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Michael Lebowitz: Socialism for the 21st Century — Re-inventing and Renewing the Struggle

[The following presentation was delivered to launch La Alternativa Socialista, the Chilean edition of The Socialist Alternative, in Concepcion, Santiago and Valparaiso, November 2012.]

By Michael A. Lebowitz
SolidarityEconomy.net via Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal

Jan 9, 2013 – Every socialist in the 21st century should try to answer two questions.

First, why don’t workers put an end to capitalism – given its destruction of human beings and the environment (something Marx was so conscious of). In particular, given the declining standards of life for decades in the United States, the economic disaster in Europe and the current crises, how is it that the system is reproduced without a significant challenge by the working class?

Second, why did the working class within what has become known as “real socialism” [the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe] allow those systems to revert to capitalism without resistance from the working classes, who were presumably its beneficiaries?

These two questions are interrelated both in practice and theory. In terms of practice, the failure within capitalism certainly had its impact upon the shaping of “real socialism”. And, in turn, the character of “real socialism” contributed to the view of workers in capitalism that socialism was not a desirable alternative. I can recall many arguments about socialism with my father, who was a machinist, and I remember in particular his comment, “Why would I want a bigger, stronger boss?”

On the theoretical level, the two questions are linked because we rarely explore the question of what kinds of people are produced under particular relations of production. There is no lack of discussion, for example, among Marxists about the rate of profit in capitalism, economic crisis, the intricacies of the so-called transformation problem, and indeed the process of exploitation itself. But there’s little examination of the working class as subject and how that subject is shaped within capitalist relations of production.

Capitalism cripples workers

Marx certainly didn’t make that mistake. In his book, Capital, he explained what capital is — that it is the result of the exploitation of workers. But, in addition to demonstrating that we are dominated by our own products, he also described at length what happens to workers within capitalist relations of production. Workers dominated by the logic of capital are merely the means to capital’s goal, the goal of profits. And in the process, they are crippled. The capitalist division of labour under the system of manufacture deformed workers. Did the introduction of machinery, though, change the one-sidedness that this division of labour produced? Marx answered: no, it perfected it. It completed the division between thinking and doing; it completed that deformation of workers.

This was the source of Marx’s passion. This was the source of his hatred for capitalism. Not simply the exploitation that creates capital but the deformation and destruction of human beings who are merely means for capital. Our products are a power over us — but not simply because they are a power. It is also because we are not. Capitalism does not simply impoverish us because it extracts from us the things we produce. It impoverishes us because of the people it produces.

And, Marx looked to an alternative – an alternative which he articulates in Capital. Indeed, that alternative is the premise of his book. He evokes there a society characterised not by the capitalists’ impulse to increase the value of their capital but by “the inverse situation in which objective wealth is there to satisfy the worker’s own need for development”. This “inverse situation” is the perspective from which Marx persistently critiques capitalism. He talks about capitalist production and how the means of production employ workers as “this inversion, indeed this distortion, which is peculiar to and characteristic of capitalist production”.

The spectre haunting Marx’s Capital is the vision of a society oriented to “the worker’s own need for development”, the inverse situation. It is a call to invert the capitalist inversion, a call to build a society oriented toward human development, one which recognises the necessity for the workers’ own needs for development.

Marx pointed to the need to create new relations that end the division between thinking and doing, the need to develop what he called “rich human beings”, that rich individuality that is all sided in needs and capacities. Very simply, it is the call to build a society of associated producers, a socialist society with productive relations through which people are able to develop. But that’s not so easy. If it were only a matter of calling for the negation of capital, capitalism would have ended long ago.

Marx grasped something that so many have failed to see since — that capital has the tendency to produce a working class that views the existence of capital as necessary. “The advance of capitalist production”, he stressed, “develops a working class which by education, tradition and habit looks upon the requirements of this mode of production as self-evident natural laws”.

Here is the crux of the problem: capital tends to produce the workers it needs, workers who look upon capitalism as common sense. Given the mystification of capital (arising from the sale of labour-power), which makes productivity, profits and progress appear as the result of the capitalist’s contribution, Marx argued that “the organization of the capitalist process of production, once it is fully developed, breaks down all resistance”. That is strong and unequivocal language; and Marx added that capital’s generation of a reserve army of the unemployed “sets the seal on the domination of the capitalist over the worker”. Accordingly, he proposed that the capitalist can rely upon the workers’ “dependence on capital, which springs from the conditions of production themselves, and is guaranteed in perpetuity by them”.

Of course, we often struggle. Workers struggle over wages, working conditions and the defence of past gains. But as long as workers look upon the requirements of capital as “self-evident natural laws”, those struggles occur within the bounds of the capitalist relation. Subordination to the logic of capital means that, faced with capitalism’s crises, workers sooner or later act to ensure the conditions for the expanded reproduction of capital. And that’s why capitalism keeps going. It keeps going because we are convinced that there is no alternative — no alternative to barbarism. As a result, the “realistic” left, the so-called good left of social democracy, tells us that the best we can get is barbarism with a human face.

Alternative common sense

To go beyond capitalism, we need a vision that can appear to workers as an alternative common sense, as their common sense. To struggle against a situation in which workers “by education, tradition and habit” look upon capital’s needs “as self-evident natural laws”, we must struggle for an alternative common sense. But what is the vision of a new society whose requirements workers may look upon as “self-evident natural laws’? Clearly, it won’t be found in the results of 20th century attempts to build socialism, which, to use Marx’s phrase, ended “in a miserable fit of the blues”.

“We have to reinvent socialism”. With this statement, Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, electrified activists in his closing speech at the January 2005 World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil. “It can’t be the kind of socialism that we saw in the Soviet Union”, he stressed, “but it will emerge as we develop new systems that are built on cooperation, not competition”. If we are ever going to end the poverty of the majority of the world, capitalism must be transcended, Chavez argued. “But we cannot resort to state capitalism, which would be the same perversion of the Soviet Union. We must reclaim socialism as a thesis, a project and a path, but a new type of socialism, a humanist one, which puts humans and not machines or the state ahead of everything.”

There, at its core, is the vision of socialism for the 21st century. Rather than expansion of the means of production or direction by the state, human beings must be at the centre of the new socialist society. This is a return to Marx’s vision of the “inverse situation” oriented to the worker’s own need for development, a return to the vision of a society which would allow for “the all-round development of the individual”, the “complete working out of the human content”, the “development of all human powers as such the end in itself”, a society of associated producers in which “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all”.

But the focus upon full development of human potential was only one side of Marx’s perspective. What Marx added to this emphasis upon human development was his understanding of how that development of human capacities occurs. In his Theses on Feuerbach, Marx was quite clear that it is not by giving people gifts, not by changing circumstances for them, not by populism nor by those at the top deciding for us. Rather, we change only through real practice, by changing circumstances ourselves. Marx’s concept of “revolutionary practice”, that concept of “the coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change’, is the red thread that runs throughout his work.

One aspect of this, certainly, was his explicit recognition of how the struggles of workers against capital transform “circumstances and men”, expanding their capabilities and making them fit to create a new world. But there was more. In the very act of producing, Marx indicated, “the producers change, too, in that they bring out new qualities in themselves, develop themselves in production, transform themselves, develop new powers and new ideas, new modes of intercourse, new needs and new language”. And, of course, the relations within which workers produce affect the nature of the workers produced. After all, that was Marx’s point about how capitalist productive relations “distort the worker into a fragment of a man” and degrade her/him and “alienate from him the intellectual potentialities of the labour process”.

Indeed, every human activity has two products; every human activity has as its result joint products — both the change in the object of labour and the change in the labourer themselves. In my book, The Socialist Alternative, I identify this combination of human development and practice as Marx’s key link. And, if we grasp that key link, we can see its obvious implications for building socialism. What are the circumstances that have as their joint product “the totally developed individual, for whom the different social functions are different modes of activity he takes up in turn’? To develop the capacities of people, the producers must put an end to what Marx called, in his Critique of the Gotha Programme, “the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labour, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labour”.

For the development of rich human beings, the worker must be able to call “his own muscles into play under the control of his own brain”. And, not by themselves but through a democratic, protagonistic process. When workers act in workplaces and communities in conscious cooperation with others, they produce themselves as people conscious of their interdependence and of their own collective power. The joint product of their activity is the development of the capacities of the producers — precisely Marx’s point when he says that “when the worker cooperates in a planned way with others, he strips off the fetters of his individuality, and develops the capabilities of his species”. Here, then, is the way to ensure that “the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly’.

Creating the conditions in workplaces and communities by which people can develop their capacities is an essential aspect of the concept of socialism for the 21st century. But it is only one element. How can the workers’ own need for development be realised if capital owns our social heritage — the products of the social brain and the social hand? And, how can we develop our own potential if we look upon other producers as enemies or as our markets — i.e., if individual material self-interest is our motivation?

Capitalism is an organic system, one which has the tendency to reproduce the conditions of its existence (including a working class that looks upon its requirements as “self-evident natural laws”). That is its strength. To counter that and to satisfy “the worker’s own need for development”, the socialist alternative we envision also must be an organic system, a particular combination of production, distribution and consumption, a system of reproduction. What Chavez named in January 2007 as “the elementary triangle of socialism” (social property, social production and satisfaction of social needs) is a step forward toward a conception of such a system.

