that are so inherently destructive as to undermine human existence itself. That is a problem that is surely not going to be resolved in the blink of an eye.

Lastly, innumerable revolutionary Marxists (beginning with Rosa Luxemburg) had a lot to say about the need to fight for reforms (the eight-hour day, broadening the electoral franchise, etc.) while advancing the cause of revolution—just as many anti-racist activists today emphasize fighting for “non-reformist reforms” (like defunding police) in challenging racial capitalism. It’s not just that today’s social movements need to learn from Marxism; Marxists also need to learn (and in some cases unlearn) based on the insights and perspectives of today’s social movements. Otherwise, our politics becomes a ‘painting of grey upon grey.’ I discuss this in a recent essay.

Peter Hudis

Reply:

That ‘class society has drummed into us that we give to others and society based on what we get in return’ and that this will continue into socialist (or communist, the same thing) society suggests that socialism will be something that people will simply be transposed into with the ideas they now have. But socialism can only be brought into being by people who want it and understand its implications, one of which is that it will involve a wider reciprocity than the type you have in mind where something is given in the expectation that something of equal value will be returned.

People contribute to socialist society what they can with the expectation (and knowledge) that they will receive, from what is made available, what they need. In other words, from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs. Not that it is possible to calculate what an individual contributes to society. Production today is collective and all those who take part in production contribute collectively. Also, those unable to work are equally entitled to have their needs met.

Should there be temporary shortages of some things in the very early stages of socialism, as it is conceivable there might be, some more realistic way of dealing with this situation than distribution according to time worked would have to be found (not by us today but by those around at the time). Direct distribution of given amounts might be one. We don’t agree that ‘a unit of exchange will be needed to clear transactions without utilizing such value-forms as money’. It is such ‘labour money’, both as ‘remuneration’ (taxed to provide an income for those unable to work) and as the price of consumer goods and services, that would be much more likely to lead to a return to proper money.

Basing what people get on how long they work would infringe what you say ‘class society has drummed into us’ as that assumes that people accept that an hour’s contribution is the same whatever the particular work or skill. It, too, implies the rejection of ‘the muck of ages’

Marx probably mentioned a labour-time voucher scheme because it was a popular idea amongst German Social Democrats at the time. When, in 1891 the German Social Democrats adopted a new programme there was no mention of this (which only had an appeal for artisans making a whole product). Later in the same Notes, Marx made the more basic point that how goods are distributed in socialism would depend on how much and what there was to distribute. It is not necessary to list all the technological developments since 1875 which mean that there will be immensely more to distribute even in the early days of socialism than then and so the stage of ‘to each according to their needs’ can be reached fairly rapidly after the common ownership and democratic control of productive resources has been established.

We are not against such measures under capitalism as factory laws and the extension of the franchise that Luxemburg (and before her, Marx) campaigned for. Our position is that it is not the job of a socialist party to itself advocate them; its job is to advocate socialism. We don’t accept the concept of ‘non-reformist reforms’ as reforms that ‘challenge capitalism’. Reforms that undermined capitalism either won’t be enacted or, if they are, won’t work as intended as they would interfere with the operation of capitalism’s economic laws and provoke an economic crisis. To win enough support for them would involve as much time and energy as winning support for socialism. Another reason for concentrating on campaigning for socialism. 

Editors.

Communist Party of U.S.A. (1973)

From issue number 1 (1973) of The Western Socialist

Gus Hall's Objective: Reorganize Exploitation 

Gus Hall, Secretary of the Communist Party of the United States of America, and the Party’s 1972 Presidential candidate, claims the CP-U.S.A. is again surging to the fore following the trying times it experienced in the 50s under the now repudiated Smith Act. So reports newspaper columnist Philip Nobile who interviewed Mr. Hall (Utica Observer - Dispatch, Oct. 22. 1972).

Mr. Hall credits the alleged surge of new blood in the Party to the fact that the hysteria of the McCarthy period has disappeared and that people choose to have their curiosity about communism satisfied by declared Communists rather than by anti-Communists.

Dues-paying membership is, according to Mr. Hall, someplace between 15 and 16 thousand. Mr. Hall, however, contends there are approximately 100,000 Communists who. for reasons of fear (social, economic, etc.) cannot openly declare themselves as such. The total Communist vote in the coming Presidential election should in large measure confirm or refute this claim since one’s vote is cast in secrecy and there need be no fear of recrimination.

One of the questions put to Secretary Hall by Mr. Nobile was this:

Q. — Have you stopped advocating the violent overthrow of the American Government? 

A. — We never did. We are, and have always been, for the overthrow of the capitalist system. We want to take the country' out of the hands of the big monopoly corporations. Socialism, therefore, is our aim. Naturally, there would be some fundamental changes in the existing government under socialism.

