Dialectic, Cosmos, and Society
Issue Four
Introduction
Paul Almeida: Marx, Nature, and Ideologies of Ecological Crisis
Anthony Mansueto: The Current Situation in the European Countries of the Former Soviet Bloc
Anthony Mansueto: The Natural Sciences: Anthropic Cosmology
To An Old Comrade: In Memory of Tony Cassano
INTRODUCTION
With this issue we introduce some changes into the format of
Dialectic, Cosmos, and Society. Our principal focus will continue
to be cutting edge theoretical articles which explore the concept of
synergism, analyze the conditions for the emergence of a
synergistic form of social organization, and apply synergistic
thinking to various arenas of social life. We plan to begin,
however, a systematic examination of several vitally important
areas of public policy: social policy, economic policy, the
international system, and education, science, and culture policy.
Each of the next several issues will contain one or two major
articles analyzing one these areas in some depth, as well as brief
reports on current developments. We are also beginning a new
series of articles on recent developments in the natural sciences
which we think have important implications for the transition to
synergism.
Our theoretical article in this issue is by Paul Almeida. Almeida
examines the two major philosophical bases of the modern
environmental movement: namely, Deep Ecology and sustainable
development. Almeida evaluates the analytical power and depth
of these two ideologies from the perspective of Marxist political
economy and sees shortcomings particularly in their analysis of the
societal problematic that allows environmental degradation. Mr.
Almeida proposes a dialogue between Marxists and
environmentalists that will lead to a deepening of social analysis
and political strategy for both. He envisions the development of
a "ecological Marxism" that can address both the degradation of
the natural ecosystem and the degradation of the social fabric. We
invite our readers to comment on Mr. Almeida's perspective.
Our second article analyzes the current situation in the European
countries of the former Soviet bloc. The article outlines the
important strategic assets of the region--i.e. its potential to make
vitally important contributions to the development of humanity in
such areas as mathematics and theoretical physics, medicine and
cosmonautics--and the danger that these strategic assets will erode
as the result of declining investment in the public sector as the
economy of the region undergoes rapid privatization and economic
liberalizations. Preservation of these assets is in the interest not
only of the people of Eastern Europe, but of humanity generally.
The article identifies the principal organizations resisting the
current policy of privatization and liberalization and argues that
progressive forces should offer those organizations their
conditional and critical support.
Our series on current developments in the natural sciences begins
with an article on anthropic cosmology. Recent research has
focused attention on the fact that many key physical constants,
including the relative strengths of gravitation, electromagnetism,
and the strong and weak nuclear forces, are fixed at just precisely
the levels necessary to make intelligent life possible, and, some
cosmologists suggest, necessary and inevitable. If this is true, it
clearly has profound implications for our understanding of the
larger significance of humanity in the cosmos.
We conclude with a tribute to an old friend and comrade, Antonio
Cassano, who died last year.
MARX, NATURE,
AND
IDEOLOGIES OF
ECOLOGICAL CRISIS
Paul Almeida
"Let us not, however, flatter
ourselves overmuch on account of
our human conquests over nature.
For each such conquest takes its
revenge on us. Each of them it is
true has in the first place the
consequences on which we counted,
but in the second and third places it
has quite different, unforeseen
effects which only cancel out the
first." (Engels in Parsons
1977:179)
We are faced with an
unprecedented ecological crisis as
we enter the twenty-first century.
It is a crisis in the sense that we
don't know the outcome. Are the
life-support systems of the globe
beyond repair? Do we have the
human agency to restructure our
economic, social, and political
institutions in a different
relationship with nature and
ourselves? Marxist theory is
invaluable in the process of
developing a viable alternative to
the ecological crisis. The dominant
paradigms attempting to explain the
ecological crisis are both ahistorical
and theoretically flawed.
The current ecological crisis
is also a societal crisis.
The current ecological crisis is also
a societal crisis. Marx has given
us the lenses to see ecological
problems in their totality. We can
now see the exploitation of the
environment as also an exploitation
of humans. Each stage of historical
development creates a specific
nature. Air pollution in the United
States can not be perceived as a
result of simply "bad technology"
such as the automobile. It is rather
a result of the oil industry and auto
industry colluding after World War
II in order to overcome the barrier
of militant trade unions in mass
transportation. The majority of
chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's)
released in the atmosphere are from
automobile air conditioners (26%)
that cause ozone depletion
(Cameron, 1992). The smashing of
militant unions is inscribed in air
pollution and ozone depletion.
Deforestation in Central America
can not be interpreted as just an
overpopulation problem. The
maldistribution of land forces
thousands of peasants into a
marginal existence by either
migrating to the cities, working in
the environmentally disastrous
agro-export sector, or fleeing into
the remaining forests to scrape out
an existence in subsistence farming
on non-subsistent soil (Barry 1987).
When viewed through a Marxist
analysis, the ecological crisis can
be seen as a social, political, and
economic crisis. This is the
shortfall of the dominant ideologies
of nature that exist in the
environmental movement today:
from biocentrism to sustainable
development there exists no
sophisticated account of the relation
of capital, history, or the state to
the ecological crisis. A brief
overview of these eco-philosophies
will be necessary before critiquing
them.
Two of the main eco-philosophies
today are
overpopulation/biocentrism (or
Deep Ecology) and the idea of
sustainable development. Many of
today's largest and most influential
environmental organizations and
movements use these schools of
thought as their ideological
framework. Even though these two
philosophies are distinct, many of
their concepts intermesh.
The leading proponent of the
overpopulation thesis over the last
25 years has been Paul Ehrlich, a
population biologist. Ehrlich
outlined the overpopulation crisis in
his classic work The Population
Bomb (1969). As a biologist,
Ehrlich is very much influenced by
an evolutionary view of the human
species overproducing itself. The
fundamental problem is that the
birth rate is increasing ever faster
than the death rate until some
inevitable cut-off point. This for
Ehrlich not only causes a tragedy
for human beings but destroys
external nature at an unprecedented
rate. Ehrlich is not ignorant of the
role played by history, technology,
or culture in this problem. The
agricultural revolution ten thousand
years age was the beginning of the
rapid population growth found by
Ehrlich (1971). The key historical
event in relation to population
growth, though, was the onset of
the Industrial Revolution. "Around
1800, when the standard of living
in what are today the developed
countries was dramatically
increasing due to industrialization,
population growth really began to
accelerate. The development of
medical science was the straw that
broke the camel's back." (Ehrlich
1968:32) Ehrlich's analysis has
validity at the level of description.
Though Ehrlich sees culture and
history playing a role in
overpopulation, the basis of his
ideas stem from a socio-biological
model.
During all those centuries of our
evolutionary past, the individuals
who had the most children
passed on their genetic
endowment in greater quantities
than those who reproduced less.
Their genes dominate our
heredity today. All our
biological urges are for more
reproduction, and they are all
too often reinforced by our
culture. (1971:16)
There are two inevitable solutions
to the overpopulation problem:
either we control the birthrate or
increase the deathrate. For Ehrlich
the optimal number of humans
inhabiting the planet at any one
time would be between 500 million
and 1 billion people. Since the
current human population is over 5
billion, Ehrlich sees the "deathrate
solution" as inevitable while still
personally favoring and working on
programs to lower the birthrate,
such as his organization Zero
Population Growth (ZPG). Ehrlich
expects that the population checks
identified by Malthus--war, disease,
famine--will increase the deathrate
and lower the population. Ehrlich
predicted that we would see these
"checks" operating in the 1970's,
80's and 90's.
All three of these checks have
occurred in the last twenty years.
But the geopolitical and socio-
economic factors give far more
explanation to these wars, famines,
and diseases than natural
Malthusian population checks. In
Mozambique, right-wing guerrilla
forces backed by the South African
government block food transport,
putting five million people at risk
of starvation (Africa News 1990).
Cholera hit Latin America at the
same time the International
Monetary Fund was imposing strict
economic austerity measures on
Latin American governments. This
action led to deep cuts in state
spending in the social sector,
including funding for the
enforcement of health and
environmental regulations. The
current crisis in Somalis is far more
related to its colonial history and its
being in the cross-fire of the Cold
War than to a lack of resources.
In The Grundrisse, Marx addresses
the problem of overpopulation
while critiquing Malthus.
(Malthus) thereby implies that
the increase of humanity is a
purely natural process, which
requires external restraints,
checks, to prevent it from
proceeding in geometrical
progression. This geometrical
reproduction is the natural
reproduction process of
mankind. He would find in
history that population proceeds
in very different relations, and
that overpopulation is likewise a
historically determined relation,
in no way determined by abstract
numbers or by the absolute limit
of the productivity of the
necessaries of life, but by limits
posited rather by specific
conditions of production. (Marx
1857/1978:276)
It is clear in this passage that Marx
believed that overpopulation is
rooted in history and cannot be
separated from the conditions of
production that characterize a
society or the world in the late 20th
century. In critiquing Ehrlich and
the overpopulation thesis, we must
not lose sight of the contributions
of this school of thought. There is
no contradiction in a synthesis of
Marx and Ehrlich as long as
Ehrlich's analysis remains at the
level of description when speaking
of human overpopulation. Ehrlich
is a biologist. His studies of
species extinction and
environmental degradation in
general are invaluable in explaining
what's happening to the ecology of
the planet. Marx provides us with
a theory of history and a historical
nature which takes us further back
on the causal chain of the
ecological crisis behind
overpopulation.
Deep ecology philosophy grew out
of many of the premises of neo-
Malthusianism. The founder is
Arne Naess, a Norwegian
philosopher who coined the term
"deep ecology" in the early 1970's.
In 1985, Bill Devall and George
Sessions laid out the framework of
this philosophy in their book Deep
Ecology. Deep ecology can be
seen as a critique of the
Enlightenment and the dominant
worldview which is centered
around the human individual. This
philosophy sees the rise of
industrialization, Christianity, and
the dominance of Western culture
as creating a destructive human
relationship with nature. Modern
societies are built around the
benefit of humans at the expense of
the environment and other non-
human life forms. The idea that
humans have come to dominate
nature is repulsive to deep
ecologists. The ecological crisis
stems from the anthropocentric
nature of modern society.
Modern societies are built
around the benefit of
humans at the expense of
the environment and other
non-human life forms.
The solutions offered by deep
ecology to environmental
degradation are based around the
idea of biocentrism (i.e. all life
forms having equal and inherent
value). Humans need to live as
lightly as possible on the planet in
order not to disturb natural
ecological processes.
The practical implications of this
intuition (biocentrism) or norm
suggest that we should live with
minimum rather than maximum
impact on other species and on
the Earth in general. Thus we
see another aspect of our guiding
principle: simple in means, rich
in ends. (Devall and Sessions
1985:68)
Besides living simply, deep ecology
calls for a reduction in the human
population in both industrialized
and underdeveloped nations based
on the ideas of Naess.
In deep ecology we have the
goal not only of stabilizing
human population but also of
reducing it to a sustainable
minimum without revolution or
dictatorship. I should think we
must have no more than 100
million people if we are to have
the variety of cultures we had
one hundred years ago. Because
we need the conservation of
human cultures, just as we need
the conservation of animal
species. (Naess in Devall and
Sessions 1985:75-76)
The final point that characterizes
deep ecology is the belief that
humans need to internalize
biocentrism into a kind of self-
religion. To deep ecologists this is
a "total view" of the world which
includes all of nature and can also
provide the impetus for motivating
people into environmental action
(Devall and Sessions 1985).
A Marxist perspective offers two
critiques of deep ecology. Marx
saw the specific human relationship
to nature determined by the level of
societal control over its forces. In
the German Ideology Marx saw
natural religion (which shares
similarities with biocentrism) as a
result of the lack of human control
over nature and as a type of
alienation. Biocentrism is not
consistent with the material
conditions and the level of
domination over nature that exist in
the late 20th century from a
Marxist analysis. Deep ecology as
a motivating force for
environmental activism is merely
idealism for Marxists. The
biocentric ethic is lacking in
potential in that it does not
accurately reflect the specific
contradictions of late capitalism.
