“Marx”by Terrell Carver, 2018 (Classic Thinkers) – Part 1
In the unending series of books about Marx and Marxism,
Carver tries to carve out a different approach by connecting all of Marx’s
economics, sociology, philosophy, history and politics to … activism. I.E. the reason why Marx studied, wrote, said
and acted the way he did was for political reasons – ultimately, the socialist
revolution. He was not doing the work in
the abstract, for profit or as an academic or loner. Carver seeks to link Marx’s ideas to present
political practice. Carver is an English
academic from the U.S. He specializes in
gender analyses and Engel’s relation to Marx. Unlike Marx, his Wiki page mentions no political affiliations.
Carver makes the post-modern point that Marx was busy
creating a legend of sorts, like some kind of influencer. He brings up two
scant ‘selfies’ in which Marx
explains himself a bit. Carver names Engels his ‘publicity manager’ and ‘second
fiddle’ and Babel / Leibnecht his experts in ‘branding.’ He calls Marx a ‘gadfly’ and Marx’s supporters a ‘cabal’ and ‘fans.’ The Communist Manifesto, the document Marx
became famous for, is called ‘outre’
and outdated. Yet it is the main
starting point for many beginning Marxists to this day. This stupid trendiness made me want to stop
reading.
THEORIES?
Anyway, onward. Carver
points out that Marx never developed a ‘theory of class.’ In truth, class
changes as an economy and geography changes, so it’s a moving target. Some
aspects of class remain in nearly all societies, such as a laboring class and a
class that lives off the surplus.
Marx’s first discussion of class issues occurred in his 1840s German journalism
articles about the right to fire wood for peasants and the trials of
immiserated grape-vine growers. Carver’s
emphasis is on his political activism, so he stresses Marx’s ‘rhetoric of action’ in everything
he wrote. This is why he highlights
Marx’s voluminous journalism. Carver includes
the seemingly ‘outdated’ Manifesto as
part of this rhetoric of action, which broadcast the role of class struggle as
a programmatic document, not an academic analysis. Carver compares Marx’s early concerns with
equality and class as similar to 2011’s Occupy Wall Street. I guess this is an attempt to ring another recent bell.
Carver mentions that Marx had to compromise with some
middle-class radicals, as the oppressive European police governments of the day
treated them just like the communists. This is still relevant across the world. Carver contends that Marx was a ‘skillful compromiser’ with those who
had not crossed the class line or become sub-reformists. The First International (IWMA) of the 1860s
was a coalition of trade union reformists, utopians, democrats, cooperators and
religious liberals, with Marx a distinct minority. And yet they communicated. Most of the later focus of lefties has been on Marx’s
polemics with opponents, but Carver cites examples of his ability to work with
some of them. Marx's 1864 “Inaugural Address of the IWMA”
celebrates the passage of the English 1847 10-Hours Bill, the progress of Union forces
in the U.S. civil war and developments in the cooperative movement. Of
note, Marx promotes English labor action against cotton imports from the
Confederacy, even if it materially hurts
English labor. Note the present indirect reference to U.S. unions like the UAW that
support Trump’s severe tariffs.
Carver constantly references Engels as the
systematizer of a supposedly non-existent theory – Marxism. He uses hash marks around everything like
this related to Marx as a ‘thinker,’ blaming later Marxists like Plekhanov for
elucidating this imaginary theory or method.
He prefers his Marxist history to be exploratory and contingent, as if
Marx is some kind of post-modernist. Capital, Vols. 1, 2, 3 are not
mentioned, as they seem too theoretical for Carver. It is to the Manifesto of 1848 & 1872 (notated), polemical works of current
history and references to Marx’s journalism that he concentrates on.
 |
| Louis Napoleon - the Original Bonapartist |
HISTORY
For Carver, Marx and Engels only ask the question ‘what is history?’ and answer it as the
story of how normal human life is produced in various places, using struggle
and tools, traveling in a linear and unrepeatable way through time. As time has
passed, this formerly ‘radical’ explanation has become a common-sense way to
look at history. This mainstreaming of Marxist insights is one of his themes. In a work of what is now history, Marx’s passionate 1851 work
‘The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis
Napoleon’ was a response to the dictatorship that followed the 1848
revolution in France. Carver thinks of
Marx as a ‘historicist,’ seemingly with no overarching position, just sarcasm,
details and political intent. Carter’s
Marx is like an old-timey podcaster with 'hot takes' on revolution, denouncing an 1800s Trumpist like Louis
Napoleon in breeches, mustache and epaulets.
He is not someone with an ‘overarching theory,’ so don't be afraid!
Carver brings up the ‘determinist’ slant of dogmatic Marxists,
who believe history automatically leads to communism. This position has been refuted enough at this
point to not need further comment. However
historical materialism, a shorthand for the class struggle through time over economics,
is out as a method for Carver. The productivity or ownership of a certain
economic system seems to have no relevance, only the political agency of an
oppressed class based on good ‘values.’ Carver
calls his approach ‘anti-foundational’
thinking, which smacks of post-modernist relativity about everything and seems
to be the hidden rationale of the book. This
ignores the actual development of world economic history, as capital has now
conquered most of the world, just as Marx’s ‘theory’ predicted.
Of current interest, Carver looks at Marx’s 1847 speech on ‘free
trade’ versus protectionism, which was already a debate in the 1800s. Marx opposed both as versions of capital exploitation
– either of workers in other nations, (free trade) or in the ‘home’ country (nationalist
protectionism). Marx concluded that ‘free
trade’ would actually hasten revolution more than tariffs, which is why he was ‘for’
it.
DEMOCRACY
Carver wants to explain how Marx’s support of democracy is
channeled through a phrase like the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat.’ He first
explains why Marx critiqued a philosopher like Hegel, who backed the Prussian monarchy and severe anti-democratic thinking. This criticism of Hegel was a political work undermining the dictatorial
German ruling class, not an exercise in abstract philosophy.
Marx’s 1871 “The Civil
War In France” follows that up by explaining the proletarian ‘dictatorship.’
The book embraced the 1871 Paris Commune as the distinct form of workers’
rule, the rule of the majority. Working-class
communes, assemblies, soviets and councils in history that have followed are all expressions of direct
rule of the proletarian masses. At
bottom every form of a flawed bourgeois democracy is still an expression of the
domination of the capitalist class. In the U.S. it is easy to see this due
to corporate money, gerrymandering, the Electoral College, the two-party
system, voting barriers, media manipulation and more. Bourgeois claims of popular sovereignty have
failed. In Marx’s time Louis Napoleon was elected by manipulated universal male
suffrage, then declared himself Emperor. Sound familiar?
At this point in the book, Carver respects Marx but rejects
almost any theoretical conclusions. He
claims that Marx, in his analysis of the Commune and Louis Napoleon, was more interested
in democratic rights for the majority, which was being impeded by the property
interests of various upper and middle-class strata in France. To Carver Marx is really a programmatic,
value-based and agitational activist. In this he's trying to make him a bit 'modern' in the present situation and more understandable. Many
current reformist leftists are indeed like this, so Carver could resonate with
them too.
(First part review of two.) Happy May 5, Karl's birthday, 207 years ago.
Prior blogspot posts on this subject, use blog search box,
upper left, to investigate our 19 year archive, using these terms: “Marx,”
‘post-modernism,’ “Engels” “Communist Manifesto.”
May Day carries many books on Marxism. This I got at a library.
Red Frog / May 5, 2025
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