Explaining Postmodernism by Stephen Hicks: Chapter 5: The Crisis of Socialism

explaining post-modernism Chapter five the crisis of socialism Marxism and waiting for godot first formulated in the mid nineteenth century classical Marxist socialism made two related pairs of claims one pair economic and one pair moral economically it argued that capitalism was driven by a logic of competitive exploitation that would cause its eventual collapse socialism's communal form of production by contrast would prove to be economically superior morally it argued capitalism was evil both because of the self-interested motives of those who engaged in capitalist competition and because of the exploitation and alienation that competition caused socialism by contrast would be based on selfless sacrifice and communal share the initial hopes of Marxist socialists centered on capitalism's internal economic contradictions the contradictions they thought would manifest themselves in increasing classed conflict as the competition for resources heated up the capitalists exploitation of the proletariat would necessarily increase as the exploitation increased the proletariat would come to realize its alienation and oppression at some point the exploited proletariat would decide that it was not going to take it anymore and revolution would ensue so the strategy of the marxist intellectuals was to wait and mount a lookout for signs that capitalism's contradictions were leading logically and inexorably to revolution they waited a long time by the early part of the 20th century after several failed predictions of imminent revolution not only was it becoming embarrassing to make further predictions it was beginning to seem that capitalism was developing in a direction opposite to the way that Marxism said it should be developing three failed predictions Marxism was and is a class analysis pitting economic classes against each other in a zero-sum competition in that competition the stronger parties would win each successive round of competition forcing the weaker parties into more desperate straits successive rounds of capitalist competition would also pit the stronger parties against each other yielding more winners and losers until capitalism generated an economic social structure characterized by a few capitalists at the top and in control of the Society's economic resources while the rest of society was pushed into poverty even capitalism's nascent middle class would not remain stable for the logic of zero-sum competition would squeeze a few of the middle class into the top capitalist class and the rest into the proletariat this class analysis yielded three definite predictions first it predicted that the proletariat would both increase as a percentage of the population and become poorer as capitalist competition progressed more and more people would be forced to sell their labor and as the supply of those selling their labor increased the wages they could demand would necessarily decrease second it predicted that the middle class would decrease to a very small percentage of the population zero-sum competition means there are winners and losers and while a few would consistently be winners and thus become rich capitalists most would lose at some point and be forced into the proletariat third it predicted that the capitalists would also decrease as a percentage of the population zero-sum competition also applies to the competition among the capitalists generating a few consistent winners in control of everything while the rest would be forced down the economic ladder yet that was not how it worked out by the early 20th century it seemed that all three of the predictions failed to characterise the development of the cap list countries the class of manual laborers had both declined as a percentage of the population and become relatively better off and the middle class had grown substantially both as a percentage of the population and in wealth as had the upper-class Marxist socialism thus faced a set of theoretical problems why had the predictions not come to pass even more pressing was the practical problem of impatience if the proletarian masses were the material of revolution why were they not revolting the exploitation and alienation had to be there despite service appearances and it had to be being felt by capitalism's victims the proletariat so what was to be done about the decidedly non revolutionary working class after decades of waiting hopefully and pouncing on any sign of worker dissatisfaction and unrest the plain fact was that the proletariat was not going to revolt anytime soon consequently the waiting strategy needed to be rethought socialism needs an aristocracy many theorists had the same thought among the earliest were the Fabian's in England led by Beatrice and Sidney Webb and given name recognition by George Bernard Shaw with typical English politeness the Fabian's had decided to abandon all that unpleasant talk a revolution and to pursue socialism by evolution by meetings discussions pamphlets and voting if the Fabian's also decided early to abandon the strategy of waiting for the proletariat to change society from the bottom up that approach they argued requires much too much confidence in the powers of the ordinary working man as Beatrice Webb put it in her memoirs quote we have little faith in the average sensual man we do not believe that he can do much more than describe his grievances we do not think he can prescribe the remedies unquote for both the prescribed remedies and the initiation of measures to enact them strong leadership by an elite was essential in Russia before the Revolution of 1917 Lenin had also modified Marxist theory in the same direction in order to make it applicable to the Russian context Russians certainly had a lot of grievances but those suffering most were not doing much about them seeming to accept stolid Lee that such was their fate had law in life and it was hard to blame capitalism for their grievances given that Russia was still a stronghold of feudalism Lenin did have an explanation for why the proletariat in the capitalist nations of the West were not revolting under their yoke of oppression and alienation the Western capitalists had cleverly exported that misery to the poorer undeveloped nations but that was not going to help matters in Russia according to classical Marxism waiting for socialism to come to Russia meant waiting for capitalism to come to Russia for capitalism then to develop an industrial proletariat for the proletariat then to achieve a collective class consciousness and then revolt against the oppressor that would take a maddeningly long time so Marx's theory had to be altered socialism in Russia could not wait to develop out of mature capitalism the revolution would have to take Russia directly from feudalism to socialism but without capitalism's organized proletariat the transition would require an elite who would through force of will and political violence effect a quote revolution from above unquote and then impose socialism on everyone in a quote dictatorship of the proletariat unquote in China similar conclusions were reached by Mao Zedong in the 1920s Mao had been inspired by the results of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 Russia Mao then wrote was now quote the number one civilized country in the world unquote but he was also unimpressed with the results of his and the other communists efforts to educate and organize the Chinese peasantry so Mao had also decided that socialism would have to arise directly out of feudalism compared to Russia China had even less mass political consciousness consequently Mao believed that while the peasantry had a role to play in making the revolution happen a strong elite leadership was essential now then introduced to other variations that Lenin did not the