Deep ecology doesn't question how
the dominant worldview that
separates humans from nature came
into existence. Deep ecology
defines this worldview as simply a
bad idea that needs to be changed.
Marxists have a theory of history
connected to concrete conditions
that give rise to ideologies that
provide the veil for the destruction
of nature.
The second Marxist critique of the
idealism of deep ecology is its
fundamental concept that humans
need to "live simply." Deep
ecologists use soft words like
"industrial society" or
"technocratic-industrial society"
when referring to the economic
system (Bookchin 1988). Deep
ecology has no theory of capital or
its circulation nor of their relevance
to the ecological crisis. The
followers of deep ecology believe
we can just lower our standard of
living and concentrate on meeting
our "vital needs" (Devall and
Sessions 1985). This poses a
contradiction to Marxism in that
"capital not only creates the objects
that satisfy needs but also creates
the needs the objects satisfy"
(O'Connor Lecture 1990). This is
a fundamental rule of the self-
expansion of capital. Capital is
always in need of new markets and
growth. The social-psychological
dynamic of this process is that
members of capitalistic societies
internalize the needs created by
capital in their own need structure
(Marcuse 1992). Again, the
question must be asked of deep
ecology: what are the material
conditions that would influence
individuals to begin consuming less
in modern industrial societies if
wages remain constant?
What would influence
individuals to begin
consuming less in modern
industrial societies if wages
remain constant?
The final critique of deep ecology
which may be the most significant
in terms of its consequences is its
call for a dramatic decrease of the
human population. Naess' idea of
lowering the population to 100
million is quite a bold statement.
Groups like Earth First! embraced
this thesis during the 1980's. Earth
First! has publicly stated it is in
favor of closing off the US border
to Latin America immigrants and
not sending relief into Ethiopia
during the famines to let nature
take its course (Bookchin 1988).
Earth First! takes the ideas of neo-
Malthusianism and biocentrism to
their logical conclusion. This can
be viewed as a contribution to the
environmental movement by putting
into practice deep ecology's guiding
principles and exemplifying their
limits as viable alternatives to the
ecological crisis.
Another major force in today's
environmental movement is the
sustainable development thesis. It
is most often represented by the
United Nations and Lester Brown's
World Watch Institute. In 1987, a
United Nations sponsored
commission released a report
defining sustainable development.
"Sustainable development is
development that meets the needs
of the present without
compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own
needs." (World Commission on
Environment and Development
1987:43) This document became
known as the Brundtland
Commission Report. For three
years (during the mid 1980's), this
commission, composed of
representatives from around the
world, traveled the globe in a study
to find out the concerns of people
and governments about
development and the environment.
The report found many structural
problems at the root of global
ecological deterioration. These
problems include the
maldistribution of the world's
resources, the dependence of
economic growth on fossil fuels,
and overpopulation. The report
outlines important perspectives on
ecological problems, especially
from a Third World viewpoint. It
takes into consideration the link
between poverty and environmental
degradation, the Third World debt
crisis, and the overconsumption that
occurs in industrialized nations.
In order to realize sustainable
development, the Brundtland
commission emphasizes change at
the level of policy. If government
and the United Nations could come
together and implement
environmentally sound policies,
then we could start the process of a
sustainable future. In summary,
many of our ecological problems
that exist today are a result of bad
policy from this perspective.
Society has failed to give the
responsibility for preventing
environmental damage to the
'sectoral' ministries and agencies
whose policies cause it. Thus
our environmental management
practices have focused largely
upon after-the-fact repair of
damage: reforestation,
reclaiming desert lands,
rebuilding urban environments,
restoring natural habitats, and
rehabilitating wild lands. The
ability to anticipate and prevent
environmental damage will
require that the ecological
dimensions of policy be
considered at the same time as
the economic, trade, energy,
agricultural, and other
dimensions." (World
Commission on Environment and
Development 1987:39)
The other major work on
sustainable development comes
from the World Watch Institute.
The Institute publishes a yearly
report, the State of the World
Report, on the conditions of the
global environment. The 1992
State of the World Report is a
compilation of analyses from
different affiliates of the Institute.
After detailing the most threatening
global ecological problems such as
ozone depletion, global warming,
overpopulation, and loss of
biodiversity, the last few selections
offer an analysis of environmental
sustainability.
One of these articles, by Hilary
French, focuses on global
regulation of the environment.
French points to two key
international treaties as positive
steps toward a global governance of
the environment. These treaties are
The Law of the Sea (1982) and the
Montreal Protocol (1987). The
Law of the Sea treaty is an
international agreement on the use
of natural resources in the ocean.
This law regulates fishing and
ocean mining practices. French
points out that this treaty set an
unprecedented international
agreement in protecting oceanic
resources but in the end has fallen
short of expectations. This was
because developed nations refused
to provide technological and
financial transfers to
underdeveloped nations to prevent
them from over exploiting their
coastal waters. In the context of
the debt crisis and the need for
foreign exchange, Third World
states had no choice but to continue
using environmentally unsound
fishing and mining practices
(French 1992).
The Montreal Protocol calls for a
reduction in global
chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's)
emission. Ninety-three nations had
signed the treaty by 1990 which
calls for a complete end to CFC
production by the year 2000. This
treaty has been relatively successful
because leading producers of
CFC's like Dupont have found
profitable alternatives (French
1992).
Lester Brown, the executive
president of the World Watch
Institute writes the concluding
article of the 1992 World Watch
Report. Brown calls the path to
sustainability the "environmental
revolution." Besides international
treaties, Brown views government
taxing as influencing industries to
invest in environmentally sound
practices and products.
Taxing environmentally
destructive activities, such as
carbon emissions, the generation
of hazardous waste, and the use
of virgin materials, permits the
market to operate unimpaired,
taking advantage of its inherent
efficiencies while steering it in
an environmentally sustainable
direction...the challenges for
companies is to ask whether
there is a place for their products
in an environmentally sustainable
economy. (Brown 1992:178)
Brown continues with this theme by
giving the example of Ben and
Jerry's Ice Cream. It is an
environmentally sustainable
economic enterprise to Brown in
that they use all natural ingredients
and give large contributions to
environmental causes (Brown
1992). The environmental
revolution would pick up even
more steam for Brown if more
individuals got involved in
pressuring the state to regulate the
economy from naturally destructive
practices.
In orthodox Marxist terms, the
possibility of sustainability defined
above is limited. Sustainable
development ideology is constructed
around the idea that the nation-state
and international agencies need to
implement a rational environmental
policy. Marxists have a theory of
the state that is based on the belief
that the state exists only in the
interests of the dominant classes
and of private property. Marx's
often quoted statement from The
Communist Manifesto clearly points
to this. "Political power, properly
so called, is merely the organized
power of one class for oppressing
another...The executive of the
modern state is but a committee for
managing the affairs of the whole
bourgeoisie." (Marx
1848/1975:62-63) In the late 20th
century, with the rise of state
Keynesianism and the relative
autonomous state, orthodox
Marxism becomes an
oversimplification in describing the
functions of the state. It can be
argued, though, that these
developments of 20th century
capitalism can be seen in the
context of the state acting in the
interests of capital as a whole.
The sustainable
development thesis focuses
at the level of policy. It
doesn't ask why these
policies have not already
been implemented.
The sustainable development thesis
focuses at the level of policy. It
doesn't ask why these policies have
not already been implemented. It
wants to regulate capital and have
capital internalize its social and
environmental costs which it sees
as more profitable for capital and
the environment as a whole. Thus
sustainable development means
sustained profits (i.e. sustainable
capitalism). In the neo-Marxist
perspective sustainable capitalism is
unlikely. O'Connor has found that
capitalism is too contradictory to be
sustainable even in "greening"
production.
I do think, however, that a
certain amount of green
capitalism is possible to the
degree that such a system
doesn't not challenge or threaten
the structures of privilege and
power which capitalism depends
on. Many companies today are
wooing consumers with green
products. But all the green
consumption in the world will
not change the fact that
aggregate consumption must
stand in a certain relation to
investment for capitalism to
work, and that aggregate
consumption is not regulated by
consumers but by the rate of
profit and accumulation--and the
limits of the credit system.
(O'Connor 1992:14-15)
"...all the green
consumption in the world
will not change the fact that
aggregate consumption must
stand in a certain relation
to investment for capitalism
to work, and that aggregate
consumption is not
regulated by consumers but
by the rate of profit and
accumulation..."
Sustainable development does not
take into account capital's ability to
overcome barriers when regulated.
The limit to this ideology is that it
attempts to control capital rather
than address its fundamental self-
destructive nature.
The Marxist alternative to the
ecological crisis is in its theoretical
infancy. The terms EcoMarxism,
Ecological Socialism, and the Red-
Greens are all used to describe this
school of thought. It is rooted in
Marx's conception of nature and
what happens to humans and nature
under capitalist forms of
production. Environmental
movements that address social
inequality simultaneously are part
of this movement. The major
theoretical framework around this
emerging movement is the concept
of a "second contradiction" of
capitalism. This term was coined
by O'Connor. It deals with what
both Marx and Karl Polanyi
identified as the "conditions of
production." "According to Marx
there are three such conditions: the
'personal conditions,' i.e. human
labor power; the 'communal,
general conditions,' i.e. urban
space, communication, and
transportation infrastructure; and
the 'external conditions,' i.e.
environment or nature."
(O'Connor 1992:1) The conditions
of production are treated like, but
not produced as, commodities. In
summarizing the second
contradiction of capitalism, capital
is presently undermining the
reproduction of its own conditions
of production. The overall
deterioration of the conditions of
production leads capital into a crisis
of underproduction. This gives a
broad theoretical definition of
ecological crisis which includes in
its spectrum issues of
environmental health in the work-
place and struggles over urban
renewal. The first contradiction of
capital can be seen as related to the
second in that capital's drive to
lower costs (i.e. cuts in
environmental and worker safety
regulations) creates the increased
probability that the second
contradiction will be played out.
The significance of this emerging
theory is that it provides a material
and objective base for new social
movements. The other dominant
ecological ideologies and
movements are based on ideas of
what should be, but lack any type
of material analysis that would
motivate people into action. New
social movements are emerging in
the battle over the conditions of
production. People want a healthy
work-place environment, land to
grow food on (in the rural Third
World) instead of being forced to
work in the chemical dependent
agro-export sector, and inner-city
communities are organizing and
asking why polluting industries are
set up disproportionately in their
neighborhoods. A type of
ecological socialism may provide
the appropriate synthesis needed as
a guide in these struggles.
New social movements are
emerging in the battle over
the conditions of
production.
The spirit of this analysis is not to
offer Marxism as the only solution
to the ecological crisis. It is rather
to show the serious limits of the
current dominant ideologies behind
the environmental movement and
crisis. Marx and Marxists have
invaluable contributions to make in
the search for a solution to the
social-ecological crisis of the late
20th century. Do we naively
attempt to make capitalism
sustainable through national and
international state policy, or look at
the problem of overpopulation from
a socio-biological model that
neglects history, classes, and the
demographic upheavals that are
related to the global expansion of
capital? Marx offers us a theory of
capital, the state, and history that
can be used as intellectual tools in
addressing our current crisis. Neo-
Marxists have taken up Marx's
themes to analyze the specific
contradictions of society today.
The emerging synthesis of ecology
and socialism may provide concrete
conditions for social action instead
of the idealism of biocentrism. The
integration of Marxism into
ecological thinking and the
integration of ecology into Marxism
should be perceived as a
progressive step forward in history
for those concerned with the
environment and those concerned
about social inequality.
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Schmidt, Alfred
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World Commission Report
1987 Our Common Future, New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
In this issue we begin a series of
articles exploring the current
situation in several strategically
important regions of our planet.
