Re: Marxism as commodity
Sigurd Lydersen (sigurd.lydersen@easteur-orient-stud.uio.no)
Sun, 03 May 1998 16:51:34 +0200
At 10:10 03.05.98 +0200, you wrote:
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>>Date: Sat, 02 May 1998 02:52:05 -0400 (EDT)
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>>From: Peter Grimes <p34d3611@jhu.edu>
>>To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
>>Subject: Marxism as commodity
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>>The following article appeared in SALON magazine today. Enjoy.
>>--Peter Grimes
>>
>>
>>
>>BY BARBARA EHRENREICH
>>
>> Ah, Karl! You thought those frantic scratchings and snortings
>>were the sounds of capitalism digging its own grave, but all it was
>>doing was preparing a nice niche for you -- a market niche, in
>>fact. The leftish British press Verso has seized upon the 150th
>>anniversary of "The Communist Manifesto" to re-issue that rousing
>>old tract in an upscale version, suitable for display at the cash
>>register. "It's very chic and looks like something for the
>>sybaritic classes," Verso's PR person observes proudly, adding that
>>it should "get us some great displays in the book chains." Adding
>>impenetrable levels of irony, the cover has been designed by those
>>playful ex-Soviet artists Komar and Melamid, whose gorgeously
>>rippling red banner against a black background should be readily
>>accessorizable with the cashmeres in primary tones coming to us for
>>fall.
>>
>>
>> Why didn't Marx, or his co-author, Friedrich Engels, who knew
>>a thing or two about running a business himself, think of this long
>>ago? As Eric Hobsbawm tells us in his introduction to the Verso
>>edition, sales of the original manifesto were pathetically sub-mid-
>>list for decades after it was written. As for foreign rights,
>>forget about it until well into the 1860s, when the International
>>Working Men's Association began to take off. One can imagine their
>>editor taking the authors to lunch and saying, "Karl, Fred, you've
>>got some great stuff in here. That part about 'nothing to lose but
>>your chains' just blew me away. I mean, the prose rocks. But we
>>have to think packaging too. Like what about a pop-up version? A
>>collectible bourgeois-piggie figures tie-in with Taco Bell? Or the
>>movie version with Kate Winslet as the factory gal and Anthony
>>Hopkins as the specter-that-is-haunting-Europe?"
>>But of course back in those days it would have been at least unwise
>>for members of the "sybaritic classes" to go mincing about with
>>their designer copies of "The Communist Manifesto" in hand. In the
>>mid-19th century, fat cats could still recall the whistle of the
>>guillotine blade as it headed for an overprivileged neck; they had
>>seen the delirious, underfed masses rise up -- in Germany, Italy,
>>France and the Austrian Empire -- in 1848. So there's no use
>>blaming Karl and Fred for their lack of entrepreneurial initiative.
>>One hundred fifty years ago, the conditions -- both "objective" and
>>"subjective," as they would have put it -- were not yet ripe for
>>the commodification of revolution itself. First the world had to be
>>made safe for irony on this scale and complexity. Communism -- or
>>at least something superficially resembling the manifesto's
>>prescription -- had to be attempted, road-tested and rejected
>>worldwide. "Centralization of the means of communication and
>>transport in the hands of the State": Been there, done that.
>>"Centralization of credit in the hands of the State": No danger
>>that that's going to catch on among America's gun-bearing blue-
>>collar class. In its naive faith that "the State" could be
>>commandeered overnight to serve the workers as loyally as it
>>normally serves the rich, "The Communist Manifesto" is as much an
>>antique as those darling little Lenin pins that are available by
>>the fistful at the flea markets in Berlin today. Post 1989, the
>>manifesto bears the implicit warning label: Fun as it may sound,
>>you don't want to try this at home.
>>
>> But it was not enough for communism to fail.
>>
>> Before it could contemplate marketing Marx, capitalism itself
>>had to change: It had to evolve to the point where it fully
>>conformed to its own description in the manifesto. For a sizable
>>stretch of the 20th century, in at least the "advanced" parts of
>>the globe, only crackpots and subscribers to Monthly Review
>>believed that the workers were being ground down to pauperdom.
>>Anyone could see that machinists and truck drivers were buying
>>houses in Levittown, second cars and college educations for their
>>kids. "In rapidly changing modern urban America," a 1964 sociology
>>text triumphantly declared, "traditional social classes are
>>nonexistent." As for the destruction of "all old-established
>>national industries," as predicted in the manifesto, and their
>>replacement by a global system of production and consumption: Sure,
>>but you had to wait until the 1990s to find Benneton in Beijing or
>>Kentucky Fried Chicken in New Delhi.
