Piketty for Progressives 2

Thomas Riggins

“Introduction” to Capital in the Twenty-First Century— Part 2

2. Malthus, Young and the French Revolution 

This section is not particularly enlightening as it is mostly just descriptive. We are informed that Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) wrote his 1798 work "Essay on the Principle of Population" based on few sources, one of the most important of which was a travel diary that the British agronomist Arthur Young (1741-1820)  published of his trip to France (1788-89) where the extent of poverty he saw led him to fear a revolution was in the offing. Malthus was led to believe the social troubles facing Europe as a result of the French Revolution and the changing economic conditions of the day were caused by overpopulation. Too many poor people were being born and not enough food could be produced to feed them. His solution was to advocate the end of any kind of welfare aid to the poor (let nature take its course) and to discourage their procreative activities. Piketty says we cannot understand the extreme views of Malthus without understanding the role that fear played in a Europe experiencing revolution, fast economic changes, and the rapid increase of population and poverty occasioned by the Industrial Revolution. He stress that the theoretical work of the time was based on limited sources due to scanty record keeping by modern standards. 

3. Ricardo: The Principle of Scarcity 

Piketty says in retrospect we might make fun of the dark prophecies the nineteenth century  thinkers made concerning the dire consequences that the development of the class nature of capitalism and the consequent unequal distribution of wealth seemed to indicate.  He seems to think “these prophecies of doom” did not happen  but were justified by the “traumatic” changes the development of capitalism and the Industrial Revolution engendered. David Ricardo (1772-1823) and Karl Marx (1818-1883) “the two most influential economists of the nineteenth century” both had apocalyptic views of the future. Ricardo thought the wealth of society would be monopolized by the owners of land, Marx by the industrial capitalists. In this section Piketty discusses Ricardo’s views. 

Ricardo's interests were in the price and rent of land and were expressed in his 1817 book "Principles of Political Economy and Taxation." He had few statistics to work with, Piketty says, but he understood contemporary capitalism and further developed the theories of Malthus. As population grew the demand for land (for agriculture especially) would go up and so would its price and consequently the amount that could be charged as rent.  

Eventually the landowners would be getting the lion's share of the wealth expressed as income and the rest of the people would be getting less and less. Unless taxes on land were radically increased to readdress this income imbalance social stability would collapse and the spectre of the French Revolution would arise to haunt Europe. 

Piketty points out that Ricardo was wrong because of technological and industrial developments that took place after his time that diminished the role of agriculture in the economy. Nevertheless, Ricardo's views on the role of "scarcity" were insightful as they indicated that the prices of certain commodities (goods and services) could get out of hand and disrupt society, especially in the present age when the global economy is coordinated and kept in balance by an international pricing system.  "The problem is," Piketty says, "the price system knows neither limits nor morality." 

Here is a classic example of the problem of reification discussed by Marx in the first volume of Capital in the chapter on the fetishism of commodities. Something created  by human beings takes on an "independent" existence and enthralls its creators who treat it as as some kind of  self-subsistent entity whose laws we are subject to and incapable of changing or abolishing. 

Scarcity could still be a problem in our century. But there is a way to contain problems of scarcity-- namely supply and demand. Piketty says if prices get too high because of lack of supply, then people will not buy  and the demand will lessen causing the prices to fall. But what about a problem with the food supply? Not enough food, sky high prices, people can't buy-- but will the demand for food lessen? It would not. It's possible that food purveyors would end with a wholly disproportionate and unequal share of social wealth in their control.  Piketty thinks in this sort of situation a Ricardian Apocalypse is theoretically possible. However, he doesn't think it will ever come to this but will put off further consideration of this problem until later in his book where his treatment "will be more nuanced.” 

4. Marx: The Principle of Infinite Accumulation 

By the time we get to Marx in the second half of the nineteenth century (Capital Vol. I came out in 1867) the main problem was understanding how industrial capitalism actually worked and what was responsible for the immiseration of the  industrial working class [and not just it alone]—“the most striking fact of the day.”

 During this period, right up to World War I, Piketty says, the evidence indicates that there was growing income inequality with the ruling class expropriating more and more of the social wealth created and leaving less and less for the working people and others in society to share. He says this “endless inegalitarian spiral” only came to  an end due to the shocks of the World War and only these shocks could have halted the growing inequality let loose by the Industrial Revolution. [One of the biggest shocks was, incidentally, the Russian Revolution and the forces of social consciousness it unleashed on the planet— still somewhat reverberating throughout the world.] 

Piketty dates the birth of  the “first” movements of socialism and communism to the 1840s (actually there were even earlier movements dating back to at least the seventeenth century) when people began noticing that while capitalism was working for the capitalists, enriching them, the working people were not benefiting from the system and were subjected to the same kind of miserable living conditions as they had in the pre-capitalist past.  

Enter Karl Marx who sets himself the task of explaining how capitalism works and why it keeps the working people is such miserable conditions (relatively speaking). Piketty says Marx built his system (expressed in Capital ) on two principles he took from Ricardo— the principles of the price of capital and of scarcity. It is true that Marx had great respect for Ricardo but he actually rejected Ricardo’s price theory, and replaced it by his own original theory developed out of his concept of labor power and surplus value based on socially necessary labor time. I don’t see how Ricardo’s views on “scarcity” played any positive role in Marx’s system as Ricardo’s theory was developed in the context of his misconceived theories of agricultural rent. 

Pekitty also says that Marx developed a “principle of infinite accumulation” in which he showed “the inexorable tendency for capital to accumulate and become concentrated in ever fewer hands, with no natural limit to the process.” Piketty then says this is the foundation of his “prediction of an apocalyptic end to capitalism.”  Either the capitalists will fall into violent conflicts over their inability to keep accumulating (it isn’t infinite after all) OR the workers will revolt because “capital’s share of national income would increase indefinitely.” 

Yes capital must continue to accumulate to survive in Marx’s system, but there are natural limits— namely saturating the market both domestically and eventually world wide. It was these conditions that led to monopolization, colonialism, and imperialism and brought about the apocalyptic twentieth century in which the capitalists managed to set off, two world wars, ignite both the Russian and Chinese revolutions, destroy the lives of hundreds of millions of people and usher us into the present century in which they have instigated violent conflicts in Europe, Africa and Asia anyone of which could set off a more general war. The instability of capitalism is as great as it ever was and poverty is spreading everywhere (except mostly in those countries still maintaining communist governments). Therefore, Piketty’s conclusion that  “Marx’s dark prophecy came no closer to being realized than Ricardo’s” is considerably premature— the game is still afoot. 

This introduction has a strange reading, I think, of twentieth century history— it improves later in the book. He doesn’t see World One I as part of Marx’s Apocalypse but admits a communist revolution did break out in Russia “the most backward country in Europe.” However, “fortunately for their citizens” the advanced European countries “explored  other, social democratic, avenues.” I don’t know how advanced Spain and Portugal were after the war (WWI) but I don’t think Franco or Salazar qualify as social democrats, nor do Hitler, Mussolini, or Pétain. By and large I don’t think the citizens of the “advanced” countries had a very fortunate century. 

There are two other comments on Marx in this section which are unjustified. The first is that he “neglected the possibility of durable technological progress and steadily increasing productivity” as “counterweights to accumulation and concentration of private capital.” Marx did not “neglect” either technological progress or increased productivity but he saw them not as counterweights but as the results of the accumulation and concentration of capital.  

The second unjustified comment is that Marx did not devote much time to speculating about how a post capitalist society would be structured. This is meant to be seen as a failing on Marx’s part but that would be an error. Marx did not think it a good use of his time to engage in utopian speculations on the future but he did study the example of the Paris Commune of 1871 and discussed the economic and political actions that would have to be undertaken in a post capitalist society (“The Civil War in France”) and his ideas were elaborated on later by both Engels and Lenin. There is a Marxist literature on this subject to which Piketty could have referred. 

Piketty ends this section by saying Marx is still important to study and that his principle of “infinite accumulation” is still at work in the twenty-first century but not as “apocalyptic” as he thought. But this is faint praise and seems to miss the point of what accumulation is for Marx and why Marx is still important. 

