Our Opinion Of Marx

[Sympo]

So basically the "withering away of the state" is irrelevant in today's world? Do most people in the SPGB consider Engels view as an outdated one?

[PJShannon]

Following is a discussion on the page titled: Our Opinion Of Marx.
Below is the discussion so far. Feel free to add your own comments!

[jondwhite]

No we don't reject Engels. What Engels wrote has been discussed extensively here with Lbird and SPGB members.

[Anonymous]

Sympo wrote:

So basically the "withering away of the state" is irrelevant in today's world? Do most people in the SPGB consider Engels view as an outdated one?

Engels is not outdated, he made mistakes like any other human being, and despite that he made contributions to the arsenals of ideas of the socialist theory, and many of us came to socialism thru the writtings of Engels. The critique that they made against capitalism is still valid because capitalism has not been replaced yet by socialism-communism

[alanjjohnstone]

The most important thing is first to capture the machinery of the Stae so that we can then begin dismantling and transforming it.Withering away was a metaphor but requires to be put into practice.I know of members of the Socialist Party who engage in a healthy debate and discuss the parts of government which could be maintained, moreorless, intact (eg. health, farming) but with changed priorities and other ministries which would require drastic modification to become useful administrative structures (wouldn't the Royal Corps of Engineers army regiments, for instance, be retained and put to better use?) What is not in dispute is abolishing the State as an organ of class-rule once the political power of the capitalist class has been neutralised and stripping it of its coercive powers.

[robbo203]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

 What is not in dispute is abolishing the State as an organ of class-rule once the political power of the capitalist class has been neutralised and stripping it of its coercive powers.

 This is precisely what calls into question the whole idea of the withering away of the state after its democratic capture by the socialist movement. For if by defintion the state is an organ of class rule, then its withering away would seem to imply the continuation of classes for some indeterminate time afterwards – the concept of the so called dictatorship of the proletariat .  That is a concept that I have always found to be fundamentally incoherent and is one aspect of Marxist theory that I flatly reject.  It is manifestly impossible for a slave society to be operated in the interests of the slaves. However, there is another way of looking at this question – namely that what Engels is really focussing on is the institutional apparatus of repression by which class rule maintains itself.  It is possible to imagine this apparatus per se persisting into and gradually being demobilised within, a socialist society – but continuing in a non statist form insofar as socialism itself is a classless and hence stateless society. That being the case, the term Engels should have used is not the "withering away of the state" but rather the withering away of the apparatus of repression in socialism. The act of capturing the state by the socialist majority is coterminous with the abolition of class society and hence of the state itself.  But that does not mean the infrastructure of repression will just magically disappear on the spot,  It has to be gradually dismantled over time.  It is, if you like, the hardware of the state and unlike the software of the state which can be deleted wih a push of a symbolic button – socialist electoral victory – it needs to be systematically  gutted of its toxic contents, making sure that these are carefully disposed of without just wantonly dumping them somewhere to poison the surrounding landscape

[alanjjohnstone]

So are you saying there will be a Red Army-style peoples militia –  " institutional apparatus of repression…in a   non statist form"  I think we are re-inventing the wheel. We have an armed force supposedly under our political command. The creation of an alternative military wing to the socialist movement, may well be superfluousBut some like the CPGB and Engels calle for a citizen's army of conscripts…But i'd wait and see just how the rise of socialist ideas and consciousness manifests and expresses itself in the military armed forces. Are we going down the path of suggesting uneven development in socialist consciousness?/…That there will not be socialists in uniforms?(coterminous – new word added to my vocabulary, btw)I don't think we are in very much disagreement.You say

Quote:

that does not mean the infrastructure of repression will just magically disappear on the spot,  It has to be gradually dismantled over time…it needs to be systematically  gutted of its toxic contents carefully disposed of …

I said 

Quote:

parts of government which could be maintained, moreorless, intact (eg. health, farming) but with changed priorities and other ministries which would require drastic modification to become useful administrative structures

You say tomahtoes and i say tomaytoes .But like the other thread on the application of political power by our elected party delegates, i think, a lot of this discussion is premature since we don't know the conditions and situations we face in the future at the arrival of the social revolution.Too often we are being expected to be socialist seers, incorporating prophecies in our policies and predictions in our approaches. And what might be right for the UK may well not be appropriate for US. 