classical Marxist vision of socialism included a developed industrial and technological economy one that would come about and be maintained by the forces of dialectical logic Mao de-emphasize technology and rationality Chinese socialism would be more agrarian and low-tech and it would be brought about less by logic and reason than by sheer unpredictable will and assertion returning to the European context of the 1920s the need for strong leadership was confirmed to most radicals by the impotence of the German Social Democrats then the leading socialist party in the world and in control of Germany's government for most of the decade the Social Democrats proved incapable of accomplishing anything to George Lucas and to max Horkheimer and the early thinkers of the Frankfurt School this also pointed up the need for a modification of classical Marxist theory left to their own devices the proletariat and their spokesmen would simply wallow in futility not only was the Social Democratic leadership too wishy-washy and compromising its voting constituencies among the working classes were themselves clueless about their real needs and they're real but masked state of oppression the lesson that the leftist of the left radicals drew was so much for democracy so much for the grassroots bottom-up approach so much for appealing to the masses and waiting for them to do anything what socialism needs is leadership leadership that will diagnose capitalism's problems clearly set remedies and act decisively and ruthlessly to achieve socialism along the way telling the masses what they needed to hear and what to do and when ironically then by the 1930s large segments of the radical left had come to agree with what National Socialists and fascists had long argued that socialism needs an aristocracy granted the far right and now much of the far left agreed socialism must be for the people but it cannot be by the people the people must be told what they need and how to get it and for both the direction and impetus must come from an elite thus the Soviet Union came to be the great hope for socialism with Joseph Stalin now running Russia on precisely that elitist model the Soviet Union seemed the answer to most left socialists prayers the failed predictions of classical Marxist socialism could be set aside and forgotten the appropriate theoretical and practical adjustments had been made and the future looked bright for socialism good news for socialism depression and war almost better than the example of the Soviet Union was the arrival of long hoped for economic trouble in the capitalist West with the coming of the great crash in 1929 and the ensuing depression it had to be that at long last capitalism's internal contradictions were manifesting themselves utilized productive capacity plunged unemployment skyrocketed tension among the classes increased dramatically and as the months stretched into years no recovery was in sight all socialists were quick to see the depression as a great opportunity surely anyone could see that this must be the end of the road for liberal capitalism even the less perspicacious working classes especially since they were bearing the brunt of the pain had to be able to see that all that the Socialists had to do was to get their act together and led by an intransigent cadre of leaders give tottering capitalism the shove it needed to topple it into the dustbin of history it did not work out that way for the left socialists in both Germany and Italy the National Socialists proved better at using the depression to their advantage somehow continuing to delude the proletariat about their real needs and stealing votes from the Left socialists as the world headed into war in the late 1930s even the onset of hostilities brought hope to the left the war effort on the part of the liberal capitalist nations had to be their last desperate hope to salvage something there's also the strong possibility that if the war lasted the Liberals and National Socialists would kill each other off or at the very least seriously weaken each other leaving the field open for left socialism under the leadership of the Soviet Union to sweep the world again it did not work out that way the war brought enormous destruction on both sides but the pickings were slim for the left socialists physically and psychologically Germany was devastated at the end of the war ideologically the collectivist right was defeated moralized and appropriately demonized but in the West in spite of their losses in war weariness the liberal capitalist nations were physically mobilized and psychologically jubilant the capitalist nations made the transition from war to peace relatively smoothly and they saw their victory as not only a physical but a moral triumph for liberalism democracy and capitalism from the perspective of the left then the defeat of the collectivist right was a mixed blessing a hated enemy was gone but the left was alone in the field against a victorious and vigorous liberal capitalist West bad-news liberal capitalism rebounds by the 1950s the liberal nations had damnably recovered from the depression and the war and were even worse flourishing under capitalism that was extremely disappointing to the left but it was not necessarily hopeless Lenin's theory of imperialism had explained that the effects of capitalist exploitation would not be found in the powerful and rich nations since those nations simply exported those costs to the poorer and weaker developing nations so perhaps hope for revolution could be found in the developing capitalist nations but over time that hope fizzled the exported oppression was not to be found in those nations either nations that adopted capitalism in varying degrees were not suffering from their trade with the richer nations instead the trade was mutually beneficial and from humble beginnings those nations that adopted capitalist measures rose first to comfort and then to wealth just as a teenager typically starts working at low-tech labor-intensive low-paying jobs and then acquires skills and so is promoted to positions that are higher tech information intensive and higher paying the developing capitalist nations follow the same pattern and in the most developed nations overall wealth was rising and poverty was decreasing yet further what were once luxuries were becoming standard fare and the working classes were enjoying stable employment their television sets the latest fashions and their vacations across the country in their new cars in the 1950s accordingly the radical left turned its attention and hopes even more strongly to the Soviet Union looking for it to outstrip the capitalist West in being both an exemplar of moral idealism and a paragon of economic production those hopes were soon to be dashed cruelly while the economic data were mixed and the propaganda was heavy the Soviet Union was experiencing chronic difficulties in providing basic consumer items and feeding its people some productive successes had been achieved by directing vast amounts of resources to the military and Heavy Industries yet in providing for its people's basic needs the soviet union was not only not progressing in many areas its production had declined to levels below those of the pre 1917 pre communist revolution era in the 1950s contemporary data from both Soviet and American sources painted much the same picture data were sparse and subject to blinkered interpretations but by the mid 1950s a decade after the end of the war the bloom was off the red rose of hope for even the most ardent of the Soviet fellow-travellers the rose was crushed in 1956 worse news Khrushchev's revelations and Hungary socialists have generally been willing to grant that possibly just possibly capitalist economic production would outstrip socialist production but no socialist has ever been willing to