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Libertarian Marxism is a broad scope of economic and political philosophies that emphasize the anti-authoritarian and libertarian aspects of Marxism. Early currents of libertarian Marxism such as left communism emerged in opposition to Marxism–Leninism.[citation needed]
Libertarian Marxism is often critical of reformist positions such as those held by social democrats. Libertarian Marxist currents often draw from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' later works, specifically the Grundrisse and The Civil War in France;[1] emphasizing the Marxist belief in the ability of the working class to forge its own destiny without the need for a state or vanguard party to mediate or aid its liberation.[citation needed] Along with anarchism, libertarian Marxism is one of the main currents of libertarian socialism.[citation needed]
Libertarian Marxism includes currents such as autonomism, council communism, De Leonism, Lettrism, parts of the New Left, Situationism, Socialisme ou Barbarie and workerism.[citation needed] Libertarian Marxism has often had a strong influence on both post-left and social anarchists. Notable theorists of libertarian Marxism have included Maurice Brinton, Cornelius Castoriadis, Guy Debord, Raya Dunayevskaya, Daniel Guérin, C. L. R. James, Antonio Negri, Anton Pannekoek, Fredy Perlman, Ernesto Screpanti, E. P. Thompson, and Yanis Varoufakis,[2] who argues that Marx himself was a libertarian Marxist.[3]
Overview
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Marxism started to develop a libertarian strand of thought after specific circumstances. According to Chamsy Ojelli, "[o]ne does find early expressions of such perspectives in Morris and the Socialist Party of Great Britain (the SPGB), then again around the events of 1905, with the growing concern at the bureaucratisation and de-radicalisation of international socialism".[4]
In December 1884, William Morris established the Socialist League which was encouraged by Friedrich Engels and Eleanor Marx. As the leading figure in the organization, Morris embarked on a relentless series of speeches and talks on street corners as well as in working men's clubs and lecture theatres across England and Scotland. From 1887, anarchists began to outnumber Marxists in the Socialist League.[5] The 3rd Annual Conference of the League held in London on 29 May 1887 marked the change, with a majority of the 24 branch delegates voting in favor of an anarchist-sponsored resolution declaring: "This conference endorses the policy of abstention from parliamentary action, hitherto pursued by the League, and sees no sufficient reason for altering it".[6]
Morris played peacemaker, but he ultimately sided with the anti-parliamentarians, who won control of the Socialist League which consequently lost the support of Engels and saw the departure of Eleanor Marx and her partner Edward Aveling to form the separate Bloomsbury Socialist Society.
Theory
For "many Marxian libertarian socialists, the political bankruptcy of socialist orthodoxy necessitated a theoretical break. This break took a number of forms. The Bordigists and the SPGB championed a super-Marxian intransigence in theoretical matters. Other socialists made a return 'behind Marx' to the anti-positivist programme of German idealism. Libertarian socialism has frequently linked its anti-authoritarian political aspirations with this theoretical differentiation from orthodoxy. [...] Karl Korsch [...] remained a libertarian socialist for a large part of his life and because of the persistent urge towards theoretical openness in his work. Korsch rejected the eternal and static, and he was obsessed by the essential role of practice in a theory's truth. For Korsch, no theory could escape history, not even Marxism. In this vein, Korsch even credited the stimulus for Marx's Capital to the movement of the oppressed classes".[4]
In rejecting both capitalism and the state, some libertarian socialists align themselves with anarchists in opposition to both capitalist representative democracy and to authoritarian forms of Marxism. Although anarchists and Marxists share an ultimate goal of a stateless society, anarchists criticise most Marxists for advocating a transitional phase under which the state is used to achieve this aim. Nonetheless, libertarian Marxist tendencies such as autonomism and council communism have historically been intertwined with the anarchist movement. Anarchist movements have come into conflict with both capitalist and Marxist forces, sometimes at the same time as in the Spanish Civil War, although as in that war Marxists themselves are often divided in support or opposition to anarchism. Other political persecutions under bureaucratic parties have resulted in a strong historical antagonism between anarchists and libertarian Marxists on the one hand and Leninists, Marxist–Leninists and their derivatives such as Maoists on the other. However, in recent history libertarian socialists have repeatedly formed temporary alliances with Marxist–Leninist groups in order to protest institutions they both reject.
