Is Historical Materialism a Deterministic Approach? The Democratic Firm and the Transition to Socialism

1. Introduction

Engels endorsed the materialistic conception of history as the true core of Marxism (Engels 1859a: 202-03), Lenin esteemed it as “a great achievement in scientific thinking” (Lenin 1913: 477), and Aron (1970: 178) held that the gist of Marxism is the theory of the capitalistic mode, which is grounded in historical materialism (for a comparable view, see Rodinson 1969: 13-18). ¹

Until the advent of Marx, historians had been preferably concerning themselves with political events, as well as religious and philosophical ideas; unlike them, Marx, with his historical materialism, chose to investigate deeper motives that would shed light on political history, the history of ideas and the agents behind them, the relationship between humans and nature over time, as well as the actions of a horde of actors grouped into castes, orders, and classes (see Godelier 1982: 332). Considering the crucial place of historical materialism in Marx’s overall thought, in this paper I will try to establish if Marxism is a deterministic approach.

According to Plechanov (1895: 46), Marxists think of history as ultimately shaped by the dynamic of material production forces, rather than by human will. Bernstein, for his part (1899: 31), made it clear that “to be a materialist means first of all to trace all phenomena to the necessary movements of matter”; and “as it is always the movement of matter which determines the form of ideas and the directions of the will,” he argued, “these also (and with them everything that happens in human reality) are inevitable.” According to Merleau-Ponty (1948: 291), throughout his life Marx persistently emphasised the decisive role of objective factors in history; so much so that following the emergence of “scientific socialism” the marvellous parallel the young Marx used to draw between the achievements of philosophy and the advancement of socialism was dismantled in favor of infrastructure. “In historical materialism”—Elster argued (1985: 267)—“productive forces hold the centre of the stage.”

Although these views have come in for severe criticism from more than one author, they are still widely shared and constantly resurgent; more recently, numerous orthodox Marxists, with G. A. Cohen the most prominent among them (see Cohen 1978, 2000), have advanced the so-called fundamentalist thesis, that is to say they have categorized Marx’s approach as a form of technological determinism.

In point of fact, it is long since the description of Marx’s approach as “technological determinism” was first refuted by Kautsky (see Kautsky 1899: 1-34). Modern authors who appropriately rate Marx’s dialectical method as antithetical to determinism include, among others, Acton (1955: 159-68), Plamenatz (1963: 274ff), Miller (1984), and Sowell (1985: 30-31).

As a rule, determinism is considered to be the doctrine teaching that a particular aspect or part of the social whole has a predominating influence on all the others. Several authors hold that economic determinism reflects the idea of a linear causality, i.e. of direct relations between a paramount economic cause and the effects that passively flow from it (see, for instance, Dunlap 1979: 313). Due to this linear notion of causality—they argue—the economic base is the necessary and, in itself, sufficient cause, whereas the superstructure is stripped of its autonomous role and production relations are the direct offshoot of the prevailing state of technology. In fact, this conception is typical of mechanistic, rather than Marxian, materialism, and as it tends to obliterate the role of superstructural factors it is unable to account for the rise of existing forms of society and their different characteristics (see Karsz 1974: 120-24). In contrast, in Althusser’s structuralist approach causality is far from linear, since the political and ideological aspects of a mode of production are seen to act themselves out in a fairly autonomous manner.

The charge of determinism is usually pressed against Lenin’s argument that the transition to socialism will follow upon the stage known as state monopoly capitalism. As is well known, in an attempt to provide an “objective” description of the development of capitalism, Lenin maintained that the growth of monopolies and ever more massive state intervention in the economy would pave the way for a centrally planned socialist system with large-size monopolistic concerns. In advanced countries and, generally, capitalistic economies—he wrote—the assumptions for the takeover of the capitalistic economic apparatus by the mass of workers had been created by such a genuinely socialist measure as the extension of compulsory schooling to all citizens, by the subjection of workers to the discipline of industrial work, and by greatly simplified governance and administration procedures.

At any rate, instead of expatiating on Althusser’s far from consensus-based criticism, I wish to emphasize that the moment we think of socialism as a mode of production with worker-controlled firms, rather than a centrally planned system, the deterministic overtones perceived in the materialist conception of history will promptly appear in a more appropriate perspective. ²

To back up my claim that Marxism is not necessarily a deterministic approach I will be reporting numerous quotes from Marx’s and Engels’s own writings. Let me emphasize once again that my main aim in this paper is to show that the moderately deterministic overtones of Marx’s materialist conception of history will appear acceptable if we think of socialism as a system of democratic firms. My conclusion can be summed up as follows: against the background of the above-mentioned equation of socialism with democratic firm management,

In point of fact, as a result of the customary identification of Marxism with centralized planning these ideas are slow to make headway. In this connection, Pompeo Faracovi (1972: 129) has argued that until the 1930s hardly anyone finding fault with all or part of the political and theoretical evolution of Soviet communism would dare to describe herself as a Marxist.