[robbo203]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

So are you saying there will be a Red Army-style peoples militia –  " institutional apparatus of repression…in a   non statist form"

 Well, Alan, Im not a particular fan of the idea of  "Red Army-style peoples militia". .  I would hope that the need to use violence  would diminish with the growth of socialist consciousness and the spread of democratic values it will occasion. However the point I am making is a theoretical one – that it is not neccessary that means of violence or displays of violence, should always take a statist form.  Anthropologically speaking this is borne out by the simple fact that in some forms of stateless societies – notably tribal societies (but not hunter gatherer band societies) – there is systemic violence on a signficant scale. A great example of this in the literature is the Nuer people of Southern Sudan  as studied by the anthropologist, Evans Pritchard http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/245896.The_Nuer The point is that if means of violence can be deployed in a pre-state society there is no intrinsic reason why it might not also be deployed in a post state society.  Hence my  reference to apparatus of repression…in a   non statist form"  (which I hope will "wither away")

[Sympo]

jondwhite wrote:

No we don't reject Engels.

 

mcolome1 wrote:

Engels is not outdated

To be clear I was referring to the idea that the state "withers away" before Socialism, not all of Engels opinions.

robbo203 wrote:

That being the case, the term Engels should have used is not the "withering away of the state" but rather the withering away of the apparatus of repression in socialism. 

Silly question perhaps, but what is an example of a manifestation of the "apparatus of repression"?

[John Pozzi]

Eugene V. Debs is right, I have no country to fight for; my home is the earth, and I am a shareholder/director via the Global Resource Bank (i.e.,Earth) at http://www.grb.net.

[Anonymous]

John Pozzi wrote:

Eugene V. Debs is right, I have no country to fight for; my home is the earth, and I am a shareholder/director via the Global Resource Bank (i.e.,Earth) at http://www.grb.net.You're a nutcase, you're a bleedin' nutcase!Aaah, they said that of Jesus, Freud and Galileo.They said it of a lot of nutcases too!

[Anonymous]

robbo203 wrote:

alanjjohnstone wrote:

 What is not in dispute is abolishing the State as an organ of class-rule once the political power of the capitalist class has been neutralised and stripping it of its coercive powers.

 This is precisely what calls into question the whole idea of the withering away of the state after its democratic capture by the socialist movement. For if by defintion the state is an organ of class rule, then its withering away would seem to imply the continuation of classes for some indeterminate time afterwards – the concept of the so called dictatorship of the proletariat .  That is a concept that I have always found to be fundamentally incoherent and is one aspect of Marxist theory that I flatly reject.  It is manifestly impossible for a slave society to be operated in the interests of the slaves. However, there is another way of looking at this question – namely that what Engels is really focussing on is the institutional apparatus of repression by which class rule maintains itself.  It is possible to imagine this apparatus per se persisting into and gradually being demobilised within, a socialist society – but continuing in a non statist form insofar as socialism itself is a classless and hence stateless society. That being the case, the term Engels should have used is not the "withering away of the state" but rather the withering away of the apparatus of repression in socialism. The act of capturing the state by the socialist majority is coterminous with the abolition of class society and hence of the state itself.  But that does not mean the infrastructure of repression will just magically disappear on the spot,  It has to be gradually dismantled over time.  It is, if you like, the hardware of the state and unlike the software of the state which can be deleted wih a push of a symbolic button – socialist electoral victory – it needs to be systematically  gutted of its toxic contents, making sure that these are carefully disposed of without just wantonly dumping them somewhere to poison the surrounding landscape

 In several ocassions Robbo has said that the slave can not opress to himself, and that expresion is correct in regard to the Dictatorship of the proletariat, it wa not appropiate ,or applicable during the XIX century, and it is not applicable to our time. In that time,  it might sound like socialism in one country, or in one region, due to the fact the England was the only country with certain capitalist developmentit was one of the biggest mistake made by Karl Marx, and it was wrongly used by the opportunist Vladimir Lenin on his State and the Revolution and to justify the party dictatorship of the Bolsheviks. Bakunin was not correct either on his critique on DOP because he was a proto-Leninist too.The other mistake made by Lenin based on the DOP is that socialism is not the transitional society, it is capitalism.

[Anonymous]

John Pozzi wrote:

Eugene V. Debs is right, I have no country to fight for; my home is the earth, and I am a shareholder/director via the Global Resource Bank (i.e.,Earth) at http://www.grb.net.

I do not think you can wear the shoes of Eugene V Debs, probably they are too big for you

[John Pozzi]

Hi Bob,Galileo fits. I'm and Italian polymath.No natural resources, No economy.John

[John Pozzi]

Bob Andrews,Thank you for comparing me to my hero Galileo.jp @ http://www.grb.net

[Author]

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