Just finished a draft, so my designated reward is a brief reply to Julio!
Insofar as our self-nominated gatekeeper for marxist heaven (hey,
not knocking this--- it's a tough job having to turn away all those
pretenders!) recognises that the new productive relations (however they
emerge) must /*begin*/ by inheriting pre-existing productive forces and
then transform them into a form adequate to those relations, there is no
disagreement. This implies, of course, that the new relations precede
logically and temporally the new productive forces.
Clearly, a socialist society cannot just limit itself to using the
same productive forces that capitalist societies or, more generally,
pre-socialist societies developed. It needs to re-generate the
productive forces on its own basis, to fix in them its own imprint, to
enable, lock in human solidarity, cooperation, the full, universal
expression of our human potential. That's a matter of course.
However, can socialism be built -- or, to be more precise, *begin to
be built* (nowhere are we past that point yet) -- on the basis of
productive forces developed under pre-socialist social conditions?
The answer, I believe, is absolutely yes.
The only question that needs to be underlined is WHO decides what is
appropriate and what inheritances can be retained as
neutral. He and I (and other members of our infallible central
committee) may accept that some products of the social brain
like the law of gravity, a shovel and a Fordist tractor factory are
sufficiently neutral that they can be employed in the new society;
however, isn't the question for socialism what cooperating workers in
thought and practice decide? My point is the importance of the precise
character of relations of production.
If my memory serves, the passages in Marx's Grundrisse and Capital
that Michael refers us to are full of references to the notion that,
at first, capitalist production took the production and labor
processes, the existing productive forces, *as they were*, as they had
developed in pre-capitalist conditions. It's only after capitalism
stood upright, on its own footing, that the conditions of production
acquired their specific capitalist characteristics. Historically,
capitalism took over and revolutionized the conditions of production.
No, it is the process of creating new, adequate conditions of production
that allowed capitalism to stand
upright on its own foundations.
Perhaps more to the point discussed by Fred and Michael, what if the
pre-existing productive forces, those inherited from capitalism, are
meager -- as it's likely to be the case in poor countries where people
may and will set out to build socialism from whatever their starting
point? Should the basic consumption needs of people be left unmet
until and unless proper socialist structures are implanted to develop
the productive capacity to fully or at least reasonably meet those
needs? Should (in the cases where this is a need, e.g. Venezuela) the
basic infrastructure of a modern industrial society be postponed or
skipped altogether until and unless proper socialist structures are
implanted? Should a policy of, not only tolerating, but of enabling
the partial, politically constrained development of non-socialist
structures (i.e. markets or even capitalist relations a la NEP) be
excluded or viewed as a betrayal of socialism? I think the answer to
these questions depends on concrete political conditions.
Ah, here we may be leaving the harmonious path. I would say, simply, if
the inherited productive forces are
relatively meagre, then it may take /longer/ after the revolution to
complete the development of socialism than with a high level
of inherited productivity. But, I /wouldn't/ conclude that, accordingly,
it is necessary to postpone the revolution. [Would you?]
There is the central issue that separates us 'voluntarists' from those
who genuflect to the primacy of productive forces [a big
club including Menshiviks, the stagists of the South African CP and Deng
and the Gang of millionaires]. Again,my question re choices
after the revolution is who decides? I.e., what are the relations of
production?
I'm sure there are people who hold naive views of the kind Michael is
warning us against, but my strong impression is that -- at least in
the case of Cuban economists I know who have been advocating the
(politically-constrained) expansion of markets and capitalist
relations in Cuba -- are undoubtedly on the side of the revolution and
much less naive than Michael seems to think.
The issue is not naivety. It is --- what are the relations of production
advocated by the Cuban economists you have in mind? Are they
talking about worker management? Or, are they talking about dismantling
the vanguard mode of production (while retaining vanguard relations),
shifting to the efficiency of markets and rewarding workers with
bonuses? Haven't you seen this movie already in the USSR, Central Europe
and China?
You wouldn't have found Soviet, Hungarian and Chinese economists [and
even Deng] at a comparable point saying... and even thinking... that
they were
doing any more than saving the revolution from inefficiency, the heavy
hand of petty tutelage, etc. Things, though, develop their own dynamic.
Particular relations of production determine the trajectory.
I am willing to downgrade the terrible accusation I
leveled against his remarks by a notch. Still, I await a satisfactory
response (e.g. one admitting that he was wrong
NEVER!
or another one
convincing me that I was wrong) to at least some of my questions above
before I absolve Michael's views entirely and allow them into Marxist
heaven, of which I have vested myself as official guardian.
You realise, of course, that the Provisional Organising Committee for
the Fifth Marxist Heaven has already been created. :-P
cheers,
michael
--
Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
Director, Programme in 'Transformative Practice and Human Development'
Centro Internacional Miranda, P.H.
Residencias Anauco Suites, Parque Central, final Av. Bolivar
Caracas, Venezuela
fax: 0212 5768274/0212 5777231
http//:centrointernacionalmiranda.gob.ve
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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