The purpose of this series is two-
fold. First, we hope to bring to
our readers information which is
not currently available in the U.S.
press--information which we think
will give them a rather different
picture of the current situation in
these regions. In addition to
information available in the U.S.
press, we have drawn on
information and analysis from
published reports of U.S. and
other intelligence sources, such as
the Foreign Broadcast Information
Service, reports from members of
our network who live and work in
the regions analyzed, and reports
taken directly from international
press sources. Second, we want
to begin to develop a new
approach to the analysis of
international and geopolitical
questions: one which is
authentically globalist and
internationalist and which takes as
its starting point the interest of
humanity in general, rather than
that of any particular nation.
Such an approach will focus on
identifying the strategic assets
which each country or region
possesses, which can make a
contribution to the all-sided
development of human social
capacities, and to the creation of
a synergistic mode of social
organization--and on identifying
the obstacles to the full
development and mobilization of
those assets for the good of
humanity in general. This means
that we will often assign primary
strategic significance to
developments which would
ordinarily be considered to have
only secondary importance from
an international perspective: e.g.
the former Soviet space program,
or certain religious movements.
We will also preface each article
with a brief analysis of the history
of the region. Political analysis,
especially in the U.S., often
suffers from a lack of such
historical perspective. Each
article will conclude with an
assessment of the strategic tasks of
progressive forces with respect to
the country or region in question.
We begin this series with an
analysis of the current situation in
Eastern Europe, or more precisely
in the European countries of the
former Soviet bloc. Subsequent
reports will analyze the situation
in the Islamic world, Latin
America, the Indian subcontinent,
Southeast Asia, East Asia, Africa,
and Western Europe. We will
conclude with a discussion of U.S.
foreign policy and a strategy for
making the U.S. an authentic
force for social progress.
The analysis presented here is
intended as a contribution by the
author to an on-going debate. It
does not represent the official
position of the Foundation for
Social Progress, or of the
Editorial Board of Dialectic,
Cosmos, and Society. Readers
are invited to respond.
THE CURRENT
SITUATION
IN THE
EUROPEAN COUNTRIES
OF THE
FORMER SOVIET BLOC
Anthony Mansueto
I. Historical Background
The current situation in the
European countries of the
former Soviet bloc can be
properly understood only in
the light of the distinctive
history of the region, which
is very different from that of
Western Europe. Two
factors are of particular
importance in this regard: the
relatively greater importance
of the village community in
the social organization of the
region, and the establishment
of relatively more centralized
state structures than emerged
in Western Europe.
Most of Eastern Europe lay
barely within or else beyond
the boundaries of the Roman
Empire (Anderson 1974). Its
principal inhabitants were the
Slavs --so called because they
were one of the Empire's
principal sources of slaves,
or esclavi. The Slavs were,
for the most part, agrarian,
and were organized on a
communitarian basis. Land
was held collectively by the
village community and
periodically redistributed
among the individual families
for cultivation, primarily on
the basis of family size. The
village elder together with the
village assembly also
exercised collective control
over matters of social
discipline. The village
community constituted the
matrix through which the
Slavs understood their
participation in human society
and in the cosmos generally.
The Russian word mir, for
example, (like the Hellenic
kosmos) means village
community, but also world,
universe, and peace
(Bogdanov 1928/1980,
Mandel 1968: 30-36, Wolf
1969: 58-63, Hayek
1973:37).
The Russian word mir,
for example, means
village community, but
also world, universe,
and peace.
Centralized tributary states
emerged in this region
largely in response to
pressure from foreign
invaders: first the Romans,
then various Nordic tribes
(such as the Rus, who gave
Russia its name) and later the
Tartar Mongols and the
Ottoman Turks. Slavic states
borrowed their political
structures and their state
religion from the Byzantine
Empire. The result was a
sacral monarchy in which the
ruler (often called tsar after
the Roman Caesar) was
regarded as the earthly image
of the heavenly Christ
Pantocrator (or Cosmic
Emperor), who appeared on
the domes of Byzantine, and
later Slavic churches (cf
Eusebius Or. Con 16: 4-7 in
Ruether 1974: 142).
The combination of
peasant
communitarianism and
imperial centralization
resulted in a social
structure characterized
by an unusually high
degree of collectivism,
and a culture with a
marked emphasis on
service to the state.
Along with preserving the
village community, Russia
and the Slavic East preserved
the institution of serfdom far
longer than did the West.
Indeed, the enserfment of the
Slavic peasantry was only
being completed at roughly
the same time the peasantry
of Europe was undergoing at
least formal emancipation.
"After passage of laws ever
more restrictive of the
peasants' right to free
movement, the peasant was
finally bound in full serfdom
to a given estate in the legal
code of 1649 and flight was
made a criminal offense in
1658 (Wolf 1969: 52,
Andersen 1974: 259, Blum
1961)." But the Russian and
other Slavic monarchies
circumscribed the liberties of
their nobles as carefully as
that of their peasants.
Patrimonial claims on the
land were broken: all land
belonged ultimately to the
state, with taxing rights
assigned to particular nobles
for a limited period in return
for civil or military service
(Konrad and Szelenyi 1979:
90). Gradually the nobility
was transformed from a class
of quasi-autonomous warlords
into a military and civil
service bureaucracy (Konrad
and Szelenyi 1979: 88-90).
Thus the concept of a
"service nobility,"
which derives its
privileges from service
to the common good,
the matrix out of which
the powerful civil
service and
nomenklatura
bureaucracies were to
develop.
At the ideological level, this
collectivist structure found
expression in two distinct
strains of the Orthodox
tradition. On the one hand,
the continued strength of the
village community gave
communitarian themes a
particular salience in Slavic
ideologies. Slavic orthodoxy
stressed the trinitarian, and
thus communal, interpersonal
character of the Christian
God. Religious and social
authority rested not in an
individual, be he Pope, Tsar,
or monarchic bishop, but
rather in the sense of the
community, and the power of
their collectivity--what the
Russians refer to as
sobornost. This
communitarian tendency
provided a counterpoint to
the sacral monarchy imported
from Byzantium, and
justification for resistance to
the self-consciously
monarchic papal West and
Islamic East--and for the later
emergence of Slavic
populism.
At the same time, certain of
the Slavic kingdoms--Bulgaria
and later and more credibly
Russia--saw themselves as the
Third and True Rome, the
first two (the second being
Constantinople) having fallen
because of their lack of
fidelity to the Orthodox
Christian faith. This gave
the Slavic domains generally,
and Russia in particular, a
historical consciousness that
can only be called messianic.
This messianic tendency was
reinforced in the historic
struggles against the Islamic
Tartar and Turkish empires
(for a good account of Slavic
ideology, cf Billington).
This collectivist structure had
a profound impact on the
process of industrialization in
Eastern Europe. Beginning
in the sixteenth century, the
region was gradually
incorporated into the
emerging world market.
This process did not involve
direct conquest, as in the case
of Asia, Africa, and the
Americas, but rather the
transformation of what had
been a relatively autonomous,
relatively primitive tributary
social formation into a wheat
and rye exporting periphery
of the developing West
(Anderson 1974: 257-259,
Konrad and Szelenyi 1979:
95). As in the colonized
regions, however,
incorporation into the world
market did not, at least
initially, mean the
abandonment of tributary
forms of exploitation and
their displacement by
capitalist forms, but rather
the intensification of the
forcible extraction of surplus
through rents, taxes and
forced labor, in order to
increase the production of
commodities for sale by the
nobility.
It was above all the
state, and not the
marketplace, which
became the principal
engine of
industrialization in the
Slavic east.
Surplus extracted from the
peasantry was used by the
state to finance investment,
primarily in capital goods and
armaments. This system
"placed the industrial
bourgeoisie, whose chief
customer was the state, in a
position of dependence.
What the state could not buy
went sooner for export than
to the domestic market
(Konrad and Szelenyi 1979:
97)." Konrad and Szelenyi
note that
It was a constant goal of
government economic
policy, through the whole
era of early rational
redistribution and indeed
on into the age of
socialist rational
redistribution, to maintain
state control over the
labor market. Control
over the peasantry was
achieved through the
village commune ...
Service nobility and
hereditary aristocracy
alike were obligated to
perform state service
(Konrad and Szelenyi
1979: 98).
State-led industrialization
required the development of
an enormous bureaucracy,
and thus the creation of a
secular intelligentsia
employed almost entirely by
the state. While much of this
intelligentsia was co-opted
into the nobility (the upper 7
of the 14 civil service ranks
conferring noble status), the
intelligentsia as a whole did
not share the nobility's
interest in preserving
serfdom. On the contrary,
both opposition and "police"
(state-employed or aligned)
intellectuals agitated for the
abolition of the system and
for development of more
rational models of cultivation.
The resulting structure was
thus characterized by a
double and to some extent
contradictory movement
towards revolution. On the
one hand the peasantry had
an interest in throwing off its
centuries-long domination by
the tributary state and
restoring fully the rights of
the peasant communities.
This meant not only an end
to serfdom, but also an end
to rents, taxes and forced
labor. The intelligentsia, on
the other hand, was interested
primarily in the
rationalization of a social
structure and a development
strategy in which it already
held a relatively favorable
position. This meant, first of
all, eliminating the
"irrational" claims on both
economic surplus and
economic authority advanced
by the autocracy and the
hereditary aristocracy, and
replacing them with a fully
meritocratic system. Second,
developing more efficient
methods of extracting and
investing the surplus
produced by the peasantry, in
order to promote the all sided
development of civilization.
Neither the bourgeoisie,
which was very small and
almost entirely dependent on
the state, nor the industrial
working class, had significant
social weight.
There were, broadly
speaking, two ways to carry
out this process of
rationalization. One
possibility, of course, was an
opening to the West and the
comprehensive
commodification of Russian
society. The second was
rationalization of the existing
centralized redistributional
structure. The choice of this
second option was determined
largely by the balance of
forces in Russian society.
No significant sector of
any East European
society was favorably
situated to profit from
the development of a
free market.
Even the bourgeoisie was
dependent on state purchase
of its products, and was
hardly interested in
competing with cheaper,
higher quality European
consumer goods.
The socialist project in the
former Soviet bloc must,
therefore, be regarded as in
fundamental continuity with
the process of state-led
industrialization which began
under the Tsars. It was, in
effect, a partial
rationalization of that
process, in the context of
which unproductive claims on
income and luxury
consumption were eliminated,
and the resources necessary
for industrialization
centralized by the state and
invested in accord with
rationally established norms.
The claims of the service
nobility, meanwhile, were
displaced by those of the
Leninist political leadership
and the nomenklatura, which
claimed to rule based on a
correct understanding of the
"line of march, conditions,
and ultimate generally result"
of the historical process
(Marx 1848.1978).
Orthodoxy was displaced, at
least formally, by Marxism-
Leninism, though anyone
who has studied Soviet
popular culture will find that
the principal forms of
Orthodoxy: omnipresent
icons, ornate public liturgies,
remained intact.
There were, to be sure,
important struggles over
precisely how surplus was to
be extracted from the
peasantry and how it was to
be invested once it had been
extracted. One tendency,
which found expression first
in the populist movement,
and later in the Communist
right opposition, regarded the
village community as the
basis for a transition to
socialist forms of property
and for the development of
socialist consciousness
(Radkey 1958, 1962; Venturi
1966, Lewin 1968,
Bettelheim 1976, 1978).
These forces looked to a
radical land reform, which
restored the rights of the
peasant community, to lead
to rising peasant incomes
creating both internal demand
for manufactured goods
(especially agricultural
implements) and for
education, training, etc. The
second and dominant
tendency, associated with
Stalin and the majority of the
Communist Party of the
Soviet Union (CPSU)
stressed the importance of
rapid industrialization, even
at the cost of extracting
"tribute" from the peasantry
(Lewin 1968, Bettelheim
1976/8).
This statist development
strategy had certain definite
advantages.
