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

And Fromm Where . . . (1995)

From the January 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Born in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1900, Erich Fromm was one of the first to attempt a synthesis of Marx and Freud (Reuben Osborn had previously made such an attempt, in his Freud and Marx, in 1937, from a Stalinist viewpoint), and to develop a Marxian social psychology. Fromm was trained in psychoanalysis, and worked with the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt from  1930 to  1933, when he fled from Nazi Germany. He then went to America.

In his early essays, Fromm combined the dialectical and materialist elements in both Marx and Freud; and applied Marxian social psychology to interpret such phenomena as religion and the sado-masochistic roots of the authoritarian personality.

In 1941 Fromm wrote probably his best-known work, Escape From Freedom, published in Britain in 1942 under the title The Fear of Freedom. In it he asks if freedom is a psychological problem; and discusses in detail authoritarianism, destructiveness and conformity. He also deals with the psychology of Nazism. His conclusion is that “changing social conditions result in changes of the social character; that is, in new needs and anxieties . . . social conditions influence ideological phenomena through the medium of character; character, on the other hand, is not the result of passive adaptation to social conditions, but of a dynamic adaptation on the basis of elements that either are biologically inherent in human nature or have become inherent as a result of historic evolution”.

Fromm’s old friend, Herbert Marcuse, engaged in polemics with him during the 1950s, beginning with his Eros and Civilization. Marcuse accused Fromm of being a “Neo-Freudian revisionist”, and Fromm retaliated by calling Marcuse a “nihilist”. Fromm, however, argued that people must free themselves, whilst Marcuse, particularly in his One-Dimensional Man, looks largely to the “substratum of the outcasts and outsiders, the exploited and persecuted of other races and other colours, the unemployed and the unemployable”, when “they get together and go out into the streets, without arms” to lead the fight against “domination”.

In 1955 Fromm wrote The Sane Society in which he deals with the concept of alienation in some depth, as well as so-called education in capitalist society and what he calls the “roads to Sanity”, a sane socialist society. In 1949 he had already written Man For Himself: An Enquiry into the Psychology of Ethics, and in 1957 he wrote The Art of Loving – not a sex instruction manual, I might add. In 1965, Fromm published a collection of essays based on a symposium of various academics such as the Polish writer, Adam Schaff, Maximilien Rubel, T.B. Bottomore and others, titled Socialist Humanism.

Erich Fromm actively opposed the Vietnam war, and all other wars in which the United States became involved. He died in 1980. Of all his works, I have found his Fear of Freedom and The Sane Society the most useful, although all are worth reading.

Peter E. Newell

Blogger's Note:
From the same issue of the Socialist Standard, see also 'To Have or To Be . . . ' 

Anti-Trumpism (2019)

Pamphlet Review from the September 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

Resisting Trumpist Reaction (and Left Accommodation). Marxist Humanist Initiative. New York, 80 pages. 2018.

This is an odd pamphlet from a group entitling itself ‘Marxist’ in that it argues that workers should vote for a ‘centrist neo-liberal’ to stop Trump being re-elected in 2020 just as it says that they should have voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Their argument is based on the premise that ‘Trumpism’ is some sort of modern form of fascism and that Trump wants to replace political democracy in the US by an openly authoritarian regime. Political democracy in the US (such as it is) is not under threat, but even if it were the answer would not be to line up behind pro-capitalist politicians.

The pamphlet claims that the position Marx took up of supporting the North in the US Civil War and the separation of Ireland from Britain vindicates their position. Marx supported the one to hasten capitalist development in America and the other to undermine the power of the landed aristocracy in Britain, both issues long since settled by history and of no relevance today.

Their argument is that Marx also had in mind that both would free workers from ‘supremacist’ ideas – racism and anti-Irish prejudice. Maybe (not that it did) but this would not imply voting for the Democratic Party today. That’s not going to change anything. Rather would it suggest some other way of overcoming the prejudices of Trump voters. Such as a straightforward campaign to explain that their problems are caused by capitalism and that it is their interest to unite with other workers to establish the common ownership and democratic control of the means of life. A message that should be equally directed at Democratic Party voters.

Adam Buick

Decision-making in Socialism: How to Meet Needs? (2017)

From the March 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

In January – February 2017 the journals of the American leftist organization Solidarity (Solidarity and Against the Current) published a stimulating article by Sam Friedman entitled ‘Creating a Socialism that Meets Needs’. The author considers how production decisions might be made in a socialist society.

First a few words on Friedman’s political affiliation. His conception of socialism is broadly consistent with that of the World Socialist Movement (WSM), though he may have a different understanding of the road leading to socialism. He makes positive references to several works of Raya Dunayevskaya, who was Trotsky’s secretary during his Mexican exile but broke with him in 1939 over his insistence that the Soviet Union remained a ‘workers’ state’ (she regarded it as state capitalist, as we do). She then created a new school of thought that she called “Marxist Humanism’. Thus the author appears to belong to a tendency that has its origins in the Trotskyist branch of Leninism (Bolshevism) but has moved some distance away from Leninism and toward genuine socialist positions.

Consistent conceptions of socialism

Returning to Friedman’s article, why can we say that his conception of socialism is broadly consistent with ours? Above all, because he contrasts his own conception with the ideas of most other recent left-wing writers on post-capitalist society, who advocate a ‘market socialism’ in which worker-owned firms still hire labour and compete with one another to sell commodities on the market. He argues (as do we) that even if such a system were initially to differ in some ways from current forms of private or state capitalism it would inevitably degenerate into them.

In the author’s conception of socialism production is guided not by blind market processes but by decisions consciously and democratically made in the interests of the community as a whole. ‘Exchange’ is replaced by distribution. Aggregate output is no longer measured and assessed in terms of ‘growth’. All this corresponds to how the WSM views socialism or communism.

In contrast to Leninist doctrine, moreover, Friedman does not relegate this non-market and needs-oriented system to the remote future of a ‘higher stage’ of the new society – ‘communism’ as opposed to ‘socialism’. It is to be established immediately upon the conquest of power by the working class.

How to determine needs?

Like the WSM, Friedman states that production in socialism will be ‘for use not for profit’ and that its purpose will be to ‘meet human needs’. This, however, leaves unanswered the question of how to determine what human needs are.

Our literature frequently gives a simple answer to this question. Individuals will decide for themselves what goods they need. They will have free access to distribution centres where all desired goods are available in abundance. The advance of automation and robotics has made it technically possible to generate such abundance with a minimum of human labour. Elimination of the waste inherent in the money system will also play its part. (‘Money – a waste of resources’, Socialist Standard, July 2011).

On the other hand, we have also suggested that socialist society may for various reasons make a democratic decision ‘not to produce certain things even if quite a few people want them’ (‘Free access to what? Some problems of consumption in socialism’, Socialist Standard, July 2007).  Another article made a specific suggestion that socialist society might decide not to produce cars (‘Cars and socialism’, Socialist Standard, March 2013).

