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https://mo nthlyreview.o rg/2008/03/01/the-co mmunal-system-and-the-principle-o f-self-critique

The Communal System and the Principle of Self-Critique

Istvn Mszro s mo re o n Marxism & So cialism

Itsvn Mszros is author of Socialism or Barbarism: From the American Century to the Crossroads
(Monthly Review Press, 2001), Beyond Capital: Toward a T heory of Transition (Monthly Review Press,
1995), and T he Challenge and Burden of Historical Time: Socialism in the Twenty-First Century
(f orthcoming, Monthly Review Press, 2008).
T he collapse by centurys end of most of the post-revolutionary social experiments of the twentieth
century put socialists nearly everywhere on the def ensive. Todays call f or a socialism f or the twenty-f irst
century is an attempt to transcend this def ensive posture and to engage f ully with the most urgent
problem of our time: the creation of a sustainable socialist order. In this respect, Istvn Mszros, in the
words of President Hugo Chvez of Venezuela, is someone who lights up the road. He points to the core
of the argument we must make in order to go beyond the def ensive attitude in which the worlds peoples
and revolutionary movements f ind themselves, and to take the of f ensive, throughout the world, in moving
toward socialism (quoted f rom back cover of Mszros, O desafio e o fardo do tempo histrico [So Paulo:
Boitempo Editorial, 2007]; English edition, The Challenge and Burden of Historical Time [f orthcoming f rom
Monthly Review Press, 2008]).
T he f ollowing article, T he Communal System and the Principle of Self -Critique, by Mszros is much more
dif f icult to read than what we normally publish in MR. It is included here because we believe that the issue it
addresses is vitally important to the f uture of socialism and hence to the f uture of the world. T he very
demanding nature of this article is mainly due to the inherent challenges of the problem it addresses. T his
has led Mszros to reach out to unf amiliar concepts, building on hitherto neglected aspects of Marxs
thought. A brief introduction to his conceptual f ramework and vocabulary is theref ore necessary.
For those inf luenced by the Hegelian and Marxist critical traditions, the term critique has a specif ic
meaning and should not be conf used with mere criticism. To engage in critique is to uncover the essence
underlying appearance, the historical conditions that make a particular set of social ideas and
arrangements seem necessary and rational. Critique is most commonly exercised in relation to the historical
past. For example, bourgeois society as a result of its own development is able to see the historical
underpinnings and limitations of the f eudal society that preceded it. It is normal f or any given class society
to suspend critique with respect to its own social f ormation. Instead it seeks to eternalize its own social
relations. Hence, it is only to a limited extent (and only in its ascending phase) that a dominant class
f ormation will engage in self -critique.
T his is particularly the case with capital as a social order, which operates on a post festum basis, where
decisions on the reproduction of society are determined by the blind workings of the so-called market
mechanism (capitals logic of commodity exchange) and all social decisions thus take place af ter the f act of
f or-prof it economic determinations. T his leaves no room f or rational social decisions or planning, and no
space f or self -critique.
For Mszros, as f or Marx, the regime of capital is an organic system in the sense that all of its
components are reciprocal and reinf orcing, tending to reproduce the dominant social relations as a whole.
Capitalism thus operates by what Mszros calls a kind of unconscious consciousness working behind
the backs of individualsAdam Smiths f amous invisible hand. It is reinf orced at every point by a
hierarchal division of labor. Under these circumstances, equality, democracy, and self -critique are at best
mere mockeries of what they might be. As a particular social metabolic order the organic system of
capitalism creates all sorts of vicious circles by which it reproduces its exploitative relations.
To make a communal system of production based on substantive equality possible, and not to f all into the
twin errors of command socialism and market socialismboth of which mean the ef f ective restoration

of the capital-labor relations characteristic of the regime of capital (if not capitalism per se)it is
necessary that socialism itself be constituted as an organic system or social metabolic order, whereby its
productive relations and decision-making relations reinf orce each other. A more collective organization of
production makes possible, but also necessaryif a truly organic communal mode is to developthe
activation of the principle of self -critique, directed at the present, as a constitutive element in society.
Genuine planning under conditions of substantive democracy cannot occur without the continual, active
engagement of individuals in self -critique that involves non-stop learning f rom changing historical
experience. As Marx wrote, proletarian revolutions criticize themselves constantly, interrupt themselves
continually in their course, come back to the apparently accomplished in order to begin it af resh, deride with
unmercif ul thoroughness the inadequacies, weaknesses and paltriness of their f irst attempts. Hence f or
Mszros the activation of the principle of self -critique, just as much as the collective organization of
production, is what distinguishes genuine socialism (the communal order of production) as an organic
system.
T he Editors
T he Necessity of Self -Critique
T he conscious adoption and successf ul maintenance of the orienting principle of self-critique is an
absolutely f undamental requirement of the historically sustainable hegemonic alternative to capitals social
metabolic order as an organic system.
Since it cannot be allowed to conf lict in any way with the necessarily open-ended historical determinations
of labors alternative reproductive orderon the contrary, it must be a vital guarantee against all
temptations to relapse into a self -complacent closure, and thereby into the reproduction of vitiating vested
interests, corresponding to the traditional pattern of the pastthe envisaged and knowingly pursued
f aithf ulness to the theoretical as well as practical operative methodological principle of self -critique needs
to be embraced as a permanent f eature of the new, positively enduring, social f ormation. For precisely
through the genuine and continuing exercise of that orienting principle it becomes possible to correct in
good time the tendencies that might otherwise not only appear but, worse than that, also consolidate
themselves in f avor of the ossif ication of a given stage of the present, undermining thereby the prospects
of a sustainable f uture.
T his is so because the f lexible coordination and consensual integration of the necessarily varied but at f irst
only locally/partially adopted measures and, as a result, potentially conf licting decisions, into a coherent
whole is inconceivable without real self -critique. T he kind of potential conf lict we are here concerned with,
due to the circumstance that some important measures and decisions are taken at f irst only locally/partially
bef ore they can be assessed on a comprehensive basis, must be in f act more unavoidable in the socialist
modality of the societal reproduction process than ever bef ore. T his is because of its substantively
democratic character based on the supersession of the vertical/hierarchical division of labor. For that
reason a proper way of guardingthrough consciously embraced self -critique by the people concerned
against the dangers that might result f rom such would-be conf licts is a matter of great importance.
T he qualitatively dif f erent organic system of labors necessary hegemonic alternative to the established
mode of social metabolic reproduction is unthinkable without the conscious espousal of self-critique as its
vital orienting principle. At the same time, it is impossible to envisage the conscious adoption and operation
of self -critique as an enduring orienting principle without a certain type of societal reproduction which must
successf ully maintain itself as a veritable organic system without the danger of being derailed f rom its
consistently open-ended historical course of development. For we are talking about a dialectical correlation
between the qualitatively dif f erent type of organic system needed in the f uture and the necessary orienting
principle of self -critique in conjunction with which that new type becomes f easible at all.
Neither the qualitatively dif f erent new type of organic system, nor the orienting and operative principle of
genuine self -critique can f ully unf old and positively f unction without the other. However, this dialectical
reciprocity cannot be allowed to constitute a convenient circle, let alone a ready-made excuse f or justif ying

