On Michael Harrington's Socialism: Past and Future
Heilbroner, Robert
SOCIALISM: PAST AND FUTURE, by Michael Harrington. New York: Arcade Publishing Co. (Little, Brown and Company), 1989. 300 pp. $19.95. ocialism," writes Michael Harrington, "is the hope for human...
...From here it is but a short step to the conclusion that under capitalism the process of socialization will "subvert the possibilities of freedom and justice that capitalism did so much—however reluctantly—to foster...
...This refers to two quite different ways in which socialization can become manifest: "Under capitalism, [as] a trend toward a growing centralization and planning . . . [that] takes place from the top down...
...I do not think he would question Sweezy's prognosis as a realistic outcome—perhaps even the most likely among many imaginable ones...
...It is melioristic...
...At a time when self-styled "socialist" governments are the targets of a repudiation and delegitimization without precedent in history, such a debate has more than passing significance...
...What we are left with is a series of exhortations as to the directions in which pressure must be applied if socialization is to respond to the needs of those at the bottom rather than those at the top...
...Is this remarkable duality of realms to be relinquished as part of the installation of socialism...
...Socialism...
...Moreover, like myself, I think Harrington would be made uneasy by the description of socialism as the "negation" of capitalism...
...Its economic structure is dominated by large corporations, which pursue aggressive policies of economic expansion...
...Thus one way of reading the underlying tendency of modern history is to see it as a process of desocialization in which the extension of the market disintegrates older social bonds...
...I shall illustrate it by comparing conditions in what I have elsewhere called "slightly imaginary Sweden" with the criteria I have culled from Harrington's vision...
...As the author puts it, "Socialization, in one form or another, is the imperative of every society in the late twentieth century...
...and that bureaucrats cannot directly seize the surpluses generated by the economic system...
...Socialism will have to become international as never before...
...Not surprisingly, argument now gives way to values, and values become vague and moralistic...
...I think we do know that socialism today, at least in the West, must be a movement and not a specific social structure...
...It is that these repressive governments are not socialist, whatever they may call themselves...
...But he does not see it as the only outcome...
...Nonetheless, with all the provisos and crossed fingers that anyone could invoke, he proposes the belief that a gradualist movement from one social order to another profoundly different one is possible...
...Why is Sweden not enough, at least for those nations, like our own, that are still far from having reached its level...
...Harrington does not close his eyes to the abominations inflicted in the name of socialism in the past, but passes over them in the same manner, and for the same reasons, that an advocate of the Christian ethic as a model for social reform would pass over its ugly periods of intolerance and forget about the hecatombs slaughtered in its name...
...I think there are two answers to this question...
...The premise, which seems innocuous enough, actually begs the question that freedom and justice rest on aspects of human society to which socialism has always directed its attention, rather than on aspects about which it has nothing to say, such as religious fundamentalism, mass hysterias, and the like...
...It's the system itself...
...Nonetheless, it is difficult to think systematically about the future from some starting point other than Harrington's...
...Which is to say, of socialism...
...I propose to scrutinize them to see whether they lead in the direction that Harrington suggests...
...I can think of a very important reason why the relation between socialism and oppression should be warily considered—I will deal with it shortly—but none why the two should be judged as irremediably conjoined, just as I can think of good reasons to presume that capitalism is intrinsically biased against equality but no reason to think it intrinsically connected with fascism or apartheid...
...Why is this not socialism...
...It is these questions that ask us to pay wary heed lest socialism may too easily incline toward political absolutism...
...Thus real Sweden is a capitalist nation in which the objectives of Harrington's new socialism are even now partially in evidence, and judging by past trends, will be considerably further in evidence in the slightly imaginary Sweden of the coming decades...
...Reform is of course desirable but it has its limits...
...All that we can say with confidence is that if such freedom is to come into existence, it will be the result of new global structures of solidarity and justice...
...Here the objection that must spring to everyone's mind is that "socialist" governments have been one of the principal sources of oppression and injustice over the last half century...
...If not, what of the "negation" of capitalism...
...Harrington does not ask the question directly, but I would say it is because Sweden is still unmistakably a capitalist country...
...It generally ascribes to a value system that we would call "bourgeois...
...To Harrington, the force that has pushed Sweden into its partial acceptance of control from below has been the idea of socialism, and his faith in socialism derives from the conviction that this force can impart a similar movement elsewhere...
...peace-keeping missions...
...Perhaps that hope will be dashed tomorrow...
...Because Harrington is trying to think through the prospects for socialism over a future in which capitalist dynamics—inflations and stagnations, interpenetrations of economies, disruptions of technologies—will dominate economic life, I think he is justified in placing "socialization" in the forefront of the tendencies against which, or with which, socialism will have to contend...
...Nor can socialism be reduced merely to some ideal mixture of planning and markets, for however necessary for greasing the wheels of economic life, markets, like nationalization, can be no more than a means to an end...
...I must quickly add that Harrington is aware of the need to provide refuge against the pressures of control from the bottom as well as from the top...
...FALL • 1989 • 563 Socialism is also not going to be mass nationalization of industry—although some nationalization, such as power grids, may be required—because nationalization in itself is only another form of top-down command, the very thing that the new socialism is against...