Piketty says too much accumulation of wealth when population and productivity growth rates are low can lead to social disequilibrium. But Marx isn’t talking about accumulation as too much private wealth. When Marx says “Accumulate, Accumulate! That is Moses and the prophets” [Capital I c. 24, section 3] He means that the wealth accumulated is to be reinvested in production because capital must expand itself continuously or perish. By reinvesting the capital people are put to work the economy expands and more accumulation is generated to do it all over again (until a crisis due to capitalism’s contradictions.) Marx is still important because this movement of capital is still going on and still creating crises (we are in one now) and the spectre haunting Europe has not been exorcized. 

Part III of the this introduction will continue with Piketty’s section “From Marx to Kuznets, or Apocalypse to Fairy Tale.”  

Piketty for Progressives

Thomas Riggins

"Introduction" to Capital in the Twenty-First Century-- Part 1

Piketty opens his book by telling us the questions he wants to answer are two diametrically opposed queries stemming from the works of Karl Marx on the one hand and Simon Kuznets on the other. From Marx-- does capitalism inevitably lead to the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands ?  From Kuznets -- does the later development of capitalism lead to less inequality and more social harmony between the classes? A third question is what lessons can we learn and apply to our present century from a study of wealth development since the eighteenth century?

Piketty admits that the answers he gives to these questions are "imperfect and incomplete." Now if you write a book whose conclusions are imperfect and incomplete you are inviting a lot critical commentary not only from the Left but  from the Right as well. In this respect the reception of his book has not been disappointing.  He thinks however his research provides a "new" way to understand the inner workings of capitalism. We shall see.

He believes that current bourgeois economic "science" has become so sophisticated  that the "Marxist Apocalypse" can be avoided. This is, however, an article of faith and no argument is advanced to substantiate this claim. He doesn't exactly say what the "Apocalypse" is but I rather think it refers to the collapse of the capitalist system and its replacement with a socialist economic order. Marx did give an argument for this outcome based on his analysis of the inner contradictions of the capitalist system. This analysis is in his work Capital which book Piketty mentions in passing only three times in his own book (according to the index, but I counted more) giving no indication that he read Marx's work.

Piketty admits that if/when capitalism provides a greater return on capital than it does on income and economic growth "then it automatically generates arbitrary and unsustainable inequalities that radically undermine the meritocratic values on which democratic societies are based." This is quite a statement. It assumes we live in democratic societies where a person's social condition is based on merit. This is I think demonstrably false for the politically corrupt oligarchical societies of the West with which Piketty is concerned. Race, ethnicity, family background, wealth, availability of opportunities are the actual factors that determine the social conditions of people living in capitalist democracies not "merit." To say our societies are based on "values" that are plainly non-operative beyond the verbal level is no way to go about understanding reality as if effects most people.

He thinks there are ways democracy can "regain" its power over capitalism. He says "regain" because he thinks these negative features of capitalism were operant in the nineteenth century but were not so dominant in the twentieth (!) but seem "likely" to come into force in the twenty-first century. There are few, if any, people on the Left, I think, who view the twentieth century as a success story for meritocratic democracy (except maybe in a few isolated pockets).

Well, I don't want to jump to conclusions so let’s look more closely at the introduction to his book:

A Debate Without Data?

In this section Piketty points out that previous  theories about wealth and inequality have been based on a narrow set of facts that have been appealed to support many different interpretations. He is going to explain his sources and how he and his associates have expanded the amount of data available to researchers.

He also makes some comments in this section that reveal an interesting set of subtextual assumptions of which progressives  (especially Marxists) should be aware.  For instance, inequality is, he says, visible to many kinds of people and many different theories as to its causes flourish due to inadequate data. He tells us peasants and nobles, capitalists and workers, and bankers and non-bankers  [and we might add “slaves and masters” to the mix as well-tr] all see the world differently. Each group sees different “aspects” of reality and this conditions their outlook on justice and injustice. “Hence there will always be a fundamentally subjective and psychological dimension to inequality, which inevitably gives rise to political conflict that no purportedly scientific analysis can alleviate.”

One of the purposes of Marx’s Capital was to show just what nonsense this is and that class struggle and exploitation have objective roots in external reality and can be scientifically understood. Political conflicts between workers and capitalists (just as slave rebellions and peasant uprisings) are not the result of subjective psychological problems due to feelings of oppression because the “oppressed” group only sees its own “aspect” of reality. They are objective historical facts that can be scientifically studied and remedied by a correct understanding of the relations of production and distribution and the mode of value creation within a given society and Marx presents arguments to support his conclusions rather than just stating them as matters of fact.

All sides are represented in [bourgeois] democracy, Piketty thinks, and since there is no scientific explanation for the resolution of the political problems engendered by the subjective psychological reactions of different groups to their experiences of inequality we can conclude “Democracy will never be supplanted by a republic of experts— and that is a very good thing.” Piketty’s value judgment is, of course, a subjective psychological reaction to his understanding of the nature of inequality.

Piketty does see an important role, however, for the class of “experts” to which he himself belongs. While, he maintains, they cannot provide a solution to the  violent  political conflicts that inequality naturally engenders, they can do research which “will inform democratic debate and focus attention on the right questions.” Piketty says intellectuals such as himself “have the good fortune to have more time than others to devote themselves to study (and even to be paid for it— a signal privilege).” Yes, but who is the paymaster?

Before going into detail on his new methods he wants to present an historical review of how the problems of inequality were dealt with in the past, and so we move on to Part 2 of this review and will resume with the section entitled:

Malthus, Young, and the French Revolution

Engels Comments on the Paris Commune (State & Revolution Chapter IV V.I. Lenin)

Lenin on the State and Revolution: The Paris Commune (1871)-- Comments by Engels
Thomas Riggins

This is a review of Chapter IV of Lenin's State and Revolution (1917, 1918). The chapter is entitled "Supplementary Explanations by Engels" and is divided into six parts. These parts build on Marx's definitive analysis of the Commune and are based on later observations made by Engels which Lenin discusses separately.

1. The Housing Question
This question deals with the provision of housing for all members of society. In reflecting on how the Commune dealt with this problem Engels explains how a working people's state differs from the bourgeois state on this issue. The capitalist state relies on "supply and demand" to take care of the housing problem and as a result some have no housing and others have greater housing resources than their needs.

Engels maintains that any large city already has the housing space necessary to solve any housing shortage-- if only it were used "rationally." Since "people before profits" is a motivational axiom of a people's (socialist) state the rational solution for such a state would be the expropriation of all housing space and its redistribution on the basis of need.  A bourgeois state would be incapable of such an action.

The worker's state would own the housing stock [and all other major instruments of labour] and, at least during the transition period to full socialism (i.e., communism) would set reasonable and fair rents. Thus Engels wrote that, "The actual taking possession of all instruments of labour by the working people therefore by no means excludes the retention of rent relations" (The Housing Question, 1872).

This contrasts with anarchist views (Proudhon) that suggest that the workers will become individual owners of capitalist housing stock rather than owning it as a class through their state (again, at least in the transitional period).  Free housing (housing without rent) will have to await the "withering away of the state." Marxism has always maintained that the abolition of classes and the abolition of the state are concurrent processes.

2. Polemic Against the Anarchists
The definitive position of Marx and Engels  on the state with respect to the anarchists, Lenin says, took place in 1873 in a series of articles published in the Italian press. Die Neue Zeit got around to publishing them in 1913. They are still relevant today.

Marx did not disagree with the anarchists (Proudhonists and others) about the need to abolish the state along with the abolition of classes. It was the timing that was at issue. The anarchists wanted to abolish the state practically overnight the day after the revolution, while Marx and Engels thought the state still had a role to play during the transition from capitalism to socialism and then to communism. Marx, according to Lenin, did not think "the workers should deny themselves the use of arms, the use of organized force, that is, the use of the state, for the purpose of 'breaking down the resistance of the bourgeoisie.'" The Communists and the Anarchists have the same aim-- but the Communists want the use of the state "for a while."

The problem of the transition is exceedingly difficult. The Soviets had the use of the state for over 70 years and yet were overthrown. The lessons of how they were able to last so long and how they were overthrown have yet to be learned.

