Ethics, human nature, and questions of inevitability

Following is a continuation, parts 3 and 4, of Vern Gray’s essay, “On Some Questions Provoked by a Reading of Bill Martin’s Ethical Marxism.”  Parts 1 and 2 were published yesterday here. The final parts of this essay will be posted soon, along with a pdf of the whole.

III. Human Nature

Contrary to the beliefs of many contemporary Marxists, Marx did have his own conceptions concerning human nature as such, apart from historical influences on it, and along with those, he held certain ideas concerning what would promote the enrichment of that human nature. The British Marxist Norman Geras, utilizing a careful analysis of a number of Marx‘s texts, produced a very persuasive argument to this effect.52

That Marx—and not merely the Marx of his early writings—believed in a general conception of human nature may be clearly inferred from the following. Criticizing Bentham‘s utilitarian philosophy, Marx wrote: “The principle of utility was no discovery of Bentham. He simply reproduced in his dull way what Helvétius and other Frenchmen had said with esprit in the 18th century. To know what is useful for a dog, one must study dog-nature. This nature itself is not to be deduced from the principle of utility. Applying this to man, he that would criticise all human acts, movements, relations, etc., by the principle of utility, must first deal with human nature in general, and then with human nature as modified in each historical epoch.“53

Martin apparently finds problems in using an essentialist concept of human nature (one that contains a universal element as well as a historically conditioned one) as normative, but he does not clearly explain why.54  At least in part, his unexpressed, or insufficiently clarified, attitude toward Marx‘s views as cited above is related to the fact that he does not draw on any studies of biology, psychology, linguistics, or anthropology, but instead attempts to handle the question of human nature solely on abstract philosophical grounds. According to Allen Wood, Kant saw concrete studies, especially in but not limited to anthropology, as providing an essential bridge between general ethical laws and maxims, and the ability to make ethical decisions in a given situation. There is much to be assimilated and analyzed today—to take just a few examples, a very few, the work of Rose, Edelman, and Damasio in neurology; of Montagu, Leakey, and Tattersall in anthropology; of Freud, Fromm, Luria, Marcuse, Zizek, and Hauser in psychology; of Gould, Lewontin, and Ehrlich in biology; of Pepperberg, Sober, and de Waal in ethology; and of Chomsky in linguistics. What is of interest in this context is that all these scientists‘ work clarifies what is common to all humans (or primates, or other animals) today and throughout their history, and not merely what has been true of humans in particular historical, economic, and social conditions. Do their perspectives regarding “what is“ for humans have any relevance to “what ought to be”?

Martin‘s opinions about Marx‘s views of human “species being” and Aristotle‘s concept of “flourishment” seem to be divided. He argues, though, that even if the concept of flourishment cannot be given any content in general, the argument that “discourses of universalism are often used to oppress people still depends for its force on the ethical norm that people should not be oppressed. It makes a material difference in the world if people have some sense—however vague, unconscious, poorly grasped—that human flourishment is possible, and evil is that which, as a result of human actions, blocks or destroys the pathways toward this possibility.”55  In other words, he seems to be saying, whether and in what ways human potentials can or cannot be expressed and developed is a very important matter ethically and politically, even if it cannot be said precisely what those potentials are.56

His abbreviated discussion of human nature summarizes some of the views of Aristotle and other philosophers, but does not reference any contemporary scientific work or even mention it as part of a project to be taken up elsewhere. The implicit message, it would seem, is that (1) human nature need be examined only on abstract philosophical grounds, or (2) it does not exist as a general entity, only as a socially and historically conditioned one, and (3) in any case, a discussion of ethics can largely proceed without addressing the question. From this standpoint, one can talk about what “the good“ is without making a concrete study of what is good for humans and what that has to do with the nature of communist society, how it is to be attained, and, in broad brushstrokes, what it will look like. However: there is an essentially invariant component of the human being in history. And this refers not merely to humans‘ physical makeup but to aspects of their psychological constitution as well.57

The So-Called Dominance of Biological Imperatives

There is another tradition in Marxism, which partly explains why many Marxists have been more or less tone deaf to arguments about human nature in general. This other tradition, a  largely correct and quite necessary one, involves the critique of reactionary theories that seek to justify some of the worst aspects of the status quo by a particular, and fundamentally erroneous, kind of biodeterminist reconstruction of the historical, and prehistoric, evolution of humanity.

In this reconstruction, the essential nature of humans was determined by so-called biological imperatives some tens of thousands of years ago (so no wonder the species is in “future shock” today). Sociobiologists have argued that all the essential characteristics of Homo sapiens evolved during a period marked by scarcity, the dominance of hunting, survival of the fittest, ruthless competition, the development of early weaponry, rigidly hierarchical social structures, male supremacy, xenophobia, territoriality, and so forth. What was of selective advantage in this kind of environment, so the logic goes, was anatomical and physiological equipment, and a behavioral repertoire, that both reflected the main features of the environment and consolidated the main patterns of human evolution. Humans are still freighted with this kind of genetic inheritance, which is why they cannot develop, or adapt to, a qualitatively different society. They can only engage in a kind of technological reshuffling of conditions—more powerful machines and weapons—so that they have landed in a technically modern world, but with primitive biological, psychological, and moral “equipment.” Thus the danger of modern humans‘ predicament.

Opposition to such deeply erroneous views is not, however, good grounds for declaring a moratorium on discussions of human nature.

Human Nature and Freedom

Is there a general human nature apart from what is historically conditioned? It is clear that Marx thought so. It is not entirely clear what Martin thinks about this, nor about what it has to do with ethics. Can what is good for humans be understood without some concept of human nature? On the contrary, can there be a “science of humanity“ that is at the foundation of ethics?

The radical humanist psychologist Erich Fromm put forward his understanding of Marx‘s concept of human nature. He argued that (1) a general science of humanity is possible, (2) human nature is a theoretical construction which can be inferred from empirical study of the behavior of humans, (3) a study of what is good for humans, in terms of their general nature, provides a scientific basis for humanistic ethics,58 (4) objectively valid norms of conduct and value judgments are possible, and (5) in formulating a humanistic ethics, it is necessary to address the objection that “facts“ must be clearly distinguished from “values.“ I will cite a few passages from Fromm‘s writings of the mid-twentieth century:

“Marx did not believe, as do many contemporary sociologists and psychologists, that there is no such thing as the nature of man; that man at birth is like a blank sheet of paper, on which the culture writes its text. Quite in contrast to this sociological relativism, Marx started out with the idea that man qua man is a recognizable and ascertainable entity; that man can be defined as man not only biologically, anatomically and physiologically, but also psychologically.”59

“Valid ethical norms can be formed by man‘s reason and by it alone.60 Man is capable of discerning and making value judgments as valid as all other judgments derived from reason. The great tradition of humanistic ethical thought has laid the foundations for value systems based on man‘s autonomy and reason. These systems were built on the premise that in order to know what is good or bad for man one has to know the nature of man. They were, therefore, also fundamentally psychological inquiries.