The author makes a similar point when he argues that ‘needs’ for specific kinds of goods will be met only after they have been ‘socially validated’ – that is, after all the possible negative as well as positive consequences of their production and consumption for people and for the environment have been assessed through the democratic institutions and procedures of socialist society. The needs of the community are to be determined socially and not just by aggregating the expressed needs of individuals.

Friedman’s emphasis on the social validation of needs is connected with his view of socialism in its early stages as a system operating under great stress. He does not view it as a society of abundance. This is not to say that he denies the potential for abundance. Rather, he foresees that by the time that socialism is established the human race will be embroiled in severe climatic, environmental and social crises. Top priority will have to be given to the tasks of coping with and gradually overcoming these crises. Enormous efforts will be required to halt and reverse global heating, care for masses of environmental and other refugees, and improve the living conditions of the world’s slum dwellers.

For a considerable period, therefore, the potential for abundance will not be fully realized. The author speaks only of achieving a ‘decency living standard’ for everyone. For instance, the choice of crops to grow will have to depend not primarily on what people prefer to eat but on how susceptible their cultivation is to drought, floods, and other extreme weather events (this example is ours).

A dual structure of decision making

Friedman’s conception of decision-making in socialism, like that of the WSM, consists of two elements. The first is the proceedings of elected councils at various levels, supplemented by procedures of direct democracy such as referenda. The second is the ‘requests’ (Friedman’s term) or ‘orders’ – the term used in the article ‘Supply and needs in socialism’ (Socialist Standard, July 1984) – that circulate within the network of production and distribution for material inputs required to maintain stocks of consumer goods at levels sufficient to meet individual needs.

For this sort of dual structure to work well it is necessary for the division of tasks between the two elements and their mode of interaction to be clear and effective. For example, the councils could concentrate on major decisions concerning the overall pattern of production facilities and supporting infrastructure. In order to prevent overloading of their agendas, fraught with the risk of neglect of their proper function, they must avoid entanglement in detailed decision making – although they might issue guidelines to assist those responsible for making detailed decisions.

Routine operational issues are better handled by direct consultation between workgroups. Provided that requests are reliably fulfilled, their circulation should achieve the desired result automatically. However, Friedman seems to envisage the councils functioning as clearing houses that receive and coordinate requests, assess how ‘reasonable’ they are, and find workgroups able and willing to fulfil them.

Reliable fulfilment of requests?

Why does Friedman assign this burdensome task to the councils? The key point is that he does not assume that workgroups can be relied upon to fulfil requests that they receive. A workgroup may deny a request because it disagrees with the associated production decision – he thinks it should have the right to do this – or for less legitimate reasons, in which case it might be subjected to ‘gentle community and perhaps organizational social pressure’ (whatever that may mean).

But how can the true motive be discerned? Surely all denials of requests would be justified by reference to the sole legitimate rationale – principled disagreement. For example, a factory might refuse to fulfil a request to change its output mix to meet new consumer preferences on the grounds that it considers the request ‘frivolous’ when its real concern is to avoid the inconvenience of reorganizing its operations.

By definition socialism is a society of free people. They cannot be compelled to do what they do not want to do, either by brute force or (as in capitalism) by threats to their livelihood. We have to assume that they will be sufficiently responsible and self-disciplined voluntarily to do whatever may be required to implement a democratically made decision, even if they disagree with that decision – unless, arguably, they have good reason to regard the decision as dangerously incompetent (if, say, a council has approved an unsafe design for a nuclear reactor). Otherwise socialism will have to acquire effective means of compulsion, but then it will be socialism no longer. This is one reason why socialism has to be established by a majority of conscious socialists.

Stefan

World Socialist Party of the United States

Necessity and Freedom (1959)

From the October 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

THE ETHICS OF MARXISM (5) (See Parts 1, 2, 3 & 4)

The bourgeois prejudice sees Marxism as a philosophy of iron necessitarianism; hence as a negation of freedom. The bourgeois prejudice prizes freedom and holds it to be among the rarest blooms of civilization. Asked to define freedom it may feel that such technical matters can be taken care of by the pundits and philosophers. From its own empirical standpoint, freedom is not so much something to be abstractly defined but concretely enjoyed.

Freedom and Society

The bourgeois prejudice, while it may talk of the need of social organisation, sees it nevertheless as a restraint upon the freedom of the individual, i.e., the bourgeois individual. Not being a Marxist the bourgeois individual fails to comprehend that the very social organisation which he regards as a restriction of free activity is the sole source of the freedom he possesses.

"Man is not born free" even though Rousseau has told him so. Freedom is something which men acquire and they only acquire it in and through there human organisation—society. Such freedom may not be absolute freedom—whatever philosophers mean by that—but within the context of human organisation it has inexhaustible possibilities for further development. For man there is no other freedom but through society—but it is enough.

If freedom means—and this is the only valid meaning once can give to freedom—the ability to bring about the ends man desires, what as distinct from the animal world enables them to effect this? The answer lies in their economic production. An economic production, quantitatively and qualitatively different from any animal economy. It is not the case that man is merely a productive animal among other productive animals, but that his production is social production, i.e., his labour has always involved cooperation with others of his kind.

Human labour is the fundamental condition for human existence. As Marx has it, it is: —

A process going on between man and nature, a process in which man through his own activities, initiates, regulates and controls the material reaction between himself and nature. He confronts nature as one of her own forces, setting in motion arms and legs, heads and hands, the natural forces of the body, in order to appropriate nature's production in a form adapted to his own wants. By thus acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. He develops the powers that slumber within him, and subjects them to his own control.

It is not merely that man's labour is collective labour, but a special co-ordinated labour carried out in cooperation with others of his kind. It is an activity both premeditated and planned. Thus man is able to produce his own conditions of life, and so produce his own history. Man, then, is different from other animals because he produces differently.

It was through this collective and coordinated labour process that speech—the practical form of human consciousness—developed as a means of communication in answer to the growing complexities of economic production. It was through this process of social labour that there came into being the rules of social organisation—ethics. Just as it was the need of greater manipulation of the material environment, in order to achieve greater advances in social organsation and production that science became an essential department of human activity. It is then through his economic production that man has been able to extend his inherited social knowledge, widen his social horizon, and produce the facilities for so doing. Herein lies man's freedom. The price of freedom has not been "unceasing vigilance" but unceasing economic production.

It is through his economic production that man has come to understand the nature of causality, i.e., in order to bring about certain consequences, he must know the conditions necessary for their successful fulfilment. Hence it is only by his greater understanding of the interconnection of processes and the laws which regulate them that he is able to more freely bring about the ends he desires. Causality is the consciousness of necessity, and the greater his grasp of the nature of necessity the greater is man's freedom to act in a planned and purposeful way. Had man been a creature passively reacting to his external environment he could never have grasped the nature of causality—necessity—nor freedom. Freedom is not as the bourgeois prejudice see it, the progressive realisation of an abstract idea but the progressive development of the means of life and socialisation of production.

