Mark and Nestor
I think this debate is really getting to the crux. The
marxist view, which generally does see (or has seen) a
continuity between capitalism and socialism in terms of the
"development of the productive forces" has to be subject to
some critique now, even if this means taking issue with Marx
himself.
Mark presents a chilling reminder of why this is so, and I
am very encouraged by his latest remarks on population and
industrialisation, which are amongst the best I have ever
read on this. The notion of socialism, as I said earlier,
that is defined in terms of productivism plus workers'
control is just dead. Finito. But I think Nestor's last
post, while I disagree with it on the surface, does suggest
something else that I would like to bring back into focus.
Basically this is about the cultural or psychological aspect
of the proletarian. One of the things that capitalism and
capitalist industrialisation did was to transform the human
psyche, to create an international material community, to
develop the individual far beyond the limited notion of
individuality that had existed, to put an end to rural
idiocy, etc. This, above all, is why capitalism is a
precondition for socialism. Now I believe, from the third
world where I am sitting, that this project is incomplete or
at least highly unevenly carried out. The surplus population
that Mark alludes to, probably the world's majority, are not
proletarians in the sense I am referring to here (South
African Trotskyists with their typical blind spot have never
been able to see this). They are not organised, they are not
'modernised', they are religious and superstitious, they are
illiterate, etc. And to make matters worse, according to
Chomsky's formulation, globalisation means not the diffusion
of the first world model, but precisely the generalisation
TO the first world of the third world model. If this is so
then we can expect to see in Western inner city areas the
emergence and growth of essentially third world and
non-proletarian communities.
So I could imagine a limited industrialisation, an
eco-friendly science, limits on population growth, etc.
within a new socialism - yes, but this socialism would
initially have to be built on the human needs of, and as a
material community of, a population that is comprised of a
non-proletarian majority. And it seems to me that this is
where Marxism sheds the most light on the contemporary
dilemma, but precisely shows it as a problem that marxism
has no ready-made solution for.
Tahir
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