http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm
In a short text named On authority (which could be read as an unexpected precursor to Benjamin's notion of revolutionary violence) Engels deals with the problem of discipline, authority and violence. In opposition to anarchism - that is, to a doctrine that abolishes legitimity of every authority - Engels asserts that authority is a necessary ingredient of every complex process of production. Authority is the principle that organizes the work in factory, it is what establish order and discipline in procedure of work. This sounds very Foucauldian. In the first half of Engel's text, authority is understood as a "microprinciple" that functions in place anterior to politics proper - in fact, authority which is necessary to our "material conditions" (that is, our procedure of production) cannot be dissmised even by the supreme act of revolution:
"We have thus seen that, on the one hand, a certain authority, no matter how delegated, and, on the other hand, a certain subordination, are things which, independently of all social organisation, are imposed upon us together with the material conditions under which we produce and make products circulate... Hence it is absurd to speak of the principle of authority as being absolutely evil, and of the principle of autonomy as being absolutely good"
But then suddenly Engels moves from the argument of authority as a "micropolitical" principle that structures the work procedure to the sphere of politics proper:
"But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?"
What is suprising in this theoretical leap is its sudden transformation of object: at first, Engels deals with the problem of authority versus freedom in a sphere of material production, that is, in a sphere that ex definitio doesn't allow the freedom from all authoritarian constraints. It is an authority that is inscribed in the very tissue of material production, indivisible from the process of production. But then Engels turns to the sphere of politics - and as philosophy Aristotle to Hegel teaches, this is is the sphere contrary to that of production: it is a place where feedom is the principle of structuration. When we read On Authority, we anticipate the following turn: surely, the place of material production is governed by the principle of discipline and order, but on contrary, the freedom of political is where we, the true socialists and anarchists, agree. But in text we encounter exactly the opposite: the political is precisely the place where the true authoritarian principle shows itself. It is not mere internal function, localised in the procedure of production or in any other "microcosmos": it is TERROR IN ITS PURE FORM, free of any functionality or "material conditions". But what is suprising is that this terror of authority strangely coincides with the highest freedom: what is freed in the revolution is the authority itself.
9 comments:
Very interesting, indeed: revolution as the liberation of authority itself from the constraint of material production. This point doesn’t arise directly from Engels’ argumentation, but it seems to be its logical consequence. Very well pointed out! And, if I may add a rhetorical question in a Žižekean fashion: Isn’t this notion very close to the Leninist interpretation of the Party as an enlightened entity whose authority springs from theoretical knowledge (and is thus unbound to material production)?
As to the second part: the very core of Marxist ideology is that politics ceases to be interpreted as an autonomous sphere. If we interpret liberty as the definition of the principle that rules in politics (which is an exquisitely Greek notion, but present to a certain extent also in the classical political theory, from Machiavelli to Tocqueville), then we could say that Marxism radically denies liberty. (The catch is of course that no true Marxist would ever accept such a definition of liberty.)
Marxism has many diverse notions of the role of intelectual, one of them being the infamous "organic intelectual". I doubt whether this notion would fit with your thesis that Party (being formed by intelectuals)is unbound to its material basis. But, of course, it is a thesis that Žižek would be quick to assert ;)
The same can said about the problem of autonomity of ideologic. Marxist ideology indeed believes that ideology (and thus politics) is fundamentally linked to some material condition. But not Marxism. From Gramsci on, politics are an autonomous sphere with its own laws of structuration. Further, authors like Lukacs, Macherey and Althusser showed that it is possible to concieve a Marxist theory of autonomity of even such an "ideological sphere" (as it appeared to early Marxist thinkers) as art. So I don't think that we can pass judgements on "Marxism as such" without ignoring some very relevant Marxist authors...
First of all I'd like to say, that I find your blog quite interesting. Keep up the good work.
The thing that I especially appreciate is your ability of self-reflection. You, as a marxist(if i have understood you well), build a constructive criticism of Engels work, though him being a founder of the ideology. His flaws are pointed out very well.
From my point of view, a libertarist one, I just don't understand why to bother with analysis of ideologies, that prooved to be too weak in the past?
Thanks for encouraging words.
I would hardly pass as a Marxist. I do think that Marx and developers of his thought indeed are thinkers that should not be left in the history of political philosophy. But yet I don't think that every other philosopher should be dissmised as a bourgeois thinker. I think that we commit the same mistake if we call John Stuart Mill an bourgeois ideologist or Engels a latent supporter of totalitarianism. Both should be approached with the same thought in mind: that they are theorist, trying to dislose the truth of society. In my opinion, saying that Marx or Engels are unworthy of theoretical attention because history "proved them wrong" means that one is uncapable or unwilling to face their thier thought. After all, as I argue in my previous post, what is actual must never determine the theory. Marxism is not just about trying to build a certain society. It is also a theoretical system which has different evolution and different proposals as that of communism that had taken place in 20th century.
Yes, but it's very theoretical core is builted without taking in consideration human factors, such as greed for instance. It showed to be a fatal flaw, resulting in a society that was builted in USSR and Eastern Europe.
To shorten up, basicly I'm saying that it's impossible to carry out marxist ideas in their original form. They had had, are and will allways be disrupted by our greed.
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