Marx, Marxism and Utopia by Darren Webb

Author:Darren Webb [Webb, Darren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781351763318
Google: amymDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-07-30T11:08:01+00:00

If, therefore, the relations of production engendered by private property are indeed fettering the further development of the productive forces, this does not means that, once abolished, they will be replaced by common ownership of the means of production. For it may be the case that the productive forces of society develop better in response to a meritocratic ownership structure. Indeed, it could be the case that, as Saint-Simon believed, the development of the productive forces of society would best be served if control of them were placed in the hands of the ‘scientists’. At any rate, what is certain is that common ownership is not the only possible negation of private property, nor is worker control of the means of production the only negation of control by capitalists.

Fortunately, however, Marx’s vague pronouncements concerning the relations of production that would exist in full communism were not informed by the (false) belief that they represented the logical negation of the relations of production that exist in capitalism. As we saw in the previous chapter, they were informed instead by a belief that these relations would foster proletarian self-determination. What this seems to suggest, however, is that Marx’s belief in the future existence of these relations was premised on nothing more than an ethical imperative: because the current relations of production hinder proletarian self-determination they should be abolished and because the ones he describes foster self-determination they should replace them. Not only, therefore, does this imply a norm-based voluntarism on Marx’s part, it also undermines his basic claim that ‘men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of the forces of production’.2

One possible way of circumventing problems such as these would be to suggest that, for Marx, what should be will be. There is, in other words, a great coincidence between communism as an ethical norm and communism as an historical movement: people will enter the definite relations of communism independently of their will, but it just so happens that these relations will be the ones which Marx believes ought to exist. As far as the basic forces/relations model of historical development goes, however, this really would have to be a coincidence. For to argue that because certain aspects of the present relations of production hinder proletarian self-determination, the next relations of production will therefore facilitate this, is to confuse two separate and quite distinct issues. There is, at least as far as I can see, nothing to prevent the next relations of production from facilitating the development of the productive forces without a common plan, without the common ownership of the means of production or even with the increased subordination of the individual to the division of labour. Nothing other than a coincidence, that is.

Or a general theory of progress. For Marx did not treat the transition from capitalism to communism in isolation: he placed this transition in the context of all previous transitions, and the context established by these transitions was one of progressive historical development.

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