The Bourgeois Prejudice and Freedom

But how does the bourgeois prejudice understand freedom? Through a knowledge of necessity? The answer is no. While the bourgeois prejudice may admit that the operation of the forces of production is subject to law and organisation, it confines it to the mere technological level. The bourgeois prejudice fails to see that the bourgeois economy is subject to laws and a determinative organisation. And that right across its version of freedom, necessity is writ large. Its philosophers and pundits may discuss the nature of freedom till the cows come home, but they never seriously attempt to locate the source from which bourgeois freedom, in fact all freedom stems—society. They may talk about the need of human values, but never see that bourgeois freedom is a class-conditioned freedom which falls far short of a truly human freedom. This is because its own social organisation is rooted in the class ownership of the productive forces and it is this which determines the level of existence both quantitatively and qualitatively for the vast mass of non-owners.

The crux of bourgeois freedom is its power to exploit and secure the unpaid labour by its ownership of the agencies of production. From this freedom all other freedom flow.

Bourgeois freedom exists in a system subject to laws and compulsions. Its own class conditioned character makes it necessary to produce not for the purpose of satisfying human needs but for securing the production and reproduction of surplus value on an over-expanding scale. This is the basic law of present production, the overriding necessity which must be obeyed if bourgeois freedom and privilege is to continue. Thus the class character of freedom means the freedom of the few and the unfreedom of the many.

The Limits of Bourgeois Freedom
But is the bourgeois himself really free? The answer is that he cannot be, because he himself lives in an unfree world. He cannot escape the consequences of the social set up which gives him his freedom. What is more, as the present order moves on, his own freedom becomes more restricted. More and more he is controlled by the world market, more and more does the need of ever-greater capital accumulation become more urgent. And across his world ever lies the shadow of future slumps, future war, and universal slaughter. Thus in a world of class antagonism, national and racial hatreds, "freedom" is forced to seek strange bed fellows. No doubt the bourgeois individual would like freedom from these things. But because he is unaware of the nature of the necessity from which his freedom stems he does not know where such freedom may be found. He thus, remains imprisoned in his narrow cell of class liberty.

The very necessity of the social system which produces the class freedom for the few produces at the same time the class unfreedom of the many. But the iron compulsion of capitalism which give freedom of a sort to the bourgeois deny access to a fuller life for the proletariat. Men, because they are men and not automatons, will chafe against the restrictions which prevent a fuller and freer life. And it is in their struggle and desire for a free and fuller life that the vast majority discover bourgeois freedom and a truly human freedom to be irreconcilable. But this will mean the abolition of private property institutions and free access by all to the productive forces. A social state of affairs in which man is no longer a mere unit carrying out the orders of others, but where each one has an equal role in furthering the common aim which he himself takes part in forming. But it is not enough for the many to desire freedom. They will have to grasp the nature of necessity wherein their unfreedom lies. Not to know this means that their desire for freedom will remain unfulfilled.

Marxism a Denial of Fatalism
Contrary to the bourgeois notion of freedom which sees it as personal liberty inhibited by social structures, the Marxist sees freedom as a choice based upon an objective appraisal of the data of a given situation. Only when events and processes are not known are we subject to iron determinism. Where knowledge of these matters is available then and only then are we free to follow a course of action dependent on the relevant information. To successfully carry out what one can do one must also know what one cannot do. It is when we know what is necessary that our purpose becomes effective and that is freedom. Not to know what is necessary in a given situation is unfreedom. When we think correctly we act correctly and only to that extent is man free. Thus in a scientific experiment or a surgical operation one cannot choose willy-nilly what to do. There are things that must be done and must not be done. In fact, if both are to be successful they must be governed by the objective facts of the situation. It is only by strictly conforming to what is necessary to be done can the aim and purpose in either case become effective. The more ignorant one is of the nature of causality, i.e., the necessity, the more important and determined one is. Effective action means then that we must have knowledge of the laws which operate in a given plane of reference. This does not mean we are independent of the determining circumstances out of which ideas and action arise, but it does mean that unless we understand the objective pattern of what is determined our thought and action will be non-effective.

The bourgeois prejudice does at times liken freedom to the jungle. Everybody does what is best for himself, although the bourgeois economy has government, bureaucracy and the armed forces to see that the jungle does not get out of hand. But the inhabitants of the jungle are not free. They know nothing of causality—necessity—and hence nothing of freedom. They cannot mutually cooperate and reap the advantages of a division of labour. They can only instinctively conform to the law of the jungle if they are to survive.

Only men can be free, And only the class which is now unfree can establish a freedom which is truly human — even though bourgeois individuals may come to associate themselves with the aims of the working class. But this unfree class must free itself from the ideology of bourgeois freedom and see the necessity of establishing a classless society and with it a classless freedom.

Man the measure of all things
Marxism does not believe in absolute free will or absolute determinism. Free will versus determinism is a bourgeois metaphysic it can dispense with. Neither does it hold to some simple, cause-effect relation. It sees nature—men's needs—society as a process of causal interaction. Along with Marx and Engels they hold the view that man is the responsible agent in all social change. It is man that wills even though he is born into a situation which is unwilled by him. But he must be informed of the objective milieu in which he finds himself. Only then can he act effectively on events and by changing them, change himself.

Men are not mere creatures of determinism, economic or otherwise. Because the only permanent thing about morality is man's demand for the better which itself is redetermined according to time and place. Man—and here we refer to unfree "class man" in the given social context—will always make fresh demands in the world and upon himself and thus produce the conditions necessary for his human needs. Men and ideas as we have said are the sole instrument for initiating social change. For any change to be effective, however, relevant knowledge of events is indispensable. The "must" and the "ought"—necessity and freedom—do not exist in a polarised anatagonism, but are indissoluble aspects of social reality. The charge against Marxism, posed by its critics, of fatalism and termed by them the "inevitability dilemma" thus falls to the ground.

Both in belief and action Marxism is a humanism. And it is the Marxist who seeks a world where truly human values prevail. Marxism sees man as a product of a social complex and at the same time as the producer of a more conscious society. This is the heart and essence of the Marxist ethic. In religious fantasy God made man the centre of the universe. In material fact capitalism has alienated him from it. Marxism shows how in a truly human sense man can yet become that.

We would remind Mr. Taylor, the author of the pamphlet Is Marxism a Humanism? that Marxism is not merely a method of expounding humanism. but a way of achieving it. As such it challenges more than favourable comparison with any other set of contemporary values.

Ted Wilmott

Human Nature and Morality (1959)

From the August 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Ethics of Marxism (3) (See Parts 1 and 2.)

