PRIVATIZATION, RATIONAL CHOICE,
HUMAN AGENCY, AND PROSPECT PARK
Walking through Prospect Park in New York City's borough of Brooklyn recently,
I came across the following, carefully painted on the stonework buttressing steps
leading up to an area called "Lookout Hill": "In a world where suffering is a huge
part of life, I ask only that you embrace art." At first I had a negative reaction
to this sentiment: it seems to accept suffering as inevitable, and art as a sufficient
antidote. It is also a bit arrogant; I would have preferred "we" to "you." But on
further reflection, I see an important point being sought here, to which I will return.
In chapter 32 of Volume I of Capital, "Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation," at the end of what may be the second-most famous passage in all of his
work,1 Marx writes: "The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The
expropriators are expropriated" (emphasis added). The emphasis reveals, first, the
clear association of capitalism with private property; this greatly problematizes any
attempt to attribute to Marx the notion that private property, like state property, is
a mere superstructural, juridical form — a costume, that the disembodied demon
capital can don at will. Private property is a category of the real production
relations of capitalism. But the juxtaposition "capitalist private property" also
implies that capitalism does not exhaust, and is not co-extensive with, private
property as such; the latter is broader, both historically and theoretically. At the
end of the chapter, Marx explains this further:
The transformation of scattered private property, arising from
individual labour, into capitalist private property is, naturally, a
process, incomparably more protracted, violent and difficult, than the
transformation of capitalistic private property, already practically
resting on socialized production, into socialised property. In the
former case, we had the expropriation of the mass of the people by a
few usurpers; in the latter, we have the expropriation of a few usurpers
by the mass of the people.
While waiting for the opportunity to bring about this latter expropriation,
decisively and irreversibly, we may notice, as part of the retrograde shift in the
world balance of class forces in recent decades, a drive toward what is called
"privatization." This slogan became prominent in the 1980s, and has continued to
gain ground, both as part of the structural adjustment policies imposed on "third
world" countries by international financial agencies, and in the domestic arena
within advanced capitalist countries. On both fronts, capitalist political rule is directed as a matter of fundamental principle against state economic activity.
Working-class and popular pressure has often been the means whereby capital is
forced, against its will, to accede to a public role in the economy, even when that
role is essential for systemic reproduction and is thoroughly dominated by capital's
own secure representatives. Capitalists know, of course, that the very principle of
public, governmental control is inherently antagonistic to their power, which rests
on the spontaneous, market valorization of their (private-capitalist) property.
They see state economic activity as a "foot in the door," and are ever at pains to
remove it. Thus, the constant drive toward "privatization."
The popular side of this struggle has historically been centered on "public
goods," which are either essential elements in life support and therefore deserving
of political provision or oversight (schools, hospitals, utilities), or goods that are
consumed jointly and simultaneously by multiple individuals, and therefore hard
to subject to individual pricing (roads, city streets, parks). There are usually large
economies of scale in production of public goods, which means that competition
among multiple providers is unlikely. It is not surprising that capital would take
hold of the opportunity provided by the current political climate to further chip
away at the public sector, increasing attacks against public schools, coveting public
parks and preserves as possible sites for commercial development, and drooling
over the profits that might be made from the sale of formerly state-provided goods.
What is new, however, is the range of possibility opened up by modern electronic technology. Whereas previously, for example, it may have been impossible,
or at least clearly inefficient, to turn roads into toll roads, because of the cost and
disruption associated with toll booths and plazas, now tolls can be collected electronically by E-Z-Pass systems, and perhaps automatically deducted from drivers'
bank accounts. This could even be extended to city streets. In effect, drivers are
subjected to ever-present metering and monitoring, and can therefore make rational choices: weighing, for example, the costs and benefits of walking vs. driving to
a given location, since driving will cost a small toll. In this case, walking has the
advantage of providing exercise, and the disadvantage of taking longer; constrained
optimization of utility will result in an ideal walking/driving ratio, which of course
depends on the price. One can even imagine a degree of competition among capitalist road providers: 7th Avenue and 9th Avenue in New York City are owned by
different firms, and either can be used for downtown travel (8th Avenue is one-way
uptown), so the firms in question are forced to compete by lowering their toll rates.
Tolls, of course, would in general be governed by the prevailing rate of profit, which
would have to be earned by road-providing and -maintaining firms.
The E-Z-Pass concept can be extended to foot traffic as well. Why not, as a
matter of law, have citizens wear e-devices on their belts, or somewhere on their
persons (ankle bracelets smack too much of law enforcement to be palatable),
which would record the extent and location of pedestrian travel? The rate for such
travel on city streets would differ from the higher rate for parks; perhaps streets
and avenues would have different rates, or rates might be calibrated to time of day,
to discourage rush-hour travel and encourage staggered hours, and so forth. Rates
for standing still, as in the case of taxi cab fares, would discourage loitering. Of
course, the principle of equal profitability (essentially what Marx means by "the law
of value." a claim to be elaborated elsewhere) must be the sole criterion for pricing.