Commodification of the
Russian and other Slavic
economies would have meant
incorporation into the world
market as producers and
exporters of wheat and rye,
and later of petroleum and
other minerals. Revenues
from the export of these
commodities would have
accrued to large private
landowners, who would have
used them to support
constantly increasing levels of
luxury consumption.
Capitalists from the advanced
industrial countries of
Europe, North America, and
East Asia, meanwhile, would
have redeployed capital from
high wage, high technology
activities in their own
countries, to low wage, low
technology activities in the
East, as the organic
composition of capital
increased and the rate of
profit declined. When
Eastern Europe finally
industrialized, it would have
been as a producer of low
wage, low technology goods
for export to the capitalist
west.
The statist strategy
permitted Russia and to a
lesser extent the other
countries of Eastern
Europe to develop as
advanced industrial
powers, capable of
resisting foreign invasion
and economic domination,
and in fact of capturing
the lead in certain critical
areas of development:
material science,
cosmonautics, etc., and of
building one of the worlds
most advanced scientific,
educational, and cultural
complexes.
There were, however, real
limits to this strategy for
development. Centralization
and investment of surplus by
the state is a highly effective
method of creating
infrastructure, basic
extractive and capital goods
industries, and certain types
of advanced industrial
activities for which the state
plays the role of principal
consumer: production of
military goods, cosmonautics,
etc. It is also a reasonably
effective way of funding
schools, universities and
research institutes, museums,
musical companies, etc. At
the same time it imposes a
rigid limit on the complexity
of the activities which can
develop. Even if it is not
attempting to control the
development of new ideas,
the flow of information, etc.,
a centralized redistributional
system is likely to overlook
the many countless cutting
edge activities--new
technologies, new modes of
organization, new scientific
disciplines, new artistic
styles--which are not yet
sufficiently developed, or are
by nature too specialized, to
command the attention of the
state and thus the generous
financial support accorded
"grand projects." No one
mind, or group of minds, can
by themselves identify the
full range of opportunities for
development, much less plan,
organize, and direct activities
in all of these myriad spheres
of social life. And the
political structure of the
socialist state had no
mechanisms for identifying
and tapping into the diverse
networks, interests, talents
and aspirations of the
members of a complex social
system. And unless the
system has a way to
understand the interests and
aspirations of the people,
there is no way for it to
effectively challenge them to
develop new, more
productive and creative
interests.
Second, the socialist
state never succeeded in
eliminating the
marketplace in labor
power and consumer
goods, and thus never
found a way to
transcend the alienation
generated by these
structures (cf Marx
1844/1978).
In the Soviet bloc as
elsewhere the penetration of
market relations transformed
every activity into simply a
means of realizing individual
consumer interests, eroding
commitment to the socialist
project and to the human
civilizational project
generally, and creating a
corrosive and frustrated
consumerism.
The advanced capitalist
countries, meanwhile, kept
the Soviet bloc under
constant economic, political,
military, and cultural
pressure. Forced to invest an
enormous portion of their
social surplus product in the
defense of the revolution, the
countries of the Soviet bloc,
and the Soviet Union in
particular, were unable to
make much use of their
comparative advantage in the
world market as producers of
capital goods and certain high
technology products in the
fields of aeronautics and
cosmonautics.
Advanced elements within the
Communist Party of the
Soviet Union, led by Mikhail
Gorbachev, and some of the
other communist parties,
were aware of the first, but
not the second of these
dynamics (Gorbachev 1987).
They attempted to address the
limitations of the statist
development strategy by
giving greater scope to
market forces, and by
loosening political and
ideological controls.
Rather than unleashing
a new wave of human
creativity, however,
these changes simply let
loose a torrent of pent
up consumerist
sentiment, which
ultimately broke the
power of the
Communist Party and
led to the disintegration
of the Soviet Union and
of the Soviet bloc
generally.
II. The Current Situation
A. Strategic Capacities
We need now to identify the
principal strategic strengths
and weaknesses of the
European countries of the
former Soviet bloc: i.e. the
areas in which they have the
capacity to make important
contributions to the
development of humanity
generally, and to the creation
of a synergistic mode of
social organization, and those
areas in which their own
development has been held
back.
The principal strength
of the East European
countries resides in the
advanced technological,
scientific, educational,
and cultural apparatus
created by the socialist
state.
The old Soviet Union had the
largest number of scientists
and engineers per million
population (5,387) and the
highest research and
development expenditures per
GNP (6.2 per cent) of any
major nation in the world
(1988 figures, CRS Review
1992). The disintegration of
the Soviet Union has put
Russia even more clearly in
the lead in the number of
scientists and engineers per
million population (9,398).
Russian universities continue
to be highly rated.
According to the Gourman
Report, one of the principal
rankings of educational
institutions, the former Soviet
Union had 24 of the 74
universities outside the U.S.
with a rating of 4.0 out of
5.0, or higher, with Moscow
State University receiving a
rating of 4.93, equal to the
University of Michigan, and
behind only Harvard, the
University of California,
Berkeley, and the University
of Paris--and ahead of
Oxford, Cambridge,
Heidelberg, Yale, Stanford,
Chicago, and Princeton
(Gourman 1987: 159-160,
207).
Concretely this has made the
former Soviet bloc generally,
and Russia in particular, a
world leader in several fields
of the natural sciences. In
the field of mathematics,
Russia leads in such
specialties as mathematical
logic, topology, differential
equations, and functional
analysis. Russia is also a
leader in several areas of
physics and astrophysics,
especially particle physics,
low temperature physics,
aerodynamics,
hydrodynamics, mass
dynamics, and the molecular
structure of solids (Medish
1984: 176:ff). Perhaps most
important, however, are the
Soviet contributions in the
field of cosmonautics, where
they were almost
unquestionably the world's
leaders, particularly in the
areas of space propulsion and
the human exploration of
space. The Defense
Department has recently
purchased the Soviet Topaz
nuclear reactor, designed for
use as a space propulsion
system, and the Soviet space
station Mir represents
humanity's first attempt to
establish a permanent human
presence outside the earth's
gravity well.
It is often assumed that
political controls prevented
social scientists in the Soviet
bloc from making important
contributions. This is not
really true. Eastern Europe
has long been a leader in the
field of linguistics and the
Soviet Union has played an
important role in the
development of systems
theory (Susiluoto 1982),
building on the historic
contribution of Alexander
Bogdanov (1928/1980).
Eastern Europe has even
nourished some critical
tendencies in dialectical and
historical materialism, such
as the teleological humanism
associated with Lukacs
(1971) and the Praxis group
in Yugoslavia.
Soviet bloc achievements in
the arts and in international
athletic competition are well
known. Russia in particular
has nourished a vibrant
literary tradition, including
what is probably the most
artistically developed
tradition of science fiction
writing on the planet.
Soviet science fiction
served as an important
vehicle for exploring the
problems of socialism,
while contributing to
the elaboration of an
enormously hopeful
vision of humanity's
future.
Oliver Wendell Holmes once
wrote that "When I pay taxes
I buy civilization."
By centralizing the
entire social surplus
product in the hands of
the state, the citizens of
the Soviet bloc
countries, even in the
face of enormous
military pressure from
the United States--and
in the face of the real
limitations of the state
structure as a catalyst
for promoting human
development--purchased
a truly enormous
quantity of civilization.
They also purchased a
military machine and a
security apparatus which, in
addition to defending their
social experiment, provided
important protection (not only
to Eastern Europe, but to the
world) against authoritarian
tendencies latent in East
European societies, and
against the growing threat of
Islamic fundamentalism in
Central Asia. The internal
costs of this military machine
were very real, but its
imminent collapse represents
a real and unforeseen danger
to human civilization, as
ethnic fragmentation and the
rise of antisemitic, fascistic
movements tear the region
apart, and as Iran and
Afghanistan move to form a
unified Islamic power in
Central Asia.
The region also has a number
of secondary strengths.
While there is growing
evidence that the combined
impact of market and
bureaucratic structures have
had a corrosive effect on the
social fabric, it is probably
safe to say that the population
of the countries of the former
Soviet bloc is less atomized
and less individualistic than
the United States and many
of the countries of Western
Europe. This means that
residual communitarian
tendencies within the
population are stronger--
tendencies which receive
political and theological
expression in the sobornost
tradition within Orthodoxy,
and in various forms of neo-
populism. Such tendencies
constitute an important
strategic reserve for
progressive forces working to
conserve the strategic assets
of the countries of the former
Soviet bloc, and to eventually
build a movement towards
synergism.
It is also important to
point out some areas of
real weakness in the
former Soviet bloc.
First of all, the region
has suffered perhaps
unparalleled ecological
degradation.
Chemical and nuclear wastes
threaten to make much of
Eastern Europe uninhabitable.
Where there is the necessary
political will, socialism
makes it possible to control
pollution and develop and
implement sound ecological
policies. Clearly this will did
not exist under the CPSU and
its client parties, which were
locked into a linear,
industrial understanding of
human social development.
Second, the level of political
organization of the population
is very low. By the end of
the 1920s the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union had
degenerated into a mechanism
for exercising political
control rather than for
organizing and developing the
masses. While it successfully
prevented the re-emergence
of reactionary, proto-fascist
and neoliberal tendencies (a
danger the magnitude of
which is only now becoming
apparent), it did nothing to
develop the capacity of the
people to reorganize their
society at a higher level of
complexity, and is thus
partially responsible for the
current political stalemate.
Restoration of ecological
integrity and the creation of a
democratic public arena are
among the most important
tasks facing the region if it is
to overcome its current crisis.
B. Social Structure
The full development of the
region's strategic capacities,
and the rectification of its
weaknesses is being held
back by the rapid process of
privatization and
liberalization which is
underway throughout most of
the region. Generally
speaking this process is
proceeding in two phases.
First, in response to the
demands of international
creditors, most of the
governments of the region
have undertaking a program
of economic liberalization.
Prices have been deregulated
and subsidies for basic
consumer goods reduced or
eliminated. State
expenditures have been
drastically reduced,
meanwhile, causing
stagnation in the wages of the
employees of state enterprises
and of the state funded
political, military, scientific,
and cultural establishments,
and undercutting investment
in these areas.
Second, state enterprises are
gradually being either
liquidated or sold off. This
process is most advanced in
the countries of Central
Europe, where three principal
models prevail. Voucher
privatization, dominant in the
Czech Republic, involves the
distribution to the population
of negotiable vouchers for
shares in formerly state
owned enterprises. In
Hungary, the government has
actively sought foreign
investment, either forming
joint ventures or selling
factories outright. In Poland
joint labor-management
ownership competes with
what has come to be known
as "liquidation privatization,"
as the assets of state owned
enterprises are simply sold
off to private domestic and
foreign entrepreneurs.
Privatization in Eastern
Europe is much less
advanced, and has largely
taken the form of the
formation of low technology
"cooperatives" producing
consumer goods or building
luxury housing, and of a
small number of new foreign
investments. Russia is just
now establishing a legal
framework for more or less
open international trade and
investment. (On the process
of economic liberalization
and privatization in Eastern
Europe cf Bush 1992, Fischer
1992, Hardt and Kaiser 1992,
Whitlock 1992, and Wyzan
1992).
The result of these
policies has been to
initiate a rapid
devalorization of the
most advanced sectors
of the economy.
Scientists and engineers are
abandoning state research
institutes for positions in new
private enterprises, which
rarely tap into their expertise.
Others are leaving the
country entirely. The level
of activity in Russia's space
program has dropped
precipitously as vital
scientific missions are
cancelled or postponed.
Capital is being shifted from
high technology to low
technology activities as the
development of a capital
market creates a profit
differential between various
sectors of the economy,
(Horrigan 1992). There are
reports that one nuclear
processing facility, for
example, has been
transformed into a Coca-Cola
bottling plant. This process
of devalorization is taking
place within the context of a
larger systemic economic
collapse. Industrial
production in Russia has been
dropping at an annual rate of
17.6%, and monthly
inflation rates hover around
20-25% (Whitlock 1992).