grant that capitalism can hold a candle to socialism morally socialism is driven more than anything else by an ethic of altruism by a conviction that morality is about selflessness being willing to put others needs before one's own and when necessary being willing to sacrifice oneself for others especially those others who are weaker and Meteor thus to a socialist any socialist nation has to be morally superior to any capitalist nation socialist leaders are by definition concerned primarily about the needs of their citizens and are sensitively responsive to their expressions of concern their grievances and where there are troubles to their plights the year 1956 dealt two blows to that faith the second blow came late in the year in October with the bloody suppression of a revolt in the Soviet satellite state of Hungary strong dissatisfaction with chronic economic troubles and with being under the thumb of Moscow led to demonstrations and outbreaks of physical resistance to Authority by Hungarian workers students and others the Soviet response was swift and brutal the tanks and the troops were sent in demonstrators and their organizers were killed and executed and the revolt was suppressed the lesson to the Hungarians was administered before a worldwide audience dissent is not allowed shut up put up with it and obey the first blow however delivered in February of 1956 was the one that had the most devastating impact on the future of left socialism in a secret speech to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev made a sensational revelation of the crimes of Stalin's era in the name of the future of socialism Stalin had had millions of his own citizens tortured subjected to inhuman deprivation 'he's executed or sent to die in Siberian labor camps what had been dismissed as capitalist propaganda was now revealed as true by the leader of the socialist world the flagship socialist nation was guilty of Horrors on an unimaginable scale Khrushchev's shocking revelations caused a moral crisis among the Socialist Left could it be true or hopefully could it be that Khrushchev was exaggerating or lying to score political points or more sinister Lee had the leader of the socialist world become a stooge for the CIA that sneaky agent of capitalist imperialism but if Khrushchev's revelations were even partially true then how could such horrors happened under socialism is it possible that there is some flaw in socialism itself no of course not and then of course what about those gloating capitalists hatefully saying I told you so schisms developed immediately within far-left circles over the proper response to the revelations was the Soviet Union not the socialist ideal or was Khrushchev a betrayer of the cause some extreme true believers took the position that Khrushchev was a traitor and that in any case anything that Stalin had done was no reflection upon socialism that line became harder to maintain as time went on and more revelations about life in the Soviet Union came forth confirming in gritty detail what Khrushchev had said alexander solzhenitsyn 'he's the Gulag Archipelago first published in the west and 1973 was the most widely read and condemned natori souls and its ins book drew upon extensive research in Solzhenitsyn's own first-hand experience of eight years imprisonment and the labor camps for the crime of having written in 1945 a letter critical of Stalin's regime as it became impossible to believe in the morality of the Soviet Union a shrinking contingent of true believers shifted their devotions first to communist China under Mao but then came revelations of even worse Horrors in China in the 1960s including 30 million deaths between 1959 and 1961 then Cuba was the great hope and then Vietnam then Cambodia then Albania for a while in the late 1970s and then Nicaragua in the 1980s but the data and the disappointments piled up all dealing a solid and devastating blow to socialism's ability to claim a moral sanction one such set of summary data is reproduced below in the form of a table comparing liberal democratic authoritarian and totalitarian governments in terms of one measure of morality the number of their own citizens those government's have killed deaths from Dima side compared to deaths from in turn national war 1902 1987 killed by own government democratic nations two million people authoritarian nations 29 million people totalitarian nations 138 million people communist governments account for 110 million of the deaths in the totalitarian category killed by international war democratic nations 4.4 million authoritarian nations 15 point three million totalitarian nations fourteen point four million included in the totalitarian killed by own government cell are the ten to twelve million human beings killed by the German National Socialists in the period 1933 to 1945 subtracting that number from 138 million along with subtracting a few million killed by miscellaneous totalitarian regimes means that over 110 million human beings were killed by the governments of nations inspired by left primarily Marxist socialism the true believers aside few far left socialists waited until after the 1950s to see what further damning data would come forth in France for example most French intellectuals had joined the Communist Party in the 1950s including Michele Foucault or had become at least very strong sympathizers as did Jacques Derrida Foucault became dissatisfied with the self stultify keishon that party membership required quote being obliged to stand behind a fact that was totally beyond credibility was part of that exercise of the dissolution of the self of the quest for a way to be other unquote and so as Derrida reports many began to drift away quote for many of us a certain and I emphasize certain end of communist Marxism did not await the recent collapse of the USSR and everything that depends on it throughout the world all that started all that was and deja vu indubitably at the beginning of the 50s unquote the crises of the 1950s were enough for most left intellectuals worldwide to recognize that the case for socialism was in serious trouble economically and morally and they realized that making the case for socialism was being made doubly difficult by the fact that the capitalist countries were doing well economically and for the most part going in the right direction morally it is hard to argue with prosperity and it is hard to make stick any qualms one has about capitalism's moral status when confronted with the revelations about the horrible and very real failings of socialism in practice some left intellectuals retreated into despair quote the Millennium has been cancelled unquote wrote socialist historian Edward hyams ending on a note of resignation but for many theoreticians of the far left the crisis meant only that more radical responses to capitalism were needed responding to the crisis change socialism's ethical standard what was once a monolithic Marxist left proceeded to split into numerous camps all of the camps recognize though that if the fight against capitalism were to be carried on the first order of business was to distance socialism from the Soviet Union just as the disaster of National Socialism in Germany was not socialism the disaster of communism in the Soviet Union was not socialism in fact there were no real socialist societies anywhere so pointing fingers of moral condemnation was simply meaningless with no real socialist States to uphold as positive examples of socialist practice the left's new strategies focused almost exclusively upon critiquing the liberal capitalist nations the first major new strategy required altering the ethical standard by which capitalism was attacked a traditional criticism of capitalism had been that it causes poverty except for the very few at the top of the social heap capitalism drives