A Marxist Against All Forms of Romantic Anti-Capitalism and Revolutionary Marxism

The Argument

Our author, Meghnad Desai, shocks marxist revolutionaries and romantic anti-capitalists everywhere when, at the very beginning of the book (p. 3), he tells us that Marx would prefer the market to rule the economy rather than the state ruling the economy. "The idea that socialism would be brought about by the state was alien to everything he stood for. (p. 4)" Yes, I agree. The market forces us to be free(r); in the name of security, states (socialist or otherwise) must always hide that freedom from us. Marx thought that the market forces us to find both our independence (from God and State) and our interdependence, and therefore, our Humanity. - And who knows? Then, eventually, perhaps one day to dialectically change even that!

Unlike our romantic anti-capitalists, Marx was a progressive and an admirer of technology. As one of the two greatest dialecticians (he stood Hegels dialectic right side up) of the nineteenth century he knew full well that nothing in the material or social world disappears by magic. Regarding the change from the capitalist mode of production to the socialist mode of production Desai argues throughout this book that the genuinely Marxist understanding is that "any particular mode disappeared only after its full potential had been exhausted... (p. 7)" And our author adds that there isn't anything that can change that.

In a nutshell, it is this that our author is trying to prove throughout this book. He is arguing that Capitalisms full potential has yet to be realized! The notion that Marx could have supported the Russian Revolution as it historically developed, that is, socialism being foisted upon a non-capitalist state out of the blue, without any other socialist states in europe, is silly -if not hilarious. Indeed, even the bolshevik party didn't initially believe it! They "fully expected a chain of revolutions to break out in Germany, France, and perhaps even England. (p. 8)" It didn't happen. And in trying to do what Marx believed could never happen, the communist party of Lenin created one of the greatest abominations that the world has ever seen.

But according to our author, this disgraceful episode was barely Marxist. "...Marx had the last laugh. He was not wrong, not simplistic, not mechanical. Capitalism would not go away until after it had exhausted its potential. (p. 9)" Period. But this is what our marxisant revolutionaries will never believe. As the USSR decayed our 'marxist' intellectuals then put their faith in the Far East. But over the last two decades China too has embraced capitalism. Now these 'marxists' "desperately hope that some limits will be found to global capitalism. Perhaps the environment. Perhaps the resurgence of the nation-state, or a regional superstate. Or even a global-level co-ordination among the nation-states through the UN or G-7 or G-77. Something to tame capitalism, to stop its rampant progress."

Of course, Marx would never have looked for the limits of capital from any 'external agents'. Is Capitalism then eternal? No. It "will be in the daily practice of the people working the machinery of capitalism that its limits will be felt, and it will be overcome by them. (p. 10)" Exactly when does this happen? No one knows. Our author pointedly says that "Marx was an astronomer of history, not an astrologer." In order to demonstrate this our author presents in this book a theoretical-historical study of capitalism that draws not only on Marx, but on Adam Smith and Hegel, and Schumpeter, Keynes, Hayek and Polanyi too. In this book our author intends to show that not only have all the purported ways to overcome or tame capitalism have failed, but that this failure is itself predicted by Marx!

Above I have only limned the broad contours of the argument that our author presented in the beginning of this book. But everywhere and always, it is the details that matter. I leave it to the interested reader to pursue them. For what it is worth, I found the argument quite convincing...

Some Quotes

I know that many of you doubt that Marx ever had anything good to say about Capitalism; so I will share a few quotes.

1. "No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have been developed; and new higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself. Therefore, mankind only sets itself such tasks as it can solve; since looking at the matter more closely we will always find that the task itself arises only when the material conditions necessary for its solution already exist, or are at least in the process of formation."
(Marx, Contribution to Political Economy. Quoted by Desai, p.44)

One could argue that Desai hangs his whole argument off this quote. It would be, I think, better to say that the genesis of his argument begins precisely here.

2. Next, Desai also argues that, in a qualified sense, Marx was also an imperialist! Of course, he is so only in the sense that he believes that it is capitalism, and only capitalism, which can and must overcome the earlier stages of development of the colonies.

