Johnston - Marxism, Class Analysis and Socialist Pluralism (RLE Marxism)

ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: MARXISM

Volume 15

MARXISM, CLASS ANALYSIS AND SOCIALIST PLURALISM

MARXISM, CLASS ANALYSIS AND SOCIALIST PLURALISM

A Theoretical and Political Critique of Marxist Conceptions of Politics

LES JOHNSTON

First published in 1986

This edition first published in 2015

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

1986 L. Johnston

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-138-85502-1 (Set)

ISBN: 978-1-315-71284-0 (Set) (ebk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-88625-4 (Volume 15) (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-71497-4 (Volume 15) (ebk)

Publishers Note

The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.

Disclaimer

The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace.

Marxism, Class Analysis and Socialist Pluralism

A THEORETICAL AND POLITICAL CRITIQUE OF MARXIST CONCEPTIONS OF POLITICS

Les Johnston

L.Johnston, 1986

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. No reproduction without permission. All rights reserved.

Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd,
40 Museum Street, London WC1A 1LU, UK

Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd,
Park Lane, Hemel Hempstead, Herts HP2 4TE, UK

Allen & Unwin, Inc.,
8 Winchester Place, Winchester, Mass. 01890, USA

Allen & Unwin (Australia) Ltd,
8 Napier Street, North Sydney, NSW 2060, Australia

First published in 1986

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Johnston, Les

Marxism, class analysis and socialist pluralism: a theoretical and political critique of Marxist conceptions of politics.

1. Communism

I. Title

320.5315HX73

ISBN 0043012396

ISBN 004301240X Pbk

Set in 10 on 11 point Baskerville and printed in Great Britain by Anchor Brendon, Tiptree, Essex

Acknowledgement

The author and publishers would like to thank Routledge & Kegan Paul for permission to use material from the authors article Marxism and capitalist possession, Sociological Review, vol. 32, no. 1, (1984), of this book.

Preface

References to works cited in the text are given by author and date, with full details of publication being provided in the Bibliography. In the case of works by Marx and Engels, the original date of each work is given, and where page references are cited these relate to the English language editions listed in the Bibliography.

Contents

To anyone situated on the political left in Great Britain during the last decade the period has been a peculiar and frustrating one. On the one hand, there has been a huge output of socialist theoretical work in the fields of politics, cultural studies, literary criticism and the like, much of this being inspired by developments in Marxist theory. On the other hand, in the practical sphere of politics the parties of the left and the Labour movement there seems to be a lack of popular support and ideological cohesion. Indeed, many of the successes to which the left can lay claim in the last decade have arisen from activity outside the sphere of the traditional socialist movement in the womens movement, CND, civil rights campaigns and so on.

Now clearly, one cannot blame this state of affairs only on the inadequacies of socialist theory, for there are many factors contributing to the problems of the left. Having said that however, it will be suggested here that at least some of those problems relate to serious deficiencies in socialist thinking. The purpose of this book is to present a sustained critique of Marxist political theory, since that has been the most influential theoretical tradition during the last two decades. Particular attention will be directed at the inadequacies of the materialist conception of politics, to the problems (and in some instances pseudo-problems) which it poses and to the strategic shortcomings which are related to its adoption. It is suggested that certain of the assumptions which Marxists consider basic to socialist analysis need to be subjected to serious critical attention. Once this is done we can begin to ask some of the questions which socialists have been unwilling or unable to address. Do classes, as Marxists and for that matter many non-Marxists have assumed, constitute social agents in any meaningful sense? Does the concept of class interest have any coherent meaning? If not, how does one identify socialist interests? Where do such interests reside? If interests do not reside in classes, what is one to make of the conventional Marxist view that the state represents class interests? Indeed, what of the view associated with that position that the state is a relatively cohesive and unitary representative of the dominant class? Is the state unitary, or does it comprise a set of disparate and sometimes conflicting apparatuses?

We address these and other questions by developing a systematic theoretical critique of the materialist conception of politics. The basic premise of this work is that that conception of politics, despite the many recent sophisticated attempts to remedy its difficulties, has constituted a positive obstacle to the development of an effective socialist political theory. Such a theory, it is suggested, will need to be based upon a pluralistic politics, rather than a materialist philosophy.

It should be said at the outset that the Marxism to be discussed here is by no means homogeneous. In the 1960s there was a naive certainty about what Marxism was. The Althusserian Revolution, for all its dogmatism, put a stop to such naivete by drawing a distinction between the essence of a text (to be revealed by a symptomatic reading) and its appearance. Though no less dogmatic in its assumption of an essential Marxism than were those dogmatists who insisted upon a naive reading of what Marx said or did (Clarke, 1980, p. 27), Althusserianism did, for the first time, put the question of how Marxism is theoretically constituted on the agenda.

Over the last half-dozen years that challenge has provoked a real crisis in Marxism, a concern for the discovery of an authentic Marxism, giving way to some recognition of discrepancies and inconsistencies within a discourse that is heterogeneous rather than unified. This is hardly surprising. Since the 1960s Western Marxists have been confronted by a variety of alternative Marxisms; humanistic Marxism; structuralist Marxism; Leninism; Trotskyism; Gramscism; Maoism; Castroism; African Marxisms, and so on. Moreover, the emergence of important political movements blacks, women, ecologists and the like some with a socialist persuasion, but many of whom questioned the right of Marxists to represent their interests, sparked off further challenges to theoretical orthodoxy.