The Enemy Within/Without: A Marxist Critique of Cold War Ideology
Adam Katz
| Revision History | ||
|---|---|---|
| • April-May 1992 | Newspaper: Funded by Syracuse University students. | |
| The Alternative Orange: Vol. 1 No. 5 (pp. 3,15-16) | ||
| • August 27, 2000 | Webpage:  . | |
| DocBook XML (DocBk XML V3.1.3) from original. | ||
With the collapse of the USSR, the dominant culture (the mass media and political systems) have celebrated the release of American public discourse from the grip of Cold War ideology.Tthe general argument suggests that, while there will still be all kinds of “problems” and “enemies” (in fact, there currently seems to be no shortage of either), there is unlikely to be the same global, almost metaphysical adversary that “Communism” was. From the end of the Cold War, then, is supposed to follow a new freedom and flexibility in debating and addressing our problems and needs, including, presumably, regarding the use of the so-called “peace dividend.” However, the histrionic mobilizing of “public opinion” (along with the troops) for the mass slaughter of Iraqi soldiers and civilians, along with the rapid disappearance of the peace dividend itself and the continued narrowing of public discourse, has already made it clear that none of these expectations are to be fulfilled. Furthermore, recent “debates” over “political correctness” in the universities, along with assaults on the minimal funds allotted to the arts, demonstrate that the search for public enemies and opponents of the “American Way” is as vigilant as ever. In other words, the national coordination of struggles against “external” antagonists and those who lend them aid and comfort “internally,” is as prominent a feature of American political life as ever. Rather than explaining the persistence of these ideological and political patterns in psychological terms, though, it is necessary to understand them in relation to the organization of late capitalist societies, in particular the USA.
It is necessary to begin here by explaining and critiquing dominant western bourgeois understandings and evaluations of the Soviet Union and “Communism.” First of all, though, we have to determine the means of carrying out such a critical explanation. Contrary to dominant understandings, the Marxist method is a materialist one. This means that we base our critique and explanation not on what people (and especially leaders) think or say, but upon their practices and the effects of those practices. That is, we begin by asking what kinds of relations do individuals and groups enter into, what kinds of needs, capacities and interdependencies get formed on the basis of these relations, and what kinds of possibilities for action and change follow from these needs, capacities and interdependencies. Only within this framework can one discuss the consciousness and intentions of individuals and groups, that is, the “ideas” which guide social agents in their struggles to transform reality. In other words, ideas represent and advance specific interests, in conflict with other interests; they do not form these interests out of some abstract “moral” principle.
It is instructive to examine the views of dominant capitalist interests toward the USSR in this context. These views fall into two main categories. First, there is the argument that centralized economic planning is bound to fail, as a result of its “inefficiency.” Second, there is the argument that “totalitarian” political systems (which in cold war discourses means any system not based upon private property and parliamentary democracy), or exercises in “social engineering” also necessarily fail, due to some unquenchable human thirst for “freedom” which such systems can neither contain nor abolish. Both of these arguments have an underlying similarity. They both assume that social life is necessarily irregular, spontaneous, and therefore cannot be regulated. According to this view, one cannot control the ways in which individuals will make use of the means and capacities they have at their disposal, because individuals (and, by extension, all social agents, including collective ones) are intrinsically unpredictable. Any attempt to institute such control, therefore, will be unjust, since it does violence to what is most essential to our “human nature” (its uniqueness and freedom); it will also be inefficient and destructive, since this essential human nature will nevertheless assert itself, and subvert any “plan,” no matter how apparently reasonable and complete.
Let us leave aside for now the fact that capitalism, over the last century, has itself become increasingly “totalitarian” and planned, and has introduced ever more sophisticated methods of social control — a brief look at our everyday lives should easily convince us that our existence is hardly “free” and “unregulated.” Despite these facts, bourgeois arguments are still convincing because capitalism continues to be structured by an overall disorder and anarchy, by the lack of any effective general control over the forces of production, either by those who use them or by those who are affected by their use. Therefore, these forces of production do really appear to have a life of their own; and insofar as individuals are little more than forces of production within the capitalist system, our individual interests and inclinations really do seem to be irreducible to anything outside of themselves. Furthermore, as this very system of social control extends over greater areas of social life, and as these interests and inclinations are less and less capable of realization, the mere possession of them seems to be an end in itself, to be protected at all costs.