the absence of both, by apologetically asserting on each side that without the f ull-scale availability of the
other no progress can be made in the realization of the one in question, or vice versa. For, as we know, that
is how an assumed convenient circle becomes an utterly vicious circle. In truth the dialectical correlation
between the new organic system and the organ of self -critique def ines itself precisely as the mutuality of
helping each other even at a very early stage of their historical development, once the need f or instituting
labors hegemonic alternative arises f rom the prof ound structural crisis of capitals increasingly destructive
societal reproductive order.
In view of the f act that the necessary alternative to capitalsin our timeubiquitously destructive organic
system must be a qualitatively dif f erent but nonetheless organic system, only the communal mode of
societal reproduction can truly qualif y in this respect. In other words, only the communally organized system
is capable of providing the overall f ramework f or the continuing development of the multif aceted and
substantively equitable constitutive parts of the socialist mode of integration of all creative individual and
collective f orces into a coherent whole as a historically viable organic system of social metabolic
reproduction. And the success of this enterprise is f easible only if the envisaged integration into the new
type of organic system is accomplished in such a way that the parts reciprocally support and enhance each
other on a positively open-ended basis, in the spirit of conscious self-determination, providing thereby to the
f reely associated producers the scope needed f or their self -realization as rich social individuals (in Marxs
words) through their f ully sustainable f orm of social metabolic interaction among themselves and with
nature.
T his is a seminal requirement of the new historic f orm as labors necessary hegemonic alternative to
capitals social metabolic order. Evidently, the principle of self -critique is integral to the necessary spirit of
conscious self -determination of the f reely associated producers. But just as evidently, the self determination of the social individuals deserves its name only if their application of the vital orienting
principle of self -critique is the result of a consciously chosen voluntary act. Any arbitrary attempt at
imposing the ritual of self -critique on the people f rom above, as we know it f rom the Stalinist past, can
amount to no more than the painf ul mockery of it, with f ar-reaching counter-productive consequences and
reversals in actual historical development.
Limited Self -Critique and the Capital System
Since the communal systemin total contrast to capitals unalterable, even if destructively blind, self expansionary logiccannot count on economic determinations which work behind the back of the
individuals, its only f easible way of ordering its af f airs, in accordance with the voluntary determinations of
the f reely associated individuals, is by f ully activating the orienting and operative principle of self -critique at
all levels. T his means positively activating it in accordance with the particular individual concerns all the way
to the highest and most complex decision-making processes of comprehensive societal interaction, with its
unavoidable impact on nature. And the inevitability of that impact deeply implicates not simply the obvious
time-determinations of the present but also the longest term historical dimension of the qualitatively new
communal organic systems consciously designed mode of overall social metabolic control.
We have to return later to the discussion of some of the contrasting determinations of the radically
dif f erent communal system as the only sustainable historical alternative to capitals increasingly destructive
organic system. But f irst it is necessary to consider the possibilities and limitations of self -critique in
general terms, and not in relation to its considerably modif ied potentialities f or contributing to the
operation of the communal system.
It goes without saying that self -critique is (or at least ought-to-be) an integral part of the particular
intellectuals activity. When we think of some great intellectual achievements, irrespective of the social
setting with which they are associatedlike the Hegelian philosophical synthesis, f or instancethe
creative contribution of self -critique is clear enough, at times even explicitly stated.
However, the limitations are also clearly in evidence when we consider the negative impact of problematical
social determinations even in the case of such monumental philosophical undertaking as the Hegelian