After Marx died there grew up a legend that his theory of social causation was too narrowly mechanistic to provide accommodation for any sort of ethics. No doubt Marx, in combating the sentimental "moralising" of certain utopian contemporaries who called themselves "the True Socialists," had leaned so far backward as to give semblance if not substance for fathering on him views whose alleged paternity he would have disclaimed.

Socialism as a Humanism

The humanistic Socialism combated by Marx, like its contemporary counterpart, was a pseudo-political trend, inspired by the literati, philosophers and pundits. Moses Hess was for a time their most representative spokesman. For the early humanists as with the latter day ones, Socialism was not a question—of by bread alone—even though bread might be included. Socialism was primarily a question of moral values. Stress was laid on brotherly love, the dignity of man, concern for the individual, etc. From such political piety, Socialism came to be defined as—"the ethics of love." Then, Socialism took the guise of contemporary humanism. Now, humanism assumes the role of contemporary Socialism.

Like many of the views Marx fought against, the arguments of the True Socialists have turned up over and over again in a variety of social situations, tricked out each time in fresh frills and flounces, as if making their first bow on the stage of world history.

Humanism the Classless Ethic

Common to all shades of this humanistic approach, right up from Hess, Grun, Bernstein, Lansbury, to the current version, is the tenet that Socialism is not basically a question of economic interests but humanitarian ideals. Not a matter for the stomach, but an affair of the heart, and that a moral revolution must be the prelude to the social revolution. Not only, argue the humanists, have men altruistic feelings, but implicit in these feelings are the ideals of Communism. All that is necessary is to encourage and help promote these altruistic tendencies, to actualise the Brotherhood of Man based on universal love.

If the true nature of man is some residual and permanent quality of the human species, then every man is at least in embryo a Communist, able, given the right social milieu to lead with others of his kind the good life. But what the right kind of social conditions necessary for this are , the humanists all through the ages have been very vague about. Again, if the essence of man is his "true nature," then this human essence transcends all social systems and classes. Landed proprietors, capitalists, peasants and wage workers, are all equally capable of actualising their "true nature" into the Communist way of life. Thus, while many humanists have called for the abolition of all classes they have done so in the name of an abstract classless ethic. While they will admit that the class struggle itself is inevitably engendered by the competitive and egotistical character of Capitalist society, they nevertheless hold that it militates against the growth of humanistic ideals by giving emphasis to men's material differences instead of stressing their human sameness. Many humanists have even talked about the necessity of prosecuting the class struggle, but how can one ask men to give up their class beliefs and disregard class interests and then call upon one class to oppose another?

Human Nature as an Historic Variable

Humanism with its apotheosis of an abstract humanity becomes a form of religious fixation. That is why its idealised concepts and phrases become bulwarks of ideological defence of reactionary interests, especially clerical ones. The so-called Catholic Socialism, with its "rights" and "duties" of an alleged classless brotherhood of men has borrowed heavily from humanistic sources. Indeed, those whose Marx in the Communist Manifesto called feudal-Socialists, cashed in on the literature of the True Socialists to use as an attack on the German bourgeoisie.

The ethical assumptions of all varieties of what is called the humanistic Socialist view is based on the fixity of human nature. They share this view with theological theorists, the difference being that the former hold that this basic human nature can be placed in such absolute categories. Both Marx and Engels held that human nature was not an absolute constant but an historic variable. In fact, Marx and Engels always insisted that the "human nature" to which humanists and the clericalists appeal, each in their different ways, cannot serve as a guide to social organisation. It is not human nature which explains society, but society which explains human nature. There is no given human nature independent of time and place. There is only an historical human nature, that is a specific expression of human nature in a definite social context. To put it more precisely to understand the nature of the human, one must understand the nature of the society in which humans live. When we adopt such a criterion we discover that there is no immutable human nature, no homogeneous pattern to which a universal appeal can be made for the justification of concrete social questions. There can be no overall moral agreement or ethical unity in a social system split by class interests and antagonisms. Inability to understand this not only leads Humanists to talk of "man as he is" or "the human as such," but they identify this abstract category with concrete man as he exists in a given society. That is why in the Communist Manifesto Marx shows how "the True Socialists" proclaimed "the German nation to be the normal nation and the German Philistine the normal mind." An illusion, one might add, shared by the so-called schools of empirical sociology.

Class Demands v. Ethical Neutrality

Contrary to what humanists believe and apparently Mr. Taylor (Is Marxism a Humanism*), all ethics can be shown to have a class bias in a class system, and further there can be no genuine class ethic unless backed by class demands. That is why on concrete social issues one cannot appeal to man as such or "the normal human." Neither is there some ethically neutral tribunal to which opposing class rights can be impartially referred.

Capitalist society consists of buyers and sellers of labour-power. The worker as a seller of labour-power cannot assert his "right" to maintain or improve his living standards via ethical appeal or moral law. He can only seek to enforce his right through active organisation with others of his kind. Nor is the Capitalist under a moral obligation to waive or even remit in any way the unpaid labour of the worker—profit—back in the form of increased wages. Not only has the Capitalist a legal right to profit in the category of unpaid labour, but from his standpoint a moral right as well. Behind this moral right stands custom, tradition, religion, the classless ethic—and the State. As Marx points out in Capital, "There is here, therefore, an antimony, right against right, both equally bearing the seal of the law of exchange. Between equal rights, force decides."   

In a society such as Capitalism based on a permanent class conflict with its subsidiary conflicts, national and racial, there can be no genuine appeal to a neutral ethics. That is why Marx never invoked, Humanity, Justuce, Mercy, etc., as agencies for solving social struggle. For the same reason he rejected the abstract classless morality of Kant and Christ. Morality for Marx is not eternal or natural but active and social. Morality to be genuinely effective must be based on men's needs and in a class society on class needs. It is true that ethical ideals, like truth, duty, honour, the rights of men, etc., acquire a seeming eternal form, for all men profess to strive for these things. But social analysis shows while the forms of these ideals are the same, the nature of these ideals differ from social epoch to social epoch and from class to class. So if the question is posed whose truth? Whose duty? What rights of men? one will find in the answer a class standpoint. Crack the shell of a classless absolute ethic hard enough and the kernel of a class interest will be found. Marxist ethics do not invoke "Truth," "Duty," "Altruism," they demand a state of affairs where these things have a different content from the existing ruling morality. Marxist demands are then from the standpoint of the working population, a class demand and this incorporate a class ethic. It is the real needs of the working class which constitute the watershed of its class morality. Humility or self assertion, unselfishness or selfishness are themselves neither virtuous nor vicious. It is the actual social situation and the human needs of men which provide them with their truly moral quality. While the classless as well as conventional ethics might see the demands of the working class as a form of selfish assertion, it is only by such assertion that this class can secure for itself a decent existence and develop the possibilities for its own emancipation. To neglect the struggle which thus involves on the grounds of unselfishness and concern for other class individuals, weakens the moral content of its own demands and could only lead to servile, degrading and inhuman conditions for the vast majority.

