Michael L wrote: > 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.
In other words, the hen precedes the egg it lays. Or the egg precedes the hen that comes out of it. I guess. However, I thought we were talking about this: "At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure." This seems to be about how the possibility and social necessity for new relations emerges in the first place, what creates such possibility and necessity. Marx says it's a conflict between the material productive forces of society and the existing, limited and limiting, production relations. In my understanding, the "primacy" argument laid out by Marx in the Preface (and also in Grundrisse and Capital) is a straightforward statement about the fact that our ability to produce and reproduce new production relations is finite. If it were infinite, then we could set out to produce and reproduce production relations of our choice without constraint. All we would need would be our will, since the conditions (our infinite productive power of labor) would be there already. However, if our ability is not infinite (and the other name for that ability is the "productive force of labor") then that means that a certain, definite degree of development of such ability is "an absolutely necessary practical premise" for specific new relations to be established. In that sense, the productive forces have primacy over the production relations. Now, you say, the specific new relations generate in turn a new type of productive forces that embed the new relations, reinforce them, lock them in, place them on their own proper foundation. Yes, of course. But who's denying *that*? I don't see your either-or. I see a both-and. > 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?] What do you mean by "revolution"? Do you mean a political event or rapid series thereof through which a working-class political formation takes momentary, relatively uncontested, command of a state? In all historical cases I can think of, what the workers can accomplish specifically re. firmly implanting new production relations is, of course, dependent on the existing conditions -- including among them, most prominently, the existing productive forces. Having a measure of political power, even if temporarily uncontested, doesn't mean necessarily that you can build full socialism at will. You seem to concede this much with your phrase about taking longer to "complete the development of socialism." Thus, if by revolution you mean a Marx-1859-Preface social revolution, i.e. dismantling the old social order and replacing it with a new one, then political command is only one ingredient in a process that, if things go well, will reinforce the motion towards a full new social order -- although not necessarily in a straight line. Political power is labor's productive force in a specific form. There's so much you can do with political power. Should workers in Cuba or Venezuela or Brazil or Bolivia use whatever power they may have to try and introduce production relations that embed their mutual cooperation and solidarity, now rather than later? Of course, they should and they will! How does the "primacy" of the productive forces imply that they should not try to solve their practical problems, advance their interests, to the very best of their ability? > 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? Again, in my view, their agenda is self-contradictory. But, as far as I know (and I admit that I know little from afar) they are talking about a greater measure of political participation in state decisions. That involves the further democratization of the whole gamut of mechanisms currently under formal state control in Cuba. In principle, that includes workplace and community self-management. I don't think they are opposed to direct workers' management. At least in some cases, I know for a fact that they are not opposed to it. But clearly, they do not place the same emphasis as you do on workers' direct management at the workplace and community level. Why? Are they just ignorant or flat wrong? You seem to think that their lack of emphasis on direct workers' management reflects some sort of ideological opportunism, Menshevism/Stalinism, whatever, on their part. Call it as you wish. I think it is a symptom of the large upfront social costs involved in implementing and sustaining generalized direct workers' management under current conditions in Cuba. Implementing and keeping up direct workers' management takes labor time. Lots of labor time, that people cannot delegate to others. That's why it's called "direct." The lower the existing level of productive forces, the more the labor time required. And, at first, the return on that huge effort is, well, small. In Cuba's conditions, where in spite of the public availability of key services, people tend to be very busy making some ends meet, there are whole areas (e.g. farming, shoe repair, retail distribution, etc.) where markets have a clear advantage, at least in the short run. Perhaps even in the mid- and long run. As I've said before (and will continue to say), market exchange is an indirect form of social cooperation. Marx (and Lenin) thought so too. In Cuba's conditions, in some specific areas of the economy, "trade gains" are the easier ones to reap. The gains from direct cooperation are much harder to come by. Yes, as you correctly note in your allusions to Che, there is the downside of markets, very large disadvantages in the mid- and long run, which should enter a proper cost-benefit analysis. But then, again, the argument is more casuistic, less categorical. There *is* a tradeoff. Working people, more concerned with immediate solutions may discount heavily the future benefits of direct cooperation and the future costs of all that market filth. We can and should propagandize the long-run advantages of direct workers' management. So, it's not as clear cut as you seem to suggest. It's not like direct cooperation and direct workers' management is, always and everywhere, self-evidently "Pareto superior" or "potentially Pareto preferred" -- if you forgive my jargon -- compared to markets. But, one could argue, the issue is not so much markets per se as inequality. There's inequality in Cuba. Add markets to inequality and you have that explosive capitalist mixture that can only erode Cuba's attempt to build socialism, at least for the time being. Well, even without markets (and therefore without the easier to reap trade gains being reaped by Cubans in, say, farming and a few other areas), even if a full campaign promoting Lebowitzian workers' management were in place (and those campaigns are costly, the more costly the lower the level of the productive force is), would existing inequality banish? No. It would still make itself felt politically, through the bureaucracy, by distorting and corrupting workers' management attempts, etc. So, even if we (erroneously) viewed workers' management always and everywhere as antithetical to markets, it's still not clear that workers' management would be the Cuban's workers best course of action in a host of economic sectors. I don't know whether, with an outright private capitalist sector, the class adversaries would be easier to deal with politically, than if you curtail them legally. By so doing, you may just force them to sneak into the political apparatus of the revolution. Lenin, in some of his NEP writings, seemed to have thought so. I don't know. I think that the productive force of labor, when alienated in the form dead labor concentrated in a few hands, either as political power or as capital, is extremely fungible. It can go from political uses to economic uses very easily. So, it will find its way to replicate itself regardless, unless people push back. All I'm saying is that the concrete course of action to push back on that shit is as clear cut as you suggest. > Haven't you seen this movie already > in the USSR, Central Europe and China? So, does that indicate to you then that's it's only that the old ideas die hard? Or is it that there are hardened conditions, conditions that cannot be abolished overnight, that make those ideas retain their grip on so many people's minds? > 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? Let me answer literally first, and then make a short remark on what I read between the lines: If we were talking about a Marx-1959 Preface social revolution, then the workers would have already prevailed. They would be calling the shots. Now, if the social revolution were still ongoing, incomplete, even if workers enjoyed temporarily undisputed political rule, they would only decide partially. There would be perhaps a capitalist sector, markets, where the workers would influence the outcomes but only as individuals, etc. It's a balance of forces issue. Now, if we're talking about "after a political revolution," then it depends on the conditions under which the political revolution "triumphed" in the first place. But, regardless of whether workers enjoy undisputed political command for the time being or not, pointing to the fact that new production relations cannot be implanted by a sheer act of will is not -- it seems to me -- genuflecting to some ideology. It's accepting reality. I don't understand why you think that the line on the sand in Cuba's case is about who decides. Isn't that self-referential? Who decides who's really deciding? What do you really mean? Are they, the Cubans who advocate an expansion of markets, mere bureaucrats making decisions behind the backs of the Cuban people, while those advocating the workers' direct management in workplaces and communities (there must be some, I hope), true representatives of the workers' will, are excluded from political representation and participation? I'm willing to give the Cuban communists much more credit than this. Not that the risks that you point to are not real. It's that I don't think the specific course of action to minimize them and build socialism is as obvious as you seem to think. It's late. Past my bed time. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
