EDITORIAL PERSPECTIVES (continued)
A more comprehensive view of the Social Security issue begins with a negative
question: What kind of society generates saving and growth only by making people
insecure? If a society cannot tolerate social security (lower-case initial letters), it
will certainly not be able to countenance Social Security. But increasingly, in
present-day conditions, only a secure working population can be free to unleash the
full potentials of modern production — in short, to generate qualitatively progressive economic and social growth. This is, I believe, the bedrock argument: it is not
just that we can have Social Security; in fact, we must have it, not just from the
standpoint of individual recipients, but from that of society as a whole. The productive forces of today's economy are now fettered by the insufficiency of working-class
life, which is in turn a requirement of capitalist exploitation. Capitalism thus stands
in the way of fundamental solutions to problems of social existence, because it cannot countenance the principle of social responsibility for the ultimate well-being of
society's members. Do we really want a dynamic society and economy in which
people will be willing to take creative risks? Give them the social security to do so!
Immediate "fixes" to the Social Security "problem" — a dedicated estate tax,
removing the income cap on contributions, funding from general revenues through
revival of progressive taxation, that mythical peace dividend — are a sufficient answer to the Bush-Republican-ruling-class attacks. Over the longer haul, we should
think in terms of ways to increase the benefit rate and replacement ratio. This can
be done without increasing the payroll tax, which is a narrow way to assess the social
responsibility for security in old age in any case. Time will tell whether the dire
effects on incentives and saving predicted by mainstream economists materialize;
we have ample reason to predict and build the opposite outcome. As more solid
support for Social Security — and social security — filters into the experience and
consciousness of working people, the foundation is laid for further increases in living standards in general, in a virtuous cycle.
This will certainly require cooperation and mobilization on the part of the vast
working majority; capital will not grant it voluntarily. The struggle for Social Security has the potential to establish a connection between class solidarity and fulfillment of personal life goals. If this in turn requires progressive inroads into the capitalist prerogatives that today dominate both workplace incentives and political priorities — then so be it.
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IN THIS ISSUE
Marxism has never achieved the political prominence in the Anglo-Saxon
capitalist countries that it has enjoyed elsewhere. It did, however, become disproportionately influential in academic and intellectual life in Britain, in two different
periods, and — it may be argued — for different reasons in each. We at S&S are
proud of our connection to the early work and legacy of the "Red Scientists" of the
1930s and 40s; the later British Marxist Historians school has also been well represented in our pages over the years, although by the 1960s the number of outlets for
Marxist scholarship had grown and the Historians' work spread much more widely.
Two articles in this issue address this legacy. Edwin A. Roberts ("From the
History of Science to the Science of History: Scientists and Historians in the Shaping of British Marxist Theory") provides a survey of the two schools, and begins an
important compare-and-contrast exercise, looking at strengths and limitations in
each period. Roberts addresses the problem of the relation between contemporary
politics and intellectual practices — both the extent of the influence of the former
on the latter and the need, clearly felt by the participants themselves, for more
effective unification of the two spheres. The Scientists worked at a time of upsurge
and forward movement, and their non-problematized commitment to Marxist
fundamentals reflects that fact. The Historians, by contrast, faced a world of
relative retreat and division, leading to differences in political interpretation and
deep search for clarification and re-working of fundamentals. In retrospect, both
periods seem to provide vital tools for the present.
David Renton's paper, "Studying Their Own Nation Without Insularity: The
British Marxist Historians Reconsidered," looks for a unifying theme in the work of
the Historians Group; if one exists, it is the quest for the sources of the present-day
socialist and working-class movements in deeply rooted democratic and popular
traditions in Britain, going back centuries to the earliest struggles of the emerging
capitalist class for emancipation from feudal and aristocratic domination, struggles
that had no choice but to form alliances with and encourage currents of resistance
among the popular classes — the "people." Renton asks whether in their search for
the specific qualities of the British experience, the Historians have not blurred the
lines between "people" and "class," and whether in the effort to find foundations for
a British socialism in uniquely British history and culture they have not ignored the
experience of other nations, losing sight of the generality of capitalist oppression
and the struggle against it.
Both papers in this small symposium contribute in important ways to the
ongoing project of recuperating and using the best of the Marxist heritage, as well
as to the effort to master the thorny dialectics between the specific and the general,
and between intellectual and political practices.
Crossing the Channel, Richard Griffiths looks at the ideologies and
personalities of the French and Belgian political debates in the 1930s. With
post-World War II hindsight, the left often places Fascism and
socialism-communism at opposite ends of a clearly defined right-left spectrum.
But however uncomfortable we may feel in confronting the ambiguity of the
Depression decade (and of course earlier), a problem must be addressed. Social
democratic politicians, facing the unprecedented economic and social crisis of the
time, evolved ideas containing (what might be called) a precise ambiguity:
proposals for planning, and for a created social or national cohesion, contained
elitist elements that veered off in a Fascist-tending direction and — in some cases
— evolved into full-blown Fascism. In fluid and undeveloped class situations and
periods of crisis this ambiguity will always be present. Its evolution along different
pathways in continental Europe in the 1930s may hold lessons for other times and
places.
In the "Communications" section, David Laibman ("The Soviet Demise:
Revisionist Betrayal, Structural Defect, or Authoritarian Distortion?") examines
two recent interventions in the all-important discussion of the Soviet Union: its
nature, its crisis. The Soviet collapse is often attributed either to betrayal by the
leadership, or to fundamental flaws in comprehensively planned socialism.
Laibman proposes an alternative to both positions, arguing that the authoritarian
distortion of Soviet political, intellectual and cultural life, not any inherent
impossibility of an intentional economy or mistakes on the part of Gorbachev and
others, is the key to understanding the Soviet experience.
Sean Sayers, in "Why Work? Marxism and Human Nature," provides a
valuable statement, expanding upon his previous work in this area, which will be
known to many readers. He links Marx's conception of the social nature of human
species being to the ultimate transcendence of labor as such, as a coerced and
alienating activity.
Finally, Yanis Varoufakis, in a review article on Meghnad Desai's Marx's
Revenge, offers a pointed reflection on the trajectory leading from deep
involvement with Marxist theory, to an apostasy that cites the inevitability and
progressiveness of capitalist expansion ("globalization") in Marx. Marx's
celebration of capitalist progress is, however, stripped, in Desai's presentation, of
his sense of the profound historical limits to that inevitable and progressive quality.
D. L.