...Although he does not say it in so many words, his argument seems to lead to the conclusion that socialism—the "new socialism" for which he is arguing—is not a form of government, but a movement within government...
...It lies in a running debate between an outspoken endorsement of socialism as the vehicle for humankind's hope and a candid admission that the socialist idea today carries a heavy "baggage of historic failure...
...This is, of course, very different from the traditional notions that Harrington has explored in his overview of the idea of socialism...
...If so, what is to take its place...
...As the title suggests, the book presents a wideranging overview of the evolution of the socialist idea, from its early Utopian yearnings to its present confused condition...
...The means of production are indeed nationalized," he writes, "but the people have no control over the economy they theoretically own . . . I call this system bureaucratic collectivism and argue that it is neither capitalist nor, socialist...
...Well, then, what is socialism...
...Skeptics will pounce on this definitional rescue of socialism as evidence that Harrington has failed to recognize a fatal linkage between socialism, in whatever guise, and the tendency to create structures of dictatorial power...
...Some observers would point toward individualization, not socialization, as a dominant aspect of modern history...
...That structural safeguard is the presence within capitalism of a rulership divided between the realm of the economy and that of the state...
...The resolution lies in the two-sided aspect of the market—at one and the same time the chief means for the vast multiplication of individual life-choices and the chief source of pressures and constraints, no less powerful than religion or tradition for being much more invisible and incomprehensible...
...We simply do not know...
...That the debate remains inconclusive, despite Harrington's engaged advocacy, strikes me as a strength, not a weakness, of the book, and as a testimony to the honesty of its author...
...That poignant question, posed on its initial page, is the central focus of Socialism: Past and Future...
...Such reflections give us powerful reasons to remember that as long as we strive for the ideals of justice and freedom, as we conceive of them, there will be a need for protection against forces from below as well as from above...
...It perceives its role as that of influencing capitalist evolution, not as taking over the reins and abruptly changing things...
...Socialism, if it comes, will likely be the child of stagnation and dysfunction in the capitalist world, of violence and upheaval in the underdeveloped world...
...By 1969 the organizers of the Socialist International in England had to telex to London for the words of "The Internationale," because too few delegates any longer remembered them...
...It extracts surplus value from its work force (or from foreign workers in its overseas facilities...
...Although it is a key term, this imperative is not an altogether clear concept...
...Excrescences and excesses are not the essence of the environmental degradation here...
...Human beings [must] creatively participate in economic decisions...
...Perhaps the unprecedented changes taking place today within the "socialist" nations hold out hope that this optimism is warranted...
...But once more, I would not be too hasty...
...It is easy to smile at these (and many other such) homilies as constituting little more than an exercise in social piety...
...But he has an answer for it...
...Harrington's case for socialism, like all political arguments, is ultimately a plea for a set of values, but it is a plea based on premises about the nature of modern day society...
...They throw out babies along with their bath waters...
...Let me, for example, contrast it with another vision of socialism, advanced by Paul Sweezy, the dean of American Marxian theorists: Socialism is now perceived by most people who call themselves socialists as removing the worst excesses of capitalism...
...I go on to note that the Swedish government also "synthesizes" its long-run transformations with efforts to remedy short-run disturbances, by relocating and retraining populations to avoid economic distress, and by generously subsidizing job mobility through extensive programs of technical or general education...
...No one is better suited to conduct it than Harrington, who has fought many battles and weathered many disappointments in the cause of democratic socialism...
...It foresees that the socialization process will, for a very long time, be conducted under the directives and within the boundaries of capitalism...
...Wild cards may upset the socioeconomic logics on which the left has always built its theories, but these logics are, nonetheless, the only ones we have...
...You have to have people in charge who care about things other than making profits...
...I begin with the fact that people in Sweden already participate creatively in economic decisions, both at the factory floor level, and through the extensive and vigorous life that characterizes Swedish politics...
...The new socialism must be concerned with the character of civilization, not just with the allocation of investment...
...The question, then, is why is socialism necessary...
...Indeed, from Adam Smith's time on observers have worried over the manner in which 562 • DISSENT society would achieve coherence and cohesion in the absence of the unifying pressures of religion or tradition...
...In passing, I add that nationalized industry plays only a minor role in 564 • DISSENT Swedish economic life and is subject to the same trade-union discipline that is exercised within private industry...
...Harrington is painfully aware of this objection— after all, it constitutes the "baggage of historic failure" against which his argument must contend...
...I take it to mean a general tendency for society to become more organized, in the sense of being subordinated to impersonal forces, particularly of an economic kind...
...the fate of the entire world in the twenty-first century...
...he asks in the same breath: "How can a nostalgic irrelevance be the precondition of anything...
...As to how far the movement can go, or what specific obstacles it will encounter in different countries, Harrington is agnostic...
...However much the apparatus of the state is powerfully influenced by the requirements of capital, and to whatever degree the state takes as its normal task the political servicing of the economy, the fact remains that capitalists do not directly wield the powers of war and peace...
...That brings us, however, to the second, and much more contentious part of Harrington's premise...
