Capital & Class. - 1979. - Issue 9

CLASS FORMATION AT THE INTERNATIONAL LEVEL Reflections on the political economy of Atlantic unity

Kees van der PijI

1 . INTRODUCTION

In Marxist theory, the international dimension of class formation has received rather limited attention . Although a socialist strategy linked to a struggle for national independence has often been rejected as inherently reactionary[1 ], class struggle and the process of class formation tend to be situated theoretically within the framework of the national state . It is my contention in this paper that the international dimensions of imperialist integration and rivalry should be considered as basic features of each national class configuration .[2] To illustrate my point, I will put forward some preliminary ideas on the process of class formation of the bourgeoisie at the international and, more particularly, the 'Atlantic' level .

Present-day Marxist theory has little to offer in this respect . Apart from the 'national' bias (but intimately related to it), the struggle between classes and their actual fractioning in the process of capital accumulation is either theorized in a historicist fashion or dissociated from the historical process altogether . Two main currents of Marxist thought seem to stand out. First and foremost, Soviet Marxism . As it developed under the conditions of the building of socialism in a single, backward country against the odds of international reaction, dialectical materialism inevitably came to separate the day-to-day economic struggle of the working class, with its hardships and defeats, from the march of history which would somehow prevail . Hence, in its Soviet codification, Marxism came to be characterized by both economism and historicism . This can be seen in the theory of State monopoly capitalism . Here, the mediation of relationships between



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state and capital through international class alignments tends to be replaced by a notion of their immediate fusion, leaving little or no room for class struggles other than a final one aimed at taking over the state from the monopolies . Consequently, the unity of the bourgeoisie is generally taken for granted ; if its international orientation changes, the explanation is to be found in the course of the main struggle . [3] At the other extreme, Louis Althusser and his followers posit the autonomy of non-economic factors in a three-tier conception of social formations, comprising economics, politics, and ideology . For them, the instances of the superstructure are active "with their own essence and efficacy" (Althusser 1969, p . 100), being structurally similar, rather than structurally related, to the economic instance . Therefore, with Althusser as with Poulantzas, the position of classes in society acquires a positive quality . In the determination of these positions, technicism has to replace Marxism : for instance, in Poulantzas's analysis of the internationalization of capitalist relations and the national state (in Poulantzas 1975), it is the superior technology of labour processes in the orbit of American capital which makes for American take-overs in Europe, and eventually, for the effective domination of the American bourgeoisie within each national context . But, whatever the wealth of the resulting picture of classes and political orientations among them, the dynamics of interimperialist, or rather 'internal-imperialist' rivalry and integration again have to be relegated to the realm of the "conjuncture" . What is lacking in both strands of theory is an appreciation of the intrinsic relation between immediate production and class struggle, and social production and transformation in a broader, historical sense . For Marx, the analysis of capitalism has to overcome the self-evidence and apparent technicality of the mode of production by relating the immediate forms of production and exchange to the contradictory process of capitalism developing into socialism . In developing the productive forces, capital is engaged in a 'flight forward' . "As the system of bourgeois economy has developed for us only by degrees", he writes in the Grundrisse ; "so too its negation, which is its ultimate result . . . Everything that has a fixed form, such as the product etc ., appears as merely a moment, a vanishing moment, in this movement. The direct production process itself here appears only as a moment ." (Marx, Grundrisse, p . 712 .) In order to capture these moments in historical materialist categories, i .e . to show that the contradictory nature of social relations is not metaphysical, but is rooted in the process of their material reproduction, Marx uses the method of rising from the abstract to the concrete . In Capital, the labour process, the process of circulation of capital in its different functional forms and, finally, the profit distribution structure comprising the social formation as a whole, are treated as if temporarily taken out of the real, living totality ; but as moments of a process . To quote the Grundrisse again : "-all of these fixed suppositions themselves become fluid in the further course of development" (Ibid ., p . 817) . So do classes, which relate to "places occupied in a historically determined system of social production"[4] but which similarly can be defined more closely at the consecutive levels of abstraction mentioned .



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The internationalization of capital in the Atlantic area, to which we now turn, can be explained by analysing the ways capital has found to overcome the contradictions that are inherent in the capitalist process of production, circulation and distribution of profit . This will be looked at in the second part of this paper . In Part III, I will go into the different political orientations of the bourgeoisie that accompanied the coming into existence of an integrated circuit of social capital in the Atlantic area. Here, the main problem will certainly be to avoid a reductionist explanation of politics, while still seeking to establish the structural connections that permit the use of the term relative autonomy where political and ideological developments are concerned . It will be my contention that the attitudes among American and Western European bourgeoisies towards Atlantic unity can be traced in particular to the process of circulation of capital in its different functional forms . Circulating capital only gradually penetrated the existing international circuits of simple commodity and money circulation as capital, that is to say, as a social relation which expands by appropriating surplus value, . directly or indirectly . Thus, following the internationalization of the circuit of commodity capital in the 19th century, the circuit of money capital internationalized through portfolio investment and investment bank operations in the period of classical imperialism . One step further, the internationalization of the circuit of productive capital takes the form of direct foreign investment by multinational manufacturing firms (cf . Palloix 1974, pp . 109ff) . In each context capitals from both sides of the Atlantic were brought together into specific functional combinations . Eventually these would have dissolved into one integrated circuit of social capital, were it not for their being involved in "-certain relations . . . between political alliances, between states, on the basis of the territorial division of the world, of the struggle for colonies, of the `struggle for spheres of influence"', which, as Lenin notes, "-develop parallel to and in connection with relations between capitalist associations . . ., based on the economic division of the world" (Coll. Works Vol . 22, p . 253) . The connection between the two has to be established by fixing elements of a dynamic whole, changing with the relationship of forces they operate upon . For instance it is important to note that sections of the bourgeoisie, related to fractions of social capital, are distributed unevenly within different national states (in the sense of trade and transport being predominant in the Netherlands, banking in Switzerland, finance capital in Germany, etc .) . Hence, not only will the pattern of international izat :on from each country differ depending on the overall stage, but domestic class relations too, will affect, and be affected by, internationalization in quite dissimilar ways . Moreover, as Palloix has pointed out, the role of the state and the structure of the state apparatus differ with each type of internationalization (Palloix 1974, pp . 133ff) . Together with factors like geographical ones (including strategic position in a military sense), these differences mean that national foreign policy is autonomised relative to the tendency of capital and, necessarily, of its complementary political forms, to become international, to develop into an integrated circuit of



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social capital and an international capitalist class . This autonomisation is not identical to the separation of the political from the economic, as Althusser has it, but rather it is the form through which the process of integration develops . An example may illustrate this. In the early 1960s the American government proposed to the EEC the elimination of all tariffs on agricultural products and on products in which at least 80 percent of trade among capitalist countries was accounted for by exports of the USA and the EEC combined (assuming Britain's membership) . The inplementation of the latter proposal in particular, would have led to the development of an integrated circuit of capital in the branches of Department I generally considered as a mark of national economic sovereignty (advanced machine tools, heavy equipment, including nuclear power plants, aerospace industry, e tc . cf. Palloix 1974, p . 88) . Added to an already integrated circuit of multinational capital in the more mobile branches of Department I like oil and chemicals as well as in consumer goods manufacturing, Atlantic unity would have acquired a very real meaning had not the proposals been blocked by the French veto on British membership and by objections of a protectionist nature on the part of EEC countries (Evans 1967, pp . 7/9) . However, the veto, as much as the other foreign policy positions which set France apart from the other Atlantic countries at the time (whether they concerned the military, colonial or Cold War fields and no matter how "autonomously" they were being pursued), cannot be understood in isolation from the objective requirements, domestic compromises already made, and other attributes of the rise of French productive capital to international dimensions . In this case, too,- "'Nationalist' policies with regard to particular capitals tend to improve the terms on which 'national' capitals are integrated into the circuit of world capital rather than to resist that integration" (Clarke 1978, p . 62) . The active role, this time of the French government with respect to current liberal arrangements like the European Monetary System is a clear confirmation of this function of the initial nationalism . On the other hand, the problems over EEC monetary compensation for agricultural products, which for a moment threatened to postpone the whole thing, testify to the still considerable weight of the French farm bloc twenty years after its political support was necessary for the reinforcement of French industrial capital (cf. below) . How then do sections of the bourgeoisie on both sides of the Atlantic align as classes, considering that their alignment develops through international politics, involving rivalry and conflict as well? With this question, I come to the actual thesis of this paper . The bourgeoisie which sponsored imperialist expansion from its main European centres before World War I were associated either with productive capital in their respective countries, or with overseas operations through the international circuits of commodity and money capital, or with both . As far as particular links with the United States were concerned, European money capital mainly came from the traditional colonial empires, like the British, French or the Dutch ; owing to the wide range of overseas profit opportunities, the 19th century imperial structure did not foster the close integration of the circuits of money capital and domestic



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productive capital . Rather, the prevailing orientation of well-to-do imperialism was to look at domestic industry through the eyes of cosmopolitan liberalism, i .e ., in rentier terms . In countries like Germany, on the other hand, finance capital had developed to a far greater extent and money capital was less prone to internationalization as a separate circuit . These of course were only tendencies : in all European countries, the liberal section of the bourgeoisie, engaged in overseas operations, had to reckon with an industrial bourgeoisie which was more keenly aware of the need for industrial expansion and for handling the working class at home . The aftermath of World War I witnessed the development of a similar differentiation among the American bourgeoisie, as American portfolio capital got linked up with productive capital in Europe, with German industrial cartels in particular . However, in the 'thirties, after American capital had gone through its epoch-making restructuring towards a massconsumption economy, the European engagement of US money capital was superseded by direct productive investments of the multinational form of finance capital -at least within the Atlantic context . The Nazi economy, on the other hand, although fueled in part by American money capital, and the involvement of US multinationals notwithstanding, embodied the impotence of German productive capital and the sections of the bourgeoisie associated with it to engage in this Atlantic circuit of social capital . Expressing the situation European industrial capital as a whole had got into because of the social irresponsibility of money capital and the depressed living standards, national-socialism represented an extreme political variety of a more general trend towards the integration of industrial capital and labour along corporatist and authoritarian lines on the part of the European industrial bourgeoisie and hence was outlived by it. Accordingly, American involvement in Europe from the 1930s on, and again after the Second World War, tended to fit into the pattern of an integrated, Atlantic circuit of social capital much more than did European involvement the other way around . Reproducing, in a number of respects, the former position of the British Empire and Sterling, the new Pax Americana brought together the liberal elements among the bourgeoisie on both sides of the Atlantic . However, this Atlantic unity could only materialize in a political sense if a number of specific conditions were met . First, the accumulation pattern of capital in the Atlantic area would have to allow the appropriation of substantial shares of surplus value by the sections of the bourgeoisie most receptive towards Atlantic unity . On the American side, no specific fraction of capital needs to be mentioned, except maybe for finance capital's special relationship with European markets and qualified labour, suggesting a pattern of accumulation characterized by the expansion of productive capital . As for the European bourgeoisie, its liberal wing traditionally collected profits from the international circuits of money and commodity capital . In the context of the postwar Atlantic circuit of social capital, these profits take such various forms as commercial profit, dividends on American stock, interest payments and rent, etc . So besides US industrial production, international



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trade would have to rise significantly, too . To complement this economic definition of the alignment of liberal sections of the European bourgeoisie with American capitalism, a second condition is to be found in a rise in living standards engendered by accelerated relative surplus value production 'made in USA', thus allowing the liberal bourgeoisie to govern without having to offer the working class anything but liberalism . i .e ., free wage negotiations. Finally, the expansion of production in the US and of trade with Western Europe would need to be complemented by a firm stand, in terms of both rhetoric and actual military measures, vis-a-vis those bastions of socialism which cannot be won o ver . i n the context of the second condition . Here, the output of full capacity industrial production in the US, the ideological allegiance of sections of the working classes involved and the cosmopolitanism-turned-anticommunism of the liberal bourgeoisie represent different moments of one and the same process of capital's flight forward in the era of the transition to socialism . The problems arising with the above enumeration of conditions are obviously enormous, in particular if the tendency towards autonomisation of interstate relations is taken into account . Still, on the basis of a number of statistical indicators in combination with an assessment of actual political developments, we can single out 1947/'49 and 1961 /'65 as periods of enhanced Atlantic unity .[5] As we will see below, the New Deal in a number of respects paved the way for this kind of international 'activism' on the part of the United States : in terms of the domestic political coalition involved, the policies of Truman and Kennedy relied on earlier developments . Alternating with such an activist configuration of Atlantic capitalism conservatism on the part of the American bourgeoisie-reminiscent of the orientation of international money capital -has tended to leave Europe to the right-wing industrial bourgeoisies, stimulating regional arrangements in the absence of active American involvement, other than financial . 2 . 'AMERICANISM AND FORDISM' In the United States, the scarcity of labour power at the turn of the century and the capitalist response to it mark the beginnings of a new type of capitalist development . Threatening sustained accumulation while opening prospects for the marketing of consumer goods, the scarcity of labour power was combatted by the introduction of the assembly-line in consumer goods manufacturing industry . Thus, mass production further subjected the workers to capital, allowing relatively high wages thanks to relative surplus value production at the same time . In Europe, on the other hand, a large reserve army of labour kept wages and labour costs down ; a similar counterstrategy of capital against the independence of artisan-like production would have seemed irrational and besides, would have run upon other obstacles . Unlike the highly secular, 'rootless' American demography and class structure, in Europe "a heap of passive sedimentations produced by the phenomenon of the saturation and fossilisation of civil-service personnel and intellectuals, of



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clergy and landowners, piratical commerce and the professional ( . . .) army" (Gramsci, 1978, p . 281) resisted a parallel leap forward in terms of social organisation of production . The crisis of 1929 and the early 1930s marked the watershed between the old and the new structures of the capitalist system and, therefore, between the USA and Europe . To analyse these structures more concretely, we have to look at the changes that were .brought about by the counterstrategies of capital in the sphere of circulation . The new production techniques were a capitalist response to the combined challenge of a mass market for consumer goods and scarce labour power resisting subordination to capital in production . The old methods of work, however, were embedded in a comprehensive social structure dominated by rentier interests, banks 'feeding' on these interests, and giant monopolies in heavy industry often dominated by the banks . In the USA as well as in Europe, such a power bloc and in particular, the development of the iron and steel industry and associated industries like mining, railway material, shipbuilding and armaments had been dialectically related to imperialist expansion and war . If they had to be revolutionised for profit reasons, this whole structure of profit distribution would have to change, too. When demand for steel products and especially for flat rolled steel used by the automobile and food canning industries expanded, the American iron and steel industry was confronted with 'unmanageable' qualified workers .. To remove this obstacle to progress, absolute surplus value production was initially stepped up, but only after the introduction of the continuous wide-strip rolling mill in the second half of the 1920s could the problems be overcome . In principle, the steel industry had become attached to the system of relative surplus value production and intensive accumulation . However, the rapid introduction of the new equipment and the depreciation of existing machinery aggravated the hardships of the American iron and steel industry during the economic crisis that followed . In fact, the whole structure of rentier interests and investment banks connected with them fell apart, as speculation in railway and real estate bonds had finally run up against the fact that the railway age was over . Profit rates of the iron and steel industry for decades fell back to below average levels, and aggregate profits of financial conglomerates predominantly involved in railway investment and iron and steel production at the time (Morgan and Kuhn, Loeb & Co .) showed a comparable, though relative, decline (ECE, 1953, p . 35 ; Perlo, 1960, p . 165) . In the face of mass unemployment and threatened by an avalanche of closures and bankruptcies, American capitalism seemed unable to recover on its own . Accordingly, the hand of the state had to strengthen the invisible one considerably in order to guide the different component parts (banks, branches of industry) of the old production and profit distribution structure to their position within a restructured mass production economy (and to eliminate some of them altogether) . It could do so, (as capitalist interests favouring a consumer-oriented solution to the crisis were weak if compared to the Wall Street financiers and big industrial



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conglomerates that were being challenged) only because of the threatening impact of revolting farmers and industrial workers organising on an unprecedented scale . This created Roosevelt's room for manoeuvre to devalue the dollar and to set up the legal and political framework for a more viable social order of capitalism . After the first shock, key finance capitalists soon tuned in on the New Deal . Winthrop Aldrich, representative of the Rockefeller group, spoke out in favour of it, and the important mass production industries supported New Deal trade policies even if they-"(might) not agree with some of the other national policies ."[6] In due course, however, the labour relations aspect of the New Deal was modified so as to better suit the class interests of big capital . In 1937, pressure was brought to bear on the Roosevelt administration to cut public spending for employment and thus quell working class militancy . Within a year, industrial production fell back, unemployment rose, and strike activity was reduced spectacularly from involving two million workers in 1937 to about 690 thousand in 1938 . The mighty CIO-drive, organising millions of workers in the new mass production industries did not bring about a social revolution, on the contrary . As Keynes, who provided the theoretical justification of the social transformation of capitalism pioneered in the New Deal, put it in the Concluding Notes of his General Theory . . ., "With the disappearance of (the rentier aspect of capitalism) much else in it besides will suffer a sea-change . . . (But) the euthanasia of the rentier, of the functionless investor, will be nothing sudden . . ( . .) and will need no revolution" . (Keynes 1970 (1936), p . 376 .) What remained was a lasting state intervention in industrial employment, agriculture and monetary affairs . Responding to the crisis in both labour relations and the credit system, the American state directly intervened in the relation between these two spheres, that is to say "in the circulation of capital as far as it necessitated new class compromises that could not be realised by the capitalists themselves" (De Brunhoff, 1976, p . 53) . Called upon to manage a social order based on relative surplus value production in which real wages had become the main strategic variable, but which was also highly vulnerable because of its more intricate social division of labour, the state undertook to level off and postpone the consequences of non-valorisation of value by what De Brunhoff calls "pseudovalorisation" through inflation, and by anti-cyclical measures . Of these, the 1937 cuts were the first example in the history of the new capitalism (Kalecki 1972 (1943), p . 424) . In 1929, the social nature of production had revolted against its indiscriminately being geared to private profit ; in 1933 new forms of circulation were created by the state to shore up the accumulation conditions for monopoly capital . As regards the iron and steel industry, its absorption into a subordinate layer of social production, like many other features of the new state monopolistic structures supporting intensive accumulation, had to wait until the Second World War. During the war, the American state financed new plant and equipment on an unprecedented scale in the context of the war production effort . After the war, when the new plants were turned over to the major steel companies at prices that



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were symbolic at best, the iron and steel industry passed under the tutelage of the steel users through credit-and-delivery contracts, with only few exceptions. Accordingly, in the USA, a high value of labour power dialectically brought about mass production of consumer goods, upsetting the structure of profit distribution that had developed around railway financing and production . Eliminating the excessive power of Wall Street high finance, the New Deal introduced state intervention with respect to the circulation of money capital, hence, to the level of industrial activity and real wages ; in the previous period this articulation had been left to the bankers and industrial capitalists themselves . Through the Marshall Plan, the conditions for relative surplus value production and intensive accumulation were exported to Western Europe . One aspect of the Schuman Plan of May, 1950, was the belated subjugation of the European iron and steel industry to the assembly industries . In the European Coal and Steel Community, the cartel-prone European iron and steel branch and the profit distribution structure connected with it, hence the "heap of passive sedimentations" (Gramsci) that underlay its support for fascism, were restructured so as to conform to the American model . Still, even when the conditions for a mass market had been established, the EEC was not to become a mere imitation of the USA . Rather, it provided a context in which the 'old' and the 'new' class and profit structures were being reproduced in a contradictory fashion . On the one hand, the EEC has been an effective extension of a continuous mass market, originating in the USA . On the other hand, it has operated as a protectionist bloc in its own right, centering around a Franco-German axis seeking to preserve an exclusive sphere of influence in Western Europe and Africa . As was indicated above, different fractions of the bourgeoisie have been associated with these contradictory tendencies . Their political preeminence has been closely related to American initiatives in the field of free trade and capital movements to create favourable conditions for the accumulation of capitals in their orbit. 3 . INTERNATIONALIZATION OF CAPITAL AND INTERNATIONALIZATION OF THE BOURGEOISIE

3.1 The pre-war Atlantic framework Though the term 'isolationism' is of doubtful value when describing American foreign policy in the 1920s, it is a fact that at the time, American imperialism was not the vanguard of international reaction that it is today . This task was left to the bourgeoisie in Europe, if only because the rentier-oriented profit structure of railway capitalism did not require direct American intervention in European affairs : capitalists associated with this profit distribution structure tended to evaluate economic activity and prospects for investment in rentier terms alone . Accordingly, a steady flow of American portfolio capital was bolstering the economic position of the old iron and steel industry in Europe . The same cartel profit rates that

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hampered the development of socially more viable assembled consumer goods production, were highly attractive to American speculators . Between 1924 and 1930, $1,239 million worth of German bonds were sold to US citizens, the most important broker being the firm of Dillon, Read & Co, and the most important outcome in Germany itself the formation of the Vereinigte Stahlwerke (Kolko 1962, p . 718) . The German ruling classes, the more so after Hitler's rise to power, were generally considered to be efficient protectors of such stationary American property . On the other hand, to American capital engaged in mass production and seeking new places to settle in an effort to evade the growing combativeness of American workers, Hitler's try at a United Europe could only be of transient interest . Unlike cartellized national branches of industry, multinational firms like General Motors, International Telephone & Telegraph and General Electric -and to a lesser extent, Standard Oil, NJ - (to name only the foremost direct investors in Germany before the war) in the long run needed a developed mass consumption market to complement their military production, and certainly they preferred free trade and free capital flows to war-prone fascist autarky with its forced reinvestment of profits and other nuisances. Transcending the basically defensive rentier orientation, these preferences were fully consistent with the assertive, Wilsonian liberalism that pervaded the State Department under Roosevelt's Secretary of State Cordell Hull . "Hull's freer trade pleas appealed to many groups besides the Southern Democrats" (Gardner, 1971 (1964), p . 15) . Indeed, his conception of free trade as a condition for peace corresponded closely to the requirements of internationally operating manufacturing firms . The political activism that went with the thrust towards a more viable social order based on relative surplus value production was also formulated by Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles. Stressing the need for an international order composed of socially and politically stable regional associations, Welles heralded what under Kennedy was to be enacted as the 'Alliance for Progress' with regard to Latin America, urging American capital to seek association with indigenous capital rather than creating " . . . an empire within another sovereign state" . As far as Europe was concerned, Welles favoured a dismemberment of Germany into three parts so as to prevent future German aggression . If, as he hoped, " . . . The end of the war (would see) the lowering of customs barriers within Europe, and the creation of customs unions, the new German states should be afforded free opportunity to take part in such customs unions" (Welles 1945, pp . 240/1 ; 353) . After Hitler had come to power, the fractions of German capital and of the German bourgeoisie that were favourable to American penetration and liberalism (like the Dresdner Bank groups, Thyssen, and figures like Schacht and Goerdeler) lost their influence and for the moment, Atlantic arrangements had to be restricted to relations with Britain and France . From the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934, through the Tripartite Monetary Agreement of '36 to the proclamation of the Atlantic Charter by Roosevelt and Churchill (the latter claiming "due respect to existing obligations") in 1941, these arrangements increasingly reflected



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the rise of the USA as the most vital centre of capitalism that was associated with capitalism's need to overcome the structures of rentier imperialism in order to survive. Of course, Churchill and Eden proved to be uneasy allies in this process . Behind all American activist thinking during the war-whether it pertained to creating stable social structures or stable international arrangements-loomed the need for markets . "We will have a capital equipment industry nearly twice the size which would be needed domestically under the most fortuitous conditions of full employment and nearly equal to the task of supplying world needs", it was stated in a report of one of the several study groups that tackled the problem (quoted in Eakins 1969, p . 156) . However, the American initiative to shape an open Atlantic economy in which the US output of means of production could enter as an element of an integrated circuit of capital, could only be expected to succeed when capitalism was seriously challenged in Europe .

3.2 The Marshall Plan and Atlantic unity To understand why two years had to pass before the USA could intervene to establish free trade and capital movements in Europe, one . needs to look at the class relations in Europe immediately after the war . As the old production and profit distribution structure broke down with the collapse of fascism, both modernizing capitalist elements and the working classes were pressing their demands for change . In such a situation, only those groupings of the right that had cultivated a working class base of their own-the Christian Democrats, in particular-could be trusted to handle the precarious give-and-take that was necessary to save capitalist production relations . Of course, this was not merely a matter of capitalists' calculations . Metropolitan and colonial trade and shipping had declined during the war, as had those branches of industry, like textiles, that had developed in the context of empire . Accordingly, the European liberal parties and liberal tendencies, who, besides drawing their strength from rentier quarters, depended strongly (though not exclusively) on class fractions involved in the activities mentioned, were in a weak position immediately after the war . Having developed no working relationship with the working class beyond cash payment, they had to leave the task of reconstruction to the class fractions which had developed a corporatist relation between capital and labour . The Resistance had in several countries already created the political framework for cooperation between Christian Democrats and Communists, and these parties formed the basis of the post-war coalitions that sprang up on the continent with programs of national industrial reconstruction . The Social-Democrats provided a surrogate for both, depending on the specific national political configuration ; in France, the Gaullists rallied behind the popular general, who qualified as the 'Republican monarch' that his comrade-in-arms Debra and the banker, Monick, of the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas (predominant in terms of 'modern' industrial investment in France) had declared to be necessary for postwar France (Claude 1968, p . 55) . Hence, in 1946/'47, though they were actively seeking and obtaining



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loans and credits from the Americans, European ruling coalitions were orientated towards national reconstruction and were not very receptive to American penetration . In the words of the Kolkos : "Western Europe's recovery was a matter of time . Ironically, this rehabilitation, especially in France and in the lowlands, was not only largely internally generated but also proceeding in a distinctive, self-contained manner that diminished the United States' role and posed a major danger to America's plans for a reformed world capitalism ." (Kolko & Kolko 1972, p . 163) . Confronted with the threat of an independent recovery with a protectionist bent and Communist participation, the Truman administration launched the Marshall Plan . Developments in both the USA and Europe had made the need to secure the labour reserves and markets of Western Europe for the benefit of American capital acute . On both sides of the Atlantic, class relations were upset by the threat of impending crisis . In the US, the policies of the Truman government reflected the weaker basis for activism as compared to the New Deal period . Measures that were proposed in the fields of domestic reform and foreign involvement had to be inserted in a Cold War context to have them enacted, as the American upper and middle classes were frightened both by the increased strike activity that reminded them of the labour radicalism of the thirties, and by the interplay of world-wide social upheaval and the expansion of a Soviet sphere of influence . Owing to cheap plant in basic industries (cf. above) and to pent-up demand for consumer goods, the new industrial system in the US had easily adapted to peace-time conditions, and the rise in living standards seemed to make a Red Scare irrelevant. Still, anti-labour sentiment was strong, and in 1946, a Republican majority in Congress was elected on an anti-labour, anti-taxation platform . This resulted, among other things, in the promulgation of the highly restrictive Taft-Hartley act . Through this measure, with its provisions against real or alleged communist union leaders, the remaining political sting was to be taken out of working class organizations. As far as Western Europe was concerned, the adoption of a mass market, consumer-oriented capitalist economy seemed to be the only answer to the severe crisis at the time . To stem the upsurge of popular discontent and Communist electoral successes, a dramatic initiative on the part of the Free World was mandatory . Indeed, the integrationist bourgeois leadership that had worked with the Communists up to that time was losing control of the Communists as the Communists themselves lost control of the working masses who had voted for them, but who now demanded solutions to the food shortages and rising costs of living . Marshall Aid provided the solution . A free trade and payments offensive, coinciding with a violent attack on militant working class strongpoints in trade unions and the state and an offensive posture vis-a-vis the Soviet Union, the Marshall Plan was instrumental in bringing European reconstruction along national lines to a standstill . The devaluations, the dumping of agricultural surpluses, the installation of industrial equipment which would be efficient only if trade was expanded dramatically (like the wide-strip mills in the steel industry), as

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well as the loss of communist support, tore apart the class basis of the governments of national unity where they had existed . Aside from the Marshall Plan, the position of the national, protectionist industrial bourgeoisies was further undermined by loss of colonial monopolies, because the colonial market and a raw material reservoir of their own had been crucial considerations in most reconstruction' plans, national as well as 'European' (often British-sponsored plans for joint exploitation of the colonies) . On the other hand, though it eliminated many a small rentier, the absorption of the former colonial empires into a wider 'free world' under American hegemony and protection, offered an opportunity for colonial capital either to repatriate to the metropolitan areas or to resettle in comparable tropical areas . In the case of the French Banque de /'Indochine for instance, its assets in 1931 were still concentrated between 80 and 90% in South East Asia ; in 1953, it had redistributed its investments towards Western Europe (32%), the Western Hemisphere (26%) and Africa (27%) with only 18% left in Indo-China . In the process, however, the bank had to associate itself with Schneider/Union europeene . It could be expected that representatives of these groups would favour free trade and capital movements more than other fractions of capital, and they did . Edmond Giscard d'Estaing, prominent banker in the Indochine group, was president of the French section of the European League for Economic Cooperation (ELEC), the highly influential liberal wing of the European Movement ; his son Valery, married to the granddaughter of E . Schneider, likewise has been a consistent champion of liberalism . Meanwhile, on the economic plan, these same interests were the main beneficiaries of the Marshall Plan as far as private capital was concerned (the greater part of the Marshall funds was channeled into the public sector, especially for power generating equipment, and further consisted of payments for agricultural surpluses and subsidies for productivity programmes) . In France, Schneider, Simca (at the time, associated with Ford) and SOLLAC (the wide-strip mill of Lorraine steel capital, associated with the Morgan group as well as with the banks and industrial firms later to regroup into the Suez alliance) together got almost five times the amount that was received, as an additional credit, by USINOR, the wide-strip mill of Northern steel, which was associated with the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas and hence, with the more national approach . Of course a comprehensive account of the economic and political effects of the Marshall Plan cannot be given here . But the pattern was very much alike in all countries involved . In the Netherlands, Hoogovens iron and steel works got the bulk of the dollar grants to private industry, again to build a wide-strip mill . But not only the industrial bulwarks of the liberal bourgeoisie of colonial origin (Hoogovens was associated with Royal Dutch/Shell and with the foremost colonial and shipping bank, NHM-today's Algemene Bank Nederland) were reinforced . Also, the liberals returned to the cabinet in 1948 . It was the new liberal foreign minister Stikker (of Heineken and the NHM) who in the OEEC proposed to liberalize intra-European trade a few days after Schuman had made public his coal and steel plan . In Italy, an orthodox banker, Einaudi, was c.&( .9-

e

14

CAPITAL & CLASS

installed by prime minister De Gasped to conduct a deflationary policy to the detriment of industrial employment . But nowhere was the connection between active American involvement and liberalism as clear as in Western Germany . To quote the Kolkos again, "In April 1948, shortly before the monetary reform, the Christian Democrat laissez faire economist Ludwig Erhard replaced the Social Democrat Viktor Agartz as chairman of the Bizonal Economic Council . . . "With the council safely in conservative hands, the occupation greatly expanded its powers when it introduced the new currency, making it an incipient finance ministry . . ." (The currency reform) wiped out the small savers. . . ( . . .) . . . and while prices and profits skyrocketed, real wages fell sharply and unemployment nearly doubled by December 1948 ." (Kolko & Kolko 1972, pp . 433/434) For the European working class, the liberalization that followed the launching of the Marshall Plan certainly did not as yet mean an ability to improve their position by free wage negotiations, as the overall political objective of the Plan was to cut the working class down to size . Still, the other elements of liberal economic policy, like free trade and convertibility and the predominant orientation in state intervention towards monetary instruments, were all there . Events in the years to follow would demonstrate that their persistence indeed depended on activist policies on the part of the USA . 3.3 American conservatism and the foundation of the EEC The aftermath of the Korean War was to show that in the United States, an isolationist turn in foreign policy was still possible . During the early phase of the Marshall Plan, activism and its proponents from massmarket industry and trade like Hoffman and Clayton had held the reigns . The interests associated with American portfolio investments in German heavy industry (Dillon, Read & Co ., the Schroder Bank) as well as Standard Oil and other Rockefeller firms and banks, had supported the Marshall Plan, mainly from a Cold War point of view . Their representatives, like Forrestal, Draper and McCloy, held positions in the defence branch and in the US/Bizonal occupation authorities in Germany . With the outbreak of the Korean War and the establishment of the ECSC, their influence had already grown significantly . But only in the Eisenhower government did this tendency gain the upper hand through Nixon and J . F . Dulles . Internationally, the Eisenhower administration, after having cut back the budget for foreign aid by one billion dollars, concentrated on improving the position of American oil companies in the Middle East (the Mossadeq episode, Lebanon) rather than promote industrial exports and cultivate support for free trade among the ruling circles in Western Europe . In this period, the Germans took over the job . Instead of relying solely on US guardianship, Western Germany was to be rearmed, and heavy pressure was brought to bear on the states involved to have the European Defence Community ratified in the respective parliaments . Accordingly, the stress on the need for European integration had undergone a significant change of content. Before, economic integration in



CLASS FORMA TION A T THE INTERNA TIONAL LEVEL

15

the sense of liberalization had been a constant American concern, but political unification had been looked at rather distrustfully . Even in 1949/ '50, references to political unification in Hoffman's and other Marshall Plan officials' speeches were being censored by the State Department, and Acheson in particular was not at all enthusiastic for European political integration, as he "tended . . . to look at things in the way the British did, and to stress an Atlantic rather than a European approach" (Beloff 1963,

pp . 55, 65/66) . But in 1952, Senator Tom Connally, in a report on Western Europe, saw European integration in more positive, if isolationist, terms . Integration should serve, in his opinion, "to see Europe strong enough eventually to stand on her own feet . To permit integration in the military and economic fields to become effective, there must be . . . some kind of political federation which should of course be shaped by the Europeans themselves" (quoted in Beloff 1963, p . 96) . Moreover, according to the same source, in the economic field the American government had already become less interested in working at Atlantic arrangements by the last year of the Truman administration . In this context, Dulles' threat of an "agonizing reappraisal" of American support if the EDC failed to be ratified, contrasted sharply with the conception that had been behind the Berlin airlift-and that would be behind Kennedy's appearance at the Berlin Wall . It prompted the European states almost by default to take an aggressive stand on their own, meant to be directed against the communist East, but because of the specific class configuration at the time, stimulating a last try at empire instead . With Suez, interimperialist strife reached a high point . As far as American class relations were concerned, the cutbacks in foreign aid had had their counterpart in reduced domestic spending . With the Republican government, Hoover seemed to step back on the stage and with him, laissez-faire economics . Having been elected with strong conservative and Southern middle class support, the abandoning of economic controls had been one of the first measures of Eisenhower in 1953 . Likewise, government enterprises were sold or closed down, almost up to the sale of the Tennessee Valley Authority which Eisenhower personally favoured but ruled out as "going too far" (Degler 1968, p . 87) . Labour was handled by economic policy much more than by the carrot-and-stick policies of Truman's and McCarthy's days. The cutback in state expenditure from 1953 onwards, supervised by the Secretary of the Treasury, Humphrey, increased unemployment. Strike activity fell back from 59 million workdays in 1952 to an average of about 25 million until 1959 . In Europe, on the other hand, the relative disengagement of the USA from its affairs provoked a resurgence of the right wing of Western European politics as much as the Marshall Plan had stimulated its orientation towards a mass-market economic and social order . Thus, the Messina Conference of 1955, which laid the foundations for the EEC, was characterized by what Spaak in his Memoirs calls "a certain degree of confusion" (Spaak 1971, pp . 228/9) . On the one hand, its final resolution still reflected the impact of the Marshall Plan where it spoke of agreement on "the establishment of a European common market free from



16

CAPITAL & CLASS

tariff barriers and all quantitative restrictions on trade" . On the other hand, mention was made of joint sectoral plans, obviously meant to be extensions of the much more cartel-like ECSC structures . The EEC as it was prepared and established between 1955 and 1958 was in fact a complicated class compromise in which the requirements of the common market for industrial goods had to be accommodated to the demands of the existing class supports of the right-wing bloc from which the industrial bourgeoisie eventually emerged as the dominant political force in the first four years of the EEC's existence (up to 1962) . The Common Market alleviated the scarcity of labour power in West German industry and facilitated its further expansion in new markets, and it has often been noted that the Rome Treaty amounted to a swap of the German agrarian market for the French industrial one . The price to be paid by both German industrial capital and French wheat merchants, however, was protection . This was to take the form of the common external tariff and agrarian price supports respectively, because in Western Germany, farmers were an important factor in the conservative class alliance behind the ruling Christian Democrats, while in France the archaic type of accumulation, prevailing throughout the 1950s, had favoured " . . . a strong presence of the small bourgeoisie on the political scene . . ." within a class alliance held together by the common fear of the ascending proletariat (Rehfeldt 1976, p . 12) . Here, the disentanglement from the Algerian struggle complicated the situation still further . It provided the dramatic background against which De Gaulle could introduce an authoritarian regime meant to make the rate of exploitation of French workers compensate for colonial revenue, while enhancing the competitive power of French industry . The establishment of the EEC worked to synchronize class relations in the countries involved in much the same way as the Marshall Plan had done. In all countries the need to keep the working class under control, while securing the hegemony of mass-market . large-scale industrial capital, brought the early post-war coalitions -of course, minus the communiststo the fore again . Hence, the EEC laid the foundations for a free market economy based on relative surplus value production and intensive accumulation, but again, in the absence of activist American involvement, the "precarious giveand-take" in terms of class relations had to be entrusted to the integrationist sections of the industrial bourgeoisie in Western Europe . The Atlantic bourgeoisie once more had to wait for American activism in order to gain power . In 1958, only the British championed liberal Atlantic arrangements, but the favourable response to their Free Trade Area proposals on the part of some liberals like Erhard, was disapproved of by American and continental European ruling coalitions alike (cf. Beloff 1963, p . 132) . 4 . CONCLUDING REMARKS What has been presented in the foregoing analysis cannot be more than a tentative sketch . Rather than concluding, therefore, I will briefly



CLASS FORMA TION A T THE INTERNATIONAL LEVEL

17

go into three questions that have remained unanswered, but which are relevant to further discussion . The first question has already been touched upon in the introduction . It concerns the role of NATO, and military strategy in American activism . Here the Atlantic offensive of the Kennedy administration can be taken as an example . In this case, too, the need to revitalise the domestic economy was at the root of the offensive international stand . In the words of the economist, Walter Heller : "The nation's lagging growth rate and frequent recessions had been the prime campaign issues in the 1960 election . . . The need to 'get the country moving again' remained at the centre of the Kennedy Administration's concern after it took office ." (Heller, 1968) . Internationally, an attack on the protectionism of the EEC was mandatory not only to find markets for increased production : "A lowering of the (EEC) common external tariff should reduce the incentive for American firms to establish branches in Europe and thus help stanch the outward flow of capital from the United States" (Evans 1967, pp . 5/6) . American conservatism in the preceding period, however, not only provoked EEC protectionism . The continentalist bourgeoisies of Europe for obvious reasons also had developed a desire to organize their military potential on a regional basis . In particular ideas of a European nuclear force were circulating and being championed, among others, by the German defence minister, Strauss . The French demanded the establishment of a joint nuclear directorate within NATO . The Kennedy administration actively sought to counteract these tendencies . Skilfully using the proposals for a multilateral nuclear force it had inherited from the Eisenhower government, it tried to reintegrate its European allies in NATO . The Nassau agreement of 1962 with the MacMillan government was the first, if comparatively easy, success in this respect . Hence, when in the EEC countries the Europeanist ruling coalitions were being replaced by a liberal tendency in the course of 1962/'63, the renewed allegiance to NATO played its role alongside the Atlantic free trade conjuncture and economic liberalism .[7] Only France became increasingly isolated, eventually suspending its participation in both the EEC and NATO during 1965/'66 . Still, even here, Atlantic liberalism made itself felt as from 1962 to 1966, when he was replaced by Debre, Giscard d'Estaing held the important post of minister of finance . The second question relates to the periodization from the mid-sixties on . How did the overall balance of forces between the imperialist powers develop ; what are the limits of American supremacy? It seems to me that the Kennedy episode already revealed the problem of capital moving to Europe and the political consequences of this trend for the balance of forces in the Atlantic area and the world . This problem was aggravated from 1966 onwards . Domestically, the Kennedy offensive had been based on a careful "policy mix" of increased government spending (social and foreign aid, military expenditure) and a policy of easy money, to facilitate credit for private industrial expansion . However, in December 1965 the Federal Reserve, in order to stem inflation and defend the value of the dollar,

18

CAPITAL & CLASS

raised the rate of interest despite the opposition of the government (which had become Johnson's, in the meantime) (De Brunhoff 1976, pp . 72ff.) . When the president persisted in applying the economic programs inherited from the Kennedy platform even to the point of introducing a ban on private direct investment of American capital in Europe, the conflict between finance capital and the Democratic government became an aspect of the presidential elections of 1968 that brought Nixon to power (Davidson/Weil 1970, p . 63) . At first, Nixon's economic policy consisted of the expected cutbacks in state expenditure and related monetary measures . But from 1971 onwards, his conservatism took on a more narrow and aggressive quality . Confronted with the decline of American economic hegemony, Nixon tried to recapture a competitive position for American capital by his famous dollar coup in the summer of that year . This blunt abandoning of accepted rules of conduct (and of IMF and GATT obligations), however, was branded as dangerous and isolationist by the representatives of American finance capital and European liberals (the former deserting the Nixon government in protest), and actually provoked the formation of the Trilateral Commission with its stress on internationalism and free trade and capital movements (Frieden 1977) . Yet, even before the Trilateral Presidential candidate, Jimmy Carter, was elected, a liberal, Atlanticist tendency took over in France and Germany in 1974 . Today, for the first time since 1945, class formation in the USA seems to be reflecting strategies of international capital originating from a European context rather than vice versa, as can be seen in the fight over Carter's energy program . The proposed European Monetary System likewise seems to indicate that international capital has found its champion in the liberal, free market bourgeoisie of Western Europe and is seeking to make the Americans respond to the liberal call from Europe rather than the other way round . Of course, further research and analysis are mandatory as to the real nature of these developments . The last question to be looked at briefly relates to working class strategy . As the reader may have concluded already, the understanding of the position and role of the working class in the international class configuration as analysed in this paper, poses a very difficult problem . On the one hand, Atlantic liberalism affects the workers in the countries involved in a variety of ways, even including the loss of union freedom to negotiate wages and working conditions, which was supposed to be a characteristic of corporatist or 'Fordist' strategies of European capital . On the other hand, right-wing governments of the latter inspiration have sometimes introduced free wage negotiations, contrary to the schem . suggested in the introduction . At the ideological level, the picture is also rather contradictory . Certainly, activism as an offensive posture of international capitalism has inspired not only the bourgeoisie with new confidence in the viability of the mode of production . The benefits of enhanced intensive accumulation and relative surplus value production have also tended to foster reformist tendencies among the working class . "The reformist ideology", Claudin writes, "secreted organically by the system's capacity to develop the pro-



CLASS FORMA TION AT THE INTERNA TIONAL LEVEL

19

ductive forces, holds a place of honour among capitalism's moral as well as political justifications ." (Claudin 1975 (1970), p . 100) . In particular, "Reformism is . . . nourished by structural transformations in capitalism that are connected with the development of the productive forces" (ibid ., p . 60) . But developments in the communist movement have been influenced less by the modalities of Atlantic unity than by those of Soviet policy, with the possible exception of the strategy of the American Communist Party following the New Deal (cf. Weinstein/Eakins 1970, p . 3) and perhaps 'Eurocommunism'. The basic complication, however, lies in the fact that the political strength of the working class in Atlantic capitalism has varied from state to state, due to differences in the size of the reserve army of labour, the relative weight of capitalist industry in a given social formation, and the traditions, intensity, and course of class struggle in general . There remains, therefore, a typically national aspect to the position of the working class that cannot be denounced as reactionary or backward just because capital internationalizes more easily than a working class district . On the contrary, vis-a-vis a bourgeoisie which is fractioned along international lines, pursuing mutually contradictory class strategies in the process of internationalization of capital, the working class indeed might find the national state to be the only context of power within which it can unite effectively against a divided ruling class . It seems to me that moderate plans for reform with a socialist potential, like the Advanced Democracy of the French Communist Party, or the Alternative Economic Strategy in Britain, should be discussed from this angle .

