South Park and Marx

I was watching the South Park episode Margaritaville the other day, after a friend reminded me of a point that was made in that episode.

Specifically, that point was that the economy is not a sentient being. It has no life of its own apart from people and their daily activities. This was one of Marx's central points, though he applied it other abstract categories in addition to the economy (like history) and it has spawned an entire line of social inquiry (Praxis Theory). It also ties in with my arguments a couple posts ago (re: Inside Job) that economic phenomena cannot be properly understood apart from their productive/material base. (I.e. apart from reality). This is what is meant when Marx is desccribed as a "materialist."

On the other hand, I do take issue with the episode's contention that people just need to continue buying and spending, and everything will be okay. Yes, capitalist profitability demands a high level of consumption. But it has also reached a point of unsustainability that cannot be resolved by increasing demand. Furthermore, the reason that middle-class folks in South Park, Colorado (or real places like it) are able to spend money on frivolous things like the Margaritaville is because of exploitative processes that impoverish most of the rest of the world. So simply buying more useless junk is not a solution.

Myths About Marx

In my first post, I listed some common misconceptions about Marx, Marxism, and communism... sort of as a teaser.  Now that I have sketched a rough outline of my Marxist perspective, I thought it might be a good time to revisit that list of myths and explain (briefly) why these beliefs are unfounded.  Hopefully I will have time in future posts to expand on some of these a bit more.  (The last two on the list I have already touched on to some extent, so I will postpone, for now, discussing them further.)

1.  Marx advocated the expansion of state power.
Marx believed that the state was only a tool of ruling class interests.  Rather than wanting to expand state power, Marx looked toward a future without any state.

2.  Marx called for the obliteration of any forms individuality, and the imposition of complete and absolute equality in all aspects of life, most particularly with wages.
Marx did not advocate total and absolute equality.  He never criticized individual expression.  The thing that he opposed was exploitation and the thing that he supported was production that was oriented toward fulfilling actual needs (rather than creating needs... and waste) and making the most of human creative and intellectual potential.  In his communist utopia there certainly could have been room for inequality and diversity in different aspects of life.  However, production in general would not be based on relations of exploitation, labor would be fulfilling rather than grueling and inhumane, and production would be communally guided to satisfy real needs.  


Furthermore, Marx did not focus that much on his vision for the future evolution of society, and much of it remains sketchy.  Most of his work was occupied with historical and economic analysis, which is unparalleled in its detail and explanatory value, and still hugely influential to this day.

3.  Marx advised the working class to rise up and rule over the other classes, effectively reversing the class hierarchy.
Once again, Marx opposed exploitation of any kind.  Although there is some mention in his writing of possible "transitional states," this is even more sketchy than his communist utopia.

4.  Marx did not find any value in capitalism.
Marx thought that capitalism was a necessary and valuable step in the evolutionary process that would eventually lead to communism.  Primarily, it was valuable in that it promoted technological innovation on such an unprecedented scale.  One of the conditions of the transition to communism was that technological development would reach such a level that human beings would be freed from the drudgery of mindless physical labor:  machines would be able to do all the jobs that were degrading or alienating to the human intellect and spirit. 

5.  Marx favored violence and insurrection.
Marx was never trying to precipitate class warfare.  He never advocated violence.  He thought that conflict was the inevitable, natural result of exploitation.  (If you piss someone off enough, they will retaliate eventually.)  Thus, he said that revolution was going to occur, organically, he didn't say he wanted to make it occur.

6.  Communism, as it has existed historically, is an accurate reflection of Marx's vision.
There are many reasons why the communism of the USSR and its satellites does not reflect the writings of Marx... probably because it bears absolutely no resemblance to Marx's communism.  I will only point out a couple of glaring differences here, because this could easily turn into an essay of its own.

• Marx argued that the communist revolution could only occur after attaining a certain level of technological development and globalization, which had certainly not been reached by 1917, nor even now.
• Marx was very clear that true a communist revolution had to be a global movement.  It could not occur in one country or one region of the world alone.
• Marx's utopia was stateless... it was not a ruthless, genocidal dictatorship/empire.
• The revolution in Russia turned into a movement toward industrialization, which, I have already argued, made it more capitalist.  For Marx, the communist revolution was a movement from industrial society to something different.

I should definitely do a post about this one, because I could keep going on and on and on....

