socialism -- two views

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

[was: RE: [PEN-L] The economy - a new era?]

To merge these two views (centralization of capital, socialism from below), it makes sense to say that for Marx, the centralization of capital might provide the basic infrastructure -- or form -- of socialism but that "subjective factor" of the self-organized and class-conscious working class was necessary to provide the content of socialism. 

In CAPITAL, Marx was quite optimistic about the latter. "Along with the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital [the centralization of capital] ... grows the revolt of the working class, a class always increasing in numbers, and disciplined, united organized by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself. The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of production ... Thus integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated." (vol. I, ch. 32; International Publ. 1967 ed., p. 763.) 

Lenin's (and others') later attacks on "economism" was in effect a critique of Marx's view that the development of working-class organization and class consciousness arose automatically, driven "by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself." But he would hardly have denied the importance of the development of the "subjective factor" as necessary to the rise of socialism.

------------------------
Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Perelman [mailto:michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Marx represents an important boys in that tradition.  He believed that
> the rise of the corporate form would provide the basic infrastructure
> for a socialist society.  This part of his work, of course, conflicted
> with the other part that promotes socialism from below.
 
> On Thu, Feb 12, 2004 at 09:39:46AM -0800, Devine, James wrote:
> > there's an old tradition of contrasting "free competition" 
> with socialism, as if the centralization of capital were the 
> same as socialism. Edward Bellamy's "nationalism" (what might 
> be called "state socialism" today) was based on the idea that 
> the merger of all of the businesses into one big cartel would 
> make it easy to expropriate capital. Schumpeter also seemed 
> to think that the centralization of capital would lead to socialism.
> >
> > This view is often merged with the idea that statism = 
> socialism, so that any kind of centralism = socialism.
> 
> --
> Michael Perelman
> Economics Department
> California State University
> Chico, CA 95929
> 
> Tel. 530-898-5321
> E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
>