most people into bare subsistence capitalism was therefore immoral for the basic moral test of a social system is its ability to provide for its people's basic economic needs the ethical standard used in criticizing capitalism was accordingly Marx's slogan in critique of the Gotha program quote from each according to his ability to each according to his need unquote satisfying need was thus the fundamental criterion of morality yet come the 1950s it was hard to argue that capitalism fails to satisfy its people's needs in fact a big part of the problem seemed to be the capitalism had satisfied its people's needs so well that the people had become fat and complacent and not at all revolutionary so a moral standard that made satisfying needs primary was now useless in a critique of capitalism from need to equality a new ethical standard was therefore necessary with great fanfare then much of the Left changed its official ethical standard from need to equality no longer was the primary criticism of capitalism to be that it failed to satisfy people's needs the primary criticism was to be that its people did not get an equal share the German Social Democrats took the lead in developing the new strategy as the party most directly descended from Marx himself and still the leading socialist party in the Western world the Social Democrats made major changes to their basic program at a special party Congress at bad Godesberg in November of 1959 the most significant of the changes emphasised equality the gotas Berg program recast the party from being a party of the defenseless and impoverished worker to being a party of the people at large since the workers seemed to be doing well enough under capitalism the focus had to shift to different capitalist pathologies the many inequalities across various social dimensions one dimension singled out for special attention was the unequal sizes of biz enterprises some businesses are much bigger than others giving them an unfair advantage over their smaller competitors so equalizing the competitive playing field became the new goal no longer would the Social Democrats condemn all private businesses as rapacious and call for their outright socialization rather they would push for cutting bigger businesses down to size and for strengthening small and middle-sized businesses in other words achieving equality had supplanted satisfying basic needs as the revised standard by which to evaluate capitalism a variation on this strategy was implicit in a new definition of poverty that the left began to offer in the early 1960s the poverty that capitalism causes is not absolute but relative popularized in the United States by Michael Harrington and others the new argument abandoned the claim that capitalism would generate a physically malnourished and therefore revolutionary proletariat capitalism did not cause such absolute poverty rather the proletariat would become revolutionary because while their basic physical needs were being met they saw that some others in society had relatively much more than they did feeling excluded and without real opportunities to achieve the good life the rich were enjoying the proletariat would experience psychological oppression and thus be driven to desperate measures another variation on this strategy emerged as the formerly monolithic Marxist socialist movement splintered in response to the crisis of socialism abandoning the traditional economic class analysis implication that effort should be focused upon achieving a universal class consciousness the left thinkers and activists focused on narrower subdivisions of the human species concentrating their efforts on the special issues of women and of racial and ethnic minorities broadly marxist themes of conflict and oppression carried over into the new splinter groups analyses but again the dominant theme was equality as with the economic proletariat was hard to deny that women and racial and ethnic minority groups had made significant gains in the liberal capitalist nations so again the criticism of capitalism could not be that it drove those groups to outright poverty or slavery or some other form of oppression instead the criticism focused on the lack of equality between the groups not for example that women were being forced into poverty but rather that as a group they had been held back from achieving economic equality with men common to all of these variations was a new emphasis on the principle of equality and a de-emphasis on the principle of need in effect in changing the ethical standard from need to equality all of these new varieties of left socialism had resolved to quote marks less and to quote Rousseau more from wealth is good too wealth is bad a second strategic change in left strategy involved a more audacious change of ethical standards traditionally Marxist socialism had supposed that providing adequately for human needs was a basic test of a social systems morality the achievement of wealth accordingly was a good thing since wealth brought with it better nutrition housing health care and leisure time and so capitalism was held to be evil because Marxists believe that it denied most of its population the ability to enjoy the fruits of wealth but as it became clear that capitalism is very good at producing the wealth and delivering the fruits and that socialism is very bad at it two new variations on Left thought turned this argument on its head and began to condemn capitalism precisely for being so good at producing wealth one variation of this argument appeared in the increasingly popular writings of Herbert Marcuse soon to be the leading philosopher of the new left mark Uzi was best known for bringing the views of the Frankfurt School to prominence in the english-speaking world especially in North America trained in philosophy in Germany markussi had been an assistant to Heidegger from 1928 to 19 33 and in his metaphysics and epistemology marcozzi was mining the same Hegelian vein that Heidegger was politically though Mark ooza was deeply engaged with Marxism and concerned with adapting Marxism to the unforeseen resilience of capitalism in resisting revolution following Marx mark ooza believed that the historical purpose of the proletariat was to be a revolutionary class its task was to overthrow capitalism but that presuppose that capitalism would drive the proletariat into economic misery which capitalism had failed to do instead capitalism had produced great amounts of wealth and here is the innovation capitalism had used that wealth to oppress the proletariat by making the members of the proletariat wealthy enough to become comfortable capitalism had created a captive class the proletariat had become locked into the capitalist system dependent upon its goodies and enslaved by the goal of climbing the economic ladder and to quote the aggressive performances of earning a living unquote not only was this a veiled form of oppression mark Uzi argued the proletariat had become distracted from its historical task by the comforts and gadgets of capitalism capitalism is producing so much wealth therefore is bad it is in direct defiance of the moral imperative of historical progress towards socialism it would be much better if the proletariat were in economic misery under capitalism for then they would realize their oppression and then be psychologically primed to perform their historical mission the second variation was seen in the left turn that rising concern with environmental issues took as the Marxist movement splintered and mutated into new forms left intellectuals and activists began to look for new ways to attack capitalism environmental issues alongside women's and minorities issues came to be seen as a new weapon in the arsenal against Kappa lisam traditional environmental philosophy had not been in principle in conflict with capitalism