Category: Politics

Review of "Left Out: Pragmatism, Exceptionalism, and the Poverty of American Marxism, 1890-1922"

Brian Lloyd’s book Left Out: Pragmatism, Exceptionalism, and the Poverty of American Marxism, 1890-1922 gives an intellectual history of the early socialist thought in America. He claims that too much of the historical writings on this period has taken for granted the Marxist nature of American Socialists by simply categorizing the two major tendencies into Reform and Revolutionary Socialism (ex: Ira Kipnis), and then begins with careful consideration of the thoughts developed within socialist journals such as the Masses, the New Republic as well as the “socialist” books published at the time.

From here the book begins with an exposition of pragmatism as conceived by William James and Dewey. Lloyd shows the differences between these two thinkers that have often been conflated into a singular “pragmatist school,” largely due to the work of the former to create a unique “American” philosophy, and how it is vastly different from the Marxist holism. These thinkers, defined as they are by empiricist epistemologies, focus on biological and cultural dispositions, functionalist psychologizing, positivism and, in the case of James, dualism. If this seems like a strange opening for a Marxist intellectual history of early American socialist parties, it is done so in order to show the heterodox and unstable nature of socialist ideology at the time.
These two liberal are shown to have greatly influence the intellectuals writing for the socialist press and Lloyd further demonstrates the authority upon which Spencerian notions of social/cultural development, Veblenian economic stages, Nietzschean and Bergsonian concepts of the Will/interest and Darwinian determinism affected the “scientific” theories emerged in Progressive and socialistic discourses. In addition to these divergences form Marxist thought, the various socialist parties would at times rely upon small-producer ideologies – as evidenced in the Granger movement and the farmers faction of the Socialist Party – in order to act as an organizing principle.

Several intellectuals prominent within the socialist discourses of the time are then brought under scrutiny to show how the intellectual framework they used was more inspired by pragmatist notions than Marxist ones. The explanatory concepts used by of Eastman, Fraina, Hillquist, Boudin, Seligman and others are shown to be amalgams of naturalistic science and bourgeiouse thought. Several of these supposed socialists actively seek to discredit Marx, either because he is “foreign” and thus unfamiliar with the U.S.’s unique conditions, or as he has been discredited by Bernsteinian notions of evolutionary socialism, or simply because he wrote in a time so far removed that his concepts no longer apply to the non-competitive capitalism of the time. There were even those that claimed that Marx was really a pragmatist and a positivist, and would cloak their language with the terminology of Marx in a ceremonial fashion but really then would combine empirical data and the highly subjectivist new psychology within a framework of economic determinism that has naught to do with Marx.
It is from this exegesis that Lloyd pulls out how it should have been no surprise how all of the aforementioned socialist intellectuals were pulled into the nationalistic and xenophobic discourses justifying repressive social measures under the auspices of liberal values and crypto-imperial aspirations at the beginning of World War I. By exhaustingly limning the conceptual limits of hayseed empiricism, practical idealism, inchoate liberalism, “great men” theories, economic monism, etc. that characterized American “Marxism” and the Second International, their policies of exceptionalism become more understandable. As can readily be understood from the above, not only is their understanding of the path towards socialism completely divergent from the epistemological-ontological philosophy of Marx and instead steeped in exceptionalism, but the ramifications of such a position are then shown after the October Revolution. Many of the above thinkers go from Socialists to Anti-Communists, some of who became employed within various levels of government as political advisors to Woodrow Wilson.

The last 50 pages of the book outlines in broad detail the Marxist-Leninst position on a Socialist movement and provides a philosophical counterfactual to the projects of the various socialist groups. Lloyd is careful to state that he does not claim that were these American “revolutionary” organizations to adopt a dialectical and historically materialist ideology they would have been successful. He does, however, describe a clear contrast to the various pseudo-Marxisms and their myriad blind-spots. While this is done throughout the book as well, here we see a systematic presentation of the poverty of American Marxist thought.

Review of "Diplomacy"

One cannot possibly come to terms with an understanding of the State if one doesn’t factor in the many bureaucrats with varying degrees of intelligence and skill that are tasked with incarnating it to other nations. Whether it is to provide warnings should certain conduct continue, apologies or explanations for a certain occurrence, actionable information to assist an ally or any of a hundred other possibilities – the role of the diplomat to collective security in peace and war is the utmost importance. In this regard, and for many other reasons, Henry Kissinger’s book Diplomacy is a key reading for those concerned with the factors and forces that have composed the current system of international relations and continues to do so.

Kissinger’s opening outlines a metaphysical divergence between two approaches to international relations embodied in two different presidents, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Denoting them respectively as a realist and an idealist, Kissinger limns the valences of each position and leads this discussion of different philosophical approaches to international relations into a broad reaching history of the European continent and the role that diplomacy and war had in forming the nation states of modern Europe.