Note that Mr. Hall speaks here of "socialism” rather than "communism." There is a separation of the two. This cleavage is a Leninistic invention, with an unintentional assist from Marx. In the Critique of the Gotha Program Marx speaks of two phases of communism — “lower” and “higher” — though he does not fix them terminologically as “socialism” and "communism.” And in the same source he writes that “between capitalist and communist society” there is a "transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.” Now according to Lenin, the period between the transformation of capitalism into communism is called "socialism.”

In 1917 Lenin proposed that the Bolsheviks call themselves the Communist Party. And in support of this proposal he broached the idea that socialism differed from communism. It was the “lower” and “higher” phases of communism and the ”dictatorshlp of the proletariat” which Lenin made central in his The State and Revolution and to which his followers have ever since adhered.

This skilled piece of surgery, this dichotomy of socialism/communism by Lenin perplexed most of all who called themselves Marxists. For they, like Marx and Engels, conceived “socialism” and "communism” as one and the same, used the terms interchangeably. They were correct in doing so.

Keeping in mind the comparatively backward economic conditions at the time of Marx, he reasoned that the transition period from capitalist to socialist society would require the existence of a political state, with the state being utilized solely in the interest of the working class during the transition and existing for only a brief span of time. There would come then that degree of socialism wherein the state no longer existed and distribution of wealth would follow the principle of work performed. Following this phase, there would come into being “higher” socialism wherein all would have free access to the goods produced. No matter how you cut the cake, It is still socialism/communism notwithstanding the stage or phase.

Reading the Critique of the Gotha Program, one easily gets the impression that Marx distinguished between "lower” and “higher” communism in terms of the ruling principle of distribution — with the “lower” phase, as mentioned above, ascribed to work performed, and the “higher” phase acrlbed to needs: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs ” But in the same source Marx, anticipating that he might be misunderstood, expressly cautions that it is “a mistake to make a fuss about so-called distribution and put the principal stress on it” and that “any distribution whatever of the means of consumption is only a consequence of the distribution of the conditions of production themselves.”

To Marx socialism encompassed far, far more than the economical improvement of the working class. His criticism of capitalism was not merely centered around the injustice of the distribution of wealth but also entailed the transformation of man under capitalism into a “crippled monstrosity.” In his German Ideology it is pointed out that the aim of socialism is that of developing the total, universal man; that is, the elevation of man above his present crippling specialization.

Marx scoffs at higher wages and hence unmistakably scoffs at the wage system in general. He writes in his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (translated by T. B. Bottomore):

“An enforced increase in wages . . . would be nothing more than a better remuneration of slaves. and would not restore. either to the worker or to the work, their human significance and worth.

"Even the equality of incomes which Proudhon demands would only change the relation of the present day worker to his work into a relation of all men to work. Society would then be conceived as an abstract capitalist."

The use of the phrase "dictatorship of the proletariat” by Marx was an ill chosen one even in the passing sense he used it and despite its connotative difference as compared to today. But as all know who have studied the writings of Marx, he was a stalwart believer in democracy and personal liberty and most certainly did not mean by this phrase an excuse for the suspension of human rights during the so-called transition or at any other time such as the “Communists” and their followers around the world would have it.

It is Mr Hall’s conviction that a basic difference exists between government by monopoly corporations and government by an elite of the Communist Party, supposedly acting in the interests of the workers through the medium of the State. Mr Hall misses the whole point; to wit, the transformation of meaningless, alienated labor into free, productive labor. Weighing the difference between exploitation by monopoly corporations and exploitation by the State, with the hierarchy of the Communist Party holding the reins, is but a game for statisticians to play. Actually, the crux of the issue is not who or what exploits you or to what degree, but the very existence of exploitation itself.

On the heels of the above question put to Mr. Hall, this one followed:

Q. — But do you countenance violence?

A. — Yes. We have said right along we will seek the least violent path. But there should be no illusions about this question. History and life has taught us that it is an exceptional case where a change in class rule can be totally peaceful. Our Party will take part in violent struggles when the time comes.

And so it is admitted that Mr Hall’s Party countenances violence, though along “the least violent path.” Apparently ever on-going history and life has not taught Mr. Hall that working class violence in a highly industrialized stage of human life is passé, is a suicidal ticket for the rank and file participants. Mr. Hall seems to have subscribed to a postulate which may have been correct under certain conditions but which under changed conditions no longer exists.

