Mine,
But, Marx's remarks do not address what socialism
will be. It is just more critique.
The utopianism came
in when he actually discussed what socialism would
be, or more precisely communism, e.g. the withering
away of the state and "from each according to his
ability to each according to his needs;" all very nice,
but also very utopian, especially the bit about the
withering away of the state. What a pathetic joke.
Barkley Rosser
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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Thursday, May 18, 2000 1:16 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:19221] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Marx and Malleability (fwd)
Barkley wrote:
>In the Critique of the Gotha Program he clearly goes totally utopian in
his programmatic speculations.
Just the contrary. _The Critique of the Gotha Program_ is one of the most
"realist" criticisms of the program of the Eisenach faction of the German
social democratic movement. it is a critique of bourgeois "idealism" as it
criticizes the failure of bourgeois democracy to live up to its ideals of
equality and justice.
(See for this Norman Geras' article in _New Left Review_, Marx
and Justice Debate, 1989 or 86?)
I always find the first passage the most remarkable:
Party program says:
"labour is the sources of all wealth and all culture, and since useful
labour is possible only in society and through society, the proceeds of
labor belong undiminished with equal right to all members of society"
Marx replies:
"Labour is not the source of wealth. nature is just as much the source of
use values (and it is surely of such that material wealth consists!) as
labour, which itself is only the manifestation of a force of nature, human
labour power. The above phrase is to be found in all children's primers
and is correct in so far as it is implied that labour is performed with
the appurtenant subjects and instruments. but a socialist program can not
allow such bourgeois phrases to pass over in silence the conditions that
alone give them meaning...... the bourgeois have very good grounds to
for falsely ascribing supernatural creative power to labour; since
precisely from the fact that labour depends on nature it follows that the
man who posses no other property than his labour power must, in all
conditions of society and culture, be the SLAVE of other men who have made
themselves the owners of the material conditions of labour. He can
work only live with their permission, hence live only with their
permission" (Marx-Engels reader, Tucker ed., )
Mine Doyran
Political Science
Phd student
SUNY/Albany