synthesis. But this should be by no means surprising. For there are some historical situations and
associated social constraints when even a great thinker f inds it impossible to jump over Rhodes, in
Hegels own words. T he French Revolution and the ascending phase of the capital systems historical
development of f ered a positive scope f or the Hegelian achievement. However, the insuperable exploitative
dimension of the capital systems innermost determinations became increasingly more dominant as time
went by, asserting itself with grave implications f or the f uture in the bourgeois orders descending phase of
development Hence, the uncritical acceptance of the systems contradictions and the def ense of its
ultimately explosive structural antagonisms became more evident, bringing with it in the Hegelian philosophy
a speculatively-articulated conservative reconciliation.
Accordingly, Marx rightly characterized the social limitation intervening against the self -criticaland in its
own way also criticalintent of this great philosopher by underlining that Hegels standpoint is that of
modern political economy.1 T he acceptance of such a standpoint brings with it, of course, f ar-reaching
consequences. For in its spirit the unavoidable reconciliatory presuppositions and complicated practical
imperatives of capitals political economy enter the picture, even if they are transubstantiated by Hegel with
great consistency. T his deeply af f ects in a speculative way the general character of an earlier quite
inconceivable synthesis of philosophy based on the French Revoluton. We can f ind many instances of this
reconciliatory approach presented by Hegel in the name of the World Spirit f rom the vantage point of
capitals political economy. But, inevitably, such limitations corresponding to capitals vantage point enter
the picture and undermine the critical intentnot only of the Hegelian system but also of the work of the
other major thinkers who conceptualize the world f rom the standpoint of capitals political economy,
including a giant of the Scottish Enlightenment movement, Adam Smith. T he result of such limitations is to
more or less consciously internalize the systems most problematical practical presuppositions and
objective imperatives, articulating in that way the position which embodies the f undamental socioeconomic
interests, as well as the central values, of a societal reproductive order with which they identif y themselves.
T his is what sets the ultimate limits even to their best intentioned self -critique.
T his f ailure of self -critque is not simply f atalistically determined by the class positions of the thinkers
concerned. T here are many intellectual and political f igures, including some outstanding ones, who have
successf ully broken their ties with their class and have produced their radical strategic systems, with
powerf ul revolutionary practical implications and corresponding social movements, in irreconcilable
contradiction to the f undamental interests of the class into which they have been born and in relation to
which they had to def ine their position in the course of their upbringing. It is enough to recall the names of
Marx and Engels in this respect.
Of course it is true that in periods of major social turmoil and great upheavals the personal motivation of
many individuals f or reexamining in a radical way their own class belongingtogether with the role which
their privileged class happens to play under the given historical circumstancesand doing so to the point
of committing themselves to a struggle f or the rest of their lif e against the repressive f unctions of the
class in which they have been brought up, is considerably greater than under normal circumstances. T he
opposite is also true, in the sense that periods of conservative political and economic success in society at
largewith a small c, sustaining even the so-called neoliberal phase of deeply reactionary developments in
the last three decades of twentieth-century history, f or instancetend to coincide with wholesale
intellectual reversals and with the acceptance of rather absurd pseudo-theoretical f ashions. And the latter
f ollow at humiliatingly short intervals one another in a vain search of the people concerned f or ephemerally
self -serving irrational evasion.
T he truth of the matter is, though, that such conjunctural events and correlations cannot settle the
f undamental historical issues. Not even when we have in mind some of the outstanding representatives of
political economy and philosophy who in their time identif ied themselves with capitals vantage point, like
Adam Smith and Hegel. For the limits of a thinkers ability to assume a real critical stance, on the basis of
his or her readiness to exercise the required self-critique in the process, is ultimately decided by the overall
historical conf iguration of the interacting social f orces. T hey necessarily involve all dimensions of
development, including the elementary conditions of humanitys survival on this planet in the midst of the
established orders deepening structural crisis and the concomitant destruction of nature.

With regard to this correlation it was by no means accidental that capitals ascending phase of development
to some extent f avoring the adoption of a critical stance, even if a limited and selective oneresulted in
the great achievements of classical political economy. By contrast the same capital systems descending
phase had brought with it the painf ul theoretical impoverishment and the crass social apologetics of vulgar
economy, which conf ined itself to systematizing in a pedantic way, and proclaiming f or everlasting truths,
the trite ideas held by the self -complacent bourgeoisie with regard to their own world, to them the best of all
possible worlds, as sharply criticized by Marx.2 T hus, disconcerting and potentially tragic as it happens to
be, in the course of the capital systems historical unf olding even the limited scope f or self -critique
characteristic of the earlier phase had to leave its space f or the ideology of the systems eternalization
and f or the authoritarian practical imposition of the most retrograde policies over all actively dissenting
f orces, no matter how dangerous f or humankind the consequences.
From Limited Self -Critique to Apologetics
T he original scope f or self -critique at the ascending phase of the capital systems historical unf olding was
quite important, despite its obvious class limitations. T he relevance of this connection is f ar f rom negligible
because in terms of the requirements of scientif ic advancement in generalwithout which the
achievements of classical political economy would be unthinkablean element of self-critique is a
necessary condition f or a critical understanding of the overall subject of enquiry.
T his is why Marx puts into relief the analogy between the critical element in the historical development of
Christianity and a somewhat better understanding by the bourgeoisie of its reproductive order when it
assumed a less mythologizing attitude towards its own mode of production. We can see this connection
stressed in an important passage of Marxs Grundrisse in which he links the general theoretical point
concerning the principal economic categories of a more advanced historical stage of societal reproduction
and the necessary but usually neglected qualif ications of that general theoretical point f or the proper
conceptualization of capitals socioeconomic order itself , as the most advanced f orm. T his is how he puts
it:
T he bourgeois economy supplies the key to the ancient, etc. But not at all in the manner of those
economists who smudge over all historical dif f erences and see bourgeois relations in all f orms of society.
One can understand tribute, tithe, etc., if one is acquainted with ground rent. But one must not identif y
them. Further, since bourgeois society is itself only a contradictory f orm of development, relations derived
f rom earlier f orms will of ten be f ound within it only in an entirely stunted f orm, or even travestied. For
example, communal property. Although it is true, theref ore, that the categories of bourgeois economics
possess a truth f or all other f orms of society, this is to be taken only with a grain of salt. T hey can contain
them in a developed, or stunted, or caricatured f orm, etc., but always with an essential dif f erence. T he socalled historical presentation of development is f ounded, as a rule, on the f act that the latest f orm regards
the previous ones as steps leading up to itself , and, since it is only rarely and only under quite specif ic
conditions able to criticize itselfleaving aside, of course, the historical periods which appear to
themselves as times of decadenceit always conceives them one-sidedly. T he Christian religion was able
to be of assistance in reaching an objective understanding of earlier mythologies only when its own selfcriticism had been accomplished to a certain degree, so to speak dynamei [potentially]. Likewise, bourgeois
economics arrived at an understanding of f eudal, ancient, oriental economics only af ter the self-criticism of
bourgeois society had begun. In so f ar as the bourgeois economy did not mythologically identif y itself
altogether with the past, its critique of the previous economies, notably of f eudalism, with which it was still
engaged in direct struggle, resembled the critique which Christianity levelled against paganism, or also that
of Protestantism against Catholicism.3
T he anatomy of civil society was produced by classical political economy on this basis, once the earlier
mythologizing vision of the emerging bourgeois order became pointless in the af termath of the victory over
f eudalism. T his was a historical phase of boundless optimism in the new conceptions, incorporating the
hopef ul anticipations as well as the illusions of the Enlightenment movement in Europe. As one of Adam
Smiths Scottish Enlightenment comrades, Henry Home wrote with great optimism and enthusiasm:

Reason, resuming her sovereign authority, will banish [persecution] altogether.Within the next century it
will be thought strange, that persecution should have prevailed among social beings. It will perhaps even be
doubted, whether it ever was seriously put into practice.4 And he was equally enthusiastic about the
potentialities of the new work ethos, in contrast to the idleness of the f ormer ruling personnel, insisting
that Activity is essential to a social being: to a self ish being it is of no use, af ter procuring the means of
living. A self ish man, who by his opulence has all the luxuries of lif e at command, and dependents without
number, has no occasion f or activity.5
T he self -conf idence of the new approach, which produced real scientif ic achievements in understanding
the production of wealth, f ully corresponded to capitals f rom that historic phase onwards irresistible
vantage point.6 T here seemed to be no need f or f urther self -critique in other than secondary or marginal
detail. T he power of capital successf ully asserted itself in all domainsto the point that additional
exercises in self -critique were suspended. Not even the once troublesome political dimension could
exercise any signif icant resistance to its advancement. On the contrary, the state itself had progressively
become an integral part of the capital systems overall determinations, under the primacy of the material
reproduction process. In this way everything had been subsumed and consolidated under the rule of capital
as the most powerf ul self-expansionary organic system, notwithstanding its inherent but unacknowledged
antagonisms. And given its unchallenged systemic dominance in actuality, it seemed obvious to all those
who conceptualized the world f rom capitals vantage point that their organic system constituted the one
and only natural system. T his is why Adam Smith could sum it all up by saying that capital embodied the
natural system of perfect liberty and justice.7
Self -Critique and the Two Opposing Organic Systems
T he communal organic system, as the only historically f easible hegemonic alternative to capitals social
metabolic order, cannot af f ord the luxury of the once boundless self -conf idence and self -complacency of
its predecessor. For it cannot even begin to assert and sustain itself , f rom the moment of its attempted
self -constitution, without the conscious adoption of self -critique appropriate to the ongoing (and
necessarily changing) conditions of development.
T he self -constituting communal system cannot count on economic determinations which work behind the
back of the individuals: the obvious mode of operation of capitals social metabolic order throughout its
history. T his kind of economic determination is well in tune with the unconscious character of the specif ic
parts of capitals reproduction processinherent in the plurality of relatively autonomous and self-assertively
expansionary capitalsand f ulf ils a paradoxical corrective f unction in the system. For the individual
capitalists can pursue up to a point their own design, in expectation of successf ully achieving their particular
interests, but they cannot do that against the f undamental systemic determinations of their shared mode
of production. T he f undamental systemic determinations and objective practical imperativeswhich must
work behind the back of the individual capitalistsf orcef ully impose themselves over against the particular
excessively self -seeking decisions. For beyond a certain point the self -seeking decisions would tend to
undermine the overall viability of the system itself as the historically dominant organic system, in view of
the insuperably centrifugal tendency of unconscious (unalterably self -oriented) individual capitalist
consciousness.
Moreover, the unconscious consciousness in question is simultaneously also the manif estation of incurably
adversarial/conflictual interests and corresponding strategies. T he pursuit of such interests necessarily
intensif ies the unconscious character of the whole process. For they render to the particular capitalists the
possibility of anticipating the adversarys design and his or her responses to ones own movesby each
reciprocally attempting to outwit the other as competitors through f irmly established (and even legally
sanctif ied) concealmentmaking the whole societal process that much more opaque. T his is one of the
signif icant reasons why the adversariality itself is structurally insuperable. Still, thanks to the earlier
mentioned paradoxical corrective f unction of the f undamental systemic imperatives which assert
themselves behind the back of the individual, the centrif ugal tendency of particularistic pursuits is not
allowed to get completely out of hand, since that would endanger the survival of the system as a whole.

Naturally, the insuperable adversariality inherent in the capital system is not conf ined to the conf rontation
and potential collision of particular capitalist interests. If it was only f or that, some signif icant
improvements would be f easible, as they are indeed of ten postulated in the f orm of ideological
rationalizations of imaginary remedies: f rom the constantly propagandized f iction of peoples capitalism
to the projection of all-embracing capitalist planning and to John Kenneth Galbraiths universally
reconciliatory techno-structure.
However, underneath the adversariality of particular capitalist interestsindeed directly af f ecting also the
unf olding of the individual capitalist conf rontationswe f ind the structurally ineliminable fundamental
antagonism between capital and labor as the rival bearers of the hegemonic alternative modes of controlling
the overall social metabolic process. Capital can carry on its hegemonic mode of control only on condition
and only so long asit is capable of preserving and enforcing the deep-seated structural antagonism
which constitutes the necessary material and ideological presupposition of its social reproductive order.
And labor, on the contrary, can advance its genuine alternative only if it succeeds in instituting a
qualitatively dif f erent mode of societal reproductionthe communal organic systemthrough historically
overcoming antagonistic adversariality altogether, and thereby consigning on a permanent basis to the past
the structurally secured hierarchical domination of the overwhelming majority of human beings by a tiny
minority, as inherited f rom the capital system.
T he institution and successf ul operation of such a hegemonic alternative is, of course, inconceivable
without the conscious control of their lif e-activity by the f reely associated social individuals. In this regard
the individual and the social dimensions of our problem are inextricably intertwined.
It is self -evident that there can be no question of a conscious societal control of the necessary decisionmaking processes unless the particular individuals themselveswho are expected to introduce, and in a
responsible way to carry out, the decisions involvedf ully identif y themselves with the pursued objectives.
But that circumstance does not make the issue itself a purely, or even a predominantly, personal matter.
T he individual and the social constituents of genuine socialist consciousness would be altogether f ailing in
their much needed role unless they could positively enhance one another. For the real personal involvement
of the particular individuals in the realization of the chosen objectives and strategies is conceivable only if
the general social conditions themselves actively favor the process, instead of tending in the opposite
direction, which would allow some f orm of adversariality to creep in and undermine the articulation of
comprehensively cohesive social consciousness.
T his is why only a certain type of social metabolic orderemphatically: the communal organic system
could qualif y as truly compatible with the production and the continuing positive enhancement of the
required individual and social consciousness. For the institution and self -determined consolidation of that
type of reproductive system is the only f easible way to overcome adversariality altogether, providing
thereby f ull scope f or the cooperative realization of their f reely adopted conscious decisions by the
individuals.
T he meaning of cooperative, in the f ull sense of the termwhich is absolutely essential f or sustainable
socialist actionimplies the ability as well as the determination of the social individuals not only to dedicate
themselves to the implementation of determinate tasks but also autonomously to modify their actions in
the light of the jointly evaluated consequences. T his mode of self-corrective action could not be more
dif f erent f rom the known varieties of being overruled by a separate hierarchical authority, imposed upon
them f rom above, or by the blind impact and unwanted consequences of their unconscious consciousness
i.e. the invisible hand of the capital system. Such unwanted consequences inevitably arise in the social
metabolic order in which economic laws and determinations work behind the back of the individuals, in the
interest of the capital systems survival, even if they directly imperil the survival of humanity.
T hus consciousness and self-critique are inseparable f rom one another as the orienting and operative
principles of decision making and action in the communal organic system. T his is easily understandable. For
proper self -consciousness, individuals must incorporate their positively disposed awareness of the real and
potential impacts of their decisions and actions on their f ellow human beings, which is inconceivable