“. . . Human nature is not fixed, and culture thus is not to be explained as the result of fixed human instincts; nor is culture a fixed factor to which human nature adapts itself passively and completely. . . .

“[Man] can adapt himself to almost any culture pattern, but in so far as these are contradictory to his nature he develops mental and emotional disturbances which force him eventually to change these conditions since he can not change his nature. . . .

“Man is not a blank sheet of paper on which culture can write its text. . . . If, on the other hand, man could adapt himself to all conditions without fighting those which are against his nature, he would have had no history either. Human evolution is rooted in man‘s adaptability and in certain indestructible qualities of his nature which compel him never to cease his search for conditions better adjusted to his intrinsic needs.”61

We may recast Fromm‘s argument as follows, giving it a more materialist construction:

A broad range of forms of society are compatible with human nature. However, some are more conducive to a positive development of human nature and “flourishment” than are others. The question of which social forms are most compatible with which aspects of human nature is a scientific question. The question of which are the desirable or optimal expressions of human nature is an ethical question. This ethical determination, however, cannot be made without a scientific knowledge of the different expressions of human nature under different conditions. It also cannot be made without a scientific understanding of which forms of flourishment (I‘ll continue to use Martin‘s term here) can exist in a society where they are shared by individuals and are in other ways sustainable.

In other words, not every human capacity can be expressed in such a world, and the purpose of communism cannot be to allow for the development of all human potentials. The question of which human capacities should be developed and expressed must, in part, be predicated on the judgment that a sustainable society, and a sustainable world, is a positive thing as well as a condition of human flourishment, which is an ethical matter. But: given the constitution of human nature, choosing anything other than what is good for humans, on a broad social scale, is not a viable option. Again, why that is true, and what can be understood as good for the human species, must be scientifically validated. This does not mean that all the details of ethical systems are dictated by human nature; but in the broad brushstrokes, they are fundamentally based in it.

Fromm is saying that although human nature can for a time adjust to a society that is contrary to human nature, in the long run, such a society cannot continue to exist indefinitely, and the reason is rooted in the very nature of humans.62 Viewed from a more classical Marxist standpoint, class society is doomed because of its own internal contradictions. Traditionally, these contradictions have been formulated in terms of various economic and social forces—the base/superstructure model, and the relation between productive forces and productive relations.

But, first, the principal productive force is humans, not land, natural resources, machinery, technology, etc., and the classical Marxist formulation can mask this fact, making it appear that only things that are outside of humanity constitute the foundation of what determines the development of history, so that the nature of humans does not enter the picture. Second, such “objective“ forces that are external to humanity can only present, at particular junctures, a revolutionary situation. An actual revolution must be carried out by a class that is conscious (at the class level—not for every individual) of its own position, its interests, and the fact that some other, better form of society is possible. Resistance and revolution is, however, rooted in some quality of the oppressed class(es), such that it is impossible to go on in the old way. This is first and foremost because of material (economic) requirements, but it also has a psychological dimension. The fact that humans respond as they do in given situations is a result of their human nature in both the general and the historically conditioned senses. By itself, this response does not determine the nature of the outcome, so that outcome does not follow from considerations about human nature alone.

Fromm‘s formulation has a basic validity. But again, it requires bringing to bear a broader range of social sciences than merely political economy. There must also be biology, psychology, anthropology, linguistics, and other fields that are necessary for an understanding of “human nature in general.“

The logic of this conception of human nature in general as the basis of ethics can be extended in a discussion of human freedom (the “point“ of communism) as well as visions of the future.

“Utopian Speculation“

If the final goal of communism has been predetermined, then it can be attained without any need for an inspiring vision of what the future society will look like. If, further, there is no basis from which to project what that future will look like, then indulging in speculation about it is, at best, of no service to the revolution, or is, at worst, a distraction that draws people into a nonexistent world, and encourages escapist tendencies with respect to the hard political and organizational work that needs to be done. Such has been all too common a view of “utopianism“ in the history of Marxism.

As Martin puts it, “the distinction between ‘utopian‘ and ‘scientific‘ socialism . . . crystallizes and hardens the setting aside of hope and idealism; the distinction sets the stage for the forms of Marxism that inevitably become reductivistic, mechanistic, dogmatic, and cold-hearted. In contrast to this, there is a subterranean tradition of Marxism that attempts to restore hope and normativity to the more ‘systematic‘ (or ‘scientific‘) project.“63

A developed concept of what is ethical implies a concept of the general features of communism. How does our vision of communism affect where we are going and how we think we can get there, including in the ethical dimension? The features of communism have been described in a variety of ways, but all of these descriptions have real shortcomings in their depictions of a society in which (1) there is an absence of exploitation and oppression, that is, a negative conception that does not itself contain a concrete description; (2) the elimination of “the four alls“ has been achieved, that is, all class distinctions have been eliminated—but then what is the substance of what remains; (3) all the people consciously and voluntarily change themselves and the world—but why are they making these changes, what kinds of changes are they making, toward what ends; (4) there is common abundance—a certain, albeit imprecisely understood and somewhat contingent conception of the level of material wealth that is required for communism, but one that does not capture the political, social, cultural, and other features of a communist society. 64

These are all incomplete pictures of communism, and they do not speak to what is the general content of “flourishment,“ which Martin believes should be the central characteristic of life in a communist society. Although he does not overstate what it is possible to know about it, he does believe we can gain enough of a sense of things that we can differentiate between a situation characterized by flourishment and one that is not:

“. . . even if [flourishment] might be understood in different ways in different times or places, or even if it is barely understood at all, we humans are good at recognizing what is not flourishment, and in knowing that we need something else—at least some of the time we are good at this. . . . The systematic articulation of why a certain personal, interpersonal, social, political, or cultural arrangement is not conducive to flourishment will remain to be developed, as long as we only have this bare feeling or reaction, but it is from this feeling that normative social theory develops.“65

Even if these issues cannot be resolved in detail, enough can be said about them— particularly if all the available scientific resources are brought to bear—to sustain some level of imaginative work about the future. But for this work to be done, and to be useful, its potential significance must be seen. Steven Lukes analyzes the need for visionary utopias as follows:

“. . . Marx and later Marxists tend to see freedom in terms of the removal of obstacles to human emancipation, that is to the manifold development of human powers and the bringing into being of a form of association worthy of human nature. Notable among such obstacles are the conditions of wage labour. . . . Overcoming such obstacles is a collective enterprise and freedom as self-determination is collective in the sense that it consists in the socially cooperative and organized imposition of human control over both nature and the social conditions of production. . . .

