Sobre las distintas formas de hacer periodismo

Looking back on Social Democracy, Walter Benjamin formulated the following judge-ment: ‘The conformism which has marked the Social Democrats from the beginning attaches not only to their political tactics but to their economic views as well. It is one reason for the eventual breakdown of their party’.1 This statement by an impor-tant German-speaking Marxist amounts to a fundamental critique. Now, German Social Democracy is a political party like any other, which is to say it is free to choose its politi-cal tactics and economic notions as it sees fit. Those who subscribe to other notions are free to join some other party. Social Democracy was, however, faced with a special problem, and it is precisely this problem that Benjamin alludes to: Social Democracy was the political embodiment of Marxism. During his lifetime, Marx intervened when-ever the Party subscribed to notions that diverged from his own. Even decades after his death, the Party continued to relate its ideas back to Marx: it was constrained either to prove that its current tactics accorded with Marxian theories, or that those theo-ries contained errors or were limited in their applicability. This was true, in any case, for as long as Social Democracy did not break fully with Marx.2 But even then, Marx remained one the most stimulating authors from the Party’s tradition; to see this, one need think only of the theories developed by the ‘Young Socialists’ ( Jungsozialisten or Jusos). Even Eduard Bernstein, the founder of ‘revisionism’ whose theories underwent a renaissance during the 1970s, thought of himself as a Marxist; after all, he had been a confidant of Engels and had later administered his estate. Thus the first sedimentation of Marx’s writings, to which the archaeology of Marx exegeses must turn, is to be found in the way Marx’s reception was channelled by the political fate of the mass party SPD (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, German Social Democratic Party). In keeping with the principle of examining texts only, and, more specifically, those texts that pro-vide insight into how certain developments became possible, I will engage with texts by those authors who devoted themselves to fundamental theoretical issues and who may be considered representative. The two most important such authors are Eduard

1. Benjamin 2003, p. 393.

2. The 1959 Godesberg Programme makes no reference whatsoever to Marx: ‘Democratic social-ism’ is rooted in ‘Christian ethics, humanism, and classical philosophy’ (Abendroth 1969, p. 129). A co-author of the Programme recalls: ‘We . . . spent considerable time discussing whether or not we wanted to continue subscribing to Marx in principle, taking note of the major errors and outdated elements of his teachings while further developing what remains fruitful in his true, empirical doctrine. In the end, we found this distinction was not very helpful and told ourselves our task consisted primarily in attending to what was new in the twentieth century’ (Weisser 1976, p. 105).

It would have been quite possible to do this in a Marxist way. ‘After more than half a century, the theory of democratic socialism has marked the triumph of revisionism’ (Gneuss in Labedz 1965, p. 50; see also Bernstein 1976, p. 13).

Bernstein (1850–1932) and Karl Kautsky (1854–1938): they shaped Social Democracy’s programme during its first period of major popularity.

Bernstein and Kautsky penned the 1891 Erfurt Programme, which is widely seen as marking the breakthrough of Marxism within the workers’ movement.3 The Party’s 1875 founding document, the Gotha Programme, had been sharply criticised by Marx.4 When the SPD was declared a legal party again in 1890 and could resume its parliamentary work, it gave itself an openly Marxist programme for the first time. This was so important to the movement that it was even considered a new edition of the Manifesto of the Com-munist Party.5 However, the four-page programme was penned at a time when the third volume of Marx’s Capital (edited and published by Engels in 1894) had not yet appeared, much less Marx’s early writings, which remained unpublished until the 1930s.

Nevertheless, the Programme was like a fanfare inaugurating Marxism’s great success.6 It is representative of what Marxism was taken to be at the time, and one should not forget that the elderly Engels gave it his blessing. Recognition of its content would later become a point of contention in the controversy between revisionists and orthodox Marxists. The Programme begins with the following statements:

The economic development of bourgeois society leads by natural necessity to the down-fall of small industry, whose foundation is formed by the worker’s private ownership of his means of production. It separates the worker from his means of production, and converts him into a propertyless proletarian, while the means of production become the monopoly of a relatively small number of capitalists and large landowners.7

Hegel had already been constrained to admit8 that bourgeois society had become the powerhouse of modern development, notwithstanding the fact that it yielded chaotic results and social inequality.9 Marx radicalised this diagnosis. It is taken up in the Erfurt Programme, albeit it in a popularised form. What is it, exactly, that is lost in the course of this popularisation? To anticipate the answer to this question: the Programme

mis-3. On the genesis of the Erfurt Programme, see MECW 27, pp. 217 ff.; Miller 1964, pp. 179 ff.;

Grebing 1966, p. 10 f.; Abendroth 1969, pp. 28 ff.; Beyer 1975, Lehnert 1983, pp. 80 ff.; Fricke 1987, pp. 214 ff; see also MECW 24, p. 340.