Should this process continue,
the end result will be the
incorporation of Eastern
Europe into the world market
as a platform for the export
of low and intermediate
technology manufactured
goods, petroleum and other
minerals, and (possibly) grain
and other agricultural
products--i.e. essentially the
position it would have
enjoyed had the Russian
revolution never taken place.
The countries of
Eastern Europe will
undergo rapid economic
(and political)
polarization.
Declining investment will
lead to the rapid decline of
the countries' high
technology, scientific,
educational, and cultural
establishments, undermining
the one area in which they
currently enjoy a comparative
advantage in international
markets. This would not
simply represent a
disadvantageous position for
most of the population of the
East European countries; it
would also represent a
serious loss of human
productive capacities in
strategically very significant
areas of vital importance to
humanity generally.
C. Political Trends
The peoples of Eastern
Europe are not unaware of
this problem. On the
contrary, most East European
countries are currently
undergoing rapid economic,
political, and ideological
polarization around precisely
this issue. In order to
understand this process, it is
necessary to analyze the
rapidly changing class
structure in the region.
Under socialism there are
four principal social
categories:
a) the technical,
managerial, political,
military, scientific, and
cultural bureaucracy,
which derives revenues
from organizational
control over the
productive apparatus,
often in excess of its real
contribution to the
production of value,
b) the working
intelligentsia--i.e. skilled
mental workers,
c) the industrial, clerical,
and service proletariat--
internally differentiated
by skill and by economic
sector, with higher
skilled workers in
strategically more
important sectors
enjoying a more
advantageous position,
and
d) the peasantry--both
independent and
collective farm.
As market forces break up
what remains of the old
socialist structure, these
classes are undergoing rapid
differentiation. This is
especially true of the
bureaucracy and the
intelligentsia. On the one
hand, significant sections of
the managerial bureaucracy,
especially those in low wage,
low technology sectors, have
begun to privatize the
enterprises which they
formerly managed for the
state, and to form joint
ventures with foreign capital.
Many members of the
intelligentsia, similarly, have
begun to form small private
enterprises, often in fields
which make very poor use of
their intellectual skills.
At the same time, those who
have not been drawn into the
private sector have seen their
real incomes shrink rapidly.
Enterprise managers in
sectors not amenable to
privatization, or dependent on
state funding, as is the case
with most high technology
activities, artists, scientists,
athletes, engineers, and
others dependent on fixed
salaries, have shared much
the same fate as assembly
line workers in decaying state
owned industries and peasants
on the collective farms.
The first group constitutes the
core constituency for the
neoliberal trend which has
been dominant in the region
since 1989. This trend has
adopted wholesale the radical
pro-market ideology which
was dominant in the U.S. and
Europe during the 1980s, and
which these countries are
now abandoning. (For a
statement of the neoliberal
position, cf. Hayek 1988).
Typical of this trend are
Russian President Boris
Yeltsin's Republican Party
(Teague and Tolz 1992),
Czech Prime Minister Vaclau
Klaus' Austrian School clique
in Prague (Fischer 1992), the
Polish Liberal Democratic
Congress of former Prime
Minister Balcerowicz (Vinton
1992) the Bulgarian United
Democratic Front
(Engelbrekt 1992), and the
Hungarian Alliance of Free
Democrats (Oltay 1992).
When in power these parties
have pursued neoliberal
economic policies with a
vigor which makes the
Reagan and Thatcher
governments seem moderate
by comparison (Bush 1992).
All of these neoliberal
groups have recently
been removed from
power, or else suffered
other serious political
setbacks, as the people
of Eastern Europe
mobilize to defend their
strategic assets.
We should note, however,
that neoliberalism exercises
significant influence outside
the groups which are
ideologically committed to it.
Several governments led by
former communists have
implemented elements of the
neoliberal economic program
partly because of pressure
from international lending
institutions, and partly
because of the lack of a
clearly defined program of
their own.
Arrayed against the
neoliberals is a diverse and
fragmented opposition, within
which it is possible to
identify four distinct trends.
On the far right there is the
so-called "brown" trend: a
cluster of nationalistic,
populist and reactionary
religious tendencies. This
trend has its basis among
what one Russian analyst
described as
semi-intellectuals ..not
well prepared for a
successful professional
career, but .. college-
educated and ambitious
... People of this type
perceive democratization
as a threat to their own
interests because they are
not ready for normal
professional and political
activity (Deriugin 1992:
6-7)
Ideologically, this trend has
its roots in nineteenth century
slavophile ideologies which
stress the distinctive historical
path taken by Russia and the
Slavic world generally, and
which are often infused by a
sense of messianic destiny.
Some elements within this
trend look to a restoration of
the monarchy, others to a
modern dictatorship of the
fascistic variety. The trend is
infused with varying degrees
of antisemitism.
This trend is well represented
in Russia, where it includes
Pamyat, which is rabidly
nationalistic, authoritarian
and antisemitic; the more
religiously oriented but no
less antisemitic People's
Orthodox Movement; the
somewhat more moderate
Orthodox Constitutional
Monarchist Party (Deriugin
1992); and the secular
nationalist, and terribly
misnamed Liberal
Democratic Party of
Vladimir Zhironovsky
(Teague and Tolz 1992).
Other "brown" tendencies
include the Croatian Party
of Historic Rights, the
Serbian Radical Party
(Moore 1992), the Greater
Romania Party and the
Party of Romanian National
Unity (Shafir 1992), the
national-populist tendency
within the Hungarian
Democratic Forum (Oltay
1992) and the group around
Gamsakhurdia in Georgia
(Fuller 1992).
Because of their narrow
nationalism and ideological
rigidity, these groups have
difficulty forming unified
regional or even national
blocs. The aims of Russian
browns generally include re-
establishment of the Soviet
Union, something which
nationalists in other countries
resist vigorously. Much the
same situation obtains in the
former Yugoslavia. Russian
browns are divided by
numerous differences over
the monarchy, the leadership
of the Russian Orthodox
Church, etc. There is some
evidence, however that
brown forces are beginning to
unify. Russian nationalists
formed the Russian National
Assembly (the Sobor) in June
1992, and links are
developing between Russian,
Serbian, and Romanian
nationalist forces.
Second, there is a spectrum
group of centrist forces, of
varying ideological
orientations. Christian
Democrats, an important
force in Poland and Hungary,
but present throughout the
region, advocate creation of a
mixed economy with
significant worker
participation in ownership
and management of capital,
and with a significant role for
non-market, non-state
(especially religious)
institutions in education and
social services. It is
important to distinguish,
within the broad Christian
Democratic trend, between
parties of a conservative
Christian nationalist
orientation, such as the
Christian National Union in
Poland, which have marked
"brown" tendencies, and
groups such as the
Democratic Union which,
while inspired by Christian
and especially Catholic social
teaching reject
confessionalism and
nationalism (Vinton 1992).
Groups such as the Russian
Civic Union incorporate a
variety of excommunist
elements which have no real
commitment to revitalizing
the socialist project, but
which also reject neoliberal
proposals for rapid
liberalization and
privatization. The Civic
Union includes the following
formations:
The People's Party of
Free Russia is led by
Russian Vice President
Rutskoi, who was
expelled from the
Communist Party of the
Soviet Union before the
August 1991 coup for
forming a democratic
faction within the party.
Rutskoi supported Yeltsin
during the coup and
participated in the
defense of the Russian
White House, but soon
broke with him over
questions of economic
policy. The party no
longer regards itself as
socialist but supports
establishment of a mixed
economy with strong
social guarantees. The
People's Party of Free
Russia is the largest party
in the country with
around 100,000 members
(Teague and Tolz 1992).
The Democratic Party of
Russia was formed by
members of the
Democratic Platform
group of the CPSU, and
supported Yeltsin in the
1991 Presidential
election, but became
increasingly impatient
with him over his
willingness to permit the
disintegration of the
Soviet Union. The party
stands a bit to the right of
the People's Party of
Free Russia, and is more
open to pro-market
"reforms." With 50,000
members it is the second
largest party in the
country, and probably
has the strongest party
organization (Teague and
Tolz 1992).
Renewal was established
by the Russian Union of
Industrialists and
Entrepreneurs, and
represents the interests of
directors of state-owned
enterprises, especially in
the defense sector. The
party sees itself as the
representative of the
"creative" forces of
society free from both
"ideological dogmas or
alien patterns," probably
a reference to the rigidity
of the old statist structure
on the one hand and the
neoliberal policies
imposed by the
International Monetary
Fund and the World Bank
on the other hand. It
looks towards the
establishment of a
"socially oriented,
regulated market
economy." The group's
most important leader,
Volsky, regards Italy,
where the economy is
54% state owned, as the
ideal (Teague and Tolz
1992).
New Generation is a
small group composed
mostly of people in their
30s and 40s which has
situated itself between the
neoliberal and neo-
communist forces and has
focused in particular on
criticizing authoritarian
tendencies in the Yeltsin
government, including
the decision to ban the
CPSU, which it regards
as unconstitutional
(Teague and Tolz 1992).
Also properly regarded as
part of the centrist trend are
the various social democratic
groups and those of the
reorganized communist
parties of the region which
remain committed to the
program of perestroika--The
Russian Socialist Workers
Party led by Roy Medvedev,
which supports Gorbachev's
last program, the Polish
Democratic Left Alliance,
the Hungarian Socialist
Party, and elements of most
of the other neo-communist
parties of the region: the
Bulgarian and Serbian
Socialists, the Romanian
Democratic National
Salvation Front, the
Georgian Democratic
Union, etc. For the most
part this trend lacks a clear
direction, but has gained
significant support in recent
months (winning elections in
Romania, Lithuania, and
Georgia, for example, and
improving its position in
Bulgaria) largely on the basis
of a commitment to slow the
process of "reform" and
devote greater attention to
preserving both national
technological and military
assets and some kind of
social safety net. This trend
has its principal social base
among the more forward
thinking elements of the
nomenklatura bureaucracy,
and the senior echelons of the
intelligentsia. Outside
Russia, however, it has been
able to draw very significant
worker-peasant support
(Fuller 1992, Teague and
Tolz 1992, Vinton 1992,
Shafir 1992, Engelbrekt
1992, Kagarlitsky 1992).
Third, there is a growing
"red" bloc which seeks to
restore socialism as it existed
before perestroika. This
trend, represented by groups
such as the Russian
Communist Workers Party,
elements within the Serbian
Socialist Party, and the
Romanian Socialist Labor
Party, has a social base
largely in the political and
military bureaucracies, and
among those elements of the
peasantry, working class, and
intelligentsia hardest hit by
the crisis. This trend has a
strong nationalist coloring,
and its short-term program is
centered on preserving
national technological and
military assets, and on
protecting the rights of
Russian, Serbian, etc.
nationals living in other
countries of the increasingly
fractured region. In Russian
and Romania especially,
these groups have showed
evidence of profound
antisemitism (Teague 1992,
Shafir 1992, Gallagher 1992).
Finally, there is a small
grouping of left-wing
socialists, based mostly
within the intelligentsia, who
still look forward to a
revitalization of the socialist
project. These are people
who were supportive of
perestroika, but skeptical of
the ground it yielded to
market forces. The most
important of these groups is
the Party of Labor in
Russia. "Green" groups,
such as Ecoglasnost in
Bulgaria have raised similar
questions. This tendency
lacks a real program for the
future, and despite the
publicity they have received
in the left press in the United
States, many of our Russian
contacts, including some who
might be expected to be
sympathetic to or at least
interested in their programs,
are not even aware of their
existence.
III. Strategic Considerations
It should be apparent by now
that Eastern Europe has
profound strategic
significance for progressive
forces. This significance is
rather different, however,
from that which the
communist movement and the
national liberation movements
historically assigned to the
socialist bloc: i.e as the
vanguard of the great
historical movement which
was leading humanity in its
struggle to transcend the
marketplace. The Soviet
Union functioned more as a
strategic reserve than as a
leading force in that struggle,
with the most advanced
strategic thinking coming
from other regions of the
planet.