Consider the logic of this socialist combination, this conception of socialism for the 21st century:

1. Social ownership of the means of production is critical within this structure because it is the only way to ensure that our communal, social productivity is directed to the free development of all rather than used to satisfy the private goals of capitalists, groups of producers or state bureaucrats. But, this concerns more than our current activity. Social ownership of our social heritage, the results of past social labour, is an assertion that all living human beings have the right to the full development of their potential — to real wealth, the development of human capacity. It is the recognition that “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all”.

2. Social production organised by workers builds new relations among producers — relations of cooperation and solidarity. It allows workers to end “the crippling of body and mind” and the loss of “every atom of freedom, both in bodily and in intellectual activity” that comes from the separation of head and hand. Organisation of production in all spheres by workers, thus, is a condition for the full development of the producers, for the development of their capabilities — a condition for the production of rich human beings.

3. Satisfaction of communal needs and purposes as the goal of productive activity means that, instead of interacting as separate and indifferent individuals, we function as members of a community. Rather than looking upon our own capacity as our property and as a means of securing as much as possible in an exchange, we start from the recognition of our common humanity and, thus, of the importance of conditions in which everyone is able to develop her full potential. When our productive activity is oriented to the needs of others, it both builds solidarity among people and produces socialist human beings.

There’s an old saying that if you don’t know where you want to go, then any road will take you there. I disagree. If you don’t know where you want to go, then no road will take you there. A vision of a socialist alternative such as that organic system summarised by the socialist triangle is essential if we are put an end to capitalism. Of course, knowing where you want to go is not the same as getting there. But, it is essential for indicating where you don’t want to go. And one place we don’t want to go is to a 21st century version of “real socialism”.

‘Real socialism’

To explain the nature of “real socialism” from the 1950s through the 1980s, I introduced (in my new book, Contradictions of ‘Real Socialism’) the concept of vanguard relations of production — a particular set of productive relations characterised by a vanguard whose logic was to deliver socialism to the masses from above and to do so without permitting that underlying population to develop its own capacities through practice and protagonism. There were definite benefits for workers. In particular, there was a social contract whereby the vanguard promised, among other things, full employment, job security, subsidised necessities and rising income over time — as long as the working class accepted its lack of power and the opportunity to develop its capabilities in the workplace and society.

Precisely because of the nature of vanguard relations, though, the workers produced were not subjects able to build a new society nor, indeed, able to respond as the system ran into problems. But, there were further implications of this crippling of workers. In The Socialist Alternative, I noted that if workers don’t manage, someone else does; and, if workers don’t develop their capabilities through their practice, someone else does.

In ‘real socialism’, it was the enterprise managers who developed capabilities, and they emerged as an incipient capitalist class – a class oriented to the logic of capital but constrained by the logic of the vanguard. Their ultimate victory brought with it a very significant loss for the working class — the jettisoning of the social contract, i.e., the ending of job security, full employment, subsidisation of necessities, etc. — the loss of all the benefits that workers obtained within vanguard relations in this period. That loss was significant, and there is much nostalgia among workers about that period. But the point is not to return to it. “Real socialism” was never the alternative to which Marx looked — that “inverse situation in which objective wealth is there to satisfy the worker’s own need for development”.

We need to be explicit that “real socialism” is not where we want to go in the 21st century. We need to identify what we do want — we need the vision of a socialist alternative. Like the worst architect, for the revolutionary labour process we must build the goal in our minds before we can construct it in reality. But that is not enough — knowing where you want to go is not at all the same as getting there. Indeed, how is it possible to get there given that capital has the tendency to produce a working class that by education, tradition and habit looks upon the requirements of capital as “self-evident natural laws”?

Struggle

The answer, I suggest, is that people do struggle even though mystified by the nature of capital. They struggle for what they see as fair, and they struggle against violations of their conception of fairness. This moral economy of the working class points to possibilities. Even though their goals in these struggles may be limited to ending the immediate violations of norms of fairness and justice and may be aimed, for example, at achieving no more than “a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work”, people change in the course of struggle. Despite the limited goals involved in wage struggles, Marx argued that they were essential for preventing workers “from becoming apathetic, thoughtless, more or less well-fed instruments of production”; without such struggles, workers “would be degraded to one level mass of broken wretches past salvation”.

People, in short, struggle over their conceptions of right and wrong, and what Marx attempted to do was to explain the underlying basis for those struggles. By itself, the moral economy of the working class can never explain its basis — why those particular beliefs as to what is fair are present — and thus why those norms can change. Accordingly, it is essential to recognise the importance of the moral economy of the working class but also to go beyond it. To grasp the conditions which underlie concepts of fairness at a given moment, it is necessary to move from the moral economy of the working class to the political economy of the working class.

In short, the starting point should be real people with particular ideas and concepts. To articulate what is implicit in their concepts and struggles and to show how these contain within them the elements of a new society is essential. To see the future in the present is what is needed if we are to build that future.

In The Socialist Alternative, I propose the importance of linking existing struggles to a focus upon the right of everyone to full development of their potential. I am convinced that this focus allows us to link separate struggles and to demonstrate the importance of a socialist alternative.

Accordingly, I introduced there the idea of a Charter for Human Development. The goal of such a charter is to try to redefine the concept of fairness. To stress that it is unfair that some people monopolise the social heritage of all human beings, that it is unfair that some people are able to develop their capacities through their activities while others are crippled and deformed, and that it is unfair that we are forced into structures in which we view others as competitors and enemies.

Is it possible to redefine the concept of fairness and to build a new moral economy of the working class? Certainly, it is not inevitable. But in this period of economic and ecological crisis, there is no alternative but to try. We are at the point when Marx’s statement that capitalism destroys human beings and nature has taken on a new urgency.

The choice before us has been noted often: socialism or barbarism.

Sylvia Thompson, 1924-2012, Presente!

Sylvia H. Thompson, who spent her life fighting for the poor and oppressed and championing the legacy of the veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, died of cancer in December in New York City.

Thompson was born Sylvia Bernard in 1924 in San Antonio, Texas. As a young woman, she joined the Communist Party and helped launch the Civil Rights Congress in Texas. In 1947, she traveled to North Carolina where she spent more than a year organizing electrical workers to join the union. It was there that she met her first husband, Sam Hall, a district organizer for the Party. The young couple moved to Birmingham, Alabama where, as open communists, they endured constant surveillance, threats and break-ins.

After Hall’s death, Sylvia moved to New York City where she went to work for the state Party office and met her second husband, Robert G. Thompson in late 1957. Bob Thompson had been a battalion commander with the Lincoln Brigade in Spain, and went on to receive one of the highest medals for valor – the Distinguished Service Cross – for his heroic actions in the Pacific Theater in World War II.

When he died in 1965, Sylvia sought and received permission from the Army to have his ashes interred in Arlington National Cemetery. However, when publicity about Bob’s previous imprisonment as a Smith Act defendant surfaced, the Army reversed itself and denied the widow’s request.

Sylvia took the matter to court as well as to the American people, coordinating a campaign to expose the Army’s shameful actions. In 1968, a federal appeals court ordered the Army to inter Bob Thompson’s ashes.

In subsequent years, Sylvia became a mainstay in the New York office of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, working with veterans and organizing the annual reunions.

The 15-hour working week predicted by Keynes may soon be within our grasp – but are we ready for freedom from toil?

By John Quiggin
SolidarityEconomy.net via Aeon Magazine

Sept 27, 2012 – I first became an economist in the early 1970s, at a time when revolutionary change still seemed like an imminent possibility and when utopian ideas were everywhere, exemplified by the Situationist slogan of 1968: ‘Be realistic. Demand the impossible.’ Preferring to think in terms of the possible I was much influenced by an essay called ‘Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren,’ written in 1930 by John Maynard Keynes, the great economist whose ideas still dominated economic policymaking at the time.

Like the rest of Keynes’s work, the essay ceased to be discussed very much during the decades of free-market liberalism that led up to the global financial crisis of 2007 and the ensuing depression, through which most of the developed world is still struggling. And, also like the rest of Keynes’s work, this essay has enjoyed a revival of interest in recent years, promoted most notably by the Keynes biographer Robert Skidelsky and his son Edward.

The Skidelskys have revived Keynes’s case for leisure, in the sense of time free to use as we please, as opposed to idleness. As they point out, their argument draws on a tradition that goes back to the ancients. But Keynes offered something quite new: the idea that leisure could be an option for all, not merely for an aristocratic minority.

Writing at a time of deep economic depression, Keynes argued that technological progress offered the path to a bright future. In the long run, he said, humanity could solve the economic problem of scarcity and do away with the need to work in order to live. That in turn implied that we would be free to discard ‘all kinds of social customs and economic practices, affecting the distribution of wealth and of economic rewards and penalties, which we now maintain at all costs, however distasteful and unjust they may be in themselves, because they are tremendously useful in promoting the accumulation of capital’.