“What this form of association—embodying collective control, association or community, the development of manifold individuality and personal freedom—would look like, Marx and Engels never say, nor do they ever consider possible conflicts among these values, or between them and others. Marxism tends to treat consideration of such matters as ‘utopian‘. But such a vision of emancipation is plainly integral to the entire Marxist project. . . .“66

IV. Ethical Considerations and Inevitability

What is meant by “inevitability“ in the social realm, and in particular, what is meant when it is said that the victory of communism is inevitable? While various lines are drawn between “inevitablists,“ “noninevitablists,“ and “postinevitablists,“ it is not clear that they are all speaking the same language. It is not uncommon to hear that one is “postinevitablist“ when what is being denied is really only a particular form or forms of inevitability. But it is possible to distinguish several kinds of views about inevitability:

(1) There is a view that victory is inevitable in the short to middle term, versus another that it is inevitable only in the long term. (2) There is a view that the inevitable road to communism unfolds linearly, “in a straight line,“ versus one that it proceeds unevenly, with leaps, reversals, and indeterminism at certain levels. (3) There is a view that every step toward communism is a measure of progress, even if at first it seems not to be (a form of “theodicy“), versus a view that it is not. (4) More generally than in (3), there is the view that the inevitability of some end or state of affairs means that every step in the process preceding it is determined by antecedent factors and/or the process as a whole, versus one that it is not. (5) There is a view that inevitability takes a more or less automatic form, so that no one has to trouble themselves about it, versus the view that communism is inevitable only if, and because, the proletariat will take up the struggle for it, embrace the ideology of communism, and get organized.67

Associated with each of these different views of inevitability is a different form of ethics. For example, the theory of “automatic inevitability“ of the revolution absolves everyone of any ethical responsibility because the revolution is going to happen no matter what anyone does. The theory of continual linear progress is bound up with the theory of productive forces, a crude form of economic determinism that, under socialism, underlies the view that continual economic growth under state ownership inexorably drives a society toward communism, so that the key thing is to hold on to state power—the “pure politics of power“—and anything can be justified in the name of doing so, which means instrumentalism and ethical corruption.

It is instructive to look briefly at how the question of inevitability has been posed in the history of the communist movement, how social and historical conditions have related to the conceptions of inevitability, and how ethical issues have been seen in relation to these conceptions, before turning to the contemporary period.

A Short History of Marxist Views of Inevitability

It is clear that Marx, Engels, and Lenin upheld a form of inevitablism. Marx believed that the activity of the proletariat was historically determined—not every particular of it, but in its broad outlines. Early in his philosophical and political development, in 1845, he wrote, “It is not a question of what this or that proletarian, or even the whole proletariat, at the moment regards as its aim. It is a question of what the proletariat is, and what, in accordance with this being, it will historically be compelled to do.“68 This statement, with its clear demarcation between, on the one hand, activity shaped by conscious intent and, on the other hand, activity driven by historical necessity, is very close to the “automatic“ point of view. Lenin held some similar views early in his political life, such as in What the “Friends of the People” Are, going so far as not only to allow no role for ethics, but for consciousness generally, in determining historical development.69  But his later approach to politics showed that Lenin grasped more than any one else that the rotten-ripe regime in tsarist Russia, and the provisional government of Kerensky that succeeded it, would not go down without active preparation for a revolution.

Marx and Engels continued to hold an inevitablist point of view in their later works. However, it is more clear in most of these works that they did not see any victory as inevitable unless the proletariat organized itself. Theirs was not a counsel of passivity, as is shown not only in their theoretical works but by their active involvement in the 1848 revolutions, the founding of the First International, support for the Paris Commune, and polemics directed at those whose lines they saw as impeding the development of the revolutionary movement.

Lenin, too, did not depart from an inevitablist view, although, obviously, he did not see the revolution as coming without political organization of a certain type and struggle in the realms of politics, economics, and theory. What is more, his view of the inevitability of communism did not impede his orientation toward the necessity of political organization, class consciousness, and the like. The more he “went against the tide“ of spontaneous economic activity in 1902, social chauvinism in 1914, and reformism in 1917, the more he departed from any “automatic“ point of view.

With Mao, there is a similar inevitablist view, although there is an even greater emphasis on the role of consciousness as well as morality, as Martin analyzes.70

Interestingly, some Marxists, especially those working outside the Leninist tradition, did not adhere to the inevitablist theory. For example, Herbert Marcuse wrote the following during World War II: “The negation of capitalism begins within capitalism itself, but even in the phases that precede revolution there is active the rational spontaneity that will animate the postrevolutionary phases. The revolution depends indeed upon a totality of objective conditions: it requires a certain attained level of material and intellectual culture, a self-conscious and organized working class on an international scale, acute class struggle. These become revolutionary conditions, however, only if seized upon and directed by a conscious activity that has in mind the socialist goal. Not the slightest natural necessity or automatic inevitability guarantees the transition from capitalism to socialism.“71  In this passage, Marcuse, while clearly rejecting any “automatic inevitability,” perhaps leaves open the question of what will or must happen in the long run if, when opportunities arise, the revolutionary forces are “directed by a conscious activity that has in mind the socialist goal.”

Even after the revisionists had seized power in the Soviet Union, Mao still said, “We should stick to the doctrine of inevitability.”72  It should be clear that at that point—in the late 1950s or early 1960s—Mao did not uphold the idea of some kind of “automatic inevitability” in which the consciousness and activity of the masses was essentially irrelevant; nor did he believe history was a uniform march of forward progress; nor did he think that revolution would be won in the short run. There is, of course, no exact answer to what Mao‘s views were as to a timetable—he did, at one point, refer to great (although unspecified) changes in the world that would happen over the following fifty years; but he did have a longer time perspective than Marx or Lenin (though perhaps not Stalin!). In other words, his variety of inevitablism had its logic. It may have been wrong, particularly after World War II, but it is unconvincing to caricature it as some kind of metaphysical Hegelian holdover. This is a question that should be explored more deeply.