The importance of this
region rather, and of
Russia in particular,
derives first and
foremost from its
leading role in the
technological, scientific,
and cultural
development of
humanity.
Of particular importance are
the Soviet Union's
achievements in the area of
physics, especially
astrophysics and cosmology,
and in cosmonautics, where it
is arguably the world's
leader. East European
contributions to linguistics
and Soviet contributions to
systems theory are also an
important global strategic
asset. The region continues
to have considerable
geopolitical significance, as a
bulwark against both neo-
fascist tendencies in Central
Europe and resurgent
fundamentalist Islam in
Central Asia. The region
also conserves, as we noted
above, certain cultural
traditions--the sobornost
tradition in Orthodoxy and
the tradition of Russian
populism--which may
contribute to the development
of a synergistic mode of
social organization.
What should our stance be
towards the current situation
in the European countries of
the former Soviet bloc? In
the long run, of course, we
would like to encourage the
development of authentically
post-industrial tendencies
which understand the need to
transcend both market and
plan, and to work towards a
synergistic mode of social
organization. Inside Russia
such tendencies are most
likely to emerge among the
left wing socialists grouped
around people like Boris
Kagarlitsky and the Party of
Labor, and among those
socialists who remain faithful
to Gorbachev's vision of
perestroika--Gorbachev
himself, who has established
a research institute to explore
the future direction of the
country, and Roy
Medvedev's Socialist Worker
Party. Outside Russia they
are most likely to emerge
either within the pro-
perestroika factions of the
reorganized communist
parties and among the
"green" opposition.
Unfortunately these are
currently the weakest forces
in Eastern Europe.
In the short and medium run
it is necessary to prevent
further destruction of the
region's enormous
technological and human
capital resources, the further
dismantling of its
multinational state structures
and the spread of ethnic
fragmentation, and to
preserve the region's capacity
to contribute militarily to the
resistance to neo-fascism and
fundamentalist Islam. This
means working with forces
which, while their long-term
vision may be somewhat
lacking, have the capacity to
form governments and
reverse the process of self-
destruction which is at work
in Eastern Europe. Three
groups stand out:
a) the reorganized
communist parties,
including, where necessary,
those that never fully
grasped the necessity of
perestroika,
b) the center forces, which
are beginning to understand
the dangers of
neoliberalism: Christian
Democrats, centrists such
as the Russian Civic Union,
Social Democrats, and pro-
perestroika elements among
the former Communists,
and
c) soft "brown" forces, i.e.
nationalists willing to
renounce violence and
antisemitism.
Such groups have enough in
common to form broad
popular fronts to defend the
region's strategic assets and
political and cultural
integrity. Moderate liberals
and social democrats would
help to contain authoritarian
tendencies on the part of the
"red-brown" forces, while
nationalists and neo-
communists combatted liberal
and social democratic
infatuation with the
marketplace. Informal
international networks, such
as that currently being
formed between the
Romanian Democratic
National Salvation Front, the
Serbian Socialist Party, and
the Russian opposition,
meanwhile, could be
expanded to contain ethnic
fragmentation and the spread
of armed conflict.
This is, of course, precisely
the sort of government which
is currently in power in most
of Eastern (as opposed to
Central) Europe. As we
noted above, reorganized
communist parties currently
govern Lithuania, Belarus,
Ukraine, Georgia,
Yugoslavia, and Romania,
though the governments of
the former Soviet republics
still seem rather obsessed
with nationalist concerns. A
non-party government was
recently formed in Bulgaria
with the support of the
Bulgarian Socialist Party.
Centrist forces have gained
strength in Hungary, Poland,
and the new Slovak Republic.
The neoliberals remains
strongest, unfortunately,
where there is the most to
lose: in the highly
industrialized Czech
Republic, and in Russia. But
even in Russia there are signs
of change, as Gaidar's
replacement by a centrist
indicates.
Our support for such an
alliance would be conditional
and critical. It would be
conditional on the imposition
of rigid discipline on
nationalist members of the
coalition prohibiting
antisemitic and neo-fascist
activities.
Nationalists should be
forced to choose
between a credible
strategy for preserving
the strategic assets and
the political and
cultural integrity of
their countries and
engaging in childish
antics.
In the long run, left and
center forces must re-
hegemonize East European
patriotism in the context of a
commitment to global
integration as a high
technology export economy
which makes important
contributions to the all-sided
development of humanity.
Our support would be critical
in the sense that we would
seek to engage the alliance in
a dialogue regarding
a) the need to restore
ecological integrity and
establish a democratic
public arena which makes
it possible for the
political leadership to
analyze and tap into the
networks, interests,
talents, and aspirations of
the masses while
challenging them to
develop to a higher level,
and
b) the need to develop a
synergistic mode of social
organization which
transcends both market
and plan.
Our support for such an
alliance would have both
strategic and tactical
elements. We look for a
strategic alliance with all
creative social forces
regardless of their social
basis, political line, or
ideological orientation which
make a long term
contribution to the
development of human social
capacities. This includes
moderate liberals, Christian
Democrats, groups such as
the Civic Union, Social
Democrats, the remaining
partisans of perestroika and
the socialist left. An alliance
with authoritarian elements,
however, can only be tactical
in nature. It is necessary at
the present conjuncture in
order to preserve certain vital
global strategic assets and to
maintain important
geopolitical checks on Islamic
fundamentalism in Central
Asia.
It is necessary to say
something specific regarding
our stand in relation to the
inter-ethnic conflicts in the
region. This is a particularly
difficult question since there
seem to be serious errors,
and often real atrocities, on
all sides. In the long run we
look towards the re-
establishment of multinational
states on the basis of firm
guarantees for cultural
autonomy, preferably as part
of a larger process of pan-
European or even global
integration. In the short run
we offer critical support to
those forces which are
resisting ethnic fragmentation
and West European and
Islamic fundamentalist
penetration and the rise of
neo-fascist movements.
Sometimes this may mean
supporting a government with
some authoritarian leanings
(e.g. Serbia) against another
(Croatia) which is drifting
rapidly towards outright
fascism. We will not,
however, permit this support
to become a strategic reserve
for Russian imperialism or
for "Great Serbian" and
Romanian nationalism. We
reject, furthermore, the use
of ethnic cleansing,
concentration camps, and
other authoritarian means,
which are unnecessary to the
defense of reasonable
borders.
At a tactical level there are
several initiatives which
progressive organizations can
undertake in order to
implement these broad
strategic directions. It is
vitally important to promote
technological, scientific,
cultural and educational
exchanges which will help the
U.S. and Western Europe
understand the important
strategic assets of Eastern
Europe and the real threat to
these assets from the
neoliberal program of
liberalization and
privatization. We should
work to create a market for
Russian cosmonautics within
the U.S., European, and
international space programs,
try to place East European
scientists and scholars on the
faculties of U.S. and
European universities, and
encourage dialog between
researchers on the cutting
edge of such fields as Soviet
systems theory and North
American complex systems
theory. At the same time,
we should position
progressives from the U.S.
and Western Europe in the
cultural exchange programs
being established by the CIA,
USIA, and NED as an
attempt to influence East
European politics. It is
particularly important to
position organizers and
scholars who understand the
dangers of neoliberalism and
the importance of restoring
ecological integrity and
building a democratic public
arena (something it is not
clear that Eastern Europe can
do on its own, and that
CIA/USIA/NED sponsored
programs will only subvert).
At the same time we should
mount a systematic effort to
build relationships with the
relevant policy makers in the
new U.S. administration and
Congress and help them to
understand the U.S. long-
term (technological,
scientific, cultural, and
educational) and short-term
(geopolitical) interest in
preserving the integrity of
East European societies.
There are three potential
constituencies for this work.
First of all, there is the
scientific and scholarly
community, which has long
standing ties with its
counterparts in the former
Soviet bloc, but has not
really devoted much attention
to the task of analyzing the
current political situation in
the region or to assessing the
long term implications of
current developments for the
global scientific infrastructure
and human capital pool. An
East European campaign
offers good opportunities to
build relationships with
scientists and begin to
develop them politically.
Scientists in places such as
the National Laboratories
especially are likely to
identify with their Russian
counterparts.
Second, there is the large
East European population in
the U.S. Much of this
population has historically
been reactionary and anti-
communist, and this will
probably continue to be the
case with much of the
Central European population.
There is a possibility,
however, of garnering some
support from Russian,
Romanian, and especially
Serbian communities.
Finally, this campaign offers
an opportunity to engage the
U.S. and West European left
in a concrete and open
discussion regarding the
strengths and weaknesses of
socialism. While the left has
little to offer in terms of
organizational resources, it
may help to lay the
groundwork for
understanding socialism as a
concrete historical
experiment, from which
important lessons have been
learned, and to put to rest
many of the old sectarian
debates, while laying the
groundwork for incorporating
the more creative elements of
the left into a new movement
towards synergism.
* * *
Clearly the former Soviet
bloc is undergoing a difficult
period. No doubt much will
be lost which is of real value
to humanity. But this region
has suffered many defeats in
the past. We remain
confident that the peoples of
Eastern Europe will survive
their current trials and once
again take their place among
the leading forces for
progress on the planet.
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An End in Sight?" in Radio
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THE
NATURAL SCIENCES
The past decade has been a difficult
time for the social sciences. The
crisis of socialism has called
radically into question our ability to
understand, much less organize and
direct, the historical process. This
same period, however, has
witnessed important, even
revolutionary breakthroughs in the
natural sciences: physics,
chemistry, biology. These
breakthroughs have all but put to
rest the picture of the universe as a
mechanistic system of randomly
interacting particles which has been
dominant since the seventeenth
century, and have lent increasing
credibility to the view that the
universe is a complex, self-
organizing system which is
structured in just precisely the way
its needs to be in order to make
possible, or even necessary, the
emergence of life, intelligence, and
the social form of matter. These
developments have profound
implications for social theory, in
that they suggest that human
society, far from being a localized
island of meaning in a universe
otherwise governed by chance, may
in fact play a critically important
role in a larger process of cosmic
evolution which we are only
beginning to understand. This is
the first in a series of articles which
will focus on recent research in the
natural sciences. It explores recent
developments in cosmology: the
study of the large scale
organization, structure, and
development of the universe.
Subsequent articles will explore
developments in theoretical physics,
in the chemistry of crystals, in
evolutionary biology, and in the
emerging, interdisciplinary study of
complex systems.
ANTHROPIC
COSMOLOGY
Anthony Mansueto
Is the universe ordered? If so,
does this order serve some
meaningful purpose? What role, if
any, does human labor play in the
realization of that purpose? What
social structures best promote the
development of human social
capacities, and thus best facilitate
humanity's contribution to the
cosmos? These are the
fundamental questions which all
science and philosophy seek to
resolve.
Is the universe ordered? If
so, does this order serve
some meaningful purpose?
The first sciences to develop were
those which the Greeks called
mathematics: arithmetic, geometry,
astronomy, and music. These
sciences gave formal expression to
humanity's immediate perception of
order and pattern in the universe:
i.e. the ordered relationships
between numbers, the symmetries
of various geometrical objects, the
harmonious movements of the
heavenly bodies, and the
regularities in the relationships
between sounds in music all
suggested that the universe as a
whole was ordered. Indeed, it
seemed that numbers, geometrical
objects, heavenly bodies, and music
were far more ordered that human
society. The Pythagoreans, and
later the Socratic philosophers,
argued that by studying
mathematics, human beings would
bring their souls into harmony with
this cosmic order, and eventually
grasp the community and
interrelationship of all things
(Plato, Republic 531d).
This paradigm had the great
strength of recognizing the cosmos
as meaningful totality, brought into
being by some organizing principle,
and structured in such a way as to
fulfill some meaningful purpose.