At issue is the cost differential experienced by the capitalist road and sidewalk
firms, and the competitive pass-through of this differential to toll rates. From the
free-market point of view, setting prices to achieve social objectives is
unconscionable, and should not be allowed.
We have, of course, arrived at the ultimate dystopic free-market fantasy: a
world governed entirely by rational choice, in the sense that individuals maximize
utility subject to their budget constraints, not only in the purchase of food, clothing,
shelter, etc., but also in their very living, breathing, walking presence on the Earth.2
The fact that major components of that presence have been, and are still, provided
as public goods by government is central to the balance of class power — the degree of proletarian dependency supporting current rates of surplus extraction. This
is why these public goods are under attack. But it is interesting to ask: what if all
goods were provided publicly, not privately? In effect, we would have a socialist
economy in which all production activity is in the political sphere and subject to
democratic control. Then the struggle over public goods as a class issue would be
over, but we would still have to determine the balance between priced and non-priced distribution. Given that modern electronics is now available, should we not
seek maximum efficiency in the use of the scarce resources now owned by all of us
collectively, by forcing ourselves to calculate constrained optima, in the use of, e.g.,
food, water, roads, city streets — and parks?
There is a rich tradition in the critique of utilitarianism, of which present-day
rational choice theory is an offshoot. An exemplar of this tradition is philosopher
Charles Taylor, whose essay, "What is Human Agency?," in Theodore Mischel, ed.,
The Self: Psychological and Philosophical Issues (Rowman and Littlefield, 1979) is
cited by Alex Callinicos (Making History, Brill, 2004). Taylor's essential complaint
against the utilitarian view is that this view treats humans only as "weak
evaluators": pursuers of desires as such, without subjecting their desires
themselves to "second-order" evaluation or critique. We are, however, "strong
evaluators": we apply moral standards in the evaluation of our preferences
themselves. Taylor quotes Harry Frankfurt: ". . . what is distinctively human is the
power to evaluate our desires, to regard some as desirable and others as undesirable" (in Mischel, p. 104). In terms of the present discussion, this implies that we
consider others when we determine our use of essential goods; we act on principle,
and in so doing we re-confirm our sense of agency, our participation in a common
enterprise. So I use Prospect Park, for walking and reflecting and enjoying the
wildlife (my wife is much more attuned to this latter aspect than I am), not only as
a source of (maximized) utility, but also, and perhaps decisively, as a way of affirming my social existence. I therefore try to use the park responsibly (which indeed
raises questions about painting on stone surfaces!). Even more to the point, the
non-excludability property — that my use does not preclude others' use — is not
an obstacle to pricing, to be overcome by electronic wizardry; rather, it is central to
my enjoyment. For dog-lovers, the Long Meadow in Prospect Park just wouldn't be
the same without the presence of many other people and their furry pets. The
other, joint, consumers are part of the park itself, part of what I am consuming.3
Now the critics of utilitarianism may not sufficiently appreciate the
ultimately tautological nature of constrained optimization. Even second-order
preferences are preferences, and an optimization algorithm can be applied to them.
The real point, I think, is that we truly affirm our common humanity, and learn to
think and act in terms of that humanity, when, and to the extent that, we are able
to act in an unconstrained, and therefore principled, manner. When we are able to
enjoy Prospect Park without having to pay for it — because, as we know, we are
paying for it together4 — that gives us a sense of sharing, and belonging. And that
sense is what capitalism really finds intolerable and therefore subject to privatization.
In any case, I now like to think that our unknown graffiti philosopher on
Lookout Hill, in urging us to "embrace art," was actually saying that we humans are
more than mere maximizers of utility, and that this thought was confirmed for
him/her by the experience of enjoying the as-yet-unprivatized glory of Brooklyn's
Prospect Park.
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IN THIS ISSUE
In 1990 — one year late! — Science & Society commemorated the bicentennial
of the French Revolution with a special issue, which had contributions from some
of the leading Marxist authorities on the subject. A major concern then, and now,
is the tension between core social-evolutionary processes, on the one hand, and the
rich embodiment of those processes in a multi-textured and contingency-laden
series of historical events, on the other. So we are pleased to present a study by
Danish historian Bertell Nygaard, "The Meanings of 'Bourgeois Revolution': Conceptualizing the French Revolution." Nygaard explicitly projects a "methodologically ambitious view of concepts" for thinking about the complex of relations
among structural change, social struggle, and class agency. The reductive notion of
a bourgeois revolution as one under the conscious, instrumental control of an
already-formed bourgeoisie feeds into the revisionist rejection of Marxist historical
analysis, and impoverishes the project of using theory to grasp the richness of actual history by revealing that history's deep structure.
