Letters

Assumptions

I firstly want to thank Earl Gilman for his letter headed ‘Class issue’ in last week’s Weekly Worker (September 5). As a newly founded website we will inevitably face issues sometimes or make mistakes. It is, therefore, great to get criticism and suggestions that can help us and we strongly encourage such criticism.

However, there are some particular issues with comrade Gilman’s letter. Gilman accuses us of leaving out the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ and neglecting the fact that democracy “is a class issue”. He says this in reply to the article by Geary Middleton announcing the Marxist Center (‘Reappropriating basic principles’, August 29).

In his piece comrade Middleton referred to the articles that had already been posted on the website. He took key phrases from them to show what they were about and what they were arguing for. Comrade Gilman takes particular issue with his phrases about the need to “win the battle of democracy” and the need for a “democratic republic”. This refers to the article, ‘Programme: a compass to liberation’, by Geary Middleton, and ‘To win the battle of democracy’ by me.

I assume that comrade Gilman has read these articles, but I want to repeat some key aspects of them to make clear why I take issue with Gilman’s criticism.

He asserts that we have omitted the dictatorship of the proletariat, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. In his article on programme, Geary Middleton explicitly notes that the minimum programme is “really nothing more than the programme that, given its full implementation, results in the political rule of the proletariat. Every aim though can be, in principle, concretely fought for under capitalism. So it is not some unrealistic, maximalist ‘wish list’, but a concrete list of objective demands that lead to a weakening of the existing state and a strengthening of our class, with the logical conclusion of proletarian power, which would mean a radical form of direct democracy.”

In the article about democracy, I start by giving an outline of some of the key parts of bourgeois ‘democracy’ and conclude that it “is a system that is build up in ways that can only favour the bourgeoisie” and that “even the most democratic system runs in favour of the dominant class, in a class society”. In my outline, the questions Gilman poses - “Democracy for whom? Democracy for what?” - are clearly answered, when I note that with the abolition of class society comes the need for new forms of democratic decision-making and give some ideas on what such decision-making could look like.

I conclude that “we must struggle for the extension of democracy as far as is possible in bourgeois society. But we must also recognise its limits and conclude that for real democracy we must go beyond capitalism.” I then end the article by citing a famous phrase Marx once wrote in an insignificant little piece commonly referred to as the Communist manifesto: “… the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy”.

It is clear why Gilman’s criticism is problematic. Not only is the class nature of democracy mentioned numerous times: so are phrases about the proletariat in “the position of ruling class”, “political rule of the proletariat” and “proletarian power”. I wonder how many times the dictatorship of the proletariat has to be mentioned before comrade Gilman is satisfied.

Gilman notes that democracy does not apply to “our oppressors”. He then gives some information about the Bolsheviks and the democratic republic. It is interesting how we are accused of old Bolshevik and Menshevik stances. Especially on the question that workers’ democracy does not apply to our oppressors. Is workers’ democracy a democracy that has a new state form that is needed for the rule of the ruling class (the proletariat)? Yes, the proletariat is the new ruling class and proletarian democracy works in the interest of the ruling class just as much as bourgeois democracy does; the class that benefits is different and the way to make the proletarian state work in proletarian interests is to do away with the bourgeois state. This should not be new for comrade Gilman.

However, does the dictatorship of the proletariat by definition mean taking away any kind of possibility of participation for the former ruling class? I am afraid this has to be answered in the negative. Much like the ‘dictatorship of the bourgeoisie’ today, the dictatorship of the proletariat solely refers to the political hegemony of the working class, which can take various forms. This might be disappointing for people who want to re-enact the Russian Revolution. However, as Lenin said in the Renegade Kautsky, “the question of restricting the franchise is a nationally specific and not a general question of the dictatorship. One must approach the question of restricting the franchise by studying the specific conditions of the Russian Revolution and the specific path of its development”. We must not take the events of the Russian Revolution as dogma to be repeated again and again. In certain cases the restriction of franchise, as Lenin called it, might be needed, but it is not by definition part of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

If comrade Gilman is interested in what is meant by the term ‘democratic republic’, in the following weeks Geary Middleton will continue his series on the programme with articles about the transitional programme and the democratic republic.

While we welcome comrade Gilman’s criticism, we hope that next time he will either read the articles or pay better attention to what is being said rather than making assumptions and call us ‘Mensheviks’.

Assumptions
Assumptions

Give up?

From university professors to rank-and-file activists, Marxism has wrongly taught people on the left to believe that modern capitalism grew out of money, rather than non-renewable energy. This illusion is easy to maintain, because under capitalism every commodity is exchanged for money, including energy.

However, when you buy petrol for your car you know that it is the petrol which makes the car go rather than the money. It is the same with the world economy. Energy is the precondition for motion. The problem with old-style economics is that in an age of energy abundance it detached the economy from energy.

Within the Marxist narrative there is no conception that capitalism can collapse because of an energy crisis. The result is that any economic crisis rooted in energy is ignored by most Marxists. For instance, when the 1973 Opec oil embargo triggered a recession, this was explained only in terms of the falling rate of profit, underconsumption or overproduction. This is what is happening now with the present economic slowdown. Marxists view this crisis as arising only from within the circulation of capital. Hillel Ticktin has argued that the leaders of capitalism are deliberately sabotaging recovery because they fear the working class. But he is not alone in promoting fantasies.

Alexander Josep claims that new methods of production have placed fossil fuels in the background (Letters, September 5). About 92% of the world’s energy comes from fossil fuels and in the UK the figure is about 91%. I leave it to Alexander to explain how this puts fossil fuels in the background. Even if only 50% of the world’s energy came from fossil fuels we would still be faced with a crisis.