Keynes was drawing on a long tradition but offering a new twist. The idea of a utopian golden age in which abundance replaces scarcity and the world is no longer ruled by money has always been with us. What was new in Keynes was the idea that technological progress might make utopia a reality rather than merely a vision. continue

Science fiction is full of critical charge for socialists and radicals

By Benjamin Silverman
Red Wedge Magazine

Sept 4, 2012 – Sometimes, it’s good to just dream. The system is brutal, everyday brings new news of some great outrage — a Republicans makes an idiotically misogynistic statement, striking miners are butchered by the police — it’s easy for it to get you down. So we seek out escapes. But there is escapism and then there is escapism. There is the escapism of the Kardashians, reality TV, Twilight and the like, that dulls the mind while it dulls the pain. But then there is the escapism that allows us to go off on flights on fantasy, to dream for a moment about what could be, not just self-flagellate ourselves over the horror of what is.

In literature and film, science-fiction as a genre has that potential, which is sadly not often enough fulfilled, to be a true playground for hypotheticals. Peoples, societies, civilizations, species can be thrown up into the air in great “what if?” experiments. What would human society’s reaction be towards alien life, immortality, space travel, artificial intelligence, an end to want, the apocalypse? What would certain historical events and processes look like in totally different scenarios — the fall of the Roman Empire becomes Asimov’s “Foundation Series,” the American Revolution becomes Heinlein’s The Moon Is the Harsh Mistress, and the post-Civil War American experience for Confederate soldiers becomes the TV show Firefly.

This inherent potential of sci-fi to act as a canvas for societal “what ifs” has also a tradition within the broader socialist movement. Some might be quick to accuse such writings as “utopian,” that is, in Marxist terminology, ideas that are separated from the real living situation of now, with no idea of how to get from here to there or who are the actors that can carry that change about. And those accusations would be largely correct. But that’s not the point. These ‘utopian’ dreams have had a massive effect in popularizing and giving some flesh and bones to socialist ideas. continue

Spaghetti Communism? The Politics of the Italian Western

Franco Nero in Sergio Corbucci’s Django 1966

Sept 1, 2011 – If Westerns allegorize a mythical space of gradual resolution and order, the western all’italiana explodes the American dream of stabilizing prosperity with excessive violence and explicit anti-colonial themes. Benjamin Noys argues for a deeper analysis of an intensely political cinematic genre

By Benjamin Noys
Mute Magazine

Cleaning up the Whole World

Gilberto Perez remarks that ‘the Western doesn’t just tell violent stories, it tells stories about the meaning, the management of violence, the establishment of social order and political authority’.1 Perez elsewhere concedes that the Western runs ‘a gamut of political persuasions’,2but is keen to emphasise that in the classical American Western this ‘management of violence’ takes the form of a ‘vital dialectic’3 in which is synthesised a ‘civilized violence’.4 Serving his deliberately provocative re-imagination of the ‘frontier’ as equivocal site of liberty, Perez regards the Western as the romance of the birth of a new political order through the, often literal, marriage of East and West, in which violence plays the role of a ‘vanishing mediator’. Such an argument hardly seems to hold for the Italian Western of the 1960s and 1970s, often known affectionately or derogatorily as ‘Spaghetti Westerns’, in which the excessive hyper-violence associated with the form makes it difficult to see how it might be pressed into service for a ‘vital dialectic’ of ‘civilised violence’. The very excess of the violence on display, as well as its displacement from the ‘mythological’ place of America, fragments any dialectical sublation of violence within a national or political order.

This suggests a very different ‘political persuasion’, and very different questions concerning the ‘management of violence’. In fact, objections to Spaghetti Westerns, often by critics enamoured of classic American Westerns (or ‘Hamburger Westerns’5, in Christopher Frayling’s mischievous suggestion), were usually founded on their ‘excess’ of violence. Philip French, writing in 1972, describes a filmography of continental Westerns as ‘to me read[ing] like a brochure for a season in hell.’6A surprisingly apposite comment as we will see. Spaghetti Westerns, in fact, constructed a form of violence that carried a rather different and more intense charge. Franco Nero, who played the eponymous ‘Django’ in the seminal Spaghetti Western, remarked:

Spaghetti Westerns were for a certain kind of audience – the workers, I think. Mainly workers, boys… yes, all kinds of workers – and the workers they fantasize a lot, and they would like to go to the boss in the office and be the hero and say ‘Sir, from today, something’s going to happen.’ And then – bam, bam! they want to clean up the whole world.7

A rather extreme example of the refusal of work, although if one considers the strategies and intensity of conflict in Italy between 1968-1977 – ‘Our Comrade P.38′ as one anonymous tract had it – ‘clean[ing] up the whole world’, gains a prescient resonance.8 continue

Nguyen Phu Trong Meeting with Raul Castro

Socialism and the Path to Socialism – Vietnam’s Perspective

By Nguyen Phú Trong
General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam

Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, paid an official friendship visit to Cuba and gave a presentation at the Nico Lopez Party School of the Cuban Communist Party.

Following are excerpts from Party leader Trong’s presentation.

Socialism and the path to socialism is a fundamental and practical theoretical topic with broad and complicated content, demanding thorough and in-depth study. I hereby mention just a few aspects from Vietnam’s perspective for your reference and our discussions. And several questions are focused: What is socialism? Why did Vietnam choose the socialist path? How to build socialism in Vietnam step by step? How significant has Vietnam’s renewal and socialism building process been over the past 25 years? And what lessons have been learnt?

As you know, socialism can be understood in three different aspects: socialism as a doctrine, socialism as a movement, and socialism as a regime. Each aspect has different manifestations, depending on the world outlook and development level in a specific historical period. The socialism I want to discuss here is a scientific socialism based on Marxist-Leninist doctrine in the current era.

Previously, when the Soviet Union and its constellation of socialist countries existed, striving for socialism in Vietnam seemed logical and implicitly validated. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, socialist regimes fell in many countries and the worldwide socialist revolution began to ebb. Now, the cause of socialism has been revived, sparking widespread interest and heated debate.

It is true that capitalism has never been more widely accepted than it is now, and it has achieved great successes, especially in liberating and developing productive capacity and advancing science and technology. Many developed capitalist countries have established social welfare systems which are more progressive than ever before, thanks to strong economies and long struggles by their working class. However, capitalism cannot overcome its inherent fundamental contradictions.  We are witnessing a financial crisis and economic decline which originated in the US in 2008, rapidly spread to other capitalist centers, and has impacted every country around the globe.

In addition to this economic crisis with its related food and energy crisis, a depletion of natural resources and deterioration of the environment are posing great challenges to the existence and development of humankind. These are the consequences of a socio-economic development process which champions profits, considers wealth and material consumption the measures of civilization, and makes individualism the main pillar of society. They are the essential characteristics of capitalism’s mode of production and consumption.  The ongoing crisis once again proves that capitalism is anti-advancement, anti-humanity, and unsustainable economically, socially, and ecologically. As Karl Marx said, capitalism damages the things that constitute its wealth, namely, labor and natural resources. According to scientists, the current crisis cannot be completely resolved in the framework of a capitalist regime.

Recent social protest movements flaring up in many developed capitalist countries have exposed the truth about the nature of capitalist political entities. In fact, democratic regimes which follow the “free democracy” formula advocated and imposed by the West never ensure that power truly belongs to the people and for the people—the natural factor of democracy. Such a power system still belongs mostly to the wealthy minority and serves the interests of its major capitalist groups. A very small proportion, as small as 1% of the population, holds the majority of the wealth and means of production, controls most of the financial institutions and mass media, and dominates the whole society.

We need a society where development is truly for humans, instead of exploiting and trampling on human dignity for the sake of profits. We need economic development in parallel with social progress and fairness instead of a widening gap between the rich and the poor and social inequality. We need a society which yearns for progressive and humane values, a society of compassion, unity, and mutual assistance instead of rivalry for the selfish benefits of individuals and groups. We need sustainable development and harmony with nature to make our living environment clean for present and future generations, instead of exploiting, appropriating resources, infinitely consuming materials, and destroying the environment. And we need a political system under which power truly belongs to the people, by the people, and serves the interests of the people, instead of a wealthy minority. These are the authentic values of socialism, aren’t they?

As you comrades and friends know, the Vietnamese people have undergone a prolonged, harsh, sacrifice-filled revolutionary struggle against colonialist and imperialist domination to win national independence and sovereignty in the spirit of the slogan “There is nothing more precious than Independence and Freedom”.

National independence associated with socialism is the basic guideline of Vietnam’s revolution and the essential point of Ho Chi Minh’s legacy. His rich experience combined with the revolutionary theories and science of Marxism-Leninism led Ho Chi Minh to the conclusion that only socialism and communism can create a truly free, prosperous, happy life for every person in every nation. Advancing to socialism is the objective and the inexorable path of the Vietnamese revolution, harnessing the people’s aspirations and historical trends.

But what is socialism? And how does one advance to socialism? This is what absorbs our thoughts—finding our way step by step, creating orientations and guidelines which fit the specific circumstances of Vietnam.