NOTLS This paper is a revised version of my contribution to the CSE Annual Conference at Bradford, July 1978 . It further develops the argument of my book, In lmericun Plan for Europe (in Dutch, Amsterdam 1978) which is based on research in progress at the Department of International Relations, University of Amsterdam, Hercngracht 508 . Many thanks to Simon Clarke for his assistance in preparing the final version of this paper . 1 C/ . for example Nairn's The Lett uyuinst Europe (Harmondsworth 1973), or from quite another angle, Picciotto & Radice in Kapiluli,lute 1/1973 . 2 In a recent Dutch study on the bourgeois state it is argued that "interimperialist antagonisms as well as the domestic fractioning of the bourgeoisie find their political expression in the 'national' power bloc ; accordingly, there will be connecting lines between the antagonisms occuring within different 'national" power blocs" (Sturman 1978, p . 352, my translation) . 3 I am referring specifically to the French Communist Party's version o of the theory, cf. Collectif PCF, 1971 . A striking example of an international reorientation being analysed as an outcome of national class struggle (May 1968) is in Vol . II, p . 183 . It should be stressed, however, that there are many varieties of the theory of State monopoly capitalism, some of which are more sophisticated than others . The work of Herzog in France and theories developed in the GDR are examples of this, cf. Wirth 1972.



20

CAPITAL & CLASS 4

5

6 7

"Classes arc large groups of people differing from each other by the place they occupy in a historically determined system of social production, by their relation (in most cases fixed and formulated in law) to the means of production, by their role in the social organization of labour, and, consequently, by the dimensions of the share of social wealth of which they dispose and the mode of acquiring it . Classes are groups of people one of which can appropriate the labour of another owing to the different places they occupy in a definite system of social economy" (Lenin, Collected Works 29, p .421) . To mention only two such indicators : Menshikov (1975, p. 43) found three periods in which the increase of production in the USA was based chiefly on the growth of investment in fixed capital : 1947/'48, 1953/'57 and 1960/'65 . The average annual growth of production for the second period, however, was only 2 .2% for the other two, 5 .9% and 4 .9% respectively . Secondly, according to a recent Brookings Institution study by B. M . Blechman and S . S . Kaplan, Force Without War, US Armed Forces as a Political Instrument, American armed interventions were most numerous in two periods : 1946/'48 (on the average 8 a year), and 1960/'65 (15 a year) . Statement by an official of General Motors Export Cy ., quoted in Gardner 1971 (1964), p . 25 . On the interests supporting Roosevelt, cf. Schwarz (ed .) 1969 . In Germany, the conservative triangle of Adenauer-Brentano-Strauss (the latter by means of the 'Spiegel' affair) was replaced by the Atlantic combination Erhard-Schroder-Hassel . In the SPD there was the rise of Willy Brandt, who personified the break-away of his party from the neutralist stance of Schumacher's days, and who as mayor symbolically stood by when Kennedy pronounced his citizenship of West Berlin at the Wall . In the Netherlands, the reactionary government of the Catholic and wartime collaborator De Quay was replaced by a government in which the liberal tendency was considerably reinforced . Also in 1963, the first centre-left government of Italy was sworn in as part of a liberal solution to contradictions arising out of the exports boom. Etc ., etc . For the backgrounds of the MacMillan government in these terms, cf. Overbeek 1978, a revised version of which will appear in Capital and Class 10.

REFERENCES Althusser, L., 1969, For Marx, London . Beloff, M ., 1963, The United States and the Unity of Europe, New York . De Brunhoff, S ., 1976, Etat et capital, Paris/Grenoble . Clarke, S ., 1978, "Capital, Fractions of Capital and the State : 'neoMarxist' Analyses of the South African State" Capital and Class 5 . Claude, H ., 1968, Histoire, realite et destin dun monopole : la banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas et son groupe (1872-1968), Paris . Claudin, F ., 1975 (1970), The Communist Movement. From Comintern to Cominform, Harmondsworth . Collectif PCF, 1971, Le capitalisme monopoliste d'Etat, Paris . Davidson, I ., Weil, G ., 1970, The Gold War, London . Degler, C . N ., 1968, Affluence and anxiety, 1945 present Glenview, III . Eakins, D . W ., 1969, "Business Planners and America's Postwar Expansion" in D . Horowitz, ed ., Corporations and the Cold War, New York/London . ECE, 1953, The European Steel Industry and the Wide-Strip Mill, Geneva.



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Evans, J . W ., 1967, US Trade Policy. New Legislation for the Next Round, New York . Frieden, J ., 1977, "The Trilateral Commission : Economics and Politics in the 1970s" Monthly Review, Vol . 29/7 . Gardner, L . C ., 1971 (1964), Economic Aspects of New Deal Diplomacy, Boston . Gramsci, A ., 1978, "Americanism and Fordism", Prison Notebooks, New York . Heller, W . W ., 1968, "Preface" in Perspectives on Economic Growth, New York . Kalecki, M ., 1972 (1943), "Political Aspects of Full Employment" in Hunt/Schwartz, eds ., A Critique of Economic Theory, Harmondsworth . Keynes, J . M ., 1970 (1936) The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, London/Basingstoke . Kolko, G ., 1962, "American Business and Germany, 1930-1941" The

Western Political Quarterly, XV . Kolko, G ., & J . 1972, The Limits of Power. The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1945-1954, New York etc . Lenin, (1917) Coll . Works Vol 22, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism Moscow. Lenin, (1919] Coll . Works Vol . 29, A Great Beginning. Heroism of the workers in the rear. 'Communist subbotniks', Moscow. Marx, K ., 1973 (1937) Grundrisse, Pelican Ed . (Transl . by M . Nicolaus) . Menshikov, S ., 1975, The Economic Cycle . Postwar Developments, Moscow . Overbeek, H . W ., 1978, Finance capital and crisis in Britain, paper, Bradford, CSE Annual Conference . Palloix, Chr ., 1974, Le processus d'internationalisation dons la siderurgie et les industries mecaniques et electriques, Grenoble (mimeo) . Perlo, V ., Das Reich der Hochfinanz, Berlin . Poulantzas, N ., 1975, Classes in Contemporary Capitalism, London . Rehfeldt, U ., 1976, American investment in France and Gaullist policy of national independence, paper, ECPR, Louvain-la-neuve . Schwarz, J ., ed ., 1969, 1933: Roosevelt's Decision . The United States Leaves the Gold Standard, New York . Spaak, P-H ., 1971, The Continuing Battle . Memoirs of a European, 193666, London . Stuurman, S, 1978, Kapitolisme en burgerlijke stoat, Amsterdam . Welles, S ., 1945, The Time for Decision, Cleveland/New York . Weinstein, J ., Eakins, D . W ., 1970 (eds .) For a New America, New York . Wirth, M ., 1972, Kapitalismustheorie in der DDR, Frankfurt/M .

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LABOUR TIME, WORK MEASUREMENT AND THE COMMENSURATION OF LABOUR PS. Taylor

Managerial work study directed at the intensification of labour characterises specifically capitalist production . According to the British Institute of Management standard textbook, 'work study' consists of procedures for 'method study' and 'work measurement' which "can be used in any situation where human work is performed" (Currie, 1977, p . 48) . Do such procedures provide the basis for a socialist organisation of production? Th That is, do such procedures, in effect if not intent, provide a 'socialist form of commensuration of labour'? Sohn-Rethel (1) has argued that "the mode of commensurating labour * by the social exchange process which characterizes capitalist production" and the mode of commensuration initiated by F . W . Taylor ("The Father of Scientific Management" [Currie, 1977, p . 211 ) "are diametrical opposites to each other in every vital characteristic " (Sohn-Rethel, 1978, pp . 166-172) . How does Sohn-Rethel arrive at this representation of the "Taylorian mode of commensurating labour"? The essential feature of Taylor's scheme is, for Sohn-Rethel, "his method of accurate and scientific study of unit times", which was declared by Taylor to be "by far the most important element in scientific management". And, "Taylor's aims in analysing manual operations were, in the first place, to find out how the studied operation can be done with least waste of time and minimal effort and fatigue ; then to norm the operation as a composite of strictly repetitive and standard parts ; to reduce these parts to the smallest particles or 'units' of motion, assumed to be homogeneous in all manual operations ; to time these units with the precision of fractions of a second ; finally to use these 'unit times' as a foundation of the job evaluation for fixing correct wage and bonus rates " (Sohn-Rethel, 1978, p . 170) . This representation Sohn-Rethel derives principally from Taylor's "The Art of Cutting Metals", but a somewhat divergent representation may be derived from Taylor's "A Piece Rate System, being a step toward partial solution of the labor problem" (Taylor, 1895) .

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CAPITAL & CLASS

What was the 'labor problem' identified by Taylor? Briefly stated the problem was the 'demoralization' and 'unionization' of at least certain American workforces consequent on managerial, or employer, piece-rate cutting associated "systematic soldiering" or "restriction of output" on the part of workers . Taylor was concerned to reject any argument that such rate cutting and restriction of output were a necessary outcome of employer-labour relations. For Taylor, the apparently irreconcilable conflict between output maximisation for wages paid on the part of employer and wage maximisation per unit of output on the part of workers could be reconciled . Such reconciliation could be achieved, argued Taylor, since employers could afford to pay permanently higher wages provided such wages secured correspondingly higher levels of output . And the 'differential piece-rate' was introduced as the specific means whereby this reconciliation could be secured . Higher rates per unit of output were to be paid for production above a specified standard level and lower rates per unit of output below this standard level . Such a system, Taylor argued, would have the effect of providing for the payment of permanently higher wages for those workers producing at above the standard level ; differentiating the workforce in terms of capacities to labour at specific levels and in terms of associated wage levels ; and driving away all but the best workers . Such a system would, Taylor argued, serve admirably to subvert any emergent solidarity in a workforce through engendering individuality and, hence, provide at least a partial solution to 'the labor problem' (2) . But, Taylor also argued, such a system must be securely founded on 'unit times' as determined by employers or management independently of actual work performance time, and 'worker knowledge' of work processes . That is, direct, 'non-worker mediated' managerial knowledge of 'unit times' was regarded as a necessary pre-condition for the imposition of performance and output standards, the determination of individual wage levels and the general differentiation and individualisation of a workforce . The process whereby such 'unit times' were to be derived may be presented schematically through a consideration of the machine metal working example deployed in various representations of Taylor's activities . The various elements in any person/machine metal working process may be identified as the nature of the metal to be worked, the tool, the speed of the machine and the speed of the attendant human motions, and so on . To the extent that the 'human variable' cannot be more or less directly controlled by the "objective means", or conditions of the work situation, then the "subjective conditions for the condensation of labour" must be realised through some "method of payment" which is intended to ensure that "the worker really does expend more labour power" (Marx, 1976, pp . 534-5) . Now, for management any calculation of that somewhat elusive notion of "the quickest time for the job" would present management with at least the possibility of imposing this time as a production standard against which any actual performance could be evaluated . To guard against such an invidious imposition workers are likely to seek to ensure that 'the quickest time for the job' remains an intangible notion, decently shrouded in obscurity, at least as far as management is concerned . Hence, the concern of 'scientific management' is to impose 'the quickest time for the job'

LABOUR TIME AND WORK STUDY

25

by posing the question of the quickest time, and the conditions necessary to secure it, and providing an answer under circumstances as far removed as possible from the contaminating constraints of any actual factory floor . In Taylor's experience the crucial questions facing any machine metal worker related to the speed at which it was necessary to work, to run the machine, in order to secure a certain level of wages (3) . But Taylor sought to impose a different order of priorities . He sought to secure the conditions under which the essentially managerial question -

valorisation question - of the quickest time for the job was directly

posed, answered and imposed by management . Naturally, this essentially managerial problem was presented in Taylor's writings as a 'universal human problem' . Thus, we are informed that the crucial questions "which face every machinist each time that he does a piece of work on a metal cutting machine are, 'In order to do the job in the quickest time, at what cutting speed shall I run my machine', and 'What speed shall I use?' " (Taylor, 1964, The Principles of Scientific Management, p . 106) . Taylor recounts, as his various interpreters continue to recount, that answers to such questions involved him and his associates in an extended series of investigations, ranging through a more or less detailed scrutiny of the variable elements of the person/machine metal working situation . In principle, each of these variable elements was susceptible to scrutiny, respecification and, ultimately at least, precise managerial control . Without such control, the speed of particular work processes would remain the prerogative of workers rather than management, or, what was regarded as even worse, an uneasy coalition of workers and management, regardless of, or even because of, the particular method of payment in operation . More specifically, Taylor recounts that over a period of twenty-six years he and his associates conducted investigations addressed to the problem of metal cutting speed and feed of the machine tool . Answers to these problems involved the identification of twelve independent variables and the determination of their interactive effects . Such extended activity was eventually materialised in a slide rule ensuring that "all these intricate problems can be solved in less than half a minute by any good mechanic, whether he understands anything about mathematics or not" (Taylor, 1964, The Principles of Scientific Management, p . 111) . Further, having determined the optimum speed for the machine component of the operation, comparable effort was expended with the object of determining the optimum speed of the attendant human motions . Here the essential strategy was to analyse any given job, in terms of strictly necessary com-

ponent motions, in order to determine the optimum speed for each 'component motion', and thereby calculate an optimum overall time for the job . The outcome of such investigations was intended to be a detailed instruction card which not only specified how a given job must be performed but also how fast it could, even should, be performed . Thus, under

the rule of scientific management every machine metal worker was to be confronted throughout the daily performance of his tasks with an impelling manifestation of managerial knowledge of just how, and how fast, a job could, and should, be done (2) .

Now, although Sohn-Rethel suggests that, in respect of this method of



26

CAPITAL & CLASS

deriving 'unit times', "some of these features have undergone more or less considerable modification since the days of Taylor", he also asserts that "It is still the method of direct time and motion study" (Sohn-Rethel, 1976, p . 170) . This assertion may be scrutinised through a consideration of the concepts and procedures outlined in the standard British managerial textbook entitled Work Study. Here we find that 'method study' provides the necessary procedures for a managerial specification of how a job should be done, and 'work measurement' the procedures for a managerial specification of how fast a job should be done . In 'work measurement' the crucial concepts are 'units of work' and 'standard performance' which may be located in the following extract : "The unit for measuring work is founded on the notion that the human work content of many different types of job can be expressed quantitatively in terms of a common unit . In this unit provision is made both for the effort called for by the job and an appropriate rest allowance (which) is always related to the concept of a standard rate of working. In practice this is represented by the average effectiveness at which a qualified worker will naturally work on a job when s/he knows and adheres to a specific method and is suitably motivated" (emphasis added, Currie, 1977, p . 140) . The procedures specified for the determination that any observed workers are indeed 'working naturally' and are 'suitably motivated' are indicated in the following extract : "By standard performance is meant the optimum rate of output that can be achieved by a qualified worker as an average for a working day or shift, due allowance being made for the necessary time required for rest . (An idea of what this means in practice can usually be obtained

by observing the performance of workers whose output is paid for on a piece-work basis.)" (Currie, 1977, p . 139, emphasis added .) Now, not only does such a method of observation introduce an essential circularity into the measurement procedures (by presupposing the existence of what the procedures are designed to secure-a piece-work system which produces 'naturally working' and 'suitably motivated' workers) it also abrogates the basic protocols of Taylorism . For the whole import of Taylor's argument was to the effect that in order to establish 'scientific management' it was necessary to assume that workers, particularly on piece-wages, were 'restricting their output' in order to optimise their wages in relation to given levels of output and work processes . Accordingly, any system of payment, if it was to operate as an adequate means of managerial control of "the one element which is most vital both to employer and workman the speed at which work is done"(Taylor, 1964, Shop Management, p . 45), must be founded on 'unit times' established independently of the actual operation of any wage system on the shop floor . Otherwise, the whole system rests insecurely on "ignorance and deceipt", and control of the speed of work passes in effect to the workers, or an



LABOUR TIME AND WORK STUDY

27

uneasy coalition of workers and management . In Taylor's terms, any system of management founded on the procedures specified in Work Study would represent 'non-scientific management' . It should be noted that this circularity is not circumvented through the specification of "rating procedures" or "analytic/synthetic estimation procedures" which translate "observed times" into "basic times"(3) . For example, according to the International Labour Office Introduction to Work Study, "Rating is the assessment of the worker's rate of working relative to the observer's concept of the rate corresponding to standard pace" (International Labour Office, 1969, p . 258) . But this concept of 'standard pace' or 'standard performance' still involves the notion of "adequate motivation" . For, "standard performance is the rate of output which qualified workers will naturally achieve without over-exertion as an average over the working day or shift provided they know and adhere to the specified method and provided they are motivated to apply themselves to their work " (International Labour Office, 1969, p . 259, emphasis added) . Further, it is argued in this particular text that if time standards are to be useful for managerial purposes they must be more or less acceptable to the majority of workers in any enterprise . Hence the expressed desirability of timing workers 'on the shop floor' rather than under "laboratory conditions" . The essential circularity of the concepts and procedures of 'work measurement' remains . In addition, there is the further consideration that, as various studies of 'restriction of output' have revealed, the outcome of job-timing on the shop floor is likely to be a process of mutually conditioning calculation on the part of those being timed and those undertaking the timing. Workers attempt to secure what they regard as a reasonable time and price for a particular job through appropriate performance, and the time-study men make allowance for this in their calculations . This introduces a practical circularity into the measurement procedures over and above the conceptual circularity earlier identified (6) . But is the adoption of such 'non-scientific' managerial procedures contingent-something "which can be ascertained only by analysis of the empirically given circumstances", or necessarily entailed in "the specific economic form in which unpaid surplus-labour is pumped out of the direct producers"? (Marx, 1972, pp . 791-2) . In Capital the intensification of labour is considered as a particular method of producing surplus-value (7) . Marx argues that machinery provides an "objective means" for the intensification of labour through an increase in the speed at which machinery is run and/or the number of machines which workers are required to operate . In addition, the method of payment represents the main 'subjective means' where labour is intensified . Briefly, Marx argues that the piece-wage form is "most appropriate to the capitalist mode of production" because it engenders an individualisation of workers which "enables the capitalist to raise the normal degree of intensity of labour more easily", given that the piece-wage provides "an exact measure of the intensity of labour" (Marx, 1976, pp . 694-8) . But under specifically capitalist conditions of production-that is, more or less constant transformation of the conditions, methods and means of production, the piece-wage as a means of labour



28

CAPITAL & CLASS

intensification is rendered essentially problematic . This, as has been noted, was the problem to which Taylor directly addressed himself . However, to return to the metal working example, if more or less precise managerial knowledge of the variables comprising the work situation is supposed, then is not any system of piece-wages redundant? Why pay piece wages when time is a precise measure of how much of given commodities can be produced? Taylor's response to such a question was couched in terms of the need to 'adequately motivate' workers, even when management was in a position to specify precisely, and thereby control, particular work processes . Indeed, Taylor argued in general that scientific management required as a condition of its satisfactory implementation a 'psychological transformation' on the part of both management and workers . And the material means envisaged for securing such a transformation was principally the enhanced profitability, or extra increments of surplus accruing consequent on the implementation of the procedures of scientific management . Such was the envisaged increase in surplus, the attention of both management and workers would be focused firmly on its size rather than its distribution (Taylor, 1964, The Principles of Scientific Management espec. pp . 29-30) . That is, the increased surplus accruing in respect of a given capital would enable the agents controlling that capital to secure the 'adequte motivation' of the 'attendant workforce', principally through the means of above average wages . However, scientific management necessarily proceeded through the reorganisation of specific work processes, in order to extend managerial control over such processes, according to the valorisation requirements of individual capitals . Such procedures were relatively costly to implement, but it was clearly envisaged that they would, of competitive necessity, become generalised throughout various branches of production . However, such a generalisation would tend to eradicate the advantage of any individual capital-eradicate any extra increment of surplus accruing to an individual, scientifically managed, capital . That is, the intensification of work in respect of given work processes and associated individual capitals would, when generalised throughout a given branch of production, result in 'intensity of labour' ceasing to operate as a measure of 'extensive magnitude' (Marx, 1976, pp . 661-2) . What signifies then is the labour time socially necessary for the production of given commodities-labour of variable time and constant intensity (8) . If additional increments of surplus are not forthcoming, then the 'adequate motivation' of the workforce remains essentially problematic . To the extent that the labour power requirements corresponding to scientific management specified work processes cannot be secured, then these specifications become more or less redundant. In certain circumstances and conditions it may be more effective to secure managerial control over the speed of work through other means (9) . Indeed, it may be supposed that time and motion study functions, more or less, to legitimate rather than to specify in respect of at least certain work processes . That is, it may be argued that it intervenes in the 'effort bargaining' between management and workers as a 'negotiable datum' rather than the 'objective datum' envisaged by scientific management (10) . For Taylor, this signifies 'non-



LABOUR TIME AND WORK STUDY

29

scientific management', and the worst of all possible worlds, " . . . .divided control of the speed with which work shall be done" (Taylor, 1964, Shop Management, pp . 44-5) . It may be argued then, that whatever the merits of Taylorism at the level of individual capitals, it is contradictory at the level of capital in general . Indeed, it cannot secure its own necessary material conditions of existence, in the sense of both generating and sustaining the extra increments of profit necessary to secure the 'psychological transformation', and accordingly the 'adequate motivation' and 'natural working' of the workforce . Hence, the continuing existence, indeed, prevalence, of "nonscientific" managerial forms, and the non-establishment of 'unit-times' according to Taylor specifications, as a basis for capitalist forms of work organisation . The 'unit times' derived by the concepts and procedures of contemporary work study and then an amalgam of 'analytic/synthetic estimation', based on identified 'basic human motions' and direct observation of actual work performances suitably 'discounted' through 'rating' procedures . However, it is important to note that to argue against Sohn-Rethel that the 'pure Taylorian unit times' are not in fact the 'unit times' derived by contemporary time and motion study, or work study, is not to argue that the former possess any 'universal human validity' which is lacking in the latter . On the contrary the argument is intended to demonstrate that whatever their forms of derivation, 'unit times' are determined by the requirements of a particular form of production of surplus value in given empirical circumstances . And, whatever the particular amalgam of observation and analytic/synthetic estimation, the derived 'unit times' are forms of measurement which are socially valid, therefore 'objective', solely in respect of capitalist relations of production-specifically, valid solely in terms of the production of relative surplus value through the intensification of labour. They possess no other social validity or objectivity. In effect, Sohn-Rethel argues against such specific, historical, social validity of the 'unit times' of 'scientific management' through a representation of these 'unit times' as in some, more or less unspecified, sense constituting times relating to an 'economisation of human motions' and a 'minimisation of effort and fatigue' . That is, Sohn-Rethel's argument universalises the validity of the 'unit times' . However, and setting aside for the moment the question of whether 'human effort and fatigue' can be co considered in any 'universal human' sense, it is quite clear from the writings of Taylor that even the 'unit times' derived according to the protocols of Taylorism were not intended to be of this nature . For Taylor and his associates set aside the question of the effort and fatigue involved in work processes in favour of the question of how much of given commodities could be produced by certain work processes under optimum conditions . The question of the relationship between the effort involved in specific work processes was set aside precisely because investigations did not, and were considered unlikely to, reveal a relationship between effort and output which would contribute towards a managerial specification of production standards and an extension of managerial control over work processes (12) . Work processes were to be "method studied" and where



30

CAPITAL & CLASS

necessary re-organised according to the requirements of exerting managerial control over these processes, not to the requirement of effort and fatigue minimisation . That is, 'method study' first in order to derive a managerial specification of how work could be done and then "work measurement" in order to derive a managerial specification of how fast the "methodically" organised work should be done . If the object of the exercise was a minimisation or economisation of work then there would be a reversal of the order of these procedures . First, it would be necessary to examine particular work processes to determine how much work is entailed in particular operations and, on the basis of this determination, to organise work processes accordingly . But it is quite apparent that this is not the concern of 'work study' . "Effort", in the fatigue sense, is more or less irrelevant, for the same reasons that it was irrelevant for Taylor, because what is of prime concern is managerial control over work processes, regardless of the work content of these processes . What is solely relevant for management is 'effort' in the sense of a worker's degree of 'application' to managerially specified work tasks . Thus, when Sohn-Rethel states that "Taylor's aims in analysing manual operations were . . .to find out how the studied operation can be done with the least waste of time and minimal effort and fatigue" (Sohn-Rethel, 1978, p . 170), this is a substantial misrepresentation of the real nature of Taylorism . Indeed Sohn-Rethel's various arguments do not provide the basis for a materialist critique of scientific management and work study . They appear inherently ambiguous and contradictory. Take for example the following core of Sohn-Rethel's arguments on 'time and motion study' . "In time and motion study quantifying standards which are rooted in the sphere of dead labour relations come to be applied directly to live labour . Since labour is placed under the microscope, so to speak, and 'reduced' to 'unit times', i .e . the precise assessment of time absorbed by the smallest elements of which a particular kind of work under review is composed as a strictly repetitive performance of the worker, cleared from waste . All qualitatively different kinds of live labour occurring in a given labour process are thus expressed as commensurate isolates", in order to "yield the mathematically calculable maximum of output per time unit" (Sohn-Rethel, 1976, p . 38) . Now, this precisely identifies the organisation of work through the measurement of labour times and the application of "value standards derived from commodity exchange" which, as such, constitutes a form of "measurement of human and technological functions in their combined productive application", but depends crucially on the "labour time standard of labour commensuration" and, as such, cannot "serve as the basic economic regulative or the organisation of the entirety of social production" (Sohn-Rethel, 1976) for the purposes of any socialist organisation of social production . Further, when it is stated that "It amounts, of course, to nothing more than a pretence to proclaim the arbitrarily fixed time rates for a job (in units or no units) as norms of independent validity-as if they were extracted miraculously from the bosom of nature or even represented some prescience of the intellect" (Sohn-Rethel, 1978, p . 154), such a statement is deprived of all its potential strategic force because SohnRethel has failed to specify the precise nature of these 'unit times' and

LABOUR TIME AND WORK STUDY

31

hence their very specific social validity, inextricably bound up as they are with the intensification of labour under capitalist conditions of production (13) . One important question raised by the preceding argument is whether work can in fact be measured . Now, various studies of 'output restriction' have clearly revealed that, in at least certain circumstances and conditions, workers do engage in processes of measuring work . Such processes are socially conditioned in various ways and, under conditions of wage labour, are likely to entail a calculation of 'effort-values' in monetary terms (14) . Nevertheless, what is involved is an essentially social process of work

measurement b measurement by workers actually engaged in specific work processes . And it is further apparent that work is something which is experienced, calculated, measured, socially, in various forms according to the particular conditions of individuality and solidarity prevailing in actual cooperative work processes (15) . That is, the particular form of social cooperation constituting certain work processes determines the work-effort and fatigue entailed in such processes . It follows that the work entailed in specific work processes can only be measured by the actual workers engaged in such processes . That is, work measurement is a necessary constitutive component of any cooperative productive activity and is essentially a social process carried on by people as essentially 'social animals' (Marx, 1976, p . 444) . It also follows that such forms of work measurement are unacceptable for managerial purposes, indeed inaccessible to management . In differentiating managerial 'work measurement' and workers' measurement it is important to recognise that although any process of production can be considered "from two distinct points of view : (1) as labour process, (2) as valorization process", it is nevertheless implicit that the labour process is single and indivisible . The work is not done twice over, once to produce a suitable product, a use-value, to transform the means of production into products and a second time to generate value and surplus-value, to valorise value . Work is contributed only in the definite, concrete, specific form, manner, mode of existence in which it is purposive activity, that can convert the means of production into a specific product" (Marx, 1976, p . 991, original emphasis) . As purposive activity, work cannot be measured independently of the purpose, meaning, social significance it has for the worker . Such considerations are indeed irrelevant in terms of the process of valorisation . But, labour can be measured . Motions may be analysed in abstract to provide a specification of 'human capacities' for certain types of labour. Such motions may then be quantified in terms of the time required to produce particular commodities . But, such an 'economisation of time' does not necessarily constitute a minimisation of work. Work is what workers do, and can and do measure . Labour is what management can and does measure, under the rubric of 'work measurement', for the purposes of controlling work processes, according to the requirements of valorisation, through our economisation of labour time (This is not to say that in certain circumstances and conditions management may not seek familiarity with work purpose, meaning, significance, etc ., in the interests of valorisation, through, for example,



32

CAPITAL & CLASS

`employee counselling', 'job enrichment schemes', and the like [16] ) . Now, it is apparent that Sohn-Rethel recognises some of these considerations . For example, he states that, Taylor's "method of 'accurate and scientific study of unit times' " could be "a method operated by the workers themselves, although it would certainly differ substantially from Taylorism" (Sohn-Rethel, 1978, p . 170, emphasis added) . But, such qualifications are subverted by the crucial identification of these 'unit times' with the economisation of time in the sense of a minimisation of effort and fatigue, rather than the requirement of a managerial intensification of labour dictated by processes of valorisation . The 'unit times' of Taylorism are labour times under conditions of capitalist production . As such they do not necessarily represent, nor are intended to provide for, any minimisation of effort and fatigue . Indeed, because they are derived through a fragmentation of work processes and individualisation of workers in such processes, they are as likely to involve a maximisation as a minimisation of the effort and fatigue entailed in the production of particular use values (17) . In summary, it is argued here that Sohn-Rethel's critique of scientific management fails to penetrate even scientific management's own representations . In effect, Sohn-Rethel accepts Taylor's own formulation of 'the problem' as 'economy of time', indicates how a solution to this problem was sought through time and motion study, and then argues that such an establishment of 'unit times' has a human universality transcending capitalist production . Further, what is identified as the crucial moment of scientific management is the development of " a novel mental/manual division of labour", in which knowledge and hence control of work processes passes from the possession of workers to management . Such a position enables Sohn-Rethel to identify the contrasting condition of socialised labour placed under socialism or placed under capitalism" as "defined by the difference as to whether the workers are in possession, or whether they are dispossessed of the socialisation of their labour . 'Socialism' would be constituted through the repossession by the workers of such knowledge, " the unification of mental and manual labour", admittedly, " . . . a gradual and arduous process", and one which presupposes " the overthrow of capitalism and a successful establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat" (Sohn-Rethel, 1976, p . 39) . But it is arguable that the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat presupposes the displacement of managerial forms of work organisation, which embody the disunity of mental and manual labour, and in this connection Sohn-Rethel's advocacy of a "critique of scientific management as a programmatical discipline which could be carried into the details of the class struggle on the factory floor as a weapon for countering every move of the management" (Sohn-Rethel, 1976, p . 40) is to be thoroughly welcomed . But, in effect, the various arguments presented by Sohn-Rethel provide certain ideological support for managerial forms of work organisation and continuing dispossession of workers . They do not provide for a materialist critique of scientific management and, thereby, contribute towards the establishment of conditions necessary for socialist forms of work organisation, com-



LABOUR TIME AND WORK STUDY

33

mensuration of labour and organisation of production . They do not provide for socialist strategy 'on the factory floor' . Much work, if not labour, is required in order to develop such a critique and engage effectively in such struggles . NOTES 1

2

3

4

5

For an introduction to Sohn-Rethel 's stimulating and provocative arguments see Reinfelder and Slater 1978 . What is presented here is not intended primarily as a criticism of Sohn-Rethel, but rather as a contribution to the development of the critique of 'scientific management' in general, and 'work study' in particular, which he has so persuasively advocated . See in particular Sohn-Rethel 1976 . The argument as such has undergone certain modification since discussion at the 1978 C .S .E . Conference and subsequently . Thanks to various comrades for critical comments . Somewhat in contrast Tronti 1976 quotes the argument by Commons to the effect that the strategies of 'scientific management' "are doing exactly the things that force labour to become c/ass-conscious . While a man retains individuality, he is more or less proof against class feeling. He is se//-conscious But when his individuality is scientifically measured off in aliquot parts and each part is threatened with substitution by identical parts of other men, then his sense of superiority is gone. He and his fellow-workmen compete with each other, not as whole men but as units of output . . . . Both arc ripe to recognise their solidarity, and to agree not to compete . And this is the essential thing in class conflict ." (pp . 120-1, original emphasis) . This is not to argue for a certain 'innate human calculative capacity', but rather, 'workers playing according to the rules of the piecework game' . See Hobsbawm 1964 . See Watson 1935 for an account of opposition to such instruction cards at Thornycrofts earlier this century . It would seem that in at least certain circumstances such instruction cards "disappeared from the machines--no one knew where they went . They just vanished", p . 92 . Also, Watson 1934, "Charts indicating the feeds and speeds to be employed were fixed to every machine", but "Passive resistance and sabotage were rife." p. 12 . It would seem reasonable to suppose that the particular form in which 'Taylorism' is imposed varies according to the 'empirically given circumstances', which require analysis for the purpose of undertaking any investigation of capitalist or managerial forms of work organisation . In particular, the derivation of managerial knowledge of certain work processes may be essentially problematic . In which case, it is not apparent that the notion of a 'capitalist labour process' is particularly constructive . For example, "the capitalist labour process is that specific form of the collective worker based on machinomanufacture in which capital having a monopoly of knowledge and power over the relations between labour and the means of production, uses this power, this real domination, in order to enforce the object of valorization ." Brighton Labour Process Group 1977, p . 13 . Is this intended as 'the limiting case', with other 'non-capitalist labour processes' representing circumstances and conditions in which other objectives prevail? Friedman's 1977 discussion of 'worker resistance' as a determinant of forms of work organisation appears pertinent, but such 'worker resistance' also appears as posited rather than located in terms of specific characteristics of capitalist production . See Currie 1977, chapters 12-22 for an elaboration of these notions, and International Labour Office 1969, Part Three . As far as the T.U .C . official guide to work study is concerned, these procedures now provide an 'objective' solution to the previous problem of the 'subjectivity' of 'rating procedures' . While work study is in progress,



CAPITAL & CLASS

34

6 . 7

8

9 10

II 12

"it is the job of the work study man to 'rate' the operator, as well as to time him . Whereas timing is, in effect, measurement-with a stop watch-rating is a matter of individual assessment, even when made by a well trained study man .", T .U .C . 1970, p . 9. But, now that the 'subjective problem' of 'rating'-that is, assessing how hard an individual worker is 'actually working'-has been solved, 'objectified' through the specification of rating procedures-'work' can actually be 'measured' by time . And time is what work study stop watches and 'clocking-in' mechanisms actually measure . See especially Roy 1952, Roy's introduction to Matthewson 1969, and Whyte 1952, Ch . 3 . See Capital Volume One, Part 4, Ch . 15, 3 (c) . It may be noted that Marx's consideration of this form of production of relative surplus value is located as follows : "The objective of the development of the productivity of labour within the context of capitalist production is the shortening of that part of the working day in which the worker must work for himself, and the lengthening, thereby, of the other part of the day, in which he is free to work for nothing but the capitalist . How far this result can also be attained without cheapening commodities will appear in the following chapters, where we examine the particular methods of producing relative surplus-value ." Marx 1976 p . 438 . Palloix's 1976 presentation conflates these analytical levels and thereby precludes the possibility of developing the argument presented in this paragraph for the purposes of investigating specific forms of work organisation under capitalist conditions of production . That is, addressing the important historical materialist question, "how is it that capitalist relations of production, seen as relations of formal subordination, determine the concrete forms of the capitalist organization of immediate production?" Pignon and Querzola 1976, p .80 . See Marx 1976, Part Five, and Rubin 1973, e spec . c h . 14, p . 156 . According to Taylor, "The low cost of production which accompanies a doubling of output will enable the companies who adopt this management, particularly those who adopt it first, to compete far better than they were able to before", quoted in Currie 1977, pp . 20-1 . See Friedman 1977 (1) and 1977 (2) for a discussion of various managerial strategies, but also the comment in note 3 above . Indeed, Baldamus 1961 argues that "The true purpose of scientific objectivity in the practice of work measurement is precisely the opposite of what it claims to be in theory : though precision and consistency in the form of technical terms and measuring appliances are indispensable, and even important, they have the function, not of eliminating the intrusion of effort conceptions, but, on the contrary, of detecting them and making them more amenable to consistent guesswork . .The true purpose of time-study, in other words, is to guess as consistently as possible the purely subjective element of effort standards, and subsequently to adjust rates of pay in accordance with them . Moreover, the very act of timing a job may raise the acceptable level of effort ." pp . 45-6 . But, precisely why 'work measurement' has this particular form and function is not a question which Baldamus entertains . See Currie 1977, particularly Part 2, and International Labour Office 1969, Part Three, for a specification of these concepts and procedures . See Taylor 1964 The Principles of Scientific Movement, pp . 53-7, and somewhat more recently, Ryan 1947, "With respect to the problem of the absolute validity of the standards in providing for a "fair day's work". . . we have concluded that there is no way of determining what is a fair rate of performance for the worker until it is possible to measure and combine all the effects of work upon the individual . Pending the discovery of a method of achieving this difficult goal, the only way of establishing absolute standards fair to the



LABOUR TIME AND WORK STUDY

13

14

15

16

35

worker seems to be to observe the level of effort which is used on average under present incentive conditions in industry . This represents the workers' estimates of a satisfactory balance between the return for their work and what the work costs them in terms of effort, fatigue, etc .", p . 63 . It would seem that under capitalist conditions of production 'industrial applied psychology' faces certain very real problems, specifically capitalist problems . Baldamus 1961 considers that Ryan's statement constitutes the definitive statement that, at the present level of the development of 'industrial psychology' at least, work is 'inherently unmeasurable' . See Himmelweit and Mohun 1978, particularly the Appendix where the relationship between the commensuration of socially necessary labour time and clock time is lucidly sketched . As they point out, "In the abstraction of simple commodity exchange, there is no reason why the time that a tailor takes to produce that which is exchanged with the produce of one hour's labour of a carpenter, should be one hour measured by the clock . As socially necessary labour times these are equivalent . But clock-time is only introduced with the wage labour relation when labour power is sold for specified amounts of time ." p . 98 . The specific social forms through which clock times operate in the capitalist process of social commensuration of labour require investigation . See Thompson 1967 . Sohn-Rethel fails to observe Rubin's 1973 scrupulous and crucial strictures that "socially-equal labor is not only qualitatively different from physiologically-equal labor, but the quantitative determination of the first can only be understood as the result of social equalization of labor . The qualitative as well as the quantitative characteristics of social labor cannot be grasped without analysis of the social form of the process of production in which the social equalization of labor takes place ." p . 155 . See also Rubin 1978 where he aims to bring out more clearly "the distinction between the social commensurability of labour that is characteristic of any society . . and the specific form in which this commensuration is achieved in capitalist society, the form of abstract labour .", 'Introduction' p. 107. The effect of ignoring such a distinction is irredeemably reformist . See Roy 1952, 1954 . For Baldamus, given his preoccupation with 'the problem' that "the formal contract between employer and employee . . nothing is ever said is incomplete in a very fundamental sense . . about effort or efficiency", the significance of Roy's various reports lies in the revelation of "the high degree of certainty with which different kinds of operation were compared and summarily classified as 'bad' or 'good', 'hard' or 'easy' . This does not only imply that different people must experience the various components of effort in a similar way. It also means that they share specific expectations in respect of gross earnings ; for the criteria of 'good' and 'bad' refer to the varying chances of earning a given amount of money . Thus, what is standardised is in fact the value of effort in terms of the employee's wage expectations" pp. 92-3 (original emphasis), rather than that the workers Roy observed were engaged in a systematic and highly elaborated subversion of 'managerial prerogatives', founded on precise calculation of the necessary techniques and work content of the managerially specified range of 'work tasks' . That is, the workers Roy observed were engaged in a particular form of work measurement, as against, although to some extent conditioned by, managerial 'work measurement' . But such a form of work measurement does not qualify as a valid form of 'work measurement' as far as Baldamus is concerned . For example, it is interesting to compare the accounts of processes of work measurement and 'work measurement' provided by Roy 1952, 1955, and Haraszti 1977 . See for example the discussion by Warr and Wall 1975 whose position



36

CAPITAL & CLASS "is that work will always matter to people, that they will always love it and hate it, and that society, through changing the nature of some work, should help people to love it more than hate it", p . 11, all in the interests of that most important consideration "minimizing (the) time required to perform (an) operation", p . 177, no doubt . 17 See Baldamus 1961 for a discussion of certain social determinants of effort and fatigue, and the conclusion that work is inherently unmeasurable . In contrast Gorz 1976 argues "looking for maximum physical productivity is exactly the same as looking for the conditions that allow workers to produce the greatest possible quantity of a given type of product while using the optimum amount of energy in the most rational and effective manner . It is not a matter of reducing the amount of energy used to a minimum ; a rhythm of work that is too slow or a job that is too easy or too monotonous is more exhausting than a rhythm and a degree of difficulty and complexity that keep the individual productive and intellectually alert . So the conditions for the maximum productive efficiency of labour can be worked out only collectively, by the workers themselves ." p . 169 (original emphasis) .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brighton Labour Process Group, 1977, 'The Capitalist Labour Process, Capital and Class, 1, (Spring) . Currie R . M . 1977, Work Study (Pitman Publishing, London) . Friedman A ., 1977 (1), 'Responsible Autonomy versus Direct Control over the Labour Process', Capital and Class, 1 Spring) . Friedman A ., 1977 (2), Industry and Labour Macmillan, London) . Gorz A., 1976, 'Technology, technicians and class struggle', in Gorz A . (Ed .) The Division of Labour (Harvester, Brighton) . Haraszti M ., 1977,A Worker in a Worker's State (Penguin, Harmondsworth). Himmelweit S ., Mohun S ., 1978 'The Anomalies of Capital', Capital and Class, 6 (Autumn) . Hobsbawm E . J . 1964 'Custom, Wages and Work-load in NineteenthCentury Industry' in Hobsbawm E . J . Labouring Men : Studies in the History of Labour (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London) . International Labour Office, 1969, Introduction to Work Study (I .L.O., Geneva) . Marx K., 1972, Capital Volume I I I (Lawrence and Wishart, London) . Marx K., 1976 Capital Volume I (Penguin, Harmondsworth) . Mathewson S. B ., 1969, Restriction of Output Among Unorganised Workers (Southern Illinois University Press) . Palloix C ., 1976, 'The Labour Process : from Fordism to neo-Fordism', in The Labour Process and Class Strategies (Conference of Socialist Economists, London) . Pignon D ., Querzola J ., 1976, 'Dictatorship and Democracy in Production', in Gorz A., (Ed .) The Division of Labour (Harvester Press, Brighton) . Reinfelder M ., Slater P ., 1978, 'Intellectual and Manual Labour : An Introduction to Alfred Sohn-Rethel', Capital and Class, 6 (Autumn) . Roy D ., 1952, 'Quota Restriction and Goldbricking in a Machine Shop', American journal of Sociology Vol . 57 . Roy D ., 1954 ' "Efficiency and the Fix" : Informal Intergroup Relations in a Piecework Machine Shop', Americun journal of Sociology Vol . 60 . Rubin I . I ., 1973, Essays on Marx's Theory of Value (Black and Red, Detroit) . Rubin I . I ., 1978, 'Abstract Labour and Value in Marx's System' Capital and Class, 5 (Summer) . Ryan T. A ., 1947, 'Fatigue and Effort in Relation to Standards of Performance and Systems of Payment', International Labour Review. Sohn-Rethel A ., 1976, 'The dual economics of transition', in The Labour Process and Class Strategies (Conference of Socialist Economists, London) .