2. A Critique of Marx by Carlo Rosselli

One of the acutest critics of Marx, Carlo Rosselli, rejected Marxism on account of its inherent deterministic strain. His widely shared criticism can be used to illustrate a line of reasoning that several critics of Marxism (including Liss 1984; Severino 2012: 102-03) tend to adopt.

As Marx was the founder of scientific socialism, Rosselli wrote (1930: 353), he expected a true socialist to use sound judgment and meet the challenge of historical reality squarely. Holding that socialism lay in the nature of things, he looked upon it as a natural offshoot of the innermost mechanisms of capitalistic society, rather than a dream that men cherished in their hearts. Marx claimed that socialism would be implemented not as a result of deliberate human decisions, but rather under the pressure of the transcendent forces that govern people’s lives and their interrelations and are seen to evolve and move forward without pause. There can be little doubt—Rosselli remarked—that Marx expected socialism to become a reality as soon as the proletariat developed an awareness of the causes of its subjection, and he certainly took it for granted that the revolt of the proletariat against capitalism, though sure to come, would eventuate from the mechanisms of capitalistic production rather than from their free will. Despite the efforts of revisionists to demonstrate that in Marx’s view of history there is some scope for the human will, he concluded, it is a plain fact that Marx’s approach is deterministic. Indeed, as soon as we admit that the human spirit, though certainly affected by conditioning, does enjoy some measure of freedom, the idea of historical necessity underlying Marx’s approach is bound to crumble.

Rosselli thought that Marx’s class conflict theory and lifelong commitment to awakening the minds of the proletariat to awareness were the two aspects opposing a deterministic interpretation of his thought, but he also remarked that as Marx presented class struggle as “the necessary result of a conflict which lies in the nature of things, as the human facet of the dialectic immanent in things,” the formal exterior revolution in social relationships would only break out after the completion of the substantive revolution in production modes and techniques” (op. cit.: 360). Rosselli described Marx’s approach as tainted with catastrophism, i.e. as projecting a disastrous scenario envisaging the pooling of capital into fewer and fewer hands and a disastrous deterioration of the living conditions of the proletariat, a scenario which today is being announced by ever more calamitous crises affecting capitalistic economies: due to the increasing concentration of capital and impoverishment of workers, rates of profit would in due time start tumbling down dramatically until, as a result of steady drops in the purchasing power of the population, the nations concerned would prove unable to market their industrial outputs.

From Rosselli’s perspective, determinism was actually the true key to the success of Marx’s thought. “The reasons behind its immense fortune”—he argued—“will become apparent for anyone scanning his Manifesto, one of the most powerful pamphlets ever written …. No one,” he continued, “has instigated more rebellions or kindled more dedication to a cause than this hot-tempered bookworm has been able to do with his celebrated twenty-page text. His seductive dialectic ensnares you, and as soon as he has firmly captured your attention he benumbs your brains with verdicts in the style of those of a vindictive god …. Justice acting in alliance with science, or, rather, science raised to the level of justice! What stunning power of attraction!” (op. cit.: 265).

On the other hand, Rosselli was aware that since the time when this work was written Marx’s vision had been proved thoroughly wrong by a horde of reformists. In his opinion, by accepting a great many reforms expected to generate benefits for the working class, the existing socialist parties had been “bartering their revolutionary purity for an indefinite number of dishes of lentils” (op. cit.: 367), and after the rise of cooperative firms and the attainment of political liberties the newly-created trade unions had reached the conclusion that there was noting to gain from such a social catastrophe as revolution. Lastly, an ever more thorough understanding of the laws governing growth had enabled modern societies to control circumstances and thereby relieve a sizeable part of the world population from the grip of necessity.

In a letter written by Engels after Marx’s death we read (Marx and Engels 1942: 517):

Political, juridical, philosophical, religious, artistic, etc. development is based on economic development. But all these react upon one another and also upon the economic base. It is not that the economic position is the cause and alone active, while everything else only has a passive effect. There is, rather, interaction on the basis of economic necessity, which ultimately always asserts itself.

Engels has also written (Engels 1890: 417):

According to the materialist conception of history, the ultimately determining element in history is the production and reproduction of real life. More than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. Hence if somebody twists this into saying that the economic element is the only determining one, he transforms that proposition into a meaningless, abstract, senseless phrase.

In Capital we read (Marx 1894: 1011): “the capitalist mode of production, like every other, constantly reproduces not only the material product but also the socio-economic relations, the formal economic determinants of its formation. Its result thus constantly appears as its premises, and its premise as its results.”

As it was written, Marx in his work was not a consistent economic determinist, “but it must be admitted that at various places technology and the economy do seem to develop independently of any social restraints and take on an almost autonomous existence, dragging along the rest of the social system in their wake” (McQuarie and Amburgey 1978: 212).