Engels polemicized against the anarchists on the issue of their antiauthoritarianism. Engels used to give arguments such as can a ship's captain be authoritarian when the ship is in danger. Would you obey Sully Sullenberger  if he was your pilot and the airplane was in trouble? These are clearly examples of justified acts of authoritarian behavior. The anarchist response was that  these individuals were given "commissions" by the people not "authority." This led Engels to remark, "These people think that they can change a thing by changing its name." Unfortunately this name changing "magic" is still at work. Secretaries of War have become Secretaries of Defense, yet their job descriptions  have remained the same. Romani ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.

Engels said that if the anarchists had been realistic about the need for authority to be given to specialists when in modern industry and production it was inevitably, within limits, needed it would have been possible for the Marxists and anarchists to work together but "they fight passionately against the word." Still in our own day we see political discussions degenerate into fights over words and the concepts at issue lost sight of.

The anarchists want to abolish authoritarianism as the first act of the revolution, Engels says and he asks "Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution?"  Fear, intimidation (terror if you like) and rifles, bayonets and canons are used to impose the will of one class on that of another. The Paris Commune would "not have lasted a day" if had not applied violence and force against the bourgeoisie. Those advocating the abolition of authoritarian measures the day after the revolution either don't know what they are talking about or are spreading confusion: "In either case they serve only the interests of reaction." Lenin says Engels used the experience of the "last revolution" (the Paris Commune) to arrive at his conclusions. That was a long time ago. Have the times changed?

3. Letter to Bebel
In March of 1875 Engels wrote a letter to the German Socialist leader August Bebel in which he criticized the German socialists political document known as the Gotha Program which had been adopted that same year at their founding congress. In this letter, Lenin says, one will find one of the most remarkable observations on the state ever made in any of the works of Marx or Engels. No serious Marxist can ignore it without running the risk of talking nonsense about the nature of the state and the road to take to socialism.

In any transition from capitalism to socialism it is unlikely that the capitalist class will fail to put up resistance to the assumption of power by the working classes. When the workers do come to power the bourgeois state will fall into their hands and they must immediately begin to reshape it to reflect the interests of the working people rather than the exploiters. As socialism grows this state will gradually wither away and while it is doing so it will have a transitional existence.

It must be remembered that the function of any state is to enforce class rule so that the abolition of the state is a function of the abolition of classes. The state does not exist to guarantee freedom but to repress one class in the interests of another. The government of the U.S., for example exists, on the one hand, for the purpose of repressing working people, national minorities, immigrants, women, racial and ethnic minorities, etc., in so far as the interest of these groups coincide with those of labor, and the other hand for enhancing and consolidating the power of the one percent (the leaders of industrial and financial capital, the big corporations, the military industrial complex, those whose income derives from privatization, etc.

Engels said that as long as the working people need to have a state "it needs it not in the interests of freedom, but for the purpose of crushing its antagonists; as soon as it becomes possible to speak of freedom, then the state, as such, ceases to exist."

Engels further suggests that the word "state" be replaced by the word "community" [Gemienwesen]. Lenin says that the Russian communists (the dreaded Bolshevik bugbears that some of our present day "progressives" appeal to Thomas Piketty to protect us from) are intent in learning from the works of Marx and Engels. Lenin prefers the French word "commune" to Gemienwesen (for technical linguistic reason we need not go into) and says Engels most important comment in his letter is, with reference to the 1871 French Commune: "The Commune was no longer a state in the proper sense of the word." This was because it did not exist to repress the majority of the people  for the benefit of a small minority who exploited them. Questions we can ask today are, Why did the Soviet state become stronger then became so weak it disappeared? Why does the state exist in China?
Here is not the place to try and answer questions such as these.

Bebel wrote back to Engels, who was living with Marx in London at the time, and expressed his agreement with the ideas expressed by Engels. But he must have had a relapse because in 1886 he wrote "The state must be transformed from one based on class domination into a people's state." But a state is an instrument of class domination! A state of the whole people is a Marxist oxymoron. The state must be replaced by a socialist commune.

4. Criticism of the Draft of the Erfurt Programme.

The Erfurt Programme was the official policy of the Social Democratic Party of Germany which was adopted at a congress of the party in 1891. Its main thesis was that there could be a peaceful transition to socialism, that capitalism would ultimately fall due to its own contradictions, and that the party should concentrate on trying to better the conditions of the workers here and now and eschew revolutionary activity. August Bebel, Eduard Bernstein, and Karl Kautsky were the three socialist leaders behind the program.

In 1891 Engels sent a letter to Kautsky criticizing this program. However, Engels views were not made public until twenty years later, in 1911 when the party theoretical journal, Die Neue Zeit, finally published it.

Lenin says that Engels makes three important statements about the nature of the state: "first, as regards a republic; second, as to the connection between the national question and the form of state; and third, as to local self government."

We must keep in mind that Engels was discussing conditions prevailing
in the German Empire of Kaiser Wilhelm II in the 1890s and that we are living in very different circumstances in the early 21st Century. I will  try, however, to see if any of Engels' or Lenin's views are à propos  today.

The first point that Engels makes it that talk of a peaceful transition under the German constitution is ridiculous. Germany had no republican tradition and the Riechstag was only a cover for an undemocratic dictatorial regime headed by the Kaiser. Lenin sides with Engels and holds that the Erfurt Programme was fundamentally opportunistic and not a real socialist program. Lenin says Engels said "just because of the absence of a republic and freedom in Germany, the dreams of a 'peaceful' path were perfectly absurd."

This argument would not apply to contemporary conditions even in Germany which, like the U.S. is a democratic republic. It is even more democratic than the U.S. since it is a parliamentary democracy with a ceremonial head of state and an executive directly responsible to the parliament as opposed to our presidential system which combines the powers of head of state with those of the executive power only indirectly responsible to the parliament (Congress) which has impeachment power.

Today citizens have a sense of personal freedom and the ability to participate in the government by means of elections and freedom of speech (however illusory this may be). I therefore conclude that this first reason for rejecting the Erfurt Programme would not be applicable today for the reasons given by Engels.

Engels in fact says that in a republic or other type of free country "one can conceive of a peaceful development towards Socialism." Lenin is skeptical about this but he was writing in a time of world war and social revolution and Engels in a time of relative peace.

But Engels is all for the democratic republic and does not think that the working class can come to power in any other form of government. He  writes "our party and the working class can only come to power under the form of the democratic republic." In fact he even equates "the dictatorship of the proletariat" with the "democratic republic" writing that the democratic republic "is the specific form of the dictatorship of the proletariat."  Those who reject the concept of the dictatorship of the working class, being innocent of dialectics, unwittingly are rejecting the democratic republic as well. The use of the term, however, is another matter.

To be clear, he is not saying a democratic republic is the dictatorship of the proletariat but that the dictatorship of the proletariat is one species of the genus democratic republic. Lenin points out that a democratic republic can arise under capitalism and this would advance the class struggle which would lead "to such an extension, development, unfolding and sharpening of that struggle that as soon as the possibility arises for satisfying the fundamental interests of the oppressed masses this possibility is realized inevitably and solely in the dictatorship of the proletariat, in the guidance of the masses by the proletariat."  "Dictatorship" is not a term that goes over well in the US and there is no good reason to use it since, as the context of Lenin's quote reveals, it is equivalent to "the guidance of the masses" by the working class.

Lenin points out that Engels does not have a one size fits all view of the state and the stages of transition. Engels, according to Lenin, "tries to analyze  with the utmost care the transitional forms, in order to establish in accordance with the concrete historical peculiarities of each separate case, from what and to what the given transitional form is evolving." This is an important point to bare in mind with regard to differences between a unitary and a federal republic.

Engels thought that only the form of a unitary centralized republic was suitable for the use of the working class in a transition to socialism. But the US is not such a republic-- it is a federal republic. The difference is that each state or subdivision of a federal republic has its own government, legal system, and legislature and the federal government has two houses in its legislature-- one elected by the people based on population and the other representing the states making up the federation. The second house (in the US the Senate) is undemocratic in that a little state with a small population has the same voting power as a large state with millions of people. A unitary republic would have one house with representatives based on the population.

