Re: [Marxism] If Marxism is a Science then its Predictions Should Matter...

[Einde O'Callaghan <einde@xxxxxx>]

Tony Lawless wrote:

> I must admit to a certain level of distress when I read Einde saying the
> following:
>
> “While marking the text up for on-line publication I was once again
> struck by the remarkable similarity between Cliff's predictions about
> the future trajectory of the Russian system and the actual course of
> events during the collapse of the Stalinist (or post-Stalinist or
> whatever else you want to call it) system - even if, as has often been
> the case with Marxist analyses from Marx onwards, the timescale was
> wildly over-optimistic.”

You may have been distressed, but I found the parallels between the
actual course of events and Cliff's presentation of the movement of
economic and social forces in state capitalism to be rather striking.

> Here is the most famous SWP prediction of what would transpire in
> Eastern Europe after the Fall of the Berlin Wall:
>
> Chris Harman (1990)
>
> The transition from state capitalism to multinational capitalism is
> neither a step forward nor a step backward but a step sidewards. The
> change involves only a shift from one form of exploitation to another
> form for the working class as a whole, even though some individual
> groups of workers ... find themselves better placed to improve their
> conditions and others ... find their conditions worsened. (International
> Socialism No. 46, 1990.)
>
> So – neither a step forward nor a step back. That was the prediction.
> Things would not get better, but they would not get worse either, if the
> prediction has any meaning. Now, here are a number of quotes, all taken
> from IST Internet sources that contradict this prediction, including one
> to begin with from Chris Harman himself.

This was primarily a reference to the social relations - and living as I
do in the former East Bloc I find that many workers, perhaps even the
vast majority - including the unemployed - have a similar approach. I've
met nobody except for a very few members the former elite who would
prefer to go back to the old system - so much for a "workers' state"
rejected by the supposed ruling class!

There is an old East European joke: "Capitalism is the exploitation of
one man by another - Socialism is the other way round!"

Einde O'Callaghan

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