The reason for this is that, in the last instance, the “Cold War” was a global struggle between two opposing social systems, or types of property relations, one based upon private property and the other upon state property. By state property, I do not just mean state ownership of selected industries, but control over the entire economy. This type of ownership by its very nature requires conscious, a priori allocation of resources and means of production, and therefore the predominance of centralization and planning. It means an attempt to coordinate human needs with the social capacities to meet those needs, and to do so on the level of society as a whole. By contrast, private property is based upon the ownership by private individuals and groups of the means of production — it therefore requires that these individuals and groups have relatively unhindered control over these means, and that the outcome of production be determined by the competition between enterprises. Since production is for profit, and not to meet human needs, these needs can only be met partially, in a haphazard way, and for many not at all. For those who assume the inevitability of private property, then, human needs appear to be inherently “incorrigible” and individualized — any attempt to plan for them, to consciously develop new needs, or even to discuss needs in a theoretical way, appears to be an attempt to dictate them (again, regardless of the fact that the very existence of advertising is predicated upon the possibility of at least influencing the formation of human needs).
However, we must complicate matters here. Because “state property” is still too general a term, we have to go further and ask, who “owns” (i.e., controls) the state? (And of course, we must use the same caution in using terms like “centralization,” “planning,” etc.) It is precisely the history of the Soviet Union which has demonstrated that there are two fundamentally opposed types of state property: one based upon the control of a small, bureaucratic elite, which can only plan in its own interests (which necessarily oppose those of the vast majority); the other, state property which is really public property, or tending towards it, that is, under the control of the working people, the vast majority of the country. In this latter case, such terms as “planning” and “centralization” take on a very different meaning — these forms of social regulation, given working class power, in fact lead to the greatest possible democratization (one which includes economic institutions) and freedom (one which enables real control by individuals and groups over all aspects of social life — precisely by removing their “spontaneity,” and making them subject to collective discussion and decision making). From the standpoint of private property, though (which is abolished in either case), both of these possibilities are indistinguishable. That is, private property has no interest in distinguishing between them; quite to the contrary. (At the same time, of course, bureaucratic elites of the Stalinist variety have every interest in conflating the two as well). In both cases, argues private property, the “unique,” the “private,” and the inimitably “free” actions of private individuals are eliminated. The “Cold War,” then, is ultimately a war against public control over the means of production under the cover of a war against “totalitarianism”; the regime of private property, while antagonistic to any mode of state propery, can at least co-exist for a time with conservative elites of the kind formerly found in the Soviet Union — however, genuine working class power is a direct threat to private property and elite power and privileges.
For those who cannot see beyond the boundaries of private property, “socialism” or state property appears to be that which takes away what is most precious and intimate, the most “one’s own.” These boundaries are ideological as well as political and economic because individuals in capitalist society are compelled to arrange their lives in accord with the logic of private property: we must “sell” ourselves, compete with others over resources which are made indivisible, and calculate our needs on the basis of their “efficiency.” Bourgeois ideology exploits this situation by conflating individual property (that which is possessed for the purpose of personal consumption) with private property (that which is possessed for the purpose of exploiting the labor of others in order to make a profit). This accounts for the effectivity of Cold War ideologies in coordinating the interests of private property owners (capitalists) with the perceptions of those who own only individual property, while being exploited by the owners of private property. This also accounts for the tenacity of these ideologies in providing the overall explanatory and evaluative framework in Western societies. Even more, this framework has provided conservative ideologists with convenient explanations for the “failures” of liberal and social democratic policies (which are themselves merely an effect of the growing socialization and collectivization of capitalist society); these latter are too close to Communism, they also violate the spontaneity of private property. In this way, conservatve leaders can reduce the tax burden of corporations, and create for them an increasingly defenseless pool of workers, while claiming to be doing so in the interests of the “middle class.” The most significant tendencies of the late capitalist system can in this way be attributed to “external” forces.
It is now, more than ever, essential to distinguish between the two forms which can be taken by state property. To continue to conflate the two, as do so many on the “left” (Stalinists and left- liberals alike) is to reproduce the logic of private property. The collapse of the system of bureaucratic planning tells us nothing about the possibility of democratic socialist planning; however, it is being exploited for the purpose of erasing all consciousness of the possibility of an alternative to capitalism from the minds of the working, exploited and oppressed masses throughout the world. It is also necessary to be able to recognize the various forms taken by this attempt: for example, the much touted “ends” of ideology and history are two such attempts: while the end of ideology declares the impossibilty of transforming human conditions according to a consciously worked out purpose, the end of history goes even further and insists upon the impossibility of any real change, intentional or otherwise. Both of these “arguments” rest upon the assumptions we have examined here: the inherent “spontaneity” of “human nature”, and its resistance to either explanation or manipulation. Another example would be the “resistance to theory,” which is now so popular both within and outside of the academy — again, the assumption is that human activity and thought cannot be regulated or understood in terms of concepts and causality; “theory” and “science” are therefore mystifications. Also, many of these anti-theoretical and anti-ideological tendencies take on apparently left-wing forms. An outstanding example is what is called “multiculturalism,” which argues that all people have a “right” to “their own” culture, which is irreducible to other cultures. Rather than a global explanation of the relations between “cultures”, and the critique and transformation of the oppressive effects of culture and the construction of an international culture based upon free and democratic relations between people, “multiculturalism” simply wants to “distribute” to each group all the artifacts and experiences which testify to their “uniqueness.” In this case, it is possible to see how the ideological effects of the “winning” of the “Cold War” coincide with the capitalist solution to the crisis of late capitalism (which is also concealed by ideological celebrations over the collapse of the USSR): that is, the “austerity” and budget cutting which have placed oppressed groups in competition over scarce resources in the past decade and a half. Now, therefore, in the interest of building genuinely anti-capitalist alliances of working and oppressed peoples, it is necessary to contest the “left” (and potentially “right”) populisms of “multiculturalism” and other tendencies.