However, in 1891 Engels thought a federal republic was a necessity for the US due to its "gigantic territory." However, he noted, that in the more populous and developed Eastern states the federal republic was "already becoming a hindrance." It is even more of a hindrance today seeing how small and/or reactionary states can hinder the implementation of measures beneficial to the vast majority of the working people in the whole country. However, for the foreseeable future the class struggle in the US will be taking place in a federated republic along with agitation to strengthen the centralized powers of the federal government.

However, Engels does not believe in a centralized government that appoints the leadership of the local units. In this respect he lauds the American model and in general the model that exists in English speaking countries as Australia, Canada [and we might add, New Zealand] even though they have a federated structure. As Engels says,  the worker’s  party demands “Complete self-government for the provinces, districts, and local areas through officials elected by universal [male] suffrage. The abolition of all local and provincial authorities appointed by the state.”

Engels in fact says that history shows that there is a greater amount of freedom and democracy under a centralized republic than under a federated one— as was shown by the example of the French Republic between 1792 and 1798. There is some confusion here as he lauds both the French Revolution (centralized) and the “American model”  (federated). The point is, however, the freedom people have to elect their local leadership from the grassroots up to the top and not have them foisted upon them by the state.

5. The 1891 Preface to Marx’s Civil War in France

This Preface was written in 1891 and presents Engels’ summing up of the lessons to be learned from the Paris Commune of 1871 as to the nature of the bourgeois state. Lenin suggests that it is “the last word of Marxism” on this issue. We should keep an open mind about whether or not this is really the last word and we have learned nothing about the nature of the state since 1891. We should also note that almost all of the arguments against Engels and Lenin on this issue are just warmed over updates of the criticisms leveled at them more than a hundred years ago. Many of the arguments about 21st century socialism have a whiff about them more suggestive of 1914 than 2014.

Engels points out that after every  revolution in France the working class was armed and that the first objective of every bourgeois government that came to power after a revolutionary move by the workers was to disarm the workers. Lenin says the “essence” of the relation of the working class to the state resides in the answer to the question “has the oppressed class arms?” Even in Lenin’s day this was a hot potato! He says, “It is just this essential thing which is most ignored both by professors under the influence of bourgeois ideology and by the petty-bourgeois democrats.” Well, here in the USA the NRA has the  ultra-right locked and loaded, but what about the oppressed class?

Engels also makes some comments about religion in this preface that Lenin wants us to think about. Neither Engels nor Lenin saw religion as a progressive force. It fills the heads of working people with all kinds of nonsense and idiocy. Engels refers to the slogan “Religion is a private matter” and warns the social democrats of his day that it is a ‘private matter” with regard to the state NOT with regard to the worker’s party. While many people who are religious have progressive attitudes religion in and of itself fosters an unscientific and superstitious approach to reality. Any Marxist party worthy of its name must “struggle against the religious opium which stupefies the people.” It is worth considering how much of this outlook is still relevant today, especially considering how religion is used by the ultra-right and the tea baggers to support their reactionary and crypto-fascist agenda.

Lenin now turns to Engels’ summing up of the lessons learned from the Commune twenty years after its downfall. Would that we had a summing up of the lessons to be learned from the downfall of  the Soviet Union from such a keen observer as Engels. Let’s see if his views holdup today.

Lesson One: the actually existing present day  state devised by the bourgeoisie to ensure its political dominance cannot be taken over by the working people and used to defend their interests. The Commune recognized this and in place of the bourgeois state instituted a new one based on the working class. Its two most fundamental characteristics were 1) all the positions were to be filled by elections (no appointed positions) and conditioned by the right of the workers to have instant recall of any elected person the minute the workers lost confidence and trust in his/her job performance; 2) all elected persons— from dog catcher to president were to be paid only the general average wages of the workers themselves.

Lesson Two: the struggle for democracy and the democratic rights of the people is inseparable from the struggle for Socialism. They are not two different stages but one concerted struggle. Lenin points out that Engels here approaches a “boundary” where “consistent democracy” becomes “transformed into Socialism” and where it “demands the introduction of Socialism.”

Thus, Lenin says, one of the basic functions involved in the struggle to bring about the social revolution is to “develop democracy to its logical conclusion, to find the forms for this development [and] to test them by practice.” A revolutionary party of advanced democracy that does not include Socialism in its platform is a contradictio in terminis.

Engels certainly would not be supportive of any view that idealized the state as a democratic institution just waiting to be put at the service of the working people as a result of free and fair elections. Electoral struggle is important as it can unify and educate the workers as to the true nature of the society and  the social system in which they find themselves. Nevertheless, “In reality,” Engels says, “the state is nothing more than a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and in deed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy; and at best an evil, inherited by the proletariat after its victorious struggle for class supremacy, whose worse sides the proletariat, just like the Commune, at the earliest possible moment will have to lob off, until such a time as a new generation, reared under new and free social conditions, will be able to throw on the scrap-heap all this state rubbish.”

Lenin makes two final points based on this quote: 1) the fact that the state is an organ of ruling class oppression whether it is democratic or dictatorial (monarchical ) is not a matter of indifference to the working people (the Anarchist view)— the more freedom available in a democratic state makes the class struggle of the workers easier to conduct; 2) why a new generation will be required to finally junk the state entirely will be discussed in the next, and final, section of this chapter— to wit:

6. Engels on the Overcoming of Democracy

In 1894 Engels published some interesting remarks not the least of which was his view that the term “Social-Democrat” was unscientific when applied to the political views of Marx and himself. Engels had never used that term in his writings and used “Communist” instead. He and Marx did not write “The Social-Democratic Manifesto.”

Nevertheless, by the time Engels wrote this reflection the Social-Democratic Party of Germany was the world’s largest working class party and, although the name was “unsuitable” he allowed that it might “pass muster” since it now had a different referent than back in the day of Marx and his most creative activity (when it was used by Proudhonists and Lassalleans).

In any case for a party whose goal and raison d’être does not end with the establishment of Socialism but pushes on to the abolition of the state and democracy as well—i.e., that wants to establish Communism, the term “Social-Democrat” is technically incorrect. Be that as it may, it is hardly worth making a fuss over. Engels remarks, “The names of real political parties are never wholly appropriate; the party develops, while the name persists.” For 21st century Communists to desire to remove “Communist” from their party’s name might raise suspicions that they were developing backwards!

Anyway, Lenin says the party’s name is “incomparably less important” than the relation to the state that the revolutionary working class movement holds. Our real problem is that there is no revolutionary working class movement (to speak of) in the US or Europe right now (not considering the rest of the world) and the relation of the working people to the state is one of impotence and subservience— a relation which Communist parties and their allies must and are working to overcome.

It is important to understand why Engels says Communism overthrows democracy as well as the state. In order to gain this understanding Lenin says we must grasp the economic basis behind the “withering away of the state. We will do this next when we analyze Chapter Five: “The Economic Base of the Withering Away of the State.”

Some Reflections on Stiglitz's "Inequality Is Not Inevitable"

Some Reflections on Stiglitz's "Inequality Is Not Inevitable"

Thomas Riggins

In the June 27, 2014 New York Times Joseph E. Stiglitz published the above name article. It is an interesting take on the growing inequality in the United States but I think it is entirely too voluntaristic in tone and hence unscientific. He wants to know how the US, since at least 2007 (the Great Recession) has become the capitalist country "with the greatest level of inequality."

Stiglitz has moderated a series of articles in the NYT called "The Great Divide" which he says have presented examples "that undermine the notion that there are truly any fundamental laws of capitalism." Stiglitz is a mainline capitalist economist and the line  that "capitalism has no fundamental laws" is a tactic to head off socialist, and especially Marxist, studies on the nature of capitalism which appeal to certain "laws" or tendencies of capitalist development that are responsible for the exploitation of human labor power as well as the creation of crises  of over production, the determination of surplus value, the need to expand markets, the creation of monopolies, and other nasty features which produce human inequalities, the drive for war and other contributions responsible for the degradation of humanity and the ruination of the planet.

Stigilitz asserts that 19th century capitalism's "dynamics" need not apply to the [faux] democracies of the 21st. But that was already pointed out by Lenin in his work on Imperialism which shows how 19th Century capitalism morphed into monopoly capitalism controlled by finance and bank interests along with giant international corporations. This is the capitalism that still rules the roost in the 21st Century.