* * *

To date, though there remain some issues that need further study, we realize that the socialist society that the Vietnamese people are striving for is a society of prosperous people in a strong nation characterized by democracy, fairness, and civilization. It’s a society where the people are the masters, which has a highly-developed economy and is based on modern forces of production and progressive relations of production. It has an advanced culture imbued with national identity, and a prosperous, free, and happy people who are blessed with opportunities for comprehensive development. Ethnic groups in the Vietnamese community are equal, united, respectful and supportive of each other. A law-governed socialist state of the people, by the people, and for the people is led by the Communist Party and has friendly and cooperative ties with countries all over the world.

To achieve these goals, we should speed up national industrialization and modernization; develop a knowledge-based and socialist-oriented market economy; build an advanced culture imbued with national identity; boost human resource development; improve people’s living standards; promote social progress and fairness; ensure national defense; safeguard national security and social order; implement a foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, peace, friendship, cooperation, and development; proactively integrate into the world; build a socialist democracy; exercise national unity; expand the national unification front; build a law-governed socialist state of the people, by the people, and for the people; and build a stronger, more transparent Party.

The more we delve into reality, the more we are aware that the transitional period to socialism is a long, extremely difficult and complicated process because it needs to create a profound change in all areas of social life. Vietnam is bypassing the stage of capitalism and moving on directly to socialism from an obsolete agricultural society with low productivity further weakened by decades of wars. Constant attempts at sabotage by hostile forces have hindered Vietnam’s path to socialism, which unavoidably involves a lengthy transition period through various stages and forms of socio-economic organization accompanied by inevitable conflicts between the old and the new. By ‘bypassing the stage of capitalism’, I mean bypassing a regime of oppression, inequality, and capital exploitation, bypassing evils and political entities inappropriate to a socialist regime. This doesn’t mean that we must ignore the achievements and civilized values that humankind has achieved during the process of capitalist development. Indeed, the inheritance of these achievements should be based on an attitude of selective development.

The concept of a socialist market-oriented economy is a creative and fundamental theoretical breakthrough for our Party and an important fruit of the 25-year renewal process, which stemmed from Vietnam’s reality and accumulated experiences of the world. In our opinion, a socialist market-oriented economy is a multi-sector commodity economy, which operates in accordance with market mechanisms and a socialist orientation. It is a new type of market economy in the history of the market economy’s development. It is a kind of economic organization which abides by market economy rules but is based on, led by, and governed by the principles and nature of socialism reflected in its three aspects—ownership, organization, and distribution—for the goal of a prosperous people in a strong nation characterized by democracy, fairness, and civilization. This is neither a capitalist market economy nor a socialist market economy.

In a socialist-oriented market economy, there are multiple forms of ownership and multiple economic sectors. Economic sectors operating in accordance with the law are major components of the economy and equal under the law in the interest of co-existence, cooperation, and healthy competition. The state economy plays a key role; the collective economy is constantly consolidated and developed; the private economy is one of the driving forces of the collective economy; multiple ownership, especially joint-stock enterprises, is encouraged; the state and collective economies provide a firm foundation for the national economy. The relations of distribution ensure fairness, create momentum for growth, and operate a distribution mechanism based on work results, economic efficiency, contributions by other resources, and distribution through the social security and welfare system. The State manages the economy through laws, strategies, plans, policies, and mechanisms to steer, regulate, and stimulate socio-economic development.

Typical characteristic of the socialist orientation in Vietnam’s market economy is the combination of economics and society, the coordination of economic and social policies, economic growth in parallel with social progress, and fairness applied at every step, in every policy, throughout the development process. This means that we neither wait for the economy to reach a high level of development before implementing social progress and fairness, nor “sacrifice” social progress and fairness to the pursuit of mere economic growth. On the contrary, every economic policy should target the goal of social development and every social policy should create momentum to boost economic development. Encouraging people to enrich themselves legally should go hand in hand with reducing poverty and taking care of the disadvantaged and those who have rendered great service to the nation. These are the principles required to ensure a healthy, sustainable, socialist-oriented development.

Our Party sees culture as a spiritual foundation of society and considers cultural development on a par with economic growth and social progress in its fundamental orientation toward socialism building in Vietnam. The culture Vietnam is building is progressive and imbued with national identity, a united-in-diversity culture based on advanced humanitarian values, where Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s thoughts play a leading role in social spiritual life, where we inherit and uphold the fine traditional values of all ethnic groups in Vietnam, absorb humankind’s cultural achievements, and strive to build a healthy, civilized society that promotes human dignity, higher knowledge, morality, physical fitness, aesthetics, and a fulfilling lifestyle. We believe that people should play the central role in any development strategy; that cultural development and human resources development are both the target and the momentum of the renewal process; that the development of education and training and science and technology should be priorities of national policy; that environmental protection is one of the vital issues and a criterion of sustainable development; that building happy, progressive families to be healthy cells of society and implementing gender equality are criteria of advancement and civilization.

A socialist society is a society that yearns for progressive and humane values based on people’s common interests, which is totally different from competitive societies based on the interests of individuals and groups. A socialist society fosters social consensus rather than social opposition and antagonism. In a socialist political regime, the relationship between the Party, the State, and the people is a relationship of entities unified in their goals and interests. Every Party guideline, every government policy, law, and action is in the people’s interest. The political model and overall mode of operation is that the Party leads, the State manages, and the people are the master. Democracy is the nature of the socialist regime and both the goal and the momentum of socialism building. Building a socialist democracy, ensuring that real power belongs to the people, is the ultimate and long-term task of Vietnam’s revolution. We intend to unwaveringly uphold democracy, build a law-governed socialist State truly of the people, by the people, and for the people on the basis of an alliance between workers, farmers, and intellectuals led by the Communist Party of Vietnam. The State represents the people’s right to mastery and at the same time organizes the implementation of Party guidelines. There are mechanisms for the people to exercise their right to direct mastery in all areas of society and to take part in social management. We realize that a law-governed socialist State is by nature different from a law-governed capitalist State. Legislative power under a capitalist regime is really a tool to protect and serve the interests of the bourgeois class, while legislative power under a socialist regime is a tool to reflect and exercise the people’s right to mastery and protect the interests of the masses. By enforcing laws, the State enables the people to wield political power and dictate against all acts that violate the interests of the fatherland and the people. At the same time, we define national unity as a source of strength and a decisive factor for the lasting victory of the revolutionary cause in Vietnam. Equality and unity between ethnicities and religions are constantly promoted.

Being well aware of the Communist Party’s leadership as a factor that decides the victory of the renewal process and ensures a national development in line with socialist orientation, we pay special attention to party building, considering it a key and vital task for the Party and the socialist regime. The Communist Party of Vietnam is a vanguard of the Vietnamese working class. The Party was born, exists, and develops for the interests of the working class, the laborers, and the nation as a whole. When the ruling Party leads the nation, it is acknowledged by the entire people as their vanguard. Therefore, the Party is the vanguard of the working class, the laborers, and the Vietnamese nation as a whole. This doesn’t mean playing down the Party’s class nature, but reflects a more in-depth and more complete awareness of the Party’s class nature since the working class is a class whose interests match the interests of the laborers and the nation as a whole. Our Party unswervingly considers Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh’s thoughts as the ideological foundation and lodestar of our revolutionary activities, and considers democratic centralism as the basic organizing principle. The Party leads with its platforms, strategies, and policy guidelines, with its communications, persuasion, mobilization, organization, and supervision, and with Party members’ role models and unified leadership of personnel work. Considering corruption, bureaucracy, and moral deterioration as threats to the ruling Party, particularly in a market economy, the Communist Party of Vietnam demands constant self-reform, self-rectification and rejection of opportunism, individualism, corruption, bureaucracy, waste, and moral deterioration within the Party and the entire political regime.

The renewal process, including the development of the socialist-oriented market economy, has truly brought about positive changes in our country over the past 25 years.

Vietnam used to be a poor, war-torn country, with devastated human lives, infrastructure, and environment. Food and other necessities were in critically short supply, and people’s lives were extremely hard, three-fourths of the population being below the poverty line.  That was the reality in Vietnam before the renewal process.

Thanks to the renewal process, the economy has been growing steadily over the past 25 years at an average annual rate of 7 to 8%. Per capita income has increased 11 fold. In 2008 Vietnam escaped from its former status as a low-income country. From a country with chronic food shortages, Vietnam now not only ensures its own food security but also has become a leading exporter of rice and other agricultural produce.  Industry has developed rapidly with industry and services now accounting for 80% of GDP. Exports have increased steadily, topping 100 billion USD in 2011. Foreign investment had climbed to nearly 200 billion USD by the end of 2011. Economic growth has enabled the country to escape the socio-economic crisis of the 1980s and improve its citizens’ living standards. The poverty rate falls 2 to 3% every year. It went from 75% in 1986 to just 9.5% in 2010. Vietnam completed the eradication of illiteracy and popularization of primary education in 2000 and popularization of secondary education in 2010. The number of tertiary students has increased 9 fold over the past 25 years; 95% of Vietnam’s adult population is literate. Many common diseases have been successfully contained. The poor, children under 6, and the elderly are provided free health insurance. The child malnutrition rate has been slashed 3 fold. The new-born mortality rate has fallen 6 fold. Life expectancy has increased from 62 in 1990 to 73 in 2010.  Vietnamese cultural life has expanded to include an ever-wider range of cultural activities. Vietnam now has about 25 million internet users and is one of the countries experiencing the fastest growth of IT technology. The United Nations has recognized Vietnam as one of the leading countries in reaching its Millennium Development Goals.

