Continuing Notes on Sabine's "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 32

For episode 31, see here

The Theory of the Nation-State: The Moderns

XXXII. Communism
 A. Communism, or Marxism-Leninism, was adaption of Marxism to
     epoch of imperialism and particular conditions of Russia (more
     generally, non-industrial economies and societies with peasant
     populations).
 B. Lenin led the Bolsheviks, favoring a vanguard party approach
     against the Menshevik faction favoring a democratic party. 
 C. Lenin pointed out that workers do not become socialists but
     trade unionists so socialism must be brought to them from
     outside by middle class intellectuals.
       1. Democracy consists of not running ahead of people (by
           advocating what they cannot follow) or lagging behind.
       2. Vanguard party provides goals that will work without undue
           use of force.  
       3. The party has science in Marixsm (rather than doctrine of
           religion).
       4. The party also has a dedicated, disciplined elite.
       5. Democratic centralism, freedom of discussion before the
           decision is made but not after. 

"The dialectic, Lenin wrote in one of his notebooks, is 'the idea of
the universal, all-sided, living connection of everything with every-
thing, and the reflection of this connection in the conceptions of
man.'" (820)

 D. Lenin and Trotsky argued for a combined bourgeois and
     proletarian revolution in backward countries.
       1. Proletarian revolution in Russia had to include, at least
           initially, the peasants.
       2. Could only succeed, however, if hooked up to proletarian
           revolutions in the West.
       3. Alliance with the peasants was first revolution, shift to
           European proletariat would be the second.
       4. Extension of capital to underdeveloped nations becomes
           necessary when monopolies are established in home markets.
       5. Imperialism results and competition between imperialists
           become war.
       6. High profits from imperialist exploitation enables imperialists
           to pay off their own workers.
       7. This condition is artificial and the European proletariat will
           become revolutionary in line with Marx's predictions.
       8. The oppressed nations would then add to the proletariat.
       9. Proletarian nations would be most likely to produce revolution.
 E. But with the outbreak of WWI in 1914, Western socialist parties led
     their proletariat to patriotic support of the war.
 F. Upon success of the revolution first and solely in Russia, Lenin
     found only one tangible, usable institution, the party.  
 G. Stalin added the concept of socialism in one country.
 H. State transformation of the economic base cut final tie with
     conventional meaning of economic determinism.

Next week: Fascism and National Socialism

Continuing Notes on Sabine's "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 31

For episode 30, see here

The Theory of the Nation-State: The Moderns

XXXI. Marx and Dialectical Materialism
 A. Marx transformed Hegel's struggle of nature into a struggle of
     classes thereby taking away nationalism, conservatism and
     its counter-revolutionary character and becoming a powerful
     form of revolutionary radicalism. 
       1. Marx accepted dialectic as a logical method.
       2. For both the driving force of social change is the struggle
           for power.
 B. Marx perceived the importance of the rise to political self-
     consciousness of the industrial working class. 
 C. Saw the French Revolution and the resulting rise of natural
     rights in politics and economics as a prelude to social 
     revolution. 
 D. Marx and Hegel provided cause greater than oneself as the
     only reward to individual.  
 E. History (with a big "H") takes the place of God for Marxist
     revolutionist because Historical necessity provides cause and
     effect, desirability and moral obligation.
 F. Marx studies Hegel at the University of Berlin under materialist
     Hegelian, Ludwig Feuerbach.
 G. Economic materialism sees that social development depends
     upon the evolution of the forces of economic production.
 H. Marx tended to equate "materialism" with "scientific." 
       1. Also implied radical rejection of religion.
       2. Materialism and dialectics suggested a new and far-reaching
           revolution by giving materialism an ethical dimension:
           economics as the root of social inequality.
 I. Marx's belief that socialist society would extend political liberty
    never depended on analysis of socialism but only on a priori
    belief that in a developing society, nothing of worth would be lost.
 J. Understood through the dialectic, economic determinism did not
    mean cause and effect but through economic factors operating
    as semi-personalized agents of creative energies.
 K. The individual counts mainly through his membership in his
     class because his ideas reflect the ideas generated by class.
 L. Marx's theory of cultural development:
       1. A succession of stages each of which is dominated by a
           typical system of production and exchange of goods.
           i. The system of production forces generates its own
              characteristic and appropriate ideology including;
           ii. law, politics, morals, religion, art and philosophy
       2. Whole process is dialectical with its motive force supplied
           by internal tensions created by the disparities between a
           newly evolving system of production and the persisting
           ideology of the old.
       3. The forces of production are always primary as compared
           to the secondary, ideological consequences.
       4. Dialectical development is an internal process of unfolding
           or of vitalistic realization.
 M. Marx and Friedrich Engels rejected the idealist interpretation of
      dialectic as self-development of thought, saw instead the self-
      development of nature itself reflected in thought.

