ThePoliticsofSocialismReconsidered

ThePoliticsofSocialismReconsidered

byW.E.Scheuermann

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Source: PRAXISInternational(PRAXISInternational),issue:2/1988,pages:250254,onwww.ceeol.com.

REVIEW ESSAY

w. E.

Scheuerman

Liberal theorists have long questioned the compatibility of socialism, individual freedom, and democratic government. For as astute a thinker as Max Weber, the organization of production along socialist lines threatened to widen the sphere of bureaucratic domination in modem society. Socialism would squeeze western society of one of the few remaining spheres in which individual freedom might flourish, effectively tightening the bolts on the "iron cage" of modernity. Unfortunately, the history of 20th century socialism has too often realized the worst fears of its liberal critics. Socialism has never taken a democratic form. Certainly, left social analysists have justifiably pointed to the specific historical sources of political authoritarianism in state socialist societies, yet this should leave us unsatisfied. We need to free ourselves of ossified intellectual blinders and confront the problem at hand head on: in short, are socialism, individual liberty, and democratic rule truly compatible, and if so, how can we work to guarantee that socialism will embody the best of the liberal democratic political tradition? Paul Q. Hirst's Law, Socialism and Democracy is an important attempt to grapple with this question. As Hirst rightfully emphasizes, if socialism is once again to become a viable political force in the advanced capitalist west, "we need to convince not only our own supporters but most of all our opponents that socialism does not mean in Max Weber's words an 'icy night' of bureaucratic darkness." 1 More immediately, socialism, albeit in a distorted and repressive form, is already a reality for millions in state socialist regimes. Hirst's work clearly makes a valuable contribution for those who find themselves engaged in concrete political and intellectual struggles for radical democratization and liberalization in ' 'real-existing' , socialism." Indeed, it's a tragedy that so few there will be able to read it. Hirst convincingly argues that Marxists have too long ignored the question of how socialist political institutions might best be organized so as to guarantee selfrule and individual liberties. "Real-existing socialism" well demonstrates that we cannot naively a priori assume that the socialization of production somehow necessarily engenders popular rule . Yet unfortunately, much of traditional Marxist political theorizing has been tinged by this simplistic view, a vision, in turn, derived from orthodox Marxism's oftentimes reductivist conception of the state. In order to combat the failings of orthodox left political thought, Hirst ultimately appropriates a variety of liberal democratic insights about political rule: he thinks that an independent judiciary, for example, is as essential for the preservation of individual freedom in democratic socialism as in liberal capitalism. Although Hirst is hardly uncritical of liberal democratic political ideals - indeed, he is highly suspicious of traditional notions of sovereignty and representation, his analysis nonetheless * Review of Paul Q. Hirst's Law, Socialism and Democracy (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1986).
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suggests that the construction of an emancipatory socialist political order poses many of the same problems liberal polities have been forced to confront, and not surprisingly, socialism will sometimes have to make use of similar institutions. Appropriately, Hirst directs much of his ire against traditional Marxist political theory. He argues that the dangerous spectre of "the people" as "one agency of decision, " a "unity with a single interest, " haunts the thinking of many members of this tradition. 2 In the orthodox model of "popular democracy," theorists like Lenin and Mao presuppose the existence of a unified working class capable of exercising direct political power. In this conception, the unitary working class ("the people") acts through a variety of directly democratic bodies (soviets, communes, etc.), and "the people's collective interests are allegedly represented at the highest stages of the socialist political apparatus. Perhaps most significantly, this model assumes that because "the masses" constitute a single, unified body with "a single interest, " its power can ultimately be represented by a single, centralized decisionmaking body. In state socialism, the "central plan, " which purports to represent the interests of society at large, often plays this role. Because' 'the people" are a single, unified "agency of decision," its collective will can be represented by a single "agency" of decisionmaking, namely "the plan. "3 Yet as Hirst argues, this vision tends to obfuscate the fact that even in socialism, there will always be a "plurality of differentiated agencies of decision. "4 Even in hypercentralized Soviet state socialism, for example, a plurality of important political and economic decisionmaking bodies function. 5 Hirst seems to think that this is simply endemic to modem society; its complexity necessitates the existence of a diversity of decisionmaking units. This clearly has significant implications. In Hirst' swords, "the people as such cannot rule." 6 Even if we accept the troublesome assumption that "the people" constitute a unitary body, the fact remains that' 'the people" will still be incapable of exercising power by means of a single, centralized "agency of decision." The vision of "popular democracy" thereby becomes misleading because it allows us to ignore the truly important problems at hand: how should we structure the plurality of decisionmaking bodies necessary to socialism in the most emancipatory fashion possible? In other words, how can we make sure that socialist institutions will guarantee democratic rule and preserve individual freedoms? Yet Hirst is also critical of those who contentedly gaze upon the advantages of existing parliamentary political forms. Socialism cannot leave existing parliamentary democracy unchanged. Contrary to a view widespread among mainstream social democrats, contemporary parliamentary democracy is hardly sufficiently democratic. In Thatcher's Britain, for example, "a Party receives 43% of the votes cast and yet it is awarded a number of seats sufficient to ensure that its will is imposed in the assembly despite the fact that its policies are bitterly unpopular ... ".7 In this context, Hirst might also have mentioned the 1984 V.S. presidential election, when a quarter of eligible voters made the so-called Reagan "landslide" possible. As Hirst well documents, parliamentary rule in the capitalist west too often becomes what he fittingly calls "elective despotism." Perhaps not surprisingly, Hirst ultimately envisions a democratic socialism which combines directly democratic and representative democratic institutions, and much of Law, Socialism and Democracy is devoted to an analysis of how we might get