4. MECW 24, pp. 75 ff.

5. Thus Lenin wrote in 1899: ‘We are not in the least afraid to say that we want to imitate the Erfurt Programme; there is nothing bad in imitating what is good’ (Works [LW] vol. 4, p. 235; see also A. Weiss 1965).

6. At the time, Engels rejoiced that Marx’s critique had made a strong impact (MECW 49, pp. 264 ff.).

7. German Social Democratic Party 1904, p. 316.

8. Hegel 1991, §§ 182 ff.

9. ‘[C]ivil society affords a spectacle of extravagance and want as well as of . . . physical and ethical degeneration’ (Hegel 1991, § 185). When ‘civil society is in a state of unimpeded activity’, the ‘amassing of wealth is intensified’, as is the ‘dependence and distress of the class tied to work’

(§ 243). ‘It hence becomes apparent that despite an excess of wealth civil society is not rich enough, i.e. its own resources are insufficient to check excessive poverty and the creation of a penurious rabble’ (§ 245; Haltern 1985).

interprets highly abstract Marxian propositions about the general logic of the process of production as descriptions of the immediate present – thereby abandoning them.10 What is thereby lost is scientific depth. Let us consider some examples. Marx and Engels described the way bourgeois society’s fundamental antagonism – the opposition between capitalism’s two classes, labour and capital – absorbs earlier class oppositions: ‘The lower strata of the middle class . . . all these sink gradually into the proletariat’.11 What was at issue here were the historical origins of the proletariat;12 the passage from the Erfurt Programme quoted above reads as if it were a question of contemporary workers in small enterprises.13

By interpreting a statement on history as a description of the present, the Programme makes it possible to present the existence of modern-day middle classes as a refutation of Marx.14 Similarly, Marx does not describe the expulsion of ‘superfluous laborers’ as a continuous process of ‘forever greater growth’, as the Programme would have it:

Forever greater grows the number of proletarians, more gigantic the army of superflu-ous laborers, and sharper the opposition between exploiters and exploited. The class-struggle between the bourgeoisie and proletariat is the common mark of all industrial countries; it divides modern society into two opposing camps and the warfare between them constantly increases in bitterness.

Rather, he describes a tendency that does not become manifest except under certain conditions. If wages are high and profit expectations low, the capitalist will invest less and hence require fewer workers. In this case, workers will, indeed, be expelled from the production process.

Yet this expulsion has two consequences. First, unemployed persons are forced to take work for lower wages. This depresses wages, thereby increasing the profit expectations of the entrepreneur, which may, in turn, result in investment and new employment.

Second, the entrepreneur will attempt to improve his productive technology. If he wants to make a greater profit, he needs either to cheapen the production process, or else produce more. A new method of production may further increase his chances of making a profit (see section 2.1.6). He will, therefore, be especially likely to invest when wages are low due to high unemployment. This may lead to ulterior positive developments on

10.  This was due less to an insufficient sense of ‘dialectics’, as Western Marxism believed, than to a simplistic notion of economics (see Kautsky 1980; according to Mohl 1867, p. 9, both friend and foe felt that whoever had read this book no longer needed to read Capital). While Bernstein and Kautsky were personally familiar with Marx and Engels, they were neither philosophers, nor economists, nor politicians, but publicists.

11.  MECW 6, p. 491.

12.  MECW 35, pp. 176 ff.

13.  The Manifesto is referring to ‘the small tradespeople, shopkeepers, and retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and peasants’ (MECW 6, p. 491), who owned means of production and were, therefore, not ‘free workers’. The worker needs to take his labour power to market because it is all he owns (2.4.6).

14. Bernstein 1961, pp. 73 ff.; see sections 2.1.2, 2.4.7.

the labour market. Thus the number of unemployed people is far from increasing ‘for-ever’; it may decrease during periods of economic upturn. ‘Tendentially’, or across busi-ness cycles, the number of newly created jobs will, however, be lower than that of the jobs made redundant by rationalisation, since an increase in the productivity of labour achieved by an improvement in productive technology reduces the labour intensity of the single product.15 This tendency does not have to be in effect at every moment, but it does shape social relations over time. The tendential character of the Marxian laws is thoroughly misunderstood when those laws are taken as descriptions of momentary situations. While there can be no doubt that much has changed, the tendency can still be demonstrated to be at work today.16 Only those who make its validity dependent on what appears to be happening at a particular moment will periodically declare it to have been ‘refuted’.17 The following passage also contains numerous reinterpretations: ‘But all the advantages of this transformation are monopolized by capitalists and large land-owners. For the prolateriate [sic] and the declining intermediate classes . . . it means a growing augmentation of the insecurity of their existence, of misery, oppression, enslave-ment, debaseenslave-ment, and exploitation’.18

