Charles Brown wrote:
Do you consider that
therefore China had
to go through a
capitalist stage to
develop the requisite
integration of every
individual producer's
personality for
socialism ?
Marx's idea of "socialism" requires, he himself claims, a significant
degree of "integral development of every individual producer". One
measure of the required degree is that required to "appropriate" the
productive forces developed within "capitalism", "integral
development" having, as an essential part of its meaning, the
development of the intellectual and other "powers" required to
"appropriate" the "ideas" objectified in these forces and use them to
build a social form from which all barriers to the full development of
these "powers" had been eliminated.
The general claim made in Marx's 1881 surmises about the Russian
peasant commune is that capitalist relations of production are not the
only relations capable of developing the required degree of "integral
development".
In particular and as he had previously been argued in Capital, some
kinds of peasant conditions, those characteristic of the yeomanry of
Shakespeare's England and of the peasant citizens of "classical
communities at their best", had produced a significant degree of
"integral development" in this sense (such "integral development"
being identified in these passages with "free individuality").
A key factor he identified as facilitating this development was "the
private property of the laborer in his means of production".
"The private property of the laborer in his means of production is the
foundation of petty industry, whether agricultural, manufacturing, or
both; petty industry, again, is an essential condition for the
development of social production and of the free individuality of the
laborer himself. Of course, this petty mode of production exists also
under slavery, serfdom, and other states of dependence. But it
flourishes, it lets loose its whole energy, it attains its adequate
classical form, only where the laborer is the private owner of his own
means of labor set in action by himself: the peasant of the land which
he cultivates, the artisan of the tool which he handles as a virtuoso."
<http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch32.htm>
"Peasant agriculture on a small scale, and the carrying on of
independent handicrafts, which together form the basis of the feudal
mode of production, and after the dissolution of that system, continue
side by side with the capitalist mode, also form the economic
foundation of the classical communities at their best, after the
primitive form of ownership of land in common had disappeared, and
before slavery had seized on production in earnest."
<http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch13.htm>
Another key factor was "real connections" with others since "the real
intellectual wealth of the individual depends entirely on the wealth
of his real connections". The absence of such connections was, he
claimed, one of the main "fetters", on "integral development" in the
case of the Indian peasant commune and of "masses" of 19th century
French peasants.
He also pointed to this as a "fetter" in his 1881 surmises about the
Russian peasant commune.
"There is one characteristic of the 'agricultural commune' in Russia
which afflicts it with weakness, hostile in every sense. That is its
isolation, the lack of connexion between the life of one commune and
that of the others, this localised microcosm which is not encountered
everywhere as an immanent characteristic of this type but which,
wherever it is found, has caused a more or less centralised despotism
to arise on top of the communes. The federation of Russian republics
of the North proves that this isolation, which seems to have been
originally imposed by the vast expanse of the territory, was largely
consolidated by the political destinies which Russia had to suffer
after the Mongol invasion. Today it is an obstacle which could easily
be eliminated. It would simply be necessary to replace the volost, the
government body, with an assembly of peasants elected by the communes
themselves, serving as the economic and administrative organ for their
interests."
<http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/03/zasulich1.htm>
So, as Marx understands the conditions that would make possible the
required degree of "integral development of every individual
producer", capitalist relations are not the only relations capable of
doing this.
In order to know, however, whether any particular non-capitalist
relations will produce such development, it's necessary to know what's
meant by "integral development" and what's necessary for such
development.
Marx's understanding of "integral development" appropriates Kant and
Hegel on the "educated" individual. One characteristic of such an
individual is freedom from "superstition" and "prejudice".
Consequently, a social context productive of an "individuality"
characterized by a significant degree of "superstition" and
"prejudice" is not a social context productive of the degree of
"integral development" - "free individuality" - required to create
"socialism" in Marx's sense.
In fact, as the passage from the Brumaire claims and as is repeated in
the passage above, "a more or less centralised despotism" is "caused"
by such an "individuality".
In the Russian and Chinese cases then, an analysis in terms of these
ideas would examine the extent to which peasant conditions in each
case were productive of an "individuality" characterized by
significant "superstition" and "prejudice" and the extent to which the
"revolutions" in question led to a "more or less centralised despotism".
In so far as they were so productive and did so lead, they not only
did not create "socialist" productive relations in Marx's sense, they
instead created relations incapable of producing the degree of
"integral development of every individual producer" required to create
such such relations. They would eventually lead, therefore, not to
"socialism", but to a social form consistent with the actual kind of
"individuality" they did produce.
Ted
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