it had held that a clean sustainable and beautiful environment was good because living in such an environment made human life healthier wealthier and more enjoyable human beings acting to their advantage change their environments to make them more productive cleaner and more attractive in the short run there are often costs and trade-offs between economic growth and environmental cleanliness but the argument ran in the middle and long run a healthy economy is compatible with a healthy environment beings become richer they have more disposable income with which to make their environments cleaner and more beautiful the new impetus in environmental thinking however brought the Marxist concepts of exploitation and alienation to bear upon environmental issues as the stronger party humans necessarily exploit harmfully the weaker parties the other species and the non-organic environment itself consequently as capitalist society develops the result of the exploitation is a biological form of alienation humans alienate themselves from the environment by despoiling it and making it unlivable and non-human species are alienated by being driven to extinction on this analysis the conflict between economic production and environmental health then is not merely in the short run it is fundamental and inescapable the production of wealth itself is in mortal conflict with environmental health and capitalism since it is so good at producing wealth must therefore be the environments number-one enemy wealth therefore was no longer good living simply avoiding producing or consuming as much as possible was the new ideal the impetus of this new strategy captured perfectly in the title of rudolf Burroughs book from red to green integrated with the new emphasis on equality over need in Marxism humankind's technological mastery of nature was a presupposition of socialism Marxism was a humanism in the sense of putting human values at the core of its value framework and assuming that the environment is there for human beings to use and enjoy for their own ends but egalitarian critics began to argue more forcefully just as males putting their interests highest led them to subjugate women and just as White's putting their interest highest s-- led them to subjugate all other races humans putting their interests highest s-- had led to the subjugation of the other species and the environment as a whole the proposed solution then was the radical moral equality of all species we must recognize not only that productivity and wealth are evil but that all species from bacteria to wood lice to irv arks to humans are equal in moral value quote deep ecology unquote as radical egalitarianism applied to environmental philosophy came to be called thus rejected the humanistic elements of Marxism and substituted explicitly heidegger's anti-humanist value framework in effect by rejecting high-tech socialism and substituting a vision of low-tech egalitarian socialism this new Left strategy also resolved to quote marks less and to quote Rousseau more responding to the crisis change socialism's epistemology while some on the left modified their ethics others set to revising Marxist psychology and epistemology beginning in the 1920s and 1930s there had been some early suggestions that Marxism was to rationalistic to logical and deterministic in the 1920s Mao had urged that will and assertion of the peasants and especially of the leaders countered for more than passively waiting for the material conditions of revolution to work themselves out deterministically in the 1930s Antonio Gramsci had rejected the belief that the depression would necessarily spell the doom of capitalism and he had argued that finishing off capitalism would require the creative initiative of the masses that creative initiative Gramsci argued was however neither rational nor inexorable but rather subjective and unpredictable and early Frankfurt School theorizing had suggested that Marxism was too wedded to reason that reason led to major social pathologies and that less rational psychological forces had to be incorporated into any successful social theory those voices were mostly ignored for two decades swept aside by the dominant voices of classical Marxist theory the Depression and World War two and by the conviction that the Soviet Union was showing the world the true path by the 1950s however two developments began to merge one epistemological and one political economic in the world of academic eatest Amala G both European and anglo-american theorists were reaching skeptical and pessimistic conclusions about the power of reason Heidegger was ascendant on the continent and logical positivism was reaching its dead end in the anglo-american world and in both theoretical and practical politics and economics the failure of Marxism to develop according to the logic of its traditional theory was reaching a crisis the merging of these two developments yield the surging to prominence of non rational and irrational Assoc listens the symptoms were many one was manifest in the splintering of the monolithic Marxist movement into many sub movements emphasizing the socialism of sex race and ethnic identity such movements abandoned the universalistic conceptions of human interests implicit in seeking a collective consciousness of the international proletariat the international proletariat is a highly abstract concept the universality of all human interests is a very sweeping generalization both abstraction and generalization require strong confidence in the power of reason and by the 1950s that confidence in reason had evaporated the loss of confidence in reason implied as a matter of practical politics that the intellectuals now had even less confidence in the average person's capacity for abstract reasoning it is hard enough for a trained intellectual to conceive as classical Marxism requires of all of humankind as ultimately members of a universal class sharing the same universal interests but the more epistemological immodest theorists of the 1950s began to ask can we really expect the masses to abstract to the view that we are all brothers and sisters under the skin can the masses conceive of themselves as a harmonious international class the intellectual capacity of the masses is much more limited so appealing to and mobilizing the masses requires speaking to them about what matters to them and on a level that they can grasp what the masses can understand and what they do get fired up about are their sexual racial ethnic and religious identities both epistemological modesty and effective communication strategy then dictated a move from universalism to multiculturalism in effect by the late 1950s and early 1960s significant portions of the led two came to agree with the collectivist right on yet another issue forget internationalism universalism and cosmopolitanism focus on smaller groups formed on the basis of ethnic racial or other identities another symptom of the rejection of reason was the wild rise in popularity of Mao and China among the younger radicals not as committed to the Soviet Union as the older generation of leftists was many in the younger generation turned enthusiastically to Chinese communism in practice and Maoist Marxism in theory Mao's little red book was read widely on college campuses and increasingly studied by revolutionaries in training from it they absorbed Mao's lessons of making revolution through sheer political and ideological will of not waiting for material conditions to develop of themselves of being pragmatic and opportunistic and willing to use ambiguous rhetoric and even cruelty and above all of being constantly and militantly activists even to the point of wildness and irrationality make the revolution somehow and anyhow in effect this strain of left thought came to agree with what the collectivist right had