It's important to note that Justin is referring below to issues of Marxism as influencing social movements. Though there's nothing wrong with Marxism-as-a-method as far as I can find, what really matters is the social movement.
Justin writes:> The argument [about the demise of Marxism] is historical, and is available to anyone who has eyes in his head. In the era of 2nd International, Marxism was a powerful force among Western European workers. It bounced back, some, after WWII. Today in Western Europe, the PCI is gone, the PFC is a decaying rump, the KPD is many generations dead (and the PDS is a left- S-D formation largely confined to the East). Marxism never caught on in America or Canada, but it was a minor force to be reckoned with up through the start of the First Cold War. The 57 varieties of Trotskyism and Maoism never went anywhere. In the ex-Bloc countries, the Russian Revolution is in ruins, the ex-CPs are at best centrist (and the CPRF is an ugly red-brown Stalinofascist deformity); in the third world, Marxism in is in full rereat. China is "officially" Marxist but in fact pragmatically ocapitalist and ruled by an authoritarian elite committed only to power. Vietnam is following China. N. Korea is a wierd backwater. Only Cuba retains a trace of traditional Marxist elan. Marxist-identified revolutionary movements are no longer vaguards by collections of narcothugs like the remnants of the Shining Path and FARC. There are no mass self-identified Marxist working class movements anywhere, Nor do any show any signs of emerging.< I wasn't objecting to Justin's facts (and I won't quibble with the above, though I react viscerally to such patronizing rhetoric as "to anyone who has eyes in his head"). Rather, there's nothing inevitable about the continuation of the above. In fact, though we have to think long-term, there are opportunities. In simplistic terms: During the 20th century, there was a gigantic geographic split inside capitalism, which in turn produced a big split in anti-systemic movements. The geographic split was between the rich -- imperialist -- countries and the dominated countries. Marx had predicted that there would be two general processes generated by capitalist development, i.e., (1) the development of the working class movement in terms of consciousness and power; and (2) the prevalence of economic crises, immiseration, and the like. Though he was familiar with capitalism's geographic expansion and with the phenomenon of colonialism, Marx didn't theorize its impact on his predictions (though there was some speculation about the buying off of the "labor aristocracy"): the geographic split meant a split in capitalism's dynamics, with the working class movement growing mostly in the imperialist countries and the cost and impact of crises and immiseration hitting hardest in the dominated countries. The anti-systemic movements in the former ended up being infused with left-nationalism of the sort that fit circumstances there: mass working class movements took the form of social democracy or Eurocommunism, often with very anemic anti-imperialist dimensions. In the poor countries, on the other hand, nationalism was not based on mass working-class movements (with the obvious exception of then-somewhat-rich countries such as Argentina). Instead, it was a Gershenkronian-style statist effort by "middle class" nation-builders to defend their nations against imperialism and to promote economic development. (Strictly speaking, as Brenner points out, Gershenkron's theory about "late developers" using the state more than early ones was developed first by Bolsheviks.) So, in simple terms, we saw a split between social democracy and Stalinism. Each involved different aspects of the Marxian tradition, with little overlap. But capitalism continues to develop, as seen in the phrase "globalization." Strictly speaking, what we're seeing is a "new globalization," one that's different from the globalization before 1914 (and of course from the anti-globalization between 1914 or so and 1970 or so). All of the old nation-states are changing their roles under the guns of the new globalization and neo-liberalism. Though the states still have the important role of preserving class systems, they no longer serve the nationalist role as much as they used to. So the role of nationalist forces such as social democracy and Stalinism is much less. Instead, the emphasis among anti-systemic forces is more and more on internationalism (e.g., on uniting Mexican and US workers under NAFTA). There are still efforts to "turn back the clock," as with radical Islam, but eventually these will fade, I believe. In this light, there is room in the future for new, more radical, anti-systemic movements based in the international working class. They may not embrace Marxism by name, but they'd have a lot of Marxist content, which is what matters. Obviously, the struggle against the emerging world state (led by and dominated by the US) will be complex and bloody, and won't lead to automatic victory, but the development of the movement for democratizing that state (and ultimately the economic system it preserves) will be a fertile field for Marxian ideas. Justin had said: >>> You can be a KathederMarxist like Jim, that [is] just a brand label like "Keynesian," "neoclassical," etc. ... But don't expect millions of workers to unite around the red flag qgain. that doesn't mean they won't unite around some flag in a progressive cause, but not the old Marxist tradition.<< I wrote:>>I don't think you can predict future history that way. You are making predictions exactly the way what Colletti called the "Marxism of the 2nd [and 3rd] international" did, i.e., statements of historical inevitability.<< > Au contraire. I have expressly disavowed that here and elsewhere. I don't believe in historical inevitability. I have plainly said that it is possible, just extremely unlikely, that the situation may reverse.< Just because someone says they don't believe in something doesn't mean that they're consistent. But any event, it looks as if you're instead leaning toward a blinkered empiricism (what is will be) instead of inevitability. One of the key imperatives of Marxian thought is to not take perceived empirical reality for granted but to instead try to ferret out how the current tendencies of the system could lead to structural change. A broad-strokes effort at this appears above. (Of course, I can't really do that, since ferrets are illegal in California.) Jim Devine