Turkish authors Fuat Ercan and Sebnem Oguz use recent Turkish experience
to study the range of possibilities open to anti-neoliberal strategy today. They focus
on the relation between what they call "national-developmentalist" strategies for
countries like Turkey, which experience global accumulation as a nationally oppressive force; and "class-based" strategies that focus on production relations and class
power within countries on the receiving end of imperialist domination, as well as
the class nature of the transnational capitalist juggernaut itself. But they go beyond
this as well, to argue that value theory — the use of categories such as abstract
labor to reveal the essential reality of capitalist exploitation — must be present in
a systematic class-based anti-neoliberal position.
Coming from a very different perspective, Gilbert Skillman presents a new
and improved statement of his long-standing argument (see his articles in S&S,
Winter 1996–97 and Fall 1999) that Marx's value-theoretic account of capitalist
exploitation is incoherent — either tautological or demonstrably at odds with historical reality, including Marx's presentations of that reality — and distinctly inferior to Marx's own alternative use of rich historical analysis to reveal how capitalist
exploitation may emerge in a number of different ways. Skillman's position will not
please many Marxist political economists, but it is based on a thorough and scholarly reading of Marx, and it can serve as an invitation to those who would uphold
the value-theoretic core of Marxist political economy to do so by coming to terms
with the critiques and establishing the substantive contribution of value theorizing
to our understanding of the nature and logic of capitalism — and therefore, of
course, of the present-day world economy as well.
Tugan-Baranowsky, an early 20th-century Ukrainian Marxist economist, is
known in the canon of crisis theory as the chief proponent of the view that capitalist
crises are due to an inherent tendency toward disproportionality among sectors,
and that policies to restore adequate proportions can remove the sources of crisis.
Now John Milios and Dimitris Sotiropoulos re-visit the Tugan literature, and problematic, showing the intimate connection between Tugan's position and Keynesian
concern with the problem of effective demand. They offer a new statement of the
position that locates the source of crisis in insufficient surplus value, rather than
insufficient demand and associated disproportionality. Placing profitability at the
center means bringing on board all of the social determinants of profitability in a
rich approach to crisis; by comparison, the views of both Keynesian and neoclassical economists appear as one-sided and inadequate.
Completing the roster of contributions in political economy that form a large
part of this issue, Jonathan Nitzan and Shimson Bichler, who have together produced a series of important studies of the Israeli economy and of the theory of capitalist accumulation (see their work in S&S, Fall 2000), offer an extended review
essay on the work of Israeli economists whose lineage traces back to the ultra-"free-market" Chicago school. In addition to providing a useful sketch of Israel's economic development in recent decades — which hardly supports the claims for the
"free market" policies that have penetrated there — Nitzan and Bichler trace the
relation between the patrimony of John D. Rockefeller and the University of Chicago, showing once again that conceptions of market freedom reinforce the power
of the most powerful, and are therefore systematically promoted by the latter. "Market" freedom = social unfreedom. We can always discover new ways to learn this
lesson, as it plays out in different social and world contexts.
D. L.
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1. The first, of course, is: "The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains;
they have a world to win. Workers of the world, unite!"
2. The existence of electronic travel devices for purposes of payment extends
also to the possibility of using the same system for monitoring and recording
people's movements, with profoundly disturbing implications for civil
liberties. It is remarkable how the logic of the "free" market runs counter to
the most basic human freedoms.
3. I recall a story, from Gil Green's autobiography, Cold War Fugitive: A
Personal Story of the McCarthy Years (International Publishers, 1984), about
the Communist activist and representative from Harlem in the New York City
Council, Benjamin J. Davis. On the occasion of his son's 10th birthday, Davis
gave the boy a magnificent present: Central Park! This was given, however,
on one condition: that he always let other people use the park as well as
himself.
4. Free-market conservatives like to think that the rest of us don't know that
publicly provided goods still have costs. So they tell us that "there is no such
thing as a free lunch." They should tell this to the parasite social upper class.
But there is a lesson here. Increase in real income — the actual purchasing
power of a rising money income, at given prices — moves the real cost of any
given quantity of consumption toward zero, i.e., in the direction of non-priced
distribution. From this point of view, the wealthy already have the zero-price
unconstrained choice that the rest of us associate with a small, and
threatened, sector of public goods. Of course, the capitalist imperative to
growth of abstract wealth prevents the upper class from realizing the human
potential lying within this absence of constraint.
