NON-MARKET SOCIALISM IN THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES Also lry Maximilien Rubel PAGES DE KARL MARX POUR UNE ETHIQUE SOCIALISTE KARL MARX: SELECTED WRITINGS IN SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY (editor witk T.B. Bottomore ) KARL MARX: OEUVRES: ECONOMIE I, II PHILOSOPHIE (editor) KARL MARX UND FRIEDRICH ENGELS ZUR RUSSISCHEN REVOLUTION: Kritik Eines Mythos MARX WITHOUT MYTH (witk Margaret Manale) RUBEL ON KARL MARX: Five Essays Also lry John Crump THE ORIGINS OF SOCIALIST THOUGHT IN JAPAN STATE CAPITALISM: The Wages System under New Management (witk Adam Buick) Non-Market SocialisDl in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Edited by Maximilien Rubel and John Crump Palgrave Macmillan ISBN 978-0-333-41301-2 ISBN 978-1-349-18775-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-18775-1 © Maximilien Rubel and lohn Crump, 1987 Softcover reprint ofthe llardcover 1st edition 1987 All rights reserved. For information, write: Scholarly & Reference Division, St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010 First published in the United States of America in 1987 ISBN 978-0-312-00524-5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Non-market socialism. Edited papers from a conference held in York, England, Sept. 1984. Bibliography: p. Includes index. \. Socialism - Congresses. 2. Communism­ Congresses. 3. Marxian economics-Congresses. 4. Anarchism-Congresses. I. Rubel, Maximilien. 11. Crump, John 1944- HX13.A3N66 1987 335 86-29847 ISBN 978-0-312-00524-5 This book is dedicated to the rnen and wornen of the thin red line of non-rnarket socialisrn who have kept alive the vision of socialisrn as a society of personal freedorn, cornrnunal solidarity, production for use and free access to goods. Contents Notes on the Contributors IX Preface Xl Introduction 1 1 Non-Market Socialism in the Nineteenth Century 10 Maximilien Rubel 2 The Thin Red Line: Non-Market Socialism in the Twentieth Century 35 johnCrump 3 Anarcho-Communism 60 Alain Pengam 4 Impossibilism 83 Stephen Coleman 5 Council Communism 104 Mark Shipway 6 Bordigism 127 Adam Buick 7 Situationism 151 Mark Shipway Postscript 173 Select Bibliography 177 Index 182 Notes on the Contributors Maximilien Rubel retired from the Centre national de la recherche scientifique in 1970 as Mahre de recherche hon­ oraire and joined the Institut de sciences mathematiques et economiques appliquees in 1959 as the editor of Etudes de Marxologie. He was born in Czernowitz (then in Austro­ H ungary, now in Russia) in 1905 and has lived in France since 1931. His numerous books and articles include Pages de Karl Marx pour une ethique socialiste; Karl Marx: Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy (with T. B. Bottomore); Karl Marx, Oeuvres: Economie I, Economie 11, Philosophie; Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels zur russischen Revolution: Kritik eines Mythos; Marx Without Myth (with Margaret Manale); Rubel on Karl Marx: Five Essays. Adam Buick is a civil servant with the Commission of Euro­ pean Communities in Luxemburg. He was formerly head of the National Union of Mineworkers' social insurance depart­ ment. He is the author (withJohn Crump) of State Capitalism: the Wages System under New Management. Stephen Coleman is a Lecturer in the History of Ideas at the London campus of an American university. He received his Ph D from the University of London in 1984 for a thesis on The Origin and Meaning 0/ the Political Theory o/Impossibilism. John Crump is a Lecturer in Politics at the University ofYork and the author of The Origins 0/ Socialist Thought in Japan and (with Adam Buick) State Capitalism: the Wages System under New Management. Alain Pengam works as a proof-reader in Paris. Mark Shipway, after studying politics at the University of York, began research into the anti-parliamentary communist movement in Britain between the two world wars, for which he was awarded a Ph D by the University of Manchester in 1985. IX Preface This book is the result of a collaborative effort by a group of people who, as individuals, have their differences, particu­ larly over the question of how socialism might be brought about. What has united us and given impetus to our joint venture has been our common commitment to avision of socialism which we attempt to convey in this book. All of us are fired by a passion for socialism, which we see as the only hope for a world which capitalism is propelling towards catas­ trophe. Although each of us takes responsibility for the chapter that bears our name, we have made considerable efforts to produce a book which focuses on a common theme and employs a consistent terminology. In order to achieve this, we gathered in York in September 1984 for a strenuous weekend of debate and forthright criticism of each other's work, which at that stage existed only in draft form. We were assisted