Alexander doesn’t believe that the present global crisis is an energy crisis, even though energy-related wars are being fought. Capitalism is facing financial instability, and crisis of profitability, but the important question is, what is the primary causation of the present crisis?

I share the views of those who explain the present crisis in terms of the peak in global oil production. The present economic slowdown is being caused mainly by the rising cost of energy, due to stagnation in conventional oil production. In other words, capitalism is moving towards collapse, but not for the reasons suggested by Marx. Marxists see overproduction as the main cause leading to the collapse of the system. The exact opposite increasingly seems to be the case: lack of production, or the slowing down of the economy, leading at some point to the end of growth.

Alexander doesn’t believe there is an energy crisis because he fails to see lines in front of the petrol stations. Lines will appear at the gas stations at a later stage of the crisis. In its initial stage the crisis begins with people driving less, paying more for energy or buying more energy-efficient vehicles, getting more mileage per litre.

Like individuals, the economy will have to confine itself to the available energy supply. The question I ask myself is, should I give up trying to convince people who live in past that the present crisis of capitalism is driven primarily by the global peak in oil production?

Give up?
Give up?

Unburied

Ben Lewis letter on the untranslated nature of the first German edition of Marx’s Capital is not entirely accurate (August 29). There is at least one English translation of the first chapter on the commodity, as well as the separate appendix Marx also wrote on the value form (the latter providing the core for the later exposition of the conceptual evolution of the value form into the money form, contained in the second edition of volume 1).

The translation was the work of Albert Dragstedt and was published by Gerry Healy’s Workers Revolutionary Party under the title of Value: studies by Marx (New Park Publications, 1976). According to Dragstedt, “a translation which keeps closer to the philosophical muscles and tendons of the argument will prove useful”. He therefore made “no apology for declining to liquidate the granular, craggy, dialectical dictum of Marx, especially since our translation is only intended to serve a more rigorous understanding of the second edition” (pp4-5).

For the interest of readers of the Weekly Worker, the Capital reading group in London (and elsewhere), as well as Ben and his translating cohorts, here is Dragstedt’s translation of the same passage contained in Ben’s letter:

“Simple human labour (expenditure of human labour-power) is capable of receiving each and every determination, it is true, but is undetermined just in and for itself. It can only realise and objectify itself as soon as human labour-power is expended in a determined form, as determined and specified labour; because it is only determined and specified labour which can be confronted by some natural entity - an external material in which labour objectifies itself. It is only the ‘concept’ in Hegel’s sense that manages to objectify itself without external material” (p20).

The context of the quote (for those with neither version) lies in Marx’s development of the relative and equivalent relation of value. Labour-power, whilst not in itself value, is though the source that creates value. This it can only do when it has become embodied in the use-value form of the commodity and been put in a relation of social equivalence with a separate and objectified embodiment of its own value nature: another commodity.

What is astounding about this whole situation is how that first edition version has largely been ignored, in the English-speaking world at least. One suspects that its more openly Hegelian-dialectical nature is a large part of the reason why it has effectively been buried and forgotten. Whatever one makes of that relation, for it to have suffered such a fate borders on the criminal. It is, in fact, a very valuable piece of theoretical work that can give some unique insight into Marx’s method and his critical application of it to political economy.

What is necessary is the need for it to be published in a more widespread manner, in order that a discussion of it and its relation to the second edition version can more thoroughly take place, in a detailed and comprehensive manner. The winner here can only be our understanding of Marx’s method of dialectic.

Unburied
Unburied

Greased

Notwithstanding comrade Mike Macnair’s usual insightful article on party-movement development (‘Lessons of Erfurt’, September 5), I would like to raise the question of whether or not the pre-worker political formations were actual political parties. Parliamentary caucuses alone do not make political parties, neither do bourgeois political clubs, and neither do today’s campaign machines.

On the brief comment about the Democrats and Republicans in the US, despite their shared commitment to the current system, is this Tweedledum-Tweedledee pair really a couple of political parties? Each group is merely a collection of legally defined ‘political action committees’ greased all around by the so-called almighty dollar.

Greased
Greased

Deep breath

As president Obama puts increasing pressure on his colleagues to support an American attack on Syria, and pressure begins to mount for a second vote in parliament, we must all redouble our efforts to persuade those in power to resist such moves.

We all oppose the use of chemical weapons. However, there is no proof that chemical weapons were used, and, if they were, who used them. Those who say otherwise are making up their minds before any definitive UN report. If chemical weapons have been used, it is just as likely that the opposition forces used them as Assad. The incident in Damascus in August could well have been caused by rebels - as Russia claims happened in a chemical attack on Khan al-Assal on March 19, an incident being investigated by the UN.

Last Friday, 12 former US military and intelligence officials wrote to president Obama stating that, “contrary to the claims of your administration, the most reliable intelligence shows that president Assad was not responsible for the chemical incident that killed and injured Syrian civilians on August 21, and that British intelligence officials also know this”.

The hypocrisy of the establishment is unbelievable. Ten months into the present civil war, this Con-Dem government allowed chemicals, including potassium and sodium fluoride - key ingredients in the manufacture of the deadly nerve gas, sarin - to be exported to Syria despite 12 months of civil war. When Saddam Hussain killed 3,000 of his own people with chemical weapons in 1988, the west did nothing. What did they do when the USA used Agent Orange and napalm in Vietnam, and Israel used white phosphorus in Gaza?

There is little popular support for an attack on Syria. Opinion is divided in the USA, and Congress seems to be backing away from supporting action, as parliament did. The warmongers are sadly out of touch, but their policies could precipitate a major world conflict. They must stop, take a deep breath, and search for a peaceful, negotiated and democratically agreed settlement in Syria and the wider region.

Deep breath
Deep breath