3. Does Marxism Assume that History Is Heading in a Given Direction?

The prerequisite for answering the queries raised is clarifying if history is actually heading in a given direction and, if so, what this direction is. The touch of determinism implied in the statement that history proceeds in a given direction can hardly be denied.

Marx describes history as a process which is governed by laws and unfolds as an endless chain of changes in social interrelations. In The German Ideology, he wrote (see Marx and Engels 1845-46: 27): “History is nothing but the succession of the separate generations, each of which exploits the materials, the capital funds, the productive forces handed down to it by all preceding generations; and thus, on the one hand, continues the traditional activity in completely changed circumstances and, on the other, modifies the old circumstances with a completely changed activity.” ³ Further on, he and Engels specified (supra: 59) that it was to be looked upon as “the history of the evolving productive forces taken over by each new generation,” and, therefore, of “the development of the forces of the individuals themselves.” ⁴

This means that even a comparatively early work such as The German Ideology offers the demonstration that the main purpose behind historical materialism is “expounding the real process of production—starting from the material production of life itself—and comprehending the form of intercourse connected with and created by this mode of production, i.e. civic society in its various stages as the basis of all history; describing it in its action as the state, and also explaining how all the different theoretical products and forms of consciousness, religion, philosophy, morality, etc., etc., arise from it.”

Right to his maturity, Marx held on to the belief that the true foundation of the historical process was material production, but as early as 1859 he wrote (Marx 1859: 5): “In the real production of their existence men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production.”

Emphasizing the originality of Marx’s approach to history, the Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile (1974: 10) defined it as “a new perspective for approaching history from an unprecedented angle of view and a new method and a new system dictating the need to take a step back and try to offer a different elucidation of human experience, a new perspective on the essence of life and, in short, a new philosophical approach.”

In point of fact, Marx did not deny the importance of the subject, i.e. mankind, in history. “Men”—he wrote—“make their own history” (Marx 1852: 103). ⁵ Quite naturally, these reflections prompt me to raise the question whether there is actually progress in history.

In the wake of Marx, Gramsci argued that history was the chronicle of the successful efforts of humankind to gain ever more freedom by dismantling and breaking up the ponderous repressive machinery put in place by the power structure (see Gramsci 1984: 601). Lukàcs (1968: 34) remarked that Marx’s conception of world history “as a unitary process and the highroad to liberation” was actually in line with the approaches of German philosophers and chiefly Hegel. This view goes as far back as Kant, who described history as steady progress (see Kant 1784: 174).

There can be little doubt that the long-term (not year-after-year) effect of the growth of productive forces is a rising trend in per capita incomes and that rising income levels are closely linked to an upward trend in access to education. “In turn, scientific advancements and higher education levels help the population work with their environment ever more effectively. Men and women behaving rationally are in a position to live more harmoniously with the environment and themselves.” Provided it is true that the domain of knowledge is constantly widening and that people are ever better educated, there is good ground for believing that society will develop the ability to exercise ever tighter control over production activities as well. This leads us to argue, with Balibar, that any Marxist will “classify existing societies by reference to an intrinsic criterion: their respective degrees of socialisation, i.e. the extent to which individuals are collectively able to control the conditions of their existence” (Balibar 1993: 131). ⁶

Marx’s conception of history has been criticized for underrating the risks associated with prolonged processes of regression comparable to those recorded in the aftermath of the collapse of the Roman Empire or the years immediately before Hitler’s rise to power in Germany. When risks of regression are downplayed, Sowell argued, people may either come to think that nothing can be worse than their objectionable present or conceive the equally misleading assumption that revolution will not entail a period of prolonged misery for the masses (see Sowell 1985: 205-09). This objection can be countered by arguing that while it is true that Marx extolled the growing ability of humankind to keep the world in which we live ever more effectively in check, he also specified that fully democratic forms of control would only become possible in a socialist society.

The idea that the ultimate goal of the historical process is the full emancipation of humankind has been called into question by numerous commentators. Among them are Colletti (in the 1977 interview printed in Colletti 1979) and Hodgson (2000: 302-05), both of whom find fault with a finalistic, i.e. teleological, component they perceive in Marxist writings, but wrongly extend it from individual Marxists to Marxism overall. In point of fact, both Engels and Marx made it absolutely clear that theirs was a non-teleological approach (see Engels 1859b: 372 ⁷ ; Marx 1860: 131, 1861: 578, 1867: 114; De Gregory 2003: 19-20).

