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In this issue, we start with Theodore Burczak’s defense of socialism in the aftermath of the past decade’s global political changes and the renewed theoretical notability and popularity of Friedrich A. Hayek, surely one of the chief architects of modern neoliberal and libertarian thought. Hayek conducted a lifelong attack on any social theory that called for social engineering via government intervention in order to bring about "distributive justice." Yet, as Burczak points out, what may be less known is that much of Hayek’s onslaught against socialism stemmed from his "postmodern" view of knowledge and the consequent impossibility of a government enacting policies in pursuit of justice on putatively "rational" foundations. Hayek’s skepticism about socialism is consonant with postmodern Marxist critiques of the rationality, universality, and certainty that are supposedly inherent in and exclusive to central planning (as opposed to the "anarchy" and indifference of the market). Burczak takes as his main challenge, then, contra Hayek, constructing a theoretical defense of the traditional Marxian values of ending exploitation in the workplace and of creating social equality through coordinated action that builds upon the Hayekian/postmodern view of knowledge. Burczak sets out to accomplish his task by arguing for a definition of socialism that is not restricted to the democratic, collective appropriation of surplus by workers at the site of production, but also concerns itself with distributive justice within society as a whole. Burczak judges that arguments (such as those of Stephen Resnick and Richard Wolff in RM, Spring 1988 and of Stephen Cullenberg in RM, Summer 1992) for collective appropriation that are derived from a labor theory of value are limited since they leave intact the presumption of the "right" of capital to hire labor and the "myth" that this right entitles capitalists to be the initial appropriators and owners of everything produced by labor. Sidestepping longstanding debates between Hayekian Austrians and Marxists on "objective" versus "subjective" value theories, Burczak calls upon Marxists to abandon their defense of collective appropriation on the basis of the labor theory of value and to replace it instead with a "labor theory of property," one that argues for the fundamental right—which cannot be "alienated"—of laborers to appropriate the entire product. He passes on from his advocacy of democratic, collectively appropriating firms to an original defense of distributive justice. Burczak shows that many of Hayek’s objections to social justice "and its embrace of some type of end-state principle of equality" can be countered partly by noting the contradictions within Hayek’s own work on the responsibility of a community to meet basic human needs and partly by arguing for a notion of the "common good" that identifies what is empirically shared crossculturally, or at least within a nation, as the qualities and capabilities of humans. Burczak attempts to put forth an argument for social policy in pursuit of justice and equality that avoids, on the one hand, the modernist commitment to a universal human essence and, on the other, moral relativism. His reconceptualization of the meaning of socialism is intended to "offer some common grounds for communication between Hayekian-inspired libertarians and postmodern Marxist socialists—both of whom challenge the . . . modernist, pretenses of traditional socialist thought."
We suspect that other leftists will continue to register their reactions in these pages to Jacques Derrida’s Specters of Marx. As we did in RM, Winter 1995 (see articles by Pierre Macherey and J. K. Gibson-Graham), we present here another take on this touchstone text. Tom Lewis zeros in on the politics of "hauntology" that Derrida announces in his grand narrative of Marxism’s obsession with and inscription in the figure of the "specter." Lewis’s perspective is that of a critical reader of Derrida’s politics, as he sets forth principled objections to what he perceives to be Derrida’s endeavor to displace Marxism by Derrida’s own "hauntological," deconstructive politics. Lewis finds these politics wanting in a number of ways. First, he sees Specters of Marx as "constituting no more and no less than an elaborate philosophical rationale for the abandonment of revolutionary socialism in favor of a new ‘true’ socialism." Additionally, he extracts from a close reading of the text, and then rebuts, Derrida’s appeal to keep alive Marxism in spirit only. As Lewis shows, Derrida’s gloomy appraisal of Marxism’s continued haunting by its own fear of ghosts and its inevitable rush to posit the pure presence of an historically based ontology of "materialism" leads Derrida to conclude that Marxism is ill-suited to grasp and contend with the current configuration of a dislocated, "spectral" capitalism. But this analysis, he points out, is derived from Derrida’s entanglement in Marxist and nonMarxist metaphysics and very little from a concrete look at and evaluation of present economic and political circumstances. For Lewis, Derrida’s reduction of the spirit of Marxism to "self-critique" and the jettisoning of most everything else in the classical Marxist corpus gives the lie to Derrida’s proclamation of "mourning Marxism" rather than wishing it simply dead. In Lewis’s view, Specters of Marx "relentlessly drives verbal stakes through the heart of marxism’s claims to provide a viable knowledge of history capable of grounding an adequate practice of social transformation." But it does so, he says, "without anywhere demonstrating why such concepts as ‘mode of production’ or ‘social class’ no longer provide a critical purchase on reality." Lewis places Derrida’s call for a "New International" within the context of the appearance of post-Marxist "new true socialism" with striking similarities to the "true socialism" that Marx and Engels excoriated in The German Ideology, ironically a text featured prominently in Specters of Marx. In contrast to Derrida’s decision that the time has now passed for Marxism’s leading concepts to be anything but spooks in search of their own dissolution, Lewis depicts current global conditions as confirming the continued relevance of "classical marxism and its tradition of revolution from below."