At the same time, this organizing
principle--and the purpose it
fulfilled--was regarded as radically
distinct from matter and thus
incapable of full realization in the
material world. Human beings,
furthermore, added nothing to the
richness and complexity of the
universe. The highest calling was
that of the contemplative, rather
than that of the worker.
The scientific revolution of the
seventeenth century shattered this
paradigm and set a new
understanding of matter in its place.
Increasingly, matter was regarded
as a system of interacting particles,
the relationships between which
were governed by the laws of
mechanics. Gradually this
paradigm was modified to make
room for the more complex
chemical interactions between
atoms and molecules of the various
elements, and the more complex
biological interactions between
cells, organs, and organisms. Even
so, there was a tendency to regard
these more complex interactions as
ultimately reducible to the laws of
mechanics. Newtonian science
accommodated our spontaneous
sense of the ordered and purposeful
character of the cosmos, with
various versions of the "argument
by design" which posited a divine
"watchmaker" who had fixed the
initial conditions of the universe,
and set its various parts into motion
in such a way that they fulfilled his
own, perhaps ultimately
inscrutable, purposes. Such
arguments by design were dealt a
sharp blow, however, by the
discovery of the second law of
thermodynamics, which stated that
all closed systems (such as the
universe) tend to develop over time
towards an increasingly random
state (Davies 1988: 19). In 1854,
the German physicist Hermann von
Helmholtz proclaimed that the
universe was, in fact, dying.
In 1854, the German
physicist Hermann von
Helmholtz proclaimed that
the universe was, in fact,
dying.
The problem was deepened even
further by the development of
quantum mechanics. According to
quantum theory, the position of an
elementary particle cannot be
described as a function of its
position and velocity. Such
particles, are, rather, spread out, as
it were, across space and time, and
are best described by a quantum
wave function which specifies the
probability of their being at a
particular place at a particular time.
When the quantum system is
observed, however,--e.g. when a
beam of electrons hits a
photographic plate--the electrons
suddenly appear to have a definite
position at a definite time. The
quantum wave function, in other
words, seems to collapse, implying
that the observer, merely by the
fact of observing, has an impact on
the physical state of the system.
This discovery seemed to call
radically into question the
possibility of certain, rational
knowledge of the order and
organization of the natural world,
and thus to threaten the foundations
of the scientific enterprise itself (cf.
Barrow and Tipler 1986: 458-489).
Within this context, humanity came
to be regarded as a realm of fragile
and localized meaning. Human
beings gave meaning to the world
either through their cognitive
processes (this was the case for
Kant, and for neo-Kantians such as
Weber) or through their labor (as
was the case for the Marxist
tradition). But this localized, human
teleology ran counter to the larger
tendency of the cosmos as a whole.
And gradually even this limited,
localized, teleology began to break
down. On the one hand, the social
sciences demonstrated that the
structures of meaning which the
Kantian tradition had taken to be
universal dictates of human reason
were in fact culturally specific
social products. At the same time,
the crisis of socialism called
radically into question dialectical
and historical materialist claims to
have grasped the "line of march,
conditions, and ultimate general
result" of the historical process
(Marx 1848/1978).
The result has been a tendency in
recent social theory to be skeptical
regarding any strong claims on
behalf of the order and
meaningfulness of either human
society or the cosmos generally,
and particularly regarding claims
for the leading role of conscious,
rational human activity in the
realization of broad historical or
cosmic purposes. It is this
skepticism regarding "meta-
narratives" which defines the
common ground between the cluster
of otherwise very different
theoretical problematics which are
referred to as "postmodern (c.f
Lyotard 1984)."
This skepticism is not,
however, shared by
contemporary thinking in
the natural sciences.
This skepticism is not, however,
shared by contemporary thinking in
the natural sciences, which have
made enormous progress in recent
years towards resolving the
philosophical crisis created by the
discovery of the Second Law of
Thermodynamics and the
Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
Emerging trends in the natural
sciences are, in fact, frankly
teleological in character. And this
new thinking puts intelligent,
complex systems at the cutting edge
of a complex, self-organizing and
eminently meaningful cosmos.
This new thinking puts
intelligent, complex systems
at the cutting edge of a
complex, self-organizing
and eminently meaningful
cosmos.
Among the most important of these
new developments in the natural
sciences is the debate around what
has come to be known as the
"anthropic cosmological principle."
There is growing evidence that a
whole series of fundamental
physical constants--the masses of
the elementary particles, and the
strengths of the fundamental forces
(gravity, electromagnetism, and the
strong and weak nuclear forces) are
fixed at just the values necessary
for the emergence of intelligent life
(Barrow and Tipler 1986).
The fact that physical constants are
fixed at precisely the levels
necessary for the emergence of
intelligent life can be interpreted in
relatively modest terms--what has
come to be called the Weak
Anthropic Principle. According to
the Weak Anthropic Principle, the
values of physical and cosmological
quantities are restricted by the
requirement that "there exist sites
where carbon-based life can evolve
and by the requirement that the
Universe be old enough for it to
have already done so (Barrow and
Tipler 1986: 16)." This form of
the Anthropic Principle is simply "a
restatement ... of one of the most
important and well-established
principles of science: that it is
essential to take into account the
limitations of one's measuring
apparatus when interpreting one's
observations (Barrow and Tipler
1986: 23)."
Some cosmologists, however, argue
that there is evidence for stronger
interpretations of the Anthropic
Principle: i.e. that "the Universe
must have those properties which
allow life to develop within it at
some stage in history (Barrow and
Tipler 1986: 21)." This
interpretation they call the Strong
Anthropic Principle. The argument
for the Strong Anthropic Principle
centers around the effort to find a
scientifically and philosophically
satisfactory interpretation of
quantum mechanics. As we noted
above, quantum systems are best
described not by classical equations
which regard the position of a
particle as a function of its
trajectory and velocity, but rather
by "quantum wave functions"
which define the relative probability
of each possible value for the
position and velocity of the particle
in question at any given point in
time.
Since, when we observe the
system, particular electrons do
indeed seem to be in a particular
place at a particular time, it seems
that the state of quantum systems is
influenced by the persons who
observe them. This problem is not
unrelated to that posed by the
culturally determined character of
the social scientific concepts used
to analyze human societies.
It seems that the state of
quantum systems is
influenced by the persons
who observe them. This
problem is not unrelated to
that posed by the culturally
determined character of the
social scientific concepts
used to analyze human
societies.
There are five logically possible
ways to interpret this situation. It
is possible, first of all, to conclude
that we never really know anything
about the "objective" state of
physical systems. This seems
unlikely, given the practical use we
have been able to make of scientific
knowledge in exercising power in
relationship to the physical world.
Second, it is possible that any
conscious being can collapse the
wave function describing a system.
This also seems unlikely, given the
fact that different observers
generally achieve identical results
when making the same
measurement (Barrow and Tipler
1986: 468-469).
Cosmologist John Wheeler has
suggested a third possibility: that
conscious beings collectively
collapse the wave functions
describing the universe, and thus,
in a very real sense collectively
bring the universe into being.
Conscious being might, in a
very real sense, collectively
bring the universe into
being.
This interpretation is known as the
Participatory Anthropic Principle
(Barrow and Tipler 1986: 470). But
human beings seem to be able to
affect only very small scale
properties of the universe.
Cosmologists Barrow and Tipler
argue that it would require an
intelligence "more conscious" than
ourselves in order to affect the
large scale properties of the
cosmos. This leads to a fourth
possible interpretation of quantum
mechanics: that there is some
Ultimate Observer who coordinates
the separate observations of all of
the lesser observers, and who thus
brings the cosmos as a whole into
being. This would imply that
consciousness is essential to the
creation of the cosmos. Since this
process of creation is not complete
until the final state, consciousness
must continue to exist as long as
the universe endures. And since all
events must be observed in order to
come fully in to being,
consciousness must eventually
become coextensive with the
cosmos (Barrow and Tipler 1986:
470-471).
A fifth interpretation of quantum
mechanics--the Many Worlds
Interpretation--has similar
consequences. If wave functions
don't collapse, then all logically
possible universes in fact exist.
The Strong Anthropic Principle
would require that universes which
do not contain intelligent life not
exist. Barrow and Tipler believe
that the Many Worlds Interpretation
makes it possible to give observable
physical content to the Strong
Anthropic: i.e. to use the Strong
Anthropic Principle to make
predictions regarding the character
of the universe which can be tested
empirically, either confirming or
disconfirming the principle (Barrow
and Tipler 1986: 503-506).
If the Strong Anthropic Principle
should be upheld by experimental
evidence, this would imply that
intelligent life is not only a
necessary but in fact a permanent
feature of the cosmos. If intelligent
life is necessary for the existence of
the universe, but dies out before it
has developed sufficiently to affect
the universe on a cosmological
scale, then it is difficult to see why
it would have been necessary in the
first place. Barrow and Tipler thus
conclude that "intelligent
information processing must come
into existence in the Universe, and,
once it comes into existence, it will
never die out (Barrow and Tipler
1986: 23)." This conclusion is
referred to as the "Final Anthropic
Principle." According to this view,
intelligent life will continue to
develop towards the "Omega
Point," at which it will be
coextensive with the cosmos as
whole, capable of observing all
cosmic events. The Omega Point
has most of the characteristics
which the Christian tradition, along
with most Hellenic and European
philosophy have historically
ascribed to God.
At the instant the Omega point
is reached, life will have gained
control of all matter and forces
not only in a single universe,
but in all universes whose
existence is logically possible;
life will have spread into all
spatial regions in all universes
which could logically exist, and
will have stored an infinite
amount of information,
including all bits of knowledge
which it is logically possible to
know. And this is the end
(Barrow and Tipler 1986: 677).
The new teleology takes as
its point of departure the
leading role of humanity--or
rather intelligent life
generally, in constituting
the self-organizing activity
of the universe.
Anthropic cosmology, we should
point out, does not represent a
return to classical teleology, which
regarded the order and organization
of the cosmos as the result either of
immaterial forms which matter
could only imperfectly embody, or
of the eternal decrees of a
transcendent sovereign God. These
types of teleology were vulnerable
to evidence that human beings play
a leading role in organizing the
cosmos, through labor, through the
exercise of power, and through
scientific inquiry.
The new teleology takes as its point
of departure the leading role of
humanity--or rather of intelligent
life generally--in constituting the
self-organizing activity of the
universe. Organization exists
implicitly in natural systems, but is
realized fully only in the social
form of matter. The evolution of
the cosmos is affected by the
presence of the social form of
matter, precisely because the social
form of matter involves not merely
information processing, but also
active participation in the
development of the cosmos towards
increasingly levels of complexity
and organization. This
participation takes the form of labor
(reorganization of physical,
chemical, and biological matter),
the exercise of power
(reorganization of the social form
of matter, i.e. social relations) and
artistic creativity, the production of
knowledge and spirituality (the
reorganization of symbols).
These new developments in
the natural sciences have
profound implications for
social theory.
It should be clear by now that these
new developments in the natural
sciences have profound implications
for social theory. And more is at
issue than simply learning from the
ways in which natural sciences
have resolved the epistemological
problems arising from quantum
mechanics to resolve the partially
analogous problems raised by the
sociology of knowledge. Anthropic
cosmology in particular makes the
social form of matter a constitutive
dimension of the universe. In this
sense the science of human society
becomes (as indeed it should be) an
integral dimension of cosmology.
This lends added importance to
debates within the social sciences
regarding which social structures
best promote the development of
human social capacities. And in
giving human activity a central
place in the self-organizing activity
of the universe, anthropic
cosmology alters fundamentally the
relationships between the natural
sciences, the social sciences, and
theology. In future articles we will
look in greater detail at some of the
political and theological
implications of recent developments
in cosmology and other natural
sciences.