without f reely undertaken self -critique. At the same time, the conscious guard in the communal type of
societal interaction process as a whole against the establishment and consolidation of self -perpetuating
vested interests, which would inevitably reproduce adversariality of one kind or another, and the positive
way of preventing the f ormation of such vested interests through the cooperative promotion and
maintenance of substantive equality, constitute the necessary condition f or the conscious and positively
inclined self -critical awareness of the social individuals in their interactions among themselves.
Moreover, there is also a dimension of this problem which transcends the direct experience of the particular
individuals both in time and in space. For, obviously, they have a limited lif e-span, compared to humanitys
historically unf olding overall development. And while the individuals are, of course, constitutive parts of the
actually given stage of humanitys advancement, they are at the same time active members of a particular
community, with its own specif ic history and diverse problems f rom which signif icantly dif f erent tasks may
arise f or them to f ulf ill. T he problem of the contradiction between the time-spans of individuals and of the
community is especially acute at a relatively early stage in the development of the communal system in
question, when the need f or overcoming the major inequalities inherited f rom the past represents a much
more dif f icult problem. Also with regard to the general time scale of development, there are some
consequences of earlier determined f orms of action which can beand have to bemodif ied on a longer
time-scale, well beyond the lif e-span of the generation which was responsible f or consciously adopting
under the once prevailing circumstances the original decisions.
However, these considerations do not undermine the vital importance of the orienting and operative
principles of conscious decision makingand the appropriate self -critique closely associated with itby
the individuals in their social metabolic interchange with nature and among themselves. T hey only underline
the need f or real solidarity extending over the most diverse communities and across the succeeding
generations. Besides, learning f rom the lessons of the past cannot cease to be relevant because of the
adoption of the principles of conscious self -critical action. On the contrary, it can really come into its own
only under circumstances when the perversely derailing adversariality of vested interests is no longer
dominating societal interchange itself . It is notorious how of ten tragic historical events and circumstances
reappear and cause f urther devastation, due to the ref usal of the interested parties to f ace up to the
challenge of critically reassessing them, including their own role in allowing such developments to prevail in
the f irst place. T he implosion of the Soviet-type system was one of the most tragic historical experiences
of the twentieth century f or the socialist movement. It would be even more tragic if we could not draw the
appropriate lessons f rom it.
Self -Critique and Socialist Transition
T he constitution of the communal system, through the conscious adoption and continued enhancement of
self -critique, is undoubtedly a most dif f icult learning process. Marx anticipated the importance of such self critique in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte by saying that proletarian revolutions
criticize themselves constantly, interrupt themselves continually in their own course, come back to the
apparently accomplished in order to begin it af resh, deride with unmercif ul thoroughness the inadequacies,
weaknesses and paltrinesses of their f irst attempts, seem to throw down their adversary only in order that
he may draw new strength f rom the earth and rise again, more gigantic, bef ore them, and they recoil again
and again f rom the indef inite prodigiousness of their own aims, until a situation has been created which
makes all turning back impossible, and the conditions themselves cry out:
Hic Rhodus, hic salta!
Here is Rhodes, leap here!8
In this sense, learning f rom historical experience is an important part of the process of self -critique.
Especially when we are concerned with actual historical developments associated with socialist claims, as
made by the Soviet system. Understandably, Marx was no contemporary to them and theref ore could in no
way take into account the historical specif icities under which the bewildering postrevolutionary
developments unf olded under Stalin in the name of socialism in one country, and in the end have brought

