[Marxism] The current importance of Marx, 150 years after the Grundrisse

[PoliticNow@xxxxxxx]

The current importance of Marx, 150 years after the  Grundrisse
Conversation with Eric Hobsbawm
September, 16  2008
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/18828
By Eric  Hobsbawm
and Marcello Musto

Eric Hobsbawm is considered one of the  greatest living historians. He
is President of Birkbeck College (London  University) and Professor
Emeritus at the  New School for Social  Research (New York). Among his
many writings are the trilogy about the "the  long 19th century": The
Age of Revolution: Europe 1789-1848 (1962); The Age  of Capital:
1848-1874 (1975); The Age of Empire: 1875-1914 (1987),  and  the book
The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914-1991  (1994).

Marcello Musto is editor of Karl Marx's Grundrisse: Foundations  of the
Critique of Political Economy, London-New York: Routledge  2008.


1) M. M. Professor Hobsbawm, two decades after 1989, when he  was too
hastily consigned to  oblivion, Karl Marx has returned to  the
limelight. Freed from the role of instrumentum regni to which he  was
assigned in the Soviet Union, and from the shackles  of
"Marxism-Leninism", he has in the last few years not only  received
intellectual attention through new publication of his work, but  also
been the focus of  more widespread interest. Indeed in 2003,  the
French magazine Nouvel Observateur dedicated a special issue to  Karl
Marx - le penseur du troisiÃme millÃnaire? (Karl Marx - the thinker  of
the third millennium?). A year later, in Germany, in an opinion  poll
sponsored by the television company ZDF to establish who were the  most
important Germans of all time, more than 500,000 viewers voted  for
Marx; he came third in the general classification and first in  the
"current relevance" category. Then, in 2005, the weekly Der  Spiegel
portrayed him on the cover under the title Ein Gespenst kehrt  zurÃck
(A spectre is back), while listeners to the BBC Radio 4 programme  In
Our Time voted for Marx as their Greatest Philosopher.

In a recent  public conversation with Jacques AttalÃ, you said that
paradoxically "it is  the capitalists more than others who have been
rediscovering Marx", and you  talked of your astonishment when the
businessman and liberal politician  George Soros said to you "I've just
been reading Marx and there is an awful  lot in what he says". Although
weak and rather vague, what are the reasons  for this revival? Is his
work likely to be of interest only to specialists  and intellectuals,
being presented in university courses as a great classic  of modern
thought that should never be forgotten? Or could a new "demand  for
Marx" come in the future from the political side as well?

E. H.  There is an undoubted revival of public interest in Marx in the
capitalist  world, though probably not as yet in the new East European
members of the  European Union. It was probably accelerated by the fact
that the 150th  anniversary of the publication of the Manifesto of the
Communist Party  coincided with a particularly dramatic international
economic crisis in the  midst of a period of ultra-rapid free market
globalization.

Marx had  predicted  the nature of  the early 21st century world
economy a  hundred and fifty years earlier, on the basis of his
analysis of "bourgeois  society". It is not surprising that intelligent
capitalists, especially in  the globalized financial sector, were
impressed by Marx, since they were  necessarily more aware than others
of the nature and instabilities of the  capitalist economy in which
they operated. Most of the intellectual Left no  longer knew what to do
with Marx. It had been  demoralised by the  collapse of the
social-democratic project in most North Atlantic states in  the 1980s
and the mass conversion of national governments to free  market
ideology, as well as by the collapse of the political and  economic
systems that claimed to be inspired by Marx and Lenin. The  so-called
"new social movements" like feminism either had no logical  connection
with anti-capitalism (though as individuals their members might  be
aligned with it) or they challenged the belief in   endless  progress
in human control over nature, which both capitalism and  traditional
socialism had shared. At the same time the "proletariat", divided  and
diminished, ceased to be  credible as Marx's  historical agent  of
social transformation. It is also the case that since 1968 the  most
prominent radical movements have preferred direct action  not
necessarily based on much reading and theoretical analysis.