Part of this antagonism can be traced to the International Workingmen's Association, the First International, a congress of radical workers, where Mikhail Bakunin (who was fairly representative of anarchist views) and Karl Marx (whom anarchists accused of being an "authoritarian") came into conflict on various issues. Bakunin's viewpoint on the illegitimacy of the state as an institution and the role of electoral politics was starkly counterposed to Marx's views in the First International. Marx and Bakunin's disputes eventually led to Marx taking control of the First International and expelling Bakunin and his followers from the organization. This was the beginning of a long-running feud and schism between libertarian socialists and what they call "authoritarian communists", or alternatively just "authoritarians". Some Marxists have formulated views that closely resemble syndicalism and thus express more affinity with anarchist ideas. Several libertarian socialists, notably Noam Chomsky, believe that anarchism shares much in common with certain variants of Marxism such as the council communism of Marxist Anton Pannekoek. In Chomsky's Notes on Anarchism,[7] he suggests the possibility "that some form of council communism is the natural form of revolutionary socialism in an industrial society. It reflects the belief that democracy is severely limited when the industrial system is controlled by any form of autocratic elite, whether of owners, managers, and technocrats, a 'vanguard' party, or a State bureaucracy".
See also
References
- ^ Screpanti, Ernesto (2007). Libertarian communism: Marx Engels and the Political Economy of Freedom. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0230018969.
- ^ Varoufakis, Yanis. "Yanis Varoufakis thinks we need a radically new way of thinking about the economy, finance and capitalism". TED. Retrieved 14 April 2019.
Yanis Varoufakis describes himself as a "libertarian Marxist
- ^ Lowry, Ben (11 March 2017). "Yanis Varoufakis: We leftists are not necessarily pro public sector – Marx was anti state". The Wews Letter. Retrieved 14 April 2019.
- ^ a b Ojeili, Chamsy (2001). "The Advance Without Authority: Post-modernism, Libertarian Socialism and Intellectuals". Democracy & Nature. 7 (3).
- ^ Beer, Max (1920). A History of British Socialism. Vol. 2. p. 256.
- ^ Marx-Engels Collected Works: Volume 48. New York: International Publishers, 2001; p. 538, fn. 95.
- ^ Noam Chomsky Notes on Anarchism
Bibliography
- Pioneers of Anti-Parliamentarism by Guy Aldred. Glasgow: Bakunin Press.
- Non-Leninist Marxism: Writings on the Workers Councils (a collection of writings by Gorter, Pannekoek, Pankhurst, and Ruhle). Red and Black Publishers, St Petersburg, Florida, 2007. ISBN 978-0979181368.
- The International Communist Current, itself a Left Communist grouping, has produced a series of studies of what it views as its own antecedents. The book on the German-Dutch current, which is by Philippe Bourrinet (who later left the ICC), in particular contains an exhaustive bibliography.
- (in French) L'Autonomie. Le mouvement autonome en France et en Italie, éditions Spartacus 1978.
- Benjamin Noys (ed). Communization and its Discontents: Contestation, Critique, and Contemporary Struggles. Minor Compositions, Autonomedia. 2011. 1st ed.
- Beyond post-socialism. Dialogues with the far-left by Chamsy el- Ojeili. Palgrave Macmillan. 2015.[ISBN missing]
External links
- "Libertarian Marxism?" by Daniel Guérin.
- Situationist International online.
- "Libertarian Marxism's Relation to Anarchism" by Wayne Price.
- "Franz Kafka and Libertarian Socialism" by Michael Löwy.
- For Communism – John Gray WebSite: large online library of libertarian communist texts.
- Left Communism collection on the Marxists Internet Archive.
- "The Libertarian Marxism of Andre Breton" by Michael Löwy.