Macpherson’s Socialism

Abstract

Macpherson’s understanding of socialism as a system supporting robust equality and as rejection of a society dominated by a competitive market is explained, and several related themes are addressed including the shortcomings of welfare capitalism, the importance of social-movement activism, the limitations of political party-dominated representative democracy, realism and utopianism, and socialist vanguardism. The chapter concludes with an appendix on the relation of Macpherson’s theories to Marxism.

Appendix: Macpherson and Marxism

Victor Svacek’s view that Macpherson lacked a theory of socialist transformation is in an article entitled ‘The Elusive Marxism of C.B. Macpherson’ in which he lists six central tenets of Marxism and claims that Macpherson’s theories are in accord with all but one, namely, the necessity of proletarian revolution, thus making him ‘five-sixths of a Marxist.’ (1976, 419) In a reply Macpherson concurs with this assessment (1976, 424), thus adding fuel to debates from the late 1970s in journal exchanges and in left-wing academic conference sessions about whether he was a Marxist, and, if so, how much of one or of what kind.

For some, Macpherson may be classified as a variety of Marxist since he held to a class-based theory of society and saw the interests of workers and capitalists as necessarily at odds due to the latter’s requiring exploitation (the net transfer of powers) for their profits. For others, that Macpherson does not endorse proletarian revolution suffices to deny him membership in the club. Also, while agreeing with much of Marx’s analysis of the genesis of capitalism, the model of a possessive market society Macpherson criticizes ‘does not require any particular theory of the origin or development of such society.’ (PI, 48)

Macpherson was certainly influenced by Marxism. First, he found much that resonated with his thinking in Marx’s The Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (1975, see 270–282) and in the later study for Capital, The Grundrisse (1986/1987) along with an influential article on the latter work by Martin Nicolaus (1968). Chief among the themes which attracted Macpherson in these works were as follows:

• Marx’s views as expressed in the Manuscripts about the thwarting of what Macpherson called ‘truly human potentials,’ which views are retained in Marx’s economic theory as outlined in the Grundrisse;

• Similarities in this work with Marcuse’s views in One Dimensional Man about the ability in capitalist society to ‘prevent or contain critical understanding’ of the capitalist system on the part of workers (UTA 1968b, 68–62);

• The contradictory effects of automation on prospects for working-class revolutionary consciousness and action (ibid., 68: 3–8);

• The thesis in the Grundrisse that ‘impoverishment’ means ‘not material impoverishment, but impoverishment of power’ (UTA 1968c, 46d) such that the contemporary proletariat could become ‘a new revolutionary force because of a consciousness of its powerlessness to have a “good life” and to promote a good life for mankind more generally’ (ibid., 46g);

• Marx’s observation, also in this study that, as Nicolaus summarizes it, ‘the process of production, historically considered, creates not only the object of consumption but also consumer need and the style of consumption.’ (Nicolaus 1968, 56; Macpherson DT, 182–183)

A second broad area of influence is evident in Macpherson’s advice to political theorists in Chap. 5 of Economic Justice, ‘Do We Need a Theory of the State?,’ where he distinguishes his approach to political theory from that of Marxism (EJ, 56ff.) while also making use of Marxist theories. There he approvingly refers to some contemporaries whom he places in the tradition of Marxism or neo-Marxism (ibid., 74), namely, Jürgen Habermas (1973), Nicos Poulantzas (1973), Ralph Miliband (1969), and James O’Connor (1973) and to some related discussions in The New Left Review (no. 92, 1975, and no. 98, 1976).

These authors address such questions as: the nature and extent of state independence from a capitalist economy (a special concern of O’Connor); whether states should be conceived of on the model of agents (Miliband) or structurally (Poulantzas); and on strains on the legitimacy of the capitalist state (Habermas). Earlier, Macpherson had specified one way that Marxist theories of the state are important for overcoming the anti-developmentalism of market societies. He sees an electoral role in this task, but only if it is recognized, with the Marxists, that electoral politics are relatively impotent in effecting major changes as long as a state remains ‘devoted to maintaining capitalism.’ (1980, 29)

In The Rise and Fall chapter Macpherson urges fellow democratic-socialist theorists to learn from the endeavours of Habermas and the others instead of being at pains to differentiate themselves from Marxism, and he describes an ‘euphoric, even utopian vision’ in which liberal-democratic and Marxian theories merge. (75) Macpherson does not try to specify just what such a merger entails. As between Marxist socialism and liberal-democratic socialism, Panitch describes Macpherson as essentially a champion of the former who ‘has been preparing liberal theory for [a] “raid” by Marxism’ (1981, 164), but one could just as easily portray Macpherson as laying the ground for a liberal-democratic raid on Marxism.

Macpherson’s stance on this question has most often simply prompted charges of social-democratic revisionism from socialists and of crypto-Marxism from liberal-democratic theorists. Macpherson, himself, was not very much interested in such classificatory questions, preferring to get on with his critiques of capitalist markets and their attendant cultures and with his promotion of a democratic-socialist alternative. He would likely have agreed with the opinion of Lindsay:

I have not taken up this issue of whether the developmental ideal is liberal or Marxist, or whether Macpherson’s thought is more one or the other, as I personally see little point in such exercises. This type of categorization would seem to lend itself to reductionist error more than it would to genuine insight. (1996, 42)