Stiglitz says we have "ersatz" [not real] capitalism because in the Great Recession "we socialized losses, even as we privatized gains" (whoever that "we'' is). It is not "ersatz" capitalism when the masses of the working people are stuck with the "losses'' and banksters and their allies end up with the "gains." That's how capitalism works.

Well since we have done away with "laws" of capitalism it can't be capitalism that is to blame for inequality (or war, pestilence and famine). So who is to blame. It is us. It is "our policies and politics."

Why has America "chosen" so much inequality? Partly because the "solidarity" we all felt in WWII has faded away, and victory in the Cold War meant "we no longer had to show our system could deliver for most of our citizens."  Well the "we" can't be "most of our citizens"  since they wouldn't say "Well the Cold War is over so we don't need the system to deliver for us anymore,"  Could the "we" be the capitalists, the banksters and the mainstream politicians and economists that work for them?

Stiglitz then goes on to describe the results of present inequality and the suffering in inflicts on millions of people. He certainly would like to get rid of it  and give everyone a good and decent living standard. What he portrays, however, is a state completely controlled by the capitalist class-- where money and wealth commands both the political machinery and the justice (legal)  system. A system where the masses of people are ignorant of how the system works and are manipulated and their values and welfare is ignored.

This is exactly the type of society produced by socialist and Marxist models of capitalism, how it works, and what its outcome is for working people and why it must be replaced by socialism. But Stiglitz does not, and perhaps cannot, go down that road. His is a voluntaristic solution. We must change the way we think about politics and poverty. The solution (LBJ's ghost is near) is "not just a new war on poverty but a war to protect the middle class." Now "war" is a very serious undertaking. Who must we make war against to protect the middle class? Well, its not the working class, its not the unemployed, its not immigrants and minorities. Who is left? "Our" own top capitalists and the politicians, news media, and educational institutions that they control. Is this going to be a bloody revolution?

No! The "war" will be a limited police action, if that. All we have to do is make the top wealthy people pay fair taxes, reverse a "politics of greed"  and seek "our children's access to food and the right to justice for all." This can be done by spending more on "education, health and infrastructure." For those of you who think such sweet, saccharine sentiments are the usual pie in the sky solutions to the social question, for shame: "Just because you've heard it before doesn't mean we shouldn't try again." And again, and again, and again, and….

Inequality Is Not Inevitable

Piketty, The Wall Street Journal, and Rational Conservatives

Piketty, The Wall Street Journal, and Rational Conservatives
Thomas Riggins

Thomas Piketty's book, Capital in the 21st Century, has almost had the effect of a tsunami on economic thinking here in the United States after its translation from French into English washed up on our monoglot shores. In France itself it has been treated as more or less just another economics book-- no big deal.

Its impact on the US is due to many factors, not least of which is the fact that our educational system is woefully inadequate by European standards as well as our lower cultural literacy compared to Europe. Piketty's work appears here as a revelation, but to the educated European he is only providing a fuller historical context for what most people already understand.

Marxists, especially, should have been under whelmed to learn that the capitalist system creates imbalances in wealth with a large pool of poor and exploited workers at one pole and a small group of capitalists hogging the social wealth at the other.

Piketty tells us this system is not sustainable and to prevent the "Marxist Apocalypse" the capitalists have to modify their behavior and moderate the social inequalities their system creates. The thought that capitalism might be replaced is indeed an apocalyptic nightmare for the bourgeoisie but for the working classes it might be more like a Marxist Epiphany come true.

The Wall Street Journal, no friend to the Left, has reviewed Piketty's book ("A Not-So-Radical French Thinker" by Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry, weekend edition May 24-25, 2014). Here we find, implicitly, that not only have some on the Left "lost it" over seeing Peketty as some sort of super progressive, but that many American "conservatives" have, explicitly, also gone completely off the deep end by referring to Piketty as a "soft Marxist."

The conservative movement is the U.S. is, however, overloaded with "thinkers" who are intellectually immature and dishonest, selling their brain power (such as it is) to the Koch brothers, the Murdochs, and their ilk. The WSJ review points out that Piketty is a professional academic economist and his book merits consideration. He is a neo-liberal economist who supports market capitalism and, like many other neo-liberals, he advocates "government redistribution to smooth out some of the market's excesses.".

The WSJ points out that in France you can find "honest-to-goodness actual Marxists [that] are still at large" and Piketty is not one of them. The fact that he has simply described how capitalism is actually functioning and this is enough to send so called conservative intellectuals into a nose dive (one from the American Enterprise Institute is especially mentioned) over "soft Marxism"  is evidence enough that many, I think most, conservatives have no regard at all for the facts or even rational discussion but are only mouth pieces for the corporate interests who support them as paid propagandists.

Piketty is worth reading. Marxists have a deeper understanding, I think, about the functioning of the capitalist system so there will be no surprises here, but readers will find a detailed history of wealth distribution and creation over the last three hundred years that will convince anyone with an open mind that this system is exploitative and is leading towards an implosion that could very well destroy it.

Marxists, of course, think the system must be replaced and is ultimately existentially unreformable. Neo-liberals such as Piketty do not agree and he proposes reforms in his book which he thinks will save the sinking ship (such as an international, or at least a European Union, wealth tax).

The WSJ review suggests that the right wing could benefit from reading Piketty. If the inequality he describes is not remedied "it could undermine the social order" and "for all the huffing and puffing about Mr. Piketty's supposedly revolutionary ideas, that conservative insight might be his most lasting contribution to the American debate." Indeed, it well might.

V. J. McGill on Russell's Critique of Marxism

Thomas Riggins

                                                                                        PROEMIUM

In "The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell" volume in the Library of Living Philosophers (1944) V.J. McGill (1897-1977) published a detailed critique of Russell's political and economic philosophy. Russell was not pleased and made short shrift of professor McGill's efforts in his "Replies to Criticisms". Russell dismisses McGill's contribution as dealing with material "lying wholly outside philosophy" and says, in effect, he won't even bother to argue against McGill's positions as it would be "futile." Seventy years later in retrospect we might agree with Russell that his efforts to refute McGill would have been "futile." But why would they have been? This review will attempt to answer that question by showing McGill's critique was essentially correct and Russell simply wished to dodge the issues McGill raised.

 At the time McGill was on the faculty of Hunter College. In the 1950s he suffered a worse attack on his academic freedom than even Russell endured in the City College affair. McGill was stripped of his associate professorship and fired from Hunter for refusing to provide a list of names to the McCarthy Committee of "subversives" he had known in the 30s and 40s when he was active in progressive causes (he was a member of the CPUSA in the 30s but resigned in 1941).

                                                                        *

The first part of McGill's paper deals with Russell's pessimism and theory of the  passions. McGill says that the concept of "power" is  basic to Russell's political and economic philosophy-- it is almost as if "the thirst for Power is the primary danger to mankind."

In a Free Man's Worship Russell says perhaps we should fight against the power of a "hostile" universe  but this fight against "an evil world" is itself a form of bondage so the wise man would be better off resigning from the world and engaging in contemplation.

Russell's pessimism as regards human nature is revealed by his attitude to war which he thinks results from "an impulse of aggression" present in human nature: "War," he says, "grows out of ordinary human nature." The only way to remedy this is to find an equal and opposite passion, such as "love" which represents "the instinct of constructiveness" and "the joy of life" with which to deflect the war drive.

Russell's pessimism, however, leads him to assert "all our institutions rest upon injustice" and we cannot destroy the "power of the State and private property." There is nothing we can do about it but wait for the masses to become as educated as the elite. Not even socialism  will end war. He gives an example of the ants, which he says have a socialist society, yet any strange ant that enters their society they instantly attack and kill. He concludes that human instincts are not much different from those of ants, especially when major racial differences are present "as between white men and yellow men." He wrote this before he went to China and was not instantly set upon and killed.

Russell thinks his theory of power better explains what has happened in history than do the ideas of Marx. The major error of Marx's economics is that Marx failed to understand "that love of power is the cause of the activities that are important in social affairs." History cannot be understood without this knowledge. Russell wrote his book Power to show that the concept of Power is as basic to social science "in the same sense in which  Energy is the fundamental concept in physics." It is difficult to see how a social science concept can have the same sense as a physical concept.