Whereas the Communist Party sets Itself up as the vanguard, as the leaders. of the working class and condones violence, albeit along the least violent path, the World Socialist Party attuned to historical reality holds that there can be no socialism without socialists; that the working class cannot be led into socialism, that working class emancipation can only be achieved through conscious (knowing what socialism truly is and hence not leaving the thinking and decision-making to a small, self-appointed elite) and political (securing control of the seat of power, the State, via democratic means and thereupon abolishing it) organizational endeavor. With the vast majority of the workers, which would include all those presently engaged in suppressive endeavors, cognizant of the basic meaning of socialism and actively engaged In promoting it, who would there be to vent violence upon? At the most there might be a handful of reactionaries who would simply be obliviated by the march of events.

Before closing, let us touch briefly on one more question and answer:

Q. — Would American Communism Jail "subversive" writers as Russian Communism does? (Note with dismay and commiseration with the exorcised spirit of Karl Marx that we have "American." "Russian." "Chinese," "Yugoslav." "Cuban," "Italian." etc., communism.)

A. — I don't think so. I have publicly stated here and in the Soviet Union that I would handle these writers differently. Instead of making a criminal case out of it, I would suggest we publish these books and then arrange for competent reviewers to expose them on television in the presence of the author.

We can conclude from Mr. Hall’s answer that he would have extrajudicial trials for writers and other who proved offensive to the ideas of "American Communism.” Isn’t this frightening to contemplate Suppose the author refused to concede the errors of his ways and declined contriteness, what then? Why, off to an insane asylum for corrective treatment or worse. Under international socialism/communism as advocated by the WSP, one may write and have published whatever he damn well pleases without one iota of fear of any authoritative recrimination. Socialism as expounded by Marx is free of authoritative coercion, is completely foreign to government over people. The people, armed with socialist knowledge, will not need "competent reviewers” to instruct them as to what is or is not worthy of their consideration.

What is Marxism? (2023)

Book Review from the July 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Critique of the Gotha Programme (translated and annotated by Kevin B. Anderson and Karel Ludenhoff, with a new introduction by Peter Hudis and an afterword by Peter Linebaugh, PM Books, 2023)

References to Marxists and Marxism are legion. China claims to be a Marxist state. So does North Korea. In the US many left-wing writers, academics and others say they are Marxists. Movements that don’t claim allegiance to Marxism, for example ‘Black Lives Matter’ and ‘Me Too’ are nevertheless said by their right-wing opponents to be Marxist. The act of ‘taking the knee’ by professional footballers is deemed by some to be a ‘Marxist’ gesture. And Jeremy Clarkson is fond of using ‘Marxist’ as a term of abuse for just about anyone who disagrees with him on anything. So what do Marxist and Marxism really mean?

It surely stands to reason that such terms should at least have some connection to the individual from whom they derive, the nineteenth-century political philosopher and socialist revolutionary Karl Marx. But in reality, of course, it’s impossible to stop them being thrown around at random either as an insult or a beacon of pride, just as it’s impossible to stop terms like ‘communism’ and ‘socialism’ being used willy-nilly, often in ways far removed from their original meaning. Despite this, it still has to be worth carrying on doing what the Socialist Party and the Socialist Standard have been doing for well over 100 years – that is attempting to shed clear light on Marxism in terms of the ideas formulated and laid down by Marx himself in his writings.

In this connection a recent edition and new translation from the original German of one of Marx’s lesser known works is a useful aid, since it helps us to identify a particularly important aspect of Marx’s thought. The Critique is a short work, not much more than 20 pages long, written by Marx in 1875 as a confidential response to a ‘Unity Programme’ issued by the German Workers Party. Dating from close to 30 years after what is probably Marx’s best known work, the Communist Manifesto, it sheds light on the thought of the ‘mature’ Marx, in particular his ideas about the kind of society that he saw as replacing the capitalist system, which he analysed in detail in the three volumes of his famous work of economic theory, Capital. So what we have in the Critique is ideas about future society from Marx’s own pen, undisturbed by the later plethora of interpretations by commentators and critics, many of whom read little or nothing of what he wrote.

What stands out clearly from the Critique is Marx’s concept of ‘socialism’ and ‘communism’. As everyone knows, there have been and continue to be endlessly varying interpretations of what these terms mean. But here Marx describes as either ‘communism’ or ‘socialism’ (without making any distinction between the two) a future society based on the common ownership of the means of production and the consequent end of working for wages and producing for sale. This echoes his interchangeable use of both terms in his other writings, so thoroughly belying later attempts by commentators or regimes declaring themselves ‘Marxist’ to argue that Marxism propounds two stages of post-capitalist development, a ‘lower’ one called ‘socialism’ and a ‘higher’ one called ‘communism’.