So it can be said that the renewal policy has brought about very positive changes in Vietnam: economic growth, higher productivity, rapid poverty reduction, a higher standard of living, reduced social problems, more political and social stability, ensured security, enhanced national posture and strength, and greater trust in the Party’s leadership. Reviewing 20 years of renewal, our 10th National Party Congress remarked that the renewal has recorded “great achievements of historical significance”. In fact, the Vietnamese people are now enjoying better living conditions than at any time in the past. That’s why the renewal initiated and led by the Communist Party of Vietnam has received the Vietnamese people’s full and active support. Renewal achievements in Vietnam have proved that socialist-oriented development not only has a positive economic effect but also resolves social problems much better than capitalist development at a similar development level.

Despite all these achievements, there remain shortcomings, limitations, and new challenges to be overcome in Vietnam’s pursuit of national development.

Economically, the quality of growth remains low, infrastructure development is uneven, the efficiency and capacity of businesses—including state-owned enterprises—are limited, the environment is polluted in many areas, and market management and regulation are inadequate.  Meanwhile, competition is becoming fiercer with globalization and international integration.

Socially, the gap between the rich and the poor is widening, the quality of education, healthcare and many other public services is low, culture and social ethics are deteriorating, and crimes and social vices are becoming more complicated. In particular, corruption, waste, and the deterioration of political ideology and personality morality are tending to spread among cadres and Party members.

We realize that Vietnam is now in a transitional period towards socialism. During this transition, socialist factors have been established and developed, intermingling and competing with non-socialist factors, including capitalist factors.  The intermingling and competing are more complicated and aggressive in the current context of market opening and international integration. Along with positive aspects, there will always be negative aspects and challenges that need to be considered wisely and dealt with timely and effectively. It is a difficult struggle that requires spirit, fresh vision, and creativity. The path to socialism is a process of constantly consolidating and strengthening socialist factors to make them more dominant and irreversible. Success will depend on correct policies, political spirit, leadership capacity, and the fighting strength of the Party.

At present, we are revising our growth model and restructuring our economy with greater priority being given to quality and sustainability by focusing on infrastructure, human resources and administrative reforms. Socially, we are continuing to pursue sustainable poverty reduction, improve healthcare, education, and other public services, and enrich the people’s cultural life.

Theory and experience agree that socialism building means creating a new type of society, which is by no means an easy task. The challenges and difficulties before us require that the Party’s leadership role be matched by the creative ideas, political support, and active participation of the people. The people will accept, support, and enthusiastically take part in carrying out the Party’s guidelines when they see that those guidelines answer their needs and aspirations. The ultimate victory of Vietnam’s development is deeply rooted in the strength of the Vietnamese people.

At the same time, the Party’s directions and policies must originate not only in the reality of Vietnam and its history, but also in the reality of the world and era in which we all live. In today’s globalized world, no country can stand aloof from the world community and its complex interactions. We therefore intend to proactively integrate into the world and implement a foreign policy whose pillars are independence, self-reliance, peace, cooperation, and shared development. Vietnam is committed to multi-lateralization and diversification of its international relations on a basis of equality, mutual benefit, and respect for national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and non-interference in each other’s internal affairs.

Even more important is that we should be consistent and firm on the foundation of Marxism-Leninism, a scientific and revolutionary doctrine of the working class and the masses of laborers. The radical scientific and revolutionary characteristics of Marxism-Leninism are lasting values and have been pursued and implemented by revolutionaries around the globe. It will continue to develop and prove its vitality in the reality of revolutions and scientific development. We need to selectively accept and supplement in the spirit of criticism and creativity of the latest ideological and scientific achievements so that our doctrine will be forever fresh, energized, and filled with the spirit of the era.

We are aware that ours is an extremely complex and unprecedented undertaking, which will require us to learn the lessons we will need as we go along. The steps we have already taken are just the first steps of a long journey…The goals of socialism may be the same in every country, but the methods necessary to achieve those goals are diverse, depending on the specific circumstances of each country.

Our journey will demand all of our ingenuity and vitality.

www.talkvietnam.com

November 17, 2012

From Bbs.people.com.cn
May 6, 2008

Today China’ s statesmen use slogans like ‘One World, One Dream’, ‘Harmonious Society’ and ‘Scientific Development Concept.’. And yet all these terms were used in Kang Youwei’s utopian blueprint ‘Da Tongshua’. To westerners it might seem strange that the same men who in the 1920s embraced the radical ideas of Marxism, in the 1980s led China through pragmatic market reforms. And yet if one understands the mindset of their predecessor Kang Youwei, the seeming contradiction will not seem so strange. Kang laid out a vision of a world socialist republic, in which boundaries of class, race, nation, sex, family, and language were entirely abolished. A futuristic direct democracy in which virtue was the only competition. And yet the same visionary utopian, let the incredibly pragmatic 100 Days Reform. The pragmatic Mao Zedong of the 1930s, spoke of the same three staged Great Harmony, while pursuing moderate polices and alliances with the Kuomintang. If the theoretical foundations and historical experiences of Marxism-Leninism are seriously examined, it becomes clear that the market reforms of Deng Xiaoping and his successors to not represent a radical break with the vision lay out by Mao Zedong.

To observers ignorant of the basic fundamentals of Marxist-Leninist theory, Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, appears as a major break with Marxist principles, however scientific study of the historical experiences and theories of Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao reveal that there is in fact much continuity between Chinese Socialism and the historical legacy of Marxism. Despite antagonisms with Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi, Mao Zedong’s development of Leninist theory actually laid the groundwork for market reforms. Marx and Lenin had both seen capitalism as a necessary stage of development, and had condemned any attempt to leap from feudalism into socialism. Lenin has seized power in 1917 when Russia was still a semi-feudal nation; nonetheless he saw the role of the proletarian as one of leadership in the bourgeois democratic revolution. In the 1920s Lenin established the New Economic Policy which was very similar to the Chinese economy of the 1980s, and allowed market forces to regulate areas of the economy. Mao Zedong followed the model of the New Economic policy during the Yanan period. Having learned from the Soviet experience, Mao never launched a vigorous campaign to wipe out capitalism like Russia had during the ‘War Communism’ era. In his development of the theory of New Democracy, Mao recognized that the national bourgeoisie would have a major role to play for many years after the revolution. During the First Five Year Plan, Liu Shaoqi ensured that the state cooperated with the national capitalists. No attempt was made to wipe out private industry only to ensure that there was no exploitation. Stalin had recognized in his theory of socialist economics that the law of commodity and value still applied to socialist nations.[1] Socialist nations were not free from the objective laws of economics, instead it was their responsibility to study those laws and harness them.

Xue Muqia belonged to the generation of Chinese radicals who idealistically joined the Party in the 1920s and yet saw the need for market reform in the 1980s, while little known in the west his textbook on political economy laid the theoretical foundations for Deng Xiaoping’s epic reforms. Xue was a leader of several major workers movements in the 1920s and 1930s, and in the 1940s he governed the economic policies of large provinces. A supreme pragmatist, Xue admitted that he had not read ‘Das Kapital’ until the 1960s. Like Deng Xiaoping, Xue used his exile during the disaster of the Cultural Revolution to return to the Marxist classics, and find a way to save China from the brink of collapse. Immersing himself in the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao, Xue saw how the feudal-fascist reign of terror by the Lin Biao-Gang of Four clique stood against Marxist ideas. With the victory of genuine Marxists over the ultra-equalitarianism, Xue proceeded to complete his masterpiece on political economy. Marx and Engels had laid out the need for a lower and higher stage of communism. Xue pointed out that during the lower stage of communism, the law of supply and demand, and commodity relations still governed.

Mao had recognized in his ‘Critique of Soviet Economics’, and ‘On The Ten Major Relationships’, that Stalinist over-centralization would be harmful to the economy. The lessons from 10 Major Relationships bear a striking resemblance to the Four Modernizations of Zhou Enlai, and the market reforms of Deng Xiaoping. Mao recognized that contradiction was the key to expanding the economy. To increase military power, it was necessary to cut back on military spending and put resources in the civil economy. To increase heavy industry it was necessary to invest in light industry and agriculture to build foundations. To expand the communes it was necessary initially to make the districts smaller. All of these brilliant insights were abandoned during the Great Leap Forward and the feudal-fascist rule of Lin Biao.[2] Marx had pointed out that just as reactionary social relations could harm production so could over-futuristic social relations. The Gang of Four had attempted to impose radical equalitarianism while China was still emerging out of feudalism. This allowed various bad elements to take advantage. In addition the productive areas were punished and the wasteful areas rewarded. No incentive existed to expand the economy, and an anti-democratic bureaucracy dictated to the economy. Xue saw that overambitious goals would be ‘punished’ by the objective laws of value.

