Traditional Socialism（3）: Unidimensional Political Economy & Dualistic “Democratic Centralism”

-- A Critique of Rationalism in Modern World Ideologies (IV-4 : 5-6)

Editor’s Note: This essay is based on the author’s original one in Chinese. It deals with the two contending ideologies of capitalism and communism from a metaphysical point of view. Western Christian advocates of capitalism usually label communism as “atheism”, which is synonymous with “evil” in their diction, while believers in the latter defend their ideology as “scientific socialism” and criticize all religions as “superstition” and “opium” serving to numb people’s mind. Confronted with the reality of today’s world plagued by wide-spread loss of faith, ideological confusion, and all sorts of crises, it is urgently necessary to examine and clarify such basic concepts as “faith”, “rationality”, and “ideology” and their relations with each other. The author hopes this essay can serve as a “brick” cast here to attract “jade”, as the Chinese saying goes, and initiate some meaningful discussion.

For the abstract and outline of the whole essay see:

    Faith vs. Reason: A Critique of Rationalism in Ideologies (0): Abstract & Outline

For preceding installments of the text:

   A Critique of Rationalism in Modern World Ideologies(I): Ultimate Rationality

      A Critique of Rationalism in Modern World Ideologies(II): Ultimate Faith (1-3)

       A Critique of Rationalism in Modern World Ideologies(II): Ultimate Faith (4-5)

    A Critique of Rationalism in Modern World Ideologies (III-1): Mature Ultimate Faith in the Undivided “One”

      A Critique of Rationalism in Modern World Ideologies (III-2)：Multi-Dimensional Balance out of Ultimate Intangibility

A Critique of Rationalism in Modern World Ideologies (III-3): Egocentrism in immature faiths

A Critique of Rationalism in Modern World Ideologies (IV-1,2): Faith Systems as Ideologies

A Critique of Rationalism in Modern World Ideologies (IV-3): Capitalism as ideology

A Critique of Rationalism in Modern World Ideologies (IV-4): Traditional Socialism as ideology (1-2)

A Critique of Rationalism in Modern World Ideologies (IV-4): Traditional Socialism as ideology (3-4)

Outline: IV-4. Traditional Socialism: Deviations from Ultimate Rationality

IV-4(3). Ultimate confrontation-oriented way of thinking

(a) Dualistic absolutization of labor-capital confrontation

(b) “Class struggle as key link” & “dictatorship of the proletariat”

IV-4(4). Unidimensional monolithic collectivism

(a) “People’s democracy” not institutionalized

(b) Great Nation Chauvinism of “the Big Brother”

IV-4(5). Lack of dimensions in political economy

(a) Failure to see “surplus value” from other-than-labor sources

(b) Underestimation of capitalist system’s destruction of social productive forces

IV-4(6). Dualistic theory of “democratic centralism”

The Text

IV. Ideology vs. Ultimate Faith (Continued)

IV-4. Traditional Socialism: Deviations from Ultimate Rationality (Continued)

What is discussed here is the so-called “scientific socialism” initiated by Karl Marx in the 19^th century but interpreted by Soviet Marxists and re-interpreted and practiced by Chinese Marxist-Leninists in the last century. (The author is not able to compare what has been practiced in China against what is meant in Marx’s original works.) To be distinguished from a future reformed socialism which is bound to emerge from a collective reflection on historical experiences, what is referred to in this essay is tentatively labeled as “traditional socialism”.

IV-4(5). Lack of dimensions in political economy

a) Underestimation of capital’s exploitation due to failure to see “surplus value” from other-than-labor sources

Marxist political economy, by revealing the truth for the first time in modern history that capital, with its domination over labor, has usurped the whole surplus value from social production, has successfully provided in economic terms the theoretical rationale for the final elimination of the exploitation system rooted in private ownership of means of production. Therefore, its theory of surplus value is of epoch-making historical significance. However, there are deficiencies in this theory due to lack of dimensions in the way of thinking. In its narrative about capital’s usurping all surplus value, the following two existential levels of the social economic reality related to the issue of sources of value are neglected:

The highest level of Nature above human existence: Nature is not only the ultimate source of human ability to produce things but also the primary source of the utility value potentially existing in all raw materials for production (as has been stated before by this author). Therefore, the surplus value exclusively possessed by capital contains not only the value added by human labor but, first of all, the potential value hidden in the means of production directly supplied by Nature, which should belong to all humanity.