about the implosion of the Soviet-type postcapitalist capital system. Nevertheless the way in which Marx
characterized capitals f ully developed order as an organic system, because its constituents reciprocally
sustain one anotherand thus calling f or change f ar exceeding its juridical relations while maintaining in
many respects more or less intact the capital relation, including its new f orm of self -assertive
personif icationshelps to throw light on what went wrong and of f ers important indications of necessary
self -critique f or the f uture. Likewise Gorbachevs grotesquely uncritical conception of market socialism
could of f er only f antasy remedy to the system and was right f rom the beginning doomed to f ailure, paving
the road to capitalist restoration.
T he issue resembling the uncritical projection of market socialism surf aced much earlier and,
understandably, it is visible again in China.9 In f act, the f antasy of market socialism appeared already in
Marxs lif etime, even if then it was not called by that name. Marx made it absolutely clear what he thought of
it when he stressed in the Grundrisse that the idea held by some socialists that we need capital but not the
capitalists is altogether wrong. It is posited within the concept of capital that the objective conditions of
laborand these are its own producttake on a personality toward it.10 And he added in another passage
in the same work that capital in its being-f or-itself is the capitalist. Of course, socialists sometimes say,
we need capital, but not the capitalist. T hen capital appears as a pure thing, not as a relation of production
which, ref lected in itself , is precisely the capitalist. I may well separate capital f rom a given individual
capitalist, and it can be transf erred to another. But, in losing capital, he loses the quality of being a
capitalist. T hus capital is indeed separable f rom an individual capitalist, but not f rom the capitalist who, as
such, controls the worker.11
It is a similarly mystif ying and self -disarming conception when the relationship of capital and labor is
described, in the most superf icial way, as one between buyers and sellers, hypostatizing thereby a f ictitious
equality in place of the actually existing structurally secured and safeguarded domination and subordination.
T he total absence of criticaland self-criticalassessment of this relationship had a great deal to do with
Gorbachev and others adopting the absurd strategy of market socialism, bringing with it necessary f ailure.
For in reality the relationship we are talking about is not at all a genuine market relation, like that between
particular capitalist enterprises exchanging their products, but only its deceptive semblance, the imposition
of a deceptive invisible hand. For the innermost substantive determination of the f undamental interchange
between capital and labor is an actual relationship of power under the supremacy of capital. T he real
substanceas the f irmly established actual presupposition of the relationship in question in the sphere of
productionis deeply hidden beneath the deceptive semblance of the pseudo-equitative transactions in the
sphere of circulation. As Marx had made it amply clear: It is not a mere buyer and a mere seller who f ace
each other, it is a capitalist and a worker; it is a capitalist and a worker, who f ace each other in the sphere of
circulation, on the market, as buyer and seller. T he relation as capitalist and worker is the presupposition f or
their relation as buyer and seller.12
T hus, f rom the strategically derailing and self -disarming conceptions of this kind the overall f ramework of
sustainable social transf ormationthe socialist vision of a necessary historical alternative to capitals
organic systemis totally missing. Its place is taken by an eclectic mixture of voluntaristic tactical political
projections (misconceived as proper strategic measures) and some elements of capitals established
material order. Like the wishf ul adoption of the so-called market mechanism, which is no simple mechanism
at all but an integral constitutent of capitals organic system, its very nature is quite incompatible with the
envisaged change. And since the necessary strategic orienting f ramework of the communal organic system
is nowhere even hinted at in such conceptions, there can be no room at all in them f or conscious selfcritique: the elementary condition of success of the socialist enterprise. No one should be surprised,
theref ore, by the restoration of capitalism.
Contradictions of the Post Festum System of Control
One of the overwhelmingly important reasons why only the communal organic system can meet the
challenge of adopting as its normal and indef initely sustainable mode of operation the orienting principle of
conscious self -critique concerns the insuperable post festum character of capitals organic system of social
metabolic control.

T his is so even if only some of the def ining characteristics of the old system are retained among the
guiding principles of postrevolutionary developments, f or whatever reason. It is, of course, well
understandable that some tempting constraints and responses are bound to arise on the basis of
capitalist enmity, due to the well-known encirclement of a country which attempts to break its f ormer links
with the global capital system. However, they cannot provide an excuse, as it was done in Stalins Russia,
f or incorporating disruptive and alienating characteristics of the once prevailing mode of managementlike
the control of the productive enterprises strictly from above, as inherited f rom the capitalist
authoritarianism of the workshopinto the new system. For in capitals organic system that characteristic
itself is an integral part of some overall systemic determinations, and theref ore cannot beand indeed they
are notsustained in isolation. In the case of its capitalist version, the authoritarianism of the workshop is
inseparable f rom, and is also greatly strengthened and enf orced by, the tyranny of the market.
If , theref ore, the management of the socialist enterprise f rom above (a veritable contradiction in terms)
f ails to produce the voluntaristically projected positive results, as it is bound to do, ever repeated calls f or
legitimating its twin brother are bound to surf ace. T hat is, calls f or the establishment of the socialist
market economy (another incorrigible contradiction in terms), with its own kind of uncontrollable tyranny on
top of those now happily embraced through the postrevolutionary societys renewed links with the global
capitalist market. As indeed they actually did.
It is a rather uncomf ortable truth in this respect that the tendency to capitalist restoration in the Soviet
Union did not start with Gorbachev. He only consummated it in its f inal variety. And it did not even start with
Khrushchev, several decades earlier. Khrushchev only gave it a more pronounced f orm of practice, with its
corresponding ideological legitimation. In f act the long drawn out tendency f or capitalist restoration was
started by none other than Stalin himself , as I have discussed and documented in considerable detail in
Beyond Capital.13 T hat f atef ul road, with its ultimately uncontrollable implications, was embarked upon
more than half a century ago, when the earlier state of emergency, linked to the Second World War and to
the most urgent tasks of postwar reconstruction, outlived its usef ulness and had to be abandoned.
With regard to the issue of the necessary conscious self -critique f or sustainable socialist development, as
discussed above in relation to the individuals and their social strategies, the f act is that even partially
retaining the inherited determinations of the past carries with it great dif f iculties f or the f uture. T his can be
highlighted with the problem that the incorrigibly post festum character of such determinations represent a
f undamental challenge f or socialist transf ormation. T his is a challenge that cannot be avoided,
sidestepped, or postponed, but must be directly conf ronted right f rom the beginning.
For Marx the social character of production is posited only post festum in the f orm of exchange values
under the capital system. Hence, the more universal, social characteristics of production appear as mere
indirect byproducts, alienated manif estations of capitals own self -expansion. Out of this arises the
pervasive irrationality of the system, which is f orced by its total incapacity to plan f or social ends and the
endless contradictions that this generates to restort to innumerable make-shif t arrangements after the fact
of the production of commodif ied values. Under capitals f ully developed organic system this post festum
character of societal interchange and the contradictions it generates are theref ore increasingly in evidence.
T his has f our principal aspects.
First, the post festum social character of productive activity itself cannot even be imagined apart f rom
capitals historically established exchange relations asserted within the f ramework of generalized
commodity production, strictly subordinating use-value to the absolute requirement of profitable exchangevalue. Only through such, highly problematical, and ultimately quite unsustainable, mediation can the
production process of the capital system qualif y as the most developed f orm of social production in
history.
Second, there is the inalterably post festum character of the potential corrective function f easible in such a
post festum social productive system, with regard to the incurably adversarial/irrationalistic interchanges of
capitals productive enterprises through the market. Although the latter is idealized as the universally
benevolent invisible hand, even this idealization misses a vital dimension of the problem. For in its post