Power is defined "as the production of intended effects." Anything we do, intentionality, is the result of Power or "the love of Power." This is rooted in our instinctual nature. McGill points out that a concept, such as Russell's "power," that explains all our intentional acts whatever doesn't really explain any of them. This is such an elementary logical principle one wonders how Russell could have been unaware of it. It's just as if everything is the Will of God explains why anything happens. It really doesn't explain anything.

Some times this Will to Power leads to good, but most of the time it leads to evil Russell thinks. The most powerful men in history, according to Russell, were Buddha, Christ, Pythagoras, and Galileo because their Will to Power led beyond their empirical selves and created types of power that set men free from power. Russell gives no explanation as to how this could happen-- it is just a given!

This is asking too much and McGill suggests that Marx's views make more sense. Rather than explaining the differences between Buddha and Caligula by two types of Power seeking, "one of which sets men free whereas the other enslaves," McGill says it makes more sense "to analyze the historical conditions and social formations." The drive to Power thus becomes "unnecessary and supernumerary."

The second part of McGill's paper deals with Russell's views on capitalism and socialism. McGill claims Russell's social and political philosophy is founded on his idea of the will to power and the instinct of "possessiveness."  Let us now look at his theory of the State. The role of the state is to provide security for its citizens by maintaining the police and the military and enacting laws that least interfere with the activities of the citizens.

Russell appears to advocate a negative role to the state vis a vis the organization of freedom. Russell says the state is "the most serious menace to liberty." He maintains any positive role for the state is basically limited to the police and military functions of preserving order. It's true the state can do some good (garbage collection, education, developing science, correction of economic injustice for example) but these functions would be better performed "not by the State itself, but by independent organizations." 

McGill's criticisms are somewhat mitigated because his counter examples are so heavily influenced by the actions of the US State during WWII. The State power grew but so did the labor union movement so McGill thinks there is no contradiction between State power and private power-- contra Russell. McGill says "it is clear that voluntary organizations and the state may simultaneously grow in power, while freedom of the individual is not limited but increased."

I think McGill errs in contrasting the accidental features of any particular state with Russell' views of the concept of the state in general derived from the study of many different states. The national security state in the US today appears to limit rather than increase the freedom of its citizens.

Here is McGill's definition of freedom: "Freedom is the maximum degree of opportunity that an organization can supply its members, using all the resources  available to it in a given historical period."

 Under this definition Cuba maximizes freedom for its citizens more than the US does for its. This is because Cuba maximizes its resources in favor of the majority-- free health care, schooling through university level, rationing to provide adequate nutrition for all, housing for all, etc., while the US, with a tremendous superiority in resources, maximizes them to an economic elite even cutting the meagre amount provided in food stamps, medicare, housing allowances and unemployment insurance to millions of its less advantaged citizens.

So, while McGill erred with his particular example, I think the tenor of his argument was correct. Russell was wrong to make a generalized theory of the state the way he did-- the truth is rather that it depends on the kind of state-- a fully democratic or only partially democratic state (i.e., one which maximizes it resources for its people or one that doesn't) that determines the extent of real freedom. 

Russell opposes the centralization of state power and favors the diffusion of power and its assumption by non governmental bodies. McGill maintains that history is moving in the direction of centralization of state power and, depending on the type of state (he lists capitalist, socialist and fascist) this can bring about more or less freedom. There is no such thing as "the state" anymore than there is "the mammal" only different kinds that have developed historically and perform different functions. McGill should have said the centralization of the capitalist state (of which the fascist state is a subclass) is the protection of private property and serves the interests of a small elite, while that of a socialist state is the protection of social property and serves the interests of the majority. This is the position that McGill ultimately holds.

Russell thinks Marx's views on the "withering away of the state" are unclear. He doesn't see how you can both make the state stronger and then expect it to disappear. Especially when many of those in charge have instincts which "drive them towards tyranny"  and "a natural love for power." 

It is difficult to believe that Russell read Marx's The Civil War in France or Lenin's State and Revolution as both works are very clear on this issue. When the socialists take power they begin to dismantle the capitalist state and construct a new state that benefits the working people and as they learn self governance in this process a separate state machine to enforce order becomes obsolete and over time ceases to function (withers away). This may not work but the idea was certainly clearly expressed.

Russell says his antipathy towards Bolshevism is not because of its views about communism but because it supports the creation of an industrial society just as do the capitalists. It would appear he also thinks that, due to his privileged background he has values that working people don't have. These values have in the past been associated with being an aristocrat. Thus Russell values, he says, "fearlessness, independence of judgment, emancipation from the herd, and leisurely culture." I can only say that Russell has, what Americans call, a "big head"  since aristocrats also have a herd mentality concerning their values.

He does say that aristocrats have some negative values as well: arrogance, lack of empathy towards the herd, and cruelty to those they consider beneath them. Despite the best efforts of Robespierre there are still too many heads containing these vices. Anyway, Russell thinks that a future society will preserve the positive aristocratic values and eliminate, through education presumedly, the negative.

McGill also points out some very strange positions Russell articulates for someone who is devoted to logic. It seems as if knowledge of mathematical logic in no way prevents a person from thinking in terms of the most common informal fallacies that predominate in herd thinking.

For example, Russell says that one reason he turned against Bolshevism was the "wide spread misery" he saw around him on his trip to Russia and he also says that the misery he saw was not caused by the Bolsheviks but by the invasion and blockade imposted by the Western nations and Japan. Go figure.

What did he see in Moscow? He said everyone was working, there was security, art was flourishing, especially opera, ballet and theatre with blocks of tickets  reserved for working people so they could attend. In addition he thought it was the safest city in the world for women to walk around in. "The whole impression," he says, "is one of virtuous, well-ordered activity." Well, how to account for his conclusion that "The average working man, to judge by a rather hasty impression, feels himself the slave of the government, and has no sense whatever of having been liberated from tyranny."  

McGill points out that Russell's objections to Soviet socialism are not based on an analysis of facts and figures relating to the production and distribution of goods and services, but based on his theory of the instincts and human nature. He says, quote: "political obstacles have psychological" sources for Russell. These, as instincts, are what we today would say are built into our DNA. Soviet socialism is known to be failing a priori.

So much for McGill's views on Russell's first impressions of Soviet socialism. That was the 20s, he now turns to Russell's views in the 30s and 40s. McGill states that the books Russell read and praised were mostly written by authors with an anti-Soviet bent. His views were thus conditioned in a one sided manner and there is no evidence he made any serious effort to study and refute pro-Soviet works by an appeal to empirical research as opposed to opinions based on impressions and feelings concerning human nature.

McGill says Russell's "main objection" to the Soviet Union is that it restricts the freedom of individuals and minority groups. But every social system does this. This was a time of Segregation in the US and British colonial policies that restricted the freedom of majorities not minorities. There were laws passed in the USSR specially empowering minorities that had been oppressed under the Tsar. Universal education and literacy did more to free Soviet peoples than any event in the past history of Russia and the other soviet republics.

McGill quotes from a 1942 speech from Henry Wallace, the vice-president of the U.S., who said "Russia has probably gone further than any other nation in the world in practicing ethic democracy." McGill's point is that Russell's objection is just a subjective impression as "freedom" means different things to different people depending on their class orientation.

The third, and last, part of McGill's paper is his criticism of Russell's critique of Marx's political economy. Russell rejects the rationalism of the Enlightenment for a voluntaristic and, quite frankly, silly view of how social change is brought about.

He thinks nothing prevents the establishment of socialism other than men changing their attitudes so that they "preferred their own happiness to the pain of others." He says we could abolish poverty in twenty years if the majority of the population really wanted to do so but they won't do so due to apathy and sluggish imagination. Socialism and world peace could be established if we only had "good will, generosity [and] intelligence". No mention here of the economic laws of capitalism, social conditioning, or historical and cultural factors. But what happened to the white and yellow men and their ant like instincts?