"The notion that ideology may in some cases affect what figures in a
society as a standard of truth has, however, produced the rather large
body of theory now known as sociology of knowledge."

 N. "Ideology," "economic determinism," and "class struggle" are
     core theoretical concepts of Marx's social philosophy from
     which two divergent political strategies emerged:
       1. Evolutionary party socialism.
       2. Revolutionary communism.  

Next week: Communism
     
 

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 23

For episode 22, see here

The Theory of the Nation State

XXIII. The Republicans: Harrington, Milton and Sidney
 A. Republican issues played no major part in the Puritan Revolution.
 B. James Harrington - Utopian The Commonwealth of Oceana 1656
       1. Saw government determined in both structure and practice by
           underlying social and economic forces.
       2. That class that controls property commands government. 
       3. Saw Hobbesian power as resting on social force that presumes
           control of means of subsistence.
       4. Revolution result of control of land shifting to middle class.
       5. Classified governments on basis of typical forms of 
           land tenure.
       6. Not economic materialist because it remains possible to
           radically change the distribution pf property through law.
       7. Politics rests on two principles:
           i. force, depending on distribution of property and;
           ii. "authority," depending on the good of the mind.
           iii. government of "authority could alter property relations
               and relied on statecraft and a commonwealth of law
       8. Commonwealth
           i. agrarian law (political rights based on land)
           ii. rotation in office
           iii. separation of powers
       9. Was republican but not a democrat
 C. John Milton - Areopagitica (1644) defended freedom of speech
       1. Like J.S. Mill after him, stated liberal creed that truth will prevail
           over error when both are freely tested by investigation and
           discussion.
       2. Argued that resistance to a tyrant is natural right.
       3. Called for separation of church and state as they are distinct
           communities. 
 D. Algernon Sidney and Robert Filmer
       1. Filmer's Patriarcha was dusted off 30 years after his death to defend
           royalists.
           i. argument for hereditary king's authority based on natural 
              authority of the father
           ii. pointed out problems of terms such as "the people" and the
               concept of contract
 E. Sidney was a republican
           i. Refuted Filmer
           ii. But backward looking toward aristocratic republicanism 

Next week: Halifax and Locke

Notes on "A History of Political Theory" -- Episode 22

For episode 21, see here

The Theory of the Nation State

XXII. Radicals and Communists
 A. Radical individualism also arose in left wing popular democracy during
      civil wars.
       1. Dissolution of traditional institutions and resulting economic
           pressures were facts not theories.
       2. Individualism grounded in these facts.
 B. English civil wars mark first appearance of public opinion as important
      political factor.
 C. Levellers: radical middle-class democrats.
 D. Diggers: beginning of utopian communism, considered political reform
     superficial unless it included redress of economic inequalities.
 E. Levellers
       1. Movement started by radical soldiers of Cromwell's army concerned
           that the reforms of the revolution would be lost.
       2. Sought political equality and the end of priviledge.
       3. Connected to religious Independents. 
       4. Argued that unnust law was no law at all, even if traditional or
           common.
       5. Saw innate and unalienable rights for which legal and political 
           institutions exist only to protect.
       6. Was party of men of small property facing officers who sought 
           only moderate reform leaving power in the hands of landed
           gentry.
       7. Saw Parliament as stand in for the sovereign people.
       8. Every man had right to consent to law through his representative.
       9. Argued for representation of individuals not interests, paralleled view
           of community as a permanent reality vs. conception of nation as
           simply a mass.
       10. Levellers made natural law into a doctrine of individual rights
             (with property right as primary) .
 F. Diggers
       1. Saw natural law as a communal right to means of subsistence.
       2. Individual had only the right to share in the product of common
           land and common effort.
       3. Private property the root of evil and social abuse.
       4. Gerrard Winstanley's Law of Freedom saw in human nature two
           opposed tendencies toward:
             i. Common preservation -- the basis of commwealth
             ii. Individual preservation -- the basis of kingly government or
                government by buying and selling. 

