Arguments For Socialism

225 Pages·2012·0.92 MB·English

Arguments For Socialism
Paul Cockshott and David Zachariah
2012
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Contents
I. Foundations 10
1. Thesocialistprojectandtheworkingclass 11
2. 21stCenturyMarxism 19
3. HowphysicsisvalidatingtheLabourTheoryofValue 25
4. HistoricalMaterialismorSubjectivism 29
5. Competingtheorieswrongornotevenwrong 40
II. Agitation 54
6. AgainstNationalism 55
7. Beyondanti-imperialism 61
8. AgainstRepublicanism 71
9. DemocracywithoutPoliticians 76
III. Strategic paths 80
10.Limitsofsocial-democraticpolitics 81
11.Sixthesesontheproblemsofthecommunistmovement 93
12.ReformandrevolutioninLeninistPolitics 109
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13.ReviewofMikeMacnair’sRevolutionaryStrategy 121
14.IdeasofLeadershipandDemocracy 133
IV. Economics of Socialism 156
15.VenezuelaandSocialistEconomicPolicy 157
16.EconomicFactorsinthefailureofSovietSocialism 170
17.Review: RedPlenty byFrancisSpufford 177
18.AgainstMises 181
19.Acriticallookatmarketsocialism 196
20.TowardsaNewSocialism 216
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Preface
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Thisbookismadeupofacollectionofpolemicalarticleswrittenbyus
overtheperiodsincethefallof‘dieMauer’andthecrisisoftheEuropean
socialistmovementbroughtoninitswake.Theyrecordanattempttoargue
throughthetheoreticalchallengesthatthisperiodhasposed:
(cid:63) Why did both Leninist communism and social democracy come to
crisis?
(cid:63) What were the economic weaknesses of both and what economic
policyshouldafuturesocialistmovementadopttoovercomethese?
(cid:63) How can the struggle for popular democracy be integrated into the
goalsofanewmovement?
The articles were written for a variety of publications or occasions.
Rather than presenting them in chronological order we have organised
them into topics. The first section, Foundations, deals with the funda-
mentaltheoreticalresourcesthatthesocialistmovementhasavailabletoit
infacingitscurrentproblems.
Thesocialistprojectandtheworkingclassprovidessomefoundational
argumentsforsocialismandthecapacitiesrequiredtoadvancethesocial-
istproject. Itargueswhytheworkingclassnecessarilyremainsacentral
componentintheclasscompositionofsocialistpoliticalforces.
21stCenturyMarxismisanarticlepublishedinJungeWeltthattriesto
draw up the theoretical problems and methods of investigation available
now, trying to distinguish these from those in past periods. A theme of
this, and subsequent articles in the Foundations section, is a re-emphasis
ontheimportanceofscientificsocialism, asocialismthatisnotafraidto
restontheresultsoftoday’sscientificknowledge.
HowphysicsisvalidatingtheLabourTheoryofValuealsopublishedin
Junge Welt argues that the methods of physics are now being applied to
the economy, the socalled ’econophysics’and arein the main validating
theresultsofthelabourtheoryofvalue.
Historical Materialism or Subjectivism published in Open Polemic ar-
gues against certain readings of Marx that are associated with the ‘Neue
Marx-Lekture’ or value-form school. It argues that these assumptions
handicap the re-establishment of Marxian political economy as a science
thatwecanusetochangetheworld.
CompetingtheorieswrongornotevenwrongpublishedinVlaamsMarx-
istisch Tijdshrift continues the argument that the labour theory of value
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producesstrongempiricallyverifiableresultswhereasthecompetingsub-
jectivetheoryofvalueisunfalsifiableandyieldsnousefulmacroeconomic
predictions.
Thesecondsectionofthebookincludesaseriesofshortermorepopular
polemics.
AgainstNationalismattemptstoexplainwhynationalismhastobethe
enemyofsocialistideology,andwhysocialistshouldbeconsistentinterna-
tionalist.Beyondanti-imperialismarguesthattheprofoundchangesofim-
perialism during the 20th century require reconsidering anti-imperialism
as a distinct strategy. Against Republicanism argues against the romanti-
cisationoftherepublicanformofgovernmentbysomeontheBritishleft.
Whilstlivingastheydoinamonarchy,therepublicseemssomethingrad-
ical,thearticlesaysthatthisisafalsepathtosetouton,ourgoalshould
notbetheRepublic–somethingdeliberatelyborrowedfromRomebythe
wealthy founding fathers of the USA but a radical democracy. Democ-
racywithoutPoliticianstakesthisthemefurtherspellingouthowaradical
democracyordemarchycouldoperate.
