Ethical Marxism by Martin Bill

Author:Martin, Bill [Martin, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780812698619
Publisher: Open Court

Economism

Raymond Lotta, in his provocative and valuable afterword to the English translation of what is generally called the Shanghai Textbook on Political Economy (the main title of the translation is Maoist Economics) calls for a socialism that is “visionary and viable.” It is worth thinking about the dialectical relationship of these two terms. The “visionary” without the “viable” is clearly a mere utopianism in the bad sense—it is the ethical demand rendered into empty formalism. But what is the viable without the visionary? Proponents of economistic forms of Marxism would say it is just fine; it is exactly what is needed. My argument is that such a version of classical Marxism cannot begin to address the ethical gap that is opened up by imperialism, a gap that is qualitative—as Lenin argued—and not merely quantitative, a deep wound in humanity that in some respects can never be fully healed. Our Kantian work, our infinite work that was already well described by Rabbi Akiba in the second century and the notion of tikkun (to heal, restore, and transform the world—see Fackenheim’s Tikkun) is to try, and this vision of an endless work, a permanence of the revolution, is itself necessary for any socialist revolution that will be viable. The Maoist argument here is in fact not only visionary, it is also deeply practical: the revolution that gets stuck in a particular stage, and that makes a principle out of getting stuck, will turn into its opposite, it will see the restoration of capitalism. This was Mao’s analysis of the dynamics of the Soviet Union from the 1930s to the early 1960s. (This analysis finds a significant parallel in Sartre, Critique of Dialectical Reason, vol. 2—see especially part 1, ch. 5, “Are Social Struggles Intelligible? (A Historical Study of Soviet Society)”; also see “Dictatorship ‘for’ the proletariat: Sartre’s theory of the Stalin period,” in my The Radical Project: Sartrean Investigations, 15–33; Bob Avakian extends Mao’s analysis, significantly and even qualitatively, in Conquer the World?) Unfortunately, Mao’s analysis of the dynamics of capitalist restoration was proven accurate in the case of the People’s Republic of China, as well.

An indispensable part of the ethical vision that must inform a viable socialism is internationalism. A very informative chapter on this question is the trajectory of the Second International after the death of Marx, especially as regards the leadership of Eduard Bernstein and Karl Kautsky. (In Conquer the World? Avakian also provocatively analyzes Engels’s role in the transition of the Second International into complete reformism, Eurocentrism, and even simply German nationalism—even if Engels did not go all the way down these roads himself.) The most ironic part of this trajectory is Bernstein’s turn to Kant precisely as a way of turning away from revolutionary struggle and toward reformism, the result of which was a Eurocentric pacifism that helped clear the way for the most horrendous violence of German nationalism and of imperialism more generally. (This may seem more than a little harsh; the point is that pacifism can sometimes underwrite very dangerous illusions.

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