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Monday November 18, 2013 05:26 by Wayne Price drwdprice at aol dot com
A Review of Peter Hudis (2013) “Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism” A Review of Peter Hudis (2013), “Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism” from the viewpoint of a Marxist-informed revolutionary anarchist. In my last book, I provided an anarchist introduction to Marx’s economic thought, from the viewpoint of a "Marxist-informed anarchist." Peter Hudis’ volume (2013) is written as if to disprove part of the dual assertion I make in my book’s opening. I had claimed: “When it comes to an analysis of capitalist economy, Marx’s economic theories are superior to others, including what there is of anarchist economic thinking….However, when it comes to presenting a post-capitalist vision, a socialist goal, then anarchism…is superior to Marxism” (Price, 2013; p. 2). Instead of my second assertion, Hudis declares the virtues of Marx’s vision of a post-capitalist, post-revolutionary, economy. This is even though, in practice, movements calling themselves “Marxist” have created totalitarian, state-capitalist, mass murdering regimes, before eventually collapsing back into traditional capitalism—as Hudis acknowledges. Hudis should be in an excellent position to carry out an analysis of Marxism’s humanistic and working class goals. He comes out of the “Marxist-Humanist” theoretical school established by Raya Dunayevskaya (which itself evolved out of the “Johnson-Forrest Tendency”). He is general editor of “The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg.” This history situates him in the libertarian-democratic trend within Marxism, a minority trend which rejects social democracy and Stalinism (and Trotskyism). The first problem Hudis, or anyone else focusing on Marx’s vision, must face is that Marx did not emphasize his vision or his goals. In a multi-volume analysis of Marx’s politics, Hal Draper (who shares with Hudis a view of Marx as radically democratic) writes: “…From early on, Marx and Engels habitually stated their political aim not in terms of a desired change in social system (socialism) but in terms of a change in class power (proletarian rule)….Marx and Engels took as their governing aims not the aspirations for a certain type of future society, but the position of a social class as an embodiment of humanity’s interests…. It is not the form of organization of future society that is at the center of his theory of revolution” (Draper, 1978; pp. 24 & 27).Therefore we should not be surprised that Marx’s comments on a future society are few and far between, scattered among his writings, which have to be scoured to find the references. As anarchists see it, there is a problem with focusing on the workers and other oppressed people taking power, unless we also hold a clear vision of what they will do with that power. Will they establish a radically democratized, decentralized federation of self-governing communities and industries, becoming the self-organization of the producers? Or will they set up a centralized, bureaucratic, socially-alienated military machine to rule over the rest of the population? That is, will they create a new state (even a “workers’ state,” whatever that means)? Anarchists do not accept the counterposition of workers’ revolution to the need for programmatic vision. Lacking such a libertarian and humanistic vision, it is not surprising that most revolutionary Marxists have accepted Stalinist tyrannies, once they appear, as “really existing socialism.”
Hegelianism?
Hudis’ solution to this problem is to make his argument fairly abstract, with a hefty dose of Hegelian terminology. He states his agreement with Dunayevskaya “that the realities of our era make it imperative to return directly to Hegel’s Absolutes in working out a conception of the alternative to capitalism” (p. 33). He criticizes Draper for his “scant attention to [Marx’s] Hegelian inheritance…” (p. 59). |
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