REFERENCES
Barrow, John and Tipler, Frank
1986 Anthropic Cosmological Principle. Oxford: Oxford
University Press
Davies, Paul
1988 The Cosmic Blueprint, New York: Simon and Schuster
1991 The Mind of God, New York: Simon and Schuster
Lyotard, Jean-Francois
1984 The Postmodern Condition, Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press
Marx, Karl and Engels, Frederick
1848/1978 The Communist Manifesto, in Marx-Engels Reader,
New York: Norton
Plato
1968 Republic, trans. Alan Bloom, New York: Basic
Tipler, Frank
1989 "The Omega Point as Eschaton: Answers to Pannenberg's
Questions for Scientists," in Zygon 24:2
To an Old Comrade
I recently received word that my
old friend and comrade, Antonio
Cassano, had died. I met Sr.
Cassano in 1980. I was working at
the time on an oral history project
on Italian immigrants in Chicago,
run by the History Department at
the University of Illinois at
Chicago. I was also a precinct
worker for Miriam Balanoff's State
Representative campaign in the
Calumet Steel district in southeast
Chicago. We were having
difficulty finding interview subjects
who had been active in the workers
movement. Most of those who had
been prominent socialist and
communist leaders in the old days
were either dead or afraid to talk to
us. One cold winter evening, after
I had been out canvassing for
several hours, I returned to the
campaign headquarters. Monty
Tarbox, the ward coordinator for
Calumet City, where we had been
canvassing, told me that he had met
an old man who would be perfect
for our project.
Less than a week later I was sitting
in Sr. Cassano's tiny frame house
in Burnham, Illinois, in the heart of
the steel district.
He gave me a bowl of
minestra, some caccio
pecorino, a hunk of bread,
and a glass of red wine, and
we began to talk.
His father had been killed in a
blood feud in his native Calabria,
and his mother, no longer able to
support him, sold him into slavery
to a small landowner. He wanted
very badly to learn how to read,
and the landlord's son would bring
him books, and try to teach him,
but whenever the landlord
discovered that he had been
studying, he beat him nearly to
death. "Even-a so I make-a my
way through all five-a book."
Eventually he escaped and fled to
Naples where he boarded a ship for
the United States. He had been
here only a few years, when he
answered a call for all patriotic
Italians to return home to fight the
Austrian oppressors during the First
World War. He suffered serious
injuries to his lungs from mustard
gas and was taken prisoner by the
Austrians after what he always
referred to as the "cowardly
betray(al) at Caporeto." It was
through this experience, he told
me, that he learned "all about
imperialism a war machine."
After the war he married, and then
returned to the United States,
where he began working as
"irrigate-a (irrigation) system
expert--what they call-a ditch digg'
(digger)." It was six years before
he could afford to ask his wife to
join him. The Depression hit his
family very hard. They were living
in Erie, Pennsylvania, at the time.
The county had run out of money
for relief, and he was forced to
seek help from private charities.
One day when he was standing on
line at one of the private charities,
he picked up a leaflet for a meeting
of something called the
Unemployed Council. He attended
the meeting, at which a speaker
explained the causes of the current
crisis "how-a capitalismo it drive-a
down the wage of the work' so
they cannot-a buy the goods-a they
produce. Make-a cris' (crisis)."
He also explained the fundamentals
of socialism, with particular
reference to the leading role of the
Communist Party, which
represented "highest-a level of
organization of-a the work-a class."
Afterward he went up to
the speaker and said he
wanted to join the
organization. The speaker
asked him if he meant that
he wanted to join the
Unemployed Council. "I
told-a him no, I want-a be
part of-a the highest level."
And so he became a
member of the Communist
Party.
Sr. Cassano spent the next twenty
years of his life organizing for the
party in such difficult constituencies
as Bowling Green, Kentucky, and
the Calumet Steel District. Three
times he was nearly lynched: once
for organizing a demonstration
against increased food prices in
Bowling Green, once for
distributing the Daily Worker to
members of his work crew, and
once after speaking on behalf of
desegregation at a rally in the
Kensington district on Chicago's far
South Side. We was among the
leaders of the team that organized
Republic Steel in Chicago, and
might well have been among those
who were shot down in the
Republic Steel Massacre of 1937
had his wife not prevailed on him
to attend the funeral of a close
family friend on the day of the
massacre.
He told two different stories of how
he became estranged from the
party. Apparently he became
interested in nutrition at some point
during the late 1940s, and began to
advocate vegetarianism as the only
solution to the "monopoly capitalist
animal protein myth." On one
occasion he informed me that his
local party cell expelled him for
this, on the grounds that "vegetar',
he is a left deviash (deviationist)."
One time, however, he told a more
troubling story, which says a great
deal about how the party lost its
working class base. As the
repression of the McCarthy era
took hold, it appears that many of
the party's intellectual cadre simply
went underground, and cut off all
contact with the working class
members for whom they were
responsible. While the party
intelligentsia debated the
appropriate response to the
resolutions of the 20th Congress of
the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union, and to the Soviet invasion
of Hungary, Sr. Cassano and his
comrades were being tailed daily--
for nearly a decade--by FBI agents
and their underworld lackeys.
Sr. Cassano may have been
expelled from or abandoned
by the party, but he never
abandoned the cause of
socialism.
He continued not only to subscribe
to the Daily Worker, but to receive
whole bundles of it, which he
faithfully distributed to his co-
workers, and then, after he retired
at the age of 82, took door to door
to his mostly East European and
anti-communist neighbors. After
he was relocated to a senior citizens
complex in Calumet City, he
arranged with the activities director
to speak to his neighbors on the
topic of health and nutrition. He
used the occasion to expound his
theory of the "monopoly capitalist
protein myth" and to lecture his
audience on the leading role of the
Communist Party of the Soviet
Union, the justifications for the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and
related points of political line.
"And you know," he said, a bit
perplexed, "the wom', she never
invite-a me back."
A firm supporter of the party's
anti-monopoly front, he worked
hard for progressive Democratic
candidates for elected office, while
engaging them in "fraternal
discussion" regarding the errors of
capitalism and the need to support
the Soviet Union.
Sr. Cassano had no formal
education. Perhaps the only
authentic autodidact I have ever
known, he was always asking for
books on such diverse topics as
"how man he invent-a relig',
(religion)" and "how they measure-
a the circumf' (circumference) and-
a diam' (diameter) of-a the earth,"
or "how do we know how far is-a
the sun." And he wrote. Like any
good communist estranged from the
party leadership, he produced
regular analyses of the current
situation, identifying the principal
task of the present period, the
direction of the main blow,
appropriate tactics, etc. He also
produced a grand review of world
history. These documents, along
with on-going polemics regarding
vegetarianism, he sent to the U.S.
party leadership, as well as to the
party secretary in his native San
Lucido, Calabria, who he called "a
no good-a Eurocommunist traitor."
He also produced detailed
analyses of questions of
foreign and domestic policy
which he regularly mailed
to key officials of the
executive branch, and to all
535 members of the U.S.
Congress.
On one occasion he presented me
with a garbled recording of himself
singing Calabrese folk songs. The
recording was preceded with a
twenty minute commentary in
which he apologized for only being
able to speak in his native
Calabrese dialect, the existence of
different languages, he pointed out,
being a monopoly capitalist
conspiracy to divide the working
class.
The crisis in the Soviet Union came
hard for Sr. Cassano. Each winter
when I would visit him in his small
apartment he seemed increasingly
bitter and withdrawn. The cause
for which he had given his life
seemed to be crumbling before his
eyes.
My last visit was shortly after
Christmas, 1991, just a few days
before the official dissolution of the
Soviet Union. I expected to find
him nearly suicidal. To my
surprise he seemed brighter and
more cheerful than I had seen him
in years.
"You know-a, my friend,
they say-a socialismo is-a
dead. Perhaps the
socialismo we know, it is
finish'. But the peop' they
are-a smart, they will-a
learn. Let-a
Reagabushayelts' (Reagan-
Bush-Yeltsin) celebrate
their-a "new world ord'."
Hist' (history) he has-a only
one directsh' (direction).
He is a on-a our side. Is
up-a to you, your generash'
(generation), to invent-a
future, build-a new
movement of-a the work-a
class."
* * *
It is not only the socialism of Sr.
Cassano's generation which has
passed away, but the entire social
world of which it was, perhaps, the
highest expression: the world of
tightly knit urban neighborhoods,
clustered around vast steel and
machine tool factories, formed by
people who came from the same
rural districts--or even the same
villages--in Italy or Mexico,
Mississippi or Alabama, Poland,
Lithuania, Russia, or Yugoslavia.
The forces which destroyed this
world are well known: the
penetration of market relations into
every sphere of life, which has
transformed all activity into simply
a means of realizing individual
consumer interests. Gone is the
day when families passed their
evenings on the front porch
drinking wine and discussing the
affairs of their communities. Gone
is the communitarian matrix out of
which socialist ideals emerged
among the masses. Our organizers
now have to spend long years
learning the social skills which the
communists of Sr. Cassano's could
take for granted.
We also have new insights. We no
longer regard industrialization as an
unmitigated good. We aspire to a
mode of production which increases
the qualitative complexity of the
ecosystem, rather than just
displacing it from carbon-based life
to steel and silicon machines. The
linear thinking which characterized
the old Leninist parties, their naive
confidence in the ability of a small
leadership to plan, organize, and
direct the activities of a complex
society, now seems terribly
misguided. We recognize, in a
way the leadership of the old
Communist Parties did not, that if
we are to transcend the market
system, human beings must develop
an active interest in promoting the
self-organizing activity of the
cosmos, and not merely in realizing
their individual consumer interests.
This does not happen
spontaneously, nor does it happen
simply as a result of studying the
writings of Marx, Lenin, or Mao.
It is the result of a long struggle for
spiritual development which we
increasingly recognize as integral,
even constitutive, of the struggle
for a postmarket society.
One thing, however, remains: the
aspiration, which motivated the
communists of Sr. Cassano's
generation, to understand, and to
contribute something to the beauty
of, the world around them. As we
analyze the reasons for the crisis of
socialism, and chart the next steps
for the human civilizational project,
we do well not to forget the
aspirations which lay behind
socialism, and every other
progressive social movement. The
desire of human beings for each
other, their desire to bear and raise
children, to engage in productive
and creative labor, to form
friendships, to build and exercise
power and affect the world around
them, to learn to read, to write, to
paint and compose music--to
understand the universe and to
participate in its creation: these are
the most progressive and powerful
forces at work in human society,
and in the cosmos generally.
The desire of human beings
for each other, their desire
to bear and raise children,
to engage in productive and
creative labor, to form
friendships, to build and
exercise power and affect
the world around them, to
learn to read, to write, to
paint and compose music--
to understand the universe
and to participate in its
creation: these are the most
progressive and powerful
forces at work in human
society, and in the cosmos
generally.
I promise you Antonio, comrade,
worker, brother, friend, that we
will fight on. The future which we
build will probably look rather
different than the socialism for
which you struggled. Indeed, it
will probably look different than
anything we ourselves can currently
imagine. But this is only because it
will be even more beautiful. Some
day, perhaps on a distant planet,
around a distant star, my children's
children (or yours, it doesn't really
matter) will sit across the table
sharing bread and wine, minestra
and cheese, with members of a
vastly different species, telling
stories of how each of our worlds
triumphed over ecological
devastation, exploitation and
oppression, war and ignorance, and
discovered its place in the cosmos.
Many well known names will be
mentioned when the story of our
planet is told: Moses and Jesus,
Plato and Aquinas, Newton and
Edwards, Einstein and Marx will
figure prominently on the roll of
those who helped humanity achieve
its destiny. But your name, too,
will be mentioned, along with those
of all of the ordinary workers and
partisans who dedicated their lives
to building a better world.
And in the meantime, you will be
present with us every day in the
struggle, owning a piece of every
loaf of bread, every bowl of
minestra--every irrigation system or
high speed rail network--every
starship and every university which
we create. As the Nicaraguan poet
Ricardo Morales Aviles poet put it
"What do time and space matter if
the movement flows from one point
to another."