A second important element that emerges from the Critique (and one that continues to be entirely relevant today) is Marx’s complete rejection of reformism, nationalism, and attachment to state institutions. He pours scorn on reformist demands such as ‘direct legislation’ and ‘popular rights’ and accuses the framers of the Gotha Program, the followers of Ferdinand Lassalle, of having ‘conceived the workers’ movement from the narrowest national standpoint’. All such positions, Marx declares, are ‘remote from socialism’.

The editor of this new translation, American academic Peter Hudis, who calls himself a ‘Marxist-Humanist’, prefaces it with an introduction and some notes, while Peter Linebaugh adds an ‘afterword’ to the text. Most of what they both write is helpful and difficult to fault. Hudis, for example, makes short work of ‘fake’ political Marxism by stating: ‘Neither the reformist social democratic version of socialism nor its revolutionary variant that was taken over by various forms of Stalinism and Marxist-Leninism succeeded in posing a viable alternative; instead, each morphed into some version of capitalism (in the case of Russia ‘state-capitalism’, elsewhere ‘a more equitable or efficient way of organizing exchange).’ Furthermore, he points out, the insistence of many in seeing the socialism talked about by Marx as referring to an earlier phase of social development, distinct from a later final form, communism, has meant that ‘the idea of freedom is pushed off to a far-distant future that never comes, while divesting the idea of socialism of its liberatory content’.

In this connection Hudis also explains that, though Marx avoids entering into the specific details of a future socialist/communist society other than seeing it as a moneyless global system of free access (‘the free and spontaneous allocation of goods and services’) and democratic self-organisation, he does this ‘on the grounds that communism is not a utopian ideal that one tried to impose upon the masses but is instead the result of the self-activity of the masses’. Above all, the editor goes on, ‘Marx aimed to show that capitalism is not an immutable part of human existence but a transitory phenomenon’ and ‘makes it clear throughout his writings that socialism or communism is incompatible with the state’.

There is, however, one area where we would call into question the views put forward by Hudis. This relates to his apparently unquestioning acceptance of the labour time voucher system Marx suggested might have been needed in 1875, even once capitalism had been transcended, the market system got rid of, and commodity exchange, alienated labour and classes eliminated, (until, in Marx’s words, ‘all the springs of cooperative wealth flow more abundantly’). In other words that society would have had to wait until the means of production had been built up sufficiently to allow the operation of a complete free access society of ‘from each according to ability to each according to need’,

Hudis fails to take into account that Marx was writing at a time which, compared with what came later and above all what exists today, was relatively undeveloped in terms of the resources and technology available. Clearly that has changed radically since Marx’s lifetime and there can be little doubt that there will be the means to establish very rapidly a complete free access society once the majority of workers decide to join together collectively to bring it about on a world scale. So no longer any need to go through a period of ‘labour-time vouchers’ (which, in any event, would have had drawbacks even in 1875).

No need either to spend time on the ‘reformist’ activities which Marx scorns in the Critique and which the editor too seems to agree is unnecessary. After all any such ‘in the meantime’ activity can only be time wasted, delaying if not putting off forever the ultimate objective, Given this, it is somewhat surprising that in spite of apparent agreement with and encouragement of the views expressed by Marx in the Critique, Hudis (also author of the 2012 book Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism) is on record in a recent essay (‘Democratic Socialism and the Transition to Genuine Democracy’) as supporting reformist activity, referring to such as ‘a political project that fights for and secures needed reforms while focusing on the long-term need to transcend capitalism’ (reviewed in this journal, April 2021). While we would argue that ‘long-term’ is effectively equivalent to never, at the same time, with respect to the kind of society to be aimed for, we do agree with Hudis that socialism, once established, will, as he puts it, ‘provide the space for individuals to discover themselves and freely pursue their destinies, now that such external impediments as class domination, statist control, and abstract forms of domination no longer stand in their way’.

Howard Moss

Bird’s Eye View: Memory hole (2022)

The Bird’s Eye View Column from the June 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

Memory hole

‘The Russian Education Ministry has announced plans that will require children as young as seven to study history, as part of a wider push to promote “patriotic” education amid the war in Ukraine. “Historical education will begin in schools from the first grade,” Education Minister Sergei Kravtsov said at the opening of an exhibition called Everyday Nazism which is due to be shown at a nationwide schools forum, The Power is in the Truth. “[In our teaching of history], we will never allow it [to be written] that we somehow treated other nations – our fraternal nations of Ukraine and Belarus – poorly. We will do everything in our power so that historical memory is preserved.” The plans will lower the age of children taking compulsory history lessons by three years, and will see historical education incorporated into existing parts of the school curriculum. Kravtsov also said that from Sept. 1, schools will start each week by singing the Russian national anthem and raising the Russian flag’ (themoscowtimes.com, 19 April).