In the following sections one reads not only the tactics and plans of great statesman such as Metternich, Gladstone, Disraeli, Palmerston, Richelieu, and Bismark but also the ones who played into the hands of their opponents and hobbled themselves as a result and/or were simply inept, such as Napoleon III. This period covers from the 18th century onwards and gives insight into the various war, agreements, alliances, histories and desires of the European nations. These are not just an account of what happens, but also paeans to those practitioners of Realpolitik that Kissinger respects with expressions of commiseration for some given the situation that they have inherited or must now face given the growing role of private citizens in government. Such elite disdain for those which seek some control in government is first couched in German nationalistic reactions and later in the conception of the anti-Vietnam War movement in America as a fifth column for Ho Chi-Minh.

One of the recurring themes of these praises couched in policy analysis is that the weight of uncontrollable circumstances, oftentimes in the form diplomacy not actualized with the proper considerations of audience and history, causes the collapse of the temporarily brokered peace and leads to war. In the chapter entitled “A Political Doomsday Machine,” Kissinger describes the string of bad policy decisions made on behalf of the Prussian Kaiser that caused the First World War to break out with most of the countries against them. Their emotionalism, inability to define long-range projections, bellicose paternalism towards their ostensible ally Great Britain and dogged determination to prove their superior capacity even at the cost of making repeated mistakes.

This tendency for conflict whose ends is spoils of land and waterways, natural resources and productive population is something that we see not only in the diplomatic history Kissinger outlines, but as a metaphysical composition of states themselves. In this it is interesting the manner in which Kissinger focuses on the theater of Europe and elides much of the United States own interventions from the 19th century onwards in order to frame his adopted country as a self-less, disinterested isolationist.

Kissinger excels in formulating his exegesis on the needs of various states as essentially geo-political with ideology and religion as mere masks to this. Britain wants to prevent the emergence of a great European power that could threaten to invade it so will forgive all previous misdeeds done against it in order to ally with the enemy of their enemy. Russia seeks the route to Constantinople and the Straits so it could control the Eastern Mediterranean. France wants to prevent the unification of the Germans so that a united front of once small kingdoms against it is impossible. This constant movement from different levels of abstraction, state to person to industry, shows just how much the Hegelian mode of historiography and dialectic comprehension has influenced Kissinger.

Interspersed throughout the books are pithy statements that give insight into statecraft such as: “A leader who confines his role to his people’s experience dooms himself to stagnation; a leader who outstrips his people’s experience runs the risk of not being understood” (43). In this we see that Kissinger, a noted Harvard academic, writes not just as a historian, but as a formative part of history. This is one of the aspects which makes Diplomacy such a wonderful book is not only for all of the above reasons but as Kissinger was, and at the time of my writing this still is, a major figure amongst the circle of actors directing American foreign policy. This is the reason for so much ire directed at him by those with some kind of moralizing lens. As such, it is no mistake to say that midway through the book, around the period that Kissinger himself is writing about his experiences in conducting statecraft, that these writings can be seen as important to the writings of Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War, Xenephon’s Persian Expedition or even Caesar’s The Conquest of Gaul .

In the period immediately preceding his ascent, with the collapse of European hegemony in the third world and the rise of the bi-polar system, Kissinger lays out the arguments of the others playing important roles in the formation of international policy. He states the policies of Winston Churchill, Walter Lippman, and Henry Wallace as regards the threat of possible confrontation with Soviet Russia and shows the underlying presuppositions in the policy of each. While most view Kissinger as a hawk, in the exegesis of his own positions it becomes clear that he was not so and always sought to avoid direct confrontation. One of the noteworthy aspects of these sections detailing U.S.-Soviet relations is the manner in which Kissinger states that despite their tendency towards soaring rhetoric of impending war, the Soviets were afraid of potential combat with America troops in the period prior to their obtaining nuclear weaponry and even after they had achieved parity for plans were either for Mutually Assured Destruction or a conventional war they were unlikely to win.

After limning how the rationale for the Marshall Plan was a form of Soviet containment and giving extensive details about the origins and reasons for continuance of various conflicts in Asia, Kissinger devotes a the last part of the book to recounting his time in the Nixon administration and detailing the quagmire known as Vietnam. He doesn’t shy away from addressing the various criticisms leveled at him in the period during and following the war, and his explanations why it was that tactical considerations trumped humanitarian ones seem valid due to the books theme showing that raison d’etat is the guiding principle of international relations and will likely continue to be so as those that act otherwise tend to become IR losers. As such, the influence of game theory on Kissinger’s approach to politics comes to the foreground as well as his tendency towards using the “realist” approach by justifying it in terms of “idealist” politics. Such an approach to policy making, never needed to be used by his aristocratic idols, stems from the populist character of modern politics. This presents an alternative from the Roosevelt-Wilson split in orientation outlined in the beginning and is a situation that Kissinger displays a soft contempt for given his belief that only specialists should control policy.