Summary

Now that I have set out most of the main premises of my Marxist worldview, which I will be elaborating in future posts, probably with more attention to specific current events, I thought it would be a good idea to summarize the ideas I have presented so far before moving on.

• Accumulation of wealth, in general, occurs through relationships of exploitation and the limitation of competition (often via use of state mechanisms).  Accumulation of wealth is always a redistribution of wealth, and as such, it strains the very system by which it occurs, rendering it unsustainable for any particular individual or corporation in the long run.
• Power is not a "thing" that one "has" but a characteristic of relationships (acting upon another's actions).  Most forms of power are decentralized and present in any type of social relationship.  Sovereignty is a more centralized form of power that adheres between an institution wielding legitimate use of violence and enforcement of law, and those upon whom the legitimate violence and rule of law are exercised.  Nominally, the former is "the state," although the state is actually a tool employed by the dominant groups of society.

• The primary defining characteristic of capitalism is wage labor.
• Wage labor allows for large-scale organization of production and investment in technology that creates "economies of scale."
• When production occurs at such a large scale and is simultaneously oriented only toward profit-making goals rather than the actual societal need, over-production is the inevitable result.
• To overcome crises of over-production, capitalists must create demand (results:  excessive marketing and advertising, constantly outmoded technology and outdated fashions, a consumerist lifestyle, state deficit spending, extension of credit, increasing public and personal debt).
• However, the ultimate result of over-production is decreasing profitability of the manufacturing sector and economic stagnation, as well as waste on a large scale.
• For example, as we have all seen, U.S. deficit spending and the stock-market and housing bubbles created by extension of credit were not ultimately able to overcome the global crisis of over-production and economic stagnation that emerged in the late 1960s.  It only postponed the inevitable and made the fall much more drastic.
• Since the late 1960s, any period of economic growth in one country has been accomplished primarily through the manipulation of exchange rates and other monetary policy (rather than resolving the global crisis of over-production) and, thus, has occurred directly at the expense of all the others.

• Under capitalism, the condition of wage labor constituting the basis of value provides a point of intersection between sovereign power (self-interested, territorial, focused on wealth and resources) and governmental power (oriented toward the management and cultivation of the life, productivity, and health of populations).  Governmental power relationships have greatly expanded, encompassing more areas of life, and have been appropriated to a limited degree by the state.  Simultaneously, life itself has come to constitute a basis of sovereignty, whereas previously people were only encountered as objects of secondary importance to territory and resources.
• Thus, under capitalism, life itself has become a grounds of political struggle and power.  (For example, the issue of abortion and defining when life begins.)

• The profitability of capitalist enterprise requires cheap inputs.
• This was initially provided by the emergence of a class of landless, unemployed peasants (dispossessed of their land) whose labor could be exploited.  This was followed by the large-scale use of slave labor in the American colonies.
• Later, capitalists were forced to turn their attention toward procuring cheaper raw materials.  This was achieved via colonization of the rest of the world where these resources were located.
• More recently, there has been a swing back toward the pursuit of cheap labor, as well as cheap "light" manufactured goods as inputs for more "value-added" industry.  This is accomplished by using "neocolonial" relationships of exploitation to open the markets of formerly colonized nations to multi-national corporations.  This also serves the purpose of creating additional markets for commodities in the face of global over-production.
• These are the relationships of exploitation that characterize capitalist accumulation of wealth.
• The end result is an increasing gap between the wealthiest nations and the poorest.

• These realities are concealed from popular awareness by a number of ideologies that uphold the social order.
• Social contract ideology promotes the belief that states have a power of their own, apart from dominant groups, and by consent of all the citizens.  In so far as states are seen as the real locus of power, rather than dominant groups, all attempts to limit or combat power are errantly directed at the state, such as trying to "reduce the size of government."
• Social contract ideology also encourages people to view economies as nationally bounded, and to assume that state policies (or lack thereof) are the root cause of economic growth and recession.  Thus, economic crises are not seen as resulting from inherent flaws in a global system, but as something which can be "fixed" and permanently avoided through the proper state action (or inaction, depending on one's perspective).
• Neoliberal ideology supports the belief that the system is fair, the playing field is level, and any inequalities result from "natural" inadequacies and moral deficiencies.  Thus, poverty is accepted as the just due of the unworthy.  It is not the consequence of exploitation or an inherently unjust system.