The Preconditions of Socialism: a Critical Review (iv)

“What’s sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander”. English proverb, 17th century.

After the last post, I think I am in position to offer a general -- impressionistic, if you like -- assessment of Preconditions, for those readers less than vitally interested in details. A real attempt to decipher his argument must of necessity take more time.

As we saw with the two anonymous quotes in the previous post, something surprising about Preconditions is that, although those better disposed towards Bernstein seem to agree with the general statement “Bernstein disproved Marx’s predictions”, they often disagree among themselves about what those predictions he allegedly disproved were exactly (or, as we’ll see, what Bernstein thought his achievement was).

I recently noticed that in Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century. Piketty writes, in passing, that Bernstein was outvoted at the 1899 SPD Hannover Conference because he “had the temerity to argue that wages were increasing” (Kindle Locations 3809-3812). That surprised me because, as explained in the previous post, P3§b/E2§b (where Bernstein presented his empirical argument) doesn’t argue that.

The fruit salad presented as data in Preconditions, sometimes unsourced or undated, refers not to the wages grunts earn, but to incomes of the wealthy: “business profits, higher official posts”, “incomes from land and real estate (annuities, ground rent), house rents, and taxable capital investments” (p. 60). That is when they refer to income flows: often they refer to wealth levels.

It is true that in E2§b Bernstein finally added a table including explicitly nominal proletarian incomes (less than £80 pounds a year) in Saxony in 1879 and 1894: 15 years apart. But even then, he says nothing about wages. In particular, he did not suggest real proletarian incomes increased, as he suggested happened to real incomes above proletarian levels.

One can dismiss that as a mistaken but inconsequential comment from Piketty: something peripheral to his own argument.

Things however, are more serious with Sidney Hook (the author of the second quote), for one should suppose he actually read carefully the book whose glowing introduction he wrote:

“Bernstein argued that the economic tendencies, upon which Marx predicated the collapse of capitalism, had not been fulfilled. The poor were not becoming poorer and the rich, richer. The doctrines of the increasing misery of the working class, the constant growth in size of the mass army of unemployed, the uninterrupted development of monopolies defying all social regulation, were not established by the facts. On the contrary, history had falsified them”. (p. xii)

Hook both adds and subtracts from Bernstein: either way, he misrepresents. Although I could go to great lengths to explain why that’s spectacularly wrong-headed, I’ll highlight but three things.

First. Upon noticing the bits I emphasised above, the astute reader, in touch with recent economic best-sellers, must have felt something sounds very wrong. But if he/she didn’t, don’t worry. In the near future, for once in this series, I’ll have a good time explaining that.

Second. Bernstein just does not argue either way about “the increasing misery of the working class” or “the mass army of the unemployed”, for instance. No argument, empirical or “scholastic”: nada. In the whole book there’s one reference to each. That’s it. He simply made no attempt to justify his views on those subjects.

Third. Against Hook’s “the uninterrupted development of monopolies defying all social regulation, were not established by the facts”, I’ll repeat Bernstein’s own answer:

“It is correct, above all, as a tendency. The forces described exist, and they operate in the given direction. And the processes are also taken from reality. The fall in the rate of profit is a fact, the occurrence of overproduction and crises is a fact, periodic destruction of capital is a fact, the concentration and centralisation of industrial capital is a fact, and the increase in the rate of surplus value is a fact. So far, the account remains, in principle, unshaken.”  (p. 57/E2§b)

Had we forgotten that already, Sidney?

How should one explain Hook’s spectacularly obtuse views? Mere reading disability or deliberate ignorance?

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I’ll leave this preliminary assessment here. Readers can mull over that (comments, reactions, guesses, will be particularly welcome). I’ll retake this in the next post.

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Solution to last week’s exercise.

This is the list of things Bernstein admitted are facts in E2§b, copied and pasted from that text:

1. “The fall of the profit rate is a fact”.
2. “The advent of over-production and crises is a fact”. 
3. “Periodic diminution of capital is a fact”.
4. “The concentration and centralisation of industrial capital is a fact”.
5. “The increase of the rate of surplus value is a fact”.

This is what Bernstein wrote about value and surplus value in E2§a, third paragraph:

“In this way, as far as single commodities or a category of commodities comes into consideration, value loses every concrete quality and becomes a pure abstract concept. But what becomes of the surplus value under these circumstances?”

In Evolutionary it may take a little thinking, but if non-Marxist readers know the meaning of the word abstraction they shall understand that what is a fact in § b was a mere abstraction, speculation, something which exists only as an idea in § a.

But it gets better. Non-Marxist readers, if they read Preconditions, don’t need to think. Edith C. Harvey diplomatically softened Bernstein’s tone in Evolutionary. Henry Tudor’s more scholarly translation is blunter and reflects what Bernstein’s German readers understood:

“So far as individual commodities or categories of commodities are concerned, value is thus bereft of all concrete content and becomes a purely mental construct. But what becomes of 'surplus value' under these circumstances?” (p. 48)

Whatever the translation, anyone reading that book understands Bernstein used the word abstraction eleven times in § a in the sense Tudor employed: something bereft of all concrete content, a purely mental construct, a speculation. I don't believe value is what Bernstein claimed, but if he believed that in § a, is it too much to demand of him coherence in § b?

Or must one also suffer the random imbecility of a second rate swindler?