Today, I think it is not so much a matter of developing a “postinevitablist Marxism” as it is of assessing whether we live in a “postinevitablist world.” If the world is postinevitablist, then Marxism should be too. But was the world postinevitablist in the past? I think there is a good case to be made that it was not—that it was still “inevitablist”—prior to World War II.73

Before the war, there were good grounds to believe that because capitalism could not exist indefinitely, then, given enough time, it would inevitably be overthrown. It would not be overthrown without resistance—which was itself inevitable (as Mao said, oppression breeds resistance)—and then only if that resistance had the right and necessary sort of leadership. The development of such leadership does not occur “spontaneously,” but it could be argued that its development was, like the discovery of fire, bound to happen, given enough time.

In this conception of inevitability, consciousness and organization had an indispensable role to play. Without them, there would be no revolution. With them, the revolution, which was “inevitable in the long run,” might be accelerated; the revolutionary days could be reached sooner, the human costs of living under the old regimes could be reduced, and many of the characteristics of the socialist regime that would follow a successful revolution would be significantly impacted by the quality and extent of the prerevolutionary struggle in all spheres. In other words, in this conception of inevitability, the people are not “free riders” who essentially have “nothing to do” other than to fall into formation when a revolutionary situation finally arises.74

This, in general terms, was Mao‘s conception. It was bound up with his strategic confidence, whether he was up against the imperialists‘ nukes, or Chiang Kai-shek and the other running dogs of the empire.

It has been argued that Mao saw this question differently as the Cultural Revolution developed. Certainly it is true that he did not consider victory in any particular battle, or even any protracted series of battles (as the GPCR became, and with the prospect of many more cultural revolutions in the future), to be inevitable. Rather, he had a growing appreciation of the complexities of the class struggle under socialism; a growing sense of the enormity of what had to be overcome, ranging from the weight of tradition to the entrenchment of capitalist roaders in the party leadership; and an appreciation of the contingency and fragility of socialist rule. But it is not at all clear that he did not continue to think that victory in the long run—the eventual triumph of communism—was inevitable. It is important to see that we are talking about two different orders of time here, and about the contrast between various particular contradictions and some universal contradictions with which they interact.

In fact, in this conception, the inevitability of communism does not depend on success or failure in any particular country at a given time. This is true of Mao‘s belief about inevitability—which he certainly held going into the 1960s, and which he may have continued to hold thereafter, even with some modifications; to my knowledge, he did not publish any renunciation of this idea, though it is understandable why he may have put it “on the back burner“ during the Cultural Revolution, when it was necessary to focus on the fact that which side would win out was “not really settled.“ In the larger sense, whether communism was inevitable did not turn on whether there was a reversal in the USSR or China; it turned on the fact that capitalism cannot be indefinitely “stabilized“ or “regulated.“75

The Marxist-Leninist-Maoist position was based on an understanding of the fundamental contradiction of capitalism, of the fact that it could not be forever adjusted, and that it could only be resolved through socialist revolution. It is in this sweeping, large-scale sense that the “impermanence of conditions“ was understood. A system based on alienated labor and the private appropriation of socialized labor could not have an open-ended lease on life. There was not, however—even though it was often thought that there was—any firm basis for predicting its downfall within any specific period of time, or in any specific form. In addition, the inevitability of victory in the overarching historical sense did not mean that any particular battle or even war would necessarily have a victorious outcome.

Accordingly, in the final analysis all of the various views of inevitability, except for the one that revolution would occur in the “short term,“ depended on there being “enough time.” But there was nothing in nineteenth-century society to negate this notion.

This understanding was believed to rest on scientific political economy. It was not a matter of a Hegelian distortion of dialectics, and still less of a religious faith that defies all reason.

World War II and the Transition to Postinevitablism

What changed under imperialism, and in particular as marked by World War II, was that the level of the productive forces on a global scale, and the resulting intensity of their contradiction with the existing relations of production under imperialism, reached an explosive point. As a consequence, the destructive forces reached a decisive point: interimperialist war was unprecedentedly destructive. Two things, in particular, happened. First, there was the development of atomic and then, a few years later, thermonuclear weapons, followed by an arms race leading to a situation in which the superpowers had the ability to exterminate all life on the planet (except perhaps for some of the simplest forms). Second, the manufacture of a greatly increased quantity of nonbiodegradable products and toxic substances, such as in the petrochemicals industry, led to unprecedented environmental despoliation.76  This is not the place to get into this in any detail, but several decades later, the environmental contradictions have reached such a level that the biosphere is threatened by a complex, interacting, and in many ways synergistic set of destabilizing factors—air, water, and ground pollution, climate change, destruction of the soil, habitat destruction and rapidly declining biodiversity, plagues and pandemics, and so on.77

These two events, whose genesis is roughly associated with World War II—what may be referred to shorthand as the possibilities of nucleocide and ecocide—in combination have created a situation where (1) socialist revolution is not inevitable, because the process that would lead to it might be truncated;78 (2) only by socialist revolution in the major powers can global disaster be averted; and (3) such a revolution must occur “in the middle term,” that is, within a few decades (realistically, it cannot occur in a sufficient number of countries in the short term, that is, within several years), or it will occur too late to avert an irreversible environmental catastrophe. It is already too late to prevent unprecedented ecodisaster.

Martin recognizes that today, the options have reduced themselves to ecocide or socialist revolution leading to communism, and that the time line for when one or the other of these must occur is relatively short—within decades rather than centuries. He also recognizes that the capitalist-imperialist system is doomed either way—it cannot be sustained.79  However, he does not analyze the changes in the world itself that have made it postinevitablist. The thrust of his argument for a postinevitablist Marxism is based on the development of a different methodology that is nondeterministic and nonreductionist, and that gives rise to a different understanding of the enhanced role of ethics in the process of revolutionary change. In Martin’s own words, “I have argued, in a post-Marxist vein, that crises in capitalism and imperialism represent possibilities and openings rather than absolute necessities and inevitabilities. . . . Rather than call this line of reasoning ‘post-Marxist,’ I aim instead for a ‘postinevitablist’ Marxism that is reconfigured in terms of ethical themes.”80  Of course, Martin‘s ethical critique of inevitablist Marxism—or as I would call it, “automaticist” Marxism, which leaves no role for human consciousness or morality—would have had as much validity in the nineteenth century as it does today, even though the world was then, arguably, inevitablist.