Of  course this does not mean that Marx will cease to be regarded as a
great and  classical thinker, although for political reasons,
especially in countries  like France and Italy with once powerful
Communist parties, there has been a  passionate intellectual offensive
against Marx and Marxist analyses, which  was probably  at its height
in the 1980s and 1990s. There are signs that  it has now run its
course.


2) M. M. Throughout his life Marx was a  shrewd and tireless
researcher, who sensed and analysed better than anyone  else in his
time the development of capitalism on a world scale. He  understood
that the birth of a globalized international economy was inherent  in
the  capitalist mode of production and predicted that this  process
would generate not only the growth and prosperity flaunted by  liberal
theorists and politicians but also violent conflicts, economic  crises
and widespread social injustice. In the last decade we have seen  the
East Asian Financial Crisis, which started in the summer of 1997,  the
Argentinian economic crisis of 1999-2002 and, above all, the  subprime
mortgage crisis, which started in the United States in 2006 and  has
now become the biggest post-war financial crisis. Is it right to  say,
therefore,  that the return of interest in Marx is also based on  the
crisis of capitalist society and on his enduring capacity to  explain
the profound contradictions of today's world?

E. H. Whether  the future politics of the Left will once again be
inspired by Marx's  analysis, as the old socialist and communist
movements were, will depend on  what happens to world capitalism. But
this applies not only to Marx but to  the Left as a coherent political
ideology and project. Since, as you say  correctly, the return of
interest in Marx is largely - I would say mainly -  based on the
current crisis of capitalist society, the outlook is more  promising
than it was in the 1990s. The present world financial crisis,  which
may well become a major economic depression in the USA,   dramatises
the failure of the theology of the uncontrolled global free  market,
and forces even the US government to consider taking public  actions
forgotten since the 1930s. Political pressures are already  weakening
the commitment of economic neo-liberal governments to  uncontrolled,
unlimited and unregulated globalization. In some cases (China)  the
vast   inequalities and injustices caused by a wholesale  transition to
a free market economy already raise major problems for  social
stability and raise doubts even at the higher levels of  government.

It is clear that any "return to Marx" will be essentially a  return to
Marx's analysis of capitalism and its place in the  historical
evolution of humanity - including, above all, his analysis of  the
central instability of capitalist development, which proceeds  through
self-generated periodic economic crises, with  political and  social
dimensions. No Marxist could believe for a moment that, as  neo-liberal
ideologists argued in 1989, liberal capitalism had established  itself
forever, that history had come to an end, or indeed that any system  of
human relations could ever be  final and definitive.


3) M.  M. Do you not think that if the political and intellectual
forces of the  international left, who are questioning themselves with
regard to socialism  in the new century, were to foreswear the ideas of
Marx, they would lose a  fundamental guide for the examination and
transformation of today's  reality?

E. H.: No socialist can foreswear the ideas of Marx, since his  belief
that capitalism must be succeeded by another form of society is  based
not on hope or will but on a serious analysis of  historical
development, particularly in the capitalist era. His actual  prediction
that capitalism would  be replaced by a socially managed or  planned
system still seems reasonable, though he certainly underestimated  the
market elements which would survive in any post-capitalist  system(s).
Since he deliberately abstained from speculation about the future,  he
cannot be made responsible for the specific ways in which  "socialist"
economies were organised under "really existing socialism". As to  the
objectives of socialism, Marx was not the only thinker who wanted  a
society without exploitation and alienation, in which all human  beings
could fully realise their potentialities, but he expressed  this
aspiration more powerfully than anyone else, and his words retain  the
power to inspire.

However, Marx will not return as a political  inspiration to the Left
until it is understood that his writings should not  be treated as
political programmes, authoritative or otherwise,  nor as  descriptions
of the actual situation of world capitalism today, but rather  as
guides to his way of understanding the nature of  capitalist
development. Nor can or should we forget that he did not achieve  a
coherent and fully thought out presentation of his ideas, in spite  of
attempts by Engels and others to construct a volume II and III  of
Capital out of Marx's manuscripts. As the Grundrisse show, even  a
completed Capital  would have formed only part of Marx's own,  perhaps
excessively ambitious, original plan.