For that reason the demand for the abolition of classes can only be a class demand, whose objective, because there are no other classes left to exploit, carries with it the demand for a classless humanity. Because it is a concrete class demand, engendered by a specific social situation, and capable of realisation, it carries with it the moral quality of the truly human. For the working class to be concerned to the exclusion of its own interests with the souls of its "enemies" is itself a policy of despair and its ultimate logic the perpetuation of a soulless system. That is why we reject the classless ethic of religious theory and the school of bourgeois morality with its intuitive ethics based on the private individual. In effect such moral views turn out to be a disguised defence of the status quo. Nor do we accept the monastic conception that men in order to achieve Socialism must first become saints if for no other reason having become saints it will not be necessary for them to achieve Socialism.

In the final article we shall seek to show that although the Marxist ethic is frankly a class ethic rooted in the character of social development it attains the stature of a humanism whose aims and ideas are loftier and more enduring than any current humanist model.

Ted Wilmott

Ends and Means (1959)

From the July 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

THE ETHICS OF MARXISM (2) (See Part 1 here.)

One of the difficulties of Mr. Taylor's pamphlet, Is Marxism a Humanism?* is that he never seems quite sure of what he means to say and consequently we are not quite sure that he is saying what he means. His indulgence—one might say over-indulgence—in dialectical and philosophical jargon adds to the difficulty.

A conclusion he reaches, if one can say he does anything so definite as that, is that Stalinism is a distortion of Marxism but nevertheless there are elements in Marxism which lend itself to this distortion. The class morality of Marxism, he contends, is defective. Negatively it assumes a mechanistic and amoral approach for the sake of the struggle. Positively, and this is the more truly Marxist view, he further adds, its goal, which is socialised humanity, is in conflict with its own attitudes of hatred to those who oppose or refuse to associate themselves with Marxist doctrine.

It is true that the debased political morality of communists include hard lying and physical and moral liquidation, and that "the end justifies the means" is integral to the Communist ethic. But this cannot be inferred from any elements in Marxist political doctrine. Marx never suggested the personal liquidation of capitalists. Neither did he adumbrate in any way, hatred of capitalists, as a political tactic. Hate, to be effective, must to a very large extent be personified. That, and the attributing of motives to individuals, has been an important part of communist propaganda technique. Against this, Marxism as a social theory has, perhaps that any other social theory, made motives an integral part of its doctrine. Indeed it was no other than Marx himself who stated in the preface to the first edition of Capital:

To prevent possible misunderstanding, a word. I paint the capitalist and landlord in no sense, couleur de rose. But here individuals are dealt with only in so far as they are the personification of economic categories, embodiments of particular class relations and class interests. My standpoint, from which the economic formation of society is viewed as a process of natural history, can less than any other make the individual responsible for relations whose creature he socially remains, however much he may subjectively raise himself above them.

For Marx it was not the negative emotion of hate but the positive value of moral indignation which constitutes the dynamic of the Marxist ethic. 

Love and Hate
As Marxists we do not hate those who are opposed to us. We do not even make bad intent or insincerity the basis of our evaluation of their ideas. It is the logic and claims of their views which we rigorously and consistently oppose. Not to do so would be a highly unethical practice.

But although hate is not and has never ben part of our ethic, we do not share Mr. Taylor's view which enjoins everybody to love everybody. Love and hate are not, as Mr. Taylor seems to think, abstract categories. It is only in a given historical context that it becomes possible to give them an ethical evaluation. Love, like any other sentiment, is a question of human relations whether it arises from sex, friendship, or mutual service and co-operation. In the vast impersonal organisation of capitalist production, where the ruling motive is ruling class profit, the impulse for genuine co-operative effort and mutual service finds no adequate human outlet. One cannot even talk about love as a positive social value between men and men in a world of buyers and sellers and where the buying and selling of men's productive capacities is the major social transaction out of which accrues private gain and advantage. Man it is true does not live by bread alone but he cannot live as truly man in a world of commodity production where the relations between men take on the aspect of relations between things.

Impoverishment
Perhaps history's greatest indictment of capitalism will not be what it has done to men economically but what it has done to them emotionally. No other social organisation has so impoverished man of his rich many-sided endowments. In the historic development of its private property relations and institutions, it has progressively stolen from human nature its powers and thoughts, tenderness and affections.

Little wonder that such deprivation made men emotionally susceptible to the fierce hates of nationalism, anti-semitism and race prejudice. That is why when Mr. Taylor talks of dealing with race-prejudice on its own terms, he fails to see that the division of labour which which alienates man from his full productive and intellectual capacities and from others of his kind, makes him a means instead of an end to the productive process with all the anti-social consequences which follow. Race prejudice, like other social prejudices, is not an isolated thing which can be treated on its own terms. Capitalism produces a vast range of prejudices which feed into each other. Given a system which offers no full development of men's productive powers and their mental, aesthetic and emotional corollaries, little wonder that unfulfilled personal development, finds compensatory outlets which often take on an anti-social character.

To call upon men to practice tolerance, goodwill and love as Mr. Taylor suggests is to utter hollow abstractions, in a world of class conflicts, national rivalries and hatred where subterfuge, chicanery and power politics are the normal way of conducting world affairs. Like the Christian's "God is Love" it is inhuman because in existing society it has no human roots.

That is why the sugary piety of abstract ethics which claim to transcend all social conflicts, serves to veil the objective nature of social reality. For that reason it is delusory, deceptive and dangerous.

Even when dealing with hatred and violence it is impossible to say, when considered in the abstract, whether they are good or bad. For one cannot say what hate or violence is in the abstract. These things, like love, can only be evaluated in a social context. Thus if people were being oppressed by a rapacious minority, hate for the oppressors would be a normal and human emotion. To love their oppressors would be an abnormal and inhuman feeling. If anyone suggested that love, non-violence and humility were the only answer to the social situation, it would be a servile and bad viewpoint. Such a viewpoint, however has always enjoyed considerable favour in the Christian ethics. If, on the other hand, hatred born of oppression produced violence, of a degree that led to a relaxation of oppression, then the means would have been consistent with the end, i.e. a lessening of the yoke of servitude.

The Marxist does not advocate violence or hatred because they are inconsistent with the end in view—a classless society of free labour and production for use. The end itself, however, determines the means.

Ends and Means
The function of the means is to overcome the obstacles which separate us from the end. Thus the real significance of any goal can only be understood in relation to the means necessary to attain it. An intelligent choice of ends can only be made when the consequence of the use of our means has been taken into consideration. If the end is a classless society consciously brought into being by the vast majority, then the means can only be helping to bring this consciousness to the required majority. Hate and violence are in this context inconsistent with these ends. To substitute then as means would mean to change the ends. That there can be no basic separation of ends and means is integral to Marx's doctrines.