Postinevitablist Ethics

“Now, after the experiences of the Soviet and Chinese Revolutions, and their reversals into new forms of capitalism (a story that will have to be told elsewhere), it would be difficult to reinstate a vision of linear human progress. It would be more than difficult, it would be wrong; and it would not only be ‘factually’ wrong, it would be wrong ethically. It is ethically wrong to glide blithely by historical episodes that not only do not indicate that humanity is progressing toward some better future, but that also seem instead to tell us that there is no ‘lower limit‘ on the horrors of which humanity is capable. Marxism, in at least some of its forms, can be rightly accused of this blitheness. In the first part I attribute this to a kind of theodicy that Marxism inherits from Christianity (or at least from a certain strain in Christian thought and attitudes that is found in both the mainstream and fundamentalist varieties of Christianity—and perhaps significantly more in Protestantism than Catholicism). It was against this theodicy that Adorno made his famous remark, ‘the whole is the false’.”81

“Capitalism [in Marx‘s view] only becomes wrong when capitalism itself has created the conditions for its Aufhebung, its overcoming, sublation, transcendence. Capitalism is right in its time and wrong when its time has passed. What it means, in Marx‘s view, for a social system‘s time to have passed is that it has developed all of the ‘productive forces for which there is room in it.’ For Marx, this means that any social system will reach a limit where it can no longer bring about qualitative developments in production. At least in the case of capitalism, it seems he was not exactly right about this. What we might say instead, then, is that it is not only a matter of the point at which another social system becomes necessary (in order to most effectively employ the means of production that have been created . . .), but instead the point when a better system becomes possible. In either case, of Marx‘s necessitarian scheme, or some form of . . . ‘postinevitablist Marxism,’ there is an irreducible element of normativity involved. Whether this element is truly a sufficient basis for the creation of a larger ethical discourse, which is able to talk about right and wrong in a substantive way, has been debated for many decades by now. If we are able to derive this larger discourse from a Marxist framework, it has to be understood forthrightly that this philosophical move would occur despite Marx, quite likely even against Marx.”82

Martin’s important and fruitful line of argument brings to mind two major struggles in the history of the communist movement. First, with regard to imperialism, there was a view, most concentrated in the line of the Third International, that held that either (1) capitalism was still viable, even progressive, because it was still possible to develop the productive forces within its confines; or that (2) it was incapable of allowing any further development of the productive forces and, on those grounds, was historically—and perhaps even in the short run—doomed. Though these views were framed differently, they held in common the ideas that whether socialist revolution was possible depended only on whether it was necessary, and whether it was necessary depended on whether it had exhausted all its possibilities for economic development. These are both thoroughly economist views. In a view that is related to but different from (2), there is the idea that (3) capitalism can no longer develop the productive forces, and thus a revolution is necessary, but it is not yet possible because of the absence of various political or other conditions. All three of these standpoints argue that whether capitalism can be superseded depends on whether it has, or has not, reached a point where it cannot develop the productive forces any further. They all argue that socialist revolution must, in this sense, be necessary before it can be possible; its possibility is economically determined; and economics always runs ahead of politics.83  Martin is challenging all of these views: he holds that the need for and the possibility of revolution is not reducible to economic factors; on the contrary, politics—and the imagination—can and must run ahead of economics. On this, I think he is profoundly right.

Second, with regard to a postrevolutionary society, there has been a view in the communist movement that, because capitalism could develop the productive forces for some time, it was premature to build a socialist economy. Instead, the country should go through a fairly long period of capitalist development, supposedly under the leadership of a communist party, and, only when the productive forces had reached a certain level, would it be possible to build socialism. This idea, too, is thoroughly economist.84

For a moment, let’s turn the clock back several thousand years. Even on the view that “postinevitablist Marxism” is mainly a question of methodology and can be applied to previous social systems, going back to primitive communism, is there a good basis for disagreeing with the idea that primitive communism is too unstable to be sustained, partly because of its vulnerability to invasion from the outside? If there is no such good basis, then at least some period of class society is inevitable. According to Marx, socialism cannot be attained based on the development of the productive forces in any precapitalist system. Do we think that argument is valid, again, not in every corner of the world but in terms of the overall development of the world?

But if a period of, say, at least centuries of class society is inevitable, does it follow that it is a step forward or a step backward relative to primitive communism? (Ethical Marxism takes this up in numerous places.85) From the standpoint of the material level necessary for socialist revolution and then the transition to communism—”common abundance”86—is there some way to build up to that level (whatever it is, as Lenin said; the argument does not rest on the identification of any precise level, which in any case does not exist) without a historical epoch of class society? And if not, then would it be correct to say—using a perhaps clumsy metaphor—that class society represents, in terms of ethics, one step backward from primitive communism but lays the material basis for two steps forward later?

This relates to a point in Kantian ethics: can the truly impossible—not the nonexistent, but the impossible—be considered right? If not, as Kant maintained,87  then, at a certain point in human history, if it became impossible for the primitive communist system to be maintained, then it no longer could, in this framework, be considered “right,“ despite all the horrors of the class societies that would ensue. Only the latter could lay the material basis for the higher stage of communism (or perhaps even, in some cases, prevent starvation in the short run).88  And in this context, does the rise of the first forms of class society represent an advance over primitive communism? Martin is correct in saying that this is the traditional Marxist view. But he does not produce a coherent critique of Marx‘s logic. This question is not resolved simply by calling for a “reconfiguration of Marxism in terms of ethical themes.” One needs to ask, in such a reconfiguration, how would the specific questions posed here be answered? That is: rejection of the view that passing through various forms of class society must lead to communism through some “automatic inevitability” is compatible with the thesis that such a passage is necessary to lay the material basis for communism, although not sufficient by itself to actually create communism.

And again, even if it is true that primitive communism could not continue to exist through a period of unprecedented material production until there is the higher stage of communism—a point that Martin is apparently not prepared to concede—nevertheless, if passage through an epoch of class society (not necessarily through every form of it in every country) is a necessary but insufficient condition for communism, what else is necessary?

I think that Martin‘s discussion of ethics—in particular, the ethics needed in the struggle for communism—has value and considerable validity. Or to put it another way, I think his view has a lot more going for it if we look forward in time than if we look backward.

To come back to the twenty-first century: he holds that postinevitablism is linked with a form of Marxism that gives an enhanced role to ethics. In what sense is this true?

