| Review of: | An Anti-Capitalist Manifesto by Alex Callinicos |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | August H. Nimtz |
| Reviewed in: | Constellations |
| Date accepted online: | 28/03/2007 |
| Published in print: | Volume 13, Issue 4, Pages 583-592 |
Book Reviews
The target-audience for Alex Callinicos's concise, intelligent, and well-written book is what he labels the "movement against capitalist globalization," often called simply, but in his view, erroneously, the anti-globalization movement. The anti-capitalist sentiment of that movement is his focus. But the discussions and debates within the movement about the content of anti-capitalism reveal the need for theoretical and programmatic clarity - the purpose of his book. His position is that the struggle against the capitalist mode of production itself rather than its negative consequences should be the primary goal of the movement. More positively, he hopes to convince the reader that "socialism is a credible and feasible alternative to capitalism, and that the organized working class still is the decisive agent of social transformation." On the historical debate between reform versus revolution, Callinicos, in other words, argues for the latter.
Inspired in part by the structure and content of the original
Callinicos ends this section with a discussion of the consequences of this anarchy: inter-imperialist rivalry and capitalism's inevitable drive to war. Writing about the time of the war in Afghanistan, he correctly anticipated the Bush administration's preemptive strike doctrine as formulated in its National Security Strategy document of September 2002 and the subsequent invasion of Iraq.
In part two, "Varieties and Strategies," Callinicos, taking his lead from part three of the
Much of the last part, "Imagining Other Worlds," is a discussion of what a socialist society would look like in terms of justice, efficiency, democracy, and sustainability. In the process, Callinicos engages and responds to the major arguments against the viability or possibility of real socialist democracy and makes the case for a planned economy. He ends, perhaps inspired by part four of the
One of the useful features of Callinicos's book is that it addresses a body of literature and debates that may not be as well-known outside of Western Europe. This will be valuable for anti-capitalist activists not only in North America but the Third World as well.
As cogent and clear as Callinicos is in making his case, he doesn't address, certainly in any sustained way, three interrelated and important issues. The first concerns Stalinism. It is not enough to describe the regimes in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe as Stalinist and bereft of democracy. To make the case for the socialist alternative, it is necessary to explain why what began as a healthy revolution, specifically Russia, ended up the way it did. I know of no better explanation than Trotsky's thesis - his greatest contribution, in my opinion, to Marxist theory. Callinicos, who certainly knows Trotsky's views, should at least declare his stance on the matter.
The second issue is the Cuban revolution, since it raises the question whether or not Stalinist outcomes are inevitable for the socialist project. If Callinicos can cite China's policies on capital controls as an example of what the nation-state can do to avoid the worst excesses of global capitalism, Cuba, which has the only state leadership in the world that consciously and openly defends an anti-capitalist project not only within its own borders but elsewhere - for example, today in Venezuela - warrants serious consideration. A case, I would argue, can be made that the Cuban revolution, though increasingly buffeted by global capitalism, is still in place exactly because it avoided, from the beginning, the Stalinist route. This is a debate Callinicos should welcome. To shy away from Cuba is a violation of the non-sectarian spirit he advocates for Marxists in relation to the anti-capitalist movement.
The last issue, and the most important, concerns the revolutionary process. In his defense of the working class, Callinicos points out correctly that for workers to recognize their revolutionary potential as a class, their struggles will have to go beyond an "economic-corporate" orientation, or what Lenin called "economism." Marx and Engels argued the same, that is, the need for the working class to think socially and act politically. But doing so requires conscious intervention on the part of communists in the working-class movement, as not only Lenin but Marx and Engels understood as well. Yes, the much-maligned "vanguard" party. The
Callinicos is to be applauded for engaging anti-capitalist activists on the issues he raises. Were he to address these three others, especially the last, his otherwise convincing argument would be on even firmer ground.