"Marx had welcomed the British East India Company's role in destroying the old precapitalist institutions in India; his only complaint was that they had not finished the job properly in 1857, when the company was replaced by the British government. He and Engels had approved of France's takeover of Algeria. In Marx's view, capitalism was a progressive force which had to destroy older modes even if this destruction was effected by a colonial power. This embarrassing legacy was suppressed or explained away. Marx became cast as a firm anti-imperialist writer as well as an anticapitalist one. The Narodniks' delusions about skipping the capitalist stage altogether and jumping on to socialism were now given Marxist garb."
(Desai, pgs. 154-155)

This 'Narodnik delusion', that one could somehow go directly from a peasant economy to a socialist one has, since the Russian Revolution and the bolshevism of Lenin and Trotsky, unfortunately become ever more so the generally accepted marxisant understanding. But this Third Worldist gibberish was never taught by Marx!

3. From Marx himself we read the following account of capitalist progress:
-...the exploration of the earth in all directions, to discover new things of use as well as new useful qualities of the old; such as new qualities of them as raw materials etc.; the development, hence, of the natural sciences to their highest point; likewise the discovery, creation and satisfaction of new needs arising from society itself; the cultivation of all the qualities of the social human being, production of the same in a form as rich as possible in needs, because rich in qualities and relations -- production of this being as the most total and universal possible social product, for, in order to take gratification in a many-sided way, he must be capable of many pleasures [genussfahig], hence cultured to a high degree -- is likewise a condition of production founded on capital. This creation of new branches of production, i.e. of qualitatively new surplus time, is not merely the division of labour, but is rather the creation, separate from a given production, of labour with a new use value; the development of a constantly expanding and more comprehensive system of different kinds of labour, different kinds of production, to which a constantly expanding and constantly enriched system of needs corresponds.
Thus, just as production founded on capital creates universal industriousness on one side -- i.e. surplus labour, value-creating labour -- so does it create on the other side a system of general exploitation of the natural and human qualities, a system of general utility, utilizing science itself just as much as all the physical and mental qualities, while there appears nothing higher in itself, nothing legitimate for itself, outside this circle of social production and exchange. 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 civilizing 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 recognized 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. In accord with this tendency, capital drives beyond national barriers and prejudices as much as beyond nature worship, as well as all traditional, confined, complacent, encrusted satisfactions of present needs, and reproductions of old ways of life. It is destructive towards all of this, and constantly revolutionizes it, tearing down all the barriers which hem in the development of the forces of production, the expansion of needs, the all-sided development of production, and the exploitation and exchange of natural and mental forces.
But from the fact that capital posits every such limit as a barrier and hence gets ideally beyond it, it does not by any means follow that it has really overcome it, and, since every such barrier contradicts its character, its production moves in contradictions which are constantly overcome but just as constantly posited. Furthermore. The universality towards which it irresistibly strives encounters barriers in its own nature, which will, at a certain stage of its development, allow it to be recognized as being itself the greatest barrier to this tendency, and hence will drive towards its own suspension.-
(Marx, Grundrisse, NY. 1973 p.409-10.)

So yes, Marx certainly includes Capitalism (and Socialism, of course) within the universalistic Enlightenment project (a project that originates in europe, btw) and he admires it for that. The romantic anti-capitalist left, like the fascist right, can only despise the progressivism of Marx. Marx rightly, in my opinion, underlines the localism and 'nature idolatry' of all previous social formations. He admires capitalisms destruction of all this. Of course it goes without saying (or at least it should) that he sees the often terrible human cost (we are all merely tools of and cogs in the machinery of capitalism) and that he always sees that capitalism itself needs to be overcome.
Apologies for this long quote but I thought it nicely nicely brought out both the wonderful and dreadful nature of Capitalism.

Thoughts

To put it as bluntly and tersely as possible, thus leaving out many moderating details, Marx thought that Capitalism was the greatest thing that ever happened on the face of the earth. Except, of course, for the Socialism to come. If you want to know how socialism could (in the late modern period) still rise in spite of the romantic reactionaries and revolutionary fetishists that have called themselves 'marxists' since very near the beginning of the movement, read this book. Only four stars because one day I would like to review Marx on Kapital (one of the later volumes) and give him five.