also long argued that human beings are not fundamentally rational that in politics it is the irrational passions that must be appealed to and utilized the lessons of Maoism integrated with the lessons of the preeminent philosopher of the new left Herbert Marcuse mark Uzi and the Frankfurt School Marx + Freud or oppression + repression mark ooza had long labored in the trenches of academic philosophy and social theory before coming to fame in America in the 1960s he studied philosophy at Freiburg under Husserl and Heidegger later becoming an assistant to both his first major publication was an attempt to synthesize high daguerreian phenomenology with Marxism his powerful allegiance to Marxism combined with his high garyun distrust of barks isms rationalistic elements led mark who'sa to join forces with the nascent frankfurt school of social thought the frankfurt school was a loose Association of mostly German intellectuals centered at the Institute for Social Research led from 1930 on by Max Horkheimer Horkheimer had also been trained in philosophy having completed his doctoral dissertation on the philosophy of Conte in 1923 from that work Horkheimer moved directly to concerns with social psychology and practical politics in the late 1920s while mark ooza was working on his theoretical integration of Marx and Heidegger Horkheimer was reaching some pessimistic conclusions about the possibility of practical political change setting before himself the question of why the German proletariat were not revolting Horkheimer offered a breakdown of the politically relevant units arguing that each was incapable of achieving anything significantly natural enough Horkheimer began his analysis with the working classes dividing them into the employed and the unemployed the employed he noted are not too badly off and seemed content enough it is the unemployed who are in the worst shape their situation is also getting worse for as the mechanization of production increases unemployment also increases but the unemployed are also the least educated class and the least organized and that has made it impossible to raise their class consciousness a clear sign of this is that they waver between voting for the Communists who are blindly following Moscow and the National Socialists who are well a bunch of Nazis the only other socialist party is the Social Democrats but they are much too pragmatic and reformist to be effective so Horkheimer concluded the situation is hopeless for socialism the employed are too comfortable the unemployed are too scatterbrained the Social Democrats are too wishy-washy the Communists are too obediently following Authority and the National Socialists are undiscussables as a way out of the morass the Frankfurt schools members began to explore the idea of adding a more sophisticated social psychology to Marxism x' economic and historical logic traditional Marxism had emphasized the inexorable laws of economic development and D emphasized the contribution of human actors given that those Marxist laws seemed rather more exurban their non development the Frankfurt School suggested that history is as much made by human actors and especially by how those human actors understand themselves psychologically and their existential situation incorporating a better social psychology into Marxism would hopefully explain why the Revolution had not happened and suggest what would be necessary to make it happen for sophisticated social psychology the Frankfurt School turned to Sigmund Freud applying his own psychoanalytical theories to social philosophy Freud's civilization and its discontents 1930 argued that civilization is an unstable surface phenomenon based upon the repression of instinctual energies bio psychologically human agents are a bundle of aggressive and conflicted instincts those instincts constantly pressing for immediate satisfaction their constant immediate satisfaction though would make social living impossible so the forces of civilization have evolved by incrementally suppressing instincts and forcing their expression into polite orderly and rational forms civilization is thus an artificial construct overlaying a seething mass of irrational energies in the it'd the battle between the it'd and civilization is ongoing and occasionally brutal to the extent that the it wins society tends toward conflict and chaos and to the extent that society wins the it'd is forced into repression repression however merely forces the id's energies underground psychologically where those energies are unconsciously displaced and often forced into irrational channels that displaced energy Freud explained must discharge itself eventually and often it does so by bursting out neurotically in the form of hysterias obsessions and phobias the task of the psychoanalyst then is to trace the neurosis back through its irrational unconscious channels to its origin patients however often interfere with this process they resist the exposure of unconscious and irrational elements in their psyches and they cling to the conscious forms of civilized and rational behavior that they have learned so the psychoanalyst must find a way to bypass those surface blocking behaviors and to strip away the conscious veneer of civility to probe the seething it below here Freud suggested the use of non rational psychological mechanisms becomes essential dreams hypnosis free association slips of the tongue such manifestations of irrationality are often clues to the underlying reality for they slip past the patient's conscious defense mechanisms the well-trained psychoanalyst accordingly is the one who is able to spot the truth in the irrational to the Frankfurt School Freud offered a psychology admirably suited to diagnosing the pathologies of capitalism capitalism we know from Marx is definitely based on exploitative competition but modern capitalist society is taking a technocratic form directing its conflictual energies toward creating machines and corporate bureaucracy those machines and bureaucracies do provide for the average member of the bourgeoisie an artificial world of order control and creature comforts but at a very high cost capitalism's people are increasingly distant from nature decreasing Lee spontaneous and creative increasingly unaware that they are being controlled by the machines and the bureaucracies both physically and psychologically and increasingly unaware that the apparently comfortable world they live in is a mask for an underlying realm of brutal conflict and competition the Frankfurt School portrait of capitalism mark oosa explained is what we find realized most extremely in the most advanced capitalist nation the United States consider Joe Sixpack Joe works as a low-level technician for a television manufacturing company part of a huge telecommunications conglomerate whether he has a job tomorrow depends on Wall Street speculators and the decisions of a corporate headquarters in another state but Joe does not realize that he simply goes to work each morning with a slight sense of distaste pulls the levers and pushes the buttons as he is told to do by the Machine and the boss mass producing televisions until it is time to go home on the way home he picks up a six-pack of beer another mass-market product of capitalist commodification and after supper with the family he plops down in front of the television feeling the narcotic effect of the beer kicking in while the sitcoms and commercials tell them that life is great and who could ask for anything more tomorrow is another day Joe Sixpack is a product he is a constructed part of an oppressive and dysfunctional competitive system but one that is over Lane with the veneer of peace and comfort he is unaware of the gap between the appearance of comfort and the reality of oppression unaware that he is a cog in an artificial technological