More precisely, contemporary capitalist culture, in the interests of suppressing the transformative potential represented by the struggles of the 1960s, has resorted to the following strategies: “localism,” “experiential-ism,” and “textualization,” or the reduction of social activities to acts of signification, or “language games.” To put it another way, contemporary bourgeois ideologies abstract from the global and practical character of social relations, and argue for the irreducibility and singularity of specific activities, values, modes of rationality, bonds between subjects, etc. This means that the most basic tendency of late capitalist relations cannot be recognized; that is, the tendency towards the socialization and collectivization of all practices and institutions. In other words, as enterprises and institutions become increasingly interdependent, and the lives of individuals are increasingly “organized” (through schools, the media, the job market, corporate “careers,” etc.) by the capitalist system, it becomes necessary to find ways of managing these interdependencies in more coordinated ways, and of drawing more people into participating in this process. The anarchy of the market becomes ever more dangerous under these conditions, leading to economic devastation, ecological destruction, and militarism. As I suggested earlier, capitalism has, through the course of this century, been addressing the needs posed by the processes of socialization and collectivization through a series of reforms which add up to what is usually termed the “welfare state.” Still, these reforms are extremely limited, even when they are most extensive (say, in Scandanavia); this is because of the maintenance of private property, involving competition between capitalists and the exclusion of the vast majority of the population from economic or cultural power.
However, as conservatives have unceasingly reminded us over the last dozen years or so, the liberal welfare state has become untenable, an obstacle to future (capitalist) development. Contrary to the conservative argument, though, the real reason for this is not that these reforms have been too “costly,” or have created “inefficient” bureaucracies: rather, reforms which tend to imply that all people have a right to a decent standard of living, a job, an education, health care, and so on, also tend to produce a working population which sees little reason to scramble on the job market for whatever wages capitalists are willing to pay, or why they should be subordinated to the owners of private property at all. Capitalist production requires a “disciplined” workforce, and the methods of discipline most widely available to the capitalist class are perpetual unemployment, competition among workers for wages and jobs, and the fear of poverty associated with dropping out of the wage system. The current global social crisis is a result of the contradiction between the needs of capitalists in an increasingly competitive global system (which requires wage cuts, cuts in social programs, union-busting, etc.), and the needs of the socialized productive forces created by capitalist development, which depend upon highly educated and cultured individuals who are able to participate in the control of institutions.
Cold War ideology, therefore, reflects the fear of the capitalist class in the face of the possibilities opened up by the processes of socialization and collectivization. However, it is also able to draw upon and exploit the fear of isolated individuals, of the middle classes especially, but also more skilled sections of the working class, of these very same processes which, under capitalism, tend to encroach upon areas of “privacy” which, as I argued earlier, represent for individuals the last bastion of autonomy in the face of a bureaucratic world outside of one’s control. For example, the main reason for the hostility and ridicule with which the dominant culture treats more oppositional forms of feminism is that radical feminisms contest the sanctity of the home, of the “family,” which appears as the site of “nature,” “genuine” affection, and unconditional intimacy. The mere suggestion that the functions fufilled by the “family,” (especially child-rearing) could more easily and inexpensively be fulfilled collectively, through socialized nursuries and pre-school centers, and that this could not only remove enormous burdens from parents but could also create healthier relations between individuals, is completely unthinkable. Such a proposal would appear, even to those most likely to benefit from it, to be a “centralized” or “statist” assualt on personal liberties and on human nature itself (and this despite the deepening crisis of the “family,” for which the dominant culture has not provided even the hint of a solution.)