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37

Sohn-Rethel A ., 1978, Intellectual and Manual Labour (Macmillan, London) . Taylor F . W., 1895, 'A Piece-Rate System, being a step toward partial solution of the labor problem', Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Vol . XVI (June) . Taylor F . W., 1964, Scientific Management, (Harper and Row, London) . (This edition incorporates Shop Management, The Principles of Scientific Management, Testimony Before the Special House Committee, each numbered separately .) Thompson E . P ., 1967, 'Time, Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism', Past and Present, 38 . Trades Union Congress, 1970, An Outline of Work Study and Payment by Results (Trades Union Congress, London) . Tronti M ., 1976, 'Workers and Capital' in The Labour Process and Class Strategies (Conference of Socialist Economists, London.) . Warr P., Wall T ., 1975, Work and Well-being (Penguin, Harmondsworth) . Watson W. F ., 1934, The Worker and Wage Incentives (Hogarth Press, London) . Watson W. F ., 1935, Machines and Men, (Allen and Unwin, London) . Whyte W. F ., 1955, Money and Motivation (Harper and Row, New York) .

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THE ECONOMIC POLICY OF THE NEW CHINESE LEADERSHIP IN 1977 AND 1978 Patrick Tissier

Written in January 1978 for Communisme the bulk of this article analyses the theoretical foundations of the economic policy of the new leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, following the upheavals which marked the end of 1976 . In unraveling the apologetic and mystificatory discourse of the new rulers, this text shows that the line adopted is resolutely productivist and marks a deep break with maoist politics . Following the great debate excited by the cultural revolution, we witness in China the rehabilitation of a certain "official marxism", which has more than a little in common with the soviet ideological system . The economic and political event of 1978, briefly analysed in the post-script, have fully confirmed the substance of the analysis in spite of considerable resistance, the present direction clearly commits China to a path of development closely related to that of state capitalism .

INTRODUCTION During 1974 many articles and dazibaos drawn up by the Chinese workers voiced the following slogan : 'We demand control of the state-or the factories or the docks-and refuse to be slaves to production or work .' In 1977 such slogans were denounced as 'reactionary' . What has happened between the two dates? In the first place, there has been a great upheaval within the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, involving the deaths of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, the nomination of Hua Guofeng to the leadership of the party in 1976 and, in October of the same year, the elimination of four of its leading figures-Jiang Qing, Yao Wenyuan, Zhang Chunqiao and Wang Hongwen (since labelled the 'gang of four'), finally, the 'second coming' of Deng Xiaoping in 1977 . These changes



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at the centre of power, together with the latent crisis of the Chinese economy, aggravated by the earthquake of July 1976 (which killed 700,000), have given rise to the elaboration of a new economic policy -even if some of its elements had already been formulated in earlier years. The main objective of the new line is the realisation of the 'four modernisations'-in agriculture, industry, defence, science and technology -in order to allow China to become a 'modern socialist great power' before the end of the century . To this end, China has in fact embarked upon the development of a specific form of state capitalism, in a situation where the revolutionary forces have lost all political power, where the dominant ideology has been able to present the development of state capitalism as the culmination of the 'construction of socialism', where the continuous and accelerating expansion of producton is the main priority of the new leadership's programme, and where the Maoist concept of development in phased 'leaps', with its emphasis upon a close interdependence between economic development and mass political movements, has been abandoned . The new economic policy, which bears some resemblance to the policies of the period following the Great Leap Forward in the early 1960s, has been gradually clarified since late 1976 . From statements which are often contradictory-and which reflect conflicts within the leadership over immediate objectives-it is possible to isolate a certain number of theses which amount to a reversion to notions supported by revisionists of all sorts and which signify a sharp withdrawal from the legacy of the debates in the China of the Cultural Revolution . All these revisions are couched in Marxist terms, and -once again -Marxism has undergone a degeneration to allow it to function as a theory of state capitalism . To this end, two basic themes have constantly recurred in the Chinese Press : on the one hand, no more reference is made to contradictions between the Party and the masses ; instead, calls for the restoration of all power to Party committees at all levels-even that of the economy -have been made . on the other hand, the dictatorship of the proletariat is no longer defined as dictatorship by the masses, but as dictatorship by the Party, with its main objective being the highest possible rate of growth of production . This article will discuss the main theoretical foundation of this new economic policy[1 ] through an examination of the Chinese Press and national and provincial radio broadcasts . This procedure will make it possible to specify and illustrate the very sharp changes of direction represented by the new policy, within the broader context of the upheavals in political power, which have been analysed recently in Communisme .[2] What follows is not meant to imply that the practical and theoretical problems of the transition to socialism had been solved in China before October 1976 . The problem of the development of the forces of production has always been a serious one, and one which the previous



NEW CHINESE LEADERSHIP 1977 AND 1978

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leadership had not satisfactorily resolved, even if it had made certain revolutionary proposals . In 1977, however, certain decisive political choices were made . This article will examine how the new leadership has posed, and sought to resolve, the problem of the development of the productive forces . RADIO PEKING'S BROADCASTS ON 'THE TEN GREAT RELATIONSHIPS' In January and February 1977 Radio Peking devoted 16 broadcasts on this text by Mao Zedung, dating from 1956 . It is most informative to examine them as an example of the arguments used by the new leadership of the CCP to justify the establishment of its economic policy . [3] The consolidation of the `material base of the socialist system' One of the major theses of the broadcasts has been the assertion that, in 1956, after the transformation of property relationships in industry, commerce and agriculture, a 'socialist system' had been established and that, consequently, the problem is now one of consolidation . It is therefore imperative to encourage the development of the socially productive forces (Peking Radio-RP-, 31 .1 .77) . Their growth would, it was said, give a solid material base to the economic and political systems and had been made possible because of the establishment of socialist relations of production . This was the general tenor of the first broadcast . Its use of the term 'socialist system' seems to 'function' like the term 'socialist mode of production' in Soviet revisionist theory, with its implication that the system established in China after 1956 has eliminated capitalist relations of production and that the new system is able to reproduce itself according to specifically 'socialist' Iaws .[4] This approach was to be confirmed elsewhere . An article in The People's Daily of December 21, 1977, entitled 'On the question of equality and inequality' reintroduced the vulgar 'stages theory' and invoked a feudal system, a capitalist system and a socialist system .[5] In other words, reference is no longer made to a transitional period leading to the first phase of communist society, but rather to a well defined 'system', whose objective laws can be discovered and obeyed . This amounts to a profound deformation of the Marxist concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat . The second broadcast produced further illuminating signs : in order to develop the socially productive forces-it affirmed-it was necessary to adjust and transform those aspects of the relations of production and the superstructure which were 'not in harmony with the growth of the productive forces and the consolidation of the economic base' . Drawing upon the most mechanical aspects of vulgar Marxism the text went on to affirm that these 'adjustments and transformations are the constituent parts of the socialist revolution' and would result in 'a mobilisation of the socialist energies of the masses, which will accelerate the rapid growth of the productive forces' . It concluded that this is 'the fundamental line and main objective of the socialist theory of political economy' (PR 1 .2 .77) . in addition to a barely concealed return to an analysis of socialism in terms of a



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CAPITAL & CLASS

correspondence between relations and forces of production, the broadcast introduced the notion of the growth of the productive forces-clearing a space for economism -and abandoned all reference to the social form of the development of these forces. This approach has since been used to justify the idea that the `four modernisations' are intended to reinforce the 'material base' of the dictatorship of the proletariat . While it may be true that the realisation of these 'modernisations' will develop the material base of the Chinese social formation, the nature of this particular project of development has been defined from a bourgeois perspective . The third broadcast dealt with the relationship between heavy industry, light industry and agriculture, initially envisaged in terms of the relationship between the production of means of production and the production of means of subsistence (PR 2 .2 .77) . The talk was also extremely economistic, and sought to disclose 'the objective economic law of the prior growth of the means of production' and the fact that 'enlarged reproduction' is principally dependent upon the growth of the productivity of labour' (the same approach can be found in a Radio Shanghai broadcast of 10 .2 .77) . While the talk reaffirmed the order of priorities running from agriculture to light industry to heavy industry, its perspective remained narrowly economistic . Indeed all the richness of the Maoist formulation, with its implications of a transformation of social relationships thanks to this order of priorities-and its conscious break with the Soviet modelwas discarded . Agriculture, for example, was only envisaged in terms of its contribution to the accumulation of capital for the benefit of state controlled industrialisation . This question of the sequence of priorities in development was taken up again in the fourth broadcast, devoted to the Soviet approach to industrialisation . The text of the talk defines two paths to industrialisation : the capitalist road and that followed by the Soviet Union under Stalin's leadership between 1924 and 1953 . The 'fundamentally different things' particular to each road are presented as follows : in the USSR the aim of industrialisation was to satisfy the growing needs of the state and people ; the economy was planned and managed by the state ; priority was given to the development of heavy industry ; the state had the monopoly of foreign trade. Among the errors committed by the USSR at this time was an overemphasis upon heavy industry at the expense of agriculture . The most positive element of the Soviet experience was defined as the priority given to the internal accumulation of capital for the purposes of industrialisation . It concluded that the Chinese road to industrialisation differed from that followed by Stalin only in the order of its priorities . [6]

The reinforcement of centralisation The seventh broadcast, concerning the relationship between the state, the factories and the workers, began with the assertion that 'since the factories are owned by the state, the relationship between the factories and the workers has been partially incorporated into the relationship between the state and the workers' . This is a notion which is not to be found in the fourth relationship discussed by Mao in the 'Ten Great Relationships' (PR, 6 .2 .77), and which is based on the following assumptions :



NEW CHINESE LEADERSHIP 1977 AND 1978

43

state ownership of the factories has ensured that the workers are `masters of the factories' . the incorporation, however 'partial', of the factory-worker relationship to that between workers and the state amounts to a reduction of the problems of the transformation of relations of production to its most simple expression . The fact that the text of the broadcast does not discuss this point, and is limited to a discussion of the relationship between the state and the factories and that between the state and the workers is sufficient proof . Moreover, the state-worker relationship is itself reduced to 'the problem of the correct definition of this relationship in the distribution of the social product .' Thus, since the problems of political power and the ownership of the means of production are assumed to have been solved, the only outstanding issue is that concerning distribution . This is a veritable travesty of Marxism! If the question of the standard of living of the masses is an important one, this cannot mean that all other problems are henceforth empty of content and that 'socialist' relations of production really do exist in an increasingly non-contradictory, transparent manner, that .power belongs to the 'Party of the proletariat' and that the question of ownership has been definitely settled . As the ninth broadcast indicated, current policy has been distinguished by a growing centralisation of authority, which has been justified by the following quotation from Mao : 'The relationship between the central authority and local administrations also represents a contradiction . Its solution requires a slight extension of the autonomy and activities of local administrations, on the condition that the undisputed leadership of the central authorities is reinforced .'[71 This ninth broadcast emphasised the need to have a powerful and united central leadership in tones reminiscent of the interventions of Bo Yibo before the Cultural Revolution : the Chinese economy was said to be based upon the 'system of public ownership of the means of porduction' ; it is a planned economy under the leadership of the dictatorship of the proletariat ; the whole national economy amounts to a 'unified entity' and 'socialist production' is carried out under the centralised administration of the state etc . A slogan which first appeared in The People's Daily on Feb . 24, 1959, has even been reintroduced : 'The whole nation is a chess board', and this is no coincidence . On each occasion that the slogan has been used, it has been designed to reduce the autonomy of the local administrations and initiate a process of re-centralisation linked to the development of economistic theses and neglect of political struggles . Learning from abroad The fifteenth broadcast dealt with the relationship between China and the rest of the world (PR, 14 .2 .77) . In order to modernise, it stated, China should learn in an analytical and methodical manner from other nations, all of which have their strong and weak points. Zhou Enlai's watchwords'application, criticism, transformation, creation'-were recalled in relation to foreign technology . The general tenor of the broadcast was as follows :



44

CAPITAL & CLASS 'In order to adopt as many advanced techniques as possible, we must learn in a selective and planned manner from other countries' research . In those spheres of technology of which we are ignorant, we must follow others . After due study, research and the acquisition of a clear understanding, we will then be able to make improvements and innovations .'

This approach is not new ; it has been the basis of previous exchanges with the outside world . What is new, however, is the frequently reiterated notion that science and technology constitute part of the patrimony of humanity and can never be the exclusive property of any one nation . It is a perspective which leads to the idea that science and technology are neutral, or entirely independent of social relationships . It results in a failure to pose the essential problem : that of the degree of control over scientific and technical processes exercised by the direct producers . In a socialist society, will these workers progressively acquire the means to control techniques related to productive activity or will these means remain the monopoly of a minority of experts and technicians? The remainder of the fifteenth broadcast stated that : 'As for the corrupt systems, ideology and styles of work characteristic of the foreign bourgeoisie, these have to be resolutely rejected and criticised . We should however study those things which are advanced and suitable for our needs, like science, advanced technology and scientific management .' This orientation was justified by a quotation from the 'Ten Great Relationships', again presented in a version different from that used during the Cultural Revolution : 'We must resolutely reject and criticise the decaying system and ideology of the foreign bourgeoisie . But this should not prevent us from learning from the science and advanced technology of the capitalist nations as well as from whatever is scientific in their management of firms .' This idea of extracting a 'scientific' part from capitalist industrial management was to be widely repeated throughout 1977 . These ideas are the basis of current policy towards foreign trade as presented at the 16th Party Congress (PR, 15 .2.77), where the curious term 'normal foreign trade' was introduced to justify exports of coal and oil and imports of modern technology and installations . This is symptomatic of a growing tendency in Chinese economic literature to make use of an apparently technical language devoid of historical, political or social referents, which actually belongs to the vocabulary of the bourgeoisie : e .g . 'normal', 'growth', 'rational' etc . In terms of her current foreign policy, China seems likely to, sooner or later, become integrated into the capitalist international division of labour . This would be the logical outcome of the 'theory of three worlds' . Indeed, this connection was em-



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45

phasised in the broadcast : 'Through the development of its foreign relations, in conjunction with the diplomatic struggle, (China's foreign trade) will bring the Third World together, while conciliating the Second and opposing the two Super-powers .'! The main theses presented in January 1977 On a more theoretical level, Hongqi No . 1 of 1977 set forward similar ideas, adding the very significant assertion that, under socialism, most contradictions are to be found among the people-which is completely false! In 1964, for example, during the movement for socialist education, Mao severely criticised Liu Shaoqi for having minimised the importance of antagonistic contradictions in society and for stating that problems were the result of 'the convergence of contradictions between the enemy and ourselves and contradictions among the people .' In fact, during the transitional period, the class struggle acquires new forms and is often extremely intense . Not only does the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat remain dominant but the situation becomes exceptionally complex because of the continuous emergence-even within the communist party-of new bourgeois elements whose 'authentically proletarian power' may be legitimated by the assertion that traditional forms of the bourgeoisie have been progressively, or even totally eliminated . Contradictions usually remain antagonistic during the transition .[8] A speech by the first secretary of the Party Committee of Shandong on 31 January 1977 contained several other theses which were to be extensively developed over the course of the year : It is vital to reinforce and defend the leadership of the Party : 'The establishment of the Party and obedience to its leadership are necessary for the victory of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie, for the consolidation of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the construction of socialism . It is particularly important to emphasise this at present' . To this end there should be no interference with the committees of the Party and all fractional activity within the Party-by definition 'bourgeois'-should be prohibited . Reliance should be placed upon the working class because 'it responds to discipline most rigorously and obeys orders' . It is important to 'reinforce the socialist management of enterprises'! Management, rules and regulations in factories are always necessary ; the only uncertainty concerns their political line .[9] An essential notion, which was to become a refrain during 1977 : the productivity of labour is the most important precondition for the victory of the new social system and it is considerably greater under socialism than under capitalism .[10f Although he appears to reject the 'theory of productive forces', the official has actually propounded a productivist theory which would be perfectly welcome to a Khruschev :



46

CAPITAL & CLASS 'The line dividing revolutionary duty and the development of production on the one hand and the theory of productive forces is clear . It depends mainly (upon knowing) whether the development of the productive forces is tied to capitalism or socialism .'

At the level of theory this is an extraordinary regression from the legacy of Mao! Party committees ought to play a greater role in economic affairs, but no indication is offered concerning the duties of revolutionary committees . This line was to be accentuated subsequently . Finally, he refers to the 'strategic appeal' by Hua Guofeng to realise the 'great order' . THE DEMOBILISATION OF THE WORKING CLASS In 1977 a series of texts were produced concerning the Anshan Charter and 'socialist emulation' . They disclose the break with the objectives of some of the revolutionaries of the period between the Cultural Revolution and October 1976-even if some of these objectives, notably those of 'the four', were often impregnated with a great deal of idealism and were marked by the influence of Stalinist concepts . Since March 1977 there have been productivity competitions between workers, particularly after the national conference on the railways (NCNA, 12 .3 .77) . The specifically socialist character of these campaigns has been affirmed on the basis of a non proven a-priori : 'The socialist emulation campaign is a unique product of the socialist system . Public ownership of the means of production under socialism has created the material conditions upon which campaigns of socialist emulation can be established . Under socialism, the workers control society and relationships between them are co-operative relations among comrades .! Here again there has been a substantial impoverishment of Maoist concepts . The campaigns have been presented as the 'concrete realisation of the Party's mass line on economic production' . In fact, they signify a return to productivism on two counts . they are designed to encourage the growth of the productivity of 1 labour : thanks to these productivity campaigns, workers will be able to com2 pare their 'political consciousness, styles of work and amounts of effort' . In March 1977 too, the Anshan Charter, which dates from 1960, was presented as a reflection of the 'new socialist relationships' and 'an important guide to socialist enterprises for the improvement of labour productivity' . (H, 3, 1977) . In the event of a usurpation of authority by officials committed to the capitalist road, the article stated, such enterprises would simply be unable to produce for their benefit! (PI, 11, 1977,



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'The Gang of Four opposed to socialist modernisation' by J i Wei) . The real problem inside the factories at the level of the direct labour process was carefully circumvented by assertions such as 'society's production is an integrated global whole' (p . 9) . The accent now is upon harmony within enterprises despite certain non-antagonistic contradictions : 'In socialist enterprises, the working class is in command . The fundamental interests of workers, managers and technicians are identical . Their relationship is one of mutual support and fraternal co-operation . At the same time, because of the division of labour, differences between mental and manual labour remain and some contradictions persist . These are contradictions among the people .' (Article by Qi Cheng, in H, 3, 1977) This approach was to serve as the basis for demanding total work discipline by workers in production . Returning to the 'socialist emulation campaign' on March 24, 1977, The People's Daily carried a number of precisions . 1 henceforth, mass movements will be drawn into this type of campaign ; this amounts to the suppression of all mass movements of a political character . 2 the campaign will make it possible to overcome continuously the 'contradiction between equality and inequality' within units of production, departments and sectors of the economy, and this continuous resolution of the contradiction will 'stimulate the rapid development of the socialist economy' . 3 the campaign is a symbol of 'major changes in the relations of production' and 'a great liberation of the productive forces' ; hence the campaign has become the only framework within which the transformation of productive relations can occur. It is worth noting that the article emphasised the occurrence of major campaigns of productive competition between 1949 and 1959 and their absence during the Cultural Revolution when, because of the influence of the 'gang of four', 'competition was suffocated' . Factory regulations The same period also saw the appearance of a thesis concerning the 'dual nature of factory rules and regulations' which was presented in the following way : on the one hand, such rules 'reflect the objective laws governing complex processes of large-scale modern production' . on the other, 'they are also determined by the nature of the relations of production' . Regulations are designed to discipline the working class in the name of the 'normal' growth of production : 'only by adherence to rigid rules and regulations and by reinforcing discipline will production develop



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normally'. Within this context, great weight is attached to technical skills, insofar as technological progress will give rise to changes in social relationships. 'The acquisition of skills for the furtherance of the revolution is an important part of placing the revolution in command of production . The development of productive techniques is of great significance for change within the social system as a whole .' (Qi Zheng, article cited)

The People's Daily of March 22, 1977 attacked the idea attributed to the 'gang of four' wherein 'management consists of sensitivity to three areas : the line, the leadership and the relationship between them' on the grounds that .it did not mention 'the most important question-the development of productive forces' . It is often instructive to examine the nature of the criticisms directed at 'the four' . In the name of the development of productive forces, the Chinese Press continually invokes an undiluted 'scientism'. In relation to management, for example, 'It is essential to apply a scientific attitude to the management of modern enterprises . . . (In management) it is necessary to have a set of scientific methods . On the basis of the system of individual responsibility, we ought to establish seven other systems of job evaluation, rules for work measurement, quality control, maintenance of machinery, safety at work and economic accounting' . One would not deny the intrinsic interest of some of these rules, but it is important to recognise the manner in which they are being introducedby means of a reinforcement of discipline and order in the factorieswithin a general context organised around the principle of rapid accumulation within a state capitalist framework . At the moment, alt the workers' organisations established to enforce some control over the leadership in the factories since the cultural revolution have been condemned . 'The Party has the exclusive right of leadership . In a socialist enterprise the relationship between the Party and other organisations is akin to that between a guide and his followers (PR, 6 .4 .77) . Any enterprise or mass organisation 'outside of the leadership of the Party' has, it is said, lost its political direction and is likely 'to follow the paths of economism, syndicalism, anarchism and radical individualism' . All control over management has been prohibited since this is now considered to be a violation of necessary discipline . This line has confirmed the absolute authority of the party leadership in the factories and amounts to a denial of any contradictions between the leadership and workers-these being rhetorically evaded by the notion of 'fraternal relations between comrades' . It is perfectly logical, from this point of view, to attack the 'gang of four' for having equated the opposition between the leadership and the masses in the factories to a contradiction between bourgeois and proletarians (NCNA 21 .5 .77) . The factory is no longer envisaged as the site of the class struggle, but simply as the locus of production and, to this end, a quotation from Mao is invoked : 'The main purpose of the factory is



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to materialise productive plans and realise the combined leadership of the Party, the government, the trade union and the Young Communist League' . Factories are now defined in the following terms : 'Our socialist enterprises must create people who are both politically sound and technically competent, as well as being able to produce more and better goods . They must also provide profit for the state and increase socialist accumulation . They must not only be the basis of socialist economic development but also the basis of the consolidation of the dictatorship of the proletariat . The strengthening of the ranks of the working class is inseparable from the realisation of the goals of production and the achievement of these goals complements the consolidation of the dictatorship of the proletariat .' Such a position leads logically to the idea that the outcome of the c/ass struggle is not the future abolition of classes, but the growth of the productive forces . In August 1977 two major problems came to the fore : that of the quality of porduction and, again, that concerning factory rules and regulations . The question of the quality of production was dealt with in a very different manner from that in which the matter was debated between 1966 and October 1976. An editorial in The People's Daily of August 17, for example,emphasised that there could be no question of efficient production, without paying due attention to quality, since improvements in quality implied superior and more substantial production using less labour power and raw materials . It is not erroneous to insist upon the quality of production, but it should be pointed out that improvements in quality in this case will be obtained by closer regulation of the working class, rather than by self-regulation on the part of the workers themselves-as was the case during the Cultural Revolution . Party committees, rather than the revolutionary committees, have been called upon to perform the work of quality control . Factory regulations have become the chief weapon used by the current leadership to establish 'its' order . 'Rules and regulations should never be abolished . Indeed, as production and technology develop, so rules and regulations should become more precise and be followed to the letter .' This is an extract from Peking Radio broadcast of August continues :

14, which

-'It is a natural law . As production develops so we must establish more rigid rules and regulations .' -'Only in this way will it be possible to transform the revolutionary zeal of workers and officials into an immense force able to expand production and consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat .'



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In addition, punishment is prescribed for the violation of regulations : 'The Party has its statutes, the state its laws, the army its discipline and a factory its regulations . All of them are obligatory .' The idea of scientific regulation is then introduced in the following manner : 'We should also make a concrete analysis of bourgeois rules and regulations . Bourgeois rules and regulations and the management of capitalist firms are designed to exploit and oppress workers . They are thus reactionary . We should reject them completely . . .Certain bourgeois

rules and regulations, however, and some aspects of capitalist management are the result of practical experience of workers and are therefore scientific .' Finally, it was emphasised that not all the rules and regulations established before the Cultural Revolution were 'irrational' or 'the junk' associated with Liu Shaogi .[11 ] Like the text 'On the General Programme of the Activities of the Party and the State' of 1975 (point III), an article on regulations by Wang Shi in The People's Daily of February 17, justified the new policy by calling in Engels' On Authority (which was widely circulated in China in February 1977) and quoting the following sections : -'The automatic machinery of a large factory is even more tyrannical than petty capitalists employing workers have ever been .' -'If, through science and his own inventive genius, man has succeeded in mastering the forces of nature, they in their turn have taken their revenge by submitting him, through his use of them, to a despotism independent of all social organisation . To wish to abolish authority in large-scale industry is to wish to abolish industry itself, to destroy the power mill and go back to the spinning wheel .' From this, Wang Shi has deduced that both capitalism and socialism require strict regulations, as does any large-scale industry, although 'the strict, rational rules of socialism' are designed to canalise the zeal of the masses, to increase the productivity of labour, develop productivity generally and improve the standard of life . After emphasising Lenin's discovery of a 'scientific part' of Taylorism, he criticised the notion frequently advanced after the Cultural Revolution that regulations reflect relations between the individuals engaged in production and are endowed with a clear class character . Instead he argues that some regulations reflect the relationship between the producers and nature and therefore 'reflect the law of productive techniques and have no class character' . With great clarity, he writes : 'Rules and regulations are rational or irrational according to whether they help the development of the productive forces and whether they are in the interest of the masses, and not according to whether they involve control, surveillance and oppression .' With production as the main objective, any 'disruptive' political move-



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ment in the factories must be brought to an end, and order and discipline established in productive work . THE IMPERATIVES OF SOCIALIST ACCUMULATION Many articles have made reference to the determination of the economic base in the last instance to justify the rapid growth of the productive forces : 'In the last analysis, the economic base is the decisive factor in determining social progress and the productive forces are the most active and revolutionary part of the economic base . Therefore, in the last analysis, the productive forces determine the relations of production . The superstructure can either promote or hinder progress in the sphere of productive relations.' (NCNA, 21 .9 .77) This position-in essence that taken by Liu Shaoqi at the 8th Party Congress of 1956-has also been supported by a reinterpretation of the achievements of the period before the Cultural Revolution, particularly since the texts by Mao most cited by the new leadership are drawn from the period 1949-57 . In fact the new leadership appears to be seeking to establish some continuity between the period before the Great Leap Forward of 1958 and that which began in October 1976 . There have been several signs of this in the press . It has been stated clearly that 'during the seventeen years following the establishment of the People's Republic, despite the interference and sabotage caused by the revisionist line of Liu Shaoqi, the revolutionary line of President Mao was always dominant' and hence that the Cultural Revolution cannot be seen as a turning point of the Chinese revolution after 1949 . On the other hand, the affirmation that politics are now in command has been taken to mean that 'politics must be placed at the disposal of the economy' (PR, 27 .11 .77) . If politics fail to consolidate the economic base, they are failing to fulfil their appointed task . While demands are made for unity between politics and economics, there are also calls for a clear distinction to be made between revolution and production, since each has specific laws needing to be studied : 'Revolution is the struggle of one class against another and is concerned with changing social relationships among men . Production is the struggle of man against nature . The laws governing production are different from the laws governing the class struggles .' This economistic perspective is a complete revision of Marxism inasmuch as production is divorced from class struggle on the grounds that -in China-the development of the productive forces is envisaged as 'the lynch-pin upon which everything else turns' . 'Socialist Accumulation' Among the specifically economic laws, the press has selected that con-



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cerning 'socialist accumulation' for special attention . From December 1976 onwards, great weight has been placed upon 'the profitability of enterprises' . 'Socialist enterprises should continue to base themselves upon the principle of the class struggle, follow party policy and the state plan, and try to increase production, and on this basis, make a profit . (PR, 16 .12 .77) . This statement was supported by a traditional stalinist cliche : 'We manage socialist enterprises to reinforce the material base of the dictatorship of the proletariat and not to seek profits' and this is 'the 'essential difference' from capitalist enterprise . In August 1977 it was stated even more forcefully that discussion of whether 'a factory ought to be managed for profit or for the revolution' was a 'peculiar question' .

(H, 8, 1977) . An important editorial in The People's Daily of August 27, 1977 entitled 'Hard Work to Increase State Accumulation' (NCNA, 27 .8 .77) stated that, given the importance of improving the management of enterprises and increasing the rate of accumulation for the state, 'factories had to make profits' . While recalling that the goal of 'socialist production' is not profit but the satisfaction of the people's needs, the tone of the article is, nonetheless, new, because the general objective is a different one : with the transformation of real relationships within the factories, it is saidmeaning a demobilisation of the workers in order to raise production as much as possible-enterprises will now become profitable . As the editorial put it, 'Socialist enterprises have the noble responsibility of working hard in order to increase state accumulation and make larger profits . In socialist conditions, what a factory earns differs in essence from capitalist profit . The earnings of a socialist enterprise are a sign of the conscious efforts of the workers to create material wealth, to supply consumption goods and accumulate capital for the construction of socialism . This is totally different from capitalist exploitation of surplus-value . Profit is an important pre-requisite for the continued production of any enterprise and for enlarged social reproduction . Improvements in management and increases in earnings (on the one hand) and the revisionist (notion) of putting profit in command are entirely different concepts .' This is no more than a vapid reiteration of ideas inherited from Stalin and the whole passage amounts to a return to the ideas of Soviet economists on 'socialist profits'.[ 121 At no time have a number of dogmatic presuppositions, in which a certain sort of Marxism has been transformed into a theory of state capitalism, been called into question . They are : - Since the ownership of the means of production has been transformed (in fact, only in juridical terms) workers are now 'in command of the factories' . In these circumstances, labour power is no longer a commodity (which has never been proved) . - Finally, there is no anxiety surrounding the use of economic terms



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which are the same as those used in capitalist states (profits, wages etc .) . Instead the use of these terms-which have profound social connotations -is justified by the 'new social system' in which they function . The consequences of the importance attached to profitability At present all enterprises, apart from certain state-authorised exceptions, are obliged to make profits .. No losses are permitted and any unprofitable firm is ineligible for selection as 'Daqing type enterprises' . It is clear that the new direction has necessitated a reorganisation of the management of productive units (amounting mainly to a reinforcement of hierarchical authority : The People's Daily of November 9, 1977 stated that the Anshan experiment was designed 'to reinforce the system of command in production' . and a limitation upon workers' political initiative in the factories themselves . Today production has come to be geared towards rapid growth and any political movement within the factories will be liquidated . The editorial cited above stated : 'At the moment, in certain enterprises, the enormous losses resulting from mis-management have been complemented by losses of a political character . We must make a clear distinction between the nature of these losses . Losses resulting from management must be eliminated during the first half of the following year at the latest, while losses ofapolitical nature must be reduced to a minimum .' Things could not be clearer! It is hardly surprising that the new Chinese leadership has developed an interest in Yuogoslav 'self-management'! The role of science and technology With the rehabilitation during 1977 of the 'Summary of the Work of the Academy of Sciences' written in 1975 by Hu Yaobang,[13] a close associate of Deng Xiaoping, the tendency to envisage scientific and technical activity in a unilateral manner and to accord them a determining role in the construction of 'socialist society'-outside of any social and political context-has been accentuated . Excessive weight has come to be attached to science and technology, and the problem of how they are to be used in a transitional society has never been posed correctly . Is it not true after all that some aspects of science and technology only exist because they are of use in capitalist production for profit, and that other aspects have not been developed because they are of no use for this purpose? An article by the theoretical section of the Academy of Sciences (PR, 18 .5 .77) isolated the particular features of 'the three great revolutionary movements' . It is certainly true that Mao's expression can be used for any purpose . In this instance it was said that in the first place there is class struggle ; secondly there is the struggle for production ; thirdly there is scientific experiment . Scientific experiment is 'important to overcome and prevent revisionism and to consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat' . The statement recalled that Zhou Enlai had said that the modernisation of



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science and technology was the key to the three other modernisations . In what is now a familiar procedure, it then continued by isolating one

phenomenon and affirming that the central problem is that of knowing with which social system it is to be associated . If it is worth emphasising the relationship between science and production as many articles have done, none of the texts have raised the problems arising from the separation of scientific knowledge and techniques from directly productive activity (as was done during the Cultural Revolution in connection with the establishment of triple union groups in the factories) . In conjunction with the 'priority' given to science in Chinese development, new benefits have been granted to scientists and technicians . This has had important repercussions upon education which 'does not conform to the development of the socialist cause ; this state of affairs must change rapidly' (PI, 40, 1977) . It is now essential, it has been said, to liquidate 'open door research institutes' (PR, 29 .6 .77 ; NCNA 30,5 .77) . The development of science and technology has also been presented in a mystified form insofar as it has been said that China 'has overcome the fundamental contradiction' of the capitalist system : that between the socialised nature of the sciences and technology and private property (Jian Xuesen, in H, 7, 1977) . As a result, China is now able to develop the sciences and technology more rapidly than in the capitalist states particularly-according to Chien-because the interests of the individual, the collectivity and the state are 'harmonious' and the party is able to exercise its leadership over scientific and technical work on the basis of an integrated Plan . Another article led to an openly elitist conclusion : advanced elements would continuously appear in scientific research as in any other struggle . `This is an objective law of development . The broad masses are unable to progress without the leadership of a number of first rate people and (thus) extend their understanding . With such leadership, new first rate minds will appear'! (Yang Zhengchung, The People's Daily, 11 .8 .77) . It is not difficult to see traces of notions concerning the superiority of the intellectual inherited from the Confucian past in such statements! All this is of service to the new regime . Finally, there have been articles like that by Jian Xeusen (CCN, 2785, 1977) on the 'science of sciences', which seem to announce the future introduction of a thesis similar to that of the 'scientific and technical revolution' of the soviet revisionists . In any event, it is clear that there is no longer any attempt in China to raise the problem of 'the monopoly of the intellectually productive forces' exercised by a section or class other than the direct producers, as Marx presented it in Capital . One of the fundamental objectives of Mao and other Chinese revolutionaries has been abandoned . Inevitably, the new leadership will encourage the development of a new social stratum of scientists and technicians divorced from productive work and possessing a monopoly of expertise . If it is necessary to reject utopian hopes of a rapid disappearance of the division between mental and manual labour during the transition, which would lead to excessive repression of scientist and



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technicians, the problem of this division-and the nature of the measures designed to reduce its effects-remains a matter of fundamental importance for the revolutionary process . The agricultural sector The major changes of direction presented above have had important reverberations in the agricultural sector, which cannot be discussed in detail here . In 1977, the main decisions affecting the sector were : a general purification of the rural economy with the elimination of 'capitalist activities (in other words, unplanned activities by rural workers for their own benefit) and greater control over economic activity by Party committees . more rigorous planning ; stricter financial management in collective units . stricter control and supervision of the rural labour force (introduction of work norms, the system of individual responsibility etc .) . a search for incentives to encourage the labour force to raise productivity to the maximum ; the development of supplementary family production and rural markets . rapid mechanisation of agriculture, in which the main options were defined at the Third National Conference dealing with this problem on January 4, 1978 . Following these decisions, it would seem that the new leadership is seeking, in the near future, to drain as much from the agricultural sector for the benefit of state industry through more efficient organisation of the rural economy . Mao's policy was always to leave as many resources as possible to the rural communes in order to consolidate agriculture-'the basis of the national economy' . The coming years will reveal whether there has been a reversal of policy and whether agriculture is intended to become the major source of state accumulation by means of a process of industrialisation and a growing tribute exacted from the peasantry . The question is a legitimate one, particularly since many articles generally assume that the socialist transformation of social relationships has been accomplished . OWNERSHIP AND REMUNERATION The ownership of the means of production The question of the ownership of the means of production has occupied an important place in many texts published since the first quarter of 1977 . In Hongqi, 5, 1977, Lin Jinjan stated that 1956 had seen 'the fundamental establishment of the socialist transformation of the ownership of the means of production .' The article equates juridical transformation to real transformation of ownership, and therefore overlooks such questions as the transformation of the social process of appropriation, the destruction of the old productive relationships and the establishment of new relations of production . Contrary to the ideas in circulation during the Cultural Revolution, Lin Jinjan affirms that, with the transformation of ownership, the class



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struggle is now centred upon the political and ideological sectors . This makes it possible for him to argue that the struggle between different concepts now occupies a very important position (struggle is envisaged as simply struggle between 'Marxist ideology' and the vestiges of 'out-dated' ideas) and to neglect struggles involving workers at the level of the labourprocess and production . An article will indicate how great the theoretical reaction has been in China . In The People's Daily of September 17, 1977 (CCN, 2738) Wu J iang put forward the following ideas : - Throughout the period of transition to communism, where socialist transformation of the ownership of the means of production has been achieved, the revolution must be continued in the spheres of the superstructure and the relations of production in order to respond to the need to develop the productive forces . - Society can only advance securely when the productive forces develop in parallel to the relations of production . - A further thesis seems to imply that the transformation of small scale production into large industry leads to the elimination of the influence of the bourgeoisie automatically . The overall objective of such assertions is to implant the idea that ownership of the means of porduction is socialist and, since ownership is understood as the most important part of the relations of production, these relations are therefore basically socialist . Given this, it is easy to assert that the workers are in command in China! With this sort of logic and slogan 'We demand control of the state and refuse to be slaves to work' is obviously 'counter-revolutionary' . (R . Lanzhou, 2 .2 .77) . The principle of 'from each according to his capacities to each according to his work' As in the past, it is proposed to apply this principle on the basis of the wage-the fundamental problem has never been confronted . It is true that it has always been said-even by 'the gang of four'-that labour-power in China is no longer a commodity . This is an unquestioned dogma . As a result, discussion of the principle has turned solely on how it is to be applied, given the 'socialist' nature of the relations of production . The articles produced during 1977 have moved progressively towards a justification of material incentives . An article in the Guangming Ribao (cited by the Yuogoslav News Agency on 21 November 1977) emphasised that 'egalitarianism remains the most serious problem in China' . It pleaded for an end to tendencies to standardise payments and for more weight to be attached to the combination of 'politics in command' and material incentives for workers and employees . It also stated that Chinese economic experts were requesting a wider application of piece-rates instead of the usual hourly rates which predominate in China . How has it been possible for such matters to emerge in the wake of the Cultural Revolution? It is clear that the debate over a return to piece-rates and incentives is related to a broad mass of measures aimed at accelerating the rowth of the productive forces and increasing the productivity of labour . [14]



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Several important articles touching upon these matters have recently appeared . One by Li Honglin (entitled 'Is the Principle of "To each according to his work" capitalist or socialist?') published in The People's Daily on September 27 affirmed that it is 'a socialist principle and (one which) belongs to the socialist system' . After a facile criticism of the ideas of 'the gang of four', he makes a debatable separation between politicoideological work and economic work, and proceeds to collapse into a mechanical analysis : 'Political and ideological work deals with matters related to ideology and knowledge and provides general direction and orientation' . The principle of 'to each according to his labour' deals with matters related to material needs and life, and enables workers and their families to improve their conditions of existence continuously within the broad framework of socialism . In the second place, Mao's cherished notion of 'hard work' has been emptied of all ideological content . The working class is now expected not only to increase the intensity of its work and its sense of responsibility (in conjunction with the system of responsibility for each job) but also to assume 'the leader's role' by studying and improving techniques, by learning new skills and by accepting technical innovations and improvements designed to increase productivity . An article by Zhao Lukuan set out 'to refute the absurdities of the gang of four on the forms of remuneration of labour' (NCNA, 21 .11 .77) and particularly the following statement by Wang Hongwen : 'The piecerate system, or hourly wages and bonuses indicate no concern for the people's welfare . They are a considerable insult to the working class .' Zhao argued that when public ownership of the means of production and the principle of 'to each according to his work' were applied, then socialism undoubtedly existed . 'Public ownership of the means of production is intrinsically linked to the principle of 'to each according to his work' . 'The former is the fundamental economic precondition of the existence and application of the latter .' Once again, juridical transformation of ownership has been put forward as the 'fundamental economic premise' to justify the notion that socialism exists and that wage labour has been abolished . THE BOURGEOIS ECONOMIC LINE AND SOME OF ITS CONSEQUENCES The new economic policy has not failed to have considerable effects upon education, where 'a race against the clock' is also underway . (CCN, 2726, 1977) . It is true that the educational system has been fragile for many years . But instead of learning from the Cultural Revolution, current policy is designed to liquidate all of its theoretical and practical achievements . Here are a few facts : If intellectuals were the victims of attacks and excessive criticism by the 'gang of four', the wheel has come full circle : they are now presented as the nation's elite . Recruitment of students is now carried out on an elitist basis ; those best at examinations are honoured (CCN, 2748, 1977 ; speech by Fang Yi in CCN, 2793, 1977) .