Russell criticizes Marx yet has himself subscribed to many of Marx's conclusions. For example he wants to abolish private property-- the very basis of capitalism-- because he thinks it is an obstacle to progress and "its destruction is necessary to a better world." He opposes Stalin's means but not his ends. He also holds that "Industrialism cannot continue efficient much longer without becoming socialistic."

Russell seems to think Marx was an economic determinist even though Marx and Engels stressed that economic structures were the "predominant" influences but there were others as well such as religious, political and cultural. Russell himself wrote that "the economic interpretation of history … seems to me very largely true, and a most important contribution to sociology." 

However, he also has outrageous examples of what he thinks are incidences of individualism trumping economic interests-- he says the United States wouldn't be in existence "if Henry VIII had not fallen in love with Ann Boleyn." Because this love led to his breaking with the Pope-- otherwise England would have remained Catholic and, since the Pope had ruled the New World belonged to Spain and Portugal, would not have set up colonies in North America. BR seems oblivious to the fact the Catholic France did not pay any attention to the Pope in this respect.

Much more important than Russell's misunderstanding of Marx's theory of history is his failure to comprehend the labor theory of value and Marx's views on value, price and profit. Marx did not invent the labor theory of value. He refined and perfected the theory as it was articulated by Adam Smith and David Ricardo.

Russell points out that many commodities are sold on the market above and below the prices they should have according to the labor theory of value (e.g., when there are monopoly conditions or lack of demand) and so Marx's theory is wrong. But there are two objections to Russell's criticism.

First, Russell ignores the fact that Marx himself makes these very points and gives the reasons why a commodity's price is different from its intrinsic value (determined by the the socially necessary labor time not the labor time embodied in it) and therefore Russell is attacking a straw man. Unfortunately many people who have read Russell on Marx, without having read Capital, go away with the mistaken impression that Russell both understood and refuted Marx when he had done neither.

Second, Russell appears to think Jevons'  theory of marginal utility superior to Marx but Marx also talked about utility, or "use value" as he called it, and the role it played, along with socially necessary labor power, in the setting of "exchange value". More importantly, Jevons' theory depends on free market conditions "and does not apply to monopoly conditions,  which is precisely the fault he finds with Marx's theory." Russell's critique of Marx is confusion worse confounded.

Russell also attributes to Marx the belief in the "Iron Law of Wages"-- a theory that Marx went out his way to criticize. That is, Russell thinks Marx held that the worker's wages must always be at subsistence level. If this were true all workers in a given country would have the same wages as subsistence would be the same. This is so absurd one must wonder how Russell ever came to think Marx held that position-- it could not have resulted from reading Marx!.

In Capital Vol. 1 Marx says the "necessary wants", not the "subsistence" of the workers, is a function of the the history and level of civilization of a particular country and depends "on the habits and degree of comfort in which the class of free laborers has been formed."

I an not going to address all the examples given by McGill but the upshot is that most, if not all, of the positions Russell criticizes are not positions that Marx held at all. His picture of Marxism, as is his portrayal of Hegel's thought, is erroneous, misleading, and false. How could Russell have presented such a lopsided and incorrect presentation of Marxism? It remains a mystery to me. I cannot believe he deliberately falsified Marx's ideas so as to easily refute them-- there is no value in refuting a straw man. Nor can I believe he could not understand what Marx said. The only possibility is that he used unreliable secondary materials to arrive at his conclusions due to the pressures to get his materials ready for publication. Idleness in doing his home work is more praiseworthy than deliberate falsification or incomprehension.

A final word on McGill's "Conclusion"  to his paper before I turn to Russell's rather feeble response. McGill says Russell maintains he refuted Marxist economic theory  in his 1896 book on German Social Democracy. He appears not to have kept up with developments in economics as he restates his old arguments over and over [even though they are based on a misreading of Marx.]  

His major criticism of Marxism is its belief "in a strong central government in certain historical periods."  Russell holds to a theory of the human passions, or instincts, that is outmoded and has no empirical justification. He says, The "passions of acquisitiveness, vanity, rivalry and the love of power are the basic instincts" and "the prime movers of almost all that happens in politics." It would appear that Marxism is a priori wrong since it does not appeal to these instincts  to explain social reality.

Russell likes the concept of freedom expressed in Proudhon, the French syndicalists and Kropotkin-- i.e., in anarchism and syndicalism but their views on human nature were the opposite of his. He did not like either Marxism or the ideas of a reformed capitalism because he thought these ideas gave too much power to the central authorities and restricted his ideas about individual freedom. "His theory of human passions," McGill concludes, "thus left him no course but to waiver, with many fine intellectual excursions, between solutions he regarded as impractical and solutions he regarded as undesirable." 

What was Russell's reaction to McGill's paper? He was not impressed, to say the least. First, he says that McGill is dealing with aspects of Russell's thought that Russell thinks are "wholly outside philosophy." But I don't see why that should matter. The objections raised my McGill still need to be addressed.

Next, Russell says that with respect to Marxist economy and his attitudes towards the Soviet Union, "I shall not enter upon an argument  on either of these matters." He gives two reason for this-- one it would be "futile" and two it would not be doing "philosophy." 

I will skip the part about the Soviet Union because that was a partisan subject then, as now, and has too many appeals to subjective factors. But Russell is trying to  doge the issue when it comes to Marxist economics. Specifically, McGill pointed out errors in Russell's readings and interpretation of Marx's economics which showed that Russell attributed to Marx errors he did not commit and beliefs he did not hold. That Russell had a created a straw man and proceeded to criticize the straw man of his own creation as if he were Marx. Russell notoriously did the same with Hegel's philosophy.

Russell could easily have refuted McGill's claims by quoting a few passages from Marx that showed that he, Russell, had not distorted Marx's views but had accurately expressed them. Russell, however, would not have been able to do that since such passages in Marx's works are not to be found. This is the real reason why Russell will not enter upon an argument on this issue.

Russell makes better points on some other issues. He rejects McGill's assertion that he rejects the "rationalism" of the Bolsheviks because he does not in fact consider their views to held due to reason but as articles of faith. 

He also says he does not disagree with the usefulness of the state and  the necessity for  planning, as McGill implies, "provided the state is democratic." Since "democracy" means different things in capitalist and socialist viewpoints, Russell seems justified here even though there is ambiguity regarding some of the central terms.

Russell also says that in some of his books he used "instinct" in a popular sensenot a scientific sense as books such as Social Reconstruction were not written to make a "contribution to human learning." But certainly people would think they were going to "learn" something about the world and society if they read a book like this by Russell.

Evidently, from what he says, he wrote some books simply as personal propaganda to persuade people to adopt views held for emotive reasons. These were books that had a "practical purpose" not a purpose to teach anything. This is, I think, a terrible defense against McGill-- that he took Russell seriously when in fact he was only emoting.

I conclude, therefore, in retrospect, McGill's article on Russell's views on political and economic philosophy remains a valuable contribution to understanding Russells thought in the 1940s and that Russell's response was inadequate to the challenge.

Lenin on State and Revolution: The Paris Commune (1871) Replacing the Bourgeois State

Thomas Riggins

Lenin on the Paris Commune (1871): 

Chapter Three of State and Revolution is devoted to Lenin's commentary on Marx's analysis of the 1871 Paris Commune. It is divided into five parts. This article deals with the parts 2 -5 of the chapter:

2. What Is To Replace The Smashed State Machine?

According to Lenin Marx and Engels had no answer to this question when they wrote the Manifesto. Marx thought the experience of the working class would provide the answer.  He summed up that experience in his work The Civil War in France on the Paris Commune and, although Lenin says that experience was "meager", came to conclusions thought by Lenin to be valid some 45 years later when he wrote State and Revolution. Leaving aside the question whether Marx's conclusions are still valid after almost a century of further experience by the working class, I will only deal with Lenin's interpretation.

The form of state prevalent in the developed capitalism of the time of the Commune (on the continent and later on more widespread) was a state that functioned to support the bourgeoisie in its war against the working class. It was ultimately based jointly on the police and the military, whatever outward form it may have taken (constitutional monarchy or democratic republic), and ruled my means of a vast development of public workers (state employees) organized along bureaucratic lines and controlled at the top by people representing the interests of the big industrial conglomerates.

