Quote: "Marxism was a fiercely industrial-rationalist faith that by nationalizing capital, productivity could be unfettered, unleashing an era of abundance." This is incorrect. This applies to state communism, but not to Marxism. Marx ultimately believed in a stateless society, so it makes no sense to say that he was proposing that the nationalization of capital would bring about abundance. Instead, the transitional dictatorship of the proletariat was to dismantle both the state and capital; the communist society that followed was to realize rationalized production. But it was not a productivist philosophy either. Say's Law and other foundations of Marxist theory reject productivism in favour of rationalized production, where the medium of exchange is, directly, labour. There is no consumerism, and the impression of Marx's communist society is of a fairly Spartan lifestyle. State communism is a whole other thing - you would be best to specify it as the Leninist branch of Marxism, and it is indeed a productivist philosophy.
Posted Aug 23 2008 05:06PM