festum determinations the market itself , as a set of attempted corrective socioeconomic and political power
relations (characteristically misrepresented as a straightf orward mechanism), can only partially cover the
relevant terrain in need of remedy, even when it is hypostatized as the rationally operative global market. It
could never turn the post festum sociality of the productive practices themselves into the controllably
(rationally) social.
T he third principal aspect is the necessarily post festum character of planning even in the most gigantic
quasi-monopolistic enterprises. T his is partly due to the overall market f ramework of generalized
commodity production, underlined in the previous point. But not only to that. An even more important f actor
is the f undamental structural antagonism between capital and labor, which is ineliminable f rom the capital
system no matter how many and how varied might be the attempted remedies. T hey range f rom technical
and technological as well as organizational devices, including the practices of Toyotism and the strategy
of securing lean supply lines in the transnational industrial enterprises, all the way to the most
authoritarian f orms of anti-labor legislation even in the so-called democratic countries.14
And f ourth, the post festum nature of the f easible adjustments becomes evident when some major conf licts
and complications erupt in the sociopolitical arena, whether in a given national setting or across
international boundaries. Activating the openly repressive f unctions of the capitalist state was always the
normal way of dealing with this kind of problem. In the most acute international cases this involved
embarking even on major wars, including the catastrophically destructive two world wars in the twentieth
century. For it always belonged to the normality of capital to operate on the basis of war if the other ways
of subduing the adversary f ail. While obviously this devastating general principle has not been abandoned,
as witnessed by the countless postwar military adventures in which the dominant imperialist power, the
United States of America, of ten with its allies, has been engaged in the last f ew decades, including the
Vietnam War and the ongoing Middle East genocide, the prospects f oreshadowed by a potential third world
war f or the annihilation of humankind represent here a rationally insuperable constraint, underlining also in
that way the total untenability of this kind of post festum remedy in the capital system.
To be sure, Soviet-type postrevolutionary f ormations did not retain all f our of these post festum
characteristics in their mode of controlling the societal reproduction process. Tragically, however, some of
them remained operative throughout their seven-decades-long history, including the f ailure to make the
production process itself directly social. In the same way, the authoritarian retroactive character of their
highly bureaucratized mode of planning and its arbitrary modif ication and reimposition af ter their regular
f ailure put into relief the contradictory character of their post festum mode of operation. Moreover, as we all
know, the eventual acceptance of the tyranny of the marketmind-bogglingly even proclaimed by
Gorbachevs of f icially named ideology chief as nothing less than the guarantee of the renewal of
socialismsealed their f ate on the road to unreserved capitalist restoration.15
T he grave problem in this context is that the post festum determination of the social metabolic processes
makes it impossible to adopt the orienting and operative principle of conscious self -critique. And sooner or
later the absence of that vital principle f rom the societies that make the f irst steps through their anticapitalist political revolution in the direction of a socialist transf ormation is bound to derail them.
It is relatively easy to be critical vis--vis the justif iably negated aspects of the past, or even of a
determinate phase of the unf olding present. However, the real test f or the viability of the attempted
socialist course of action is to be able to put into critical historical perspective the presently affirmed and
accepted circumstances of social development. Not gratuitously, f or the sake of f ulf illing some f ormal
requirement peremptorily prescribed to the individuals, as of ten happened in the past, but in order to
cooperatively overcome the real challenges as they are bound to arise f rom the given conditions of
societal interchange. And, of course, that kind of critique is conceivable only through the consistent
exercise of genuine self-criticism, on the basis of soberly assessing the specif ic time-bound determinations
and the corresponding relatively limited validity of the already accomplished part in thenecessarily
changingdynamic whole, with its real and potential contradictions as well as with its all too f requent
temptations to f ollow the line of least resistance.

Self -Critical Planning and the Communal System of Production

We may limit ourselves here to the consideration of only one, but one absolutely crucial issue: the genuine
planning process. For among its inherent characteristics we can clearly perceive the inseparability of the
critical and the equally important self-critical mode of evaluating the tasks and the associated dif f iculties,
together with the f easible f orms of remedial action whenever there may be a need f or it.
It goes without saying, the socialist type of sustainable decision making and the corresponding practical
management of social metabolic interchanges are inconceivable without all-embracing planning. T his is a
type of planning which can consensually bring together, and in a lasting way integrate in a coherent whole,
the particular concerns and the consciously taken decisions of the f reely associated individuals.
Inevitably this means that the crutch of the inherited hierarchical social division of laborwhich admittedly
simplif ies f or the commanding personnel many thingscarries with it a heavy price f or the rest. It
simplif ies matters f or the controllers of the decision-making process through the systems preestablished
economic determinism which, however, deprives at the same time the working individuals of their power of
decision making in the related f ield. Naturally, that crutch must be discarded and replaced by the exercise of
the f aculty of voluntarily/consciously assumed self -critical action by the social individuals, involving at the
same time the acceptance of full responsibility f or their action. T his way of redef ining the decision-making
process must be the case because the helpf ul crutch is not simply a convenient crutch but also
inseparable f rom a heavy chain that f irmly shackles the arms of the individuals to itself .
Accordingly, labors necessary hegemonic alternative implies a radical shif t f rom the social/hierarchical
division of labor, with its preestablished practical imperatives, to an appropriate combination and
organization of labor, to be accomplished within the f ramework of a qualitatively dif f erent communal organic
system. In such a system, thanks to its ability to overcome the vitiating post festum determinations of
reproductive interchange, in Marxs words:
the product does not f irst have to be transposed into a particular f orm in order to attain a general
character f or the individual. Instead of a division of labour, such as is necessarily created with the exchange
of exchange values, there would take place an organization of labour whose consequences would be the
participation of the individual in communal consumption. In the f irst case the social character of production
is posited only post festum with the elevation of products to exchange values and the exchange of these
exchange values. In the second case the social character of production is presupposed, and participation in
the world of products, in consumption, is not mediated by the exchange of mutually independent labours or
products of labour. It is mediated, rather, by the social conditions of production within which the individual is
active.16
T hus we are concerned here with a matter of f undamental importance. For in the only historically
sustainable hegemonic alternative to capitals social metabolic order it is necessary to secure the
conditions f or the irreversible supersession of adversariality, which would otherwise be bound to resurf ace
and assert its power in the direction of capitalist restorationf rom the more or less blind post festum
determinations of societal reproduction. And that vital condition of superseding adversariality, on which so
much else depends, can be secured only through the proper maintenance of the conscious and self-critical
that is, on a continuing basis rationally readjusted, rather than in a voluntaristic way on the recalcitrant
individuals f rom above superimposedall-embracing planning process.
In this sense consciousness, self-critique, the supersession of adversariality, and the genuine planning of
societal reproduction in harmony with the autonomous determination of their meaningful life-activity by the
social individuals themselves, are inextricably combined in making possiblebeyond the anachronistic post
festum mode of operating humanitys social metabolic interchange with nature and among the individuals
the positive institution of the communal organic system as the necessary historical alternative to capitals
increasingly destructive organic system.
None of the conditions mentioned here can be disregarded or even partially neglected. Without the
permanently maintained conscious self -critique of their f orms of interchange by the f reely associated