As George Orwell warned, those who control the past can control the present. Putin long ago joined the ranks of dictators for whom ‘yesterday’s weather can be changed by decree’ —a power Orwell attributed in 1942 to Franco, Hitler and Stalin. If an event in the past is no longer regarded as useful to the authorities all reference to it is destroyed. A people who cannot remember where they used to be are in no position to challenge where they are now. Historically controlled, the present is something that workers come to accept as an unquestionable normality. Orwell was not merely inventing nightmares. In Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia the deletion from the record of history of disruptive facts was a carefully organised campaign.

Doublethink

‘Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce… Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living’ (The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Karl Marx, 1852, bit.ly/3KcVZCm).

Mazda Majidi and Derek Ford ‘s recent article titled ‘Clarifying and inspiring revolution for 130 years: Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Programme‘ (hamptonthink.org, 2 April) is both tragic and farcical. The Gotha programme was drawn up to unite the two sections of the German working class movement, the General Association of German Workers, and the Social Democratic Workers’ Party. They combined to form the Socialist Workers’ Party of Germany at the Gotha Congress in 1875. The Critique of the Gotha Programme consisted of marginal comments made by Marx on the draft of this party programme. The Critique remains popular among those who worship certain dead dictators or their modern counterparts because Marx refers to a transitional period between capitalism and communism (socialism) and to another between an early and a later stage of communism during which there will not be full distribution according to needs. As the authors remark, the ‘..Critique was a key resource for Lenin’s study and publication of The State and Revolution. Lenin expanded on the transition between the first and second stages of communism and justified the dictatorship of the proletariat.’ But as Marx notes in Critique just after dealing with the transitional period ‘… to force on our Party again, as dogmas, ideas which in a certain period had some meaning but now have become obsolete verbal rubbish’ (bit.ly/38nKn2s) seems apt for other notions which we would do well throw in the dusbin of history and are found aplenty, alas, on www.hamptonthink.org, including imperialism, Marxism-Leninism, national liberation, socialism with Chinese, Cuban, etc characteristics, and workers’ states.

Big Brother

‘Future society will be socialist society. This also means that with the abolition of exploitation, commodity production and buying and selling will also be abolished and, therefore, there will be no room for buyers and sellers of labour power, for employers and employed—there will be only free workers… Where there are no classes, where there are neither rich nor poor, there is no need for a state, there is no need also for political power, which oppresses the poor and protects the rich. Consequently, in socialist society there will be no need for the existence of political power’ (Anarchism or Socialism? 1906, bit.ly/3MqEIHv).

Ironically, the author of this piece would thirty years later, in a complete volte-face, declare the USSR to be socialist. That same year, on the 28th August, Pravda proclaimed him divine: ‘O Great Stalin, O Leader of the Peoples,Thou who didst give birth to man, Thou who didst make fertile the earth, Thou who dost rejuvenate the Centuries, Thou who givest blossom to the spring… ‘ And a mere mortal observed:

‘There are in the USSR privileged and exploited classes, dominant classes and subject classes. Between them the standard of living is sharply separated. The classes of travel on the railways correspond exactly to the social classes; similarly with ships, restaurants, theatres, shops, and with houses; for one group palaces in pleasant neighbourhoods, for the others wooden barracks alongside tool stores and oily machines… It is always the same people who live in the palaces and the same people who live in the barracks. There is no longer private property, there is only one property – State property. But the State no more represents the whole community than under preceding régimes’ (What the Russian Revolution Has Become, Robert Guiheneuf, 1936).

And today, ‘Russian elites and oligarchs are probably some of the best in the world at hiding their wealth…’ (washingtonpost.com, 11 April).

A Lord discovers the real Marx. (1924)

From the September 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

One does not frequently discover in the books and articles written about Marx by his opponents any genuine attempt to impart to the reader an adequate idea of the contents of Marx’s works. “The Real Karl Marx” (an article by Lord Riddell in John O’ London’s Weekly, July 26, 1924) merits some consideration, however, for, as a travesty of Marx’s teachings, it is rather more absurd than the ordinary bourgeois production.

The purpose of this article is not to discuss Lord Riddell’s method of misrepresentation, but to point out a few slips made by him in his application of that method, in the first place it should be noted that where Lord Riddell falls in the cart (if one may use a proletarian expression in writing of a bourgeois) is in his choice of a victim. It is common knowledge among Socialists that Marx and Engels never did appear particularly well in the “rôle” of victims of misrepresentation of the type now under review. Both of them had a peculiar habit of replying to their critics’ misrepresentations—sometimes half a century or more before those misrepresentations were made.

