Weiss on Wolff

As always the blog comes across an article that it can very much associate itself with. Such is this article called 'The Narrow Horizon of Richard Wolff’s “Socialism”' by Seth Weiss writing on the Marxist Humanist Initiative website. 

It is a penetrating critique of the popular proponent of 'anti-capitalism', proposals which the author explains do not “...constitute an alternative to capitalism. There is also no good reason to believe that it would offer a path to a new society, or that it would improve workers’ lives. Nor would Wolff’s proposal offer immunity from the periodic and often devastating economic crises and downturns that beset us. In fact, what Wolff purports to reject — measures that represent 'just another version of capitalism'— is precisely what he prescribes. The problem is that Wolff rarely ventures beyond the realm of distribution to confront capitalism’s underlying production relations. In fact, what Wolff is advocating, what he projects as 'socialism,' would leave the underlying basis of domination in capitalist society — value production — completely intact. A truly “fundamental change” demands more than a redistribution of surplus-value, even if workers have control over that redistribution. Instead, it demands uprooting value production itself.”

This article by Weiss is well worth further quoting as it is an effective demolition job on someone often approvingly cited by progressives of the American Left.

“...If the “employer/employee relationship” was dismantled, as Wolff proposes, and workers were in a position to make investment decisions themselves, they would still face all of the present-day constraints imposed by value production. Say, for instance, that workers in one firm decide that they want to invest in better healthcare, rather than in the latest labor-saving technology. What happens if other firms in their industry invest in the new technology? And what happens if, as a consequence of these other firms’ investment decisions, the socially necessary labor-time required for the production of the commodities that all of these workers manufacture falls? The workers who choose not to invest in the new technology may have better healthcare but no jobs, if their production costs have become too high for their firm to remain competitive in the marketplace. Absent state intervention or monopoly conditions, no firm can sustain selling its products at prices that reflect a labor time required in production that is greater than the social average...”

“...Wolff points to worker-run co-operatives, especially the famed Mondragón co-operative in Spain’s Basque region, as a concrete example of what he proposes. However, the experience of Mondragón is not nearly as rosy as Wolff would like us to believe...” [A point that this blog has also highlighted.] ...The employment of sweatshop labor abroad also belies Wolff’s contention that co-operatives like Mondragón show the path to uprooting the “employer/employee relationship.” And so too does the co-operative’s employment of temporary workers at home in the Basque region. The employment of temporary workers offers co-operative members a shield from the vicissitudes of the market, allowing members to maintain their jobs in periods of recession while temporary workers are let go...”

“...Wolff conflates his conception of “socialism” with that of Marx. However, Marx advanced an entirely different conception...”

“...Wolff is right in saying that “we need to think bigger” than social democratic reformism, but we also need to think bigger than Wolff...”

Obviously, we do not endorse everything Weiss has to say but the full article is of interest and well worth a read.