[This is Chapter Fourteen of Murphey’s book Socialist Thought.]
Chapter 14
BROADER INTELLECTUAL ORIENTATION
The
main body of Leftist thought has been an integral part of modern intellectual
culture for a century and a half. Its
thinking has been consistent with most modern thought on such subjects as
secularism, rationalism, empiricism and the uses of technology.
There
has at the same time been a persistent anti-modernist strain of thought within
the Left which has made up a significant minority position on all of those
issues. This minority has identified itself with the Romantic movement which swept over
Secularism.
The religious perspective of the Burkean conservative causes him to
notice something the rest of us will tend to overlook because we take it for
granted: that the classical liberalism that challenged the Old Regime during
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was secular in its thrust; and that
socialist thought, arising later, has continued that emphasis. To the Burkean,
socialism is a branch off of classical liberalism.
The
Burkean awareness of the secular nature of both
philosophies is valid, although I do not for that reason see them as related to
each other, since there are potent differences on virtually every other issue.
The
tradition within the Left that comes down from the Romantic movement,
however, is strongly anti-secular. This minority has important characteristics
in common with Burkean thought. The best example I know of of this minority's
position in contemporary writing is Theodore Roszak's
Where the Wasteland Ends, published during the New Left era. He attacked
science as an "undoing of the mysteries," called for a "politics
of eternity" that would lead to a "visionary commonwealth,"
stressed his opposition to the "tradition of secular humanism," and
called for a "repeal of urban-industrialism as the world's dominant style
of life." He praised the "sacramental," the "visionary ," and the "mystical."
So thorough a rejection of modern life is clearly associated with
intense alienation. Thus Jerry Rubin could write during the New Left
that "we're natural men lost in this world of machines and computers...We
are protesting Western Civilization."
Rationalism.
The main tendency within the Left has been to affirm the role of
central, rational planning. The perspective has been that there is little, if
anything, in life that cannot be improved if it is thought through purposefully
and then addressed by unselfish collective action. Kirkup commented on
this emphasis when he wrote that "socialism generally means the supremacy
of reason and morals over the natural forces."2 Chernyshevsky
in nineteenth century
Often
this equates with a desire for economic planning. Socialists have wanted to
"rationalize" the economic system. This has involved substituting an
allocation of resources that is based on a conscious overview of society, such
as can be provided by central planning, for the seemingly chaotic allocation
that comes from a market's "manipulating" and then responding to
consumer choices. The Dolbeares, for example, have wanted "greater
economic planning" and have tied it to "rationalizing popular wants
with productive capacity."5
Paul Medow writes about "a wider concept
of macroeconomic rationality." This
involves substituting "a purely mathematical procedure for allocating
scarce resources in an optimal way” for “the traditional dependence on market
processes."6
This
highlights two significant differences between the Left and classical
liberalism. One pertains to the "allocation of resources" issue, the other to the broader meaning of rationalism .The
Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises praises
capitalism as producing an "optimum allocation of resources" because
of the entrepreneurs' response to consumer demand. The socialist planner sees no overall
rationality in the aggregate demand generated by large numbers of separate
consumers, and calls for the rationality of a conscious planning process. The rationality that Mises
saw was the rationality of spontaneous forces operating within a framework, in
this case of the market. He had no
desire to play a "directive" role, except to the extent needed to
establish the framework for an unimpeded interplay of individual choices. The
rationality of the socialist is different. Here the philosopher, the planner,
the expert, the intellectual is substituted for millions of people who are
acting in pursuit of their own goals. The socialist's form of rationalism is
assertive, not humble; and it substitutes the Left's view of freedom, which
involves collective action to overcome entrapment, for the individualistic view
of freedom endorsed by classical liberalism.
Although
I have referred to the Left's predilection in favor
of directive planning, we should keep in mind that many socialist thinkers,
especially in the nineteenth century and in the New Left, have wanted a
decentralized social and economic system under socialism rather than a
centrally planned one. Proudhon,
Lassalle and Fourier come to mind. They were not anti-rationalist, but they did
prefer small-unit socialism.
We
need to be aware, too, that Marxism has attacked the model-building types of
socialist thought as "utopian."
It has wanted to replace a static rationalism with a dynamic
understanding of the forces that mold historic
development. Trotsky expressed this
when he said that "life has beaten rationalism out of me and has taught me
the workings of dialectics."7 His comment is ostensibly anti-rationalist,
but as a Marxist he saw dialectical materialism as more "scientific,"
and hence as a more advanced form of rationality.