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-

Students should be drawn in given proportions from those leaving the secondary schools (The People's Daily, 21 .10.77)-which amounts to the beginning of the suppression of the two or three year periods spent by intellectuals in the countryside . - The re-establishment of 'streaming' in education : The People's Daily of October 26, 1977 stated that 'entry to the colleges is always restricted . Those who fail their examinations make up the majority . They 'will have a second chance to pass the examination in the future or they can enrol part-time at the 'Universities of July 21st' or other universitites. In other words, the 'best' will have direct access to higher education while the rest will become skilled manual workers . - It is asserted that the Maoist line was dominant in education during the seventeen years preceeding the Cultural Revolution and that the system was not controlled by 'bourgeois intellectuals' . - Workers' propaganda groups are being disbanded, so that there is no longer a physical presence by workers in educational institutions ; this has already happened in research institutes (see the speech by Fang-Yi cited above) . Alongside of the elaboration of the new economic policy, has been the solemn re-opening of party schools, which were attacked during the Cultural Revolution, in October 1977 . They will undoubtedly be given the task of training Party officials with a curriculum based upon an economistic revision of Mao's theory (facilitated by the fact that Mao's ideas varied according to the needs of the hour) and will separate study from revolutionary practice . Particular importance has been attached to the consolidation and reinforcement of the State apparatus . In late November a public campaign of criticism directed at 'the four' developed, with the problem of law and order as its main concern . Its main themes were : dictatorship can only be exercised against enemies ; it can never be applied to the people and still less to the Party ; there can never be any question of exercising dictatorship 'to eliminate the bourgeoisie from the Party' and the slogan 'Exercise dictatorship over those officials who follow the capitalist road!' is reactionary ; the masses are not entitled to perform trials directly ; factories cannot assume responsibility for measures of reeducation through work (and there were genuine abuses here) ; the importance of those bodies with particular responsibility for law and internal security should be restored . (The People's Daily, 27 .11 .77, 28 .11 .77) . It should be noted that many of the theses outlined above do not appear clearly in statements emanating from the central authorities, and references to the class struggle, to Mao's perspectives and to the continuation of the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat are still voiced . Nonetheless, allusions to permanent conflict between two political lines within the Party have become more and more vague . This is an important modification, since Mao always argued that there was a struggle not only between two types of social development, but also



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between two lines within the Party which corresponded to profound class contradictions embedded within Chinese society . Reference is now made to struggle between two lines only in connection with the elimination of 'the four' and their supporters . At present, there are those who argue that Hua differs from Deng and that he represents 'the centre' while the latter represents 'the right' . While there may be contradictions between Hua and Deng, there should still be some recognition of Hua's role in the elimination of the 'gang of four' and the way in which it was done, as well as in the return of Deng, accompanied by an intense campaign of dissemination of his ideas and a willingness to overlook his previous errors, although they had been condemned by Mao before his death . Even if Hua's position appears to be more 'correct' in terms of the principles which he has put forward, it remains true that his acceptance of Deng's return is a clear political choice, as is his active support for the progressive liquidation of all that was achieved during the revolutionary movements between 1958 and October 1976 . Thus it would be false to present Hua as 'the continuator' of Mao, even if there may be a struggle for influence within the Party and society . In any event, this struggle is not one between different lines, since Hua and Deng are in fundamental agreement over broad aims, whatever their differences over short-term measures. It is possible that China was on the brink of a grave economic crisis when Mao Zedong died . It is also possible that the population had become exhausted by a decade of intense political activity-as its enthusiasm for the elimination of the four would seem to indicate . But it is certain that, since October 1976, the new economic policy has been aimed at accelerating the development of state capitalism as a solution to the crisis, under the guise of completing the edification of socialism . This is the fundamental mystification . Consequently, all attempts to transform the relations of production, such as those practised-however partiallyduring the Cultural Revolution-because of the revolutionary nature of the political leadership-have been abandoned . At the moment, the leaders of the Chinese Party assume that the relations of production are of a new ('socialist') type, and can be simply adjusted and adapted to the productive forces . In fact they are capitalist relations of production and are being consolidated and reproduced on an enlarged scale instead of being transformed dialectically in relation to the development of the productive forces . POSTSCRIPT ON 1978 During 1978, the changes in China's economic line initiated by the new leadership have become more pronounced . A communique, adopted by the third plenary session of the Central Committee on the 22nd . December 1978, marks the liquidation of Mao's economic policies and the final adoption of a decidedly productivist strategy . The communique affirms that 'as from 1979 the whole of the Party will focus its activity on the socialist modernisation of the country', now that the movement of criticism of Lin Biao and 'the four' is practically



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over .[] 51 The text goes as far as asserting that Mao's long-term project'especially after the socialist transformation of property relations had been effectively completed' (that is, since 1956)-has been to shift the Party's centre of activity towards the economic and technological revolution . The People's Daily, of December 26, maintains that Mao Zedong-Thought had not been correctly practised since 1958 (sic!) . This is tantamount to accepting that Peng Dehuai's critique of the Great Leap Forward was correct . Peng has just been rehabilitated . The newspaper goes on to say that a 'good state of affairs' had only existed in the early 1960s (during this period, Liu Shaoqi's line was dominant), just before the reign of Lin Biao and the 'gang of four', which has culminated in 'ten lost years for socialist construction' . In other words, the only economic policies which have been beneficial to the country since 1949 were those of the first Five-Year Plan, of Soviet inspiration, and those of Liu and of Bo Yibo (also rehabilitated), which Mao had slammed as 'revisionist'. Today we are witnessing the final condemnation of Mao! The 22nd December Communique stresses, somewhat amusingly, that 'as Comrade Mao has said, the massive and vigorous class struggles led by the masses are now practically at an end' . In any case, numerous articles during 1978 have developed the idea that in China today, most of the contradictions are contradictions among the people ; which is but another version of the Stalinist dogma of 1956, of the end of class struggles . I shall limit myself in this brief supplement on 1978, to indicating the main economic reforms and the impact of the philosophical debate on practice . The reforms are linked to the political triumph of Deng Xiaoping, who has skilfully been able to isolate all those, in China, who could have been against the accelerating pace of this spectacular change of course . (Le Monde, January 25, 1979) . The primacy of the productive forces has been clearly and distinctly emphasised during the course of the year . The return to a Stalinist mode of reasoning in terms of a correspondence between the forces and relations of production and the idea that those relations have constantly held back the productive forces have served as a theoretical justification for the reforms (PI, 45, 1978, Report of Hukiaomu) . The communique mentioned earlier is an example : 'The four modernisations imply a considerable growth of the forces of production ; they also imply multiple changes for everything in the relations of production and the superstructure, which no longer corresponds to the development of the forces of production ; the latter compel changes in modes of management, modes of action and modes of thought which are out of date .' Stalin's text, 'The economic problems of socialism in the USSR' constitutes the new leadership's bible . (See Hua Guofeng's report to the Conference on finance and trade, PI, 30, 1978) . The new economic policy is not however a carbon copy of the Soviet one . Agriculture, 'the base of the economy', still has priority and peasants will be given material incentives to produce and sell within the framework of a new price policy (see



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22nd December Communique) . Furthermore, private enterprise will be encouraged together with the revival of the rural markets . The changes initiated in 1978 in the rural sectors are very important : constitution of bases of agricultural produce, regional specialisation according to comparative (natural) advantages, the setting-up of Yugoslav-type agro-industrial complexes, the setting-up of rural industrial units subcontracting to urban industry, the effective dissolution of the communes by the transformation of the production teams into autonomous management units . Dazhai is no longer the example to follow, especially because of the determining role given there to the political factor in the remuneration of workers . Agricultural units have to apply a system of distribution based on norm fixing and recording of work-points according to work done, within an overall system of material incentives . In industry, the first upheavals were recorded in a decision in 30 points published in April 1978, 'Resolution on some problems concerning the acceleration of industrial development' . The system of one-man management as well as that of industrial responsibility are restored . For its part, the press has asked to study capitalist management . A reform of the wage-system is forecast (The People's Daily, May 5, 1978) . Cadres especially will obtain a huge increase in their remuneration . Bonuses are presented as the best application of the principle of 'distribution according to work performed' .[16] In the above article on 1977, I emphasised the trend in the centralisation of the economy, however, the measures adopted in 1978 indicate that this strong drive towards centralisation has to be combined with 'a planned and bold (decentralisation) which will ensure even more autonomy to localities and industrial and rural enterprises' (Communique of December 22) . This measure is concordant with the propositions of Sun Yefang, the economist most criticised during the Cultural Revolution, who has published an important article on 'socialist profit' in the Economic Studies (No . 9) . He advocates that together with assigning a central role to the profitability criterion, profit should be calculated on total capital and no longer on the basis of costs-which includes only a small portion of the capital of the enterprise (working capital and depreciation of fixed assets) . In an interview broadcast by the Tanyug agency on August 10, Sun proposed that the relations between the state and the enterprises should be privileged to the detriment of those between the state and the provinces. This means giving priority to economic relations . And it is on this course that the new leadership is set : maintain centralisation together with a greater autonomy to the enterprise . The latter are to comply with eight objectives set by the state ; material rewards and economic sanctions apply as much to individuals as to all types of enterprises . 'The regulations on the experimental system of enterprise capital for State enterprises' show the importance given today to profitability . Enterprises who show no profit will be in a less viable situation since they will no longer be in the advantageous position of retaining a part of their profit (NCNA, 19 .12 .1978) . Also, the contract system is spreading to all productive units, whether rural, industrial or commercial . A great industrial transformation has been decided upon in February



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1978 . Production will be specialised, and 'complete' factories, whether large or small will be dismantled . In his July report, Hu Kiaomu urged that 'the experience of developed capitalist countries' be followed in the promotion of 'specialised production and co-operation organised by professional branches and by regions, and the grouping of scattered enterprises into specialist firms (at the inter-sectoral, intra-sectoral and national levels)' . This measure accompanies the new strategy of development poles, [17] presented in Hua Guofeng's report to the National People's Assembly, published on March 6, 1978, together with the project of formation of 14 powerful industrial bases . This goes completely against the grain of Maoist strategy, one component of which was the setting up of relatively independent local industrial systems .[18] The new purely financial conception of accumulation is accompanied by a revival of banking activities justified by such quotations from Lenin (which are in themselves problematic) as the following : Without the big banks, socialism cannot be realised .' (Hu Kiaomu's report) . 1978 is also the year of the ever-tightening integration of China into the international capitalist division of labour . Two problems in particular have been mentioned in the press : the need to import science and technology (not seen as bearers of specific relations of production) and the need to study strategies based on export-led growth on the Japanese, Singaporean and South Korean models .[19] Furthermore, China will not only accept to sell her labour cheaply by producing according to the dictates of foreign capital, but will also participate in joint ventures . The Chinese leadership speaks a strictly economistic language, reviving the platitudes of the 'political economy of socialism' . Since the summer of 1978, the leaders have called for the acceptance of the 'objective nature of economic laws' which are 'independent of all human will' . Three laws are considered as fundamental : -the law of planned and balanced development, -the law of value, -the law of the unity of interests of the State, the enterprises and the individuals . The explanation of these laws, apologetic in tone, is in direct lineage to stalinist concepts . The first law is grounded in the myth of perfect planning, in the State's ability to have complete control of the economy (without at least indicating that it is in contradiction with the second law) ; the law of value is considered as having lost its 'regulating role', but this is based on a pre-Marxist conception of the value of commodities (ignoring completely Marx's analysis of fetishism and social forms)[20] . The third has always been an essential component of the State bourgeoisie of 'socialist countries' . Finally two other events of the year seem to me important : the movement to revalue intellectuals and the movement to subordinate the working class to a certain conception of trade unions . An elitist policy has been defined by Den Xiaoping at the Conference on the sciences held in March, and the new status given to intellectuals has been presented in a leading article of Xin Guangmin in the Guangming Ribao of November 19, which pointed out that :



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'the intellectuals are already on an equal footing with manual workers within the framework of the socialist production of our country, that is, their economic status is the same as that of manual workers . In their present circumstances, they fall in the category of the Chinese working class .' Today, it is no longer a question of the separation of manual and intellectual labour, and a hierarchical division of labour is considered a necessity in a 'modern industry' . The language too is mystifying : intellectuals, Xin writes, 'do not individually own means of production, but they are owners within the system of ownership by the people as a whole' . They 'do not enjoy privileges', the 'are paid as manual workers are, according to the work they have done for socialism' . The reforms of the Cultural Revolution in education are progressively liquidated . It is true that many were clumsily applied and aroused strong resentment especially among those educated young who were sent to the countryside . Deng has at least the merit of being straightforward in his April 22nd speech to the conference on education : the more able should be promoted, pilot educational establishments will benefit from many advantages, education has to be adapted to the country's needs. Already, Chinese students are going to study capitalist management in Western Universities . In his intervention at the Trade Unions Congress, Deng has asked for discipline and self-denial from the workers, and the collaboration of the unions with the factory management, it being understood that workers and managers are of the same social class and would therefore share common interests . He declared that : 'the enterprises have to practise the system of managerial responsibility under the control of the Party Committee, and to set up a powerful central organism in charge of the management of production . The unions, for their part, have the task of educating their members so that they support this highly centralised administrative directorate and maintain the great authority of this controlling body .' (PI, 42, 1978) A philosophical campaign around the theme 'practice is the criterion of truth' has been launched not only to eliminate all trace of Maoist influence (by criticising the past tendency : 'Mao Zedong-Thought is the criterion of truth') but also to justify the new policy which is claimed as being 'realist' . In fact, it is a return to the interpretation of practice prevalent in the Second International : practical considerations set the limits of knowledge, technical requirements and material interests are the most efficient stimulants of all progress of science and of progress in general . Practical efficiency (for example, in the economy, maximisation of the profits of the enterprise) is the best confirmation of the respect given to the natural order of the real world (for example, 'objective economic laws') . From then on, it would indeed be difficult not to adhere to the most vulgar of versions of the thesis of the 'reflection of matter upon thought' present in numerous texts of 1978 .[211



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A significant event of the last quarter has been the movement of contestation expressed in dazibaos on the 'wall of democracy' .[22] This movement, an expression of the democratic aspirations of the people, is tolerated by the Party leadership who is anxious to present a 'liberal' image . Many of the criticisms made on the 'wall' between November 19, and the beginning of December could eventually undermine the government itself. Thus, on the first of December, a document of the Central Committee attributed to Deng declared that 'the popular masses had to be guides' by the Party, of course ; that the criticisms of Mao should not be carried too far, that above all there must be 'stability and unity', the discipline and order necessary to give primacy to production . It is significant that the communique of December 22, falls back on legalism in very explicit terms, to 'recuperate' the movement for real democracy : 'To guarantee popular democracy, socialist legality must be reinforced, democracy must be codified in a juridical system and form .' This concept results from the same mystification which confuses juridical ownership of means of production and real appropriation . If, for a few years, the new Chinese leadership is able to overcome the class contradictions within Chinese society by trying to develop a particular type of 'consumer society', sooner or later, workers, whose surplus labour is being extracted by the dominant class, will not fail to react . Already, the dazibaos have denounced the Statist system which can give rise to a priviledged bureaucracy and the dangers inherent in a modernisation which can generate growing inequalities

NOTES We warmly thank the review Communisme (which can be contacted at the following address : CRES, PB 125 .75463 Paris Cedex 10- for having given us permission to translate and publish this article in Capital and Class. 1 Abbreviations used in this article : CCN = Cahiers de la Chine Nouvelle ; H = Hongqi (Red Flag) ; NCNA = New China News Agency ; PI = Pekin Information ; PR = Peking Radio (Radio Broadcasts are summarised and published by the BBC in Summary of World Broadcasts.) ; R = Radio . 2 See the following in Communisme : 'A propos des recents evenements en Chine' (24B, 1976), 'La critique de la theorie des trois mondes', (27-28, 1977) ; 'Le Dossier Chine', (29-30, 1977) . 3 Mao's speech is of great interest because it marks the first break by China from blind imitation of Soviet policy, but, since it dates before the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, it does not include Mao's most original ideas on socialist transition . 4 It is true that the new leadership can find some support for this approach in Volume V of Mao's Selected Works (stopping in 1957), published with great fanfare in 1977 . The remarks of the preceeding note apply equally to these texts . 5 The 'stages theory' is a Stalinist notion from the 1930s (put forward particularly in a speech at Kiev) in which all societies proceed through



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a mechanical and inevitable series of stages before reaching communism, namely, primitive communism, slavery, feudalism, capitalism, socialism, each with their own laws . 6 The question of the form of modernisation reserved for the army cannott be discussed here . It will, however, have profound consequences for the development of the other sectors of the economy (by, notably, transferring human resources from agriculture to other sectors, stimulating the electronics industry, the importance attached to 'rhythms of growth', etc .-PR, 5 .2 .1977) . On the conception of the army, see PR, 24-25-27 .6 .1977 . 7 'The Ten Great Relationships', Pekin, p . 14 . Mao's text has been changed considerably from the one used by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution (a French translation was published in Communisme, 1 .) . In the latter version, this sentence which has often been used by the new leadership, does not appear : 'To build a strong socialist state, the central leadership must be given sole undivided leadership, and must make one plan and one law for the whole nation . All attacks upon this indispensible unity are impermissible.' (p . 17) . 8 In 'On Contradiction', Mao refers to Lenin : 'Antagonisms and contradictions are not one and the same thing . Under socialism, the former will disappear ; the latter will remain .' ('Socialism' here means 'the first phase of communist society', and China has certainly not reached this phase) . The new leadership has taken care to select some of Mao's more ambiguous formulations, such as : 'The contradictions of capitalist society are made manifest by antagonisms, bitter conflicts and intense class struggle . They cannot be resolved by the capitalist system but only by socialist revolution . Contradictions in a socialist society are entirely different ; they are not antagonistic and can be resolved individually by the socialist regime .' (Selected Works, V, 1977, pp . 426-7) . The new leadership, of course, assumes that a socialist regime was established in China in 1956 . (See the revealing articles by the revisionist economist Xue Muqiao entitled 'During the transitional period : the struggle between the two roads in the economic domain', P1, 49, 50, 51, 52, 1977 .) 9 It is true that 'the four' were not very clear on this . Thus, Zhang Chunqiao attached too much importance to leadership : 'The political and ideological line and the class exercising power are the factors which determine which class will own the factories' (in 'On integral dictatorship over the bourgeoisie', P1, 14, 1975) . He therefore underestimated the real transformation of relations of production within the factories . Nonetheless, there were many texts published in 1975 and the first nine months of 1976 which raised the problem of the real transformation of the relations of produciorr . (See, for example, 'profound changes in the management of enterprises', People's Daily, 4 .3 .1976, or 'Follow the charter of the engineering enterprise of Anshan ; struggle against the revisionist line', PR, 24 .3 .76) . Since then, there is a theoretical desert! 10 Here Lenin is constantly invoked : 'In the last analysis, productivity is what is most vital and important for the triumph of the new social order' . (The Great Initiative, CW, Vol . 29) . 11 Many measures adopted in the industrial sector in 1977 are reminiscent of the Seventy Articles for Industry, the Mines and Enterprises (drawn up under Bo Yibo) adopted in December 1961 . They represent a reaction against the first revolutionary measures to transform management of industry during the Great Leap Forward . They



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12 13

14

15

16

17 18

19

20

21

22

call, for example, for the closure of factories making losses, the reestablishment of piece work, better conditions of work, material incentives, strict quality control . 'Rationality', instead of mass movements, became the dominant theme of management ; leaders were to be re-established in their authority and priority attached to the functions of engineers and technicians . (See 'Main Content of the 70 Articles of Industrial Policy', Documents of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committees, September 1956-April 1960, I, URI, 1971, p . 689) An article by the economist Xu Tixiu ('On Profits under Socialism', NCNA, 23 .11 .77) refers to 'socialist profits' or 'socialist benefits' . Hu Yaobang was general secretary of the Young Communist League before the Cultural Revolution and was severely criticised during it for his revisionist ideas . He appears to owe his return mainly to Deng . He now holds the important post of Director of the Organisational Department of the Central Committee of the CCP . It should be noted that what matters is not the relative importance of day-rates or piece-rates, but the existence of the wage itself as Marx defined it . Marx also showed that piece-rates are 'the form of the wage most adapted to the capitalist mode of production' . To go back to China, the following statement can be found in the Guangming Ribao : 'In the process of building socialism, some workers make a greater effort than others, expending greater energy and working longer hours . A proper solution to this problem should be found .' (See also the report by Yu Quill in CCN, 2750, 1977) . The movement of criticism of Lin Biao and the Four has created the opportunity to destroy, on the theoretical level, many tenets of Mao Zedong-Thought itself, by the device of merging them with other tendencies ; indeed, the divergences between Lin Biao and the Four (on a theoretical level, the latter were often close to Mao) have been ignored . By this type of criticism and a policy of purges (including executions), the new leadership has imposed its version of the 'theory of the productive forces' . For a critical analysis of the 'political economy of socialism', see P . Tissier, 'China : the impossible rupture with Stalinism', Monthly Review, forthcoming . On this strategy, P . Tissier, 'Les nouvelles voles du developpement', Le Monde Diplomatique, December 1978. On Maoist strategy, E . Poulain, Le mode d'industrialisation socialiste en Chine, Paris 1977 ; P . Tissier, La Chine : Transformations rurales et developpement socialiste, Paris, 1976 . For the development strategy of South East Asian countries, P . Tissier, 'Une nouvelle division internationale du travail : mythe ou realite? Communisme, New Series, 2, 1978 . On Marx's analysis, see I . I . Rubin, Essays on Marx's Theory of Value, Montreal, 1973, and his conference of 1927 : 'Abstract Labour and Value in Marx's System', Capital and Class, 5, Summer 1978 . Despite reservations on some of his concepts, Karl Korsch has made a series of important criticisms of this type of presentation in Marxism and Philosophy . On the present Chinese conception, see, for example, the article of Li Honglin, 'Science and Blind Faith' in the People's Daily, October 2, 1978 . On this type of dazibaos, see for example, Le Monde, December 21-22,1978 .

DEBATE

S TA TE DEBA TE THE THEORY OF (THE) CAPITALIST STATE(S) A REPLY TO COLIN BARKER Mike Williams In his criticism of Holloway and Picciotto (1977), Colin Barker (1978) makes two central points about the deficiencies of recent Marxist theorising on the state : That it neglects the concrete existence of many nation states ; and that it operates with an invalid conceptual distinction between 'state' and 'capital' (p .118) . However, by pushing the first point too far, and by identifying state and capital Barker undermines the possibility of a dialectical and materialist analysis of the historical development of nation states. Barker starts from the quite unobjectionable criticism that H&P (and much other Marxist work on the state) pays insufficient attention to the fact that : 'Capitalism, . . . , is a world system of states, and the form that the capitalist state takes is the nation-state form' (p .118) . There are, however, three aspects of his elaboration of this criticism which seem inimical to Marxist analysis : 1) That the concept "the state" is at 'an inappropriate level of abstraction' in that it cannot 'take account of the state as . . . an apparatus of competition between segments of the bourgeoisie' (p .118) . 2) That the need for many nation states derives from the attenuation of the forces of market competition, and the associated analogy between capital and the state (p .120 and 123) . 3) That whilst insisting on many states, Barker neglects the existence of many civil societies, and implicitly denies the existence of many national capitals . (See e .g . p .119 : 'Capitalist society, . . . , is not coterminous with the geographical space occupied by any one nation-state but is rather the world'.) 1) The use of the concept "the state" does not, in itself abstract from intra-class competition between national bourgeoisies as an important determinant of nature and actions of (the) modern state(s) . What it does do is to emphasize that the tendential imposition of the law of value by competition between capitals, domestic and international, is of a more fundamental nature than the existence of many nation states . The ways in which nation states seek to assist their domestic capitals in the face of



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international competition is the material basis for inter-state competition, political, military and diplomatic . The materialist conception of history invites us to seek the fundamental determinants of the actions of capitals and states at the level of the economy, of competitive accumulation and concomitant class-struggle . Whilst the dialectical method requires analysis of the interactions between economic and political forces, Barker seems to neglect the fundamental economic level to concentrate on the reactions of the dependent political level . It is precisely a Marxist abstraction to abstract from the diplomatic, military and political aspects of inter-nation state relations, in order that they may be subsequently related to the primary economic determinants . Similarly it is a Marxist abstraction to abstract initially from exchange and money flows (from 'trade and transnational investment' p .120) in order to subsequently understand them in relation to the primary sphere of production . 2) It is evident that 'Capital, . . . , can only exist as many capitals', and that 'It is thus characteristic of capitalism that it develops through competition, . . .' (p .120) . However it does not follow from this that the existence of many states is a similarly fundamental characteristic of the world capitalist order . This is because it is by no means evident that the processes of concentration, centralisation and international isation of capitals, or even that of state intervention in the organisation of production have so reduced the coercive forces of competition as to require the existence of many states to maintain a semblance of competition and so the existence of capital . Further, even to the extent that mature capitalist societies are characterised by the attenuation of market forces, this cannot be used as an explanation of the historical evolution of the system of nation states concomitant on transition to the dominance of the capitalist mode of production . Thus Barker's analogy between capital and the state is superficial and misleading . Capital certainly has the dual form of anarchy between and despotism within capitals (p .120 and 123), but to the extent that the same can be said of nation states the reference must be to a very different 'structure of despotism' than that of capital over labour . This raises the problem of Barker's identification of state and capital to which we return . 3) Let us examine Barker's insistence on 'seeing capitalist society as a global "social formation", as a real totality, . . .' (p .121) . It is just not the case that the capitalist system of production relations, the bourgeoisie or the proletariat, 'from their commencement were international in scope' ; nor that 'the international community of world capitalism' consists of a 'global system of social relations' (p .119) . The point is that these are tendencies which are still in process . There remain significant discontinuities in production, exchange, political and intra-class relations coincident with and constitutive of national boundaries . Thus the process of the development of the 'world capitalist economy' is still in train : International exchange relations and money capital flows are highly developed, but the internationalisation of production capital is still quite primitive . Consequently the fundamental tendencies of capitalist production - diffusion of techniques, production under socially average conditions of production, increasing organic composition, increasing and



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uniform rates of surplus value etc . - are significantly less international in their operation than are those of capitalist exchange and distribution towards uniform prices, value of labour power, uniform and increasing rates of exploitation, declining rates of profit etc . The transition to and development of capitalism has proceeded at different rates, in different ways and with different political forms in different societies . For these reasons imperialism, internationalisation of capital, underdevelopment and so on (p .1 19) are to be analysed as tendencies and processes in terms of combined and unequal development . And the internal and international roles of states are conditioned by the location of their national civil societies in this international complex of relations. It is misleading to conceive, as Barker does (p .1 22), of nation states grappling with a pre-existing 'world capitalist economy' . Capitalist accumulation is still largely based on national societies, each dominated by the capitalist mode of production, though coerced by international exchange relations, and each with different 'specific political forms' (p .1 19) . It may seem that these are largely problems of emphasis or exposition, but my differences with Barker derive from a rejection of the validity of identifying state and capital, and thence collapsing the state/civil society couple . Barker either wishes to deny the legitimacy of 'a conceptual separation between "state" and "capital", . . .' (p .118), to assert that 'the state is an aspect of the capital relation' (p .120), or that "'state" and capital" can become a unity' (p .123), or to talk of a 'fusion of state and capital' (p .1 24) . The first point is that if the state and capital are to be identified, or if the former is an aspect of the latter, then the processes of their becoming a unity, or fusing, cannot be referred to, let alone analysed . But underlying this logical tension is the fact that a materialist analysis of history is going to need to make statements about the relation between states and capital, and more generally between states and civil society, which logical identification of the two concepts would preclude . Without such a conceptual separation it does not seem possible to analyse the development of production and division of labour to the extent that certain community wide functions become necessary . Nor would it be possible to analyse the development of the need and possibility of the monopolisation of these functions by specific groups, concomitant on the development of surplus production and antagonistic class structures . But a denial of the separation of state and civil society is even more obviously an obstacle to the analysis of the state in capitalist societies with a liberal democratic political form : In such societies, as Holloway and Picciotto (1977) and others have argued, the state must in fact be separated from society in order that it may appear as the class-neutral arbiter between individuals conceived as equal before the law, in the face of the dominance of the exploitative capital relation in society . Concomitantly the tendential alienation of all significant relations between individuals other than the 'cash-nexus' to the state as political relations, enables the needs of continued capital accumulation to appear as the technical dictates of immutable economic rationality . Separation is not a 'point of principle' (p .121), nor is it true that 'state economic inter-



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vention is theoretically impossible' (p .118), nor is it impossible to argue that 'the autonomy of state action from the valorisation process' (Holloway and Picciotto, 1977) is both implicit in the logic of the state/ civil society relation and 'itself threatened by the development of capital' (p .121) . Rather certain kinds of direct state intervention in the organisation of production threaten to reveal both the class nature of the state by making it a protagonist directly in economic class struggle over the restructuring of the labour process and over distribution ; and to reveal the historical specificity of the allegedly immutable economic laws of the market, by over-riding the operation of these laws by political intervention in the economy . The basis of the domination of capital to date has been the appropriation of surplus as surplus value via generalised commodity production and private control of the means of production . Not withstanding definitional caveats about the nature of private property (p .125, n .7), there can be no doubt that this particular basis of exploitation is undermined by the politicisation of accumulation . The analysis of these important processes requires the conceptual separation of state and capital . Finally it can be seen that the "'generality implicit" in the capitalist state form' (p .121) is not a denial of the existence of many nation states, but rather refers to the need for the state to act in accordance with the needs of capital by passing them off as some 'general interest', and/or as the dictates of economic rationality . Two admirable projects seem to motivate Barker's analysis : The refutation of that one of the '57 varieties of reformism' concerned with single state nationalisation, and an examination of 'state capitalist' conceptions of Eastern European societies . But each of these projects calls for an analysis of the inter-relations between economic and political relations and forces . This in turn would seem to require a conceptual distinction between state and civil society, in order to attempt to explain why central control and planning of production co-exists with alienation at work, and political alienation . There are real tensions between the reformist interests of workers and the revolutionary needs of the working class . The separation of state and civil society is imposed by capital : Politics is the alienated form of communal relations imposed by the dominance of the capitalist mode of production . The point is not to deny a conceptual distinction in theoretical discourse, but the overcoming of alienation in practice by the revolutionary transformation to a system based on communal control of production by the 'associated producers'.

Bibliography Barker, C ., 1978, "A note on the theory of capitalist states' : Capital and Class, 4. Holloway and Picciotto, 1977, "Capital, crisis and the state", Capital and Class, 2 .



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ON AN ALLEGED INCONSISTENCY IN SRAFFA'S ECONOMICS Ian Steedman Sungur Savran has argued in a recent paper (1979) that Sraffa's analysis (1960) is internally inconsistent, failing to achieve the high standards of logical rigour generally attributed to that analysis . Savran's argument is, in brief, that there are only three possible ways of 'closing' Sraffa's system of relations between wages, profits and prices and that each of those three ways is incompatible with the logic of Sraffa's own argument . The three alternative 'closures' which Savran considers are : a) taking the .wage to be given as an aggregate of commodities ; b) taking the wage to be given as a price, in terms of some standard of price ; c) taking the rate of profit as given . It will be shown below both that Savran's objections to each of these three alternatives are unfounded and that there is a fourth alternative recommended by Sraffa . THE WAGE AS AN AGGREGATE OF COMMODITIES Since Sraffa's purpose was, in part, to examine how wages, profits and prices vary together, what is in question here is not the possibility of taking a particular given aggregate of commodities as the real wage and then determining .the corresponding profit rate and prices of production . The question is rather whether it is possible in Sraffa's analysis to consider a variable wage, paid in advance and consisting of a bundle of commodities in fixed proportions but of varying absolute size . Savran asserts a) that under these circumstances the Standard Commodity is a useless construction-because it itself changes with every variation in the real wage-and b) that this treatment of the given wage is therefore not possible within Sraffa's analysis ; (p . 133 in Savran 1979) . Savran's assertion a) is, of course, absolutely correct but his assertion b) is a simple non-sequitur. The Standard Commodity is not essential to any part of Sraffa's argument! Anticipating this obvious reply, Savran first points to the use of the Standard Commodity in 'isolating' the cause of a change in relative prices as pertaining to one or the other of the two commodities whose prices are being compared . This may perhaps be an interesting thing to do, when it can be done, but it is never an essential thing to do-all of Sraffa's important results turn on changes in relative prices and if their causes cannot be 'isolated' that is of no real significance . Savran then presents a further, and distinctly strange, assertion : ' . . . in the absence of the standard commodity, under joint production, (1) the inverse . . . relationship between the wage and the rate of profit no longer necessarily holds . . . and (2) there is no unique relationship between the level of the wage and the rate of profit . . .' (p . 133) . Now the statements (1) and (2) just quoted are entirely correct as statements about what may happen under joint production but the phrase 'in the absence of the standard commodity' introduces nothing but confusion . Savran is perhaps pointing to the fact that measurement of the wage in terms of a Standard

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Commodity, when such a measurement is possible and appropriate, does indeed produce an ever-decreasing (and hence unique) relation between the wage so measured and the rate of profit . But if such a measurement is either impossible or inappropriate that is that . The complications asserted (correctly) by (1) and (2), quoted above, must then be faced on their own terms . It could, perhaps, be said to constitute a 'problem' in the analysis if a given real wage does not determine a unique rate of profit-and that would be worth discussing. But this 'problem' can arise, with joint production, whether the wage is measured as 'an aggregate of commodities' or as a 'price' : it may be an interesting 'problem' but it is simply confused for Savran to say that the 'problem' makes the Standard Commodity essential to Sraffa's analysis and that therefore the wage cannot be treated as an aggregate of commodities . There is not one single substantive proposition in Sraffa's analysiswhether concerning wages and profits, or prices, or reswitching of techniques, or the distribution-relative nature of 'capital values'-which cannot be both stated and proved without any reference to the Standard Commodity . Thus Savran has given no reason for saying that a treatment of the wage as an aggregate of commodities would be internally inconsistent within Sraffa's analysis . (It is only fair to add that it is not just critics of Sraffa who have greatly exaggerated the importance of the Standard Commodity ; some 'followers' of Sraffa have made just the same mistake . But neither the critics nor the followers have any excuse for this mistake, for on the second page of his book (1960, p . vi) Sraffa states explicitly that 'the central propositions' of his work were elaborated before various 'particular points, such as the Standard commodity' were arrived at .)

THE WAGE AS A PRICE Savran alleges two reasons why the wage cannot be taken as given, in terms of some standard of price, within Sraffa's analysis . The first allegation, which he describes as less important, is that if the wage is so treated then the 'necessary' wage goods will not have all the properties of 'basic' commodities which, according to Sraffa, they ought to have . Thus Savran writes that with wages so measured 'some basic goods, i .e . necessaries, do not influence the rate of profit' (p . 134) and, again, 'if the wage is given as a price, necessaries cannot influence the rate of profit-not even in devious ways' (Savran's note [7] ) . These strong, general statements by Savran are, quite simply, false . Consider the question, 'If the wage is given as a price, will a technical improvement in the production of a necessary increase the rate of profit?' Savran gives the unqualified answer, 'No' ; the correct answer is, 'It depends' . Suppose, first, that the necessary is also a basic in Sraffa's strong sense . The answer to our question is then obviously 'Yes' . Suppose now that the necessary is not a basic in Sraffa's strong sense . The answer to our question is still 'Yes' if the standard of price in terms of which the wage is



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given contains either the necessary itself or any other commodity into whose production the necessary enters, directly or indirectly, as an input . In other words, the answer is 'No' only if the necessary is not a Sraffabasic, is not included in the bundle of commodities making up the standard of price and is not used, directly or indirectly, in the production of any commodity which is so included . As was said above, Savran's unambiguous 'No' is simply wrong . (Obviously, one can ensure that the answer will be 'Yes' simply by including all necessaries in the standard of price .) 111 We may now turn to Savran's second alleged reason why the wage cannot be given as a price, within Sraffa's analysis . (This is the reason which Savran describes as the more fundamental of the two .) He writes, ' . . . when the wage is given as a price before the prices themselves are known, there is nothing to guarantee that the commodities necessary for the subsistence of the workers will accrue to them . When the prices are determined, the wage may well turn out to be below this subsistence level' (pp . 134-5) . Now this is perfectly true-but to present this simple truth as a 'fundamental reason' why it would be logically inconsistent in Sraffa's analysis to consider a given 'wage as a price' is most strange . Suppose, for simplicity, that the wage as a price falls as the profit rate rises, no matter which standard of price is being assumed . (This is true in all single product systems and in many, but not all, fixed capital and joint product systems .) Then, if there is a minimum 'subsistence' bundle of commodities, there is a precisely defined maximum viable profit rate and a minimum viable wage rate in terms of any standard of price . A given wage lower than that minimum would imply a non-viable economic system . And that is that . Savran is attempting to produce a conjuror's mystery out of an empty black box . THE RATE OF PROFIT As Savran correctly points out (p . 135) his 'objection' to considering a given rate of profit is really no different from his second, 'more fundamental' objection to a given wage as a price. There is indeed a maximum rate of profit consistent with the workers obtaining their subsistencetherefore an arbitrary rate of profit may imply a non-viable economic system . The suggestion that it is thus logically incoherent for Sraffa to consider a given profit rate carries no more weight than Savran's 'fundamental' objection to a given wage as a price . THE FOURTH ALTERNATIVE It has been seen that Savran offers no serious objection to the three 'closures' of Sraffa's system considered above . But why does Savran say that 'Logically there are only three alternative methods of fixing the independent variable'? (p . 133 .) Savran knows quite well that Sraffa recommends a fourth alternative, even though he does not make use of it, [2] . Sraffa writes ' . . . it would be appropriate, when we come to consider the division of the surplus between capitalists and workers, to separate the two component parts of the wage and regard only the 'surplus' part as variable ;



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whereas the goods necessary for the subsistence of the workers would continue to appear . . ., among the means of production', (pp . 9-10), [3] . After explaining why he will not in fact adopt this procedure, Sraffa concludes 'In any case the discussion which follows can easily be adapted to the more appropriate, if unconventional, interpretation of the wage suggested above', (p . 10, my emphasis) . This is indeed so ; in fact it is merely a question of re-interpretation, rather than adaptation . Under this re-interpretation of Sraffa's analysis, in which the 'means of production' include the 'goods necessary for the subsistence of the workers', Savran's first 'problem'-about the Standard Commodity-would simply not arise (because the 'subsistence' wage would not be variable), while both his 'objections' to the wage as a price would vanish immediately . That would leave his 'objection' concerning a given rate of profit which, as pointed out above, is no objection at all . Who would disagree that there are nonviable arbitrary rates of profit? Whether we adopt this fourth alternative or not, however, Savran has offered no demonstration that Sraffa's analysis is logically inconsistent. CONCLUSION It would indeed be important to point out any logical inconsistencies in Sraffa's analysis but Savran's paper is far from doing that . The inadequacies of his 'critique' are immediately clear to anyone with serious knowledge of Sraffa's work, but the publication of Savran's paper may well have been a disservice to those readers who are aware that Sraffa's work is important but who do not have the time to study it at first hand . It is important that Savran's confusions should not become more widespread .

NOTES The author teaches economics at the University of Manchester . He would like to thank the Editorial Committee-and Simon Mohun in particularfor helpful comments on an earlier version . 1 These issues are well treated in Roncaglia (1975, Parte Seconda and 1978, Part II) . 2 Savran quotes almost half of the relevant section from Sraffa (Savran's p . 134; Sraffa's Para. 8) and refers to it again later (p . 135 and Note 9), albeit elliptically . 3 See Roncaglia (1975, Capitolo IV and 1978, Chapter 5) .

REFERENCES Roncaglia, A ., 1975, Sraffa e la teoria dei prezzi, Bari . Roncaglia, A ., 1978, Sraffa and the Theory of Prices, New York . Savran, S ., 1979, 'On the Theoretical Consistency of Sraffa's Economics', Capital and Class, No . 7, Spring . Sraffa, P ., 1960, Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities, Cambridge .

STRUGGLES AGAINST DISCIPLINE : THE THEORY AND POLITICS OF MICHEL FOUCAULT Bob Fine

INTRODUCTION The writings of Michel Foucault are gaining increasing currency within the left. They appear to offer a major resource in the search for a renewed critique of power ; directed on the one hand against the "despotic" character of the relations of power which predominate under capitalism and state socialism ; on the other hand against an "orthodox" left opposition which fails to revolutionise these relations in theory or in practice .[1 ] The focal point of his Discipline and Punish is the prison . This apparatus epitomises the problem of power as he sees it . Since its inception in its modern form in the early years of the nineteenth century, the prison-the epitome of "despotism"-has persisted unchecked . Reformists have sought only to perfect its mechanisms ; Stalinists have reproduced it in the grotesque shape of the "Gulag" . Foucault wishes to show the necessity for the left of revolutionising power in such a way that the prison ceases to be an instance of its operation ; to expose the crisis of the left which cannot provide a basis for such a transformation of power relations ; and to provide an alternative theory and politics which can . But what is the nature of Foucault's critique of official power and of a left which he sees as merely reproducing its forms? What kind of solution to the theoretical and political poverty of Stalinism and reformism does he offer with regard to power? This is my topic . The prison, Foucault argues, is only the "extreme form" of what he calls a "disciplinary" power whose boundaries are much wider : to be found equally in the asylum, the school . the family, the police, the army, the hospital, and especially within the factory . Foucault locates its historical character in the development of capitalism, drawing a sharp contrast between "traditional" and "disciplinary" forms of subordination ; the one succeeding the other . At the same time, the disciplines are counterposed to democratic forms of rule, encapsulated in egalitarian



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legality or parliamentary representation ; they are presented as inherently "despotic", the "dark side" behind bourgeois (as well as socialist) democracy ; an accumulating power which increasingly undermines democratic forms, to the point when one can speak of the emergence of the "disciplinary society" . The immediate political task is seen as that of the overthrow of disciplinary power in its entirety ; the fundamental problem with "traditional" theories of power-including "orthodox" Marxism-is that they fail to offer a way either of uncovering the nature of the disciplines or of providing an escape route from them . But what is it about "traditional theories" which precludes these possibilities? The key, Foucault argues, to this "analytic" failure lies firstly in their inability to address the problem of form . Forms of power, Foucault argues, are not reducible either to their functions (e .g . that of reproducing relations of production) or to their possession (that is, to their being the property or instrument of a particular class) . He writes : "Power is not conceived of as a property, but as a strategy . . .Its effects of domination are attributed not to "appropriation', but to dispositions, manoeuvres, tactics, techniques, functionings . . . one should decipher in it a network of relations, constantly in tension . . . rather than a privilege that one might possess . . .Consequently its overthrow . . . is not acquired once and for all by a new control of the apparatus nor by a new functioning or destruction of the institutions" . (Discipline and Punish-hence D & P-, p . 26) Power is a "network of relations" ; its overthrow requires the foration of new relations . Thus the simple seizure of power by the working class or the simple investment of existing forms of power with new functions in each case leaves the forms themselves untouched . A theory which looks exclusively to the functions of power and neglects the forms through which these functions are performed-i .e . functionalism-accepts by default the naturalness of these forms . Similarly a theory which directs attention exclusively to the character of the class which wields power as its instrument and in this manner neglects the forms through which that class exercises its dominance-i .e . instrumentalism-is necessarily equally uncritical of these forms .[2] Such approaches, by excluding any consideration of the historical and social character of forms of power, leave the field open for reifying these forms ; that is, for treating them as natural rather than historical products . Rather than addressing critically the disciplinary mode of domination itself, questions are limited to the nature of the functions or interests it serves. Thus with respect to the law and the state, Foucault writes : An analysis in terms of power should not postulate as initial data the sovereignty of the state, the form of law or a global unity of domination ; they are only the terminal forms of power" . Both an approach that looks solely at the functions performed or the interests served by the state or by law, treats them precisely as "initial



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data" . The emergence of the state itself must be kept distinctly from the question of its uses and its appropriation, once it exists . What is the real target of Foucault's critique? He slips easily into identifying Marxism (with certain exceptions) as part of this general analytic failure . For example, he writes : "What strikes me in Marxist analyses is that they always contain the question of class struggle, but that they pay little attention to one word in this phrase, namely, 'struggle' . . . they focus mainly on defining class, its boundaries, its membership : but never concretely on the nature of the struggle . One exception comes to mind : Marx's own non-theoretical historical texts which are better and different in this respect". (1977a, p . 161) This does characterise Stalinism, as expressed in Stalin's own injunction that "the seizure of power is only the beginning ; the whole point is to retain it, to consolidate it, to make it invincible" . (Stalin, 1973, p . 121 .) And it does characterise a reformism which presents existing forms of power as "a limit which should not be overstepped" . But it chooses to ignore the Marxism of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, etc .,[3] who all declared, at the heart of their theory of power, that it is not sufficient for the working class to "lay hold of the existing state machinery and wield it for its own purposes" ; not enough "to transfer the bureaucratic-military machine from one hand to another" ; it must also necessarily "smash" it and replace it with "new forms of exercising power" . The revolution, in other words, consists not merely in the transfer of power from one class to another ; but also in the transition from one form of power to another . The task, as Marx put it, was to analyse "the form of power appropriate for the economic emancipation of labour" . (Marx 1973a, The Civil War in France, p . 290 .) Foucault's exclusion of Marx's historical writings from his general condemnation arises, presumably, from the manner in which Marx derived the necessity for the working class to overturn existing forms of domination : that is, from the experience of failed revolutions in France .[4] The practical lessons Marx drew were that the failure to effect such a transformation would lead to the defeat of the workers' movement and the restoration of bourgeois rule ; or alternatively to a new dependence of the working class on their own leaders . The experience of the Paris Commune, as is well known, provided Marx with a historical model of the alternative forms of power being generated by the working class : a transformation consisting in a move from a "special power . . . above society" to power exercised "directly by the people" ; from bureaucratic officials to the democratic election of all functionaries "at workmen's wages" ; from a standing army to the people armed ; from parliamentary "talking shops" to "working bodies, executive and legislative at the same time" ; and so on . It is not difficult to see why Foucault should treat Marx's theoretical texts as less satisfactory in this regard, and, in doing so, he is in line with a considerable number of mechanical interpretations of Marx . Marx himself warns against a derivation of a critique of power from the critique of c . & c . 9 .- f



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political economy in Capital, since power is "only dealt with in so far as Political Economy itself professes to deal with it" . (quoted in Thompson, 1978, p . 354) . Whereas economic forms, like the commodity or capital, were analysed in detail as the expression of particular historical relations, valid only so long as these relations existed, power was analysed in Capital only in terms of its effect on the economy . The functions, for instance, of penal repression of vagabondage for primitive accumulation or of factory legislation for the transition from absolute to relative surplus value were addressed . But it was without addressing why it was that forced labour took the form of punishment in the first case-a form, as Marx put it, which "treated vagabonds as 'voluntary' criminals and assumed that it depended on their own good will to go on working under the old conditions that no longer existed" (Capital, I, p . 896)-and not, say, the form of slavery or indentured labour ; and why the enforced reduction of hours in the latter case took the form of state law and bureaucratic enforcement . This neglect of the formal side of power-that is, "of the way in which political, juridical and other ideological notions come about" -for the sake of its content was legitimate for the critique of political economy but not for that of law or punishment or the state, where the "dialectical" question of why power takes the form of legal, penal or state power, and with what consequence, must be addressed . Marx never completed his project of supplementing his critique of political economy with a critique of "law, morality, politics, and life etc ." and of showing "the connection of the whole" . But Marx's method was clearly stated : to analyse forms of domination, no less than economic forms, as "the expression of historical relations of production, corresponding to a particular stage of development in material production" (Marx, Selected Correspondence, 1975, p . 144 .) Foucault is not to be faulted when he says that neglect of the "formal side" of power or alternatively the idealisation of existing forms of power-both of which characterise strong currents of contemporary theory-obviate critical enquiry into the "disciplinary form" and leave the way open for dogmatic and acritical interpretations. To this extent, we can view Foucault's critique of power as an instance of the contemporary revival of the questions addressed by classic Marxism and buried by subsequent dogmatisms . What is at issue, however, is the particular manner in which Foucault derives and characterises the "disciplinary forms" and especially his repudiation, as we shall see, of the class analysis of Marx, which attempted to derive existing forms of power from the productive relations of capitalist society . The second aspect of Foucault's critique of "traditional theory" and "orthodox Marxism"-which he says makes it impossible to comprehend the nature of "disciplinary" power-concerns what Foucault calls its "juridical" or "legislative" mode of approach . The character of disciplinary power is such, he argues, that its mechanisms cannot be grasped by a "juridical" consciousness, which sees in power no more than the "enunciation of a law" from some central organising instance (the state) : no more than the issue of a prohibition from above . First, the "productive" character of disciplinary power is missed by a consciousness which associates all power "negatively" with "prohibition" or "repression" .