Mr. Taylor's second point is what about those social elements who would have no share in a socialist society and against whom recriminatory methods would be adopted? This, he argues, is consistent with Marx's doctrine. One can only say, and this was also the view of Marx, that no one would be excluded from freely participating in socialist production. Neither did Marx say that certain social elements would be proceeded against in the event of the social revolution forthwith. He did say, and at that time there were pretty good reasons for so saying, that counter-revolutionary action would, in the interest of the vast majority, have to be vigorously dealt with, and that is quite compatible with democratic procedure.

But this is where we came in. Mr. Taylor never discusses Socialism at the Marxist level or indeed at any level. For him Russia remains the archetype of the social revolution. He appears to think that Socialism à la Communist and Trotskyist will be directed by an elite—social engineers who will blue print and shape the raw human potential into the manufactured Socialist article. On such premises, Mr. Taylor goes in for a lot of soul-searching as to what might happen to this raw material in the manufacturing process, and he discovers that it falls short of a true humanism. But his dilemma has no basis in Marx or Marxism, it is rooted in his own assumptions.

Socialism
Socialist society cannot begin until the vast majority of the dispossessed realise that capitalist property relations and the division of labour which arises from it are the real barriers which hamper and frustrate the development of the individual in the widest sense, out of the energising of their knowledge and experience they will act accordingly. Mr. Taylor is wrong when he thinks that Marxists, along with Marx, hold that the basic thing is the overthrow of capitalist relations and the devil take the hindmost. In a fundamental sense, the abolition of capitalist property relations is merely the necessary condition which makes possible the releasing of men's energies, capacities and will to re-integrate themselves in the new society.

But there will be no enlightened few, politically and economically directing the uninitiated many, because the many will have gained the social experience to direct society along the path it wishes to go. There may be in the building of socialist society much to learn, and some things to unlearn. One thing history will have taught, however, is that love, goodwill, the rights of the individual, can only have real meaning in an equalitarian and humanist society.

The Rights of Man
Mr. Taylor's concern for the individual seems to spring from the idealisation of the rights of man, as put forward by Kant and others. But the rights of man, no matter how idealistically they are framed, can never in a truly human sense be realised in capitalist society: only a socialist society can make the individual free, and this becomes possible because, in the self-conscious act of abolishing itself as a class, it abolishes all other classes. Thus, it makes possible a reversal of the historic process. In all previous epochs the individual can only assert himself through a social class. But the working class has no interests itself as a class. Their only interest is to abolish classes and become classless individuals whose free association constitutes socialistic humanity. Only in and through socialism will the individual truly come into his own. Freedom of the individual constitutes the social, one might say the moral basis of socialist society; as such it will be an enduring element in all further social development.

In spite of Mr. Taylor's wanting to fight for colonial freedom, his main position, in ambivalent contrast to these vague phrases, seems to be the advocacy of the classless ethics of Kant and Christ. We shall in another issue examine the social validity of such ethics and the place of ethics in the Marxist scheme of things and his assertion that there are more fundamental cleavages in society than class division.

Ted Wilmott

Marx on Alienation (1973)

From the September 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

The fact that Marx devoted a great deal of his energy in his younger days to the theme of alienation is a relatively recent discovery, dating from the publication in English in the 1950's of certain of his early texts, in particular the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, and later of the Grundrisse of 1857. There has followed something of a re-examination of Marx, with a shift in emphasis from his well-established economic works to the philosophical and humanist outlook of his earlier works.

Alienation can be defined as a state in which man fails to realize himself either as an individual or as a species—in which man is not himself. This necessarily involves a definition of what man's nature consists of and of what man's life ought to be. For Marx, what distinguishes man from other species is that man has the ability of self-creation. While an animal can never see beyond its immediate physical needs, and is governed entirely by instinct, man has the ability to produce in excess of these needs and to do so consciously, thereby creating his own environment:

The animal is immediately one with its vital activity. It is not distinct from it. Man makes his vital activity into an object of his will and consciousness. He has a conscious vital activity . . . It is this and this alone that makes man a species-being. (Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts).

Man's essence therefore lies in his conscious and creative activity in creating a world of objects:

Men themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence . . . In producing their means of subsistence, men indirectly produce their actual material life. (The German Ideology).

It can be seen, therefore, that Marx's ideas on the nature of man were in total contrast and opposition to the mechanical materialism whereby man is seen as an object of nature whose behaviour is determined in a one-sided way by sense-impressions received from the environment and is given no active rôle in creating the society in which he lives. Such a mechanical behaviourist doctrine was expounded by Feuerbach, in common with the ideas of the French Enlightenment. Here the real need was seen to be an Educator who was over and above society and who would change men's behaviour by creating the right environment to bring about a society based on harmony. Marx attacked this view: man, by consciously acting upon and transforming nature, also transforms himself. There is a two-way relationship between man and his environment, and between his consciousness and his activity. Therefore "circumstances are changed by men and the educator must himself be educated" (Theses on Feuerbach). Man makes his own history and makes himself in the process.

It is man's ability to labour, to objectify his creative capacities in the world of things, which makes him human. Under the capitalist system, the labour of the worker becomes a means to an end instead of an end in itself, an activity carried on not for the satisfaction and fulfillment it gives, but as a means of maintaining physical existence. Marx's critique of capitalism is not simply that the wage-worker is economically exploited, but that he ceases to be a human being.

Alienation, however, was a concept which had previously been used with regard to religion by Feuerbach, and Marx recognized this. For Feuerbach (in The Essence of Christianity), the powers and qualities which religion attributes to God are in fact those of man himself, objectified, and contemplated and revered as a distinct being. Man alienates himself from himself by making God the creator of the world, thereby destroying his own self-fulfillment as a species-being. In other words, man creates God in his own image. Feuerbach, however, only conceived of alienation in the religious sphere, failing to see that religious self-alienation is only part of a much wider social alienation. 

This state, this society produces religion's inverted attitude to the world because they are an inverted world themselves . . . Thus, the struggle against religion is indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion (Towards a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, Introduction)

For Marx, then, man's alienation was a result of the totality of social relations which exist under the capitalist mode of production. This alienation takes on four forms:

1. The alienation of the worker from the product of labour.
2. The alienation of the worker from the act of production.
3. The alienation of man from his species-being.
4. The alienation of man from man.

With regard to the first of these, the object which labour produces confronts it as an alien and hostile being exercising power over the worker who created it. Furthermore, just as in religion the more power man attributes to God the less he retains of himself, so in work the more the worker externalizes himself, the more powerful becomes the alien, hostile world he creates opposite himself. The greater the product of the worker, the less he is himself:

Labour establishes itself objectively, but it establishes this objectivity as its own non-being or as the being of its non-being—of capital. (Grundrisse)

Capital is accumulated dead labour, the objective manifestation of the fact that man is lost to himself. The very physical existence of the worker is a commodity, just like any other; "he has no existence as a human being, only as a worker" (Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts).