If what has necessitated the transformation from the old inevitablism into the new postinevitablism has to do, first and foremost, with the possibility of ecocide, how does this leave more space for ethics, not merely in terms of a theoretical reconfiguration of Marxism, but practically? That is, are ethical alternatives not fundamentally “bifurcated” from unethical ones depending on whether they can be shown to lead toward or away from ecocide (even if that distinction is not demonstrable in some cases); that is, do they not reflect the bifurcated character of the greater outcomes (either communism or ecocide)? This problem should be evaluated in relationship to a broad domain of ethical issues ranging from the animal question, to revolutionary violence, to the ethics of the applied sciences. It should also be analyzed in relation to the concept of evil, which Martin defines as that which, as a result of human actions, blocks or destroys the paths toward a society of mutual flourishment. That is, all those ethical considerations exist in a context shaped by the overall bifurcated outcome. This bifurcation, even if it is not the sort of single outcome of the historic process in the old, inevitablist world, is nonetheless inevitable: either communism or ecocide.

Prior to World War II, even if in an “inevitablist” context, there was a certain “flexibility” in the conditions in which ethical issues were situated, arising from a much more long-term time line within which revolution could (and would) occur. After World War II, in a “postinevitablist” (actually, a “bifurcated inevitablist”) world, there is a smaller amount of flexibility in terms of possible lines of development as well as the range of ethical choices. Every moral decision of any moment can potentially have implications for human survival itself. There is not a great deal of time; the debates about “tipping points” often center on years or a decade or two. There is a heightened necessity, even though it is bifurcated, because far fewer other short- and middle-term outcomes are possible. Ethical decisions made in this context are of unprecedented weight; and yet, given that one of the two outcomes on a larger scale is eco-catastrophe, and perhaps extinction, there is no viable alternative to decisions (decisions on major issues) that contribute to the prospects for a different outcome—that is, survival (which necessitates socialism and communism); and if that contribution (or connection) cannot be demonstrated, there is increasing urgency to achieving the scientific understanding that can establish the connection. But, perhaps paradoxically, this does not mean that there is less freedom—provided that the greater necessity arising from environmental factors, and their relation to society, can be understood and transformed.

The reason is that there is more of a basis for socialist revolution and beyond. But there is less room for the kind of long-term tactical maneuvering, with its ethical counterparts, than in the inevitablist (nonecocidal) world. In this sense, Engels is right to oppose a simple equation of more freedom with less necessity, and less freedom with more necessity.89  Decisions in the modern world carry greater weight and have the potential of unlocking far greater freedom than what the human species has experienced up to now. Therefore, ethical decisions have a greater impact today, and on this point, I think Martin and I agree.

The contradictions between what is and what could be, and between what is and what ought to be, intensify with the development of the productive forces. Thus the inquisitor‘s scenario in 1984 (repression and hierarchy extending into the indefinite future) has become increasingly less tenable, squeezed between the only real alternatives, communism and ecocide. The timeframe for the ethical is compressed, with less of a range of choices and a corresponding unprecedentedly greater force of ecological and economic necessity, but with the potential of unlocking far greater freedom.

In Martin‘s words: ” . . . the basis of normativity in Marx is surely the recognition that the division between classes that own and control the means of production and the rest of humanity that, for its daily bread, must seek an accommodation with these owners (and not always find it) does exist, and that there is no justification for this division in the modern world of socialized production, and that in the future either humanity will overcome this division or, quite likely, cease to exist altogether. Well, I have given a slight twist to this last bit—Marx only thought the first part . . . it is the imperialist mode of production that has added the second part, since the time of Marx,”90 and again, especially since World War II, with the added ethical twist—which is not really slight—that arises from the end of the inevitability of communism.

The development of the bifurcated necessity—either communism or ecocide—envelops a great deal of contingency, and it enhances, rather than reducing, the importance of ethics (although it does not expand the realm of ethical choices or alternatives). An ethical approach to the sociohistorical process now becomes both more important and in some sense more possible (given how it is affected by the productive forces), both more powerful if it can break through but also more suppressed by the heavy weight of imperialist institutions, and more constrained by, in the last instance, the environmental timetable.

The point of species being and human nature is that if humans do what they are capable of at their best, then they can create communism, which, in the long run, is the most socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable form of society; but if they do not, then society will, in the long run—and increasingly, in the short run—be unsustainable.91

Ecocidal destruction came to the fore after World War II. Mao denied that the imperialists, with their nuclear weapons, would win. His view was echoed by others around the world, from the Vietnamese people in their war against U.S. imperialism, to the head of the Black Panther Party, Huey Newton, who spoke of how “the power of the people is greater than the man‘s technology.” But, particularly with the environmentally foreshortened timetable, it can be seen that Mao‘s statement also contains an element of triumphalist “political truth.” Fifty years later, his forecasts of a defeat of imperialism are far from having come true, and we may not have fifty more years.92

Notes

[There will be a list of works cited, with full bibliographical information, at the end of this essay]

51 Roy Bhaskar has argued on logical grounds against the dichotomy between facts and values: “. . . Hume . . . enunciated what has become—at least since the publication of Moore‘s Principia Ethica—an article of faith for the entire analytical tradition, namely that the transition from ‘is‘ to ‘ought‘, factual to value statements, indicatives to imperatives, is, although frequently made (and perhaps even, like eduction, psychologically necessary), logically inadmissible. In contrast, I want to argue that provided only certain minimal conditions are satisfied, it is not only acceptable, but logically mandatory. . . .

“. . . the particular character of Marx‘s explanations is such that they take the form of an explanatory critique of an object of enquiry which is revealed, on those explanations, to be dialectically contradictory. . . . Marx‘s explanations logically entail ceteris paribus a negative evaluation of the objects generating such entities and a commitment to their practical transformation. The particular systemic dialectical contradictions, such as between use-value and exchange value, which Marx identifies as structurally constitutive of capitalism and its mystified forms of appearance give rise, on Marx‘s theory, to various historical contradictions which, on that theory, both tendentially subvert its principle of organization and provide the means and motive for its supersession. . . .“ Note that Bhaskar, who does believe in the unity of truth and value, says that a commitment to “practical transformation“ is “logically entailed“ by “explanations“—in other words, an ethical imperative follows from a scientific analysis (Philosophy and the Idea of Freedom, pp. 146, 166–67).

52 Marx and Human Nature: Refutation of a Legend.

53 Capital, vol. 1, p. 609n.

54 He also briefly refers to human nature in one of his earlier books, The Radical Project, but there too his remarks are very abbreviated—it is a “metaphysical category, “ and Sartre was opposed to it—and beyond that, I do not find his meaning clear.