David
Caute mentions yet another dimension. He speaks of rationalism as denying
"metaphysically derived sources of authority such as Divine Right."8 This is a positivist emphasis on the denial
of metaphysics. It accordingly brings
to light the difference between two opposing styles of "rationalism." The rationality of the eighteenth century centered on deduction from a metaphysical concept, Natural
Law. It seemed rational, but by
adhering to a non-experiential abstraction it was more "fiction
oriented" than most modern thought would prefer to be.
A
paradox has been that Marxism, by its reductionist emphasis on economic
self-interest and class struggle, has itself substituted a new form of
metaphysical intermediary. It is at odds
with a true empiricism. This has led to
a separation between Western social scientists, even of the Left, and at least
the more dogmatic form of dialectical materialism that has emanated from the
Just
as with secularism, the Left’s rationalist aspect has been opposed by an
anti-rationalist minority, again stemming from the Romantic movement. Kenneth Coutts-Smith has said about the
Dadaists in twentieth century art that "the freedom sought was also that
from rationality itself," from logic and from order."9 The New
Left activist Jerry Rubin wrote that "our generation is in rebellion
against abstract intellectualism and critical
thinking."
Theodore Roszak wanted to return to
pre-Christian animism. All this an expression of a
certain turn taken by some of those who have felt the "alienation of the
intellectual." Others have
expressed their alienation without a thorough-going rejection of modernity.
Attitude toward technology, urban society, and industrialization. The same divisions appear with regard to
these aspects of modern life. Some socialists strongly support urban culture
and technology; a significant minority has been adamantly opposed to them; and
occasionally we see ambivalence.
Norman
Thomas quotes G. D. H. Cole to the effect that Saint-Simon in the nineteenth
century placed socialism "on the side of technological development and
large scale industrialism."10 We find such authors as Bertrand
Russell arguing that "by the scientific organization of production, it is
possible to keep modern populations in fair comfort on a small part of the
working capacity of the modern world."11
Lenin
called for "placing the economy of the country, including agriculture, on
a new technical basis, the technical basis of modern large... scale
production."12 Edward Taborsky,
writing about later Soviet policy, tells us that "Soviet strategists
assign the highest priority in their aid programs for the
While
Salvador Allende was working to remold
The democratic socialist author
Michael Harrington has made this generalization: "It is one of the most
basic of contemporary socialist truths that the good society only becomes
possible when there is a technology of abundance and a mass movement capable of
mastering it."15
Despite his generalization, however, there
has been a significant strand of socialist thought, again related to the
Romantic movement and to anti-rationalist and anti-secularist attitudes, which
has opposed industry, technology and urban society.
Thus, Werner Sombart
could write that "big industrial enterprises in their modern
intellectualized form are in every case to be regarded as an evil, even if,
under certain conditions, a necessary evil." He cited statistics to the effect that
"the number engaged in industrial activities (in Germany) has increased
since l882 from 8.6 percent to 16.5 percent -- a
terrible result."l6
Rousseau
opposed urban culture: "Men are not made to be crowded together in
ant-hills, but scattered over the earth to till it. The more they are massed together, the more
corrupt they become. Disease
and vice are the sure results of over-crowded cities. Men are devoured by our towns. In a few generations the race dies out or
becomes degenerate; it needs renewal, and it is always renewed from the
country."17 If we did not know that this quote came from
Rousseau, we might suspect it was taken
from one of the nineteenth century German Volkish
writings or from the philosophy of Nazism.
David Schoenbaum refers to the "anti-urban
animus reflected in the first days of the Third Reich."18 George Mosse speaks
of "the whole opposition of the Nazi world view to 'artificial'
modernity." He tells about a "strong nostalgia for rootedness in the soil. The opposition to the city, which
symbolizes modernity… The
Soul is primary: it is formed by an interplay with nature."19
Fried and Sanders go so far as to
say that "socialism was a reaction against the industrial revolution." They point out that "Proudhon was at
heart opposed to industrialism all his life."20
There is perhaps some highly
rationalized ambivalence apparent in the writings of such a socialist as Robert
Heilbroner. He
condemns capitalism's "indiscriminate encouragement of output," which
reflects an animus against the affluent society created by modern technique;
but instead of wanting to abolish such productivity he wants to
"redirect" it.21 The same has been true of the Left's
influences within the ecology movement: they have found inspiration in the
anti-industrialism of the Romantic movement, but for the most part they have
wanted to use the rationalist techniques of socialism to make use of
technology.