...and the people implementing the policies have to care too (Nation, May 29, 1989, p. 727...
...ocialism," writes Michael Harrington, "is the hope for human freedom and justice under the unprecedented conditions of life that humanity will face in the twenty-first century...
...For the disintegrating force of individualism can also be folded into Harrington's hypothesis as to the socialization of everyday existence...
...He is hopeful that a "socialist republicanism" may provide the "space for personal and community freedom," but he is careful to be cautious in his hopefulness...
...The first is that we are living through a protracted revolution that he calls "socialization...
...As he points out, however, there is no safe one...
...under socialism, [as a] process subjected to democratic control from below by the people and their communities" [his italics...
...that bosses cannot imprison or coerce their work forces...
...It has been the conscience of civilized society...
...Meanwhile, there is another possibility...
...Either they come to an end or they must lead to the collapse of the system" —an analysis that was a recipe for passivity and defeat...
...Harrington's second hypothesis comes in two parts...
...If I may draw my own conclusions from Paul Sweezy's writings, his answer would be that socialism must occupy as distinctive a space in history as its predecessor, and we must therefore expect it to differ from capitalism at least as deeply as capitalism differs from feudalism...
...The phrase 'market socialism,' " Harrington writes, ". . . implies that what defines socialism is the market relation, which is a contradiction in terms...
...Negations conjure up philosophical absolutes that excuse departures from moral norms...
...The answer emerges rather piecemeal from his pages...
...But the importance of Harrington's book does not lie in its review of the past, by turn compassionate and scathing...
...The "new" socialism is not going to take the form of a storming of the barricades by a united working class, because the modern working class, "broken up in small units, spread out throughout the society, and engaged in simplistic, and sometimes isolated, tasks . . . often seems much less impelled to trade-union and political action than the old...
...I stress the fact that Sweden is a country almost obsessively concerned about its culture and education: indeed, the "Swedish disease" may be said to be a chronic mild moral hypochondria...
...It recognizes the "rights" of private ownership of the means of production...
...The `decommodification' of life is a critical aim of the new socialism...
...The Stalinist nightmare aside, it is a story of gradual deterioration from an activist social movement to a debating society...
...Smith revealed the market to be a source of economic order, but he never suggested that it could provide political or social orderliness...
...Thus it begins with explicit "hypotheses" that set the stage for the argument to come...
...asks Harrington...
...This raises the crucial point that socialization need not serve only the interests of dominant economic elites but can also cater to those of political elites, hardly supportive of the proposition that socialism will be a means of rescuing humanity from socialization "from above...
...Harrington's socialism is very much of the kind that Sweezy deplores...
...Perhaps a social order can move by increments from one configuration to another profoundly different one, but the prospects for such an evolutionary transition are not good, above all under the forced draft of the socialization process of the twenty-first century...
...Harrington's answer goes in a different direction...
...That's understandable, but totally wrong in the sense that what is needed is the negation of capitalism, not the removal of its excesses...
...In addition, Sweden has already "decommodified" important parts of its everyday life by providing heavily subsidized housing facilities for the elderly, excellent day care centers for children, first rate public health facilities for all, and a system of public education that is without equal in the world...
...Specifically, in the case of capitalism they pay no heed to a structural characteristic of the system that has proved to be the basis of much of the liberties it has developed...
...The first hypothesis is that "the fate of human freedom and justice depends upon social and economic structures...
...In a footnote on the Soviet Union he calls communism "an antisocialist system of bureaucratic collectivism" and declares that he does not see its history as part of the socialist tradition...
...It legitimates economic flows of income called rents, interest, and profits...
...Let us therefore pursue the debate from Harrington's point of view...
...Alas, that unpleasant prospect may come to pass, whether we support socialist values or capitalist ones, if the process of socialization continues apace, or if history plays the wild cards it flashes from time to time...
...This bifurcation of rights and powers is as unique and constitutive an element of capitalism as is its use of market exchange as the means by which social surplus is put into the hands of its dominant class...
...FALL • 1989 • 565...
...As a movement, its immediate future probably lies along the general compass settings that Harrington has sketched out...
...Socialists [must] synthesize their long run transformations of the way people work and live with short run responses to serious economic and social disturbances...
...Harrington makes it very clear that socialism is a risky enterprise...
...Harrington tells how Rudolf Hilferding, the brilliant Marxist theoretician of the 1920s, advised the German tradeunion movement that it was fruitless to seek relief from the Depression: "Depressions result from the anarchy of the capitalist system...
...It is a movement whose energies and purposes are to replace governance by invisible and incomprehensible forces with the conscious responsibility of citizens over the direction of their own public lives...
...Not least, Sweden has led the world in its willingness to transfer capital and human resources to the underdeveloped countries and to serve in the U.N...
...Once again, however, I register this caveat to head off the opposition rather than to dismiss Harrington's argument...
...As before, one can pick away at the premise...
...Perhaps the journey may end in a world that negates our own in ways that we would not wish...
...whereas under socialism there can be a "genuine socialization" that will prevent the process from ministering to the requirements of capitalist elites and open it to the needs of the majority of citizens...
Vol. 36 • September 1989 • No. 4