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"We must cease once and for all to describe the effects of power in negative terms : it 'excludes', it 'represses', it 'censors', it 'abstracts', it 'masks', it 'conceals' . In fact power produces; it produces reality ; it produces domains of objects and rituals of truth" . (D & P, p . 194 .) Disciplinary power is not merely exercised as a prohibition on those "who do not have it" ; rather it "invests them, is transmitted by them and through them" . Repression, rather than being the essence of this power, is only its "limit", power in its "frustrated" or "extreme form" . The juridical model of repression corresponds perhaps to the penal law where the sovereign exercised his right to legislate over the life and death of his subject . But with the emergence of the disciplines, power is directed positively at "the body and its forces", to make it "useful and docile", to train it, educate it, force it into habits, to "carry out tasks, perform ceremonies, emit signs" . This transformation, Foucault argues, was marked by the growth of confinement (e .g. houses of correction, work houses), in which punishment, in the form of simple exclusion or elimination, was replaced by organs of power whose task was to put their inmates to productive use ; to make of them sources of labour power . "The political investment of the body is bound up, in accordance with complex reciprocal relations, with its economic use ; it is largely as a force of production that the body is invested with relations of power and domination ; but on the other hand its constitution as labour power is possible only if it is caught up in a system of subjugation"

(D & P, p . 25) . Foucault calls for an "analytic" of power that grasps the manner in which power forms the subject before it imposes itself on him or her "as repression" . Juridic conceptions, tied to their identification of power and repression, continues to operate within a discourse of "liberation" of the "free individual", of "sexuality" and so forth, as if these categories did not already express the effects of a power beyond them . Second, juridic consciousness conceives of power as invested in the state and then as filtering down to successive levels (the school, the prison, the family and so fort . But the "disciplines" are constituted not from "above to below", but in a manner that is quite the reverse . They are formed out of a "micro-physics" of power, out of diffuse and minute relations which "go right down to the depths of society" . The exercise of discipline at the level of "individuals, bodies, gestures" e tc . d o not, Foucault argues, articulate sovereignty and the state at the level of "microrelations" ; rather it is out of these micro-relations, always "in action, in tension" that a "global unity of domination" is precariously crystallised . There is no "homology" between the micro-relations and the global effects (e .g. of class domination) that they support. The shortcoming of the ' juridic" consciousness, common, Foucault argues, "to a whole tradition of revolutionary thought and action", lies in its inability to see power "in any form other than the state" . (1977 . p . 157 .) In so doing, power is addressed "only in the manner in which power presents its image" . This overemphasis on the state leaves unexplored the "hidden nature" of the



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disciplines : that its power is not "univocal, that there exist "innumerable points of confrontation . . . each with its own risks of conflict, of struggle, and of at least temporary inversion of power relations" . The "multiform" character of disciplinary power produces its own multiplicity and variety of struggles . The conception of a unified power deriving from the state and of a unified struggle for the state must be replaced by one of a multiplicity of power relations emerging from "below" and a multiplicity of "resistances" engendered by them . If applied as a critique of Marxism in general, Foucault's repudiation of "juridic" conceptions of power is, to say the least, unconvincing . First, Marx's refusal to identify particular historical forms of domination (law, the state etc .) with generic categories like "control", "repression", "regulation" or "power" itself led him immediately to a focus on the "positive effects" of power . Punishment of vagabonds, as we saw, is not akin to repression in general, but a repression which produces "voluntary criminals" ; legal relations in general are not seen merely as issuing a prohibition, but as regulating and organising the exchange of commodities around the independence of "juridic subjects" ; the state does not merely repress, but strives to produce and reproduce within the limits imposed by its own form and the conditions necessary for capitalist production .[5] Second, Marx in no way conceives of power simply as invested in and deriving from the state ; the nub of his dialectical method is precisely to reveal the "hidden process" by which the social relations of civil society necessarily take the form of the state . Marx's method can be seen, by drawing an analogy with his critique of the economic forms of value or capital ; in each case, what appears on the surface is the process of "personification", that is, the manner in which value and capital impose their laws on the "bearers" of these relations . What remains concealed from view, however, is the reverse process : namely, the reification of social relations into the form of value or capital .[6] The uncovering of this movement is what Marx calls the "dialectic" . Just as Marx seeks to bring to view the "substance" of economic forms, so too this is his approach to forms of domination . Indeed, the very separation of economic, political, juridic and bureaucratic forms is presented as the product of the particular social relations of capitalist production . Lastly, Marx does not (of course) present the state as the only form of power assumed by the capital relation . The authority of the capitalist over his workers, the power of syndicates over small capitals, the dominance of the father over his family co-exist with the impersonal authority of the state, and provide their own foci of struggle and resistance . I have dwelt on these points of convergence between Marx and Foucault, because of the impression given by the latter, and strongly reinforced by other "Foucaultians",[7] that the restoration of what indeed are the critical questions with regard to power, must entail either a rejection of Marxism tout court or a radical amendment of Marx's method . The "Marxism" that Foucault attacks is perhaps that of the CPF, but it is not that of Marx himself or of an entire revolutionary tradition which lies hidden from Foucault's sight . It is, on the other hand, in this dimension of Foucault's approach to power that his criticalness resides : not so much in terms of the originality of his critique, but in terms of his revival of a



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critical tradition . In this respect, Foucault stands in marked contrast to the "antiauthoritarianism" current which broke from Stalinism and reformism in the mid-sixties, and with which Foucault had strong links .[8) Their denunciation of "authority" as such, irrespective of the social and historical character of its forms, and their doctrine of spontaneous revolt against hierarchy and discipline, reproduced in inverted and radical form exactly the ahistorical and juridical conceptions of power Foucault wishes us to abandon . The decline of this "anti-authoritarianism" lay in its inability to react to the changing and hardening forms of bourgeois rule characteristic of this period (e .g . the serious incursions into traditional legal rights and democratic accountability affected by certain bourgeois states in the context of a deepening crisis of accumulation) . Subsequent efforts to pick up the pieces of this movement provide the context of Foucault's currency within certain sectors of the left . The residue of antiauthoritarianism has gone in a variety of directions : among some into a vehement anti-Marxism characteristic of the Nouveaux Philosophes (with which Foucault has close but not theoretically intimate links) ; among others an absolute defence of legal right ; and for others still a critical entry into the heartland of Marxism . We must still unravel the nature of Foucault's path . Foucault's actual divergence from Marx lies in the manner in which he attempts to characterise the social content of disciplinary power, and in which he derives its formation . Foucault's rejection of a class analysis, on the one hand, and his characterisation, on the other, of any central organising entity (e .g . the revolutionary party or the state) as reproducing disciplinary relations, are where his real opposition to Marxism rests . This, too, is where Foucault picks up on the themes of "anti-authoritarianism", offering a new basis for the diverse and de-centred struggles of prisoners, students, women, blacks, mental patients, welfare recipients, factory workers and so forth against the particular manifestations of disciplinary power in their respective arenas of contact with it . It is to assessing Foucault's substantive analysis of the social basis of "discipline" that I now turn . DISCIPLINE AND DEMOCRACY Foucault, as we have noted, specifies `disciplinary power' in two directions : in terms of its contrast with "traditional" forms of authority, which it replaces, and in terms of its antagonism with democratic forms, with which it co-exists and which it undermines from within . He writes : "Historically, the process by which the bourgeoisie became in the course of the eighteenth century the politically dominant class was masked by the establishment of an explicit, coded and formally egalitarian framework made possible by the organisation of a parliamentary, representative regime . But the development and generalisation of disciplinary mechanisms constituted the other dark side of these processes . The general juridical form that guaranteed a system of

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This non-egalitarian power has the effect, he argues, of producing 'docile bodies' : bodies rationally subjected to the requirements of production and obedience . Thus the 'free subject' of law and democratic politics is "already in himself the effect of a subordination much more profound than himself" . The appearance, says Foucault, is not so much that disciplinary power is a negation of democratic law and politics, as that it represents their extension into areas not covered by the latter ; a kind of "infra-law" working at the "infinitesimal level of individual lives" . But this is illusion . The disciplines should be regarded rather as a sort of 'counter-law'. This antagonism operates in two ways . The disciplines possess their own juridical and penal mechanisms, that are autonomous of law and exempted from any public supervision . Foucault speaks of the proliferation of 'parallel judges' within the disciplines, operating in a sphere well protected from judicial or popular intervention : judges who take the form of technical experts-teachers, doctors, psychologists, guards, social workers etc . For instance, Foucault writes with regard to the penal system : "Small-scale legal systems and parallel judges have multiplied around the principle judgement : psychiatric or psychological experts, magistrates concerned with the implementation of sentences, educationalists, members of the prison service, all fragment the legal power to punish . . ." (D & P, p . 21 .) We find that these 'small-scale legal systems' are protected by walls, by clauses of the Official Secrets Act and by a panoply of regulations from either legal or democratic political surveillance . Foucault encapsulates this penal insulation, when he refers metaphorically to a "Declaration of Carceral Autonomy" . This counter-law is not just an extension of the legal apparatus ; it has its own distinct mode of operation . In place of an egalitarian subjection to universal norms, which formally characterises law, individuals are classified, specialised, and hierarchically ordered along a scale . In place of the adversary procedures of the court room, no space is allowed for the contesting of judgements . In place of the public determination of laws, a secret and bureaucratically enclosed determination is exercised . In place of a contractual link between formally free and equal citizens, a 'private' link is established, which subordinates irreversibly one group to another (children to teachers, prisoners to guards) and secures the subjected in statuses of ranked inequality (students according to merit, workers according to skill and authority, inmates according to the degree of their criminality, soldiers according to rank) . The effect, in Foucault's eyes, is that "The disciplines have been, in the genealogy of modern society, with



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the class domination that traverses it, the political counterpart of the juridical norms according to which power was redistributed ." (D & P,

p . 222.) This is the heart of the matter for Foucault : an exposure of the 'despotic' character of a power, encapsulated in the bureaucratic, military, administrative apparatuses of society ; a unified power in the sense that "prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals which all resemble prisons" ; a power which increasingly subverts the democratic veneer of society ; a common target for a multiplicity of struggles . There is a resemblance between Foucault's antithesis of discipline and democracy and Marx's analysis of the separation within capitalism between the sphere of circulation, productive of democratic forms, and the 'autocratic' sphere of production . Thus, the sphere of circulation, Marx wrote, "within whose boundaries the sale and purchase of labour-power goes on, is in fact a very Eden of the innate rights of man . It is the exclusive realm of Freedom, Equality, Property and Bentham, because both buyer and seller of a commodity, let us say labour-power, are determined only by their own free-will . They contract as free persons, who are equal before the law . . . Equality, because each enters into relation with the other, as with a simple owner of commodities, and they exchange equivalent with equivalent . Property because each disposes only of what is his own . And Bentham, because each looks only to his own advantage ." (Capital, p. 280.) However, when we leave this 'noisy sphere, where everything takes place on the surface and in full view of everyone', and we enter into 'the hidden abode of production, on whose threshold there hangs the notice, 'No admittance except on business', we discover a quite distinct form of domination in practice . In the factory, Marx writes : "the capitalist formulates his autocratic power over his workers like a private legislator, and purely as an emanation of his own will, unaccompanied by either that division of responsibility otherwise so much approved of by the bourgeoisie, or the still more approved representative system" . (Capital, p . 550 .) Marx cites Engels, that the factory "ends all freedom in law and in fact . . . Here the employer is absolute law-giver ; he makes regulations at will, changes and adds to his codes at pleasure ." It was Marx who re-iterated Fourier's depiction of factories as 'mitigated jails'. But Foucault's location of the fundamental contradiction behind bourgeois power as resting in the opposition between discipline and



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legality, rather than (as was the case with Marx) within each modality, gives rise to a formalistic conception of legality .[9] For since legality is offered as the benchmark against which the "despotism" of the disciplines is measured, its own contradictory character is not revealed . Thus Foucault puts himself in the position of not addressing the inequality that provides the content of equal right; as Marx put it, "Right by its very nature can consist only in the application of an equal standard ; but unequal individuals . . . are measurable only by an equal standard in so far as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only . To avoid all these defects, right instead of being equal would have to be unequal" . (Marx, 1973b, Critique of the Gotha Programme, p . 320 .) Nor is Foucault in a position to develop the criticism of this formal equality, when it expresses the purely "illusory" exchange that characterises the relation between capital and labour . When viewed in terms of the relation between the capitalist class as a whole and labour as a whole, exchange becomes "a mere semblance", since that which is exchanged for labour "is itself merely a portion of the product of the labour of others which has been appropriated without equivalent". (Marx, 1976, Capital, I, p . 730.) When exchange, subordinated to capitalist production, becomes a "mere form which is alien to the content of the transaction itself", then the contradictory character of formal legal equality becomes yet more intense . [3] The counterpart of the uncritical stance toward law that follows from Foucault's mode of analysis, is an overcritical approach to the disciplines . While Foucault provides a counterweight against those Marxists who subject to criticism the bourgeois form of law but leave untouched forms of "technical control" (Pashukanis (1978) can be seen as one example of this tendency) the contradictory character of the growth of the disciplines -which after all include the development of medicine, education, psychology and even the "reformatory" over traditional forms of torturecollapses into a blanket condemnation of their despotism . The lesson which some critics have drawn by counterposing formally legality and discipline is an absolute defence of bourgeois right . But this is not the position adopted by Foucault ; he does not end up simply as a democrat. For he sees the roots of discipline deep in the organisation of modern society, such that its subordination to democratic control is (increasingly) impossible . The overcoming of disciplinary power would require a fundamental reorganisation beyond the defense of right. It is to the nature of these roots that I turn . THE SOCIAL CHARACTER OF DISCIPLINE Marx and Foucault share a conception of the authority relations within the factory, the bureaucracies, e tc . as a "modern" form . One of the strengths of Foucault's work lies in his empirical depiction of the contrast between disciplinary and traditional modes of domination .



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At the heart of the disciplines, Foucault argues, lies a distinctive organisation of observation . Discipline is based on the perpetual surveillance of its subjects, as well as on its own administrators : on a surveillance that is public in the sense that everyone knows of their constant subjection to its gaze ; on a surveillance that is non-reciprocal, in that its subjects can neither know nor influence when they are being observed, or what the content and effect of their observation is ; on a surveillance that is asymmetrical, in that its subjects are not in a position themselves to survey their surveyors . These asymetrical relations between observer and observed were given their architectural and organisational monument in the form of Bentham's "panopticon" : a space in which inmates were to be subjected to a perpetual supervision in the isolation of their cells by an 'inspector', whose presence was always visible in the shape of the central guard-tower, but whose particular focus and conclusions were neither within the vision, knowledge or control of the inspected . An institution within which the inspectors themselves could be kept under such supervision, and in which relations between inmates could become ones of mutual inspectionj10] This reversal of the traditional organisation of visibility is exemplified in the transition from the dungeon to the cell ; or in the decline of the spectacle . The spectacles of traditional society, which functioned to "render accessible to a multitude of men the inspection of a small number of objects" ; while discipline solves the problem of the 'modern age' : "to provide for a small number the instant view of a great multitude ." Foucault traces the manner in which the transition from 'traditional' to 'disciplinary' domination also reverses the axis of individualisation . In feudal society, he argues, individuality is greatest in the higher echelons of power . Under a disciplinary regime, on the other hand, individualisation is 'descending' : those who exercise it more anonymous ; those upon whom it is exercised more strongly individuated . The 'ceremony' that characterised traditional power was predicated on an amorphous mass looking on at the individual carrier of power . Under the disciplines, the mass is broken down, analysed, separated into units. This reversal is manifested in the factory, school or prison, where, for the first time, the individual worker, student or inmate is separately identified, recorded and documented ; where each individual is assessed according to hierarchical rankings of worth-in skill, application, conformity ; and where the administration of power revolves around such personal assessments, as for example in the determination of scholarly advancement or length and manner of penal detention . Discipline, argues Foucault, unlike traditional domination, makes each individual a 'case' . Together with its particular focus on the individual, the disciplines introduce, according to Foucault, an attention to the individual unit of behaviour that has no counterpart in traditional power . The disciplines revolve around the minute details of the lives of those subjected to it : of when they get up and go to bed ; when they work and exercise : the posture of their bodies, gestures, tone of voice, content of their words, manner of their dress . It is a power that manifests itself in time-tables, minute regulations, the disciplining of the body . We find it in the regulations concerning



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the sitting postures of schoolchildren, the movements of a worker, the marching step of soldiers, as well as the regimented actions of prisoners . A discipline that makes the houses of confinement of the eighteenth century appear as confused and anarchic masses ; Foucault calls it a 'micro-physics of power'. As a final point of contrast with the 'traditional' power still to be found in the eighteenth century, Foucault compares the 'economy' and 'functionality' of the disciplines with the exercise of 'surplus-power' that characterised the traditional order . Under a disciplinary regime, Foucault argues, power is closely integrated with function : the tasks of education, cure, reform, production etc . are performed by the same mechanisms which insure an effective excercise of domination . The self-same mechanisms of surveillance, isolation and minute regulation effect in principle in the prison a reformation and control of inmates ; in the school an education and control of children ; in the factory efficient production and the subordination of the workforce . The exercise of power is discreet, regular, generalised without interruption ; not entering the scene from outside, but integrated within the normal processes of production, education, therapy, training, reform and so on . Foucault asks us to contrast these 'economical' mechanisms with the form of power that manifested itself, for example, in the punishments of the eighteenth century and in particular in the institutions of public execution . There we find a power that is irregular in its application, circumscribed by the arbitrary dispensations of the sovereign and his judges ; a power whose function is to demonstrate the 'surpluspower' of the sovereign over the people, through the terroristic use of superior force on the body of the condemned . It is not Foucault's empirical description of the contrast between traditional and disciplinary forms that problems arise, but in his explanation of this transition and his characterisation of the disciplines . For Foucault ends up by accepting its appearances as its real nature, by adopting what bourgeois reformers said about discipline as its truth, by failing to dig beneath the surface forms of this power . The bourgeois reformers conceived of the prison, the factory, the school and so on predominantly as technical instruments, that could be used by any ruler, directed to any end ; instruments more rational, economical, effective, widespread, useful than any technique of power that had previously existed . Foucault in no way challenges this advertisement of the wonders of rational power ; rather he appropriates them . Thus in his consideration of the ideology of the reform movement, Foucault notes the humanism which served as one basis of critique of eighteenth century modes of punishment and of the re-organisation of punishment, and he rejects this humanism as a camouflage for the real transformations that were occuring. The rights of 'man' espoused by the reformer, Beccaria, and the French Chancellery of 1789 as the limit and measure of power, Foucault casts as illusion ; the reality, he says, lay in the emergence of a more economical and rational mode of punishment, better distributed, more certain in its effects :



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"The true objective of the reform movement . . . was not so much to establish a new right to punish, based on more equitable principles, as to set up a new economy of power to punish, to assure its better distribution, to render it more regular, effective, constant and detailed in its effects . . . not to punish less, but to punish better. . . It is this 'economic rationality' that must calculate the penalty . . . "Humanity' is the respectable name given to this economy and to its meticulous calculation" (D & P, p . 80) . Foucault attempts to strip away the philanthropic robes of bourgeois reform, in order to expose the naked body of hard calculation and ruthless exercise of power : humanity as the fiction, rationality as the essence . However attractive on the surface, this account misleads ; for both the discourse of humanity and that of rationality were elements of the discourse of reform . Indeed, in the hard-headed utilitarian world of bourgeois politics, in the intense period of class struggle at the turn of the century, it was the language of rational control that predominated . We find it in Bentham who rejected all arguments based on 'humanity', inveighing against those 'sentimental orators' who argue against punishments because they violate 'natural feelings' ; he declares that all punishments are nasty and that we must harden ourselves to that for the sake of the general good . In the arguments against the extensive use of public capital punishment, we find this rational discourse, quite removed from humanitarian impulse, not only in the theorists like Bentham, but also in the bourgeois pressure groups, worried about their property and the failure of law to protect it . The petition to parliament of the owners of the bleachinggrounds will exemplify this point : "The laws which punish the offence with death have been found ineffectual to restrain these depradations ; for that owing to the lenity of the prosecutors the unwillingness of juries to convict and the general leaning to the side of mercy, when by common opinion of mankind the punishment is disproportionate to the offence, very few convictions take place and in consequence offenders mostly escape and are encouraged in the commission of crimes . . . that they are strongly impressed with the sentiment that by certainty of punishment being substituted for severity, crimes would be diminished and your petitioners' property better secured ." Here is the hard discourse of property protection and not that of rights and humanity . What Foucault does is to accept uncritically this hard side of bourgeois discourse as the true meaning of reform ; in effect to take the side of Bentham against Beccaria, the utilitarians against the purveyors of rights . But even when the bourgeoisie are hard, they are not necessarily correct . Foucault's formalism consists in his adoption in analysis of the surface appearance of reform propounded by the reformers . These same features emerge in Foucault's analysis of 'panopticism' . Foucault treats Bentham's utopian design of a model for prisons, asylums, schools, workshops, which he called the 'panopticon', as the epitome, the

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'extreme form' of disciplinary power . Bentham, its author, presented it as a technical development, which any enlightened ruler could use in order to secure an absolute mastery at minimum cost and with the greatest functional benefit . Foucault reproduces exactly Bentham's view of the panoticon as an optimal instrument, a rational technique of control, when he declares : "The panopticon makes it possible to perfect the exercise of power . It does this in several ways : because it can reduce the number of those who exercise it, while increasing the number of those on whom it is exercised . Because it is possible to intervene at any moment, and because the constant pressure acts even before the offences, mistakes or crimes have been committed . . . The panoptic scheme makes any apparatus of power more intense : it assures its economy . . . it assures its efficacity ." (D & P, p . 206 .) Foucault follows Bentham's technical conception of power, when he argues for the functionality of the disciplines for 'ordering of human multiplicities', for 'regulating movements and clearing up confusion', for 'neutralising the effects of counter-power' and increasing the utility proper to multiplicities' . The social and class character of the 'multiplicities', of the 'counter-power' springing from them, and of the 'utility' which is engendered in them, is missing from Foucault's critique . (It corresponds rather to a sociological analysis, that abstracts the dynamics of 'group organisation') . This leads Foucault to assume an "anarchic" position in his critique of the disciplines, objecting to this power on the grounds precisely that it regulates movements and clears up confusion ; that it puts people to useful ends ; and that it suppresses any manifestation of counter-power . We see in Foucault not in fact a revolt against a determinate form of social organisation, but against rational organisation as such . The same problems pervade Foucault's analysis of the emergence of disciplinary power in the nineteenth century . It was not brought about by any change in social relations ; only by, on the one hand, a growth in the quantity scale of organisation and production ; and on the other side, by the economic requirement for a rational and useful ordering . This appears most clearly in Foucault's analysis of the relation between discipline and production, where he locates the development of the disciplinary mechanisms in the very fact of large-scale and productive industry, again independently of its social organisation : "In fact the two processes-the accumulation of men and the accumulation of capital-cannot be separated ; it would not have been possible to have solved the problem of the accumulation of men without the growth of an apparatus of production capable of sustaining them and using them ; conversely, the techniques that made the cumulative multiplicity of men useful accelerated the accumulation of capital ." (D & P, p . 221 .) But we are presented with no analysis of capital, that distinguishes it from



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the means of production in general, and when Foucault refers his readers to the chapter on co-operation in Capital, it is without taking the lesson from that chapter of the need to separate analytically the character of cooperation in general, from that of capitalist co-operation . In the section of Capital Foucault cites, Marx demonstrates the advantages of the "ordering of multiplicities" through co-operation ; "When the worker co-operates in a planned way with others, he strips off the fetters of his individuality and develops the capabilities of his species" (Marx, 1976, Capital, I, p . 447.) Marx argues that while "as a general rule, workers cannot co-operate unless they are employed simultaneously by the same capital", and unless consequently the social labour process is "conditioned by the unavoidable antagonism between the exploiter and the raw material of his exploitation" . (449) The necessity for effective control over the means of poduction exists, because "they confront the wage-labourer as the property of another" ; and the need for effective control over the labourers arises from the fact that their unification is not "their own act", but "the act of capital " : "Hence the interconnection between their various labours confronts them as a plan drawn up by the capitalist, as his authority, as the powerful will of a being outside them, who subjects their activity to his purpose ." (ibid, p . 430 .) It is the capital relation, as Marx showed, that established the necessity for a division of the supervised and the supervisors, for a structure of nonreciprocal observation, judgement and punishment . Foucault falls into the mistake which Marx identifies : to confuse "the function of direction which arises out of the communal labour process with the function of direction made necessary by the capitalist and therefore antagonistic character of the process" . Marx even identifies the double sense of Foucault's error : the first has to do with the structural organisation of labour under capital, whereby each wage-labourer with his or her isolated labour-power to sell, has, prior to its purchase by capital, no connection with other workers . "being independent of each other, the workers are isolated . They enter into relations with the capitalist, but not with each other . . ." (Marx, 1976, Capital, I, p . 451 .) Since under capitalism co-operation only emerges with the unification by capital of isolated wage-labourers, it appears that co-operation is an attribute of capital itself, and thus Foucault's rejection in effect of cooperation . Secondly, the capitalist form of co-operation developed historically in opposition to peasant agriculture and independent handicrafts .



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From the standpoint of the peasant or the artisan or of the theorist reproducing his or her perspective, i .e . Monsieur Foucault, co-operation in general is identified with its capitalist form . It follows from Marx's analysis that "co-operation is a necessary concomitant of all production on a large scale", and that the form it takes under capital's rule, the form that Foucault calls 'disciplinary power', is a feature not of co-operation itself, not of large-scale production, not of a rational and economic form of production, but of the antagonisms of capitalist production . For Foucault, it is the technical requirements of mass production, in other words, it is in effect industrial society, not capital, that is projected as the root of the disciplines . Foucault can only do this by ignoring the social content of capital as a class relation . Foucault's analysis of punishment and the prison carries through the problems of his approach to the question of discipline in general . The prison, according to Foucault, is on the one hand the exemplary and most intense manifestation of disciplinary power . All the mechanisms of minute regulation, surveillance, non-reciprocity, individual isation, perpetual subjection to judgement, reward and punishment, all the barriers against popular or legal control receive in the prison their most naked expression : "The prison must be an exhaustive disciplinary apparatus ; it must assume responsibility for all aspects of the individual, his physical training, his aptitude for work, his everyday conduct, his moral attitude, his state of mind ; the prison, much more than the school, the workshop or the army is 'omni-disciplinary' . . . It carries to their greatest intensity all the procedures to be found in the other disciplinary mechanisms ." (D & P, p. 235 .) On the other hand, in terms of the requirements of disciplinary power, the prison appears as a complete failure . Far from being a rational means of making its subjects obedient, of creating 'docile bodies', the prison has been criticised from the outset as a source of recidivism and criminal culture, as a 'school for crime' . Far from integrating power and function, its attempts at reform and rehabilitation appear thwarted by its own authoritarian and antagonistic structure . Far from being an 'economic' apparatus, the prison has never succeeded either in becoming itself a 'productive' institution or in integrating its inmates in productive labour . And yet the prison persists, offered continually as its own solution . How does Foucault resolve this contradiction between the prison as the 'omnidisciplinary' mechanism and its apparent failure to manifest any of the criteria of rationality, utility, and economy which, he says, define the disciplines? For Foucault, the resolution is achieved by resorting to a functionalism, (the very reduction of form to function which he program matically rejected) that on the one hand presupposes the rational performance of its functions by the prison, and on the other relocates the real, latent functions which the prison performs . In the very failure of the prison, according to Foucault, lies its rational core :



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"Is not the supposed failure part of the functioning of the prison? . . . One should ask oneself what is served by the failure of the prison ; what is the use of these different phenomena that are constantly being criticised?" (D & P, p . 272 .) The true function of the prison is not to eliminate illegality, but to neutralise it : to limit its dangerousness ; isolate it from the people, dissociate it from politics . Its real effect is not the 'negative' one of repressing crime ; but the 'positive' one of identifying illegality with what Foucault calls 'delinquency' . He sees delinquency as the offspring of the prison ; a form of illegality that is pathologised, deprived of any political content, individualised in such a way that is directed against other citizens in the manner of Hobbes' war of each against all . The prison creates an illegality which is easy to supervise, limited to an enclosed group of individuals, kept by the pressure of controls on the 'fringes of society' ; useful economically, as with the institution of prostitution and drug rackets ; and useful politically, with the employment of delinquents as informers, agents provocateurs and strike-breakers ; and one which provides for the dominant class a rationale for an unparallelled supervision of the entire society . The prison does not do this alone, but it appears to Foucault as a crucial cog in the disciplinary machinery of delinquency-creation . He writes : "The prison is intended not so much to eliminate offences, as to assimilate the transgression of laws in a general tactic of subjection . . . Apparently failing the prison does not miss its target . . . It helps to establish an open illegality, irreducible at a certain level and secretly useful, brings out a form of illegality that seems to sum up symbolically all the others . . . This form is delinquency . . . One should see in delinquency not the most intense, most harmful form of illegality . . . it is rather an effect of penality, that makes it possible to differentiate, accommodate and supervise illegalities ." (D & P, p . 276 .) Thus for Foucault the contradiction is resolved : by means of a convergence of his rationalist analysis of the form of disciplinary power with a functionalist account of the effects of the prison . The former fails to dig beneath the surface appearances of the form of the disciplines, thus accepting uncritically their supposed rationality : the latter pre-supposes the rational functioning of the prison, seeking only to fill in the hidden content of those functions . THEORY OF POWER We are now in a position to re-assess Foucault's conception of power in its actual movement . It is not so much that Foucault offers the axis of power as a substitute for or as a complement to the axis of production . Rather, he makes of power a kind of a priori that "produces reality . . . domains of objects and rituals of truth", and is itself not reducible to any other kind of relation . Power appears as a constitutive subject, not exercised on something whose existence is independent of it, but creating the



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very objects on which it is imposed . One can draw an analogy between the notion that "power produces reality" and the equally absurd notion that "labour is the source of all wealth" . In the latter case, Marx points out that "labour is not the source of all wealth" . He continues : "Nature is just as much the source of use-values . . . as labour, which itself is only the manifestation of a form of nature, human labour power . . .In so far as man from the beginning behaves toward nature, the primary source of all instruments and subjects of labour, as an owner, treats her as belonging to him, his labour appears the source of use values, therefore also of wealth" (Marx, 1973, Critique of the

Gotha Programme, p . 319) . Similarly, it is not the case that power produces reality ; power is wielded on people, whose relations to nature are just as much the source of their "reality" as the power relations within which they move . People already exist-"as a manifestation of a form of nature"-before they can be subjected to modes of regulation and control . Indeed it is only in so far as people behave towards other people as is they are no more than instruments of their own will, that is, in so far as power appears to have no bounds, that it (power) can appear to "produce reality" . This conception -that expresses the ideal of capital, that labour become merely one moment of its circuit of accumulation-is a useful one for the bourgeoisie . For it is from the very fact that the exercise of power depends on material conditions existing independently of it, that it follows that people who do not have access to those conditions become the victims of the wielders of power . Foucault's myth of the omnipotence of "panopticism" reproduces precisely this metaphysic . This "dream of absolute domination" (Dews, 1979, p . 165) . Foucault assimilates at face value : as if the "trap of visibility", the very force of the one-way gaze, the "look of the other" were sufficient for securing this domination . What Foucault ignores is the material conditions necessary not only for the construction and administration of this monument, but also for the imposition of physical sanctions when obedience breaks down . The production of a field of visibility does not in itself constrain, however much Foucault (or his mentor, in this respect, Sartre) might believe .[]1 ] Foucault's supernatural conception of power leads him to forget that the disciplines are imposed on subjects whose connection with nature are mediated by social and historical relations of production . Thus the individualising effects of the disciplines or the "delinquency effects" of the penitentiary are imposed on subjects already individuated and forced into mututal antagonism by relations of capitalist production . But to Foucault they appear as no more than "the reality" produced by disciplinary power . The counterpart of seeing power as constitutive of reality is Foucault's inability to explain the emergence of different forms of power . For if there is nothing outside of power, power can only appear as unconditioned, its existence positivistically assumed . We have seen how Foucault attempted to derive the emergence of discipline from the very develop-



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ment of the forces of production and from the requirements of largescale organisation which this leads to ; and I have pointed to Foucault's inability to do so . There is nothing about "co-operation" itself, on however extended a scale, that necessarily leads to disciplinary forms of control, as Foucault described them . It is only when specific relations of production are taken into account-which Foucault fails to do-that the foundations of discipline can be unearthed . But Foucault's difficulties run still deeper than this . For he presents the very development of productive forces as the "reality" produced by discipline . What is offered as the basis for the emergence of disciplines is simultaneously analysed as their effect . If this explanation is revealed as "tautological", the emergence of the disciplines may then either appear positivistically as a brute and unconditional fact of history . Or, as Foucault's followers among the Nouveaux Philosophes have done in a way that fits unhappily with Foucault's approach, the emergence of the disciplines may be explained idealistically as the product of the autonomous growth of rationality .[12] A power that produces reality also produces its own resistances . There is, Foucault argues, no nature (the free individual, sexuality etc .) seeking liberation from repression, for that "nature" is already the effect of the operations of power . Resistance is "co-extensive and contemporary with power", generated by power as its counter-effect . There is no possibility that power will not produce its own retaliatory struggles . Why? Foucault resorts to a metaphysic of rebellion : "There is always something in the social body, in classes, in groups, in individuals themselves which in a certain way escapes relations of power" . (quoted in Dews, 1979, p . 166 .) But since it is a power itself that creates its own resistance, the latter can never be subversive . It is merely the counterpart of the power that generates it . Thus "delinquency" is the rebellion produced by the carceral disciplines ; at the same time, it is the manipulable and exploitable means of the reinforcement of discipline itself . All that Foucault can offer is a celebration of this delinquency . He looks to Fournier and the Phalange as his model : with their defence of the criminal as the 'affirmation of a living force', as the one who rejects a master in the name of 'independence', who rejects work in the name of 'freedom', who rejects a time-table in the name of 'fullness of days and nights'. But what has happened in between, to effect this astonishing transformation of the criminal from bourgeois instrument to champion of the fight against the disciplines? No subjection of the criminal to the rigours of proletarian discipline ; so social transformation ; no hope of success . Only a transubstantiation at the ideal level of consciousness . Foucault's refusal to identify power with repression turns in on itself. The antithesis of "freedom" and "repression" is based on the form of appearance of the commodity producer as a free agent whose actions are determined only by his or her own free will . Repression, from this point of view, appears as the encroachment of another person's will onto this right to buy, sell and produce what one pleases . The illusoriness of this freedom



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is derived from its dependence on the impersonal compulsions of the market and on the impersonal character of the subordination of labour to capital . The crux of the matter is that mediating the capital-labour relation is a pure money relation . It is, therefore, precisely the introduction of direct political, personal or patriarchal constraints into the capital relation which appears as the 'repression' of the 'free subject' . It is a 'petit-bourgeois' ideology inasmuch as the 'freedom' defended is that of the petty commodity producer . Thus Foucault is correct to reject programmatically the dichotomy of freedom and repression, and replace it with an analysis of determinate organisational forms of power . However, when we examine his theory of the 'disciplines', we find a retrenchment to precisely this 'petit-bourgeois' conception . The disciplines are denounced on the grounds that they are the most complete, most efficient, most pervasive, most rational form of subordination ; that is, in quantitative terms they encroach more than any other mode of exercising power : But on what? There is nothing left but the natural freedom of the individual . The disciplines appear to Foucault as the most intense of powers, and he writes at one point of the 'total mastery' which they engender . Meanwhile, the basis of the disciplines appears as the development of large-scale collective organisation, in opposition to the individual commodity owner . It is in effect the antagonism between the social character of capitalist production and the private character of petty commodity production that in the end provides the foundation for Foucault's critique of the disciplines, despite all his programmatic statements to the contrary . Foucault's revolt against descipline ends up as opposition to largescale organisation itself, to the "rational" employment of labour, to any authority that clamps down on resistance, to any power which "regulates movements and clears up confusion" ; indeed to power itself. He fails to fathom the contradictory aspects of discipline . The collective discipline which capital imposes on the working class, the knowledge and resources which capital puts at their disposal, provide the foundation within capital of the revolt against capital . The disciplined collective labour engendered in the factory, the educated collective labour engendered in the school, even the armed collective labour engendered in the military represent not only the domination of capital, but also the germ within capital of the forces equipped with the will and the capacity to overthrow it . It is these skills and this collective discipline alone that can provide the conditions of a struggle that can rock the pillars of the established order . On the other side of Foucault's revolt lies a conservatism that sees in socialism merely a replication of the forms of power existing in the capitalist world ; that sees in the discipline of working class movements only a replication of bourgeois discipline ; that breeds a deep pessimism about the possibilities of historical transformation . We need to develop our critique of the premisses of this pessimism and at the same time to give focus to the revolt which constitutes the other face of Foucault's waivering consciousness . We require, in short, an approach to power in which the prison and its kindred instutions can be subjected to revolutionary criticism and practical transformation .



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FOOTNOTES My thanks to Simon Clarke, Simon Frith, Jean Lane, John Annette, Carol Brigden, Jock Young, John Lea, Richard Kinsey, Jenny Long, Martin Thomas and the CSE Law and State Group for their help in producing this paper . I have listed in the bibliography the major background works of Foucault that I have consulted . The most penetrating critique I have read is that offered by Peter Dews, 1979, who examines the links between Foucault and the "Nouveaux Philosophes" . See D'Amico 1978 and Zinner 1978 for friendlier reviews of Foucault ; and Melossi 1979 for an example of an attempt by a Marxist to use Foucault's concepts . 2 See Holloway and Picciotto, 1979 . See Engels 1973, Lenin 1973 and Trotsky 1973 . 3 4 See The Eighteenth Brumaire and The Civil War in France, 1973 . 5 See Pashukanis, 1979 . 6 See Rubin 1972 . Especially Glucksmann 1977 and Levy 1977 . 7 8 See Hobsbawm 1979, Fine 1977a, Young 1979 and Thompson 1978b . 9 See Lea 1979, Picciotto 1979 and Fine 1979 . 10 See Bentham 1972 . 11 See Fine 1977b . 12 See Glucksmann 1977 and Dews' critique . 1

BIBLIOGRAPHY Bentham, J ., 1972, Works, ed . by J . Bowring, Vol . 4, Russell and Russell . CSE-NDC, 1979, Capitalism and the Rule of Law, Hutchinson . Dews, P ., 1979, "The Nouvelle Philosophie and Foucault", Economy and Society, 8, 2 . D'Amico, 1978, "Review of Foucault", Telos, 36 . Fine, B ., 1977a, "Labelling Theory", Economy and Society, 6, 2 . Fine, B ., 1977b, "Bourgeois Power", Economy and Society, 6, 4 . Fine, B ., 1979, "Class and Law", in CSE-NDC, 1979 . Foucault, M ., 1967, Madness and Civilisation, Mentor . Foucault, M ., 1975, Discipline and Punish, Allen Lane . Foucault, M ., 1976, La Volunte du Saviour, Gallimard . Foucault, M ., 1977a, "Power and Sex", Telos, 32 . Foucault, M ., 1977b, "Prison Talk", Radical Philosophy, 16 . Glucksmann, A ., 1977, Les Maitres Penseurs, Grasset . Hobsbawm, E ., 1977, "Reflections on Anarchism", in Revolutionaries, Quartet . Holloway, J ., and Picciotto, S ., 1978, State and Capital, Edward Arnold . Lea, J ., 1979, "Discipline and Capitalist Development", in CSE-NDC, 1979 . Lenin, V ., 1973, State and Revolution, Foreign Language Press, Peking . Levy, B-H ., La Barbarie a Visage Humain, Grasset . Marx, K ., 1973a, "The Civil War in France" in Marx and Engels, 1973 . Marx, K ., 1973b, "Critique of the Gotha Programme", in Marx and Engels, 1973 . Marx, K ., 1975, Selected Correspondence, Progress. Mark, K ., 1976, Capital l, Penguin .