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there. In his view, given the complexity of modern society, socialism will clearly have to rely upon representative institutions. Still, a wide array of directly democratic bodies should complement them. "Units such as village communes, small factories, schools, housing estates and so on can be run in this way. It is necessary to design the scale and scope of tasks of such bodies to permit direct democracy; it is both an economical form of control and provides masses of ordinary people with an education in basic organizational skills." 8 Only an appropriate mix of direct and representative democratic bodies can make socialism truly emancipatory. Along these lines, Hirst outlines the demandsfor radical economic and political democratization which he would like to see on the Left's political agenda. His discussion here of possible political strategies is often quite insightful, yet he too often fails to examine the tremendous complexities and problems his demands for democratization clearly entail. How, for example, do we use piecemeal' 'workplace participation" and "industrial democracy" proposals to move towards a substantially more radical democratization of economic life? How might "efficiency" and' 'industrial democracy" be made compatible, and who would decide which trade-offs might need to be made? Hirst is clearly cognizant of issues of this sort, yet the reader unfortunately will have to look elsewhere to get a richer analysis of them. 9 Hirst's analysis of the significance of law and legal theory for democratic socialist political institutions is far more engaging. Once again, the brunt of his criticism is directed against orthodox Marxist theory. He attacks the legal theorist Pashukanis for allegedly seeing law, at the most fundamental level, as a product of bourgeois society. For Pashukanis, "the form of law is defined by the categories of 'subject' and 'right': law consists in the recognition of the rights of subjects concerning possession." 10 Pashukanis thereby ties the existence of legal relations to the functioning of capitalist commodity production; law is conceptualized as that body of rules which merely functions to regulate the relations between possessive subjects who have rights over commodities which they exchange. Given law's roots in commodity production, the abolition of commodity production makes law obsolete. Without possessive subjects who own commodities to be exchanged, there is no need for law. For Pashukanis, socialism ultimately entails the supersession of commodity production, and with the end of commodity production, the' 'withering away" of law becomes possible. Hirst attacks this rather naive view on a number of fronts. The centerpiece of his critique revolves around the claim that, as mentioned, socialism will necessarily consist of a plurality of "differentiated agencies of decision" - distinct institutions with decisionmaking powers. In every society, the relationships between these institutions, and between institutions, individuals, and social groups, will have to be defined and regulated. In Hirst' s eyes, this is the role of law. "Law is an instance of regulation: an institutionally specific complex of organizations and agents, discourses and practices, which operates to define (whether in codified rules or not) the form and limits of other organizations, agents, and practices. " 11 Because the "form" and "limit" of socialist "organizations, agents and practices" will have to be defined, socialists cannot dispense with law or questions of legal theory. Contrary to Pashukanis' dreams, law will not "wither away." What role might law then play in a genuinely emancipatory socialist society?