Murray E. G. Smith insists that by continuing to ignore and dismiss summarily the vast writings of Leon Trotsky and his many and diverse followers, leftists can only contribute to silencing what he believes to be "some of the best responses that could be given to the current ideological offensive of world capitalism against the fundamental ideas of socialism" after the demise of "actually existing socialism" or its "deformation" at the hands of Stalinist parties and states. Smith’s article is an entreaty to "revisit" Trotsky and to ponder seriously the wisdom of several of his key theses and predictions, such as his characterization of the Soviet Union and its satellites as "transitional formations" in which precapitalist, capitalist, and socialist economic and class elements were combined under the tyrannical leadership of a "bureaucratically degenerated workers’ state." Smith makes a strong case for the accuracy of Trotsky’s prognosis that faced with crisis and a weakened proletariat after years of Stalinist rule, the Soviet Union would be pushed either in the direction of the full restoration of capitalism or toward the less likely outcome of worker democracy and an extension of the struggle for world socialism. Smith also attempts to combat the "prejudice" he sees in the persistent identification of communism with its Stalinist expression since, as he notes, the notion that all communism had to offer took bodily form with Stalin’s rule has led even independent socialists to conclude, in this period of retreat, that such successful innovations as central planning and the collectivization of productive property are hopelessly inferior to markets and private ownership. Smith brings to light, again, the importance of Trotsky’s "law of combined and uneven development" as a founding concept to understand how the melange of socioeconomic modes of production came to exist in such "backward" areas as the Soviet Union and how such an uneasy formation—isolated by a hostile and predatory capitalist world—would be prone simultaneously to totalitarian rule as well as real gains in productivity and workers’ living conditions. In other words, as Smith argues, the current "admission" by leftists of the implausibility and failure of a vast array of socialist economic transformations is only possible on the condition that we ignore contrary voices such as Trotsky’s and accept the self-serving, and now defeatist, "propaganda" of both apologists for capitalism and erstwhile, former Stalinists. Smith also advances a call for a new look at Trotsky as a remedy to what he regards as the misplaced "anti-Bolshevism" of the champions of "new social movements." In reply to "those . . . who would collapse Stalinism and Trotskyism into the same Leninist chowder," Smith reminds us of Trotsky’s admonitions against the "Stalinist" origins of many of these new leftists’ favorite planks such as coalition politics, "sectoralism" in the form of identity politics, and market socialism. Acknowledging the "marginality" of Trotskyism, Smith asks leftists to reconsider Trotsky’s legacy and to put aside past judgments that the intractable splits that have longed plagued international Trotskyism (but which Smith regards as understandable and meaningful) are reason enough to renounce the pertinence of Trotsky today.
The Remarx section begins with a dialogue of sorts. Ronald Aronson leads off with a summary and extension of the main points he elucidated in his book After Marxism and his article in RM, Summer 1992. In his contribution here, Aronson calls for a "relativized Marxism," one that is reconciled to the passing of Marxism as a master narrative of the march of history and as strategy to unite and liberate all oppressed peoples under the vanguard leadership of an international proletariat. Aronson explains that reconciling oneself to his passing—and engaging in a bit of collective mourning in the process—means that Marxists need to "offer our insights, if at all, in a newly humble spirit, listening to others as much as seeking to teach and no longer seeing ourselves as the natural leaders of, but now as only a part of a new and multifaceted coalition." It also means that Marxists need to "explicitly forsake the authority of Marx for our new theoretical and practical direction" and eschew outlooks, like that of Resnick and Wolff, that claim that "reductionism-as-project" was never central or necessary to Marxism’s power and that Marxism can (re)establish itself on a nondeterminist basis. Aronson calls for a collective "letting go" of the past successes and failures of Marxism as a hegemonic project, and advises Marxists to go forward learning "to understand themselves as representing a single strand of an eventually pluralistic movement—lower-case marxists, proponents of class among other things." He is concerned, though, not to let this more humble version of Marxism as one among many in an always changing coalition be read as a call for separatism and micropolitics. Indeed, he asserts the necessity for some general collective movement if the continuing deprivations of capitalism, racism, sexism, and much else are to be effectively opposed. He looks to past—often interlinked—struggles for "universal rights" as a guide to create and maintain in the present a new left movement in which multiple identities and objectives do not override the possibility of common purpose. Aronson’s prospect for social change is long-term, noting that is may take centuries to achieve (if at all) much of what Marxists and other freedom fighters regard as something close to socialism, but he offers this assessment in a "spirit of optimism" that draws "together our marxist riches and the strands of postMarxist radicalism in order to move beyond the sterile opposition of the old forms of unity and the new forms of particularity."