system unaware because the fruits of capitalism that he produces and thinks he is enjoying are consuming and sapping his vital instincts and making him physically and psychologically inert thus markussi had an explanation for the new generation of revolutionaries and training for why capitalism in the 1950s and early 1960s seemed to be peaceful tolerant and progressive when as every good socialist knew it could not really be and for why the workers were so disappointingly on revolutionary capitalism does not merely oppress the masses existentially it also repress 'as them psychologically it gets worse for to the extent that Joe can even think about his situation he hears his world described in terms of freedom democracy progress words that have only a faint glimmer of meaning to him and that have been crafted and fed to him by capitalism's apologists to keep him from thinking too deeply about his real existence Joe is a quote one-dimensional man unquote trapped in a quote totalitarian universe of technological rationality unquote oblivious to the second and real dimension of human existence where in true freedom democracy and progress lie capitalism's having achieved this cynical state of development in which its oppression is masked by pious hypocrisy 'he's about liberty and progress is made even more cynical by its being able to neutralize and even co-opt all dissent and criticism having created a monolithic technocracy the machines and the bureaucracies and the masked man and the self-serving ideology capitalism can pretend to be open to criticism by allowing some radical intellectuals to dissent in the name of quote tolerance open-mindedness and free speech a few lonely voices will be permitted to raise objections and challenges to the capitalist baihe moth but everyone knows full well that nothing will come of the criticisms worse still the appearance of having been opened and tolerant will serve only to reinforce capitalism's control capitalist tolerance then is not real tolerance it is quote repressive tolerance unquote so was Horkheimer x' early pessimism right was the lesson thirty years later still the same that the prospect for socialism is totally hopeless if capitalism's control extends even to co-opting the dissent of its strongest critics what weapons are left to the revolutionary if there is a chance for socialism then more extreme tactics will be necessary Freudian psychology again gives us the key as with the repression of the ID's energies by the forces of civilization capitalism's suppression of the original human energies cannot be totally successful Freud had explained that the id's repressed energies will occasionally burst out in irrational neurotic forms threatening the stability and security of civilization the Frankfurt School taught us that capitalism's orderly technocracy has repressed much of humanity driving much of its energy underground but that repressed energy is still there and potentially it can burst out thus mark Cuza concluded capitalism's repression of human nature may be socialism's salvation capitalism's rational technocracy suppresses human nature to the point that it bursts out in irrational isms in violence criminality racism and all of society's other pathologies but by encouraging those irrational isms the new revolutionaries can destroy the system so the first task of the revolutionary is to seek out those individuals and energies on the margins of society the outcast the disorderly and the forbidden anyone and anything that capitalism's power structure has not yet succeeded in commodifying and dominating totally all such marginalized and outcast elements will be quote irrational immoral and even criminal unquote especially by capitalist definition but that is precisely what the revolutionary needs any such outcast element could quote break through the false consciousness and provide the Archimedean point for a larger emancipation unquote mark Uzi looked especially to the marginalized and outcasts left intellectual leadership especially those trained in critical theory given the pervasiveness of capitalism's domination the revolutionary Vanguard can come only from those outcasts intellectuals especially among the younger students those who are able to quote link liberation with the dissolution of ordinary and orderly perception unquote and who thereby can see through the appearance of peace to the reality of oppression who have retained enough of their humanity not to have been turned into Joe Sixpack and above all who have the will and the energy to do anything it takes even to the point of being quote militantly intolerant and disobedient unquote to shock the capitalist power structure into revealing its true nature thus toppling and smashing the system to pieces leaving the way open for a renewal of humanity through socialism Marcus's reign as the preeminent philosopher of the New Left signaled a strong turn towards irrationality and violence among younger leftists quote marks mark Uzi and Mao unquote became the new Trinity and the slogan to rally under as was proclaimed on a banner of students involved in closing the University of Rome quote marks is the prophet markussi is his interpreter and Mao is the sword unquote many in the new generation listened attentively and sharpened their swords the rise and fall of left terrorism by the late 1950s and early 1960s five crucial elements coalesced and turned elements of the far left into a movement committed to revolutionary violence epistemologically the prevailing academic and intellectual climate was either anti reason ineffectual in defending reason or saw reason as irrelevant to practical matters Nietzsche Heidegger and Kuhn spoke the new language of thought reason is out the intellectuals were teaching and what matters above all is will authentic passion and non rational commitment practically after a century of waiting for the revolution impatience had peaked among the younger generation especially there is a dominant bend toward activism and away from academic theorizing theoreticians still had an audience but theory had not amounted to much what was needed was decisive action now morally there was the extreme disappointment at the failure of the classical socialist ideal the great ideal of Marxism had failed to materialize the purity of Marxist theory had been subjected to necessary but defiling revisions the noble experiment in the Soviet Union had been revealed to be a horrible fraud and a crime as a response to these crushing and humiliating blows rage at the failure and betrayal of a utopian dream was widespread psychologically in addition to the rage of disappointment there was the supreme insult of seeing the hated enemy flourishing capitalism was enjoying itself prospering and even smirking at socialism's discomforts and disorientation in the face of such insults there was the desire to do nothing more than to smash the enemy to see it hurt bleeding destroyed politically there was the justification of irrational violence in the theories of the Frankfurt School as applied by mark Uzi the righteous revolutionary knows that the masses are oppressed but held captive by the veil of capitalist false consciousness the revolutionary knows that it will take individuals with special insight special individuals immune to the corruptions of capitalism special individuals able to gaze right through its veil of repressive tolerance absolutely rejecting compromise and willing to do anything to rip away the veil and expose the seething horrors below the rise of left terrorism in the 1960s was one consequence chart left terrorist groups founding dates weathermen USA 1960 United Red Army Japan 1960s Black Panthers USA 1960's SWAPO Southwest Africa 1960s al n Brazil 1960s Tupamaros Uruguay 1962 active after 1968 flq Canada 1963 PLO middle-east 1964 Montoneros