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Marx, K . and Engels, F ., Selected Works, Lawrence and Wishart . Melossi, D ., 1979, "Institutions of Social Control and the Capitalist Organisation of Work", in CSE-NDC, 1979 . Pashukanis, E ., 1978, Law and Marxism, Inklinks . Rubin, I ., 1972, Essays on Marx's Theory of Value, Black and Red . Stalin, j ., 1973, The Essential Stalin, e d . b y B . Franklin, Croom Helm . Thompson, E ., 1978a, The Poverty of Theory, Merlin . Thompson, E ., 1978b, "Introduction", in State Research Papers . Trotsky, L ., 1973 Revolution Betrayed, Pathfinder. Young, J ., 1979, "Left Idealism, Reformism and Beyond", in CSE-NDC 1979 . Zinner, J ., "Review of Foucault", Telos, 36 .

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STRATEGY WHICH WAY 'OUT OF THE GHETTO'? Diane Elson

INTRODUCTION This paper is a critique of a book by David Purdy and Mike Prior, recently published by Spokesman, entitled Out of the Ghetto . In an earlier, mimeographed form, this book was an intervention in the debate over the CPGB's new version of 'The British Road to Socialism' . But it raises issues of continuing importance to the left in Britain, particularly as we begin the reappraisal of the strategy of the labour movement following the victory of the Conservative Party in a General Election in which the Marxist candidates, from the Communist Party, the Workers Revolutionary Party, and Socialist Unity, generally polled less votes than the candidates of the National Front ; and in 'which considerable numbers of working class people appear to have switched their vote from the Labour to the Conservative Party . The marginalisation of the British left, our confinement in a political ghetto, has once again been forcibly demonstrated . The importance of Purdy and Prior is that they do not try to explain away this uncomfortable fact . They do not fall back on the traditional scapegoats-a popular press which churns out reactionary propaganda ; the congenital propensity of leaders of the Labour Party and the Trade Unions to 'betray' the working class ; the 'false consciousness' and 'backwardness' of certain sections of the working class who fail to see where their real interests lie . Instead of looking for reasons outside the left, Purdy and Prior suggest that the reasons lie within the theory and practice of the left itself. It is this latter that must be regenerated . If past experience is anything to go by, there is a danger that their diagnosis and prescriptions will be simply rejected with reflex cries of 'revisionism' or 'reformism' . In my view such ritual denunciation would be an empty evasion of the real problems with which Purdy and Prior are attempting to grapple . The most important of these is the problem of understanding the struggle for socialism as an historical process in which human agency unlocks a new potential already inscribed within existing societies ; and on this basis, of conducting a politics which is practical



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(i .e. materially based) and pre-figurative (i .e . incorporates aspects of the socialism it is trying to create) . I think that Purdy and Prior are correct in claiming that the British left has failed to construct a practical and prefigurative socialist politics ; but I shall argue that their own proposals also fall short of this aim . One of the main reasons for this is the inadequacy of the concepts which Purdy and Prior use to produce their alternative strategy . In my view, it is the lack of concepts with which to think a practical, pre-figurative, political struggle for socialism which pushes Purdy and Prior in the direction of reformism, even though that is not where they have set out to go . The problem is not that they have chosen the wrong destination, but that they have not got the instruments necessary for finding the route . I do not claim that I have a ready-made set on offer, much less a finished map . I conclude with a few brief suggestions as to what kind of concepts we need to begin the task of finding our way 'Out of the Ghetto' . PURDY'S AND PRIOR'S DIAGNOSIS : THE BIFURCATION OF HISTORICAL PROCESS Purdy and Prior locate the fundamental weakness of the British left in its bifurcation of historical process, its belief that there is a sharp separation in time between the overthrowing of capitalism and the building of socialism, filled only by the climacteric moment of the capture of state power . (Whether by a victory at the polls, as envisaged by those who believe in the 'parliamentary road', or by a kind of coup d'etat carried out by the Workers' party by those who subscribe to a Bolshevik model) . Nothing can be done about the building of socialism until after that moment ; and unless it is judged that that moment is imminent, political practice can only be negative and oppositional, against capitalism but not building socialism . The left in Britain has judged that such a moment is not imminent and thus its political practice is to foster a one-sided destructive militancy under such slogans as 'the working class is in no way responsible for the crisis and refuses to pay any of the costs' . It encourages the working class to fight against capital by wage-militancy, while theoretically recognising that pure wage-militancy will have to be superseded if socialism is to be achieved . This gap between theory and practice is glossed over by postponing socialist practice to the ever more distant future, after the revolution . In the words of Purdy and Prior, it is assumed that 'current policies need have no more than a sloganistic connection with a future socialist society .' (p . 106) Or, we might say, instead of left politics being practical and pre-figurative of socialism, it is merely rhetorical and its forms mirror those of capitalism . Purdy and Prior declare that it is not true that a society is solidly capitalistic until some revolutionary epoch when it changes overnight to socialism . They argue that capitalism has only become advanced by accepting its own partial deformation, deformations which are incipiently socialist and which provide a material basis for practical socialist politics . The aim is that, "in all situations socialism must be a concrete force, limited to propa-

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gandistic intervention only when it is compelled to be, but wherever possible embodied in real social institutions and actively changing people's lives" . (p . 37 .) And a socialist strategy means, "unlocking the socialist potential lodged within current social practice in order to inscribe its logic firmly into the functioning of society . Viewed in this way socialism is less a distant goal still to be achieved and more a partially achieved reality in the process of formation" . (p . 38 .) They conclude their first chapter by declaring : "The strategic task facing socialists is not that of preparing for a seizure of state power in some moment of supreme initiative and then proceeding to construct socialism from scratch . It is rather one of identifying the loci of deformation within capitalism and seeking to push these points of vulnerability as far and as fast as the balance of forces in any given situation will allow ." (p . 57.) I agree with these criticisms which Purdy and Prior make of the British left, and which as far as I can see apply to every major tendency of the organised left . Whatever the differences in historical origins and theoretical tradition, current political practice on the left almost invariably exemplifies the belief that there is a discrete distinction between struggling against capitalism and building socialism . The former is what we must do now, the latter can only be begun `after the revolution, (i .e . the climacteric seizure of state power) . One symptom of this is the dominance of economism, i .e . the struggle to defend and further working class interests as delimited and defined by the capitalist mode of production, a struggle which is essentially for better terms of exploitation, in particular for higher wages . Claims to be 'Leninist' and/or `Trotskyite' do not get round the fact that in practical terms this politics does not transcend that of 'trade union consciousness' . The illusion that it does is the result of the superimposition of a revolutionary rhetoric upon an essentially economistic practice . The gap between the two is sometimes bridged by the belief that a vigorously pursued economism can precipitate a revolutionary crisis . But so long as the means of production are a form of capital, the struggle for better terms of exploitation is inherently limited, for capital retains the initiative . A clear analysis of these limits is given by Marx in Wages, Price and Profit. These limits cannot be overcome by a rhetoric of class militancy and solidarity ; they can only be pushed back by attenuating the relation between the means of production and capital, loosening the grip of dead labour over living labour . Others, who recognise the material limits to economism, nevertheless pursue an economistic practice in the belief that this will bring the working class to a realisation that it is unable to protect, and advance, its



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interests in a capitalist society and will therefore be convinced of the necessity for socialism, and become ready for a revolutionary seizure of state power . But there is no necessary connection between the two. In itself the recognition of the limitations of, say, a wages offensive, may result in de-politicisation, a disillusioned quiescence ; or it may result in a search for other potential causes besides capitalism, possibly to a receptiveness to fascist ideas . People do need to feel that they can do something here and now to change social relations ; they become tired of waiting until sufficient numbers of other people have been 'converted' to socialism to make 'the' revolution possible . In recognising the limits to economism, we must be careful not to retreat from all practical activity into a politics of ideology . As Marx and Engels put it : "In reality and for the practical materialist, i .e . the communist, it is a question of revolutionising the existing world, of practically attacking and changing existing things ." (German Ideology, p . 62) But there is also the opposite danger, of concentrating on practical intervention in the current conjuncture, and losing all sight of the future, of the goal of a socialist society . Grasping the simultaneity of the struggle against capitalism and for socialism seems to me to be most important . The problem is : "How can the present be welded to the future, so that while satisfying the urgent necessities of the one we may work effectively to create and anticipate the other?" (Gramsci, 1977, p . 65.) The great merit of and try to find a process around a different kinds of

Purdy and Prior is that they take this question seriously way of overcoming the tendency to bifurcate historical single axis, a single moment of rupture between two society . Unfortunately, in my view they do not succeed .

The Socialist Social Contract Incomes policy, in the view of Purdy and Prior, is one of those deformations that have arisen in advanced capitalism which can be used as a spring board towards socialism . They argue that : "There have been only a few years in the past fifteen when the government of the day has not sought to exert some form of direct control over the movement of prices and money incomes . In part this has merely been a consequence of the critical condition of British capitalism over this period . But it also testifies to the advanced state which the socialising tendencies characteristic of post-war capitalism have attained in Britain ." (p . 119) ; and go on to claim that, "Correctly used a social contract becomes an instrument for the assertion of a coherent working class strategy for the national economy ." (p . 130)



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SOME PROBLEMS IN PURDY'S AND PRIOR'S ANALYSIS The correct use, according to Purdy and Prior, is to accept restraint of money wages for the gtlid pro quo of an extension of working class power to influence national economic policy on 'The volume, pace and composisiton of investment, the pattern of production and consumption, the scale, direction and composition of foreign trade, the character and consequence of technical innovation .' (p . 129.) This influence would be exercised through the development of such institutions as the National Enterprise Board, a system of planning agreements with leading private corporations and the democratisation of industrial policy formation and management. (p . 135) This, they argue, would be a socialist form of social contract, whereas, "a perspective of wringing the maximum practicable sectoral wage concessions out of employers within the narrow limits set by the prevailing harsh economic environment, scarcely amounts to a socialist crusade ." (p . 121) Of course the political limitations of free collective bargaining over wages at the point of production are recognised by most sections of the left-but the usual response is that these limitations can be met by the injection of a socialist rhetoric into trade union struggles from the outside, by 'the party' . Rhetoric has been made the criterion of socialist practice, not the extent to which the practice is capable of superseding capitalist social forms and prefiguring socialist social forms . It is the merit of the Purdy/Prior approach that they see through the rhetoric and recognise the need to develop a specifically new social practice with respect to wage bargaining itself, rather than struggle for a return to so-called free collective bargaining as if this were the touchstone of the struggle for socialism. I would not deny that there is in fact a potentially socialist aspect of free collective bargaining : and that is its collectivity, the principles of combination and solidarity . But this socialist aspect is necessarily extremely limited so long as the struggle is confined to the point of production, for here workers are divided into different groups,[1] the solidarity stretches only so far . . . And it is also limited by the forms of collectivity adopted, of whether the combination is only formal, simply residing in the payment of union dues, or whether it is real and rooted in the self-activity of the working class . It is quite possible for trade unions to degenerate into purely sectional interest groups (cf . the dispute between the TGWU and the NUR over the Didcot depot) whereas what the struggle for socialism demands of the working class is not the retreat into economic corporatism but the development of a wide enough social perspective to achieve hegemony . This demands new practices not mere slogans . Thus both because I agree with Purdy and Prior about the futility of a wages offensive, and because I agree with them that state intervention in income determination might be exploited as a potential stepping stone leading beyond some of the limitations of free collective bargaining, I am in principle in agreement with a strategy of trying to develop a new approach,



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and not simply calling for a return to free collective bargaining . However it seems to me that this cannot be done by trying to negotiate a socialist social contract . Purdy and Prior regard their proposals as constituting a socialist social contract because negotiations over wages take place at the level of the state, and because there is a quid pro quo for money wage restraint in the form of increased influence of the trade union movement over national economic policy, particularly over the restructuring of production . But this specification does not escape the traps of economism and substitutionism which Purdy and Prior themselves regard as hallmarks of reformism (p . 39) and from which they seek to differentiate themselves . It is the substitutionism, the abstraction, of the Purdy/Prior proposals which will probably be most evident to activists on the left . The danger with proposals for a socialist social contract is that of substituting the agency of trade union head office officials for the agency of shop floor working class organisation . What does the Purdy/Prior scheme leave for shop stewards to do? Will it not lead to the atrophy of the labour movement as the self-activity of the working class, leaving the working class with only the role of choosing between different general secretaries? It seems to me essential that a socialist strategy on wage determination does not remove effective policy making from the shop floor ; does not in the interests of a wider collectivity reduce the form of collectivity to mere passive membership, requiring no creative action, on the part of the majority . But Purdy and Prior do not tackle this problem head-on and give us very little clue to their thinking on this . The only reference to the role that shop stewards might play comes in discussion of planning agreements, which are seen as a key instrument in extending the influence of the labour movement over the economy, but this is still posed in very abstract terms : "each planning agreement would need to be discussed and negotiated on the broadest possible multilateral basis, involving in addition to government and company representatives, union officials, shop stewards, local authorities, community bodies, environmental interests and so on". (p . 153 .) In discussing the limitations of free collective bargaining, Purdy and Prior rightly note that wage bargaining "is an arena within which class struggle is continually mobilised and at the same time contained" . Unfortunately, what their proposals in effect do is to cut out of the wage bargaining process the potentially progressive element, the continual mobilisation of class struggle concretely, on the shop/office floor, without substituting some other focus for the mobilisation of class struggle at the point of production . The Purdy/Prior proposals also seem to me not to get beyond economism, but merely take economism to a higher level of integration . In their own words : "In principle a social contract is nothing more than an economy-wide



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agreement between the government and the trade union movement under which rules are drawn up to regulate pay settlements within lower level bargaining units in return for an explicit commitment by the government to a particular set of economic and social policies . . . a social contract recognisably belongs to the same species as more familiar modes of collective bargaining" . (p . 127 .) However, for Purdy and Prior this does not show that their proposal is simply a more coherent form of economism . In their view such a social contract transcends economism because "Negotiation at this level falls by definition within the domain of politics since the terms under negotiation are the policy of the state itself" . (p . 127 .) And it becomes a socialist social contract when in return for wage restraint the trade union movement secures an extension of its power to influence the restructuring of the economy . This seems to me a completely mechanistic appreciation of what is political, and a mis-specification of what separates an economistic from a socialist form of class struggle . Simply because the negotiation is about the policy of the state and the restructuring of the economy does not mean that the process of class struggle will no longer be contained by the economistic objective of an improvement in the terms and conditions of exploitation . To show that we have gone beyond the limits posed by economism, it is necessary to show the way in which a particular practice specifically challenges capitalist class relations, points the way to the end of capitalist exploitation and the beginning of the self-determination of the working class . To do this it is not enough to argue that a certain strategy increases the power of the working class in some unspecific general sense-it might simply be power of its leaders to secure better terms and conditions of exploitation, to redistribute income for example, not power to challenge capitalist class relations, to substitute proletarian for bourgeois hegemony . Going beyond economism does not of course mean ceasing to struggle for a better standard of living for the working class here and now : class struggle under capitalism is always to some extent economistic, to some extent a struggle for better terms of exploitation . What matters is whether the economistic aspect dominates the forms of the struggle, stunting the development of forms of proletarian hegemony . But simply transports the site of the struggle over wages from the shop floor to the offices of Whitehall and making it more coherent, less fragmented, does not in itself guarantee that the struggle has overcome the limitations of economism .

The structure of concepts: articulation of a socialist and a capitalist mode of production The shortcomings of the Purdy/Prior proposals seem to me to stem from the inadequacy of the concepts they use to think their strategy . At the root of the trouble is their tendency to see as socialist any practice which transcends in some way the anarchy and individualism of the free



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market, provided that it also seems in some unspecified way to be in the interests of, or increase the influence or power of, the working class, or its organisations . Thus their criterion of a socialist form or practice comes very close to being the non-market character of the social nexus on which it is based, rather than its class content, although they seem somewhat uneasy with this criterion, as their somewhat shifting treatment of the state shows . Let me substantiate this point, and then show why it matters, and how it gives rise to the positions I have criticised . The argument that there are deformations in advanced capitalist societies, (of which incomes policy is one), which provide the basis for socialist practice here and now, is couched by Purdy and Prior in terms of the articulation of different modes of production within one social formation . They suggest that in the social formations of advanced capitalism, the capitalist mode of production is dominant, but a socialist mode is also present, though subordinate . It is worth quoting at some length the example they give to explain what they mean, since it contains within it, implicitly, what Purdy and Prior understand by 'capitalism' and 'socialism'. "An example of such a shift [in the balance between capitalist and socialist modes of production in a social formation of advanced capitalism . (D . E .)] and its reversal is the course of events in Britain during and after the Second World War . For the duration of the war Britain was placed on a footing which, although not socialist, had strong elements of that social collectivism which is at least part of socialism. The means of production were not taken into public ownership on any widespread scale . But the principles guiding social action had a strong egalitarian and collectivist flavour . By deliberately suppressing competitive market forces the state placed the capitalist economy in a condition of suspended animation . After the war there ensued a protracted conflict between the incipient socialism contained within this social collectivism and the traditional capitalist principles of free enterprise, individualism and laissez-faire . In the class compromise, by which this clash was temporarily resolved, socialist gains were not anulled . But their further expansion received a check . Elements of socialism -embodied in the welfare state, the commitment to macroeconomic management and a full-employment policy and the nationalisation of key sectors-were integrated into a new social equilibrium." (p . 26) It is clear from this that they are inclined to view capitalism and socialism in terms of the social nexus that regulates activities, rather than in terms of the class relation in which surplus labour is extracted . The growing role of non-market forms of social nexus, particularly the social nexus of the state apparatus, is for them prima facie evidence that certain activities fall within a socialist mode of production . "The state sector is the most important example of a mode of production within capitalist society which is not itself organised within capitalist relations of production ." (p . 138)

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"the degree to which the British economy already contains a major degree of [state] regulation should not be forgotten . In a purely economic sense there is little novelty about socialism in Britain ." (p . 52 .) In fact their position here is closely analogous to that of Sweezy in the debate about the transition from feudalism to capitalism, in which Sweezy saw the market nexus as the decisively capitalist form, and the towns constituted for him sectors of capitalism within the feudal economy . One could criticise this simply at the level of abstract theorymany of the concepts necessary for the critique of this 'articulation' view of transition are developed in two recent articles, Banaji, 1977 and Brenner, 1977 . But in this context it is much more important to evaluate the political consequences of this perspective . Any perspective formulated in terms of the articulation of capitalist and socialist modes of production in a social formation in which capital is the dominant mode, runs the risk of proposing a political strategy simply in terms of extending, in a purely quantitative fashion, the existing socialist mode of production to encompass more and more activities . The metaphor is of some territory already having been won for socialism, and the struggle being one of extending those liberated zones . And it is in these terms that Purdy and Prior frequently couch their analysis, despite an insistence in their first chapter that they are not suggesting that 'islands' of socialism exist within a capitalist Britain . To give one example-(emphasis added by me) : " . . the left has unwittingly lent its support to those reactionary forces who correctly perceive that the steady march of socialisation has profoundly disturbed the normal functioning of the market mechanisms and its associated free enterprise and individualist ideology and who desire therefore to roll back the frontier of state activity and to restore a 'proper' relationship between state and market ." (p . 137.) Similarly there is argued to be "a clear progression in the development of social responsibility for medicine", starting from the first stage in which medicine remains a private industry, through various forms of state intervention to the stage reached in Britain, and Britain alone of all capitalist countries, of the provision of medical funds out of general taxation and medical workers becoming state employees . (pp . 138-140 .) What is left out of this account of the development of state activity in health services is that the progression towards full nationalisation is accompanied by the use of ever more sophisticated devices to simulate, within the state sector, market processes in order to allocate resources, determine priorities, etc . The advanced state of nationalisation of the health sector in Britain is accompanied by the advanced state of 'Health Economics' which, on the basis of neo-classical economics, is concerned to develop accounting and decision-making procedures for the NHS which will as near as possible reproduce market processes in situations where there is no market . This



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tendency is present throughout the state sector : on the one hand to remove the actual market as the regulating mechanism, but at the same time to develop accounting and decision-making procedures which rather than seeking to replace the market with democratic and socialist forms of allocation and discipline, seek to simulate and reproduce the market process . In short, the state sector is not a mode of production "which is not itself organised within capitalist relations of production" : aspects prefigurative of socialism and reproductive of capitalism contend within all the forms of the state sector itself . And I would argue that there is a similar duality about all the examples which Purdy and Prior give of the presence of a socialist mode of production, so that one is continually saying, in response to their text, 'Yes . . . BUT . . .' It's like watching an out of focus picture : many of the elements for a clear picture are there, but they are not being put together in quite the right way . The slide towards reformism The failure to recognise and analyse clearly this duality can lead to a reformist rather than a revolutionary practice in which the struggle for socialism is equated with the achievement of more and more state regulation, more and more nationalisation ; in fact a gradual extension of the state sector, such that one day we wake up and find that, lo and behold, there is no more private enterprise and socialism has been achieved-in short, the perspective of the traditional Labour Left which Purdy and Prior have been at such pains to try to transcend . Purdy and Prior do show signs of awareness that their characterisation of the state sector may push them in that unwelcome direction, but their conceptual apparatus gives them no clear way of analysing the duality of the state sector, so as to avoid the Tribunite position . Thus they recognise that : "in addition to ideological opposition there is another, more legitimate stream of criticisms of state activity, stemming from the bureaucracy and inertia which has developed within it . This tendency has various origins but an important one is the ambiguity which attends the functions of the state sector . Increasingly its required standards of performance contain a mixture of commercial and social guidelines . These are almost impossible to operate except within the bounds of a bureaucracy which lays down minute procedures lacking purpose or justification outside the bureaucracy ." (p . 142) ; and that, "State activity has been directed towards the defence and development of capitalist society, tasks in which it has achieved a large measure of success." (p . 73) ; and even get as far as saying, at one point, that state intervention "is invariably contradictory ." (p . 74 .)

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But they have no way of analysing the nature and dynamic of that contradiction . So it is not surprising that they offer only a premature invocation of 'concrete analysis' on the basis of a species of functionalism . The position that they most consistently put forward is that the state sector is fundamentally a socialist mode of production, but that it can be used either in the interests of capital or in the interests of the working class ; whose interest it is serving at any particular time can only be ascertained by 'concrete analysis'. (See in particular p . 79 and p . 138 for examples .) The trouble with this functionalist approach is that the 'interests of capital' and the 'interests of the working class' are totally ambiguous formulations . Concrete analysis is certainly essential, but it can only be undertaken with any precision when the concepts that make it possible have been developed . It is not a substitute for the development of concepts, but the final stage of the development of concepts . However the concepts that make a satisfactory concrete analysis of the state sector, say of state expenditure, possible simply have not been developed by Purdy and Prior . Thus for them to claim that the social significance of state expenditure can only be understood "by reference to concrete conditions" (p . 138) begs the question ; and it is not a question that can be given a satisfactory answer in terms of 'who benefits' . . . ; both capital and the working class 'benefit' . Similarly, the type of social contract proposed by Purdy and Prior is in the interests of the working class in so far as it helps to avert rises in inflation and unemployment ; but it is also in the interests of capital in so far as it helps to restore profitability . Trying to ascertain whose interest a particular practice advances the most, drawing up balance sheets of the distribution of costs and benefits cannot reveal the socialist content of a practice, nor how that socialist potential can be unlocked . This is essentially because any such cost-benefit analysis is static, fixed in the status quo posing the question in terms of the continuation, not the dissolution, of class relations . So it is not surprising that an analysis of the concrete which is ultimately posed in these terms easily slips into economism and an abstraction of the struggle from the self-activity of the working class . For what else is economism, but the attempt to further the interests of the working class as a 'capitalist' working class ; and if this is the aim, then directing the attempt 'from the top down' may well be the most efficient method . The development of the working class as an hegemonic class does not mean simply reversing the present positions, putting the working class where the capitalist class now is . It means transforming the very nature of the working class, making it a "socialist" rather than a "capitalist" working class, as a prelude to the eventual dissolution of class relations . Trying to evaluate the socialist potential of a practice in terms of whether it benefits, or is in the interests of the working class, is based on a mis-specification of the problem, a reification of the working class . It should be added that this kind of functionalism is by no means specific to Purdy and Prior. It is a general feature of much analysis on the left . This analysis is based on the recognition that political strategies cannot be abstractly deduced from theory, that what is required is a 'concrete analysis of the concrete situation', but misrecognises the characteristics of a concrete analysis, confusing it with an exercise in rea/politick .



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Political Practice and Theoretical Analysis As a feminist, I naturally welcome the recognition throughout this book of the breadth of the struggle for socialism, a struggle waged in every pore of society and not confined to the point of production of surplus value ; and of the part played in this struggle by a variety of social movements which many on the left have tended to treat with some scorn as 'not political' . (See in particular pp . 89-91 and pp .159-160 .) I particularly welcome the commitment to the autonomy of women's struggle (p . 100) ; and the declaration that "The women's movement is political not because it 'politicises' women in the sense of channelling them towards other activity outside 'women's issues' ; nor because it impinges upon some other 'respectable' areas of political work as in trade unions ; nor because it is supported by political parties . It is political in its own right because it directly confronts the structures of social control through which the oppression and subordination of women are perpetuated . No other legitimation is required" . (p . 159 .) However, although this may appear paradoxical, in my view Purdy and Prior are not critical enough in their discussion of the women's movement, and other 'new social movements' focussed around such issues as housing and ecology, and of the movements for workers' control or the nationalist movements . By this I do not mean that they should have undertaken to tell women, squatters, community groups, Scottish nationalists, etc ., what their strategy should be . Purdy and Prior quite rightly see this as for those groups themselves to decide . What I mean is that the way in which Purdy and Prior locate these struggles does not raise the question of how to develop an analysis to inform these struggles . They are treated as undifferentiated so that the question of how to develop a socialist-feminist practice in the Women's Movement, of preventing the ecological movement being dominated by the drop-out syndrome simply does not arise . All these new movements have their limitations and weaknesses, their tendencies towards economism or romanticism, in the same way that the more traditional trade union and labour movement does . All of them can take forms which continually dissipate their socialist potential, and socialists in these movements have to be continually engaged in a process of analysis and self-critique in order to prevent that dissipation . Without it the struggle for women's liberation, for instance, remains stuck in the bourgeois form of a struggle for women's legal equality ; or is sidetracked by the illusion that the causes of women's subordination can be simply circumnavigated by opting out of relations with men . The idea that the personal is political, instead of being an aid to the development of new personal practices, can become instead a way of sidestepping the evaluation of such practice through being understood statically as meaning that whatever we do is political, and therefore it doesn't matter precisely how we try to secure our liberation . In effect, Purdy and Prior present a picture in which trade unions and the traditional activities of the labour movement are seen as wholly econo-

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mistic, but the 'new social movements' are seen as spontaneously socialist in form, as are new forms of labour movement activity such as factory occupations . (See pp . 167-168 .) Given this interpretation, Purdy and Prior draw from the fact that "the social conditions of advanced capitalism serve to produce a consciousness which transcends simple trade unionism" (p . 169) the conclusion that there is no longer any need for a political party to be engaged in transforming and developing in a socialist direction the struggles which spontaneously arise in capitalism (though they do not argue that political parties are completely redundant) . Even if this were necessary in Lenin's day, it is no longer necessary in the social formations of advanced capitalism because the struggles that arise are spontaneously socialist. Quite explicitly, Purdy and Prior wish to dispense with what they conceive as the Leninist Party . For them, the Leninist Party is one which attempts to dictate the political practice of the working class, on the grounds that it is trying to raise them above 'trade union consciousness' ; and which, as a result, is internally undemocratic, because it needs to present a united front to the working class in spelling out what must be done . I see little point in entering into prolonged arguments about how to characterise a Leninist Party, how to decide how much of the practice of parties calling themselves Leninist is determined by the Leninist concept of party ; or in deciding what Lenin may or may not have said or meant . I would just like to make the point that if indeed there is no need to transform the struggles that spontaneously arise, from limited, economistic, capitalist forms of struggle to socialist forms of struggle, then there is no need for Marxist political analysis . The kind of political analysis required would be of the form provided by Machiavelli rather than Gramsci ; by Clauswiecz rather than Mao ; by Bismarck rather than the Bolshevicks . In short what would be required is a realpo/itick not an analysis of what determines the forms of struggle and the contradiction of those forms . I would certainly agree that historically the process of constructing a Marxist political practice, of achieving such a transformation has been interpreted as requiring the party to dictate tactics to the working class . But I would argue that not only is that an incorrect interpretation, without logical foundation, it is also self-defeating . For such a transformation cannot be achieved by bringing in from the outside a 'ready-made' solution, and 'objective truth' discovered by the party, which the working class must simply apply . What can be developed on the outside of specific, particular struggles is a set of concepts with which to analyse struggles, a language to enable the questions which have to be decided to be correctly posed . But these concepts can only be used to produce a concrete analysis in conjunction with those people engaged practically in a particular area of struggle . An outsider will simply not know enough about the important details of the terrain of struggle . Moreover, if the struggle is to take a socialist form, the decisions on what should be done have to be taken by the working class itself, not by the party-this is true even if the working

c/ass decides to pursue an economistic, non-socialist course of action . There are no short cuts to the self-determination of the working class . Nevertheless, in my view 'the party' has a crucial role to play in helping to ( .&( .9.- H



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determine how the questions for decision are posed, in helping to constitute the alternatives between which choices must be made . But if it plays this role in a merely manipulative way, it will be inadequate to its task ; it will be unable clearly to distinguish and constitute socialist alternatives to spontaneous economism . The problem is not that the working class only engages in struggle about the level of wages or conditions of work, and that this is the only form of struggle against capitalism ; it is rather that in the multiplicity of forms of struggle against capitalism which are constantly being invented, capital, in all its complexity, manages to remain hegemonic. Thus although I agree with many of the criticisms that Purdy and Prior make of the practice of Leninist parties, in my view they have thrown the baby out with the bath water in denying the need for the socialist transformation of struggles, and in leaving for 'the party' simply the function of co-ordinating, sustaining and informing spontaneously arising struggles .

Political practice and the state Purdy and Prior are quite rightly concerned about democracy and quite correctly criticise the view that bourgeois democracy is just a sham . They go on to say : " . . . not only because bourgeois democracy is deeply entrenched in the West, but also because it embodies genuine social advance or the potential for such advance, socialist politics must cut with its grain not against it . This is not a question of tactics but of strategic disposition . Nor does it entail a narrow, electioneering approach to politics . . .What it does mean is that any perspective of totally abolishing the parliamentary system, outlawing opposition parties, violating civil liberties and so on, and of substituting for all these a system of 'proletarian democracy' is neither feasible, necessary nor desirable ." (p . 50) ; and conclude that, " . . . the object of socialist policies should not be to destroy or limit these advances but rather to develop and transcend them by struggling for democracy in all spheres of society . The inherent limitations of bourgeois democracy are clear ; it is indirect and does not extend to areas of everyday existence either at work or in social communities . It is in many cases fractured, debased, manipulated . Socialist democracy would be the, reverse of this ; it would be direct and ensure control over immediate issues without any intermediate manipulation or bureaucratic deformation . That at least is the intent ." (p . 101 .) Thus their argument is that the struggle for socialism should be pushed through the institutions of bourgeois democracy, not against them . But what they lack is any clear conception of how in struggling through the institutions of bourgeois democracy, the working class is not to find its struggle limited to bourgeois democracy . They have no analysis of how at the same time, we can transform, as well as struggle through, these institu-



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tions . The result is that they have no basis for distinguishing, in their practice, between a communist party struggling through the institutions of bourgeois democracy, and a social democratic party . After all, social democratic parties argue that they too are in pursuit of socialist democracy . The water is further muddied by Purdy and Prior arguing that, in Britain, "the road to socialism, outside a period of physical repression, lies through the Labour Party" (p . 191) ; and calling for the construction of working class political unity . They assert, but give no convincing reasons, that in Britain, "the Communist Party has the potential to play a key role in uniting the left" (p . 192) . It is not at all clear how they would respond to the arguments of many Marxists, who share their belief that the road to socialism lies through the Labour Party, and draw the conclusion that the correct course of action is to join the Labour Party and work to make it a party of revolutionary, rather than reformist, socialism . There is perhaps, in the book, an implicit belief that it is subscription to Marxist principles which will serve to prevent the practice of struggling through the institutions of bourgeois democracy from degenerating into reformism ; but that these principles need a separate organisational form if they are not to be compromised . This would be simply an idealisation, not a realisation, of Marxist theory ; a freezing of Marxism into a creed, a talisman, which, if we hold fast to it will somehow guarantee the purity of our practice . It seems to me that these questions can only be resolved through an analysis of politics as a material process, i .e . a process in which there are determinate relations between different kinds of political practice which cannot be suspended by simple invocations of Marxist principles . For instance, reformist parties do not, on the whole, refuse to foster and coordinate extra-parliamentary struggle through amoral failure of the leadership, or a lack of belief in Marxist principles, but because their kind of parliamentary politics is such as to subordinate and require the control of extra-parliamentary struggles . In their political practice, extra-parliamentary struggles are simply disruptive, and to urge them to change their practice with respect to extra-parliamentary struggle is simply wishful thinking . Purdy and Prior are not alone in their inadequate analysis of the practice of a communist party struggling through the institutions of bourgeois democracy . It is the crucial failure of all the proponents of Eurocommunism -against which the claims of the Italian Communist Party to take its `inspiration' from Marx seem unlikely to prove adequate . It has left the CPGB without any analytical basis for constituting itself a separate organisation from the Labour Party, a fact not lost to the more acute of bourgeois commentators-see the reports in the Financial Times on the 1978 Congress of the CPGB . It has left those Marxists who join the Labour Party without any course of action, reduced to moral critiques of the leadership and token victories in some constituency parties, while Party conference decisions continue to be ignored . However the recognition of this weakness does not mean adopting an abstentionist position of refusing to have anything to do with parliamentary politics . What is required is a different kind of parliamentary politics .



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To specify' this requires an analysis of the struggle at the point of legislation analogous to that required at the point of production, and other terrains of social struggle . Such an analysis has not yet been made. UNDERSTANDING PROCESS

POLITICAL STRUGGLE AS A DIALECTICAL

The last section has concentrated on the weaknesses of Purdy's and Prior's analysis . Here I want to return to, and build on, their main strengths-the insistence that socialism isn't something that lies wholly in the future, 'after the revolution' ; the insistence that the struggle against capitalism cannot be conducted separately from the struggle for socialism ; the insistence that there is a material basis for the construction of socialism in the capitalist society in which we live . It seems to me that it is precisely this notion that constitutes a practical, materialist politics, and differentiates Marxism from utopian socialism. As Marx wrote in the Grundrisse, "If we did not find concealed in society as it is the material conditions of production and the corresponding relations of exchange prerequisite for a classless society, then all attempts to explode it would be quixotic ." (p . 151 .) A practical, materialist politics certainly does not consist in simply identifying the proletariat as the agent of revolution, and attributing to it some kind of 'will to socialism', albeit a will which may be temporarily disoriented owing to 'false consciousness' . As Marx wrote of the civil war in France, the working class "have no ideas to realise, but to set free the elements of the new society with which the old collapsing bourgeois society is itself pregnant" . (The First International and After, p . 213 .) The problem is how we are to conceptualise these pre-figurations of socialism so that we can locate them . Purdy and Prior conceptualise them in terms of discretely distinct, determined socialist forms which co-exist in articulation with discretely distinct, determined capitalist forms . This means that they can only conceive of the struggle to build socialism in terms of an extension of already existing socialist forms . It is this which leads them towards a reformist gradualism, not their down-grading of the importance of a single revolutionary moment in which state power is seized . The main suggestion I have to make about how we might avoid this problem is that we should try to conceptualise pre-figurations of socialism, and the struggle to set them free, dialectically rather than structurally . Purdy and Prior, relying as they do on the structuralist concept of articulation of two modes of production in one social formation, provide one example of the inadequacy of structuralist concepts for the analysis of historical process . (This inadequacy is demonstrated with some eloquence



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by Thompson, 1978) . To explain fully what I mean by 'conceptualise dialectically' would increase the length of this essay considerably ; I have gone into some of the questions of logic it involves elsewhere (Elson, 1979) . Here I think I can best give the flavour of what I mean by quoting Thompson's characterisation of a dialectical approach as one in which each moment is seen as "a moment of becoming, of alternative possibilities, of ascendant and descendant forces, of opposing (class) definitions and exertions, of 'double-tongued' signs" . (Thompson, 1978, p . 295 .) This approach means that we do not expect capitalist social relations, capitalist forms, to be completely, unmitigatedly, absolutely capitalist . Rather we examine them for their potentially socialist aspects, socialist potential which is presently subsumed under, dominated by, their capitalist aspects . The socialist potential does not therefore stand alone, as discretely distinct islands of socialism ; it's more like the flowers of a plant, still part of that plant, yet representing the potential for a different plant . At the risk of seeming very schematic, let me just sketch the meaning I attach to 'capitalist' and 'socialist' in this context . By the capitalist aspect of a social relation I mean its aspect in establishing an abstract comparability between the different poles of the relation . Thus the capitalist aspects of the social relations of production are those by which an abstract comparability is established between the labour, and labour-power, of different persons . The progressive aspect of capitalism, as compared to previous modes of production, is that it does establish such social comparability . But it establishes it in abstract forms, the most abstract of which is a 'blind' 'automatic' commensuration of labour-time through its representation as money in the market process . And it is the abstract aspect of the capitalist social relation which dominates the specific, conscious, collective aspects of the social relation . A socialist social relation retains the aspect of comparability between the poles of the relation, but this comparability is established through specific, conscious, collective forms . Very schematically, the political problem is how to free the specific, conscious, collective aspects of a capitalist social relation from domination by the abstract aspects . Thompson puts it rather more eloquently : it is to "pass from process-determined 'necessity' to the 'freedom' of rational intentionality" . (Thompson, 1978, p . 156 .) As a starting point we need to locate the points at which the process of material abstraction is incomplete, the points at which "objective" market forces break down and a "subjective" element enters . This is the critical terrain of class struggle . So long as the representatives of capital retain the initiative, so long as the exercise of the subjective element remains their prerogative, so long does capital remain in the ascendant . But the very fact that a subjective element enters is a chink in its armour . The subjective element is by no means confined to the state . Perhaps the most



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immediately obvious point at which the process of material abstraction is incomplete is in the commensuration of different labour powers, i .e . wage determination . As Marx stressed in Capital, labour-power is not a commodity like any other, it is not produced as a commodity, and the process of commensurating it, of representing it in money terms, cannot be accomplished simply through the fetishised commodity forms of the capitalist market process . Into the determination of the wage enters "an historical and moral" (i .e . subjective) element . Of course, this has long been realised by the labour movement and wages have been a key area of class struggle . What has tended to happen, however, is an over-estimation of the scope of the subjective element in wage determination . It is important to avoid such one-sidedness, and give full recognition to the limits to the subjective elements, the strengths of the objective elements . So long as control of the means of production and of the money supply is abstracted from the working class, there will always be severe limits to the power of trade unions to increase or defend the standard of living of the working class . For any increase in money wages can always be cancelled out by a rise in prices or unemployment . It is for this reason that it is quite futile to expect a wages offensive to preserve or improve the standard of living of the working class in a period of recession . When the working class standard of living rises, this is not simply the result of good trade union organisation and wage militancy . It also depends on objective factors, in particular the rate of accumulation . It should be the job of Marxists to explain these objective limits, and insist that they are taken into account ; not to encourage the working class to behave like King Canute . And in particular, not to encourage the illusion that the main limit to increasing the standard of living of the working class is state power expressed in the form of incomes policies . But in emphasising these limits, we should not give the impression that nothing can be done about them, short of seizing the Palace of Westminster and hoisting a red flag over it . The criterion of success of a wages strategy, for socialists, should not be the size of money wage increases . It should be the extent to which the scope for the subjective element in wage determination has been widened ; the extent to which the social relations through which wages are determined have been transformed to strengthen their conscious and collective (not corporatist) aspects ; the extent to which the wage bargaining process has been democratised ; the extent to which the prerogatives exercised by the representatives of capital have been eroded ; and the extent to which the standard of living of the working class is liberated from dependence on the wage . Lasting gains can be made here, though the value of money wage increases is eroded by rising prices in a few months . The breakdown of the establishment of social comparability through the objective (i .e . fetishised) process of commensuration is not confined to wage determination . It pervades the organisation of the labour process, becoming more acute as capital accumulation grows . Marx hints at this when he records that "ideal estimates" are necessary for the representation in money terms of a portion of the total labour-time accumulated by one capital (see Results of the Immediate Process of Production, p . 954) . But

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he does not take up the point that a subjective element necessarily enters into the making of these "ideal estimates", that they cannot be automatically derived from market prices, for instance. The production of these "ideal estimates" (internal accounting prices, the weights ascribed to different kinds of labour-time in job evaluation studies, etc .) is a material indication that it is possible to establish the social comparability of different concrete labours through conscious, collective action, rather than through blind market forces . The element of conscious decision in these estimates is pre-figurative of socialism, but it remains hidden, subsumed in accounting conventions or techniques of management 'science' . They remain instruments of capital's domination so long as the working class is excluded from the conscious, collective action in producing them ; so long as they are the 'ideal estimates' of capital, rather than of labour, couched in terms of an 'objective' calculus, rather than a democratic decision . Here again is a critical terrain of class struggle, in which our aim should be to de-mystify the process of representation of labour-time embodied in the "ideal estimates" ; expose the points at which a subjective prerogative is being exercised by capital's representatives ; challenge that prerogative, thus as they are the 'ideal estimtes' of capital, couched in terms of an 'objective' calculus, rather than a democratic decision . Here again is a critical terrain of class struggle, in which our aim should be to de-mystify the process of representation of labour-time embodied in the "ideal estimates" ; expose the points at which a subjective prerogative is being exercised by capital's representatives ; challenge that prerogative, thus politicising the process ; and work towards democratisation of the decision making. At the same time keeping firmly in mind the limits which stem from the fact that the labour-time accumulated by one capital is still commensurated through the market with the labour-time accumulated by other capitals . To summarise : I am suggesting that we approach class struggle by locating the points in social relations at which abstract forms of establishing social comparability break down . The aim is then to contest capital's prerogative to establish the form of comparability, and to work for democratic forms of establishing comparability, while at the same time taking action to loosen the limits placed on this by the persistence of abstract forms of establishing social comparability . It is an approach which tries to incorporate recognition of both objective and subjective factors ; to produce a form of politics which accords with Colletti's useful definition of revolutionare Praxis as "activity which subverts and subordinates to itself the conditions from which it stems" . (Colletti, 1976, p . 69 .) It seems to me that this kind of approach can be applied to all the social relations of a capitalist society ; and that we should try analysing the capitalist state from this perspective . Instead of thinking of the capitalist state as an entity or arena we should think of it as a social relation in which an abstract form of social comparability is established between members of society, not as expenders of labour-power, but as citizens ; not through the market but through the law. And we should look for the points, in all the processes of state, legal, administrative, financial, forceproducing, etc . where the abstract 'objective' forms of social compara-



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bility break down, and where a subjective prerogative has to be exercised . These are the points where there is a material basis for struggle . The metaphor we need is not that of seizing state power, but of subverting state power . The struggle to transform the state can begin now . I am aware that these last remarks are still very schematic ; and that the concretisation of the analysis remains to be done . I do not claim to have a ready-made strategy, only an orientation . I would like to end with a plea that not only do we try to develop a dialectical approach to politics, but that we also abandon the rhetorical flourishes in which we have concealed our instrumentalist, economistic practice, and take seriously the reality that : "What is needed for the revolution are men of sober mind, men who don't cause an absence of bread in the bakeries, who make trains run, who provide the factories with raw materials and know how to turn the produce of the country into industrial produce, who ensure the safety and freedom of the people against attacks of criminals, \ -to enable the network of collective services to function and who d, A reduce the people to despair and to a horrible carnage . Verbal enthusiasm and reckless phraseology make one laugh (or cry) when a single one of these problems has to be resolved even in a village of a hundred inhabitants" . (Gramsci, quoted by Miliband, 1977, p . 181 .)