The next two pieces are comments by Richard Wolff and Antonio Callari on Aronson’s estimation of Marxism "after Marxism" and his prolegomenon to the "next Left." Appreciating much of Aronson’s call to scale down the past pretensions of a universalistic Marxism, Wolff also has several bones to pick with him. One is that Aronson sees the need to move "outside" Marxism to conduct the antiessentialist move toward a more pluralistic Left, while Wolff argues that much of Aronson’s discussion could be seen better as an argument within Marxism since many of the positions he finds "outside" have been in play, in some cases almost from Marxism’s inception, throughout its history. But perhaps more crucially, certainly for Marxism’s role within the political coalition for which Aronson calls, Wolff sees "a kind of excess pendulum swing" such that Marxism becomes "one among many different, multiple strands within what sounds like a kind of additive agglomeration of micromovements." It then seems magical, in his view, that cohesion could occur from this simple "addition," but if such unity and direction imply negotiating different organizational strategies and structures, then it should not be possible or advisable for Marxism to shy away from enunciating and struggling for its own conceptions of commonality, hegemony, and the like. Wolff worries that Aronson’s mea culpa on behalf of historical Marxism will single out Marxism unjustifiably as having to be careful in the process of creating new political movements. Finally, he finds fault with Aronson’s reasoning that Marxism has been rejected by other social movements because of the tendency of Marxists in the past to subordinate them to a working-class vanguard. As Wolff notes, in addition to the fact that many within the post-Marxist camp have ignored or denigrated class, this rejection cannot be laid solely at the feet of Marxists since there are copious other social forces that, for all too long, have pushed and seduced activists engaged in "other" struggles to repudiate any connection to Marxism.
Callari pursues a slightly different tack. Focusing on After Marxism as the fullest expression of Aronson’s ideas, he discerns two forms of argument that constitute that text. Callari notes that Aronson moves back and forth from "objective," dispassionate description of the misfortunes of Marxism to a more "confessional tale" of Aronson’s personal history on the Marxian left. Detecting the "prophetic intentions" of Aronson’s text, he sees the two forms of argument working, ironically, to reinstate the exalted status of "classical Marxism" rather than to announce its passing. Like Wolff, Callari chides Aronson for his reduction of "Marxism" to its classical, modernist forms, but he goes on to state that Aronson’s rigidity in identifying Marxism purely as orthodoxy sets the stage for a messianic appeal and an act of Resurrection in Aronson’s call to mourn and then transcend this thing now dead. He reads Aronson’s text as largely about his own "psychocultural habits and needs" to ritually kill and then to mourn (classical) Marxism as an embodiment of the prophetic dimension Aronson identifies as Marxism’s crucial moral side. Aronson’s call for Marxists to look bravely into the abyss, having to now "think and be on their own," is interpreted by Callari as overstated and, in any event, questionable in light of the history of so many Marxisms’ "oppositionality" under the worst conditions. In Callari’s summation, Aronson’s views, "rather than allowing Marxism to evolve and to change in line with some of the new political and theoretical conditions he identifies, can keep Marxism stuck in its official and inadequate representations." Perhaps readers will wish to jump in on this important debate.
The last item in the Remarx section is Conor Kostick’s overview of the historical and contemporary situation of Marxism in Ireland. Kostick takes us through the insights of Marx and Engels—whose writings on the ruination of peasant farming and domestic industry at the hands of nineteenth-century British imperialism and incipient capitalist control over the Irish economy marked the beginning of specifically Marxist analyses of Ireland—to the present modest revival of a distinctly Irish marxism. He demonstrates convincingly that the various nationalist and working class movements over the course of the past century have provided vexatious and immutable problems for Marxist theory and political practice. As Kostick shows, at key moments Marxists have been challenged to contribute conjunctural analyses in which Republican and Unionist sentiments and strategies have had to be interrogated for their class content and implications. Thus, for example, he touches upon the leadership of James Connolly, the Irish socialist who believed that the nationalist movement at the turn of the century had to be fused with the growing Irish industrial working class. But with the British repression and partition that followed the Easter Uprising of 1916 (and Connolly’s execution), as he notes, Marxists were confronted once again to reconsider the fate of the Irish working-class movement in the context of Republicanism, the increased divisions in Northern Ireland between Protestants and Catholics, and the success of Ulster Unionists in conducting pogroms against the Left and establishing a new state. He brings us forward through the decline of Marxism in the 1960s and 1970s to current analyses and political actions made possible by a renewed desire for a nonsectarian form of politics among Northern Irish workers, by the increased involvement of workers in the peace movement, and by the move of Sinn Fein toward state power which, in Kostick’s opinion, is "leaving a vacuum that is potentially open to the Left." These analyses and actions are also occurring in the Republic of Ireland where "a large radicalization of Irish society has come with the continued growth of the urban working class" and where there has been increased worker involvement in the turbulent abortion and divorce debates. He summarizes recent Marxist theoretical work as significant in targeting the "revolutionary potential of Protestant workers" and in rejecting the prior view of the South as a neocolonial state, for which nationalism was thought to take precedence over workers’ complaints and desires. The increased militancy of workers in both Irish states, says Kostick, "is the source for a cautious optimism that Marxism can win a growing audience in Ireland today."
