Book review of Robert Ware’s Marx
on Emancipation & Socialist Goals: Retrieving Marx for the Future published by Palgrave Macmillan, 2019
Published
in Science and Society, October 2020
One of Ware’s overriding
arguments is that Marx (more than Engels and Lenin) was reluctant to draw up a
blueprint for future developments and specifically for the communist society he
saw as feasible in the current stage. For Marx “the future should not be laid
out for others – those who will live it” (133). Thus, for instance, Marx contemplated
“many phases” following capitalism “but leaves the vast expanse before [the
achievement of communism] and afterwards open and undetermined” (189). Along these
lines, Ware notes that Marx rejected the idealism of the utopian socialists and
Hegel and only “coquetted” (a word used throughout the book as well as in the
title of a chapter) with the dialectic. Ware notes that in Capital with
a “sprinkling of ‘contradictions’ and ‘crises” here and there… Marx does not
appear to be tied to dialectics” as most of the explanation and elaboration of
the concept “was left to Engels” (41-42). In keeping with what Ware claims was
Marx’s view, the author states that it is appropriate “to think of dialectics
as preconceptions and ways of thinking for approaching phenomena rather than
laws or rules that determine phenomena,” that is, the concept is “open-ended”
(55).
By downplaying Marx’s
adherence to the dialectic, Ware fails to distinguish between the idealistic
content of Hegelian dialectics and Marx’s version of the concept. This is
hardly a minor shortcoming. The elder Marx may not have made frequent reference
to the dialectic as did Engels, but he clearly argued that all societies have
been subject to internal contradictions (thesis-antithesis) that eventually express
themselves in the form of head-on class confrontation and then systemic change.
The alternative to this dynamic for those who purport to favor radical change, and
even Marxism, is positivism with its evolutionary and deterministic assumptions,
(such as in the case of technological determinists like the analytical Marxist G.A.
Cohen, who Ware frequently refers to and expresses admiration for). In
contrast, the dialectic, which was at the center of Marx’s view of history and
society, not only envisions ongoing and inevitable conflict but also complexity
given the multiplicity of internal contradictions at any given moment.
Ware’s discussion of
historical materialism is in line with his view of the dialectic as
“open-ended.” Ware quotes Marx and Engels in The German Ideology as
saying that abstractions about historical processes “‘by no means afford a
recipe or schema, as does philosophy, for neatly trimming the epochs of
history’” (66) and that (in the words of Marx) “every historical period has
laws of its own” (74). Ware claims that for Marx socialism per se was not a
“science” even though as a movement socialism “depended on scientific studies”
(28). One may infer that for Ware,
Marxism is a tool of analysis, but one that leads to certain self-evident
truths. If it did not, Marxism would be nothing more than a methodology and not
stand for socialism, communism, internationalism or any number of other
concepts.
On issue after issue,
Ware rejects what he considers to be quixotic and romantic as well as sectarian
interpretations (such as “numerous narrow interpretations”– p. 128 – based on
economism) of
Marx’s writings. Along these lines, Ware denies that Marx advocated the routine
rotation of labor at the workplace. Despite Marx’s polemics with the utopian
socialists, he is often accused of being “a utopian with the unrealizable and
naïve ideal of modern industry without a division of labour” (80). Even though Marx
expressed “interest in diversity of development and variety of talent” (91) he stopped
short of systematically applying these goals to the labor force. Ware also
minimizes the importance of class consciousness on Marx’s thinking, the use of
the term “class for itself” notwithstanding. In his discussion of the issue of
class consciousness, Ware warns against the tendency to “saddle him [Marx] with
unwanted Hegelian views” (103). More important than class consciousness for
Marx was class unity and organization, especially in the form of the trade
union movement.
Ware argues that Marx’s view
of nationalism was consistent with his appreciation of the “heterogeneity of
human life” (135). Ware rejects the notion that internationalism and
nationalism are incompatible, if not diametrically opposed, and that ipso facto
Marx spurned the latter. According to Ware, “the claim that workers have no
country is so often used, frequently in a misleading way” (116) by, among
others, Lenin who stated “‘Marxism cannot be reconciled with nationalism’”
(123). (It should be noted, however, that Lenin viewed nationalism among
oppressed people as a positive force.) Ware concludes: “nationalism which
acknowledges a diversity of nations does not have to be the embarrassment [for
the left] that it has often been take to be” (135).
Marx, according to Ware,
envisioned the achievement of socialism as essentially a humanistic process. In
the first place, he did not discard the possibility of overthrowing the
bourgeoisie in some countries by “peaceful means” (133) and never offered “any
reason for initiating violence” (164). In the second place, Marx never wavered
in his commitment to democracy. Ware adheres to the interpretation of the use
of the term “dictatorship of the proletariat” put forward by Hal Draper
according to which Marx’s intention was largely to refute “those socialists who
wanted a dictatorship of a small group or vanguard to lead the proletariat” (162).
Ware’s discussion of
democracy leads him to contrast Marx’s thinking with that of Lenin. While Marx
envisioned the state in the transition to communism as the “rule by the
proletariat,” Lenin “had the sense of the state acting for the proletariat in dictatorial
ways” (191). Ware, however, fails to define the term “dictatorial ways,” nor
does he distinguish Lenin’s thoughts on the subject between before and after
the Soviet revolution of 1917. In general, Ware fails to bring into his
analysis the formidable challenges including the use of violence that all revolutionary
processes have faced throughout history from the old ruling class, and which
Marx and Engels were acutely aware of. Lenin’s response to the repressive side
of the ruling class was his thesis of “democratic centralism,” namely that the
tactics and strategy employed by the revolutionary movement depend on the existing
political climate. In other words, extreme centralism at the expense of grassroots
participation may be necessary depending on circumstances. Ware omits any
reference to these historical realities from a book that is otherwise a cohesive
and well-argued interpretation of the writings of the father of communism.
Steve Ellner