Upon taking power Mao’s chosen successor Hua Guofeng attempted to find a balance between reform and opening up and the First Five Year Plan, while this was a progressive step it failed to create the economic dynamism needed to compete with the imperialist west and social imperialist Soviet Union. After the disasters of the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, many in the party idolized the First Five Year Plan period. However Deng recognized that a 1950s style economy could not compete in the 1980s. Deng returned to the scientific ideas laid out by Mao, and followed Mao’s command to ‘seek truth from facts’. Deng initiated radical reforms in both industry and agriculture. Just as Mao had recognized the peasants would play a decisive role in political revolution, Deng recognized their supreme role in economic revolution. Deng created a more democratic collectivist system. Because of China’s low level of development, it was not yet possible to create an ‘ownership of the whole people’. Instead collectives would be democratically owned by those who worked. [3]Collectives were separate from the state economy and were responsible for their own profits and losses. The trend towards smaller collectives had been taking place since the Great Leap Forward. Deng legalized and expanded this trend by creating the household responsibility system. [4]The system made local households responsible for their own profits, and gave them the option of farming for private surplus profit. Instead of rigid plans, Deng created more indirect planning through guidelines. Another imposition was the creation of a dual pricing system that recognized supply and demand. [5]

Marx had stated that during socialist development ‘to each according to his work’ was the principle that governed not ‘to each according to his needs’. Mao had stated that the only criterion for correct theory was practice. That was exactly what Deng Xiaoping did with the Special economic Zones. The SEZs were essentially scientific experiments that sought to test the merits of opening up and reform. The spectacular success of the early SEZs convinced even conservative party members to continue Deng’s policies.[6] The rapid growth of foreign trade and rural development helped China’s productive forces grow at an incredibly rapid rate. Despite difficulties and inequalities the Chinese Communist Party succeeded in lifting more people out of poverty than any organization or government in human history.

Hu Jintao has greatly expanded on the principles of the Three Represents, and applied it in a manner to create a more just society. The theorists of Deng Xiaoping theory recognized that reform and opening-up would necessarily create dangerous social divisions. Nevertheless they foresaw that the danger of China falling even further behind the imperialist nations, was a far greater threat. While inequality has grown at an appalling rate, the rise in productive forces has given the state the power to deal with inequality. As of 2008 only 60% of China’s population remains rural and state-owned industries account for less than 40% of the economy.[7] Jiang Zemin’s Three Represents did not mean abandoning the plight of the peasants and workers. Jiang simply recognized that in line with Deng Xiaoping Theory, the best way to help the poor was to increase productivity. Hu Jintao’s concept of a Harmonious Society called for a more even development of China’s produce. Hu Jintao has also devised plans to revive China’s fledging state owned industries. By introducing more democratic management structure, and modernizing to compete in the market, state owned companies may suceed in securing their permanent role in China’s ecnonmy.

The achievement of the Chinese Communist Party is of epic proportions. If the CPC succeeds industrializing and modernizing a nation of 1.4 billion people, it will be a feat without parallel in history. Despite constant demonization from the imperialist west, China has become a model to many developing nations. The last task remaining for the CPC is the creation of democracy. The CPC has already granted the left-Kuomintang 30% of the seats in the People’s Congress, and allowed rival parties to hold high government office. [8]As social productive forces increase China will strive towards democracy. However China cannot and does not seek to build an inequitable bourgeoisie democracy, instead China seeks to construct a shining Socialist Democracy in which the voices of all people are expressed, and which at last allows the Chinese people to reach their full human potential. The achievement of a Harmonious Society will be the realization of Kang Youwei’s dream of the Great Harmony. The construction of Socialist Democracy will prove to be an even great challenge, and even greater source of inspiration than that of the socialist economy.

Andors, Stephen. 1977. China’s industrial revolution: politics, planning, and management, 1949 to the present. New York: Pantheon Books.

Borthwick, Mark. 1992. Pacific century: the emergence of modern Pacific Asia. Boulder: Westview Press.

Eckstein, Alexander. 1977. China’s economic revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hsu?eh, Mu-ch?iao. 1981. China’s Socialist economy. China knowledge series. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.

Lardy, Nicholas R. 1978. Economic growth and distribution in China. Cambridge [Eng.]: Cambridge University Press.

Lippit, Victor D. 1987. The economic development of China. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe.

McNally, Christopher A. 2008. China’s emergent political economy: capitalism in the dragon’s lair. Routledge studies in the growth economies of Asia, 75. London: Routledge.

Prybyla, Jan S. 1978. The Chinese economy: problems and policies. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.

Riskin, Carl. 1987. China’s political economy: the quest for development since 1949. Economies of the world. Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press.

Wei, Lin, and Arnold Chao. 1982. China’s economic reforms. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Xue, Muqiao. 1960. The Socialist transformation of the national economy in China. Peking: Foreign Language Press.

[1] Xue 16

[2] Xue 87

[3] Wei 49

[4] Lippit 24

[5] Ibid 68

[6] Riskin 135

[7] McNally 12

[8] McNally 45 “

By Ben Campbell
The North Star

Dec 15, 2012 – While today’s left has frayed into many strands, there was a time when the left presented, or at least aspired to present, a coherent Weltanschauung. This was Marxism, founded on Karl Marx’s brilliant synthesis of materialism and the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel, which led him and his collaborator Friedrich Engels to an unprecedented coalescence of existing human knowledge.

Today’s crisis of capitalism has, unsurprisingly, led to a renewed interest in Marxism. Yet any “return to Marx” will not be found in an exegesis of ancient texts but in grounding Marx’s materialist dialectic in the present. Just as Marx critiqued 19th-century advances by incorporating them into his thought, so too must the most promising developments of the last century be synthesized into a radical understanding for the present. Unfortunately, today’s left has for too long been relegated to social and cultural studies, ceding the “hard” discourse in economics and science to a new generation of vulgar scientistic “quants”. The resulting left has too often neglected a dialectical critique, in favor of a dichotomous relation to science.

It was not always so. In an attempt to recover some of the lost spirit of the scientific left, I will be interviewing subjects at the interface of science and the left. I begin today with Helena Sheehan, Professor Emerita at Dublin City University. Her research interests include science studies and the history of Marxism, and she is the author of Marxism and the Philosophy of Science: A Critical History (available on her website).

Ben Campbell: The advances of 19th-century science were inseparable from the rise of “materialist” philosophy. While Marx certainly belongs to this tradition, he was also strongly influenced by German idealism, specifically the dialectical system of G.W.F. Hegel. What did a “dialectical” materialism mean for Marx, and how did he see it as an advance over the materialism of his day?

Helena Sheehan: The materialist philosophy of the 19th century was tending in a positivist direction. It was inclined to stress induction and to get stuck in a play of particulars. Marxism pulled this in the direction of a more historicist and more holistic materialism. It was an approach that overcame myopia, one that looked to the whole and didn’t get lost in the parts.

BC: You’ve written, “It is no accident that Marxism made its entry onto the historical stage at the same historical moment as Darwinism.” What do you mean by this, and what do you see as the connection between these two monumental figures?

HS: The idea of evolution was an idea whose time had come. It was in the air. Historical conditions ripen and set the intellectual agenda. Great thinkers are those who are awake to the historical process, those who gather up what is struggling for expression. Marx and Darwin were both great thinkers in this sense, although others were also coming to the same conclusions. Marx and Engels were far bolder than Darwin, carrying forward the realization of a naturalistic and developmental process beyond the origin of biological species into the realm of socio-historical institutions and human thought.

BC: Engels also wrote extensively on science, particularly in his manuscript Dialectics of Nature, unfinished and unpublished during his lifetime. What is it about this document, and Engels more generally, that has been so controversial in the history of Marxism’s relation to science?

HS: There is a tension in Marxist philosophy between its roots in the history of philosophy and its commitment to empirical knowledge. For the best Marxist thinkers, certainly for Marx and Engels themselves, it has been a creative interaction. However, some of those pulling toward German idealist philosophy, particularly that of Kant and Hegel, have brought into Marxism a hostility to the natural sciences, influenced by the Methodenstreit, an antagonistic conceptualization of the humanities versus the sciences, which has played out in various forms over the decades.

The critique of positivism has been bloated to an anti-science stance. The tendency of some to counterpose a humanistic Marx to a positivist Engels is not supported by historical evidence, as I have demonstrated at some length in my book.

BC: It seems to me that this synthesis of dialectical philosophy with materialism has always been contentious. On one hand, as you say, there is the danger of reducing an anti-positivist stance to an anti-scientific stance. On the other hand, there is the threat of “the dialectic” being reduced to a mere rhetorical flourish for an otherwise bare scientism. Other writers, like John Bellamy Foster, have argued that Marxism after Marx and Engels split along these lines. Do you agree with this assessment? After Marx and Engels, what or who best demonstrated the potential of a “dialectical” science to transcend this divide?

HS: No, I don’t agree with it. There have always been those who synthesized these two streams. Most familiar to me is the 1930s British Marxism of Bernal, Haldane, Caudwell, and others, and post-war Eastern European Marxism. Regarding the latter, it suffered from the orthodoxy of parties in power, but it wasn’t all catechetical dogmatism. In the United States, Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin. This would still characterize my own position today.