The phrase ‘increase in the insecurity of their existence’ was added at the behest of Engels, since he was aware of how the situation of German workers had improved during the Gründerzeit period.19 Yet expressions such as ‘increase . . . of misery’ are reminiscent of the theory of progressive immiseration defended by Malthus and others. While the early Marx subscribed to this theory,20 he abandoned it soon after.21 According to this

15.  MECW 35, pp. 623 ff.

16.  Sassen 1988, p. 136.

17.  This is reminiscent of the following joke. One person asks another whether the indicator of a car is working. The reply: ‘Working, not working, working, not working . . .’ The respondent has obviously not understood the way an indicator works. ‘The greater the social wealth, the functioning capital, the extent and energy of its growth, and, therefore, also the absolute mass of the proletariat and the productiveness of its labour, the greater is the industrial reserve army.

The same causes which develop the expansive power of capital, develop also the labour-power at its disposal. . . . This is the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation. Like all other laws it is modified in its working by many circumstances’ (MECW 35, p. 638). Goodwin 1972 develops this feedback phenomenon into a theory of the ‘growth cycle’, without taking account, however, of the influence of trade unions. Lederer 1931, on the other hand, explains unemployment by reference to monopolisation.

18.  German Social Democratic Party 1904, p. 316. Compare this with Marx’s original formula-tion: ‘Along with the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital, who usurp and monopolize all advantages of this process of transformation, grows the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation; but with this too grows the revolt of the working class, a class always increasing in numbers, and disciplined, united, organized by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself ’ (MECW 35, p. 750).

19.  MECW 27, p. 223.

20. MECW 3, pp. 239 f.; MECW 6, p. 499.

21.  MECW 9, pp. 214 f.; Abendroth 1969, p. 35; Rosdolsky 1977, pp. 282 ff.; Shaikh n.d. The ‘entan-glement of all peoples in the net of the world market’ (MECW 35, p. 750) has caused poverty to increase the world over (Baratta 2002, p. 1086; U. Neumann 1999).

theory, workers only ever receive subsistence level wages. The assumption seemed easy to refute, since German workers had seen their standard of living improve around 1900.

However, exploitation may increase even when real wages are on the rise; the mature Marx understood exploitation in terms of the ratio of productivity increases to wage increases. When productivity increases more rapidly than wages, as is to be expected (2.1.6), the capitalist obtains a higher share of surplus value from the labour he has pur-chased than before. Thus the rate of exploitation has risen despite the rise in wages.22 Wage levels are not limited by the absolute minimum required for subsistence, but by labour power’s variable value, which is determined by the goods required for its repro-duction. Which goods are required and which are not is a question that is answered in the course of social conflicts. This implies the existence of a ‘moral element’,23 of which the Erfurt Programme loses sight.

The concept of ‘monopoly’ is also blurred by an interpretation based on a semantics of what is immediately given. By definition, the capitalist class holds a monopoly on the means of production,24 but this should not be confused with economic theory’s more specific concept of monopoly. Aggressive pricing policies, enforced concentration and political or natural market barriers may lead to the temporary formation of monopolies within a sector of industry; these monopolies then eliminate competition within this industry for some time.25 Yet competition remains the prerequisite of such a monopoly.26 Economically speaking, ‘the’ means of production are not monopolised by ‘one’ group of capitalists, since inter-capitalist competition prevents capitalists from forming a homo-geneous group. The historical and the economic concept of monopoly are confounded whenever ‘monopoly’ is interpreted as referring to a momentary state of affairs. This reductive approach can also be seen in Hilferding and Lenin, when they proclaim the

‘new stage’ of monopoly capitalism (2.2.6) – a proclamation that gave Marxists license to stop reading Marx (2.3.3).

In all the examples mentioned, simplification concerns one and the same aspect: this mode of representation knows only one level of analysis. What is being said, in effect, is: this is how it is, and this is how it will be. The key notion at work in this operation is ‘natural necessity’. A necessity is proclaimed without being demonstrated, and it is claimed that this necessity plays out in a way similar to ‘nature’. Invocation of such quasi-natural development alludes to Darwinism, which was experiencing its moment of triumph at the time when the Erfurt Programme was written. Kautsky subscribed temporarily to Darwinism, and Bernstein to the theories of Eugen Dühring.27 Engels had

22. 3.2.2; MECW 35, p. 599 f.; Shaikh 1986c.

