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From: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Taking up Richard's gauntlet ...
Message-ID: <192@ubvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 13-Feb-85 16:37:02 EST
Article-I.D.: ubvax.192
Posted: Wed Feb 13 16:37:02 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 18-Feb-85 05:34:28 EST
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Ray Chen's explication of the lack of a relationship between
classical Marxism and egalitarianism is right on the mark, and
very well expressed.  I once went to a talk on organizational
effectiveness where the first question asked was "Why does the
speaker think it is that the word 'effectiveness' doesn't exist
in any language other than English?" I doubt that European Marxists
give egalitarianism even lip service.  It's a concept that can't
be given a concrete or an ideological form in the usual European
environment.  And Europe, not the U.S., is the fount of clear and
pragmatic Marxist writing.

I did find once, though, a place where something like egalitarianism
was stressed in modern Marxism, other than being criticized as just
another figment of false consciousness.  Ernesto Laclau has a concept
of "the people" as an organizing tool in political systems tied to
democratic ideals which he uses in reference to political protest in
Latin America.  If you want to change the economic system, you have
to overthrow the state and fight on its rhetorical and political
ground, using democratic slogans and forming popular coalitions based
on same.

Since the founding documents of Latin American political systems
all have references to "the people", as in the U.S. Constitution's
"We the people", there is lots of accumulated egalitarian sentiment
in these systems, waiting to be stirred up.  Most statements of liberation
theology, and the manifestos of most of the Central American revolutionary
organizations, are plastered with references to "poder popular," meaning
power to "the people".

I'd suggest that the further one gets away from American-derived "We the
people" political ideologies, the less relevance egalitarianism as a
motivating force has, and the more Illyrian talk about egalitarianism
appears.

Classical Marxism battles not with inequality, but with property;
not with income, but with capital; not with profits, but with the
disbursement of profits; not with markets, but with the control of
markets.  The forms that Marxism takes outside of its original environment
(Europe and Russia) are adapted to their new surroundings.  These new forms
are often not classical.

(The Ernesto Laclau book is "Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory",
New Left Books, 1978)

Tony Wuersch