A few examples will serve to show wherein “The Real Karl Marx” of Lord Riddell differs from Marx. Lord Riddell, discussing the history of Marx’s ideas, writes as follows :—

  “Adam Smith laid down that labour is the source of all wealth and the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities (“Wealth of Nations,” 1776). In 1817 Ricardo (1772-1823) published his “Political Economy,” in which he stated that the worker receives as wages only so much as is required to furnish him with the necessities of life estimated according to the custom of the time.

  Marx based his theories for the reconstruction of Society upon a narrow interpretation of these propositions.”

Marx, in his critical notes on the Gotha Programme, says :

  “Labour is not the source of all wealth. Nature, no less than labour, is the source of use-values (and of these material wealth essentially consists); and labour is itself no more than a manifestation of a natural force, human labour-power.”

Marx’s work, “The Poverty of Philosophy,” is itself a reply to the last sentence quoted from Lord Riddell’s article, but the following passage from Engels’ preface to that work may usefully be given here :

  “The above application of the theory of Ricardo, which shows to the workers that the totality of social production, which is their product, belongs to them because they are the only real producers, leads direct to Communism. But it is also, as Marx shows, false in force, economically speaking, because it is simply an application of morality to economy. According to the laws of bourgeois economy, the greater part of the product does not belong to the workers who have created it. If, then, we say, ‘That is unjust, it ought not to be,’ that has nothing whatever to do with economy ; we are only stating that this economic fact is in contradiction to our moral sentiment. That is why Marx never based upon this his Communist conclusions, but rather upon the necessary overthrow, which is developing itself under our eyes every day, of the capitalist system of production.”

A brief examination thus shows that Marx’s alleged “narrow interpretation” is merely the product of Lord Riddell’s imagination.

Elsewhere our critic refers to various matters which, he says, Marx’s theory disregarded. He says : “It also disregarded the necessity of leadership in industry.” Marx’s reply to this may once more be quoted :

  “All combined labour on a large scale requires, more or less, a directing authority, in order to secure the harmonious working of the individual activities, and to perform the general functions that have their origin in the action of the combined organism, as distinguished from the action of its separate organs. A single violin player is his own conductor ; an orchestra requires a separate one.”

Further:

  “Just as at first the capitalist is relieved from actual labour so soon as his capital, has reached that minimum amount with which capitalist production, as such, begins, so now, he hands over the work of direct and constant supervision of the individual workmen and groups of workmen, to a special kind of wage labourer. An industrial army of workmen, under the command of a capitalist, requires, like a real army, officers (managers), and sergeants (foremen, overlookers), who, in while the work is being done, command in the name of the capitalist. The work of supervision becomes their established and exclusive function.”—Capital, Vol. 1, chapter 13.)

Lord Riddell, in the course of a pretence at a representation of what he calls Marx’s theory, says : “The workers, however, become organised and develop class consciousness—viz., a recognition of their rights as opposed to those of other classes.” Marx certainly recognised the necessity for class-consciousness. But “rights” ! How little use Marx’s theory had for the recognition of rights is realised by anyone who has given any attention to his works. Especially in the already-mentioned Notes on the Gotha Programme does Marx deal with this matter. Discussing the expression “equal rights to the whole product of labour,” occurring in that Programme, he shows how “Like all right, therefore, it is substantially an unequal right.” Further on, too, he denounces the “endeavour to uproot the realistic conceptions which (after long labour) have been firmly implanted“ in the minds of our members, and to replace them by ideological fustian about rights and all the rest of it.”

It is possible here only to touch upon a very small proportion of Lord Riddell’s mistakes. The following, however, must be given as his best attempt at concentrated misrepresentation ;

  “The English edition of his chief work, Capital, was issued in 1886. In the preface his co-author, Frederick Engels, committed himself to the statement that British prosperity seemed to have run its course, that we were landed in ‘the slough of a permanent and chronic depression,’ and that the increase of population would shortly lead to a revolution.”

What Engels did write, in his preface, was :

  “The decennial cycle of stagnation, prosperity, over-production and crisis, ever recurrent from 1825 to 1867, seems indeed to have run its course; but only to land us in the slough of despond of a permanent and chronic depression.”—(Capital. Swan, Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Co., 1887.)

The real Engels is as quoted here, and the real riddle is : How did our critic manage to quote nearly a whole line of Engels’ preface nearly correctly? As regards the statement, attributed to Engels, that “the increase of population would shortly lead to a revolution,” it must be admitted that Lord Riddell here deals Engels a nasty blow, the only defence being that Engels did not make that statement.

