I think Brad is right that Marx didn't think much about political sociology from the
perspective of institutional design, or about how group dynamics might work in a
postrevolutionary society. I do not think that supportds the "two Marx" thesis, one
democratic and one dictatorisl. Marx was entirely democratic, but he was also pretty
naive in a sort of willfull way about practical postrevolutionary politics. See his
marginal comments on Bakunin's prescient criticisms of Marxism.
I do not think that much can be read into the "dictatorship of the proletariat," and
certainly not that it is a temporary "dictatorship" in the modern sense of
unrestrained lawless repressive rule. I think Marx meant something like temporary
class rule, in the sense that a postrevolutionary state would be, he thought, a
worker's state. I think it is clear that he did not conceive it as a rule of force
unrestrained by law, as Lenin put it--L was advocating this.
It is stuff like this that makes me a liberal democrat in politics. I am aware, of
course, a transition to a noncapiatlist society is not likely to bea ccomplished
through the ordinary process of voting and campaigning, and that if it is ever
established over probable violent resistance by procapitalist forces, the rule of law
is likely to be a bit dicey for a bit, as it has been with every major social
transformation. The loyalists were brutalized after the American Revolution, for
example.
However, if we are to think about a society worth fighting for having, there are norms
it is essential to uphold and maintain,a nd these are, for the most part, embodied in
liberal democratic values: equal citizenship, universal suffrage, competitive
elections, extensive civil and political liberties, and the rule of law. These were
things we might liearn something about from Tocqueville, as Brad says. ANd from
Rousseau, who thougtht about them deeply.
--jks
* * *
Michael Perlman writes:
<< Not contradictory. As Draper has shown, the Dictatorship of the P. is a
temporary waystation to allow the future free development.
Brad De Long wrote:
> >yea, and why do you stop the citation in the comma? I am well
> >aware that there are two Marxes, the one who tends to be
> >democratic and the one who tends to be dictatorial.
>
> A kinder, gentler way to put it is that there are two Marxes, the one
> who believes in the free development of each and the one who believes
> that when they fight their oppressors the people have one single
> general will that the dictatorship of the proletariat expresses...
>
> Ole Charlie didn't understand much about political organization, or
> tyranny of the majority, or bureaucratic process, or separation of
> powers, or rights that people should be able to exercise against
> every form of state. In many ways Tocqueville thought deeper and saw
> further as far as political sociology is concerned...
>
> Brad DeLong
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