Correspondence from Sue Penna and Martin O’Brien and a reply from Teresa Ebert are the last two entries in this issue. Penna and O’Brien write that Ebert’s article "The Knowable Good: Post-al Politics, Ethics, and Red Feminism" in RM, Summer 1995, is a prime example of "the current reflex dismissal of ‘post’ perspectives" that is growing to a crescendo. They make clear that while they are "highly sympathetic to the notion of a transformative politics and agree that the exploitative dynamics of capitalism are of crucial analytical importance," they also believe that "poststructuralist critiques of marxism’s historical subject and its political agency, the mode of production as the casual mechanism of inequality, and the capitalist state as the organizing locus of power are neither trivial nor intellectually illegitimate." Penna and O’Brien take issue with what they regard as Ebert’s failure to rethink Marxism in the face of such critiques, and instead to lump all "post-al" thought into a single category of idealist claptrap that at best distracts from the class struggle and at worst operates as the thinly veiled voice of capitalist apology (disguised as "left critique"). They are most critical of what they believe is Ebert’s unwillingness to engage seriously the complexities that postmodernists and others discern in the once simply rendered Marxian concepts of class, subjectivity, agency, and power. They also argue, versus Ebert, that post-al politics is far from an expression of bourgeois individualism and class collaboration, as its emphasis on the "lived complexity of social and political relations or the historic marginalizations that have structured modern projects of ‘emancipation"’ is crucial to successful struggles for social change and justice. Penna and O’Brien dispute Ebert’s rendition of post-ality and its focus on difference and discourse as representations of "atomized, isolated individuality." In this generalization, they find a "misrecognition" of post-al politics. In contrast to Ebert’s reading, Penna and O’Brien assert the productivity for leftists of seeing post-al concepts of difference as "socioculturally produced asymmetries of power"—quite "material"—and as constitutive of forms of agency and identity for which "cultural politics becomes far more significant in the theory and practice of transformation" than Ebert and her call for a "red feminism" based on classical marxism would seem to allow.
Ebert responds both directly and more broadly to Penna and O’Brien. She sees the "confidence" of their critique as another sign of post-ality’s rise to orthodoxy: "its secure position of power in the philosophical and scientific establishment." She does not agree with their reading of her text as simply "restating" but not "rethinking Marxism," though she explains that for her such a rethinking is more a "boundary move to place classical Marxism in the zone of emerging new capitalist contradictions (including post-al theory)" than revising Marxism "into one of the hybrid marxisms that will abandon the idea of totality and describe . . . contradictions as autonomous sites of the social." Ebert situates Penna and O’Brien’s comments within a set of conceptual problems and positions that, in her view, sharply separate legitimately Marxist doctrines from "bourgeois avant-gardism." On the issue of materialism and materiality, she criticizes the substitution of the praxis of labor by "discourse" and "difference" in post-al theory since, in her view, "discourses codify and represent surplus labor in ways that legitimate its extraction" and therefore post-ality negates "the history of labor and the way in which the labor of the proletariat is exploited." Treating discourse as material has the added effect of performing "what the idealist theory of the material has always done: it places human practices outside history and in the (un)conscious of the subject of desire." Responding to Penna and O’Brien, Ebert also defends her adherence to a "base/superstructure" conception of the relations among culture, politics, and the class-based economy, calling it "the most productive explanatory model of the socioeconomics of culture." Post-al theory, in her view, replaces historical materialism’s regular and deep structural causality and scientific explanation with "singularity" and "multidirectional description." Penna and O’Brien join other post-al theorists, according to Ebert, in shifting "the analysis of the sociohistorical from [an] underlying structure of labor to individual singularities," thereby "legitimat[ing] exploitation." Finally, she locates their comments within the new orthodoxy of Foucauldian approaches in which power, rather than "being derived from ‘production’ practices . . . is autonomous and has its own internal logic." Once again, she regards the consequent" mystifications of ‘agency’ and the localities of change" to be "complicit with capitalism" rather than resistant to it. In her rebuke of Penna and O’Brien, Ebert concludes with a reassertion of her "red feminism," one that puts "the binary of classes in the forefront of social practices."
The Editors