Review of "The End of History & The Last Man"

Whether Hegel is the philosopher of bougeoisie normalcy, as in Carl Schmitt’s reading of him, or he is a crypto-radical, as is claimed by Left Hegelians such as Marx and Engels, Hegel’s reception and subsequent interpretation can be seen as a litmus test for the times. Liberals battling a hearty communist opposition will decry him, but those in ascendency will appropriate his thought. The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama is a work of the latter, though only partially so as Fukuyama’s reading of Hegel is filtered by Kojève’s Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit and not a thorough reading of Hegel.

Fukuyama’s book celebrates the liberal hegemony which emerged following the collapse of the Soviet Union, points to the at-the- time-of-publication potentially precarious situation in China and to other dictatorial nations through out the world as evidence for the emergence of a liberal world order. Notwithstanding the current contradictions this neoliberal world order is evincing, Fukuyama centers his book around the grand concepts that are typical of Marxian works, such as Universal History, Human Nature and Thymos – capitalized to illustrate Fukuyama’s idealist conception of them – while rejecting historical materialism as non-viable. He does this, however, by conflating it with an ahistorical Soviet Union that is presumed to provide evidence towards an eschatological end in favor of liberalism. The small number of countries not now made in what is roughly but not precisely the image of America will all soon join the international market as an equal partner and obtain the benefits which accrue under a liberal capitalist regime.

Fukuyama goes on to point out many of the productive and democratic inequalities found within the post-World War world and views these as endemic to the type of governments in power rather than the level of cultural and technological achievement reached by these people. Thus historical underdevelopment and near constant political conflict in Latin America is elided as are the benefits of selective import substitution, one of the manners in which the United States was able to build up capital following the Civil War and thus come into it’s own as a world power. A series of economic arguments follows based upon the Austrian school of economics. Some of his claims in this field are stronger than others, however his explanations as to why it was that those governing the Soviet economy weren’t able to accommodate the rising expectations of people and maintain social stability relies more on Kojeve’s interpretation of Hegel than the historical circumstances. Using these two concepts, the preference in valuating the individual over the community and the supposed dysfunction inherent in non-nearly-pure capitalist economies, he then starts slugging at planned economies and the governments that enforce them.

These swipes against centralized economies are easily turned against the anarchy of the markets a few years later. For instance, Fukuyama’s claim that centralized economies have not succeeded in making rational investment decisions, or in effectively incorporating new technologies into production process is proven to be hollow not twenty years after it’s publication. Most of the countries that had a fair amount of regulation and planning the past two decades, Colombia, Argentina, Sweden, Canada, are now those that are the least affected by the current global economic crisis. Additionally, there is the evidence provided by decentralized economies against Fukuyama. Patterns of investment in the United States were not towards productive technologies but towards exploitation of lower wage populations following international trade deregulation and byzantine financial instruments that allowed for an upward transfer of wealth to the ultra-rich.

Capitalism under a liberal aegis is also supposed to eradicate the conflict inherent in religion, racism and xenophobia. Countering his one-time mentor Samuel Huntington, Fukuyama conceives the world as moving inexorably towards a place wherein these “antiquated” identities disappear amidst the power of money. This is not to say that poverty won’t make some of these tribal alliances stick, however the number of sub rosa resentments that leads to heightened conflict amongst various communities is conceptualized as ever being diminished until the point where the only value of a persons worth is nothing but their income and capital reserves. Additionally, it is this turn against the cosmopolitan, international community that Fukuyama describes as the main conflict in international relations today. Tribalism and ethnocentrism are to him a friction keeping the smoothness of liberalism from manifesting itself in a New World Order wherein the Master-Slave dialectic disappears. Addressing Hegel and Marx’s analysis that this continues to a large extent due to capitalist relations is not addressed.

Because it addresses both philosophy and history in a way that has been out of fashion for a while I can understand why so many people responded to Fukuyama positively. But as should be evident thus far, I find there are many significant problems in Fukuyama’s approach to historiography, his exegesis of Hegel and his approach to international relations. As in my book reviews I seek to avoid extended critical responses and instead provide merely a taste of what’s inside, in this case I find the fruit rotten and can’t help but refer the reader to Alex Callinicos’ extensive criticism of Fukuyama in Theories and Narratives: Reflections on the Philosophy of Historyand Jacques Derrida’s Specters of Marx. While neither are solely devoted to The End of History and the Last Man, they are both instructive to understanding the gaps in liberal eschatologists like Fukuyama.