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
7 - Collective, democratic political action is our only chance for
freedom and enjoyment
The
manifesto is one of those emotive texts that speak to each of us
differently at different times, reflecting our own circumstances.
Some years ago, I called myself an erratic, libertarian Marxist and I
was roundly disparaged by non-Marxists and Marxists alike. Soon
after, I found myself thrust into a political position of some
prominence, during a period of intense conflict between the then
Greek government and some of capitalism’s most powerful agents.
Rereading the manifesto for the purposes of writing this introduction
has been a little like inviting the ghosts of Marx and Engels to yell
a mixture of censure and support in my ear.
Adults
in the Room, my memoir of the time I served as Greece’s finance
minister in 2015, tells the story of how the Greek spring was crushed
via a combination of brute force (on the part of Greece’s
creditors) and a divided front within my own government. It is as
honest and accurate as I could make it. Seen from the perspective of
the manifesto, however, the true historical agents were confined to
cameo appearances or to the role of quasi-passive victims. “Where
is the proletariat in your story?” I can almost hear Marx and
Engels screaming at me now. “Should they not be the ones
confronting capitalism’s most powerful, with you supporting from
the sidelines?”
Thankfully,
rereading the manifesto has offered some solace too, endorsing my
view of it as a liberal text – a libertarian one, even. Where the
manifesto lambasts bourgeois-liberal virtues, it does so because of
its dedication and even love for them. Liberty happiness, autonomy,
individuality, spirituality, self-guided development are ideals that
Marx and Engels valued above everything else. If they are angry with
the bourgeoisie, it is because the bourgeoisie seeks to deny the
majority any opportunity to be free. Given Marx and Engels’
adherence to Hegel’s fantastic idea that no one is free as long as
one person is in chains, their quarrel with the bourgeoisie is that
they sacrifice everybody’s freedom and individuality on
capitalism’s altar of accumulation.
Although
Marx and Engels were not anarchists, they loathed the state and its
potential to be manipulated by one class to suppress another. At
best, they saw it as a necessary evil that would live on in the good,
post-capitalist future coordinating a classless society. If this
reading of the manifesto holds water, the only way of being a
communist is to be a libertarian one. Heeding the manifesto’s call
to “Unite!” is in fact inconsistent with becoming card-carrying
Stalinists or with seeking to remake the world in the image of
now-defunct communist regimes.
When
everything is said and done, then, what is the bottom line of the
manifesto? And why should anyone, especially young people today, care
about history, politics and the like?
Marx and
Engels based their manifesto on a touchingly simple answer: authentic
human happiness and the genuine freedom that must accompany it. For
them, these are the only things that truly matter. Their manifesto
does not rely on strict Germanic invocations of duty, or appeals to
historic responsibilities to inspire us to act. It does not moralise,
or point its finger. Marx and Engels attempted to overcome the
fixations of German moral philosophy and capitalist profit motives,
with a rational, yet rousing appeal to the very basics of our shared
human nature.
Key to
their analysis is the ever-expanding chasm between those who produce
and those who own the instruments of production. The problematic
nexus of capital and waged labour stops us from enjoying our work and
our artefacts, and turns employers and workers, rich and poor, into
mindless, quivering pawns who are being quick-marched towards a
pointless existence by forces beyond our control.
But why
do we need politics to deal with this? Isn’t politics stultifying,
especially socialist politics, which Oscar Wilde once claimed “takes
up too many evenings”? Marx and Engels’ answer is: because we
cannot end this idiocy individually; because no market can ever
emerge that will produce an antidote to this stupidity. Collective,
democratic political action is our only chance for freedom and
enjoyment. And for this, the long nights seem a small price to pay.
Humanity
may succeed in securing social arrangements that allow for “the
free development of each” as the “condition for the free
development of all”. But, then again, we may end up in the
“common ruin” of nuclear war, environmental disaster or
agonising discontent. In our present moment, there are no guarantees.
We can turn to the manifesto for inspiration, wisdom and energy but,
in the end, what prevails is up to us.
***
Source,
links:
Read
also:
Comments
Post a Comment