A third section looks at the major strategic questions facing the left in
Europe and what have been the past failings of the socialist movement.
Famously the early 20th century socialist movement split after the 1917
revolutionintoSocial-democraticandLeninistwings. Welookatthefail-
ingsofbothofthese.
Limitsofsocial-democraticpoliticsarguesthattherelationshipbetween
social democracy and the state, and in particular its reliance on the cap-
italist sector of the economy for tax raising, fatally undermined its long
termprogressivegoals. Thepaperwaspresentedattheannualconference
organisedbyArbetarrörelsensForskarnätverk.
Six theses on the problems of the communist movement published in
Open Polemic shortly after the fall of the USSR argued that the crisis of
worldsocialismwasdueprimarilytoeconomicfailureandthatitscollapse
ofwasduetocausesinitseconomicmechanism,butwhicharenotinherent
inallpossiblesocialisms. Itgoesontoarguethatthepoliticalfailuresof
the Left today stem from the lack of a programmatic conception of how
a socialist economy should be operated along with the lack of a viable
constitutionalprogram.
Reform and Revolution in Leninist Politics addresses what has been a
perennial issue on the Left, but does so by introducing a number of new
concepts about the nature of different periods: stable, restructuring and
revolutionaryandemphasisestheneedtohaveapracticalinterventionpro-
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grammethatisspecifictothecurrentconjuncture.
ThereviewofMikeMacnair’s‘RevolutionaryStrategy’,engageswitha
leadingtheoreticianoftheCommunistPartyofGreatBritain,whoistry-
ing to revive classical German Social Democracy. Whilst this approach
hassomestrengthswhencontrastedtomuchoftheLeft,itiscriticizedfor
havingaconservativeattitudetodemocracy,limitingitsaimsashistorical
SocialDemocracydid, toaparliamentaryrepublic. Since1945thisstate
formhasproventobethemostperfectsuperstructureforcapitalistecon-
omy. Alongwiththispoliticalconservatismgoesanunwillingnesstoset
outdistinctsocialisteconomicgoals.
IdeasofLeadershipandDemocracy,anaddressgiveninStockholmin
2010,continuesthecritiqueofbothhistoricalsocial-democracyandthefar
Leftfortheirfailuretoputforwardagenuinelydemocraticprogramme. It
argues that the constitutional policies of the far left remain an uncritical
idealisationoftheSovietformofgovernment.Thetalkgoesontopropose
aconcretesocialisteconomicprogrammefortheLeftinEuropetoday.
Thefinalsectionofthebookaddressessocialisteconomics.
VenezuelaandSocialistEconomicPolicy,publishedinJungeWelt,isthe
result of a visit to Venezuela in 2007. It looked at what measures would
havetobetakenbyasocialistgovernmentinVenzuelatoeffectivelytrans-
formtheeconomicsystemtherefromacapitalisttoasocialisteconomy. It
looksatissuesmonetarypolicy,taxationpolicyandpropertyrightsasking
howasocialistgovernmentcouldsetabouttheabolitionofexploitation.
Economic Factors in the failure of Soviet Socialism looks at the eco-
nomicallycatastrophicpoliciespursuedbytheGorbachevgovernmentin
theUSSRandhowandwhytheseledtoeconomicandpoliticalcollapse.
ThereviewofSpufford’s‘RedPlenty’, looksatanovelsetintheKhr-
uscheveraintheUSSR.Thenovel’sheroistheideaofcyberneticsocial-
ism advocated by Kantorovich and Lebedev in the 1950s and early 60s.
Spufford’s book recounts the transition from the hope and excitement of
the50stothedisillusionanddemoralisationofthe70s.
AgainstMises,isareplytotheargumentsoftheAustrianschoolecono-
mistsaccordingtowhichsocialisteconomyisboundtocollapseintoinef-
ficiencyduetotheallegedimpossibilityofsocialisteconomiccalculation.
ACriticalLookatMarketSocialism, doeswhatitsaysonthelabel. It
examinestheclaimsofmarketsocialismtobeaviablealternativetocap-
italism, especially through a critique of the work of Yunker, a prominent
UStheoristofmarketsocialism.
Towards a New Socialism, is an interview with the installation artist
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Oliver Ressler about the book of the same title, written by Cottrell and
Cockshott. Itprovidesaconcisesynopsisoftheideasofsocialismadvo-
catedinthatbook.
DavidZachariahwroteThesocialistprojectandtheworkingclass,Democ-
racywithoutPoliticiansandLimitsofsocial-democraticpolitics. Thearti-
cleBeyondanti-imperialismwaswrittenjointly. PaulCockshottwrotethe
otherarticles.
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Part I.
Foundations
10