On the other hand, Marx  will not return to the Left until the current
tendency among radical  activists to turn anti-capitalism into
anti-globalism is abandoned.  Globalisation exists, and, short of a
collapse of human society, is  irreversible. Indeed, Marx recognised it
as a fact and, as an  internationalist, welcomed it, in principle. What
he criticised, and what we  must criticize, was the kind of
globalisation produced by  capitalism.


4) M. M. One of Marx's writings which has provoked the  greatest
interest amongst new readers and commentators is the  Grundrisse.
Written between 1857 and 1858, the Grundrisse is the first draft  of
Marx's critique of political economy and, thus, also the  initial
preparatory work on Capital; it contains numerous reflections  on
matters that Marx did not develop elsewhere in his incomplete  oeuvre.
Why, in your opinion, are these manuscripts one of Marx's  writings
which continue to provoke more debate than any other, in spite of  the
fact that he wrote them only to summarise the foundations of  his
critique of political economy? What is the reason for their  persistent
appeal?

E. H. In my view the Grundrisse  have made so  large an international
impact on the Marxian intellectual scene for two  connected reasons.
They were virtually unpublished before the 1950s, and, as  you say,
contained a mass of reflections on matters that Marx did not  develop
elsewhere. They were not part of the largely dogmatised corpus  of
orthodox Marxism in the world of Soviet socialism, yet Soviet
socialism  could not simply dismiss them. They could therefore be used
by Marxists who  wanted to criticise orthodoxy or widen the scope of
Marxist analysis by an  appeal to a text which could not be accused of
being heretical or  anti-Marxist. Hence the editions of  the 1970s and
1980s (well before  the fall of the Berlin Wall) continued to provoke
debate largely because in  these manuscripts Marx raised important
problems which were not considered in  Capital, for instance, the
questions raised in my preface to the volume of  essays you collected
[Karl Marx's Grundrisse. Foundations of the Critique of  Political
Economy 150 Years Later, edited by M. Musto, LondonâNew  York:
Routledge  2008;
http://www.routledgeeconomics.com/books/Karl-Marxs-Grundrisse-isbn978041543749
3
].


5)  M. M. In the preface to this book, written by various international
experts  to mark the 150th anniversary of its composition, you have
written: "Perhaps  this is the right moment to return to a study of the
Grundrisse less  constricted by the temporary considerations of
leftwing politics between  Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin
and the fall of Mikhail  Gorbachev". Moreover, to underline the
enormous value of this text, you  stated that the Grundrisse "contains
analyses and insights, for instance  about technology, that take Marx's
treatment of capitalism far beyond the  nineteenth century, into the
era of a society where production no longer  requires mass labour, of
automation, the potential of leisure, and the  transformations of
alienation in such circumstances. It is the only text that  goes some
way beyond Marx's own hints of the communist future in the  German
Ideology. In a few words, it has been rightly described as  Marx's
thought at its richest." Therefore, what might be the result  of
re-reading the Grundrisse today?

E. H. There are probably not more  than a handful of editors and
translators who have full knowledge of this  large and notoriously
difficult mass of texts. But a re-rereading, or rather  reading, of
them today  could help us to rethink Marx: to distinguish  what  is
general in Marx's analysis of capitalism from what was specific  to
the situation of mid-nineteenth-century "bourgeois society". We  cannot
predict what  conclusions from this analysis are possible and  likely,
only that they will certainly not command unanimous  agreement.


6) M. M. To finish, one final question. Why is it  important today to read 
Marx?

E. H. To anyone interested in ideas,  whether a university student or
not, it is patently clear that Marx is and  will remain one of the
great philosophical minds and economic analysts of the  nineteenth
century, and, at his best, a master of passionate prose. It is  also
important to read Marx because the world in which we live today  cannot
be understood without the influence that the writings of this man  had
on the twentieth century.  And finally, he should be read because,  as
he himself wrote, the world cannot be effectively changed  unless  it
is understood - and Marx remains a superb guide to understanding  the
world and the problems we must  confront.





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