55 Ethical Marxism, p. 65.

56 Marx spoke about a future society in which “Only in community [with others has each individual] the means of cultivating his gifts in all directions“ (German Ideology, “Feuerbach. Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook.”

57 The denial of this last point can take a variety of forms. In C. Wright Mills‘s view, “Anything that can be asserted about man apart from what is inherent in the social-historical realities of human life will refer mainly to the quite wide biological limits and potentialities of the human species,“ that is, biological but, by omission, presumably not psychological (“Psychology and Social Science“ [1958], reprinted in Monthly Review, December 2009, p. 52).

58 Points (2) and (3) here are similar to two points that Bhaskar makes in his summary of the views of the Yugoslav praxis group: “. . . first, it is assumed that human nature and needs, although historically mediated, are not infinitely malleable; secondly, the focus is on human beings not just as empirically given but as a normative ideal—as de-alienated, totalizing, self-developing, freely creative and harmoniously engaged“ (Philosophy and the Idea of Freedom, p. 177).

59 Marx‘s Concept of Man, p. 24.

60 This sounds very Kantian, although Fromm was not a Kantian by any means and discussed what he considered to be a tradition of misconception of the relation of science and ethics that could be traced back to Kant‘s philosophy.

61 Erich Fromm, Man for Himself, pp. 6, 22–23.

62 This is not circumvented by Marx‘s concern that, by being pressed down by the operations of the capitalist system, the proletariat could be (temporarily) reduced to “a mass of broken wretches.” Marx and Engels, as part of the First International, were involved in various economic struggles, such as for the eight-hour day, so as to prevent such an outcome.

63 Ethical Marxism, pp. 66–67.

64 Associated with this idea, Marx wrote about a “realm of freedom“ that would succeed the “realm of necessity“: “In fact, the realm of freedom actually begins only where labour which is determined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases. . . . Freedom in this field can only consist in socialised man, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature; and achieving this with the least expenditure of energy and under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of, their human nature. But it nonetheless still remains a realm of necessity. Beyond it begins that development of human energy which is an end in itself, the true realm of freedom, which, however, can blossom forth only with this realm of necessity as its basis. The shortening of the working-day is its basic prerequisite“ (Capital, vol. 3, p. 820).

65 Ethical Marxism, p. 59.

66 “Emancipation,“ in A Dictionary of Marxist Thought, pp. 172–73. See also Lukes‘s Marxism and Morality, especially pp. 45–46. I will return to the topic of utopias in Part VI.

67 Each of these views, except for the first alternative in (4), allows for uncertainty or probability for individual parts of the process, even if the process itself has an inevitable outcome. It is particularly important to note the distinctions between the alternative views in (4) and (5). In (4), the second view also is common in the natural sciences, where a system more characterized by necessity has probabilistic components, or vice versa. In (5), in the first view, it is assumed that the concept of inevitability implies that only objective conditions, and not subjective ones, are dynamic. In the second view under (5), a key element of inevitability in a large sociohistorical process is revolutionary practice, and there is no inevitability without that practice—a point that applies not only to the subject but in many ways to the object as well. Revolutionary practice is also central to an understanding of the truth/value relationship.

68 The Holy Family, p. 44.

69 “Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intentions, but, rather, on the contrary, determining the will, consciousness and intentions of men. . . . If the conscious element plays so subordinate a part in the history of civilisation, it is self-evident that a critique whose subject is civilisation, can least of all take as its basis any form of, or any result of, consciousness“ (What the “Friends of the People” Are, Collected Works, vol. 1, p. 166).

70 Because Mao does give greater scope to the role of consciousness and the struggle between different lines, it is sometimes questioned whether he believed in the inevitability of communism at all. Among Mao‘s statements that have a high degree of definiteness about this inevitability is this one: “The socialist system will eventually replace the capitalist system; this is an objective law independent of man‘s will. However much the reactionaries try to hold back the wheel of history, sooner or later revolution will take place and will inevitably triumph“ (“Speech at the Meeting of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. in Celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution“ [November 6, 1957], cited in Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung, p. 24). Several years later, in the struggle against the Soviet revisionists, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, under Mao‘s leadership, wrote: “All social revolutions in the various stages of the history of mankind are historically inevitable and are governed by objective laws independent of man‘s will. Moreover, history shows that there never was a revolution which was able to achieve victory without zigzags and sacrifices. . . . Even if the guiding line of the revolution is correct, it is impossible to have a sure guarantee against setbacks and sacrifices in the course of the revolution. So long as a correct line is adhered to, the revolution is bound to triumph in the end“ (“A Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement,“ June 14, 1963, point 12, in The Polemic on the General Line of the International Communist Movement, pp. 21–22). Both these statements, in their invocation of “objective laws independent of man‘s will,” have not only an “inevitablist” cast but also a ring of “automaticity” (although it should be noted that these quotations are both from formal statements directed, in the first place, to an official Soviet audience). The thrust of most of Mao‘s statements about the overall historical process, however, especially beginning in the mid-1950s, was that if—but only if—they adhered to a revolutionary line, the communists and the masses would eventually, and inevitably, be victorious (as in the final sentence of the excerpt from the “Proposal“ cited above).

71 Reason and Revolution, p. 318. Marcuse was one of the most influential of those whom Martin terms the “philosophical Marxists.“

72 Mao said this in a speech that I have not yet been able to track down.

73 In the argument that the world was inevitablist before World War II so far as overall historical processes were concerned, contradictions with the natural environment are basically treated as “externalities.” During that period, capitalism‘s productive forces did not yet threaten the environment at a global level. Prior to the rise of imperialism, and in particular the second world war, the socioeconomic system on a global scale could be considered apart from major environmental contradictions, which, at the global level if not in particular countries or regions, did not affect the possibilities of economic development, or the political climate, in the way that they do today.

74 And even if communism is inevitable, does it follow that once it is attained, it is irreversible? I would maintain that communism cannot “automatically” provide any guarantees against reversal, and the idea that it could actually increases the chances of reversal. Here too, environmental disaster could play a very significant part.

75 That the victory of communism is not inevitable today is the result of a situation that has evolved since World War II for other reasons; see below.

76 For a good summary of what happened starting with the war, see Barry Commoner‘s Making Peace with the Planet.

77 Just where the systemic “tipping points” lie is a very complex question, but there is a growing consensus that many of the most critical ones will occur within a generation at most.

