The fundamental error of Marxism is not its understanding of
capitalism – this was spot on – but its understanding of history, which was
borrowed from Hegel. In this
understanding history is viewed as a more or less linear progress, i.e. ‘higher’,
more ‘advanced’ stages following the ‘lower’, more ’primitive’ ones. This conception of linearity is well embedded
in the Western thought, from Aristotle, to Thomas Aquinas, to Hegel, to Marx,
and to Teilhard de Chardin, but I am digressing. The fundamental error in this linear
conception of history is conflating changes in technology with those in human
relations: since changes in technology are more or less linear, so must be the changes
in human relations.
This Western conception of history, however, is not the only
one possible. An alternative conception,
embedded in the Eastern thought, is cyclical.
This cyclical conception is more appropriate for understanding human
relations. Unlike technology, human
relations move in cycles, or rather oscillate between two “yin and yang” – like states: concentration
and diffusion of power. Changes in
technology often undermine the concentrated power, starting the diffusion
semi-cycle, but at some point they enable the concentration of power, triggering
the concentration of power semi-cycle.
Industrial revolution undermined the power concentrated in the
hands of landed nobility and diffused it among the nascent bourgeoisie. Marx observed the advanced waning stage of
this concentration of power semi-cycle and, interpreting it within the linear
conception of history prevalent in the Western thought, he concluded that this
tendency will continue on a more or less straight line leading to the total
diffusion of power among the working class.
Had Marx been born Indian or Chinese, however, he might have
applied a cyclical conception of history, and view the 19th century capitalism
as a power diffusion semi-cycle, followed by the power concentration
semi-cycle. Karl Polanyi adopted such a
cyclical understanding of history, but again I am digressing. This cyclical interpretation, in my opinion,
would be more accurate than the linear one.
The nadir of power concentration occurred circa 1960s-1970s with the
peak of the welfare state in the West and decolonization of the Global
South. This nadir was followed by the
waxing stage of power concentration, triggered by advances in information technology
and “neoliberalism” in social relations that followed. These technological advances simply provided a tool for the
elites to concentrate power in their own hands.
We still seem to be in this waxing stage of power
concentration. That is to say, we are
moving back, so to speak, to an earlier stage in human history when power was
even more concentrated. Alas, “neoliberalism”
is a misnomer. We are not going back to
the “liberal” stage of development, in which nascent industrialists and
merchants challenged the concentrated power of the nobility. At least not yet. We are heading toward the “feudal” stage in
which the power was concentrated in the hand of the nobility and their vassals,
so the proper term if not “neoliberalism” but “neofeudalism.”
Stated differently, we are approaching a stage in which the
main social division is not that between public and private, or this or that
ethnicity, but between the small group of nobility that, like their medieval
predecessors, combine both public and private spheres in their own personae, a
somewhat larger group of their vassals, such as the military, the police, the
academia, and the media, who are instrumental in projecting the power of the nobility,
and a vast number peons that have little power, little wealth, and few if any
rights. This is the foreseeable future
of the “new economy” and its looks pretty much like the old dark ages.
If the cyclical conception of history is right, this zenith
of concentrated oligarchic power will not last forever. Given the fast pace of technological changes,
it will end sooner rather than latter, triggered by some material change
rendering the information technology increasingly useless in maintaining the
concentrated power. It could be a new
technology, an environmental catastrophe, a global war, or something totally
unforeseen. But one thing is almost
certain – it will get worse before it starts getting better. We will see even greater concentration of
power, before we see its diffusion. The
only relevant question, in my mind, is not whether this happens, but how
fast. Marx hoped for a radical change
during his life time. It is not
unrealistic to hope for the same today, especially that the pace of
technological change seems considerably faster today than during Marx’s life
time.