Argentina 1960s ERP Argentina 1960s red Brigade Italy 1968 pflp Middle East 1968 D PFLP Middle East 1968 Red Army Faction or baader-meinhof Germany 1970 Black September Middle East 1970s LA USA early 1970s the founding dates of some of these terrorist groups are obscure all however were explicitly Marxist socialist and none had existed prior to 1960 some of the groups also had strong nationalistic overtones not included in the chart however our terrorist groups that had begun earlier for primarily nationalist or religious reasons but in the 1960s come to incorporate Marxism into their theories and manifestos in addition to the five factors listed above several particular events served as triggers in causing the upsurge in violence among the far left the death of Che Guevara in 1967 and the failure of the 1968 student demonstrations in most Western nations and especially of the student revolts in France contributed to the anger and disappointment several of the terrorist manifestos published after 1968 make explicit mention of those events as well as reflecting the broader themes of irrational will exploitation commodification rage and the need simply to do something for example Pierre Victor then the leader of the French Maoists with whom Michel Foucault was associated hearkened back to the French Revolutions reign of terror and declared the following in the pages of cause de poopoo the Maoist newspaper quote to overthrow the authority of the bourgeois class the humiliated population has reason to institute a brief period of terror and to assault bodily a handful of contemptible hateful individuals it is difficult to attack the authority of a class without a few heads belonging to members of this class being paraded on the end of a stake other terrorists cast their nets more broadly before her death Oh Ricky mine Hoff made very clear the purpose of the Red Army Faction she and andreas Baader founded in Germany quote the anti-imperialist struggle if it is to be more than a mere chatter means annihilation destruction the shattering of the imperialist power structure political economic and military she also made clear the broader historical context within which she thought terrorism was necessary the more specific events that had served as triggers and gave an assessment of the likelihood of their success quote nauseated by the proliferation of the conditions they found in the system the total commercialization and absolute mendacity in all areas of the superstructure deeply disappointed by the actions of the student movement and the extra parliamentary opposition they thought it essential to spread the idea of armed struggle not because they were so blind as to believe they could keep that initiative going until the revolution triumphed in Germany not because they imagined they could not be shot or arrested not because they so misjudged the situation is to think the masses would simply rise at such a signal there was a matter of salvaging historically the whole state of understanding attained by the movement of 1960 1968 it was a case of not letting the struggle fall apart again unquote the rise of left terrorism in nations other than those controlled by explicitly marxist governments was a striking feature of the 1960s and early 1970s combined with the broader turn of the left to non rationalism irrationalism and physical activism the terrorist movement made that era the most confrontational and bloody in the history of left socialist movements of those nations but the liberal capitalists were not entirely soft and complacent and by the mid-1970s their police and military forces had defeated the terrorists killing some imprisoning many driving others underground more or less permanently from the collapse of the new left to post-modernism with the collapse of the new left the socialist movement was dispirited and in disarray no one was waiting expectantly for socialism to materialize no one thought it could be achieved by appealing to the electorate no one was in a position to mount a coup and those willing to use violence were dead in jail or underground what then was to be the next step for socialism in 1974 Herbert Marcuse Oh was asked whether he thought the new left was history he replied quote I don't think it's dead and it will resurrect in the Universities unquote with hindsight we can identify those who came to prominence as leaders of the postmodern movement Michel Foucault Jean Francois Lyotard Jacques Derrida and Richard Rorty but we can ask now why those four for all for the personal and the professional are tightly linked so a few biographical details are relevant Foucault was born in 1926 he studied philosophy and psychology receiving degrees from the école normale superior and the Sorbonne he was a member of the French Communist Party from 1950 to 1953 but left over differences that eventually led him to declare himself a Maoist in 1968 Leo Tarr was born in 1924 before turning to professional philosophy he spent 12 years doing theoretical and practical work for the radical left group socialism Barbary he finished his formal training in philosophy in 1958 Derrida was born in 1930 he began his formal study of philosophy in 1952 at the Ecole Normale superior in Paris where he studied under foo he associated closely with a group focused around tell quell a far left journal and while sympathetic to the French Communist Party he did not go so far as to join Rorty was born in 1931 he received his PhD in philosophy from Yale in 1956 not as far left politically as the other three Bertie is a strong social democrat who cites Socialist Party candidate and union leader a philip Randolph for whom his parents worked for a time as one of his great heroes all four of these post modernists were born within a seven-year span all were well trained in philosophy at the best schools all entered their academic careers in the 1950s all were strongly committed to left politics all were well aware of the history of socialist theory and practice all lived through the crises of socialism of the 1950s and the 1960s and come the end of the 1960s and early 1970s all four had high standing in their professional academic disciplines and high standing among the intellectual left accordingly in the 1970s as the far left collapsed once again it turned to those best able to think strategically those best able to situate the left historically and politically and those most up to speed on the latest trends in epistemology and the state of knowledge Foucault Liat are Derrida and Rory proved themselves by those criteria accordingly it was those four who signaled the new direction for the academic left if one is an academic foe of capitalism then one's weapons and tactics are not those of the politician the activist the revolutionary or the terrorist academics only possible weapons are words and if one's epistemology tells one that words are not about truth or reality or in any way cognitive then in the battle against capitalism words can only be a rhetorical weapon the next question then is now postmodern epistemology comes to be integrated with postmodern politics end of chapter 5 for a summary chart of the argument of chapter 5 the evolution of socialist strategies see w w Stephen Hicks org and search for the evolution of socialist strategies

Channel: CEE Video Channel

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Keywords: explaining postmodernism, stephen hicks, skepticism, socialism, rousseau, foucault, heidegger, hegel, kant, nietzsche, liberal capitalism, liberty, individualism, collectivism, race, sex, enlightenment, counterenlightenment, kierkegaard, herder, fichte, french revolution, marxism, postmodernism, modernism, philosophy, free speech, deconstruction, art history, intellectual history

Id: 5gSISuvvQks

Length: 73min 42sec (4422 seconds)

Published: Mon May 13 2013