NOTES The author teaches economics in the Department of Overseas Administration, University of Manchester . Earlier versions of this paper were discussed at a CSE Day School in Manchester, and at the CSE Conference, 1978 . The author would like to acknowledge the helpful comments she received . 1

2

For a useful discussion of the limitations of free collective bargaining as a way of improving the position of women wage earners, see Campbell and Charlton, 1978 . As Gramsci put it, "The revolution is not a thaumaturgical act, but a dialectical process of historical development" . (Gramsci, 1977, p . 92) .

BIBLIOGRAPHY Banaji, J ., 1977, "Modes of Production in a Materialist Conception of History", Capital and Class, No . 3 . Brenner, R ., 1977, "The Origins of Capitalist Development-A Critique of Neo-Smi thian Marxism", New Left Review, No . 104. Campbell, B . and Charlton V ., 1978, "Work to Rule-Wages and the Family", Red Rag . Colletti, L ., 1978, From Rousseau to Lenin, New Left Books, London . Elson, D ., 1979, "The Value Theory of Labour' in Elson D . (ed .), Value : the Representation of Labour in Capitalist Society, CSE Books, London . Gramsci, A ., 1977, Selected Political Writings 1910-1920, Lawrence & Wishart, London .

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K ., 1973, "Wages, Price and Profit" in Marx-Engels, Selected Works, . 2, Progress Publishers, Moscow. K ., 1973, Grundrisse, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth . K ., 1974, "The Civil War in France" in The First International and After, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth . Marx, K ., 1976, "Results of the Immediate Process of Production", in Capital, Vol . 1, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth . Marx, K . and Engels, F ., 1974, The German Ideology, Lawrence & Wishart, London . Miliband, R ., 1977, Marxism and Politics, Oxford University Press . Purdy, D ., and Prior, M ., 1979, Out of the Ghetto-A Path to Socialist Rewards, Spokesman Books, Nottingham . Thompson, E . P ., 1978, The Poverty of Theory, Merlin Press, London . Marx, Vol Marx, Marx,

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I

ARCHIVE PANNEKOEK ON ORGANISATION Introduced by John Holloway

Anton Pannekoek (1873-1960), often regarded simply as an "Ultra-left" opponent of Lenin, was one of the leading theorists of the Council Communist movement in the late 1920s and the 1930s . The article reprinted here was first published under the pseudonym J . Harper in the theoretical journal of the American Council Communists, Living Marxism, in 1938 . The Council Communists rejected the Party as a form of working class organisation . Many of them had been members of the German Communist Workers Party (KAPD) which had broken with the Third International as early as its Third Congress in 1921 . Rejecting therefore not only Stalinism but Leninism as well, the conclusions they drew from the Russian experience were far more radical than those drawn by the Trotskyists who left the "orthodox" fold some years later . In particular, they linked the authoritarian, bureaucratic nature of post-revolutionary Russia with the authoritarian nature of the vanguard party . Indeed, the fault lay not only in Lenin's concept of the party but in the party itself as a form of organisation . The product of the early period of the working class movement, the party was based on the assumption of the immaturity of the working class, on the assumption that the working class needed leaders to overthrow the bourgeoisie on its behalf . The concept of the party was indissociably bound up with a view of the revolution as the conquest or seizure of political power by the party, followed by a reorganisation of social relations . In the view of the Council Communists, the term "revolutionary party" was self-contradictory, because socialist revolution could only mean the process of transformation of social relations by the working class itself, whereas the party excluded the working class by assuming its immaturity . To the left "party communists", Pannekoek replied : "Those who dream of a revolutionary party have only learnt a half, limited lesson from developments up to now . Because the workers'



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parties, the Socialist Parties and the Communist Parties, have become organs of bourgeois domination for the maintenance of exploitation, they merely draw the conclusion that they must do it better. They do not see that behind the failure of those parties lies a much deeper conflict, the conflict between the self-liberation of the whole class by its own strength and the smothering of the revolution by a new rule friendly to the workers" (Pannekoek, "Partei and Arbeiterklasse", Rate korrespondenz, 1963) . Since socialism meant the self-emancipation of the working class, it could only be achieved through forms of organisation developed by the mature working class in struggle . These new forms of struggle were already appearing (the "New Workers' Movement" as Pannekoek referred to it in Capital and Class No . 1) and found their most developed expression in the councils or soviets which arose in Russia in 1905 and 1917 . In the article reprinted here, Pannekoek contrasts councils with the bourgeois forms of parliamentary democracy ; elsewhere, (Bo/shewismus and Demokratie, 1919), he summed up the contrast beautifully by remarking that the councils were "founded not on persons but on labour" . The point about councils, then, was not that they provided an organisational blueprintthe whole argument of the Council Communists was precisely that there could be no ahistorical blueprint-but that they expressed a principle, the principle of autonomous c/ass organisation . The revolution could only be a long process of developing the class organisation of the proletariat : "The idea of workers' councils is not a programme for practical implementation-tomorrow or in a few years' time-but a general guideline for the long and hard struggle for freedom which still lies ahead of the working class" (Pannekoek, Uber Arbeiterrate, 1952) . The Council Communists made little direct political impact and their "working groups" were never very large although they continued in existence for many years in various countries . Whatever their immediate political impact, however, their work remains very relevant for socialists today . Arguably, the upsurge of socialist activity in the last ten years has shown the increasing irrelevance of party organisation for the practice of the working class . Rather than cling in a-historical loyalty to the forms of organisation thrown up by the struggles of our ancestors, rather than allow all issues to be defined in terms of a supposedly exclusive opposition between revolutionary party and revisionist party, it is perhaps necessary to re-examine the concept of the party in the context of the historical development of class struggle, to remember that "party" and "organisation" are far from being synonymous . Moreover, the work of the Council Communists makes clear that the question of organisation is indissociable from the historical development of bourgeois political forms, from the concept of the revolution (as process or event), the development of "prefigurative" forms of working class action, the analysis of Eastern Europe, the question of democracy-from all the issues that are coming to dominate CSE Conferences although they have as yet found little room in



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Capital and Class. Although included here in the Archive section, let us hope that Pannekoek can stimulate more debate on strategy . It is perhaps appropriate to close this introduction with a reminder from the chief moving spirit of "Living Marxism"-Paul Mattick : "By itself, the workers' self-initiative and self-organisation offers no guarantee for their emancipation . It has to be realised and maintained through the abolition of the capital-labour relationship in production, through a council system, which destroys the social class divisions and prevents the rise of new ones based on the control of production and distribution by the national state . However difficult this may prove to be, the history of the existing state-capitalist systems leaves no doubt that this is the only way to a socialist society ." (Anti-Bolshevik

Communism, 1978, p . xi . GENERAL REMARKS ON THE QUESTION OF ORGANISATION Organisation is the chief principle in the working class fight for emancipation . Hence the forms of this organisation constitute the most important problem in the practice of the working class movement . It is clear that these forms depend on the conditions of society and the aims of the fight . They cannot be invention of theory, but have to be built up, spontaneously, by the working class itself, guided by its immediate necessities . With expanding capitalism the workers first built their trade unions. The isolated worker was powerless against the capitalist ; so he had to unite with his fellows in bargaining and fighting over the price of his labour power and the hours of labour . Capitalists and workers have opposite interests in capitalistic production ; their class struggle is over the partition of the total product between them . In normal capitalism the share of the workers is the value of their labour power, i .e ., what is necessary to sustain and to restore continually their capacities to work . The remaining part of the product is the surplus value, the share of the capitalist class . The capitalists, in order to increase their profit, try to lower wages and increase the hours of labour . Where the workers were powerless wages were depressed below the existence minimum ; the hours of labour were lengthened . until the bodily and mental health of the working class deteriorated so as to endanger the future of society . The formation of unions and of laws regulating working conditions-features rising out of the bitter fight of workers for their very life conditions-were necessary to restore normal conditions of work in capitalism . The capitalist class itself recognises that trade unions are necessary to direct the revolt of the workers into regular channels to prevent them from breaking out in sudden explosions . Similarly, political organisations have grown up, though not everywhere in exactly the same way, because the political conditions are different in different countries . In America, where a population of farmers, artisans and merchants free from feudal bonds could expand over a continent with endless possibilities, conquering the natural resources, the workers did not feel themselves a separate class . They were imbued, as



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were the whole of the people, with the middle-class spirit of individual and collective fight for personal welfare, and the conditions made it posible to succeed to a certain extent . Except at rare historic moments or among recent immigrant groups, no necessity was felt for a separate working class party . In the European countries, on the other hand, the workers were dragged into the political struggle by the fight of the rising bourgeoisie against feudalism . They soon had to form their working class parties and, together with part of the middle class had to fight for political rights, for the right to form unions, for free press and speech, for universal suffrage, for democratic institutions. A political party needs general principles for its propaganda ; for its fight with other parties it wants a theory having definite views about the future of society . The working class of Europe, in which communistic ideas had already developed, found its theory in the scientific work of Marx and Engels, explaining the development of society through capitalism towards communism by means of the class struggle . This theory was accepted in the programmes of the SocialDemocratic parties of most European countries ; in England, the Labour Party formed by the trade unions, professed analogous but more vague ideas about a kind of socialist commonwealth as the aim of the workers . In their programmes and propaganda the proletarian revolution was the final result of the class struggle ; the victory of the working class over its oppressors was to be the beginning of a communistic or socialist system of production . But so long as capitalism lasted the practical fight had to centre on immediate needs and the preservation of standards in capitalism . Under parliamentary government parliament is the battlefield where the interests of the different classes of society meet ; big and small capitalists, land owners, farmers, artisans, merchants, industrialists, workers, all have their special interests which are defended by their spokesmen in parliament, all participate in the struggle for power and for their part in the total product . The workers have to take part in this struggle . Socialist or labour parties have the special task of fighting by political means for the immediate needs and interests of the workers within capitalism . In this way they get the votes of the workers and grow in political influence . 2 With the modern development of capitalism conditions have changed . The small workshops have been superseded by large factories and plants with thousands and tens of thousands of workers . With this growth of capitalism and of the working class its organisations also had to expand . From local groups the trade unions grew to big national federations with hundreds of thousands of members . They had to collect large funds for support in big strikes, and still larger ones for social insurance . A large staff of managers, administrators, presidents, secretaries, editors of their papers, an entire bureaucracy of organisation leaders developed . They had to haggle and bargain with the bosses ; they became the specialists acquainted with methods and circumstances . Eventually they became the real leaders, the masters of the organisations, masters of the money as well as of the press, against the members, who lost much of their power . This development of the organisations of the workers into instruments of



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power over them has many examples in history ; when organisations grow too large the masses lose control of them . The same change takes place in the political organisations, when from small propaganda groups they grow into big political parties . The parliamentary representatives are the leading politicians of the party . They have to do the real fighting in the representative bodies, they are the specialists in that field, they make up the editorial, propaganda and executive personnel ; their influence determines the politics and tactical line of the party . The members may do the voting, assist in propaganda and pay their dues ; they may send delegates to debate at party congresses, but their power is nominal and illusionary . The character of the organisation resembles that of the other political parties-of organisations of politicians who try to win votes for their slogans and power for themselves . Once a socialist party has a large number of delegates in parliament it makes alliances with others against reactionary parties to form a working majority . Soon socialists become ministers, state officials, mayors and aldermen . Of course, in this position they cannot act as delegates of the working class, governing for the workers against the capitalist class . The real political power and even the parliamentary majority remains in the hands of the capitalist class . Socialist ministers have to represent the interests of the present capitalist society, i .e ., of the capitalist class. They can attempt to initiate measures for the immediate interests of the workers and try to induce the capitalist parties to acquiesce . They become middlemen-mediators-pleading with the capitalist class to consent to small reforms in the interests of the workers, and then try to convince the workers that these are important reforms which they should accept . And then the Socialist Party, as an instrument in the hands of these leaders, has to support them and also, instead of calling upon the workers to fight for their interests, to pacify them and deflect them from the class struggle . Indeed, fighting conditions have grown worse for the workers . With their capital the power of the capitalist class has increased enormously . The concentration of capital in the hands of some few captains of finance and industry, the coalition of the bosses themselves, confronts the trade unions with a much stronger and often nearly unassailable power. The fierce competition of the capitalists of all countries over markets, raw materials and world power, the necessity of using increasing parts of the surplus value for this competition, for armaments and warfare ; the falling of the profit rate compel the capitalists to increase the rate of exploitation, i .e . to lower the working conditions for the workers . Thus the trade unions meet increasing resistance, the old methods of struggle grow useless . In their bargaining with the bosses the leaders of the organisations have less success ; because they know the power of the capitalists, and because they themselves do not want to fight-since in such fights the funds 'and the whole existence of the organisations might be lost-they must accept what the bosses offer . So their chief task is to assuage the discontent of the workers, and to defend the proposals of the bosses as important gains. Here also the leaders of the workers' organisations become mediators between the opposing classes . And when the workers do not accept the conditions and strike, the leaders either must oppose them or allow a sham fight, to be broken off as soon as possible.

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The fight itself, however, cannot be stopped or minimised ; the class antagonism and the depressing forces of capitalism are increasing, so that the class struggle must go on, the workers must fight . Time and again they break loose spontaneously without asking the unions and often against their decisions . Sometimes the union leaders succeed in regaining control of these actions . This means that the fight will be gradually smothered in some new arrangement between the capitalists and labour leaders . This does not mean that without this interference such wildcat strikes will be won . They are too restricted to the directly interested groups . Only indirectly the fear of such explosions tends to foster caution by the capitalists . But these strikes prove that the class fight between capital and labour cannot cease, and that when the old forms are not practicable any more, the workers spontaneously try out and develop new forms of action . In these actions revolt against capital is also revolt against the old organisational forms .

3 The aim and task of the working class is the abolition of capitalism . Capitalism in its highest development, with its ever deeper economic crises, its imperialism, its armaments, its world wars, threatens the workers with misery and destruction . The proletarian class fight, the resistance and revolt against these conditions, must go on till capitalist domination is overthrown and capitalism is destroyed . Capitalism means that the productive apparatus is in the hands of the Capitalists because they are the masters of the means of production, and hence of the products, they can seize the surplus value and exploit the working class. Only when the working class itself is master of the means of production does exploitation cease . Then the workers entirely control their conditions of life . The production of everything necessary for life is the common task of the community of workers, which is then the community of mankind . This production is a collective process . First each factory, each large plant is a collective of workers, combining their efforts in an organised way . Moreover, the totality of world production is a collective process ; all the separate factories have to be combined into a totality of production . Hence, when the working class takes possession of the means of production, it has at the same time to create an organisation of production . There are many who think of the proletarian revolution in terms of the former revolutions of the middle class, as a series of consecutive phases : first, conquest of government and installment of a new government, then expropriation of the capitalist class by law, and then a new organisation of the process of production . But such events could lead only to some kind of state capitalism . As the proletariat rises to dominance it develops simultaneously its own organisation and the forms of the new economic order. These two developments are inseparable and form the process of social revolution . Working class organisation into a strong unity capable of united mass actions already means revolution, because capitalism can rule only unorganised individuals . When these organised masses



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stand up in mass fights and revolutionary actions, and the existing powers are paralysed and disintegrated, then, simultaneously, the leading and regulating functions of former governments fall to the workers' organisations . And the immediate task is to carry on production, to continue the basic process of social life . Since the revolutionary class fight against the bourgeoisie and its organs is inseparable from the seizure of the productive apparatus by the workers and its application to production, the same organisation that unites the class for its fight also acts as the organisation of the new productive process . It is clear that the organisation forms of trade union and political party, inherited from the period of expanding capitalism, are useless here . They developed into instruments in the hands of leaders unable and unwilling to engage in revolutionary fight . Leaders cannot make revolutions : labour leaders abhor a proletarian revolution . For the revolutionary fight the workers need new forms of organisation in which they keep the powers of action in their own h ands . lt .i s not necessary to try to construct or to imagine these new forms ; they can originate only in the practical fight of the workers themselves . They have already originated there ; we have only to look into practice to find its beginnings everywhere where the workers are rebelling against the old powers . In a wildcat strike the workers decide all matters themselves through regular meetings. They choose strike committees as central bodies, but the members of these committees can be recalled and replaced at any moment . If the strike extends over a large number of shops, they achieve unity of action by larger committees consisting of delegates of all the separate shops . Such committees are not bodies to make decisions according to their own opinion, and over the workers ; they are simply messengers, communicating the opinions and wishes of the groups they represent, and conversely, bringing to the shopmeetings, for discussion and decision, the opinion and arguments of the other groups . They cannot play the roles of leaders, because they can be momentarily replaced by others . The workers themselves must choose their way, decide their actions ; they keep the entire action, with all its difficulties, its risks, its responsibilities, in their own hands. And when the strike is over the committees disappear . The only example of a modern industrial working class as the moving force of a political revolution were the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917 . Here the workers of each factory chose delegates, and the delegates of all the factories together formed the "soviet", the council where the political situation and necessary actions were discussed . Here the opinions of the factories were collected, their desires harmonised, their decisions formulated . But the councils, though a strong directing influence for revolutionary education through action, were not commanding bodies . Sometimes a whole council was arrested and reorganised with new delegates ; at times, when the authorities were paralysed by a general strike, the soviets acted as a local government, and delegates of free professions joined them to represent their field of work . Here we have the organisation of the workers in revolutionary action, though of course only imperfectly, groping and trying for new methods . This is possible only when all the workers with all their forces participate in the action, when their very exis-



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tence is at stake, when they actually take part in the decisions and are entirely devoted to the revolutionary fight . After the revolution this council organisation disappeared . The proletarian centres of big industry were small islands in an ocean of primitive agricultural society where capitalistic development had not yet begun . The task of initiating capitalism fell to the Communist party . Simultaneously, political power centred in its hands and the soviets were reduced to subordinate organs with only nominal powers. The old forms of organisation, the trade union and political party and the new form of councils (soviets), belonging to different phases in the development of society and have different functions . The first has to secure the position of the working class among the other classes within capitalism and belongs to the period of expanding capitalism . The latter has to conquer complete dominance for the workers, to destroy capitalism and its class divisions, and belongs to the period of declining capitalism . In a rising and prosperous capitalism council organisation is impossible because the workers are entirely occupied in ameliorating their conditions of life, which is possible at that time through trade unions and political action . In a decaying crisis-ridden capitalism these are useless and faith in them can only hamper the increase of self action by the masses . In such times of heavy tension and growing revolt against misery, when strike movements spread over whole countries and strike at the roots of capitalist power, or when following wars or political catastrophes the government authority crumbles and the masses act, the old organisational forms fail against the new forms of self-activity of the masses . 4 Spokesmen of socialist or communist parties often admit that, in revolution, organs of self-action by the masses are useful in destroying the old domination ; but then they say these have to yield to parliamentary democracy in order to organise the new society . Let us compare the basic principles of both forms of political organisation of society . Original democracy in small towns and districts was exercised by the assembly of all the citizens . With the big population of modern towns and countries this is impossible . The people can express their will only by choosing delegates to some central body that represents them all . The delegates for parliamentary bodies are free to act, to decide, to vote, to govern after their own opinion ; by "honour and conscience" as it is often called in solemn terms . The council delegates, however, are bound by mandate ; they are sent simply to express the opinions of the workers' groups who sent them . They may be called back and replaced at any moment. Thus the workers who gave them the mandate keep the power in their own hands . On the other hand, members of parliament are chosen for a fixed number of years ; only at the polls are the citizens masters-on this one day when they choose their delegates . Once this day has passed, their power has gone and the delegates are independent, free to act for a term of years according to their own "conscience", restricted only by the



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knowledge that after this period they have to face the voters anew ; but then they count on catching their votes in a noisy election campaign, bombing the confused voters with slogans and demagogic phrases . Thus not the voters but the parliamentarians are the real masters who decide politics . And the voters do not even send persons of their own choice as delegates ; they are presented to them by the political parties . And then, if we suppose that people could select and send persons of their own choice, these persons would not form the government ; in parliamentary democracy the legislative and the executive powers are separated . The real government dominating the people is formed by a bureaucracy of officials so far removed from the people's vote as to be practically independent . That is how it is possible that capitalistic dominance is maintained through general suffrage and parliamentary democracy . This is why in capitalistic countries, where the majority of the people belongs to the working class, this democracy cannot lead to a conquest of political power . For the working class parliamentary democracy is a sham democracy, whereas council representation is real democracy : the direct rule of the workers over their own affairs. Parliamentary democracy is the political form in which the different important interests in a capitalist society exert their influence upon government . The delegates represent certain classes : farmers, merchants, industrialists, workers ; but they do not represent the common will ; they are an assembly of individuals, capitalists, workers, shopkeepers, by chance living at the same place, having partly opposing interests . Council delegates, on the other hand, are sent out by a homogeneous group to express its common will . Councils are not only made up of workers, having common class interests ; they are a natural group, working together as the personnel of one factory or section of a large plant, and are in close daily contact with each other, having the same adversary, having to decide their common actions as fellow workers in which they have to act in united fashion ; not only on the questions of strike and fight, but also in the new organisation of production . Council representation is not founded upon the meaningless grouping of adjacent villages or districts, but upon the natural grouping of workers in the process of production, the real basis of society . However, councils must not be confused with the so-called corporative representation which is propagated in fascist countries . This is a representation of the different professions or trades (masters and workers combined), considered as fixed constituents of society . This form belongs to a medieval society with fixed classes and guilds, and in its tendency to petrify interest groups it is even worse than parliamentarism, where new groups and new interests, rising up in the development of capitalism soon find their expression in parliament and government . Council representation is entirely different because it is the representation of a fighting revolutionary class . It represents working class interests only, and prevents capitalist delegates and capitalist interests from participation . It denies the right of existence to the capitalist class in society and tries to eliminate them as capitalists by taking the means of production away from them . When in the progress of revolution the workers must



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take up the functions of organising society the same council organisation is their instrument . This means that the workers' councils then are the organs of the dictatorship of the proletariat . This dictatorship of the proletariat is not a shrewdly devised voting system artificially excluding capitalists and middle class members from the polls . It is the exercise of power in society by the natural organs of the workers, building up the productive apparatus as the basis of society . In these organs of the workers, consisting of delegates of their various branches in the process of production, there is no place for robbers or exploiters standing outside productive work . Thus the dictatorship of the working class is at the same time the most perfect democracy, the real workers' democracy, excluding the vanishing class of exploiters . 5 The adherents of the old forms of organisation exalt democracy as the only right and just political form, as against dictatorship, an unjust form . Marxism knows nothing of abstract right or justice ; it explains the political forms in which mankind expresses its feelings of political right, as consequences of the economic structure of society . By the Marxian theory we can find also the basis of the difference between parliamentary democracy and council organisation . As middle class democracy and proletarian democracy they reflect the different character of these two classes and their economic systems . Middle class democracy is founded upon a society consisting of a large number of independent small producers . They want a government to take care of their common interests : public security and order, protection of commerce, uniform systems of weight and money, administering of law and justice . All these things are necessary in order that everybody can do his business in his own way . Private business takes the whole attention, forms the life interests of everybody, and those political factors are, though necessary, only secondary and demand only a small part of their attention . The chief content of social life, the basis of existence of society, the production of all the goods necessary for life, is divided up into the private business of the separate citizens, hence it is natural that it takes nearly all their time, and that politics, their collective affair, providing only for auxiliary conditions, is a subordinate matter. Only in middle class revolutionary movements do people take to the streets . But in ordinary times politics are left to a small groups of specialists, politicians, whose life-work consists just of taking care of these general, political conditions of middle class business . The same holds true for the workers, as long as they think only of their direct interests . In capitalism they work long hours, all their energy is exhausted in the process of exploitation, and but little mental power and fresh thought is left them . Wage earning is the most immediate necessity of life ; their political interests, their common interest in safeguarding their interests as wage earners may be important but are still an accessory . So they leave this part of their interests also to specialists, to their party politicians and their trade union leaders . By voting as citizens or members



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the workers may give some general directions, just as middle class voters may influence their politicians, but only partially, because their chief attention must remain concentrated upon their own work . Proletarian democracy, under communism, depends upon just the opposite economic conditions . It is founded not on private but on collective production . Production of the life necessities is no longer a personal business, but a collective affair . The collective affairs, formerly called political affairs, are no longer secondary, but the chief object of thought and action for everybody . What was called politics in former society, a domain for specialists, has become the life interest of every worker. It is not the securing of some necessary conditions of production, it is the process and the regulation of production itself. The separation of private and collective affairs and interests has ceased . A separate group or class of specialists taking care of the collective affairs is no longer necessary . Through their council delegates which link them together the producers themselves are managing their own productive work . The two forms of organisation are not distinguished in that one is founded upon a traditional and ideological basis, and the other on the material productive basis of society . Both are founded upon the material basis of the system of production ; one on the declining system of the past, the other on the growing system of the future . Right now we are in the period of transition, the time of big capitalism and the beginnings of the proletarian revolution . In big capitalism the old system of production has already been destroyed in its foundations ; the large class of independent producers has disappeared . The main part of production is collective work of large groups of workers ; but the control and ownership have remained in a few private hands . This contradictory state is maintained by the strong power factors of the capitalists, especially the state power exerted by the governments . The task of the proletarian revolution is to destroy this state power ; its real content is the seizure of the means of production by the workers . The process of revolution is, in an alternation of actions and defeats, the building up of the organisation of the proletarian dictatorship, which at the same time is the dissolution, step by step, of the capitalist state power . Hence it is the process of the replacement of the organisation system of the past by the organisation system of the future . We are only in the beginnings of this revolution . The century of class fight behind us cannot be considered as such a beginning, only as a preamble . It developed invaluable theoretical knowledge, it found gallant revolutionary words in defiance of the capitalist claim of being a final social system; it awakened the workers from the hopelessness of misery . But its actual fight remained bound within the confines of capitalism, it was action through the medium of leaders and sought only to set easy masters in the place of hard ones . Only a sudden flickering of revolt, such as political or mass strikes breaking out against the will of the politicians, now and then announced the future of self-determined mass action . Every wildcat strike, not taking its leaders and catchwords from the offices of parties and unions, is an indication of this development, and at the same time a small step in its direction . All the existing powers in the proletarian movement, the socialist and communist parties, the trade unions, all the

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leaders whose activity is bound to the middle class democracy of the past, denounce these mass actions as anarchistic disturbances . Because their field of vision is limited to their old forms of organisation, they cannot see that the spontaneous actions of the workers bear in them the germs of higher forms of organisation . In fascist countries, where the old middle class democracy has been destroyed, such spontaneous mass actions will be the only form of future proletarian revolt . Their tendency will not be a restoration of the former middle class democracy but an advance in the direction of the proletarian democracy, i .e ., the dictatorship of the working class .

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REVIEWS

CAPITALIST CRISIS. TRIBUNE'S "ALTERNATIVE STRATEGY" OR SOCIALIST PLAN by A. Glyn . Militant Pamphlets (London 1979) . 60p . Reviewed by Gordon Brewer . Glyn's pamphlet is an attempt to show the contradictions in the industrial strategy of the right wing of the Labour Party and in that of the official left, the so-called "Left Alternative Strategy" . In an introductory section he underscores the depths of the world crisis, showing how the drive towards protectionism, far from being a "socialist" solution to the problems of economic stagnation, is immanent in the development of the capitalist crisis itself as the capitalists, although still united in attacking the working class, scramble with each other over the proceeds of exploitation . Glyn also takes up some of the standard arguments about the crisis, such as that North Sea oil can usher the decrepit British economy into an era of prosperity, or that an upturn can take off on the crest of an export-led boom . Turning to the alternative to Callaghan provided by the Tribune group and the Communist Party, Glyn attacks it on two fronts . On the one hand the strategy is not a socialist strategy at all, merely an alternative for running the capitalist system, supposedly in the interests of the working class . Central to the alternative strategy is an implied subjectivist theory of the crisis! The capitalists do not cease to invest because of real contradictions in the system, but because they are too "greedy" to invest productively . Or else governments simply have a wrong understanding of how to counter the crisis . Thus the Labour Government was supposedly "fooled by Tory arguments", and the central task for socialists is to convince them of the error of their ways. For Tribune, as for the bourgeoisie itself, the "economy" is not a system of class relations but a quasi-independent mechanism, and debates over the economy are not debates over class interests, but technical discussions about how best to run the machine . The reformists want to discuss with the ruling class on the latter's own terms . Thus it is quite logical for reformism to march hand in hand with an underconsumptionist theory of the crisis! If only we would boost wages



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instead of cutting them, more demand would be created and this could provide a stimulus to more investment . Glyn argues : 'But this approach only sees one side of the dilemma of the capitalist class-the question of markets-while ignoring the other and equally fundamental question of profitability . Any policy which increased real wages, while temporarily improving the market situation, would further drive down profits" . Thus the futility of the "left's" attempts to drag in Keynes with a Marxist hat to solve the problems of the ruling class . On the other hand, Glyn argues, if the capitalists are intelligent enough to empirically wallow about in the crisis in their own best interests without the aid of Tribune and the Communist Party, they would put up bitter resistance to the implementation of any elements of the alternative strategy that they did not like . "The danger is not just that the ideas of socialism would be discredited in this way, but that the economic chaos which would result would pave the way for a reactionary takeover on the basis of crushing the organisations of the working class, as the Chilean experience makes clear" . On every level, Glyn argues, the Alternative Strategy falls down . It is utopian, in the idea that you can run capitalism in the interests of the working class, it is nationalist, with its call via import controls for the exportation of unemployment on to the backs of foreign workers, and it is extremely dangerous as it attempts to take on the power of the bosses independently of a programme based on the self-activity of the working class . But if these are the strengths of Glyn's pamphlet, its weaknesses are legion . Glyn tends towards a catastrophist view of the crisis, failing to locate class struggle as central to the bourgeoisie's attempts to solve the crisis . He thus down plays the role of the Labour Government as aiding the bosses' recovery from the 1974-5 recession . The Labour Government did not just have bad policies, it was an important factor in quelling resistance by the organised working class to the attempts by the ruling class to get out of the crisis at the expense of the workers . And although Glyn is correct to point out that the recovery was only partial and inadequate to the needs of capital accumulation, the fact is that a partial recovery has only been possible because of the role of the Labour Government in policing the trade union movement with the active co-operation of the trade union leaders themselves . Instead, Glyn merely says that the Labour Government was "forced to shelve its plans to curb the power of capital" . Of course whether they really were forced, or whether they "shelved their plans" to the tune of a drunken toast at the Overseas Bankers Club is not the point . The point is that the capitalist system is not a machine which grinds to a halt of its own accord . The crisis will be resolved at the expense of one or other of the major classes in society ; the depth of the crisis is a measure of the severity of the steps that the ruling class will be forced to take against the proletariat. This takes us to the central failing of Glyn's pamphlet . Glyn's alternative to the Tribunite "alternative" is to argue for a "socialist plan of production" . As opposed to the reformists, who want to nationalise only 25



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major companies, Glyn wants to nationalise 200 . And, with a passing reference to the law of the transformation of quantity into quality, this is supposed to be the heart and soul of a revolutionary programme . This concept of a revolutionary programme converts it into just another good idea for running society . And, of course, as such it can be used to highlight the inadequacies of reformism . But as a programme rather than a pedantic exposition of what socialism would be like, it is completely inadequate . The specifically revolutionary content of a Marxist programme is its ability to intervene in the daily struggles by the working class to defend itself against the attacks of capital, constantly driving them forward and seeking to demonstrate that in the epoch of imperialism the defensive fight can only be won by going over to the offensive, by raising the question of who controls production . Secondly, and bound up with this, a revolutionary programme bases itself on the organisations thrown up by the working class in the course of the struggle against the bosses, seeing these organisations as simultaneously fighting organs within capitalism and also as the basis of the future workers' state . Although revolutionaries are in favour of using parliament as a means of propaganda, a revolutionary programme is not centrally based on parliament but on the self-activity of the working class . Thus the revolutionaries do not just disagree with reformism on how many companies to nationalise, but on the whole nature of a socialist strategy . The revolutionary conception is of a programme of self-emancipation, the reformist of a parliamentary-administered state capitalism . All this Glyn ignores . In fact his strategy is a return to the ideas of the early Second International where the day to day routine work of a revolutionary party was not connected to the "final goal" of socialism . Glyn's stress on the maximum as opposed to the minimum elements in the programme is entirely in this tradition . And this despite the fact that his demands for the class struggle bear a formal similarity to those of Trotsky's Transitional Programme . The difference is that what for Trotsky was-a tool for revolutionaries to use in relating to the class struggle is for Glyn a lifeless formula to counterpose to the lifeless formulae of reformism .

MARXISM AND MATERIALISM . By David Hillel-Ruben . Harvester Press (Sussex, 1977) . £10 .50 . Reviewed by Peter Binns . In this book, Ruben attempts to exorcise "those idealist distortions that have managed to find their way into the theory and practice of Marxism" (p .1), and to defend, above all, what he understands as Marx's materialism . In attempting to gauge his success however, we face an immediate problem . It is difficult to see just what it is that Ruben is defending . "Materialism", he tells us, "as I have described it, asserts the existence of



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something essentially independent of thought, mind, or human praxis" (p .106) . Elsewhere he sees it as asserting "the essential independence of the object, or nature, from real active men, from the activity of real individuals" (p .65) . And indeed for much of the book it is this doctrine that he is defending. If this were all, our task would be easy . For even Bishop Berkeley agreed that the objective world is independent of "real active men" . A little bizarre perhaps to call him a materialist, and certainly a rather unfortunate choice for a philosophical bedmate, but otherwise a harmless - if trivial enterprise in itself . But this is not all . For Ruben takes his arguments in favour of the trivial thesis to be arguments for a completely different thesis with which it is conflated - namely the view that not only is the objective world distinguishable from human activity, but that "the primacy of nature over praxis (or over thought or mind) is what any realist position demands" (p .122) . This "primacy" thesis is of course far from trivial . It is also, as we shall see, far from being a plausible or from being a remotely accurate account of Marx's materialism . Before we do so two points need clarifying . First of all, Ruben is a dualist. He is opposed, fashionably enough, to "reductionism" . So mind and matter remain irreducible on his schema . Yet he asserts that matter created mind, and mind is therefore dependent on matter (pp .67-8) . Causally speaking, then, mind can be reduced to matter as merely one of its effects . Individual minds have distinct causal effects, but they only do so as a result of the fact that they themselves are at the same time the causal product of matter . The dualism that remains, if any, must therefore derive not from causal processes in the real world, but from the way in which this world is thought of by us. Its source is in conceptual analysis, not in science . The philosophical methodology implicit in Ruben's dualism is thus pre-scientific or metaphysical in its traditional sense . To use a distinction that Ruben himself is fond of, it is not an a-posteriori but an a-priori philosophy . Secondly, Ruben couches his "materialist" claims in terms of what he refers to as the "essential independence" of the material world . What he seems to have in mind is the fact that there are some properties of matter (according to Ruben they are the essential ones) that are unaffected by human activity and consciousness, but not vice-versa . And as a restatement of the trivial "materialist" thesis one could hardly disagree with this . Yet here again the appeal is to an a-priori study of essences performed by means of abstraction . It is not as if he considers the fact that the universe actually predates its inhabitants as relevant : he does not, and he is wise not to, for considering the pre-human universe in its real and total form could only lead to the conclusion that it was indeed life and praxis-producing . It is only by means of a thought operation that we can forcibly abstract elements from this causal whole for separate consideration . Now such abstraction is very worthwhile when and only when it serves as the first stage of a fully scientific investigation : witness here the role of "value" in Marx's Capital, or "simultaneity" in Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity . But it is a complete cop-out to abstract without doing the science itself.



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Worse than that : it is a form of methodological idealism that can only lead to bankrupt metaphysical essentialism . Unfortunately this is the path that Ruben takes. Since all Ruben's arguments in favour of "materialism" are for the trivial thesis only, it is difficult to assess the plausibility (or otherwise) of any arguments that he might have in favour of the primacy thesis . However there are strong arguments against it, arguments that Marx (among others) puts forward, particularly in Capital and the Grundrisse . In place of Ruben's monodimensional "primacy", Marx distinguishes between at least four different types of orderings in his analysis and critique of capitalist political economy, which we shall call the historical, the logical, the actual and the potential. Briefly they are as follows . In discussing the historical preconditions of capitalism (Capital, vol . 1, part 8), Marx stresses the colonialist state, gold and the new world, slavery e tc . as being the central feature of what was necessarily making "capital" the dominant social category . However to discover the logical form of capital, he begins not there but with the commodity and exchange value in Capital, vol . 1, Chapter 1 . The way in which capital is to be explained is different from the way in which it was historically formed . From the commodity and exchange value, Marx develops the notion of capitalin-general (volume 1) . After considering the circulation of capital (volume 2), he considers the effect of mutual competition on capitals, deriving the notion of many capitals from it (volume 3) . In doing so he develops the notion of "capital" beyond the point where it could be considered a simple development of the commodity . The rule in a commoditydominated society is that commodities exchange so that rates of profit are equalised, and this, in general, contradicts the former rule . So while the logical order is first the commodity then capital, the actual order is the other way about . Because the equalisation of the rate of profit is what now governs commodity exchange, capital (through its rules) transforms the process of commodity exchange and dominates it . Finally, the potential order, the preconditions of revolution, are listed as being the centralisation of capital, capitalist crisis, and the growth in the size, socialisation and consciousness of the working class (volume 1, chapter 32) . Where exactly does this relate to Ruben? Simply in this, that to show that capital post-dated its historical conditions, or has to be understood via the category of the commodity, does not at all show that the 18th century colonialist state or the commodity are actually primary or dominant over capital . Quite the reverse . What capital arose out of it subsequently dominated . The actual order of domination is capital first and its conditions and products second . And included in these products and conditions are of course those parts of thenatura/ world with which capitalism is connected . Marx made this very clear in a number of places : "When we consider bourgeois society in the long view and as a whole, then the final result of the process of social production always appears as the society itself, i .e . the human being itself in its social relations . Everything that has a fixed form, such as the product etc ., appears as merely a moment, a vanishing moment, in this movement . The direct



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Indeed Marx is at pains to point out that one of the main distinguishing features of capitalism compared to all pre-capitalist formations is that for the first time social forces (albeit in a highly alienated form) dominate natural forces : "Thus capital creates the bourgeois society, and the universal appropriation of nature as well as of the social bond itself by the members of society . Hence the great civilising influence of capital ; its production of a stage of society in comparison to which all earlier ones appear as mere local developments of humanity and as nature idolatry . For the first time, nature becomes purely an object for humankind, purely a matter of utility ; ceases to be recognised as a power for itself, and the theoretical discovery of its autonomous laws appears merely as a ruse so as to subjugate it under human needs, whether as an object of consumption or as a means of production ." (Grundrisse, pp .409-10) . I suspect that Ruben understands none of this, and that he is simply unaware of the complexities of the methodology of Capital and Grundrisse . This suspicion grows stronger when, unlike Marx who knew only of Feudal, Capitalist etc . modes of production, we see Ruben referring without comment to societies "whose dominant mode of production is commodity production" (p .80) . Equally only someone who had not read or had wilfully ignored Grundrisse could possibly claim "Thus as Hegel and Marx would understand it, creation implies dependence but, presumably, not conversely" (p .68), because for Marx this was certainly not true . In the dialectic of labour/capital, Marx sees labour, as activity, "as the living source of value" (Grundrisse, p.296) . He sees the "labour process posited prior to value, as point of departure" (ibid, p .304) . Yet "Through the exchange with the worker, capital has appropriated labour itself ; labour has become one of its moments, which now acts as a fructifying vitality upon its merely existent and hence dead objectivity" (ibid, p .298) . And "To the extent that labour steps into this relation, this relation exists not for itself, but for capital ; labour itself has become already a moment of capital" (ibid, p .364) . So while living labour is the source and creator of capital, it becomes subordinate to and dominated by the thing it has created . Unfortunately, in understanding none of this, Ruben fails to raise himself above the level of the vulgar 18th century materialism that Marx himself so frequently repudiated . It would be nice to be able to point to some areas of mitigation for a book whose central thesis is so badly flawed . Sadly there are none . Indeed his whole conception of what Marxist philosophy is all about - and hence what his book is all about - is hopelessly confused . He gives us four



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answers in this book. They are all, at least prima facie, mutually contradictory ; and not one of them is the right one . First of all, is philosophy of any kind a legitimate activity for a Marxist? Ruben answers yes . . . and no. No because at least in so far as the establishment of materialism is concerned, he tells us "we can ask how we know that there are material objects (essentially independent of mind) but . . . the only answer to this is a scientific answer, which includes reference to retinas, optic nerves, and pressure receptors in our limbs, things which are themselves material things . The only answer is the scientific answer . Beyond that way of answering the question there is no more basic, philosophical answer, and it is mere illusion to believe otherwise" (p .99) . So according to his view, philosophy, or at least a philosophical defence of materialism, is impossible . If that is so it is difficult to understand why his defence of materialism, running to 200 pages and more than 300 citings of sources ; should mention not one properly scientific source . Obviously enough Ruben does not take himself seriously . Thankfully he has not written a textbook on the physiology of perception, and he does believe that Marxist philosophy has a role to play . But what kind of role? Here again we find mutually opposed answers . First of all in the latter part of his book, Ruben devotes 50 pages (Chapter 4) to the topic "Towards a Marxist Theory of Knowledge" . His method is as follows . He outlines six general criteria that he believes any adequate theory of knowledge must have, and then he tries to show how Marxism (or rather his understanding of it) passes these tests . In other words philosophy is seen here as a a-priori discipline within which Marxism can fit as a consistent non-antagonistic part . He continues by defending what many Marxists have believed (correctly in my view) to be Lenin's worst philosophical aberration - his 'reflection' theory of knowledge developed in Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, and he concludes of it "that it is not saddled with any outmoded beliefs about the actual psychology of perception, acquisition of knowledge, etc ." (p .145) . He also believes that "only a reflection theory of knowledge can be a materialist theory of knowledge" (p .145), and so we now find that defending "materialism" requires us defending a philosophical as well as a scientific thesis . Indeed in some places Ruben sees his philosophy as even supplying the foundations for science and Marxism ; "materialism is not a blind act of faith . It needs a theory of knowledge which underpins it and gives it plausibility" (p . 1) . Elsewhere he is less sure of this, and makes it seem that it is a blind act of political faith that is itself the foundation of Marxist philosophy in the final analysis : "As an idealist, one cannot, objectively, be on the side of the proletariat . . . this should be what determines the final, political choice between idealism and materialism, and not a futile, continuing search for deductive or inductive arguments in favour of one or the other ." (p .109) . Finally, he also adopts the Lockean position of seeing philosophy as science's humble underlabourer (pp .102-8) - a view I shall not comment on further .

