ANARCHISM, MARXISM, AND THE CUNNING OF CAPITALISM

We begin this time by taking note of a small but significant celebration that was held recently in Portland, Oregon. Portland's Washington Park overlooks the place where John Reed was born 114 years ago. On May 6, 2001, the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission dedicated a bench in the park to this famous radical journalist, who participated in founding the Communist Party and authored the classic chronicle of the October Revolution, Ten Days that Shook the World. This is the first memorial to John Reed in his native country, although he was honored in the Soviet Union (his remains were, and as far as I know still are, buried beneath the Kremlin wall). The plaque in Portland, in the words of Michael Munk, S&S contributor and active participant in the John Reed memorial project, "celebrates his (Reed's) regard for the beauty of his home town, while . . . suggesting his radical opposition to its political culture."

It is a short distance from Portland, Oregon to Seattle, Washington, but a monumental journey from Portland in 1887 to Seattle in 2000! Reed's spirit, however, is surely present in the massive demonstrations against capitalist transnational power that took flight in Seattle at the World Trade Organization meeting of last year, and have since blazed a continuing path from Washington to Melbourne, Prague and Quebec. Reed's political formation occurred against a backdrop of the classic struggle in the First International between the Bakunin and Marx "parties," whose early 20th-century echo was so well depicted in the exchange between Reed and Emma Goldman in Warren Beatty's film, Reds. In every generation, including our own, we must wrestle with the insurmountable questions: the precise nature of the forces arrayed against social progress and human fulfillment; and the conflict between radical ideals, on the one hand, and the limitations of the human and political realities within which we pursue those ideals, on the other.

In a masterful study of anarchism and the anarchist-Marxist debate⁽¹⁾, Daniel Guerin surveys the great anarchist thinkers -- Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Stirner, many others -- and their essentially negative, if occasionally prophetic, doctrines: rejection of authoritarian socialism and of all hierarchy and structure; promotion of spontaneity and individuality; opposition to bureaucracy and to participation in the electoral process; etc.⁽²⁾ While reporting the anarchist philosophy fully and sympathetically, Guerin also rises above it and gives a considered overview:

Having made all these generous and optimistic affirmations, both the anarchist and his brother [sic] and enemy the Marxist confront a grave contradiction. The spontaneity of the masses is essential, an absolute priority, but not sufficient in itself. The assistance of a revolutionary minority capable of thinking out the revolution has proved to be necessary to raise mass consciousness. How is this elite to be prevented from exploiting its intellectual superiority to usurp the role of the masses, paralyze their initiative, and even impose a new domination upon them?

A more Leninist view of organic unity between Party and masses may well transcend this dichotomous approach to organization vs. spontaneity (see, e.g., Alan Shandro, "Lenin, Dialectics, Eclecticism," S&S, Summer 2001). Our point at present, however, is to note the reappearance of the classical anarchist positions in the thinking of at least some in the new generation of activists, perversely labeled "anti-globalization" in the capitalist press (see "Editorial Perspectives," Winter 2000-01). For the flavor of this stance, I offer the following from the Continental Direct Action Network. Headed "Black Bloc Call for the Virginia Republican Convention," an online release announcing demonstrations against that convention on June 1-2, reads, in part:

Calling all anti-authoritarians, anti-capitalists and all others who seek a world free of charge!. . . The farcical notion of electoral democracy must be replaced. Our Earth, our livelihoods, our land, and our liberty can only be defended by those who stand to lose the most from their destruction. . . . Rise up! This will be a time to refute their claims to privilege and power. We call on all blockaders, guerrilla gardeners, saboteurs, drummers, Radical Cheerleaders [initial upper case in original], street performers, action medics, bike messengers, radio operators, and all other concerned individuals. . . . Policies that wage war on the people of Virginia and the world will be directly challenged. . . . Let's take it to the streets! (cdan.org.)

This is, of course, classical anarchism, tinged with new cultural elements and the sense of immediacy and "globality" that spring from the age of the Internet. Some of it is positively delightful: "a world free of charge." We might note the attack against "farcical" elections, at a time when the ruling classes in the capitalist world have done everything in their power to undermine electoral democracy (witness the declining participation rates in the USA and Britain, and the notorious persecution and intimidation of voters in the state of Florida in the last U. S. Presidential election). Do our young bike messengers and Radical Cheerleaders see any distinction between attacking elections, and attacking those who render them "farcical"?

As readers may expect, I am tempted here to mount an all-out stinging critique, in the Marxist tradition. I believe, however, that that temptation should be resisted. Rather than pronouncing a predictable anathema, routinely upholding the position of Marx contra Bakunin or of John Reed contra Emma Goldman, we may do better to look for the new elements in the current mix and try to understand them. Also, to acknowledge that this debate cannot be settled once and for all in any given time period and passed along intact to the next, but rather must always be developed afresh. To those with a tiring sense of dejà vú, I would say that we can usually expect a line of progress through the wearisome repetitions of error: "time's cycle, time's arrow."

There is no space here to revisit the entire anarchism-Marxism confrontation. I would like, however, to follow one idea through. The long-standing anarchist immediacy of perception is enhanced in our time of instantaneous elecronic transmission of data, photographic images, video footage and sound. The rapid succession of one image, one sensory event, on top of another has the effect of discouraging reflection, and creates a spontaneous barrier against the search for immanent and structural realities -- "deep structures" in Chomsky's phrase -- lying behind and beneath the parade of impressions that constitutes direct experience. (Human individuality and sociality, to refer once more to Bakunin's apt formulation, both involve transcending animal picture-thinking and a primary role for symbols and internal processing.) The most basic anarchist impulse of all may be to doubt and disrespect the scientific method of abstraction, the search for the core layers of reality that do not present themselves directly to the senses. It takes logic, the creative use of concepts, to provide some semblance of order and understanding, to surmount the chaos of perception -- a chaos that is enhanced by the new electronic bombardment of the senses with "instant information" at all times of day and night.⁽³⁾

A crucial historical materialist argument is that capitalism is not simply "yet another" form of domination or tyranny (cf. our direct-action brothers' and sisters' juxtaposition: "anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist"). It stands at the apex of a progression of exploitative modes of production, each characterized by a more sophisticated and therefore powerful method of surplus-extraction -- necessarily so, since the increasing power and complexity of the productive forces require this evolution. All class power masks itself behind ideologies, religions, whatever; capitalist power, however, raises the art of the masquerade to new heights. It is able to do this in part because its social relations -- unlike those of precapitalist modes of production -- take the form of market or commodity relations. Marxist political economy and social/cultural theory pose the task of removing the masks, and of learning the mask structure -- how the system of obfuscations works, how the various disguises are inter-related, and, to grasp the full complexity of the problem, how the structure itself evolves and changes in different historical conditions. All of this means that the nature of capitalist power will never be grasped, and therefore never effectively challenged, by coalitions of immediacy, however compelling and fruitfully diverse they may seem to be.

Here is a tentative list of five disguises assumed by capitalist power: 1) "the market"; 2) the state; 3) "bureaucrats" (private or "public"); 4) existential scarcity; 5) intellectual and scientific expertise. (Are there more? Perhaps.) The "market" disguise is the oldest and most venerable; Marx and Engels ripped it off in the Manifesto when they noted the way capitalist property hides behind the skirts (pardon the metaphor shift) of the "private property" of small artisans, etc. "You have already done away with private property for nine-tenths of the population." This mask has been raised to new levels of mystification with the triumph of modern-day "free market" ideology.

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