Desai argues, quite correctly according to the original theory of Marx, that the only way Capitalism will come to an end is when it is no longer a progressive force. (Again, by 'progressive' Marx merely means whether or not Capitalism can still increase the total productive force of human labor.) Well, this could be exactly what 'Globalization' is - the last stage of Capitalism. But instead of welcoming it; the revolutionary and romantic Left opposes it - and thus they can (if successful) only extend the life of Capital indefinitely. This is a brilliant argument put forward by Desai, - and I think it may even be correct!

Now, how could our current globalization be stopped? While many leftists retain hope that the 'global south' will somehow stop globalization, I agree with our author that developments in China have shown that this hope is almost certainly yet another illusion. The only other possibility I see now is that nineteenth century geo-politics proves prophetic and the dichotomy between land-power and sea-power proves insurmountable and the tsunami of globalizing capital breaks up on the bleak landscape (or dries up in the frigid deserts) of central eurasia. The enfants on the left may even attempt to show that this last is itself somehow 'progressive'; but they would be terribly wrong. Their attempts to prove this would merely be the past; mythified, sanitized and ideologized. Geopolitically speaking, land-power is inherently 'the past'. But the geopolitical contrast of land-power and sea-power will one day (I hope!) be the subject of another review.

So then, did Marx not make any mistakes? Of course he did, everyone does. The largest one was his belief that the transition to socialism was near. I believe his revolutionary work in the Communist League and the First International was a waste of time. His efforts were more profitably spent in his never ending study of political economy. And to be honest, I don't think that the process of globalization is anywhere near complete. Even if Desai is correct in his understanding of Marx, the arrival of socialism might still be several centuries from now. So no, I do not think that any of us living today will know whether or not Desai is correct in his understanding of Marx.

Again, Marx's understanding of the inevitability of the fall of capitalism, and the resulting rise of socialism, could indeed be right. The problem is that he wildly over-estimated the 'lateness' of the capitalist mode of production. In other words, the revolutionary aspect of his thought was at war with the economical/historical/political/sociological aspects of his thought. The latter could still be true even if the former (that is, the revolutionary) was entirely wrong. Marx, at times, fiercely criticized utopian and romantic anti-capitalism. As fate would have it, today it seems that revolutionary communism was, in effect, but another example of these two futilities.

In Closing

I should close by pointing out that in this book there are many quite interesting and surprising points that I have not mentioned in this short review. For instance, Desai discusses how in Capital Volume II Marx himself seemingly indicates the possibility that capitalism could perpetuate itself indefinitely! See for instance chapter 5 and 6 (especially pages 69 - 74) of this book regarding this. What? Wait a minute! In Capital, volume 1, chapter 32, it appeared pretty clear that capitalisms doom was inevitable. However our author argues that "all it says, in a rather roundabout way, is that the transition from capitalism to socialism will take less time than the transition from feudalism to capitalism. But that could mean anywhere between four and six hundred years. (p. 93)" (As mentioned above, the end of capitalism cum globalization might not be close.)

Also, another thought I found myself having while reading this is that if Lord Desai is right about how Marx should be read then Marx should never have achieved anywhere near the historical importance he surely has. Stripped of his revolutionism and also the romanticism/utopianism of his followers, who would Marx have been? Paul Samuelson once said that:
"From the viewpoint of pure economic theory, Karl Marx can be regarded as a minor post-Ricardian."
And, if Desai's understanding of Marx were to become the norm, of course this would be perfectly true ...until capitalism collapsed as Marx (again, as here understood by Desai) predicted. The Marx that Desai reveals is a Marx for economists and historians and sociologists only.
...And I guarantee that almost no one will be satisfied with that.

I found this book to be an exciting read. There are many points and details that Desai brings out regarding Das Kapital and its interpretation that I found quite intriguing. Whether you are a revolutionary socialist, a reformist socialist, a former socialist or a non-socialist, I believe you will find this book worthy of your time. ( )