BC: Yet despite the ability of some to transcend it, there does seem to have historically been much ambiguity concerning what a “materialist dialectic” would really entail. Some, like philosopher David Bakhurst, have traced some of this ambiguity back to the philosophical writings of Lenin. Bakhurst argues that while Lenin appeared at times to advocate a “radical Hegelian realism”, at other times his philosophy failed to transcend a rather vulgar materialism. How did any such ambiguities in Lenin’s own writings contribute to subsequent debates in Soviet science?

HS: Yes, I would agree with that. Lenin could be very philosophically and politically sophisticated, but I never thought his philosophical position quite gelled. Some of his texts on reflection theory were epistemologically crude. As to the effect on Soviet debates, these were beset by the tendency to deal with writings of Marx, Engels, and Lenin as sacred texts. This rigidified further after the Bolshevization of all academic discipline, when there had to be one and only one legitimate Marxist position on every question. A quote from Lenin stopped any further debate.

BC: Such talk about the rigidity of Soviet science inevitably leads to the specter of T.D. Lysenko. For readers who may not be familiar, could you briefly describe Lysenko’s work? How would you respond to those who use Lysenko as a cautionary tale about the danger posed by Marxism or dialectical thinking to biology?

HS: T.D. Lysenko (1898–1976) was a Ukrainian agronomist who came to prominence in the U.S.S.R. in 1927 when his experiments in winter planting of peas were sensationalized by Pravda. He became lionized as a scientist close to his peasant roots who could serve the needs of Soviet agriculture in the spirit of the first Five-Year Plan. He then advanced the technique of vernalization to a theory of the phasic development of plants and then to a whole alternative approach to biology. This was in the context of wider debates in international science about genetics and evolution, about heredity and environment, about inheritance of acquired characteristics. It was also in the context of the Bolshevization of academic disciplines and the search for a proletarian biology and the purges of academic institutions.

The issues were many and complex. There has been a tendency to flatten them all out into Lysenkoism as a cautionary tale against philosophical or political “interference” in science. However, I believe that philosophy and politics are relevant to the theory and practice of science. Lysenkoism is a cautionary tale in the perils and pitfalls of certain approaches to that.

BC: If we turn from the Soviet philosophy of science to that of the non-Marxist West, you see a greater reluctance to mix philosophy with the content of science. Instead, a lot of canonical  “philosophy of science” (e.g., Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, Feyerabend) has more to do with scientific method. What does Marxism, with its emphasis on contradiction, have to say about the scientific method? I wonder specifically about Lakatos’ background in Hegelian Marxism and whether there are affinities there.

HS: One big difference between these two traditions in philosophy of science is that Marxism pursued questions of worldview, exploring the philosophical implications of the empirical sciences, setting it apart from the narrow methodologism of the other tradition.

However, Marxism also addressed questions of scientific method. There is an elaborate literature dealing with epistemological questions from a Marxist point of view. There have been many debates, but the mainstream position would be critical realism. What is distinctive about Marxism in this sphere is how it cuts through the dualism of realism versus social constructivism. Marxism has made the strongest claims of any intellectual tradition before or since about the socio-historical character of science, yet always affirmed its cognitive achievements.

The fact that Lakatos had a background in Marxism made him inclined to take a wider view than his later colleagues, but I find that he left a lot to be desired in that respect. Nevertheless, contra Feyerabend, I think that the project of specifying demarcation criteria, so central to the neo-positivist project, is a crucially important task.

BC: Karl Popper famously invoked a “falsifiability” criterion as a means of solving the demarcation problem, which refers to the question of how to distinguish science from non-science (or if that is even possible). Popper’s solution has influenced many scientists but has been strongly critiqued in philosophical circles. How does a Marxist approach inform this demarcation problem?

HS: There is a need for criteria to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate claims to knowledge. The positivist and neo-positivist traditions contributed much to the formulation of such criteria. They did so, however, from a base that was too narrow, employing criteria that were too restricted, leaving out of the picture too much that was all too real, excluding historical, psychological, sociological, metaphysical dimensions as irrelevant. Marxism agrees with the emphasis on empirical evidence and logical coherence, but brings the broader context to bear. It synthesizes the best of other epistemological positions: logical empiricism, rationalism, social constructivism.

BC: Today, Marxism stands at its weakest historically, right as the global economic crash seems to have most vindicated it. Similarly, Marxism has almost no direct influence on 21st-century science, yet discoveries and perspectives seem increasingly “dialectical” (e.g., biological emphases on complex systems, emergence, and circular causality). What do you make of the situation at present? Would it be possible to develop a “dialectical” or even “Marxist” science without Marxism as a political force? Or will science always be fragmented and one-sided so long as there remains no significant political challenge to capital?

HS: Yes, Marxism is at a low ebb as far as overt influence is concerned, precisely at a time when its analysis is most relevant and even most vindicated.

I think that people can come to many of the same realizations and conclusions as Marxists without calling themselves Marxists. However, I don’t think there can be any fully meaningful analysis of science that does not analyze it in relation to the dominant mode of production. Such an analysis shows how the capitalist mode of production brings about intellectual fragmentation as well as economic exploitation and social disintegration.

I don’t think that left parties having any chance of taking power in the future will be Marxist parties in the old sense, although Marxism will likely be a force within them. I am thinking particularly of SYRIZA, with whom I’ve been intensively engaged lately. One of the leading thinkers in SYRIZA is Aristides Baltas, a Marxist and a philosopher of science.

Thank you, Helena.

by Keith Joseph

I think that capitalism is a perfectly adequate term to describe the international system and I think that Marx’s critique of political economy provides the conceptual apparatus that we need to apprehend the world system. Lenin’s theory doesn’t add anything useful and in fact adds a great deal of confusion. I have made this comment before. Lenin’s theory is usually dogmatically defended (I define “dogma” as assertion without evidence), but here is my critique in a nutshell.

The four main features of Lenin’s theory are:

1. The combination of industrial capital with bank capital, creating a new form of capital called “Finance Capital.”

2.The move from competition among many capitalist concerns to huge transnational monopolies.

3.The move from mere export of products to export of capital; i.e. capital moving all over the globe in search of maximum profits.

4. Competition and wars between rival capitalist powers.

Each is wrong. Let’s take these one at a time:

1. The combination of industrial capital with finance capital.

Lenin gets this idea from the Rudolph Hilferding who elaborated it at great length in his text: “Finance Capital.” The problem is that this is not a theoretical discovery. It is a empirical observation. And Marx’s theory was/is adequate to deal with it. In the second volume of Das Kapital Marx explains that circuit of industrial capital has three moments: money capital, productive capital, and merchant capital. Collectively these three moments make up the circuit of “industrial capital.” In other words, money capital, be it institutionally controlled by a bank or not, is already a part of the circuit of industrial capital. The relationship between productive capital and banks can certainly be one of struggle and banks can dominate productive capitals but so can merchant capitals. Wal-Mart’s domination of productive capitalists – in mainstream literature productive capitals are referred to as wal-marts “suppliers”—is legendary. In any event, the idea that “Finance capital” is a merger of bank and industrial capital is redundant. It freezes a momentary empirical observation into a universal theory and only adds confusion.

Here is a quote from Marx making the point:
“The real circuit of industrial capital in its continuity is therefore not only a unified process of circulation and production, but also a unity of all its three circuits” The three circuits are money, production, circulation. (that is on page185 of volume 2 penguin edition)

What we need is a class analysis of the corporation. “Wall Street” is the colloquial term for financial capital. Investors, i.e., finance capitals, own shares of the corporation and some of those share holders elect a board of directors. The board of directors main jobs are hiring top managers and appropriating and distributing the surplus value pump out of labor. Top management takes on many of the same duties as the capitalist entrepreneur of smaller enterprises, namely overseeing the production process and seeing the commodity to market for the realization of value. All three of these moments, financing, production, selling could be accomplished by one capitalist, usually in a smaller enterprise, or they could be separated: a shoe making enterprise finance itself and markets its products in branded retail shops (For example, I just bought a pair of red wing work boots at a store that only sells red wing work boots. I didnt look that deeply into the companies operations but I assume the retail store is owned by the productive capital). Or the enterprise borrows money from the bank, produces shoes and delivers them to Footlocker (a separate retail store with wares from many different productive capitals) for realization of the value. In any case it is an empirical difference that we grasp with the same theoretical apparatus. In this case the theoretical apparatus developed by Marx. Hilferding and Lenin add nothing here but confusion.

2. the theory of monopoly capitalism
This is Lenin’s most egregious error and, in my view, his most pernicious. Have you ever wondered why so few Marxists read Marx? The theory of monopoly capitalism is the answer.

Everyone familiar Lenin ‘s theory, and the history of the communist movement, knows the following catechism:
Marx studied 19th century competitive capitalism. But in the 20th century a new and higher monopoly stage of capitalism emerged, analyzed by Lenin.

This, of course, renders Marx’s magnum opus Das Kapital and his labor theory of value to the dustbin of academia, and thus Lenin’s short propaganda pamphlet displaces Marx’s critique of political economy (competition between capitals is the mechanism that enforces what Marx called “the law of value” without competition there is no labor theory of value). Why bother reading Marx. The capitalism Marx talks about no longer exists. Or so 20th century communists believed. But they were: WRONG!