78 In Zizek‘s words, it has become easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.

79 Avakian has not posed the problem in this way. He has denied that socialist revolution is inevitable, but he has never clearly stated why this is, resorting instead to frequently irrelevant arguments about the fallacies of religiously inspired “teleology.” In the material that I have seen, it has been some time since he has sought to explain why the capitalist system cannot be perpetuated indefinitely. Nor does he grasp the depth and extent of the environmental crisis. The RCP has always lagged far behind what is needed in formulating a theoretical understanding of the relationship between society and nature, or a strategic and programmatic approach based on that understanding. At most, there is a newspaper article or a talk now and then when the question becomes particularly “topical“; see, for example, “Global Warming—What It Is and Why People Should Care“ (Revolution #186, December 20, 2009), written in connection with the UN‘s Copenhagen conference on climate change. (I am not sure, at this late date, which readers of an avowedly communist newspaper need to be told “why people should care.“) The party‘s most complete statement about the environment, which was contained in its Draft Programme (2001), got very little circulation after the draft was set aside in the interests of Avakian‘s “cultural revolution.“

80 Ethical Marxism, pp. 190–91.

81 Ethical Marxism, p. 15. “The truth is the whole,“ Hegel wrote, a view that some took as a justification for reductionism and theodicy.

82 Ethical Marxism, p. 268.

83 (1) was the typical revisionist view that gained hegemony following the 7th Congress of the Comintern (1935); (2) was more associated with the period following the 6th Congress (1928); see, for example, R. Palme Dutt‘s Fascism and Social Revolution and the criticism of this view in Raymond Lotta‘s America in Decline; (3) is a common view among various contemporary “stagnationist“ theorists.

84 Trotsky and Bukharin were, at various times, advocates of the idea that socialism could not be built in the Soviet Union in the 1920s; in China, a similar view was championed by Liu Shao-chi and Deng Xiaoping.

85 See, for example pp. 237–38.

86 This concept is discussed in Avakian‘s Phony Communism Is Dead, Long Live Real Communism!

87 As Bertrand Russell summarizes, “Kant urged that ‘you ought‘ implies ‘you can‘; conversely, if you cannot, it is futile to say you ought“ (A History of Western Philosophy, p. 778).

88 Marx and Engels used the term “higher stage of socialism“ to refer to what we now call communism and distinguish it from the “lower stage,“ which we call socialism today. Here I am using the term “higher stage of communism“ to distinguish the future communism from primitive communism.

89 Engels, however, goes beyond a simple recognition that such an equation is wrong: “Freedom of the will therefore means nothing but the capacity to make decisions with real knowledge of the subject. Therefore the freer a man‘s judgment is in relation to a definite question, with so much the greater necessity is the content of this judgment determined“ (Anti-Dühring, p. 125). The first sentence, with its overstated “nothing-butness,” is entirely wrong: a prisoner does not have freedom of the will because he comes to the decision that escape is impossible, given a real knowledge of the necessities of the prison. The second sentence can be recast by changing the word determined to informed. Then it is true—a freer judgment is informed by a greater knowledge of necessity (the relevant necessity)—although that is not the end of the matter; there is still the question, as with Mao, of transforming the necessity, rather than just “putting it to service.“ Yet even Mao‘s definition of freedom is not complete. We may be understanding and transforming necessity—but toward what end? The prison authorities also understand some necessities and, on that basis, choose to transform some of them (and not others). Roy Bhaskar argues that freedom consists in knowledge, opportunity, and the disposition to act in one‘s “real interests.“ He also allows that it has a noncognitive component that is not part of Engels‘s conception of freedom. See Bhaskar‘s Reclaiming Reality, pp. 89–90. Greater clarity about what freedom is will be interdependent with greater clarity about what communism is; both have something to do with the knowledge of human nature.

90 Ethical Marxism, p. 139.

91 A revolutionary ethics, like a revolutionary political-economic science, must be able to deal with conjunctures, complex and rapidly changing situations, and global interactions. If it breaks down in such situations, then it is fundamentally flawed. Martin holds that in such situations, there can be underdetermination; the connection of actions to outcomes becomes less clear; and thus people may be inclined to go with what their sense of right tells them to do, rather than acting from self-interest based on a “calculation“ that now cannot be made with any confidence. But then that choice would seem to be governed by the lesser degree of determination, with no assurance that an action will produce or even contribute to any particular outcome. If freedom is essential to ethical choice, then in these situations, from an Engelsian (or Maoist) “consequentialist” standpoint, there is reduced freedom, since the ability to recognize or to alter necessity is very limited. It is possible to do what is the right thing on its own merits; but it may not be possible to say with any confidence that it will connect with a good outcome.

92 It is similarly true that the “general crisis” and “stagnationist” political-economic theories were, to a significant degree, forms of triumphalist political truth, making the bourgeoisie seem weaker than it was, including, as a part of that, making it appear that its further development of the productive forces beginning with the Great Depression could not be so great as to pose a global environmental crisis of the kind that few were then imagining.

93 This is how Lukes sums up this point in the conclusion of his Marxism and Morality (p. 149):

“What, finally, can be said of the strengths of marxism‘s view of morality? It is illusory and partially blind, but it is also extraordinarily penetrating, in at least two ways.

“First, . . . it offers a conception, a way of interpreting the concept, of freedom, and of the constraints upon or obstacles to it, that is far deeper and richer than negative and classical liberal views. . . .

“Second, and most challengingly, it raises . . . some deep and unanswered questions about the morality of Recht, which non-marxists have yet to answer. How can the abstractions of Recht be grounded? What are the generically human interests that underpin talk of human rights? Why should they have more than merely local standing? How and on what basis can we abstract ‘persons‘ from their positions and social roles, adopting ‘their‘ point of view, so as to view them from the standpoint of justice? If we attempt to engage in such abstractions, do we not end up with an attempt to isolate what cannot be isolated? What gives moral constraints any more than merely local applicability and force? Are they not, as Trotsky and Sartre suggest, merely traps to hinder the wretched from improving their lot? Why should the question ‘What is not to be done?‘ have any general and rationally compelling answer, imposing obligations upon us? Most important of all, can a theory of justice and of rights be developed which incorporates the insight and vision of marxism‘s conception of freedom?” It should be noted that even the revisionist communist party in the USA during World War II did explicitly discuss ethical questions, albeit in an economist context. See Howard Selsam‘s Socialism and Ethics.

Related posts:

1. Kant, the animal question, and an ethics of revolution
2. Vern Grey: Questions provoked by Bill Martin’s Ethical Marxism
3. Ethical Marxism: some themes and questions
4. Climate change and the relation between history and nature