in this process by a number of people who, while not contributing chapters of their own, gave generously of their time in order to join our discussions. These were: Amanda Burls, Adrian Leftwich, Theresa McCoy, Nigel Morgan and Michael Ridge. We wish to express our gratitude to them and to make it clear that none of them is responsible for the conclusions reached in this book. Thanks are also due to Midorikawa Taeko, who kept us fed over the weekend. Following the York conference, we dispersed and wrote the final versions of our respective chapters. These chapters have since been edited with an eye to technical detail and literary style, but no attempt has been made to im pose a common political line. Consequently, astute readers will notice differ­ ences of emphasis and nuance between the various contribu­ tions. Such readers will be struck even more forcefully, how­ ever, by the way in wh ich each contributor, from his particular angle, conveys the core ideas of non-market socialism. Xl Introduction The theme of this book is 'non-market socialism'. This term demands an explanation at an early stage of the book. We are well aware that 'non-market socialism' is - to use the current jargon - a pleonasm. In other words, if we use words accurately, it is unnecessary to qualify 'socialism' with 'non­ market' because socialism is, by definition, a marketless society. The market cannot coexist with socialism because socialism means that society owns and controls both the means of pro­ duction and the goods which result from productive activity. For the market to exist, some sectional interest (an individual, a joint-stock company, a nationalised concern, a workers' cooperative and so on) has to be in control of part of the social product, which it then disposes of by entering into exchange relations with others. Exchange cannot take place when society, and none other, controls the means of produc­ tion and the social product. Far from socialism being compat­ ible with exchange and the market, the generalised produc­ tion of goods for exchange on the market is the hallmark of an entirely different type of society - capitalism. If socialism means the social ownership of the means of production and the fruits of production, so too does com­ munism. The terms 'socialism' and 'communism' are used interchangeably in this book because,just as there is no distinc­ tion between society and the community, so social ownership and communal ownership are equally indistinguishable. Con­ trary to Lenin's assertions, socialism is not a partial and incom­ plete first stage of communism. Yet though it is a simple matter logically to define socialisml communism, it is politics and not logic which determines how words are (mis)used within capitalism. Dispensing with logic, those who wield political power in all parts of the world have an interest in misrepresenting socialism. Thanks to their unre­ lenting efforts, the word 'socialism' has taken on the spurious meaning of state enterprises employing wage-earners in order to produce goods for sale on the market. In Chapter 2, John Crump demonstrates how both Social Democracy and Leninism have played an important role in bringing about the popular identification of'socialism' with state capitalism. 1 2 I ntroduction It is in the face of this situation that we have chosen to use the term 'non-market socialism'. Our purpose is straightfor­ ward, and we do not hide it. We want to re-establish the genuine meaning of socialism. We are not arguing that absence of the market is the sole defining feature of socialism. On the contrary, socialism is not merely a marketless society; it is also a stateless society, a classless society, a moneyless society, a wageless society ... and so on. However, in choosing to use the term 'non-market socialism', we are selecting one among a number of qualities which socialism possesses (its characteristic of being a marketless society) and focusing on this in order to stress the difference between socialism and all varieties of capitalism. Undoubtedly, our use of the term 'non-market socialism' is not without danger. Maximilien Rubel brings out this point in Chapter 1. By talking in terms of 'non-market socialism', we may inadvertently imply that other varieties of socialism (even 'market socialism'!) could exist. Nothing could be further from our intention, of course. But at least 'non-market socialism' does have the merit of emphasising firstly that the marketless society of socialism has never been established anywhere in the world, and secondly that most so-called 'socialists' are nothing of the sort. The fact that Social Demo­ crats, Leninists and other supposed 'socialists' or 'communists' envisage a role for the market, teIls us that they represent forces for maintaining capitalism, not for achieving socialism. One final point needs to be made with regard to our ter­ minology.