Next week: The Republicans: Harrington, Milton and Sidney
        

      

The 70's and the “Arab Spring”

Ok, I'm over 60 and listen to some music my loved ones call “moldy.” But I like to think that much of the music of the 70s holds up well. Anyway, in addition to the indie and alternative music my son and friends at ATG keep me current with, I still play that moldy stuff.

Much of 70's music – and for my purposes here that means the period from around 1968 to 78 – is just music, meant to entertain, get you “up” or help you get high. But two strains have had me thinking recently because they seem to pinpoint something that changed early on in the decade, something that maybe points to a broader dynamic we can see playing out in the recent “Arab Spring” and on the streets of American cities.

The first of the 70's music broke over the happy silliness of Beatlemania. It took rock and folk and added drugs to produce the psychedelic movement with Jefferson Airplane and then the Grateful Dead. The Beatles themselves started it with "Magical Mystical Tour." But while this and much else of the time was just escapism – not to denigrate such fun – the strain that I'm focused on here was the music of protest and revolution. In the aftermath of the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention and in the middle of the Vietnam war movement, songs like “What About Me” by Quicksilver Messenger Service (1970) addressed the issues of pollution, war, repression, the 99% but also looked forward to change through confronting the forces of authority challenging them – “what you going to do about me?” Other songs of the period looked forward to just jumping over the mess of this world in the post-apocalyptic “Wooden Ships” (Jefferson Airplane & CS&N, 1969) or by hijacking a starship (Jefferson Starship's "Blows Against the Empire," 1970). Whether it was confronting the man or escaping him, this music looked toward a better future, a fundamental re-ordering of society.

But by 1972, disappointment, alienation and a sense of loss had already begun to set in, despite the fact that we would shortly be seeing the first seeming accomplishments of the “attack” against the old order. Richard Nixon would be forced to take us out of the Vietnam War (the Paris Peace Accords, 1973) and himself would be forced from office (1974). I was at a CSN&Y concert in Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City on the night of August 8, 1974. One of the group came out to explain a slight delay by informing us all “it's over,” Nixon had resigned. Music and fireworks celebrated this “victory.”

But The Who, sensing that maybe it would not be so easy, announced in “Won't Get Fooled Again” (1971) that after the “fighting in the streets” our team on the left would now be our team on the right. Jackson Browne was asking in “Doctor My Eyes” (1972) if perhaps we had already seen too much without anything really getting any better? Pink Floyd was suggesting that maybe it was all really about money and that anyone who doubted it was living on the "Dark Side of the Moon" (1973).  Jethro Tull – Ian Anderson always seeming to be bitingly aware of how real life disappoints our dreams – noted how each day was like “Skating Away on the Thin Ice of a New Day” (1974) and, in “OneWhite Duck” (1975), that something must be wrong in our brains if we were “so patently unrewarding.”

By 1977, Jackson Browne was “Running on Empty” and the year later, Jefferson Starship began its transformation into pop. Most of the supergroups fell apart in a haze of booze and drugs. Everyone else went to work. And the Fall of Nixon led to the two hapless president – Ford and Carter – and then in 1980, the “return of the repressed” victory of Barry Goldwater in the form of Ronald Reagan.

The hopes and dreams of the 70s were real and so was the movement on the streets. We – and I am taking some liberties here including myself in this – did remove a president and end a war. But the hopes that any of this would really change anything fundamental or in some way make our daily lives “better” or “happier” were not realized.

We've seen in the past year new movements in the streets, toppling governments and challenging the economic order. The experience of the 70s reminds that the push for real change leads to reaction; the harder the push, the greater the reaction. Society is, by evolution, a essentially conservative adaptation. The force of inertia fights against any change of direction. But the movement of the Arab Spring is more powerful than anything we experienced in the 70s because it is more necessary, more mass based. The Occupy movement is more informed by history than we were in the 70s. And it is so much clearer now, and in so many ways, that the world we live in has serious problems that don't seem to be getting better on their own, by business as usual.

Leaving the last word to Neil Young, who remained sideways hopeful despite everything we've seen since the 70's, keep on rockin in the Free World.