Alienation shows itself not only in the result, but also in the process of production. Because labour is external to the worker, he does not confirm himself in his work, but denies himself. "The worker only feels at home outside his work and in his work he feels a stranger". Labour is not the satisfaction of a need but only a means to satisfy needs external to the self. And the labour of the worker is not his own, but is somebody else's — the worker therefore belongs to somebody else in his labour.

The result of this is that man feels himself freely active in his animal functions — eating, drinking, procreating — while in his human function — labour — he feels himself to be an animal. It is in the working-over of inorganic nature and the practical creation of an objective world that man confirms himself as a species-being. Man duplicates himself in reality and contemplates the world he has created:

Therefore when alienated labour tears from man the object of this production, it also tears from him his species-life, the real objectivity of his species (Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts).

Man's productive activity represents his species-life; it is this which distinguishes man from animals. But the wage-worker works out of necessity, not choice; his species-life is turned into a means of maintaining his physical existence. Capitalism "alienates species-life and individual life and . . . it makes the latter into the aim of the former".

The alienation of man from himself, man from nature and man from the product of his labour is expressed in the relation between man and man. If the product of labour does not belong to the worker, but stands opposed to him as a hostile power, this can only mean that it belongs to another man. The alien power above man can only be man himself. Therefore "the relationship of the worker to his labour creates the relationship to it of the  capitalist . . . Private property is thus the product, result and necessary consequence of alienated labour" (Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts).

The supreme form of alienation under capitalism was for Marx the existence of money. Money is the universal commodity, alongside all other commodities. The mediating activity between man's products, and human activity, becomes the characteristic of a material thing, money, which is outside and above man.

Whereas man himself should be the intermediary between men, man sees his will, his activity and his relation to others as a power which is independent of him and of them. (Economic Studies from Marx's Notebooks, 1844-5)

Marx therefore saw Socialism as a society in which men could relate to each other as human beings. Under capitalism they only exist as workers or capitalists — political economy does not recognize any relationship outside this one. Man's alienation can only be ended with the abolition of private property, exchange and money — but Socialism (or Communism) was for Marx more than simply an economic abstraction, it was the creation of a genuinely human society, the beginning of real, human history. It involves "the complete development of human domination of natural forces, both those of so-called 'nature' as well as those of his own nature", "the absolute elaboration of his creative dispositions", "the development of all human powers as such . . . into an end in itself", "a situation in which man . . . produces his totality" (Grundrisse).

Socialism, while preserving the gains of previous historical development, is above all a society in which man realizes his full potential as a human being.

Brendan Mee

Further articles on Marx and his ideas from the same special issue of the Socialist Standard:

• Marxian Economics in the Modern World
• Men, Ideas and Society
• Marx In His Time

Marxism and Humanism (1959)

Book Review from the June 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

Is Marxism a Humanism? By Charles Taylor, ULR, 1s.

(See Part 2 here.)

This pamphlet by an editor of Universities and Left Review starts so many hares running that one wondered whether in the end it would turn out to be a kind of wild goose chase. We cannot say that in the pursuit, we have all Mr. Taylor's hares in the bag, but we did manage to catch one or two remarkable specimens.

To begin at the end. Mr. Taylor's conclusions are that as a humanism, Marxism is inadequate. A true humanism, he says, must regard men as ends in themselves, never as means to an end. On the question of end and means he believes Marx's position to be ambivalent. Marx's primary concern, he argues, "was the smashing of Capitalist relations." From this a Socialist society would then be built up and only when this was done would Socialist man or truly human relations, emerge. This is the classic Communist formula for the "proletarian revolution."

Given then the assumptions of an over-riding political authority—an elite—to put all this into effect, he continues, might not the ruling authority in pursuit of this end, be tempted to subordinate everything, including men, towards its attainment? Might not a state of affairs come about in such a situation where the maxim prevails — "the end justifies the means"? And might his not mean that men themselves could become merely a means to an end, which in turn brings about an end different from the one originally intended. Marx, thinks  Mr. Taylor, never resolved this conflict between ends and means which involves a contradiction between Marxist practice and Marxist ethics.

This, we believe, boils down the essence of Mr. Taylor's vague and diffuse treatment of the subject.

"The Revolution Betrayed"

Mr. Taylor offers Soviet Russia as the classic example of where this sort of thing happened. His Marxist motif has the orchestral background of—"The revolution betrayed." It seems we are asked to believe that what took place in Russia in 1917 and the projects put through by the Bolsheviks, would have met with Marx's approval. Mr. Taylor assures us that there are elements of Marxism in Stalinism and further these "elements" provide the latter with a theoretical justification.

Finally, Mr. Taylor believes that Marxism fails as a humanism because of its insistence on class loyalties. Thus generates hostility towards those who do not share them and leads to the dictum that those who are not with us are against us. In this way, he argues, barriers arise between different sets of men. He urges that we must strive to enter into full human relationships with all men, irrespective of differences of outlook, attitudes and presumably interests. Unless we are able to do this, he thinks, no worthwhile social future is possible.

His own recipe for true humanism consists of the time honoured ingredients, universal good will, brotherly love and the fullest expression of the individual. These are the ethical foundations for building the New Jerusalem. For the class ethics of Marxism he offers the classless ethics of Christ and Kant.

Over a century ago there came into being an order of a kind of Socialist monkhood whereby it was proposed by example, incantation and prayer to chant the way to the promised land. In this year of grace we seem to be witnessing its revival.

We cannot, of course, accept the assumption that a Socialist society was in process of being built up in Russia. Our views on what took place in Russia are too well known to require a detailed exposition here. What we can say is that when Lenin as early as 1921 blurted out that "State Capitalism exists in Russia," he blurted out the truth. When he added "State Capitalism in the interest of the working class is Socialism," he blurted out the clumsy but classic lie of all labour apologists. State Capitalism, it was in Lenin's time, in Stalin's time and State Capitalism it still is.

The Alienation of Labour

Mr. Taylor tells us that Marx at least wanted to abolish a state of affairs which has brought about what he, Marx, called "the alienation of labour" or to state it another way, the excessive division of labour which is an integral feature of the extant productive system. A division of labour which has such crippling effects on the working capacities of men and their productive potentialities and which disintegrates human personalities by transmutation into a single function and imposes on labour an exclusive activity. That is true. Above all things Marx and Engels insisted that this system with its division of labour must be replaced by a social organisation where there will be "no exclusive circle of activity and where it will be possible to engage in a many-sided productive activity and to do one thing today and another tomorrow." So important is this question of the alienation of labour to the assumptions of Marxist ethics that we propose to deal with it more fully in the next issue.

What we can say here is that of the "alienation of labour" is the hall mark of Capitalist production, then "re-unification of labour" will be the characteristic of Socialist production. It was, however, the task of Lenin and Stalin via the instrumentality of the dictatorship to accentuate and accelerate this alienation of labour; to attempt to develop at breakneck speed the division of labour essential to Capitalist production. Not to integrate the human personality in the productive process, but to disintegrate it. Lenin's formula for the alienation of labour was the ironic equation, American efficiency plus electrification—Socialism.