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These four opposed theses about philosophy, (1) that there is no philosophy, only science (2) that there is philosophy and that it obeys its own a priori rules (3) that philosophy follows (political) commitment, and (4) that philosophy follows the particular sciences ; these all express a contradictory tension within Ruben's whole work . On the one hand, unlike other more conservative opponents of the broadly Lukacsian approach (e .g . J . Hoffman's Marxism and the Philosophy of Praxis), he does want to preserve the critical and revolutionary side of Marx as well as the scientific side . But he tries to do so by forcing this material into a philosophical and scientific framework in which it will not fit, and which is more appropriate to 18th century science and politics . The result is an exposition riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions, a hopelessly confused exposition of Marx's own views, and a futile and ultimately damaging - attempt to locate Marxism within the framework of classical philosophy rather than seeking to develop it first of all and then to see how it affects this whole framework afterwards.

THE SUBTLE ANATOMY OF CAPITALISM Edited by Jesse Schwartz,, Goodyear (Santa Monica, California) 1977, pp . 504 Reviewed by Simon Mohun . This book bears testament in several different ways to the growth of interest in analysing capitalist economies and the capitalist mode of production from Marxist, neo-Marxist and radical perspectives of one sort or another, with respect in particular to the methodology of analysis, the theory of exploitation, the theory of accumulation, the transformation problem, the identification of tendential movements in the rate of profit and the theory of crisis. Various approaches are taken to these problems which generate insights as much by one's disagreement as by anything else . The book is a collection of twenty-three articles, few of which are readily accessible and some of which are printed for the first time . The book is divided into five sections, and despite the unevenness inevitably associated with any collection, most points of view are represented in an interesting manner . Inevitably in such a wide ranging collection, each will have her/his own preferences . Part One is introduced by Joan Robinson's 1971 (Monthly Review) overview of the current state of economic theory ; E . K . Hunt identifies the structural conservatism of welfare economics, Michael Carter attacks human capital theory for its intrinsic misrepresentation of capitalist production relations ; Fredy Perlman considers the reproduction of daily life under capitalism ; and Douglas Kellner looks at the differences between Karl Marx and Adam Smith in terms of their respective theories of history and the different methodologies each employed . For an economist, these articles are worthy rather than exciting, since, with the partial exception of Carter, they cover ground which has repeatedly been advanced as the bedrock of any critique of neo-

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classical economics-but a non-economist might find them of considerably greater interest . Similarly for a "macroeconomic" Part Three : Peter Bell and Erik Wright offer alternative surveys and perspectives on the Marxist theory of crisis, Peter Erdos considers the scientific achievements of Keynes and Keynesianism, and Shinzaburo Koshimura investigates the conditions for the generalisation of sectoral crises . The pieces by Bell and Wright in particular survey and evaluate standard positions, the former arguing that crisis appears in different forms at different stages in the development of capitalism, and the latter that all theories of crisis can be (eclectically) synthesised as different outcomes of the accumulation process depending on the dominant constraints of the period . While a noneconomist might well find the surveys useful, an economist feels the onset of diminishing returns with little further accumulation of knowledge . But Parts Two, Four and Five are of considerable interest .both in terms of the breadth of coverage and its depth . Broadly speaking, the focus is on the relation of values to prices, and of circulation and distribution to the production process . Wicksell and Akerman, Robinson and Sraffa, Ricardo and Marx are all there, and others as well . Apart from K . T . Tarbuck's examination of Rosa Luxemburg's economics of militarism, and Edward Wolff's measurements of the rate of surplus value and the organic composition of capital in Puerto Rico, the focus is on the capital theory controversies (G . C . Harcourt, and Alfredo Medio), the outcome in Cambridge UK (W . Robert Needham's spirited defence of Eatwell-Robinson and a polemical attack by Frank Roosevelt), a defence of nonWalrasian Keynesianism (John H . Hotson), a formalisation of Sraffa (Peter Newman) and its defence (by Alessandro Roncaglia) against left-wing critics, the relation between Ricardo and Marx (Lucio Colletti, and Jesse Schwartz), and the theory of value and the transformation problem (Domenico Mario Nuti, and Anwar Shaikh) . That there is no substantive agreement between all these papers is hardly surprising ; neither is there common agreement on terminology (C/V, C/(V+S) and C/(C+V) are all used to denote the organic composition of capital, for example) . Nevertheless anyone with the patience to read the repetitive formal solutions to the transformation problem will be rewarded with a broad discussion of the meaning and significance of that transformation, and will come away with a pretty clear idea of the issues which divide Sraffians from Marxists . This is a book then that is thoroughly recommendable .

THE GEOMETRY OF IMPERIALISM by G . Arrighi New Left Books (London, 1978) pp . 160, £6 .00 hb . Reviewed by Anne Phillips . In his work on Africa (G . Arrighi and J . S . Saul, Essays on the Political Economy of Africa) Arrighi has already focussed on what he sees as a shift



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from competition to oligopoly, from the dominance of rentier capital to that of the multinational corporation ; in The Geometry of Imperialism he is developing the implication of this in an explicit confrontation with the `growing irrelevance' of Leninist theories of imperialism . His original intention was to return to the works of both Hobson and Hilferding, as the conventionally accepted sources of Lenin's theory, but this book contains only the first part of that project-a discussion of the theoretical underpinnings of Hobson's conception of imperialism . In his treatment of Hobson, he constructs what he calls (in reference to Weberian methodology) an 'ideo-typical structure', where he isolates four elements in Hobson's analysis : colonialism, a form of expansion which involves the settlement of new territories ; informal empire-'internationalism' in Hobson's terminology-where states retain their political independence but are related through free trade, formal empire, where states are organised into a political hierarchy as in the Napoleonic model ; and imperialism proper, the competitive, war-producing expansionism which Hobson identified in late nineteenth century Britain . Hobson had introduced these concepts to differentiate the imperialism of his period from previous forms . Arrighi organises them into a two-dimensional grid, in which they are presented as more or less stable forms of expansion, emanating from pressures within the nation-state, and related in a potentially repetitive, cyclical pattern . The object of this geometric exercise is not to attribute a thesis of a cycle of the four forms of expansionism to Hobson . What Arrighi requires is a precise identification of the assumptions behind Hobson's claim that only two of the four forms were historically possible in the late nineteenth century--the imperialism which had developed, and the 'internationalism' which, as a good liberal, Hobson proposed as an alternative . And by implication, this should clarify the assumptions behind Lenin's description of imperialism as the highest, and final stage of capitalism . Thus Arrighi first seeks to establish, by discussion of German and American imperialism in the twentieth century, that all four forms of expansion did retain a certain validity even after the phase described by Lenin and Hobson as imperialism, that in some sense the cycle of the various forms did continue and was not frozen at the 'imperialist' point in the cycle . He then introudces the concept of 'finance capital' as the third dimension which was necessary to Hobson's thesis. For Hobson it was this essentially parasitical, rentier capital, with its supranational sphere of operation and expansionist demand for the creation of new public debts and floating of new companies, which finally dictated the development of imperialism . Having isolated this as the crucial assumption in Hobson's argument, Arrighi can then suggest that the development of the multinational corporation has radically undermined the Hobson-Lenin theory of imperialism. The multinational shares with a supranational finance capital the detachment from any one national economy, but differs dramatically in its internal integration of finance and production . With the emergence and increasing dominance of the multinational corporation, the dominance of money capital over commodity capital comes to an end ; what the multinational requires for its own expansion is the free movement of capital and



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international convertibility of currency which America was able to establish in the post-'45 period . The most interesting discussion in the book is contained in the final chapter, where Arrighi introduces this thesis of the emergence of the multinational and consequent transformation in the nature of imperialism . The development and refinement of the geometric model which takes up the main body of the text, does not in itself produce a critical assessment of Hobson ; the crucial arguments are external to the model building process, and centre on the continuing validity of an analysis which takes the nation-state and finance capital as the basic features of the world economy . But having devoted so much space to the model construction, Arrighi provides little more than general assertions of differences between the current conjuncture and late nineteenth century imperialism . Thus he suggests that the tendency of late nineteenth century capitalism was indeed one of underconsumption, but that this has since been replaced by a tendency for the rate of profit to be squeezed ; he states that the major impetus behind the expansion of production on a multinational basis is the necessity dictated by the 'unruliness' of labour for a restructuring of production and consumption on a world scale, he suggests that the current financial crisis of the US is partly a consequence of the increasing independence of production from the framework of the nation state-but none of these is argued through with any rigour . The most serious weakness however lies in Arrighi's failure to justify his claim that in demonstrating the contemporary irrelevance of Hobson's work, he has established the 'historical relativity' of Lenin's analysis of imperialism . His concern in the book is not with an academic exercise in exposition of Hobson, but with using Hobson to re-examine Leninism . This is the motivation of the project, yet he devotes surprisingly little attention to the precise nature of the Hobson-Lenin relationship . On the issue of whether Lenin shared Hobson's underconsumptionism, Arrighi is content to simply state an identity . On the broader question of whether the influence of Hilferding led Lenin to substantial revision of the concepts employed by Hobson, Arrighi points to one major incompatibilitythat the concept of finance capital has almost antithetical significance for money capital, divorced from production, and in the latter's to an integration of bank and industrial capital within the nation state-but then fails to take up the possible implications of this difference . This relative disinterest in the Hobson-Hilferding-Lenin relationship seems to arise, not merely from pressures of space, but from the quasi-Weberian methodology that Arrighi employs, which leads him to abstract from the range of political and theoretical issues which motivated their respective works . In raising the necessity for a re-assessment of Lenin's theory of imperialism Arrighi has made an important intervention, but this book does not yet provide the basis on which that re-assessment can be carried out .

, .&c .9 .

J

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VALUE, EXPLOITATION AND GROWTH By Michio Morishima and George Catephores . McGraw-Hill (Maidenhead, Berks .) 1978, pp . 217 . £6 .25 . Reviewed by Sue Himmelweit . This book is a continuation of many of the themes of Morishima's earlier book, Marx's Economics (CUP, 1973) . As such it does not provide resolutions of the debates concerning Marx's critique of classical political economy, debates which focus on Marx's own writings and the validity of what he said . Instead Morishima and Catephores are more concerned to argue that had Marx been born a century later, first encountering economics in 1945, he would have been attracted to, and learnt much from modern economic theory . From Von Neumann he would have borrowed his accounting method of incorporating joint production and the age structure of fixed capital (for the theory of value), from Frobenius his theorem on non-negative matrices and from Markov his chains (both for the formation of the general rate of profit), from Leontief his inputoutput system (for the analysis of expanded reproduction) and from Von Neumann again his steady-state growth models (for the laws of capitalist development) . The focus then, is on what light contemporary economic theory can shed on Marx . In so far as they have considered Marx's value theory at all, economists have taken one of two approaches . The first, and more common, approach is that value calculations to Marx were a necessary stage in the calculation (prediction) of the magnitude of various observable phenomena, notably prices . Such an approach has a long pedigree stretching from von Bortkiewicz through Samuelson to Steedman ; typically, all its proponents find Marx's exposition of his value theory inadequate in one respect or another . The second approach is to regard value as a quantification of necessary total labour inputs . This directs value analysis to questions concerning the total labour allocation in societies . The most recent proponent of this approach has been Morishima (now joined by Catephores), although it has been historically associated with those who are interested in showing that the allocations of socialism should not be significantly different from those of an ideal competitive capitalism . (In such a view, the total value of output is limited by the available labour force, but planners cannot use value in the detailed formation of production plans, because it takes no account of the time structure of inputs) . Both of these approaches to value fail to transcend the limitations of bourgeois economics, because the account they take of the historical specificity of capitalist relations of production is a purely formal one, and has no bearing on their analysis . For they consider only the technical conditions of production to produce a commodity, a quantity that can be calculated as soon as technical coefficients of current production methods are known . But within Marxist theory, the measure of value is socially necessary labour time, something which cannot be calculated a priori, because it is the sale of the commodity which both certifies and measures



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the labour employed in its production as socially necessary . However, not only is the measure social, but also the labour time itself, for it is value relations that determine the course of the development of the forces of production under capitalism . The interpretation of socially necessary merely to mean operating techniques validated by social criteria (i .e . cost minimising) is to separate questions of efficiency in production from the specifically capitalist path by which the commodity passes from production to consumption . So while the circulation forms of capitalism can be specified, these do not give any specific content to its relations of production . The unique feature of Marx's value theory is that it claims to encapsulate both in a single concept of value . Within this framework, these two schools of value analysis have engaged in debates (of surprising heat, considering what they have in common) concerning their different understandings of Marx's intentions . The debates have centred on how to calculate these technical 'values' in these awkward cases (joint production, and choice of technique problems) in which the commonly accepted methods of calculation fail to yield unique, determinate or positive aswers . For those who concentrate on Marx's derivation of prices of production from values, the awkward cases provide further good reason for rejecting 'values' as inconsistent as well as redundant concepts . While Steedman comprehensively states this position, Morishima and Catephores do the equivalent for their side . They consider the value of a commodity to be the total labour necessary for its production, a quantity that must exist and must be positive . The awkward cases simply require new methods of calculation : in which 'necessary' is interpreted to mean 'minimum', necessitating a linear programming approach . Hence the value of a commodity is the minimum total labourtime (over all feasible methods of production) needed to produce it, whatever else might have to be produced as a by-product . But one consequence of this formulation is that additivity breaks down ; the value of a bundle of commodities may not equal the sum of their individual commodities . It follows that the concepts of surplus value, exploitation, rate of profit, etc . have to be redefined, because the ususal equalities (such as, the value of a commodity equals the sum of the values of constant and variable capital advanced for its production plus surplus value) fail to hold . Morishima and Catephores formulate such redefinitions, and prove a modified version of what, through Morishima's influence, has come to be known as The Fundamental Marxian Theorem (that is, that positive profits depend on positive surplus value) which also covers the awkward cases thrown up by the existence of . joint production and alternative techniques of production . But quite a lot is lost in this reformulation . For example, a zero rate of exploitation is consistent with simple reproduction . It is only because expanded reproduction requires surplus production of means of subsistence and thus surplus labour that exploitation must occur ; the production of luxury goods for capitalist consumption, or even increased means of production, need not involve exploitation . The performance of surplus labour is thereby related to the economy's ability to grow and not to the specifically capitalist relations of that economy, a good example of how any model which reduced value to



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a function of input-output coefficients must fail to capture its historically specific nature . A further problem with this apprach is that it cannot be used to derive prices of production from values . For while in this system every commodity must have a value, prices and the rate of profit need not be uniquely determined since there may not be as many processes in operation as there are commodities produced . Accordingly, in their discussion of the transformation problem, Morishima and Catephores return to fully determined systems of equations, and defend Marx's transformation procedure as an iteration process which in the limit transforms values into prices of production . But they argue against this as either a logically necessary or an historical process for the derivation of prices . Indeed the iteration process need not start with values, for any non-negative, nonzero starting point will in the limit yield prices of production . What the transformation procedure is, according to Morishima and Catephores, is Marx's recourse to a 'social-scientific' proof of the Fundamental Theorem, in the absence of sufficient mathematical expertise to provide a proof directly . It therefore has little to do with a theory of price formation . The book is dominated by the advocacy of the minimum labour allocation approach to the theory of value and central place is given to the Fundamental Marxian Theorem . It contains other chapters, which illustrate and substantiate rather than add to these main themes . These include considerations of Marx's route from philosophy to economics, the impact of population growth on expanded reproduction, the question of exploitation under socialism and the status of the historical transformation problem. A survey of bourgeois writings on the transformation procedure is provided . Marxist writings have in general been missed presumably because the modern literature cited is confined to mainstream academic journals . Compared with Steedman's arguments, those of Morishima and Catephores are much more constructive . They produce elegant and sophisticated justifications, both mathematical and verbal, for their approach . But for the reasons given above, what they are saying has little to do with Marx's conception of value . Marxism and contemporary economic theory share some common roots in Ricardo's political economy but their subsequent divergence is not merely a matter of chance or of arrogance on the two sides . The differences are fundamental . Morishima and Catephores (and to a lesser extent Steedman) may well have shown the full extent of the light that can be shed on Marx by contemporary economic theory . Let us now delve in its shadow .

CAPITAL AND LAND by Doreen Massey and Alejandrina Catalano Arnold (London, 1978) £ .50 pb . CSE Book Club £2 .60 . Reviewed by Michael Edwards and David Lovatt . The familiar proposition that private land ownership will cause systematic



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problems for the accumulation of capital has never progressed very far beyond a lofty general discourse in the UK, largely because it is so especially hard to find out about land transactions and ownership . Massey and Catalano have set out to analyse the specific forms of land ownership in Britain and have brought together an unprecedented volume of information . Their attack upon the tight-lipped statistics is shaped by their theoretical interest, principally - seeking to distinguish categories of the ownership form, in political and ideological, as much as in `purely economic' terms ; - teasing out the effects of these forms upon the composition of production and the process of accumulation, rejecting any presupposition that rents are purely to be seen as redistributions of surplus value created in production . The empirical analysis is extremely useful, combining a critical sifting of patchy data with an unrelenting attention to the meaning of each ownership form as it has developed . Three categories of land ownership are distinguished . (1) Former landed property-the crown, gentry, aristocracy and church -is still a major owner, distinctive in that land is not traded or owned simply as one form of investment among others . It is entwined with the owners' structural position in local society and in politics . There is little buying and less selling, the motives operating are thus much more diverse than any simple profit-maximisation and these owners can mobilise both skill and power in defence of their position . (2) Industrial capital is distinct in that its land is owned as a necessary condition for a production process-either by owner-occupying farmers or by manufacturing and commercial companies . It is only for category (3), financial landownership, "that land (and property) ownership is . . . just another sector to invest in", the level of investment being determined by strictly capitalist criteria applied to prospective rents and asset values . The great strength of this form of analysis, conducted historically, is that it focusses attention upon the evolution of each form in response to the successive impediments it has posed to accumulation in specific periods and places . For example a coherent account can be given of the switch to owner-occupation in agriculture, and the advent of financial landownership in response to the barriers posed by an obsolescent structure of owner-occupation . Finally the authors turn their attention to the Community Land Scheme (a brisk treatment) and the larger isues of land nationalisation . They argue correctly that even the most comprehensive nationalisation of land would have no necessary effect on the size of rent payments in the economy and could easily have only slight effects on social relations . They remain strongly in favour of nationalisation but strictly for the potential benefits which could be realised if land use were fully in the political sphere and handled adequately there . This fine book does, though, have some shortcomings . It starts from a wish to understand the property boom of the early 1970s but provides only one part of the understanding-an account of ownership . It does not deal adequately with the profitability of investment in land : there is no attempt to theorise the relationship between changes in the propensity of



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institutions to invest in land and the periodic crises of profitability which have beset British capitalism . This is important not only in respect of the relative profitability of investment in land but also in respect of international differences in the rate of profit . This rather weak integration of theory and research has at least the following consequences . First, there is a failure to explain the relationship between forms of landownership and changes in the real relative value of land . It also leads to a weak appreciation of the role of the state, in particular on the difficult issue of absolute rents and whether the state could or would realise them . Indeed the treatment of the state is thin throughout-both the state as a group of landowning bodies, and the state as the medium through which the meaning and forms of ownership are enforced and periodically dragged forward . Issues of taxation, trust law, planning and compensation could greatly have enriched the analysis and cast light on the workings of central and local state machines . The great importance of the Comprehensive Development Area machinery in restructuring private landholding for massive redevelopments is scarcely alluded to, for example, and without it a truly massive contradiction would have brought capitalist redevelopment to a halt . Finally land ownership by individual households is excluded, without much loss, but the construction industry deserves a lot more attention than it gets, sitting rather awkwardly on the edge of the 'industrial landownership' category . All these criticisms are on points which the authors or others can pick up and develop and don't seriously detract from the book's great valueas a first step towards a modern analysis of land and rent .

NORTH SHIELDS : WORKING CLASS POLITICS AND HOUSING, 19001977 NORTH SHIELDS : LIVING WITH INDUSTRIAL CHANGE NORTH SHIELDS : ORGANISING FOR CHANGE IN A WORKING CLASS AREA NORTH SHIELDS : ORGANISING FOR CHANGE IN A WORKING CLASS AREA-THE ACTION GROUPS NORTH SHIELDS : WOMEN'S WORK Volumes 1-5 of North Tyneside CDP Final Report, all published 1978 at f1 .20 each, available from The Home Office, Horseferry House (Room 137), Dean Ryle Street, London SW1 P 2AW . Reviewed by Norman Ginsburg . The 535 pages of this report amount to a very impressive document . It is probably the most painstaking and substantial account of socialist actionresearch yet to have been produced . It confronts many of the central issues which faced the working class and the left in Britain in the 1970sthe restructuring of capital and labour, rising unemployment and the fight for jobs, women's double shift as domestic and wage workers, and above all community struggle for better housing .



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North Tyneside Community Development Project (CDP) was established in early 1973 and wound up at the end of 1977 . It was one of the last of the twelve CDPs initiated in 1969 as five year `experimental' neighbourhood action-research projects, part of the government's so-called poverty programme . Like some other CDPs North Tyneside came into conflict with its host local authority, in this case over its close involvement in the local Housing Campaign . This came to a head in late 1975 and thereafter the authority was more insistent in muzzling the CDPs activities . By mid 1976 half the team had left, never to be replaced . The report tries hard to be painfully honest about the political learning process they went through, although the reader is not privy to the internal debates which presumably took place amongst the team . Thus it is not surprising that the conclusions and lessons drawn for local political, trade union, housing and feminist activity are depressingly vague . Nevertheless what distinguishes this CDP and its report from others is its politically conscious approach . The first volume begins with a brief history of working class politics in North Shields, announcing on the first page that "because of the brief we were given to work in the `community' i .e . working class localities, we attempted to take up the tradition of combining home-based issues with work-based issues which was characteristic of working class organisation before 1945 and the institutionalisation of the Labour Party nationally" . The attempt to link home-based and work-based issues is an admirable but formidable task, which succeeds best in a theoretical form in the volume on women . Clearly it proved too big a task when it came to housing action, for the trades council and UCATT (the building workers' union) appear to have resisted CDP's efforts to get them involved in the Housing Campaign . The brief history of working class politics in the area suggests that in fact such a tradition of combining home-based and work-based issues had barely existed, particularly since the formation of the local Labour Party in 1918 . Around the turn of the century the trades council was active on the housing question and after the first world war the National Unemployed Workers Movement led the struggle against unemployment and the relief authorities . The CDP's commitment to the Labour Party seems to be based on a severe mis-reading of their own historical account, which says that after 1918 "the control and leadership of the local Labour Party was in the hands of men and women who were definitely not Socialists ." There is no evidence that the situation was any different in the 1970s . Nevertheless in mid 1975 the project workers decided to encourage the housing action groups which they were developing and supporting to "work more closely with the Labour Party" and to join it as individuals . Unfortunately this was also the period when public spending cuts were beginning to bite into housing expenditures and the initial radical aura surrounding the Labour government was disappearing . Some of the tenants' groups seem to have ignored CDP's advice for "in no way did they work through the Labour Party itself" and indeed mounted "an explicit political offensive on the Labour Party" . After a protracted struggle involving occupation of the town hall etc ., tenants achieved the full modernisation'of one of the worst council estates in the town . Undoubtedly CDP



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made a crucial contribution to this struggle (and to many others) so that in January 1978 when the workers in the estate's information shop were sacked, the residents went into occupation and it is hinted that tenants may themselves fight local elections, independent of Labour . Clearly the tenants were drawing the correct political lessons! After all this, the conclusion that "it may well be that it is too early to cry 'wolf' and bury the Labour Party in a cemetery of words" seems almost absurd . The CDP's commitment to left labourism also emerges from their 'industrial work' . Volume two presents the changing industrial structure of North Shields in excellent detail -the decline of coal mining, shipyards, the fishing industry etc ., the emergence of plants owned by multi-national capital, the capital-intensive re-structuring of the port . The importance of local and central state agencies in promoting the local restructuring of capital comes through continually and it is emphasised that the activities of the Port of Tyne Authority, Swan Hunter (nationalised in 1977) and the National Enterprise Board are completely removed from local working class control . Yet the authors appear to pin their faith in the fight for jobs and the future of the community on the state . For example "it is up to the state to step in to create order, preserve jobs and maintain viability within the fishing industry", while at the same time it is demonstrated that state involvement encourages restructuring along more concentrated capitalintensive lines . The report and the CDP seem to give uncritical support to the Stuart Holland/Tony Benn view that the National Enterprise Board has not turned out as they originally envisaged and that planning agreements can be made in workers' interests . Alternatives such as the Lucas Aerospace workers plan and the importance of combine committees are aired briefly, but the political conclusions are, perhaps understandably, blurred . The report emphasises quite correctly the importance of 'reproductive' politics around issues concerning the reproduction of labour power "which relate to working class standards of living and quality of life" . The accounts of the local housing struggles (in volume four) which they helped to initiate are sophisticated and politically sensitive, breaking through community workers' widespread reticence to account critically for their work . The various action groups all made significant material gains using the whole panoply of tactics and techniques which have been developed by community activists, using the political vacuum that clearly exists between officers and councillors and their grass roots . However the report also recognises the limitations of such activity-the transitory, parochial and 'non-political' nature of such groups, the ease with which councils can play small areas off against each other and the problems of incorporation or destruction at the hands of councillors, officers and the media. Revolutionary socialists cannot afford to ignore the growth of community politics and the problems highlighted here and in Cynthia Cockburn's book The Local State . The CDP's formation of a town Housing Campaign which successfully generalised the issues of housing cuts and repairs clearly presented a more fundamental threat to the Labour council which ultimately led to their smashing the CDP . Volume five of the report on women's work curiously seems to have no direct relation to CDP or community action, but it is an excellent and



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valuable document-a socialist feminist account of working class women's experiences and living situation in one town . The extensive use of long and short quotes from interviews with women is very effective . The relationship between domestic labour and wage labour as it is lived daily by women is conveyed very vividly, particularly the primacy of children and the home in their lives . A small survey suggests that the married women go out to work mostly because they simply need the money and that the predominance of part-time working, low basic rates of pay and bonus systems militate against strong trade unionism . 62% of the wage working women with children had been in their present jobs for less than two years and hence do not qualify for many maternity, redundancy and employment protection rights . The volume concludes that the Women's Liberation Movement has not had much effect on these women's lives, although "many of them are struggling as women against their oppression ." At the very least surely the women's movement lends them indirect ideological support as well as campaigning on a wide variety of issues affecting their lives . Each volume of this report stands on its own, and there is some repetition, lack of coordination and self-contradiction within them . Yet the task which the authors set themselves was an exciting and important one, which succeeds in making the political economy and the working class of North Shields come alive for the reader .

ECONOMY AND CLASS STRUCTURE by R . Crompton and J . Gubbay Macmillan (London, 1977) pp . 248, £3 .50 pb. Reviewed by Allin Cottrell This book should serve as a useful students' introduction to Marxist theories of social class . The authors present a salutory challenge to the dominant tradition of class analysis in British sociology-that based on Weberian or neo-Weberian ideas, and exemplified in the work of Lockwood, Parkin and Giddens. They argue that academic sociologists have tended to fudge the important differences between Weber and Marx on social classes . Weber and Marx both based their theories of class on "economic relations", but the crucial question is the way in which economic relations are conceptualised . Weber emphasised "market position" or the ability to command rewards (and took the market for granted), but Marx saw market relations as secondary to the class antagonisms generated in the process of production of surplus value . Crompton and Gubbay argue that the former, market-oriented approach is bound to be superficial, and they attempt to develop the latter approach based on the relations of production . They consider the problems in extending a Marxist analysis to encompass class relations in the spheres of finance, commerce and state employment as well as productive industry . I say the book should be useful for students . This is because it engages



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the positions of orthodox sociology, and is clearly written . It presents Marxist ideas on a range of issues from the circuits of capital to the nature of the state with a minimum of jargon . It must be said, however, that Economy and Class Structure is not a path-breaking work . It is fairly upto-date in its coverage of Marxist debate (Carchedi, Olin Wright) but it doesn't really confront in detail the problems which have emerged . The authors rely on a rather loose functional division between control and coordinated labour in their analysis of class determination, and don't always seem aware of the problems in this approach . For instance, the use of the control/co-ordinated labour division enables them to make short work of the class nature of "the East" (the USSR etc .) . Since there is evidently a distinction between those who control and those whose labour is coordinated, we are dealing with a state-capitalist system . But do the means of production function as capital? Do the "controllers" own the means of production? Does this matter for class analysis? In fact, there is no extended discussion of property relations in the book, which is. an important weakness . Nonetheless, a welcome change from Giddens et al . I just hope other copies of the book don't fall apart so rapidly as my rather shoddy paperback .

UKUBAMBA AMADOLO by Bettie du Toit Onyx Press, £1 .60 pb . Reviewed by David Hemson . This is one of the most lively and readable books on the struggles of the working class in South Africa against the apartheid state . Bettie du Toit, a trade unionist and socialist, describes the workers' struggles in the textile industry from the time of its late development in South Africa (the 1930s) to the revival of mass working class action in the 1970s . She vividly portrays the political and industrial battles of the textile workers from antifascism in the 1930s to the struggle to overthrow the apartheid state in the 1970s . In conclusion she argues for new tactics in the workers struggle . Hence the title of the book, which means to go slow, a tactic which she advocates as a method which the black working class could adopt on a national scale to overcome the military power of the apartheid state . By this method the workers would not have to risk all in a decisive strike battle . The workers could take control over the pace of production rather than bring it to an immediate halt ; pressure being brought to bear both on the employers and their backers-the state . That such a suggestion can be made at all indicates the rising power of the working class in South Africa despite the most despotic and terroristic actions of the state. Within the variety of forms of resistance to apartheid ; urban guerilla action, mass demonstrations, strikes and insurrections ; Bettie du Toit places her uncompromising faith in political action by the



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black working class . Like many other countries at the periphery of capitalism, industry was slow to develop in South Africa . Even textiles, a primary wage good in the form of blankets, only expanded on the basis of a high tariff policy and close state support . Initially the textile industry was made the preserve of white workers, particularly women, who were expected to be grateful for this form of welfare . Bettie du Toit and other white women trade unionists proved the state and employers wrong . Through strikes and determined organisation men and women, black and white, came to be organised in a strong industrial union which bridged the relatively privileged position of white workers with the needs of the newly proletarianised black workers . The textile union never countenanced appeals to chauvinism or to the state as a means of protecting workers . With the expansion of the cotton industry in the 1950s there was a

rapid intensification of labour . Capital sought out the areas of operation where super-exploitable black labour was available ; in the `border' areas adjacent to the reserves . The textile union, not exactly in a strong position in the urban centres, was uniquely able to carry trade union struggles into the countryside . The workers in the border areas turned out to be some of the most troublesome for employers during the 1950s! The only basis on

which the industry as a whole could continue at the high rates of profit demanded by capital was by holding wages at starvation levels . Towards the end of the 1950s the repression of the black working class as a whole,

and particularly militant groups of workers such as those organised in the textile union, was stepped up in response to the rising tide of resistance . The terroristic policies of the 1 960s brought the incidence of strike action

down, decapitated working class leadership, and permitted a rapid expansion of production . All these struggles are graphically described by du Toit who was intimately connected with their outcome . The discussion does, however, omit the crucial political advances made by the black working class during the period of open resistance . Rather surprisingly, the relationship of the textile union to the Congress of the People in 1955 which adopted a set of

broad democratic demands including the nationalisation of monopoly industry (of which the textile industry is a prime example), mines and banks, is not discussed . The textile union was the strongest in the South African Congress of Trade Unions, . but this dimension -the leadership of the textile workers in working class resistance-is hardly developed . The political aspirations of the black working class are finally presented as the removal of the pass laws and apartheid, the question of transformation of South African society in the workers' interests is left to the future . Despite these criticisms, Ukubamba Amadolo is a refreshing change to political biographies which exclude discussion of working class struggles, and the rather turgid labour histories of the radical social scientists . Bettie du Toit had the politically conscious youth in mind when she wrote . Her book deserves an even wider readership .



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THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MODERN STATE . A` SOCIOLOGICAL INTRODUCTION by Gianfranco Poggi Hutchinson (London, 1978), pp . 175 . f7 .95 hb ., f3 .95 pb . Reviewed by John Holloway . This book investigates the institutional structure of political rule in various stages of the modern state . It contains interesting chapters on the Feudal system of Rule, the Standestaat, the Absolutist System of Rule, the Nineteenth Century Constitutional State, and State and Society under Liberalism and After, as well as an Introduction on the Business of Rule . The book provides a very useful and intelligent account of the various systems of rule . In presenting the structure of the various types of state, Poggi draws on a very wide range of literature and makes particularly good use of classical bourgeois legal theory to show the developing nature and role of law as a component of the system of rule . He introduces into English a Continental tradition of learned conceptualisation of the nature of the state and its relation to society and this yields some valuable insights . In line with the best of this tradition, he pays considerable attention to the work of Marx (the "great sociologist" (p . x)) and some modern Marxists . The book is written in that tone of cynical and enlightened realism so popular among the better sociologists and political scientists : we live in a capitalist society ; capitalism is a system of class domination : "it entails the self-perpetuating dominance of the capital owning class over those social groups whose livelihood and social standing depend on the sale of labour power" (p . 122) ; the state is a capitalist state : "a state that purports to be the source of all power relations acts in fact as guarantor of power relations that do not originate from itself, and that it does not control-those engendered by the institution of private control over capital" (p . 95) . And, what is more, the situation is getting worse : liberalism has been undermined, parliament, and with it all possibility of citizens' control, has been shunted away from the centre of political life ; the legitimacy of the state is shaken . What is the answer? A return to "liberal and democratic ideas" (p . 148) . The theme of the book, in so far as there is any, is that the history of the modern state is the gradual development of more civilised forms of rule which reach their peak in the nineteenth century and have been declining since then . It is now necessary to reverse this trend . Poggi draws his conclusion in the closing page : "Personally, I think that in seeking both moral inspiration and strategic guidance, Western opposition to the present disturbing tendencies in state/society relations must turn once more to those . . . liberal and democratic ideas . . .Only these two ideas connect the past evolution of the modern state with the moral heritage of the West, and thus with a wider ethical vision of humanity as the collective protagonist of a universal moral venture" . (p . 148 .)



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How does Poggi come to this extraordinary conclusion? It is made possible by the fact that, although entitled "The Development of the Modern State", the book elaborates no concept of historical development . In fact the book consists of a series of snapshots, "a sequence of typological constructs" (p . xii), with historical developments and transitions from one typological construct to another being treated selectively and eclectically (cf . e .g. the explanation of the rise of absolutism (p . 61) or the decline of liberalism (p . 135)) . Although the book does not claim to provide a theory of history, the approach (and this is inherent in any "institutional history" as such) leaves the book without any conceptual core, ultimately a betrayal, one feels, of intellectual indolence . The Introduction, which is presumably intended to provide a conceptual framework for the rest of the book (although the relation to the rest is never clearly developed) is the weakest of all the chapters . It contrasts the view of Schmitt and Easton on politics, the former seeing politics in terms of conflict against an external enemy, the latter presenting it as a process of internal allocation by demand . After a short discussion, Poggi concludes that the two views are in fact complementary . "each may perhaps be seen as stating one aspect of politics rather than a self-sufficient, integral view of the whole" (p . 11) . This is apparently supposed to provide an adequate theoretical framework for the rest of the analysis . The Marxist view is seen as a critical variant of Easton's since "the two views share a primary reference to allocative processes (! sic) taking place within a collectivity understood in the first instance as a division of labour" (p . 10) . It is unfortunate that the rather off-hand and sloppy introduction fails to provide an adequate theoretical framework (of any description) because the absence of a conceptual core makes the book rather patchy reading, despite the excellence of many of its parts, and allows the introduction of all sorts of eclectic borrowings to explain different historical developments . The general method, the analysis of "a sequence of typological constructs", combined with the lack of a concept of historical development, means that the "typological constructs" themselves are at fault because the systems of rule described are essentially historyless systems of rule, systems of rule without any inherent contradiction . Nowhere is this clearer than in the book's treatment (or rather nontreatment- of the ruled classes . In a book devoted to a study of "the business of rule" it is extraordinary that so little attention is paid to the relation between rulers and ruled . Most of the analysis is devoted to the relations between rulers . The masses are generally assumed to be the passive object of rule ; where working class unrest is mentioned, it is accorded relatively little weight-which at times leads to a surprisingly functionalist view of the state (e .g . pp . 123-124) . There is very little sense of changing forms of institutional rule being but part of a general change in the pattern of class domination : although capitalism is seen as a system of class rule, it is essentially seen as an economic system, external to the state . Capital, indeed, is seen not as a relation of production (and hence an inherently antagonistic and historical relation of class exploitation) but as a relation of distribution, a "market resource", the possession of which gives its "possessors a claim to the appropriation of a disproportionate



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share of the social product" (p . 79) . As such "it generates contrasting sets of typical interests in the two key classes" (p . 122), but not, apparently, inherently antagonistic relations . Capital thus conceived is not a relation of irreconcilable struggle, not a relation of historical movement, but a relation that can be calmed and "civilised" by a return to the ideas of liberalism and democracy . Armed with his conceptual confusion between capital as relation of production and capital as relation of distribution, Poggi can of course weave his way in and out between apparently accepting Marx's view, arguing that the Marxist approach is "correct but somewhat partial" (p . 120) and ultimately rejecting Marxist views altogether . The book provides an object lesson for academics on how they can be intelligent, leaned and radical at the same time as reaching the conservative conclusions to which they are increasingly drawn in the present crisis, in short, how to sit on the fence whistling for liberalism while the exploitation and oppression, the misery, maiming and murder which they can see continues despite and because of their vain bleating .

AUSTROMARXISM T . Bottomore and P . Goode (eds) Clarendon Press (Oxford, 1978) 308 pp . £7 .95 hb . Reviewed by Dick Geary . This book is to be welcomed warmly by all those interested in both the historical evolution of Marxism and the problems of social scientific analysis it still poses today . It contains a wide and representative sample of the impressive works of the Austro-Marxists, well translated, which have been largely unknown or ignored in the English-speaking world, and shows the range of their interests in a number of areas . In terms of methodology it emerges that the Austro-Marxist school differed greatly from, for example, the Frankfurt school in Germany not only in the clarity of their writing,_ but also in their concentration of the empirical social scientific rather than the philosophical nature of Marxism . Hegel did not exert the same kind of influence in Vienna as he did in Frankfurt, whereas nonMarxist intellectual currents, especially neo-Kantianism and Mach's positivism did affect the Austro-Marxists, especially Max Adler . Above all, however, it was in their investigations of the transformation of capitalism in the twentieth century that Hilferding, Adler, Renner and Otto Bauer demonstrated their intellectual strength . Hilferding made a gigantic contribution in his Finanzkapital, perhaps the most impressive Marxist analysis of monopoly capitalism ever to appear, and it is great news to hear that this will at last appear in English translation some time soon . In that monumental work he demonstrated the interpenetration of financial and industrial capital and the emergence of `organised capitalism', a phrase also used by Renner and Bauer, in which the state increasingly became involved in the extraction of surplus value and its realisation . The concern with the new economic role of the state, partly induced



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by concrete historical developments in the First World War, was shared by most of the Austro-Marxists . They began to stress its relative independence and came to believe that its new economic role dispensed to a certain extent with the need to smash the machinery of state in a violent revolution but made possible a slow conquest . They also stressed the relative importance and independence of other superstructural, especially ideological, elements . Living in a multi-national state rent with a variety of ethnic conflicts they naturally made a profound study of the problems of nationalism ; and having witnessed the triumph of fascism they were forced to reflect on the social and intellectual development of the working class in an age of capitalist crisis . Thus this volume contains an impressive analysis of the social roots of fascism by Otto Bauer, infinitely more sophisticated than anything that Stalin and his hacks could produce at the time, and an investigation into the internal stratification of the working class by Max Adler, which partly explains the failure of the German working class to resist Hitler effectively . As well as the various articles that make these points, the book contains an excellent introuduction by Tom Bottomore, which clearly locates the Austro-Marxist school in the precise historical context of a multi-national empire at the turn of the century and in the intellectual climate of early twentieth century Vienna . There is also a very helpful set of biographical notes . There is one area, however, which perhaps deserves treatment at greater length than it receives here, namely the way in which the political ambivalence of Austrian Marxism -hostile to both reformism and Bolshevism -reflected the ambiguous semi-autocratic structure of pre-war AustriaHungary and also the extent to which this kind of "passive radicalism", to use Pannekoek's phrase, owed anything to the German Marxists, and especially to Karl Kautsky . For it seems to me that although the AustroMarxists were more sophisticated in their treatment of philosophical questions, it is far from true that Kautsky's influence waned after the 1890s . For all the leading Austrians corresponded with Kautsky, who had been born in Prague and returned to Vienna in the 1930s . They wrote for his Neue Zeit and he wrote in their journals . Moreover he was close to Hilferding, who lived in Berlin from 1906, and himself made significant and similar contributions to theory of Imperialism between 1907 and 1910 that have been overlooked . The point is that innumerable points of similarity emerge between Kautsky's work and that of Bauer and Hilferding . The stress on working class unity, the fear that rapid revolution would lead to civil war, the anti-soviet and anti-reformist arguments, all of these they had in common and in fact often use identical formulations . Much as one might therefore debate the autonomy of AustroMarxism, there can be no doubt that this is essential and excellent reading .



Capital and Land Landownership by Capital in Great Britain Doreen Massey and Alejandrina Catalano Social Structure and Social Change series This book gives a full analysis of who owns land -both urban and rural-how and why it is being used as it is, and to what effect . The impact of recent redistributive laws and taxes is also discussed . `Their analysis is clearly and coherently presented-and on that basis alone the book is impressive . However, more importantly, it represents perhaps the first attempt to view land from a structuralist perspective . In so doing, it challenges many of the `conventional wisdoms' and provides a rich source of questions for future research .' Built Environment Boards £9 .95 Paper £3 .50

Territory and Function The Evolution of Regional Planning John Friedmann and Clyde Weaver In this volume, the authors offer a unique overview of the evolution of regional planning doctrine from its American beginnings in the 1920s to its present world-wide status . This historical approach throws into relief the options that were rejected, the influence of circumstantial events, alternative formulations that were neglected, and the new forms of doctrine that are emerging now . In the final chapter, a new agropolitan approach to regional development is proposed that seeks to overcome the contradictions in present planning practice . This approach is based on a concept of human needs and is particularly suitable to newly industrialising countries in Asia and Africa where the need for territorially based regional development is the most urgent . This book is a landmark in the study of regional planning ; sometimes controversial but always cogently argued, it will be essential reading for any student or practitioner of regional planning and development today . Boards £9 .95 Paper £4 .95 Publication October

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