But just because it displaces Marx does not make it wrong. Let’s see how Lenin’s theory is wrong.

The theory of monopoly capitalism posits two stages of capitalism: a nineteenth century competitive stage, and a twentieth century monopoly stage. This dichotomy, the very notion of a “competitive stage,” and a “monopoly stage” is incontrovertible evidence that Lenin is working with a different theoretical paradigm then Marx. In other words, Lenin and Marx have very different theories of competition and monopoly. In Lenin monopoly negates competition (if this weren’t the case there would be no need to identify a “new stage”), and thus the law of value is negated. In Marx monopoly intensifies competition.

The idea that there are stages of capitalism with different laws is a radical error. Lenin’s theory is linear. Marx’s is dialectical. In Marx competition leads to monopoly and monopoly leads to competition. The laws of capitalism do not change. There are not new “stages” of capitalism. The application of capitalism’s “laws of motion” first analyzed by Marx are intensified and more perfectly applied over more and more geographic space as capitalism develops. They are not negated as in Lenin’s theory.
Indeed, the world of globalization is not one of monopoly. Quite the opposite, it is one of HYPER-COMPETITION. This is obvious, no?

Global capitalism is the law of value enforced ruthlessly across the face of the entire planet. Everyday more people enter into capitalist social relations. Globalization is capitalism perfecting itself and creating the conditions for its transcendence.

Jonas Zonninsein has a somewhat obscure text entitled “Monopoly Capital Theory” which offers a rigorous critique of Lenin and Hilferding’s theory. I highly recommend it.

3. Export of Capital
The United States, as in “U.S. led imperialism.” is a net importer of capital, not an exporter. Capital is imported and exported regardless of the countries status in the system. Lenin is empirically wrong. Again a momentarily correct empirical observation is transformed into an incorrect theory.

4. Competition between rival capitalist powers
On this point Lenin’s theory has more in common with bourgeois international relations theory than with Marx. And this is the reason why communist analysis is pre-occupied with the nation state and power relations and when it comes to the international arena and has precious little to say about class. We should leave the analysis of power relations to Kissinger.

What we need is a global class analysis.
To just hint at such an analysis: the uprisings in the middle east are uprisings against LANDLORD States. The Gaddaffi regime, for instance, did not tax the Libyan people. The state collected rents on its oil field. The state was a landlord. Indeed, the OPEC countries are all landlord states. Landed Property is a one of the main classes of the capitalist epoch even though it is a feudal class (Marx has a lot to say about landed property in the Eighteenth Brumaire and in the third volume of Capital). The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are wars of industrial capital against landed property.

There is a collection entitled “The Rentier State in Africa” that develops the idea of the state as owner of landed property collecting rent. Cyrus Bina’s text: “Economics of the Oil Crisis” uses Marx’s theory of rent as do some essays in Peter Norre’s edited volume “Oil and Class Struggle” Also Fernando Coronil’s book “The Magical State” – a study of Venezuela– has a very good analysis of the landlord state in the introduction and first chapter.

Once we grasp that Lenins’ 4 central theses are wrong we realize that the whole theory of imperialism is wrong. We dont need a theory of imperialism. The uselessness of the theory is painstakingly obvious whenever anyone tries to use it to analyze contemporary events (the statement above is a good example). Especially the events it is supposed to explain: wars, global inequality, poverty. We need a theory of capitalism. Because capitalism is war, poverty, inequality, among other things. Do you know the best theory of capitalism? Marx’s value theory elaborated in the three volumes of “Das Kapital” and his “Theories of Surplus Value.”

We need a global class analysis. Our global class analysis must include: financial capital, productive capital, merchant capital, landed property, the working class (stratified across nationally boundaries, by race, by gender, by differential wages and skills, by rates of exploitation etc.)

These are obviously immensely complicated questions. Unfortunately, Lenin’s theory is not a help, it is in the way.

It is time to put away the meager gruel of Lenin’s “Imperialism” pamphlet and get to the feast that is the inheritance of the working class: Marx’s “Das Kapital.” We have good tools, we just have to learn to use them.

Conquering a New Popular Hegemony: Harnecker on 21st Century Socialism

“In recent years, and in increasingly more countries, growing multitudes have rebelled against the existing order and without a defined leadership have taken over plazas, streets, highways, towns, parliament, but, despite having mobilized hundreds of thousands of people, neither the magnitude of its size nor its combativeness have enabled these multitudes to go beyond simple popular revolts. They have brought down presidents, but they have not been capable of conquering power in order to begin a process of deep social transformation.” — Marta Harnecker.

By Marta Harnecker
Translated by Federico Fuentes, via LINKS

This article seeks to reflect on the issues raised during the roundtable discussion, “State, revolution and the construction of hegemony”, that occurred at the VI International Forum on Philosophy, held between November 28 and December 2, 2011, in Maracaibo, Venezuela. Logically, here I once again repeat some ideas that I have expressed in other writings, but have ordered them differently, while further refining some of them. It was written in July 2012 and first published in English at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission. Now available HERE in a PDF file set up from printing as an 11 x 17 fold-over, doubled sided, collated booklet, in easy-to-read type. Click HERE for a straight-though 36-page PDF document.

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Index

1. Our goal: a different socialism

1) A new socialism, far removed from the Soviet model

2) Returning to the original socialist ideas.

3) Participatory planning: a fundamental characteristic of socialism..

4) Socialism, direct democracy and delegated democracy.

a) Decentralization: essential for real participation.

b) Direct democracy and delegated democracy.

5) A new society that is not decreed from above.

2. Transition to socialism using the government as a lever

1) Neoliberalism bred 21st-century socialism in Latin America.

2) A dilemma: how to advance having only conquered governmental power

a) Using the inherited state to promote the creation of a new state built from below.

b) Transforming the armed forces.

c) A development model that respects nature.

d) Other challenges.

3) The need for a pedagogy of limitations.

3. Constructing a new hegemony.

1) Defining hegemony.

a) Bourgeoisie achieves popular approval for capitalist order

b) Bourgeois hegemony begins to break down.

2) The need for a political instrument and a new culture within the left

3) Political strategy for current situation: a broad front

a) Winning the hearts and minds of the immense majority

b) A new culture of the left

Our goal: a different socialism[1]

1) A new socialism, far removed from the soviet model

1. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the demise of the Soviet Union, Latin American and world leftist intellectuals fell into a state of confusion. We knew more about what we didn’t want in socialism than what we did want. We rejected the lack of democracy, totalitarianism, state capitalism, bureaucratic central planning, collectivism that sought to standardize without respect for differences, productivism that emphasized the expansion of productive forces without taking into account the need to preserve nature, dogmatism, intolerance towards legitimate opposition, the attempt to impose atheism by persecuting believers, the need for a single party to lead the process of transition.

2. So, why talk about socialism at all, if that word carried and continues to carry such a heavy burden of negative connotations?

3. To answer this question, we need to consider some important issues. On the one hand, just as Soviet socialism was collapsing, democratic and participatory processes in local governments began to emerge in Latin America, foreshadowing the “kind of alternative to capitalism that people wanted to build.”[2] On the other, by demonstrating in practice that people could govern in a transparent, non-corrupt, democratic and participatory manner, the political conditions in several Latin American countries were thus prepared to make possible the coming to power of the left through democratic elections.

4. These beacons that began to radiate throughout our continent were aided by the resounding failure of neoliberalism during the 1980s and 1990s and, more recently, by the global crisis of capitalism. An alternative to capitalism is more necessary than ever. But what should it be called?

5. It was President Chávez who had the audacity to point to socialism as the alternative to capitalism He called it “21st-century socialism,” reclaiming the values associated with the word socialism: “love, solidarity, equality between men and women and equity among all,”[3] while added the adjective “21st century” to differentiate this new socialism from the errors and deviations present in the model of socialism that was implemented during the 20th century in the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries.

6. Aware of the negative connotation associated with this word, Chavez dedicated himself to explaining to his people, through numerous public speeches and interventions, all the benefits that this new society would bring with it, in contrast to the situation created by capitalism. His interventions have been so successful that, according to various polls, more than half of Venezuela’s population prefers socialism over capitalism.

7. However, it is worth remembering that 35 years earlier in Chile, the victory of President Salvador Allende in the early 1970s, with the support of the leftist Popular Unity coalition, marked the beginning of the world’s first experiment in a peaceful transition to socialism. Although it was defeated by a military coup three years later, the experience left us with some important lessons. If our generation learned anything from that defeat, it was that peaceful progress towards our goal required us to rethink the socialist project applied until then in the world, and that it was therefore necessary to develop a project that was more in tune with the reality of Chile and the peaceful path towards socialism. Allende’s folkloric expression, “socialism with red wine and empanadas,”[4] seemed to capture this idea, pointing towards the building of a democratic socialist society rooted in national popular traditions.[5] So I believe that the Chilean experience should be considered the first practical experience that attempted to move away from the Soviet model of socialism and towards what we now call 21st-century socialism. continue