Social Revolution

In their attitude to the role and function of the working class, Marx and Engels were worlds apart from Lenin and Stalin. Marx and Engels declared that the social revolution could only be the self-conscious movement of the self-conscious majority. Lenin believed that it would be directed by "the green table intellectuals." Marx said, "to fit the workers for their historic task of inaugurating the new society would require years of patient educational work." Lenin on the other hand stated that "If we wait for the people to understand Socialism we shall wait a thousand years." Engels tell us, "Marx and I rely on the intellectual maturity of the working class to achieve their emancipation." Lenin, on the contrary asserted, "the proletariat can never advance beyond a trade union consciousness."

It is true Marx in the Gotha programme talked about the lower and higher phases of Communist society. Of the latter, Engels tells us, "a really human morality which transcends class antagonism and their legacy in thought becomes possible only at a stage of society which has not only overcome class contradictions but has even forgotten them in practical life," and there is nothing wrong with this view. Both Marx and Engels looked forward to the expediting of a state of affairs, where "the enslaving subordination of individuals under division of labour and the antithesis between intellectual and manual labour had vanished" and where "labour had become not merely a means to live but the primary necessity of life itself."

What a tragic travesty has the so-called Socialist revolution in Russia made of Marx and Engels conception—of the truly human condition of the species. Once long ago Lenin in his more indulgent moods, spoke of "the withering away of the state in a Socialist society." It is not the state which has withered away in Russia—only the concept has withered.

Marx and Engels were uncompromising equalitarians. "From each according to his capacity to each according to his needs" remains the greatest ethical contribution to the humanistic ideal. Not only did they share the humanitarian ideals of the great Utopians of the past, they did more, they joined Utopia to science.

Soviet "Equalitarianism"

Lenin and certainly not Stalin were never unqualified equalitarians. It is true Lenin in the early days of the revolution laid down in principle that no State official should receive a higher income than the average wage of a competent worker. But even so, Lenin was also concerned with the fact that he did not want to see the newly formed State apparatus degenerate into a kind of bureaucracy which he was apprehensive about.

Actually the demand for a much more drastic equalitarianism came "from below," a demand which Lenin resisted. It was under the New Economic Policy introduced by Lenin that inequality of remuneration became more marked and under Stalin's "Socialist" regime these inequalities became even more glaring than those of Western Capitalism. It was finally left to Stalin a few years later to denounce equalitarianism as "a petty bourgeois deviation" and a crime against the State. After that the mass of workers were indoctrinated into the belief that inequality of remuneration was a fundamental Socialist principle.

Little wonder that the aging Fabians, Mr. and Mrs. Webb, set the seal of Fabian approval on Russia in their work, "Soviet Communism" and Bernard Shaw declared Lenin's N.E.P. "to be the carrying out of Fabian policy."

We will not apologise for spending so long a time in discussing the antithetical differences between Marx and Engels and the Soviet ideologists who spoke in their names. Because Mr. Taylor has taken to task what he believes to be the contradictions involved in the Marxist ethics and its inadequacy as a humanism and has at least in part sought empirical demonstration of his theme in Soviet practices, we felt it necessary to clear the ground for assessing his reasons for the failure of Marxism to achieve a true humanistic level. For that reason we shall in the next issue attempt to show that although the Marxist ethic is a class ethic it in no way conflicts with the aims and ideals it sets out to achieve—the truly human society or socialised humanity.

Ted Wilmott

Erich Fromm and Free Access (1972)

From the June 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

Those confronted with the Socialist proposition that goods and services should be freely available for people to take according to their needs often react by claiming that this wouldn't work because, first, nobody would want to work and, second, people would grab more than they needed so that shortages would again develop.

There are simple answers to these objections. First, the threat of starvation is not, and certainly should not be, the incentive to work. If some work is so unpleasant that nobody would freely choose to do it then it ought to be done by machines or not at all. Second, people only tend to be greedy and to grab in conditions of scarcity. If food and clothing were freely available in abundant quantities people would soon adjust to taking only what they needed just as they do now with tap water.

We are not alone in putting these arguments. For instance in 1966 Erich Fromm, the psychoanalyst and writer, wrote a short essay in a book called The Guaranteed Income. Next Step in Socioeconomic Evolution? edited by Robert Theobald. This is the idea that, in order to maintain consumer demand in the face of the mounting unemployment some expect automation to bring, every American citizen should be guaranteed a minimum income. This is in fact a futile proposal to try to reform capitalism so that it can cope with abundance. Fromm wasn't too keen on the idea, but did answer the possible criticism that a guaranteed income might reduce the incentive to work. He wrote:

“I believe, however, that it can be demonstrated that material incentive is by no means the only incentive for work and effort. First of all there are other incentives : pride, social recognition, pleasure in work itself, etc. Examples of this fact are not lacking. The most obvious one to quote is the work of scientists, artists, etc., whose outstanding achievements were not motivated by the incentive of monetary profit, but by a mixture of various factors : most of all, interest in the work they were doing; also pride in their achievements, or the wish for fame. But obvious as this example may seem, it is not entirely convincing, because it can be said that these outstanding people could make extraordinary efforts precisely because they were extraordinarily gifted, and hence they are no example for the reactions of the average person. This objection does not seem to be valid, however, if we consider the incentives for the activities of people who do not share the outstanding qualities of the great creative  persons. What efforts are made in the field of all sports, of many kinds of hobbies, where there are no material of any kind !”

 and

“It is a fact that man, by nature, is not lazy, but on the contrary suffers from the results of inactivity. People might prefer not to work for one or two months, but the vast majority would beg to work, even if they were not paid for it.”

Precisely. The guaranteed income would, however, reduce the incentive to be exploited by an employer — which of course is why it will never be introduced.

Fromm went on to propose what he considered a better idea: "the concept of free consumption of certain commodities".

“One example would be that of bread, then milk, and vegetables. Let us assume, for a moment, that everyone could go into any bakery and take as much bread as he liked (the state would pay the bakery for all bread produced). As already mentioned, the greedy would at first take more than they could use, but after a short time this 'greed-consumption' would even itself out and people would take only what they really needed.”

Despite his good refutation of the objection that free goods and services would lead to widespread grabbing, Fromm is still thinking in capitalist terms as can be seen by his reference to the State paying the bakery money.

Fromm regards himself as a socialist, but is really only a member of the reformist Socialist Party of America. But what we can't understand is why, having taken the argument this far, he doesn't go all the way and advocate Socialism where, on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production by all the people, wealth would be produced in abundance and voluntary, enjoyable work and where money would be abolished with everyone having free access to what they needed to live and enjoy life. After all, he has no argument to put against this.