23. MECW 35, pp. 181, 225 f., 276 f., 536 f.; MECW 20, p. 8; MECW 24, p. 380.

24. MECW 5, p. 335; MECW 35, p. 243.

25. MECW 6, pp. 190 ff.; MECW 37, pp. 436, 608 ff.

26. MECW 6, pp. 195 f.; MECW 35, pp. 621 f.

27. On Bernstein, see Gay 1954, p. 193; Colletti 1971, Gustavson 1972, Meyer 1977, Carsten 1993 and Steger 1997. On Kautsky, see Lenin 1972a, Korsch 1929, Matthias 1957, Steenson 1978, Salvadori

already drawn comparisons between the development of nature and that of society.28 Kautsky and Bernstein later proceeded to replace historical by natural historical develop-ment. Kautsky did so in his 1906 work Ethics, and Bernstein when he expressed his faith in a ‘peaceful transition to socialism’ [ friedliches Hineinwachsen in den Sozialismus].29 The shift of focus, from society to nature, created the possibility of closing ranks with social Darwinist tendencies (2.1.4).30 The new ‘concept’ rendered superfluous the very political action that Marx had wanted to illuminate conceptually.31 This was what Ben-jamin lamented in the opening quotation.

The changed concept of nature32 implies a changed understanding of science. By his models, Marx meant neither to offer a faithful representation of the circumstances of his own time, nor to anticipate those of the future; his intention was that of analysing the forces that were at work behind contemporary appearances and manifested themselves in them. One does not need Hegel’s Logic to distinguish between ‘essence and appear-ance’. Simple examples suffice to show that many scientific disciplines operate on the basis of this distinction: we see the Sun rise every morning, and yet we know that in

1979, Kołakowski 1976, pp. 379 ff.; Vranitzky 1981, pp. 305 ff.; Mende 1985, Gilcher-Holtey 1986, Geary 1987, Schelz-Brandenburg 1992, Koth 1993 and Häupel 1993. On Marx’s relation to Darwin, see Mozetic 1987, pp. 117 ff.; for general accounts, see Lichtheim 1961, McLellan 1979, and Howard 1989, pp. 65 ff.

28. MECW 25, pp. 313 ff.

29. The original German suggests an organic process, as ‘Hineinwachsen’ literally means ‘to grow into’ [translator’s note].

30. Bebel 1971, pp. 255 ff.; Woltmann 1899, Raddatz 1975, p. 288; Heyer 1982. In 1933, the residual SPD faction voted in favour of the law on euthanasia (Weingart 1988, Mosse 1990).

31. The Party’s official interpretation of its own programme states: ‘The capitalist social system has run its course . . . Irresistible economic forces lead with the certainty of doom to the shipwreck of capitalist production’ (Kautsky 1971, p. 117) – and with it socialism: ‘But socialist production must, and will, come. Its victory will have become inevitable as soon as that of the proletariat has become inevitable’ (p. 191; for an early instance of this view, see Bebel 1971, pp. 343 ff., 372 ff.).

Kautsky wants to avoid the impression that the exploited will reap the fruits of the social revolu-tion without having to do anything in the meantime. But this is precisely the import of what he says: ‘We consider the breakdown of the present social system to be unavoidable, because we know that the economic evolution inevitably brings on conditions that will compel the exploited classes to rise against this system of private ownership’, since it leaves them ‘no choice but to go down into degradation or to overthrow the system of private property’ (p. 90). It seems that nothing needs to be done except await this political ‘victory’: ‘Socialist production is, therefore, the natural result of a victory of the proletariat’ (p. 191). And ‘victory’ seemed easy enough to achieve: ‘Bourgeois society is preparing its own downfall so vigorously that we need only await the moment in which to pick up the power that falls from its grasp’ (Bebel speaking at the 1891 Party Congress, quoted in Lehnert 1983, p. 83). First capitalism collapses, then power is seized, then there is socialism: everything plays out by natural necessity. But what has become of political practice, over and beyond the organisation of the party? Kautsky confirmed retrospectively that the road to practice had been obstructed by these theories: ‘Bringing about the revolution . . . seemed to me to be . . . impossible. It could only be the work of immense historical events that the Party had no way of influencing’ (in Der Sozialist, 5, 4, p. 55). ‘To want to make a revolution is . . . folly’ (Lassalle 1987, p. 198).

32. See MECW 35, p. 616; Schmidt 1960; Dahmer 1994.

fact the Earth revolves around the Sun.33 One does not need to be a Hegelian to

fact the Earth revolves around the Sun.33 One does not need to be a Hegelian to