This was the type of state confronting the Paris Commune. The FIRST DECREE that the Commune promulgated, Marx says, "was the suppression of the standing army, and its replacement  by the armed people."  The leaders of the commune were elected by universal (male) suffrage and subject to recall if the people became dissatisfied with them.

Next, the police were depoliticized and put at the service of the Commune and the courts were also subjected to the rule of the people with their "sham" independence replaced by elected justices subject to recall. All this was, according to Lenin, an example of advanced democracy with the Commune representing the interests of the masses of people while  the previous bourgeois state (now smashed) represented the interests of the minority  of the landlords and capitalists.

One of the outstanding accomplishments of the Commune, which so impressed Marx, was that all the servants of the new state were paid no more than the average wages of working people. The Commune was not a "special force" serving the interests of a small class against the majority but was a "general force" serving the vast majority against their oppressors. 

For the  conservatives and ultra-rightists of today who rail against government spending the model of the Commune should be most enlightening  as Marx pointed out that the Commune "made that catchword of bourgeois revolutions, cheap government, a reality, by abolishing the two greatest sources of expenditure-- the army and the officialdom." Those Americans truly concerned to slash federal spending should welcome those initiatives.

3. Abolition of Parliamentarism 

This year, 2014, is an election year in the US and there is great concern for how the House of Representatives and the Senate will be constituted--i.e., which of the two bourgeois parties will be in control. Lenin, following Marx, maintains the real meaning of the election (and it is the same in every bourgeois democracy) is to "decide once every few years which member of the ruling class is to repress and crush the people." 

If we understand that we can get over certain illusions about bourgeois democracy and it's relation to working class interests. While it is important to try to minimize "the crushing"  whichever party intends for you, it is also important to keep in mind the only remedy to being crushed at all. There should be no conflict between these two goals. The way elections are conducted today, the very existence of the House and Senate, the separation of powers between legislature and executive powers are inimical to working class interests and the workers, while struggling for positive and realistic reforms, should constantly keep this in mind.

The way to escape the trap of bourgeois democracy, according to Lenin, "is not, of course, the abolition of representative institutions and the elective principle, but the conversion of the representative institutions from 'talking' shops into working bodies." This is what the Commune did. In Marx's words, "The Commune was to be a working, not a parliamentary body, executive and legislative at the same time."

Today, in the US, or any another bourgeois democracy, the people have no idea how their government works. It takes an Edward Snowden or a Chelsea Manning to pull back just a part of the cover of secrecy, lies, and trickery that the government employs against the people to keep them ignorant and prevent them from finding out how everything is loaded to favor the 1% and to keep the masses down. And woe to anyone who pulls back that cover of secrecy: President and Congress, the courts and the military, the bourgeois party leaders and their supporters in the press are aligned to condemn and destroy all who expose the truth to the people. Real democracy cannot exist in ignorance and secrecy. 

Lenin puts it more succinctly: "Take any parliamentary country … the real business of 'state' is performed behind the scenes and is carried out by the departments, chancelleries and General Staffs. Parliament is given up to talk for the special purpose of fooling the 'common people.' "

The elected representatives in the Commune not only enacted the laws but also were personally involved in putting them into practice. They were not "representatives" enacting laws and leaving it up to the executive to execute them.

They combined both functions within themselves and thus abolished "parliamentarism" as it is practiced in bourgeois "democracies." 

 Lenin says, "The Commune substitutes for the venal and rotten parliamentarism of bourgeois society institutions  in which freedom of opinion and discussion does not degenerate into deception,  for the parliamentarians themselves have to work, have to execute their own laws, have themselves to test the results achieved in reality, and to account directly to their constituents." 

Lenin admits that it is "utopian" to believe that it is possible to eliminate the old state  bureaucracy over night, in one fell swoop. But he does believe that the Commune gave an example of what could be done. It began immediately to construct a new kind of state bureaucracy to replace the old one. The new one would gradually replace the functions of the old one and the old one would gradually go out of existence. For Lenin, the commencement of this change over "is the direct and immediate task of the revolutionary" forces."

Why do we need any state at all? Why not just abolish the bourgeois state by fiat and be done with it? Because, as Lenin puts it elsewhere, there is no Chinese Wall between the ideas and attitudes of working people and those, determined largely by the ruling class, of society at large. All sorts of backward notions (racism, jingoism, homophobia, sexism, etc.,) permeate bourgeois society and also the brains of working people who can only learn to correct these ruling class attitudes by practice and learning in the struggle for socialism. Just struggling for higher wages and benefits will not cut it.

If the workers are going to legislate and execute the laws of the new society they will have to learn how to manage and supervise the institutions of society without being subordinate to bourgeois rule. They cannot wait to be given a new education before taking political power. They have to learn by doing. Lenin says, "we want the socialist revolution with people as they are now, with people who cannot dispense with subordination, control and 'foremen and accountants.'" 

The class conscious vanguard will lead the way and in the replacement of the old state with the new the workers at large will learn from the experience of socialist construction that they can be their own foremen and accountants. [At least that was the plan. It was a good plan if the difficulties of execution presented by a hostile social environment (internally and externally) didn't doom it.]

4. The Organisation of National Unity

The Commune only lasted two months and did not have time to implement any long term program. The plan was, however, to have all of France organized into communes-- every city and village. These would then elect representatives who would be in the national commune in Paris. Marx supported this long term program because it would destroy all of the negative features of the bourgeois state, its special organs for the repression of the masses-- the courts , army, and police, as well as the state bureaucracy,  and have these functions carried out by the masses themselves via their representatives in the local and national communes-- popularly elected and subject to immediate recall if they did not perform as expected.

This aspect, popular mass democracy, has, Lenin says, been played down and avoided by the opportunist non-communist left-- i.e., the social democrats who have abandoned revolutionary Marxism. The prime example, cited by Lenin, of the top party person taking the capitalist road within the German socialist party was Eduard Bernstein with his 1899 book Evolutionary Socialism [ Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus und die Aufgaben der Sozialdemokratie ]. 

Bernstein rejects the view that the first step of a revolutionary government should be the creation of the sort of democratic communal organisation Marx ascribed to the Commune, but rather the creation of a federal type of constitution of the kind proposed by Proudhon which, Bernstein says, is really the type of revolutionary government Marx had in mind-- not one making such a clean sweep as proposed by the Commune.

Lenin thinks it "monstrous" for Bernstein to misrepresent Marx's views to such an extent and confuse his ideas with those of the anarchist Proudhon. "Marx was a centralist" not a federalist with respect to government. While it is true that Marx agreed with Proudhon, and Bakunin, in wanting to see the bourgeois state destroyed, he was not at all sympathetic with the anti-state rhetoric of the anarchists  and their views on 'federalism'.  Lenin says only petty bourgeois Anarchists could confuse Marx's views on the destruction of the capitalist state with the destruction of centralism.

Lenin asks, "will it not be centralism if the proletariat and the poorest peasants take the power of the state in their own hands, organize themselves freely into communes, and unite all the action of  the communes into striking at capital, in crushing the resistance of the capitalists, in the transfer of private property in railways, factories, land, and so forth, to the entire nation, to the whole of society?" This is the goal of any people's revolution, to unify a country to create "conscious, democratic, proletarian centralism" and destroy "bourgeois, military, bureaucratic centralism."

5. Destruction of the Parasite-State

What was the great lesson of the Commune? Lenin says that Marx understood it but the socialists (non Bolsheviks) of his day have either forgotten it or have abandoned it. "its true secret was this," Marx wrote in The Civil War in France: "It was essentially a working class government, the product of the struggle the producing against the appropriating class, the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economical emancipation of labour." You can talk about democracy all you like but true democracy (rule of the people) can only be brought about with the abolition of the appropriating class (the capitalists). Minimum programs are fine as long as that goal is never lost sight of or played down for opportunistic reasons. This is where the synthesis of State and Revolution and Left Wing Communism an Infantile Disorder begins.

The Utopians, according to Lenin, were busy inventing socialist forms of government,  the Anarchists rejected political forms, and the Opportunists stopped with bourgeoisie democracy with its congresses and parliaments: "they broke their foreheads praying before this idol."

The next chapter we will discuss is Chapter 4 (dealing with Engels).