“Socialism or Barbarism – From the 'American' Century to the Crossroads,” by Istvân Mészáros, 2001
The book is a bit dated but the angle still holds. It is prior to the 2nd Iraq war and the 2007-2012 long recession, for instance. Mészáros makes some key points that resonate with orthodox Marxists but have wider applicability. It borrows the famous 1915 quote from Rosa Luxemburg as to the choice that will have to be made by all social forces in the ever-nearer future, but especially the proletariat. The present dangers of financial ruin, war, fascism, authoritarianism, nuclear annihilation, corporate control and environmental chaos threaten an even greater barbarism than she could imagine. She wrote this line in prison during WWI, held there for her anti-war work.
Mészáros makes these significant points:
Capital's 'globalization' contains a fatal contradiction, in that their states are not global. This contradiction contains the recipe for capitalist war. There will never be a 'world government' under capitalism in spite of the U.N. and EU experiments.
The prior is one of 16 internal and external contradictions in capital's functioning.
The “downward equalization of the differential rate of exploitation” across the world means that 'western' workers are now under the same pressures as those in the 'global south.'
The USSR and its associated states, along with present China, etc., were/are 'post-capitalist' but not socialist.
“The capital system could not survive for a week without the massive backing it constantly receives from the state.”
He thinks the state is increasingly having trouble rescuing capital. Can you say growing debt – corporate, governmental, private?
The U.S., after it replaced Britain, is no longer capable of being the imperialist colossus. Yet multi-polarity will not solve the basic problem either.
World-spanning oligopolies now dominate world capital, sometimes under the rubric of 'human rights' and 'multi-party democracy,' other times under authoritarianism, but always under the hallmarks of business. 'Plurality' means a plurality of capitals.
He takes apart the inadequate slogan of 'Think globally, act locally.'
Imperialism's and capitalism's military and economic forces are linked, even though the dollar many times does its work alone.
Authoritarian political methods stem from capital's 'top-down' methods.
The Soviet Union as a post-capitalist state still did not get rid of the effects of capital.
China is the ultimate present target. A party-state is an odd duck in the 'free market.'
The split between labor's industrial role and its political arm have to be united in any real class struggle. It has meant a weak 'defensive' role only.
“Western” labor is no longer just looking for higher wages. Demands for shorter working hours and attempts to stop closures show post-war Keynesianism has failed and labor is taking that into account.
Socialism means control by the associated producers, not by a Party, bureaucracy or a leader. The workers' state actually should wither away.
Keynesianism will not return in a substantive way.
The approach to capitalist war is to “turn their weapons against their own ruling classes, as the socialists invited them to do.” Note to those 'socialists' who back Russia in Ukraine.
Reformism is more and more lost in its pursuit of immediate aims unconnected to strategic objectives.
We do not have centuries, only a few decades. (A poke at Samir Amin and other Maoists who claim we do.)
Mészáros is interviewed by an Iranian Left journal at the end. He contends that capitalist crisis is related to a global view of capital, which combines the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, overproduction and the reproduction of what he calls 'total social capital.' This latter formulation seems unique. It is an attempt to link labor profiteering with all the other 'organic' methods that capital uses to control society. He rejects the concept of 'state capitalism' as to the USSR and China, but thinks that the 'capital system' intrudes into a post-capitalist, transitional society until it is rooted out in a permanent manner. Continuing political control of surplus labor in China is an example.
Capital is a hugely wasteful system, and this is reflected in its environmental effects like pollution and useless and toxic products. Millions in the world live in a hybrid of capitalism and other methods, an example of 'combined and uneven development' though he doesn't use that phrase. He compares, like Marx, the functioning of a capitalist enterprise to the military, where foremen are sergeants, CEOs are generals and includes every layer in between. But the great majority are privates and corporals! This should put paid to the idea that socialism is a 'barracks-like' institution where everyone takes orders, sleeps in a bunkhouse and owns what is in a trunk. This conception actually reflects a bourgeois military.
Many aspects of capital are parasitic, like administration, insurance and the financial sector. Marxism always needs to be renewed and developed, as capital has successfully 'postponed' its grave problems, putting them off to the future. But the future is not endless. Mészáros puts his main emphasis on who controls production and makes the decisions as to the division of the surplus, not just on surplus value. His conception of revolution is of a mass 'social revolution' involving the overwhelming majority of people, which Marx took from Babeuf's 'society of equals' during the French Revolution. Just 'overthrowing the state' is insufficient and only preparatory to a transition to socialism. Revolutionaries cannot substitute for the class in his mind.
This small volume's points could be an introduction to his work in the books listed below. There are others I did not cover, some of which did not come true. It is dedicated to Harry Magdoff and Paul Sweezy of Monthly Review.
Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 16 year archive, using these terms: “The Necessity of Social Control,” “The Structural Crisis of Capital,” “Beyond Leviathan,” (All 3 by Meszaros) or the words 'capitalism,' 'imperialism,' 'post-capitalist,' etc.
Red Frog
October 2, 2023
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