Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
409
REFERENCES
Anderson, Perry. 1974. Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism. London: New Left Books.
Brass, Tom. 1995. Reply to Utsa Patnaik: If the Cap Fits.... International Review of
Social History, 40, 93117.
. 2002. Rural Labour in Agrarian Transitions: The Semi-Feudal Thesis Revis-
ited. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 32, 456473.
Evans, Richard J. 2014. Altered Pasts: Counterfactuals in History. London: Little, Brown.
Whiteside, A. G. 1962. Austrian National Socialism Before 1918. The Hague, The Neth-
erlands: Martinus Nijhoff.
. 1975. The Socialism of Fools: Georg Ritter von Schnerer and Austrian Pan-German-
ism. Berkeley, California: University of California Press.
wrote to Marx) but the guiding line (the organizing principle) for
analyzing and intervening in political and intellectual struggles. But
it also has patience. Not as a low-brow accommodation with objective
difficulties but as a deep understanding that revolutionary politics is a
long- distance track. It requires copious work, meticulous involvement
with even seemingly unimportant issues and especially continuous
self-criticism in order to confront problems, errors and contradictions.
In this endeavor Laibman shows the analytical vitality of Marxism
and its merits, compared to both bourgeois theory and other radical
traditions. Moreover, he demonstrates that Marxism is a dynamic and
evolving corpus of theory and practice contrary to several attempts
to fossilize it in some form of theological and bureaucratic thinking
and is the sole solid foundation for the struggle for a new human
society free from exploitation.
Such a principled and at the same time creative and produc-
tive development of Marxism is of paramount significance nowadays.
After a period of simplistic and crude denigration several quarters of
the capitalist system have differentiated their stance towards Marx-
ism. Faced with their own contradictions and failures expressed in
recurrent crises, growing immiseration of increasing segments of the
society and aggravating imperialist conflicts they attempt a quali-
fied domestication of Marxism. Laibman offers an excellent polemic
against them in his editorial on mainstream appraisal of The Commu-
nist Manifesto (P&P, 3642) that glorify Marxs political magnus opus
and, at the same time, sanitize it from any revolutionary content. It is
interesting that this attitude has recently expanded to various intel-
lectuals who refer to Marxism with acclaim but also with an open or
covert rejection of its revolutionary aspirations. There is a sudden
abundance nowadays of erratic or la carte Marxists who eclectically
appraise some or other part of Marxist theory but at the same time
discard its commitment to overthrowing capitalism and constructing
socialism. These bourgeois Marxists (to use a contradiction in terms)
may even accept class analysis, but with the purpose of reforming
capitalism and making it more sustainable.
Against such attempts to domesticate Marxism, the answer cannot
be a referential defense by recourse to classical texts; nor a defensive
closure of Marxism in a small circle of faithfuls. Instead, a passionate
commitment to its core structure and its revolutionary aspirations
are the more fundamental part of it and at the same time a patient
creative development of it is necessary.
Among the various issues that Laibmans book tackles there are
several that, in my opinion, merit particular positive appraisal. First
among these are his unwavering commitment to labor value theory
and his numerous contributions to its creative development. Against
mainstream but also radical academic respectability barriers (as Laib-
man aptly brands it) the labor theory of value remains the main pillar
of Marxist economic analysis; moreover, it is more relevant than ever
for comprehending capitalisms modus operandi. The Marxian value
theory of abstract labor (as differentiated from the Ricardian value
theory of embodied labor) offers the best platform for understand-
ing simultaneously capitalist exploitation and capitalisms function-
ing. Moreover, its dialectical analysis of the primacy of the sphere of
production within the total circuit of capital offers critical guidance
not only to revolutionary analysis but to revolutionary politics as well.
A second issue is Laibmans insistence on the significance of plan-
ning for socialism. In our times, this goes against the negative trend
within heterodoxy and radical theory to realign with mainstream
market solutions and to adhere, implicitly or explicitly, to versions of
market socialism. Socialism without planning is a vacuous concept.
The very essence of the vision of a new society free from exploitation
is that this society can organize its economy on the basis of collective,
democratically and participatory organized will. Despite failures and
deformations of the past, this remains the core of the socialist project.
Equally important is Laibmans insistence on stadial thinking
and stages theory. He very accurately defines stadiality as the notion
that society advances through stages, and that given stages are pre-
conditions for ones that follow. This type of analysis comprehends
that society evolves through distinct phases rather than as an undif-
ferentiated continuum. These phases exhibit objective characteristics
and pose related limitations to collective action but also permit
specific windows of opportunity for breaking out from these phases
and surpassing them. In other words, each phase or stage posits both
constraints and degrees of freedom and alternatives for surpassing
these constraints. This Marxist dialectical understanding grasps better,
in Laibmans own words, the intense interaction between the objec-
tive and subjective dimensions than does non-Marxist social science,
1 Additionally, the role of time is important from the standpoint of periodization. Laibmans
Deep History (2007) is especially useful here, with his discussion of stadiality, theoretical stages
and preconditions, and his concept of the Abstract Social Totality (AST).
2 Examples are the section on the crisis of diffusion of capitalism, as this manifests itself in the
form of a much lesser degree of penetration of capitalist social relations than we customarily
assume (175); and Laibmans definition of a Marxist (77).