The intermediate level of the human collective: The utility value in social products also comes partially from the collective wisdom accumulated through generations after generations of all humanity and hidden in the tools, equipments, techniques, skills, knowledge and processed materials needed for social production. Therefore, the surplus value exclusively possessed by capital also contains this part of value, especially the value usurped by monopoly capital in the name of private “intellectual property rights”, which actually have violated the all-human community’s collective intellectual property rights to whatever knowledge has been handed down from our ancestors through the past thousands of years and served as the initial foundation for all modern inventions.

In a word, lack of the Nature-human collective-human individual dimension in tracing the sources of product value has resulted in an underestimation of the surplus value in social products and of the intensity of capital’s exploitation -- that of not only individual workers but of all mankind.

b) Underestimation of capitalist system’s destruction of social productive forces

Marxist theory of productive forces lacks another dimension consisting of the following three levels: The capitalist heartlands (i.e., the so-called “developed countries”), the whole human world ravaged and plundered by the capitalist-colonialist-imperialist bloc, and the ecosystem (or the world of Nature) much abused and messed up by capital-dominated economic activities.

Under the capitalist system, “quite a large part of social production activities are not constructive, or “productive”, at all, i.e., not realizing, extending, amplifying, or adapting but wasting, sabotaging, and cancelling out the primary productive capacity of Nature and positive productivity of humans, as manifested in the destruction of ecosystem, the production of war machines, the suppression of the majority of people’s creative power by the exploitative and oppressive capitalist insitutions.

“Such counter-productive forces supported by the capitalist system tend to go beyond the realm of social production per se and beyond its national boundaries and resort to bloody violence through colonialist and imperialist acts against other peoples of the world, not only disrupting the latter’s production activities but also robbing or destroying their production resources or even mass slaughtering human lives, i.e., the most vital productive forces.”

However, “… in spite of its political, moral and ideological denunciation of the above, traditional socialist theory, due to its lack of dimensions, and limited scope of vision under the influence of the mainstream anthropocentric and Eurocentric perspectives of the West, failed to clearly indicate how great a part of the productive forces in the positive and constructive sense has been destroyed by the capitalist system domestically and globally and how great a part of the “productive forces” which has been supposedly possessed by the capitalist countries has actually been counterproductive forces in being used for aggressive and predatory purposes resulting in the destruction of real productive forces domestically and globally. It has failed to exclude such destructive forces from what it has counted as “advanced productive forces”, in the same way capitalist theory of economics has been counting social products used to clear up pollutions as part of GDP and dismissing the costs incurred by capitalist industries but borne by the whole human society as “externalities”, so that socialist theory has over-estimated by far the social productivity of the whole capitalist world, especially that in the present era of monopoly capitalism. Consequently, some leaders of the traditional socialist movement could not sober-mindedly propose and stick to a correct line of thought and action as regards how to look at and deal with the capitalist system, but “kneel at its feet”, so to speak, and prettify its economic and political institutions and ideology and even go so far as to actually set about restoring capitalism in formerly socialist countries.”

IV-4(6). Dualistic theory of “democratic centralism”

Just as the philosophy of dialectical materialism is dualistic in failing to unify mind and matter into a transcendental oneness (as has been pointed out in a previous context), the traditional socialist principle of “democratic centralism” as an application of that philosophy, phrased as “centralism based on democracy and democracy guided by centralism [the center]” is also dualistic in evading the fundamental question: Which of the two, “democracy” or “centralism”, or something even more essential, should have the ultimate authority? Historical experiences of both capitalist and traditional socialist politics have proved that both democracy and centralism should be under the guidance and regulation of ultimate rationality, or an ultimate faith in the Heavenly Dao. Centralism not guided by such a faith would be some sort of despotic dictatorship, whereas democracy without its guidance would inevitably turn out to be big money-manipulated populism running counter to the Dao, or something even worse. In short, without the guidance of ultimate rationality, there would be neither genuine democracy nor the kind of centralism that would really serve the interests of the whole people, but instead only lawlessness, i.e., universal defiance of laws both human and divine. In any case, it would always be the people who would suffer. Therefore, a sound principle should be “democratic centralism guided by the Dao”, which means that the Dao should be the real central authority that coordinates and unifies the two aspects of democracy and centralization.

      To sum up, traditional socialist ideology generally lacked faith in a unitary all-embracing ultimate existence and ultimate balance-seeking rationality and, hence, made quite a few major mistakes while scoring great achievements. That was why and how the historically first-time socialist practice on an unprecedented geop   olitical scale ended in near failure.