individuals the communal system is inconceivable. At the same time, without the positively sustained reality
of the communal system itself , which cannot be allowed to be in any way burdened with structurally
sustained adversariality, the orienting principle of conscious self -critique can amount to nothing more than
an empty postulate. For the qualitatively dif f erent new organic system cannot f unction at all without the
f reely adopted conscious planning of its vital reproductive practiceson the basis of the evaluation of the
legitimately enduring elements of the past and the present, f ree f rom the dead weight of vested interests
by the social individuals. And, of course, such planning is f easible only through the positively determined
self-critique of all individuals who in that way can f ully identif y themselves with the overall objectives of their
social developmentthat is the necessary precondition f or real foresight towards an open-ended f uture, in
sharp contrast to the closure f orced upon the working individuals by the incorrigible retroactive post festum
determinations of their f ormer societal reproduction.
Understandably, the move f rom the existing f orms of society to the communal mode of social metabolic
control is the most dif f icult one to make, with great obstacles and resistances on the way. Transition, by its
very nature, is always dif f icult, since deeply embedded ways of societal interaction and individual behavior
must be signif icantly modif ied or altogether abandoned in its course of realization. In the case of a radically
dif f erent way of ordering the lif e of the people by themselves, appropriate to the communal system, the
dif f erence is incommensurable with anything accomplished in the past.
But all that can provide no excuse f or abandoning the perspective, or to water down the objective and
subjective requirements of a transition to the communal system. Its f ull development is, no doubt, bound to
take a long time. However, even at the earliest stage of its realization it is necessary to adopt the overall
vision of the system, with its clearly def inable criteria and characteristics some of which have been
indicated above, as the real target of social transf ormation and the necessary compass of the journey. T he
orienting principles of critique and self -critique are directly relevant in this respect.
Notes
1. Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing
House, 1959), 152. Marxs emphases.
2. Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1 (Moscow: Foreign Languages Press, 1958), 81.
3. Marx, Grundrisse (Hammondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd., 1973), 10506.
4. Henry Home (Lord Kames), Loose Hints upon Education, chiefly concerning the Culture of the Heart
(Edinburgh & London, 1781), 284.
5. Home, Loose Hints upon Education, 257.
6. Marx stressed in this regard that It was an immense step f orward f or Adam Smith to throw out every
limiting specif ication of wealth-creating activitynot only manuf acturing, or commercial or agricultural
labour, but one as well as the other, labour in general.As a rule, the most general abstractions arise only
in the midst of the richest possible concrete development, where one thing appears as common to many, to
all. T hen it ceases to be thinkable in a particular f orm alone.Indif f erence towards specif ic labours
corresponds to a f orm of society in which individuals can with ease transf er f rom one to another, and
where the specif ic kind is a matter of chance f or them, hence of indif f erence. Not only the category, labour,
but labour in reality has here become the means of creating wealth in general, and has ceased to be
organically linked with particular individuals in any specif ic f orm. Marx, Grundrisse, 104.
7. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1863), 273.
8. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works (MECW), vol. 11 (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1994),
10607.
9. As an article on a conf erence in Beijing reported recently in Monthly Review, some Chinese participants
argued that When a State Owned Enterprise is turned into a joint stock corporation with many
shareholders, it represents socialization of ownership as Marx and Engels described it, since ownership
goes f rom a single owner to a large number of owners [among others, this was stated by someone f rom
the Central Party School]. If State Owned Enterprises are turned into joint stock corporations and the
employees are given some shares of the stock, then this would achieve Marxs objective of private
property. In dealing with the State Owned Enterprises, we must f ollow international norms and establish a
modern property rights system. [As in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s, the

terms in quotes were euphemisms f or capitalist norms and capitalist property rights.] Enterprises can be
ef f icient in our socialist market economy only if they are privately owned. [T his statement, voiced by several
people, comes directly f rom Western neoclassical economic theory.] David Kotz, T he State of Of f icial
Marxism in China Today, Monthly Review 59, no. 4, (September 2007): 6061.
10. Marx, Grundrisse, 512,
11. Marx, Grundrisse, 303, Marxs emphases. T he socialist writings ref erred to by Marx are John Gray, The
Social System (36), and J. F. Bray, Labours Wrongs (15776).
12. Marx, Economic Works: 186164, MECW, vol. 34, 422, Marxs emphases.
13. See in particular Sections 17.2 (Socialism in One Country), 17.3 (T he Failure of De-Stalinization and
the Collapse of Really Existing Socialism), and 17.4 (T he Attempted Switch f rom Political to Economic
Extraction of Surplus-Labour: Glasnost and Perestroika without the People) of Beyond Capital, pages
62272 in English.
14. See, f or instance, the writings of Ricardo Antunesincluding Adeus ao trabalho? (So Paulo: Cortez,
1995) and Os sentidos do trabalho (So Paulo: Boitempo, 1999)in this respect.
15. Vadim Medvedev, T he Ideology of Perestroika, in Perestroika Annual, vol. 2, edited by Abel Aganbegyan
(London: Futura/Macdonald, 1989), 32.
16. Marx, Grundrisse, 172.