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Hirst's examination of this question is a complex and fascinating one, and I can only sketch out its broadest features here. As he notes, the mere legal positing of individual liberties and restraints on state power often means very little. In state socialist political constitutions, there is clearly a great deal of talk about the legal "rights" citizens purportedly possess. Yet unfortunately, as soon as citizens put their legal "rights" to use, the state clamps down and makes a mockery of its own constitution. As Hirst correctly argues, the solution to this problem lies in organizing social institutions so that they function to uphold individual liberties and perpetuate democratic government. "The problem is the absence of institutions to defend certain agents' capacities for action and to limit those of others. ' , 12 The "political autonomy" of judicial and (democratically chosen) legislative bodies becomes essential here. In his eyes, only when legislative and judicial bodies are autonomous in the realm of decisionmaking and independent from administrative institutions (the police, state ministries, etc.) do they function to prevent attacks on individual freedoms and democratic rule. One of the sources of political authoritarianism in the DDR, for example, is the fact that "the courts are part of an administrative hierarchy and are directly subject in their adjudicative decisions to orders from, interventions by and more subtle pressures emanating from the Ministry of Justice. " 13 Specifically, democratic socialism hence needs independent "courts, specialist review bodies, supervision by legislature, and administrative police" in order to tame the potential excesses of political power. Perhaps most significantly, institutions which "check" the abuses of political power only function effectively if there is "an ideological commitment of political leaders and the mass of citizens to such forms of regulation." 14 Social groups must respect (and, indeed, buttress) these institutions which work to prevent political tyranny if they are to survive and remain viable. "Checks" on political power must have a social base. For this reason, social pluralism becomes essential to the well-being of democratic socialist political institutions. Allying himself with liberal-left pluralists like Robert Dahl, Hirst insists that the existence of a plurality of autonomous political and social units alone serves to challenge potential abuses of state power and to hinder its centralization into the hands of a small clique. 15 Furthermore, this suggests the specific form a socialist economy will have to take: only if both market and planning mechanisms are put to use and a wide variety of forms of economic organization (including cooperatives and privately-owned small businesses) are permitted can pluralism, democracy, and individual freedom conceivably flourish.
l.lw, Socialism and Democracy is an important contribution to ongoing debates in left theory. Hirst is correct in arguing that socialist theorists have too long succumbed to naive and even crudely utopian illusions about the political forms appropriate to democratic socialism. Indeed, if the socialist project is to remain of any relevance as we approach the 21st century, we'll have to do better. Yet Hirst's work has its limitations. Law, Socialism and Democracy is a very thin volume, yet it tackles a tremendous array of issues, some of which - the role of rights in socialism and the nature of legal punishment to name two - I have necessarily ignored here. Given the breadth of issues Hirst confronts, his discussion of many of them is often necessarily abridged. As I mentioned above, this is perhaps most blatantly clear in his discussion of political and economic

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democratization proposals and strategies, where Hirst unavoidably ignores many of the most demanding problems and questions. Perhaps more significantly, there is a sense in which the implications of Hirst' s book are somewhat more far-reaching than he may intend. As Law, Socialism and Democracy so well documents, much of traditional socialist political theory is badly flawed, and it is no accident that left political movements today find themselves in a state of disarray. Hirst is justified in focussing on the importance of socialists "theorizing about political institutions" in a fresh and unorthodox manner. 16 Still, one is left with the distinct impression that Hirst's project remains somehow inadequate. The problem with socialist theory and practice today is not simply that our conception of socialist political strategies and political institutions is flawed. The crisis of socialism is far more profound. Advanced capitalism and state socialism have taken forms for which traditional left theory has ill-prepared us, and it has become increasingly clear that socialist theory and practice is once again in need of a radical overhaul and reconstruction. We do not simply need a refurbished socialist political theory; we need to undertake a somewhat more complex endeavour, namely the reconstruction of a broader social theory of contemporary capitalism of which explicitly political theorizing constitutes only one part. We cannot simply set out to supplement the basic tenets of traditional socialist theory with a refined analysis of politics without first critically scrutinizing those basic tenets: otherwise, we risk reconstructing socialist political theory on a dune made of quicksand.
NOTES
1. Paul Q. Hirst, !..Iw, Socialism and Democracy (Boston, 1986), 14. 2. Hirst, Law, Socialism and Democracy, 29. 3. Hirst, Law, Socialism and Democracy, 29. 4. Hirst, Law, Socialism and Democracy, 34. 5. Hirst, Law, Socialism and Democracy, 27, 33-38. 6. Hirst, Law, Socialism and Democracy, 41. 7. Hirst, Law, Socialism and Democracy, 115. 8. Hirst, Law, Socialism and Democracy, 42, 102. 9. See Workers' Control, ed. G. Hunnius, G. Garson, J. Case (New York, 1973); Robert Dabl, A Preface to Economic Democracy (Berkeley, 1985); M. Carnoy and D. Shearer, Economic Democracy (White Plains, 1980); C. Gunn, Workers' Self-Management in the United States (Ithaca, 1984). 10. Hirst, Law, Socialism and Democracy, 16. 11. Hirst, Law, Socialism and Democracy, 19. 12. Hirst, Law, Socialism and Democracy, 37. 13. Hirst, Law, Socialism and Democracy, 36. 14. Hirst, Law, Socialism and Delnocracy, 37. 15. Hirst, Law, Socialism and Democracy, 86, 103-5; Dahl, A Preface to Economic Democracy (Berkeley, 1985). 16. Hirst, Law, Socialism and Democracy, 14.