Lord Riddell gives what purports to be, but most certainly is not, a description ot Marx’s materialist conception of history. What Lord Riddell does not know about this side of Marx’s teachings is evidently well worth knowing. For of Marx he writes : “In 1845 he was expelled from Paris. After this he went to Brussels, where, in conjunction with Frederick Engels, he planned a series of European revolutions to subvert the existing order.” This is the best joke penned by Lord Riddell in his article. Revolutions planned by Marx and Engels ! By those who had formulated the materialist conception of history, according to which the latter is a history of class struggles ! By those who had maintained that “the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class itself” ! If Lord Riddell’s version is not a crude joke, then how admirable must have been the modesty of the author of “The Struggle of the Classes in France (1848—1850).”

A clue to the source of Lord Riddell’s mistakes, to use a polite expression, may be found in another of his references to Capital. He remarks : “It is not exciting reading, but its teachings diluted and embellished have been spread in all civilised countries by devoted adherents.” Whether or not Capital is exciting reading depends, of course, upon the reader. But if ever Lord Riddell should desire to become acquainted with the subject of his criticism it would still be of advantage to him to read Marx’s works rather than his “teachings diluted and embellished” by devoted adherents of capitalism.

A. C. Anderton

What justice? (2011)

Book Review from the June 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

On The Currency Of Egalitarian Justice. By G.A. Cohen, Edited by Michael Otsuka, Princeton University Press, 2011

Contrary to popular myth, Marx and Engels did not frame their arguments for socialism in terms of material equality. In fact they rejected demands for levelling down as ‘crude communism’. As the political philosopher Allen Wood has pointed out, they did not criticise capitalism because poverty is unevenly distributed, but because there is poverty where there need be none, and that there is a privileged class which benefits from a system which subjects the majority to an artificial and unnecessary poverty. In his Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875), Marx argued that socialism or communism (they mean the same thing) would be based on from each according to ability, to each according to need. This is not an egalitarian slogan. Rather, it asks for people to be considered individually, each with a different set of needs and abilities. Nor would socialist society have to be underpinned by some conception of ‘distributive justice’. From each according to ability, to each according to need is a practical arrangement for meeting self-defined needs.

This book is a collection of essays by the academic political philosopher G.A. Cohen, who died in 2009. The ‘currency’ in the title is a reference to the principles used by political philosophers in the academic debate about ‘egalitarian justice’, though in one essay Cohen does acknowledge that those who have more currency (meaning more money) are freer than those who have less of it. This may seem blindingly obvious but it is often denied in academia. Cohen has built a reputation on work allegedly inspired by Marx’s writings, but here again he misleads. This is confirmed in the essay ‘Back to Socialist Basics’ in which he demonstrates no understanding of socialist basics. Cohen claims that he is setting out the principles for ‘egalitarian justice’ –  as if they existed in a timeless social and economic vacuum. But the mechanisms for bringing about the desired changes – Cohen argues for a ‘fair’ redistribution of money via taxation – crucially depend upon capitalism’s ability to actually deliver an egalitarian society. Since he does not show that capitalism can do that there is no reason to take his philosophising seriously.

According to political philosophy justice prevails when people get what they deserve, though there are widely differing interpretations of its ethical implications. For socialists, as for Marx, the concepts of justice and fairness are not so much wrong or false as not relevant for our purposes. They misrepresent the exploitative social relations of capitalism and are inappropriate to the struggle for socialism. Socialists operate within a different frame of reference, using different principles which transcend present-day society. Socialism will undoubtedly be a more materially equal society, but that is not the objective. Common ownership of the means of life will be a social relationship of equality between all people. This establishes a classless society. That is the socialist objective and not a ‘fairer’ capitalism which was Cohen’s real aim.

Lew Higgins

Books received: Paperback edition of The Enigma of Capital by David Harvey (reviewed in the June 2010 Socialist Standard).

Aspect: Labour Time Vouchers (1971)

The Aspect column from the May 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

A reader has asked us why the Socialist Party of Great Britain speaks of free access to consumer goods in Socialism rather than of the distribution of consumer goods by the labour-time vouchers mentioned by Marx.

The first to suggest the use of labour-time vouchers instead of money was Robert Owen in 1820. The Owenites stood for a society of co-operative communities. Each community would own its own means and instruments of production and each member of a community would work to produce what had been agreed was needed and in return would be issued with a note certifying for how many hours he had worked; he could then use this note to obtain from the community’s stock of consumer goods any product or products which had taken the same number of hours to produce. Owen believed that this co-operative commonwealth could begin to be introduced under capitalism and in the first half of the 1830s some of his followers established “labour bazaars” on a similar principle: workers brought the products of their labour to the bazaar and received in exchange a labour-note which entitled them to take away from the bazaar any item or items which had taken the same time to produce, after taking into account the costs of the raw materials. These bazaars were failures but the idea of labour-time vouchers (or “labour-money”) appeared in substantially similar forms in France with Proudhon and in Germany with Rodbertus and is one source of currency crank theories.