The problem with this resistance to collectivization, however much it might, at times, reflect legitimate attempts to contest authoritarian types of social control, is that these processes are not under the control of isolated individuals and groups; for that matter, they are not even under the control of society’s most powerful groups, which are themselves representatives of social relations outside of their control. Collectivization will proceed whether or not any of us happens to “approve” of it; our actions, though, can help to determine whether this process takes on more or less oppressive or destructive forms, or whether it might even be a source of human emancipation. This latter becomes possible if the processes of socialization and collectivization are not limited to only those areas where they are absolutely necessary from an economic standpoint, but are combined with a process of democratization in all areas of life, including the economy — which means the abolition of private property. To return to the example I just cited, it is the capitalist system of production itself which induces the crisis in the “family” (and not, as conservative and liberal ideologues would have us believe, the “irresponsibility” of individuals, or some kind of “moral” deterioration), by bringing women into the workforce and other capitalist institutions (like universities) in increasing numbers, and thereby abstracting them from the role of “housewife” (or unpaid domestic laborer) and simultaneously provoking their collective struggles for liberation, which further undermine the “traditional” family form.
For this reason, the most important problem in contemporary emancipatory politics is that of collective practice. A politics which attempts to consciously realize collective practices, that is, to subordinate them to democratic and rational regulation and therefore transform them into conditions of freedom, will understand politics as struggles over the mode of allocating the total social resources. Such a politics will strive to expand the sphere of public authority, while simultaneously creating spaces of popular power within that sphere. A politics which retreats from the problem of collectivity, meanwhile, will attempt to create local spaces in which excluded practices and relations can be preserved, or conventional power relations reversed. However, this production of protected spaces only sets the relations they guard to work in reproducing the labor power required by late capitalism, while exempting the capitalist class and its state from paying the bill. The dominant academic ideology at the moment, that is, postmodernism, fits this description perfectly: postmodernism legitimates its practices by arguing for the emancipatory character of the “appropriation” and reversal of dominant discourses and ideology: however, such reversals at most preserve the priveleges of those segments of the petit-bourgeoisie or “technocratic” class who find their privileges threatened by the current crisis, and are trying to maintain them by proposing new modes of containing struggles to the capitalist class (by localizing them), and new modes of “liberation” to the oppressed, since the old ones (i.e., communism and revolution) have “failed.”
And this returns us to Cold War ideology, and its refigurations in response to the “collapse of Communism.” Cold War ideology, as the unconditional hostility to the realization of collective practices and structures as public property, has lost its cover as the struggle against “totalitarianism.” However, the dichotomy between “freedom” and “totalitarianism,” despite its repetition by the Reagan administration, has long been recognized as too “crude,” and even embarrassing. More “sophisticated” discourses have been under production for quite a while now, which undermine the project of human emancipation based upon global alliances and transformation by arguing that such a project “suppresses” the local and the incommensurable. Furthermore, such arguments are advanced in the name of struggles against oppression: for example, much recent feminist theory argues for the need to expel binary oppositions (that is, ideological struggle and critique) from the feminist project, which in this case becomes less the destruction of patriarchal modes of exploitation and oppression than the preservation of “woman” as the other, who cannot be assimilated to masculinist discourses and therefore “problematizes” them. In this way, “feminist” discourses simply open up a space within which to produce the new types of women required by late capitalist structures: capable enough to function effectively in a wide variety of jobs, tied into a(n ultimately insecure) “network” of personal ties which provides some support, and yet “skeptical” of “grand narratives” and universal claims, and therefore of the possibility of really contesting existing economic and political structures.
As I suggested earlier, discourses such as those of multiculturalism and the “celebration” of difference perform similar functions: they abstract “cultures” and “differences” from their global relations and contradictions and therefore from the oppressive conditions which produce them, desiring only to give them “equal rights” within a “pluralist” sphere. In other words, contemporary left-liberal anti-communist discourses recognize that they must also represent themselves as anti-bourgeois (if not anti- capitalist), and demonstrate an acknowledgement of the falsity of the universalist claims of contemporary American and Western culture. However, in this way, by not attacking the property relations which ground this culture, these discourses simply call for the abolition of the most restraining and irrational aspects of today’s capitalist culture (such as outmoded kinds of patriarchy, antiquated liberal and moralistic stances, an unthinking consumerism and technocratism, etc.), thereby allowing capitalism to modernize and re- equip itself (for example, by producing more “flexible” and “multicultural” individuals for the new global economy). Meanwhile, the antagonism to collectivist emancipatory practices remains, even if under the title of critiques of “logocentrism,” “purity,” “univocity,” “homogeneity,” or “universality.” The attack on these terms is an attack on radical transformation, which requires the replacement of one “total” mode of organizing the production and distribution of cultural resources by another — a process which requires a new unity, or “general interest,” which is based upon but also transforms in decisive ways the struggles of the oppressed and the subjects of these struggles themselves. It is this transformation, this production of an agency which is not and cannot be immediately or empirically available within the cultural boundaries of capitalist society (and therefore transgresses the immediacy and interiority of the local and experiential) that is currently stigmatized as “totalitarian” by what might be called “post-Cold War” ideologies.
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