>>
>> So for a while there, in the golden age after World War II,
>>capitalism sought to spite communism by treating the workers as if
>>they might be useful as consumers too, and hence worthy of a living
>>wage. It was not until some time in the 1970s that capitalism
>>decided to take "The Communist Manifesto" as its personal self-
>>improvement guide -- going global with a vengeance, treating the
>>workers (including increasing numbers of doctors, teachers,
>>scientists and writers as well as the old-fashioned heavy-lifting
>>and lug-turning proles) like so many disposable "factors of
>>production." The Great Polarization between rich and poor,
>>predicted so long ago in the manifesto, now dominates the social
>>contours of the world, from Los Angeles to Johannesburg, from
>>London to Santiago. And it is of course this deepening polarization
>>and "immiserization" that gives the up-market new manifesto its
>>delightfully up-to-date frisson and leads book dealers to believe
>>that stockbrokers will want to display it in their corner offices
>>as a sign of terminal cockiness. They can buy it on their lunch
>>hour just a few blocks from Wall Street, at the World Trade Center
>>Borders, for example, which is planning a colorful window display,
>>and where the workers ($7 an hour) exist in what one of them
>>described to me as a "culture of absolute hopelessness," thanks to
>>management's obsessive wage-busting campaign. Or they can take it
>>home to the coffee table and insist that the maid ($8 an hour and
>>zero benefits) dust it daily so that the red banner on the cover
>>maintains its high gleam. Commie chic is no end of fun once the
>>commies are dead and the workers of the world have been beaten into
>>submission.
>>
>> So, thanks to the inner Hegelian workings of capitalism, "The
>>Communist Manifesto" finally works as an accessory, a stocking-
>>stuffer, a badge of consummate capitalist cool. But what about its
>>"use value," as Karl himself might have asked? Does it work, in
>>other words, as a manifesto? Well, there are a few problems, and
>>not just the obvious one that real-and-existing communism let Marx
>>and Engels down so unkindly. The other disappointment is
>>capitalism. There is not and has never been a social system as
>>brilliantly dynamic and relentlessly all-consuming as the
>>capitalism of "The Communist Manifesto." It was, according to its
>>authors, slated to destroy every vestige of the feudal and
>>patriarchal past and, with one big steam-powered whoosh, propel
>>humankind into the bleak cold world of the Modern, where our true
>>options -- socialism or barbarism -- would finally be disclosed:
>>
>> "All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of
>> ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept
>> away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they
>> can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is
>> holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face
>> with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his
>> relations with his kind."
>>
>> Faced with the capitalist leviathan, religion was supposed to
>>wither away, gender differences disappear and nationalism -- the
>>most successful religion of all -- was supposed to be smashed by
>>globalization, along with its peculiar object of worship, the
>>nation-state. Then and only then, without the distractions of
>>jingoism, superstition and patriarchy, would the working class be
>>ready to address itself full time to the business of class war.
>>
>>So we must note with sorrow that the manifesto greatly
>>overestimated the power and brilliance of capitalism. As we near
>>2000, religions are as febrile as ever, patriarchy lingers on and
>>nationalism -- well, it was nationalism that blew the infant
>>socialist-international movement out of the water at the outbreak
>>of World War I in 1914, clearing the way for the hideously un-
>>Marxist possibility of socialism-in-one-nation, that being the
>>Soviet Union. As for the nation-state, it continues to do what it
>>has done best since Carthage and Rome, which is not feeding the
>>hungry or running the steel mills, but mustering the troops for
>>war. Still, "The Communist Manifesto" is well worth the $12 that
>>Verso is asking. Despite the hype, its message is a timeless one
>>that bears repeating every century or so: The meek shall triumph
>>and the mighty shall fall; the hungry and exhausted will get
>>restless and someday -- someday! -- rise up against their
>>oppressors. The prophet Isaiah said something like this, and so, a
>>little more recently, did Jesus. At a mere 96 pages, you can think
>>of it as a greeting card, or even a kind of wake-up call, for that
>>special person in your life -- such as, for example, your boss.
>>
>> SALON ø April 30, 1998
>>
>>
>>"Where the wealth's displayed, thieves and sycophants parade and
>>where it's made, the slaves will be taken.
>>Some are treated well in these games of buy and sell
>>And some like poor beasts are burdened down to breaking."
>> ---Joni Mitchell
Og mens Titanic sank fortsatte orkesteret å spille...
Sigurd Lydersen