The
Communist Manifesto foresaw the predatory and polarised global
capitalism of the 21st century. But Marx and Engels also showed us
that we have the power to create a better world.
by
Yanis Varoufakis
Part
5 - Globalised capitalism is behaving as if it is determined to
create a world best explained by the manifesto
On the
topic of dystopia, the sceptical reader will perk up: what of the
manifesto’s own complicity in legitimising authoritarian regimes
and steeling the spirit of gulag guards? Instead of responding
defensively, pointing out that no one blames Adam Smith for the
excesses of Wall Street, or the New Testament for the Spanish
Inquisition, we can speculate how the authors of the manifesto might
have answered this charge.
I
believe that, with the benefit of hindsight, Marx and Engels would
confess to an important error in their analysis: insufficient
reflexivity. This is to say that they failed to give sufficient
thought, and kept a judicious silence, over the impact their own
analysis would have on the world they were analysing.
The
manifesto told a powerful story in uncompromising language, intended
to stir readers from their apathy. What Marx and Engels failed to
foresee was that powerful, prescriptive texts have a tendency to
procure disciples, believers – a priesthood, even – and that this
faithful might use the power bestowed upon them by the manifesto to
their own advantage. With it, they might abuse other comrades, build
their own power base, gain positions of influence, bed impressionable
students, take control of the politburo and imprison anyone who
resists them.
Similarly,
Marx and Engels failed to estimate the impact of their writing on
capitalism itself. To the extent that the manifesto helped fashion
the Soviet Union, its eastern European satellites, Castro’s Cuba,
Tito’s Yugoslavia and several social democratic governments in the
west, would these developments not cause a chain reaction that would
frustrate the manifesto’s predictions and analysis?
After
the Russian revolution and then the second world war, the fear of
communism forced capitalist regimes to embrace pension schemes,
national health services, even the idea of making the rich pay for
poor and petit bourgeois students to attend purpose-built liberal
universities. Meanwhile, rabid hostility to the Soviet Union stirred
up paranoia and created a climate of fear that proved particularly
fertile for figures such as Joseph Stalin and Pol Pot.
I
believe that Marx and Engels would have regretted not anticipating
the manifesto’s impact on the communist parties it foreshadowed.
They would be kicking themselves that they overlooked the kind of
dialectic they loved to analyse: how workers’ states would become
increasingly totalitarian in their response to capitalist state
aggression, and how, in their response to the fear of communism,
these capitalist states would grow increasingly civilised.
Blessed,
of course, are the authors whose errors result from the power of
their words. Even more blessed are those whose errors are
self-correcting. In our present day, the workers’ states inspired
by the manifesto are almost gone, and the communist parties disbanded
or in disarray. Liberated from competition with regimes inspired by
the manifesto, globalised capitalism is behaving as if it is
determined to create a world best explained by the manifesto.
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