Those who advocate labour-time vouchers can have two different circumstances for their use in mind. Like Robert Owen, they can advocate their use within the context of co-operative ownership and production for use or, like Proudhon, within the context of private ownership and production for sale. Marx exposed as currency cranks those who wanted labour-time vouchers and buying and selling. Where goods are produced for sale, he pointed out, sooner or later one commodity will emerge as the one which can be exchanged for all the others. This special commodity is of course money and its appearance signifies the end of barter. To perform this role of the medium of exchange the commodity must itself have an exchange value. Money is basically a special commodity, a fact which is obscured by the later evolution of money where almost worthless coins and notes have come to circulate as tokens for the money-commodity. Those who advocate the abolition of money and its replacement by labour-time vouchers while retaining production for sale are thus, said Marx, quite confused; wherever there is production for sale one commodity must become money (see his comments in his Critique of Political Economy on the theories of John Gray).

Within the context of common ownership and production for use, however, labour-time vouchers are quite feasible. Then they are not money at all, but merely a method of sharing out consumer goods. As Marx said of the Owenites’ plan for a co-operative commonwealth:

  Owen’s ‘labour-money’, for instance, is no more ‘money’ than a ticket for the theatre. Owen presupposes directly associated labour, a form of production that is entirely inconsistent with the production of commodities. The certificate of labour is merely evidence of the part taken by the individual in the common labour, and of his right to a certain portion of the common produce destined for consumption (Capital, Vol &, Moscow, 1961, pp. 94-5).

Engels says much the same in his comments in Anti-Dühring on Owen’s labour-notes.

The German Social Democrats of the 1860s and 1870s inherited the idea of distribution according to labour-time from Rodbertus. They envisaged a system where, with the means of production vested in the community, workers would be given a labour-time voucher entitling them to a share of the social product; thus they would, as Lassalle put it, get “the full product of their labour”. This phrase is confused because, if everything produced in a given period is distributed in full for consumption, then nothing would be left over to renew and expand the means of production or to store in the case of emergency. This point was made by Marx in one of his criticisms of the Gotha Programme which was adopted by the German Social Democrats in 1875 when the followers of Lassalle united with the group with which Marx and Engels had been working. In the course of this criticism Marx made his well-known statement about labour-time vouchers in Socialism (“not as it has developed on its own foundations, but . . . just as it emerges from capitalist society”):

  The individual producer . . . receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such and such an amount of labour (after deducting his labour for the common funds), and with this certificate he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as costs the same amount of labour. The same amount of labour which he has given to society in one form he receives back in another (Selected Works, Vol II, Moscow, 1958, p. 23).

Supporters of state capitalist Russia have used this passage to try to show that Marx thought that  money — and of course gold does function as the money-commodity in Russia — could exist in Socialism. This is so much nonsense since elsewhere Marx specifically stated that labour-time vouchers were not money (see his comments on Owen quoted earlier):

  The producers may . . . receive paper vouchers entitling them to withdraw from the social supplies of consumer goods a quantity corresponding to their labour-time. These vouchers are not money. They do not circulate (Capital, Vol II, Moscow, 1957, p. 358).

Marx nowhere states that labour-time vouchers were the only method of distributing wealth in Socialism; they were only one possible method. [1]  The actual method adopted would depend on the circumstances (Capital, Vol I, pp. 78-9). Alternatives were suggested, as for instance by Edward Bellamy in his Looking Backward written in 1887. He wanted everybody in Socialism to be issued with a credit card entitling them to obtain an equal amount of consumer goods. In any event, later in his criticism of the Gotha Programme Marx made it quite clear that if labour-time vouchers were used in Socialism this would be a temporary measure imposed by the comparatively low level of technology. In time, he saw, when the “springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly” Socialist society could abandon labour-time vouchers (or whatever) and go over to “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” that is, to free access to consumer goods.

In 1875 the then existing level of technology might well have meant that many consumer goods would unavoidably be available only in limited quantities for some years after the establishment of Socialism. But in the hundred years since, technical progress has made it possible for the springs of co-operative wealth to flow more abundantly than Marx could have foreseen so that free distribution—to each according to his needs—can be implemented almost immediately after Socialism has been established.

Potential abundance has made the idea of labour-time vouchers quite outdated.

Notes:

[1] Baran and Sweezy are quite wrong when they write in their Monopoly Capital (Penguin, p. 325) that “Marx emphasised in his Critique of the Gotha Programme that the principle of equivalent exchange must survive in a socialist society for a considerable period as a guide to the efficient allocation and utilization of human and material sources”. For Marx there was no “must” about labour-time vouchers (and so more or less “equivalent exchange”); they were just one way of allocating consumer goods before free access could be introduced.