It is worth repeating that while Marx did rely on the ability of people to master the environment ever more thoroughly in a long-term perspective, he never as much as suggested that the future of capitalism would entail piecemeal day-by-day gains in freedom. He rather held that the ultimate effect of the dynamic of productive forces under capitalism would be a growing subjection of workers to the oppressive power of capital. As he himself put it, “at the same pace that mankind masters nature, man seems to become enslaved to other men or to his own infamy. Even the pure light of science seems unable to shine but on the dark background of ignorance. All our invention and progress seem to result in endowing material forces with intellectual life, and in stultifying human life into a material force” (quoted in Ojzerman 1969: 270).

Concerning this point, let me mention that Lukàcs divided the history of Kultur into a pre-capitalistic stage, a capitalistic stage, and a third, classless stage. And whereas in capitalistic societies, where everything that is produced is turned into a commodity, he saw culture stripped of its autonomy and ultimately nullified; he predicted that thanks to the abolition of mercantile relationships communistic societies would provide fresh scope for meaningful work and help humankind wield “its inner mastery over the external reality,” i.e. Kultur (see Lukàcs 1971 and the comment by Cases quoted there).

Hence, it is possible to conclude that the description of history as the record of successive steps towards ever more effective control over the world in which we live and the argument that such control will only become democratic in a communist world are keystones of Marxism. ⁸

An explanatory note concerning Marx’s estimation of Darwin and Darwinism will help clarify the line of reasoning adopted so far. The descriptions of reality offered by Darwin and Marx are not only different, but antithetical. Darwin’s is a deterministic process whose successive steps follow upon one another without the least scope for freedom; in contrast, Marx’s is a process which, though entailing a measure of determinism (communism is held to be a necessary development), centers on the idea that human evolution is (in a long-term perspective, let this be repeated) the highroad to ever greater freedom.

This is confirmed by a letter dated 15 February 1869 in which Marx draws a clear-cut distinction between Darwin and Darwinism. Starting out from the struggle for life in English society (described as “the competition of all with all, bellum omnium contra omnes”), he writes, Darwin made the discovery that the struggle for life was “the dominating law of animal and plant life”; conversely, Darwinism “considers this a conclusive reason for human society never to emancipate itself from its bestiality” (see Marx 1869). Here Marx is evidently endorsing Darwin’s approach, but not the tendency of Darwinists to extend the struggle for existence to human behavior overall. ⁹

The issue of determinism has to do with the view of dialectics as totality. Indeed, the main effect of a totality-focused dialectical approach is to magnify the impact of totality on the context, in terms that its individual components will be perceived as different depending on the specific totality they are part of from time to time. The end result is a compound of effects which impact on the elements constituting the system (Karsz 1974: 131). The importance of a simultaneous focus on an issue and the surrounding totality was underscored by Althusser (see Karsz 1974: 130). In Althusser’s view, this was the only effective way to address and solve the relevant issue dialectically, but he also claimed that this was only applicable to the method used by Marx. Hegel’s, he argued, was antithetical to the non-contradiction principle and “completely dependent on the radical presupposition of a simple original unity which develops within itself by virtue of its negativity” and “only ever restores the original simplicity and unity in an ever more ‘concrete’ totality” throughout its development (Althusser 1965: 175).

From this, it follows that no one sharing Althusser’s view of dialectics as totality-focused should use a form of dialectical thinking that can be re-interpreted as economic determinism. In Althusser’s approach, economic determinism descends from the idea of a linear causal chain implying direct cause-effect relations, i.e. relations between a single paramount cause and the effects that passively flow from it. The economic base is the necessary and, in itself, sufficient cause, whereas the superstructure, stripped of its autonomy, becomes ineffectual and production relations are seen to be directly shaped by the prevailing state of technology. Hence, the idea of a predetermined course of things, materialism, leads up to economic fatalism, i.e. determinism.

On closer analysis, however, this conception is typical of mechanistic, rather than Marxian, materialism, and as it tends to obliterate the part played by superstructural factors, it is unable to account for the rise of existing forms of society and their different characteristics (see Karsz 1974: 120-24). Like Althusser, Sowell also (1985: 30-31) appropriately classifies Marx’s dialectical method as antithetical to determinism.

4. Market Socialism and Transition Scenarios

Before we can say a final word on the deterministic essence of Marx’s thought, it is necessary to identify the new mode of production that will arise from the ashes of capitalism and to ask ourselves in what way the transition to socialism might be followed through in practice.

As is well known, in the 1930s a group of eminent economists reached the conclusion that reconciling planning with markets was far from easy, if not altogether impossible; the belief that central planning is no comforting prospect for the future has been making headway ever since and has been confirmed by the sensational collapse of the regimes that had opted for this system. Hence, the question arises whether socialism still exists.

In my opinion (see Jossa 2012b, 2014), a form of socialism which is doubtless feasible today is worker management of firms, i.e. the beacon of hope that Oskar Lange expected to rekindle the activism of the working class (see Lange 1957: 159). This is why I agree with Anweiler (1958: 472) that the original idea behind the movement for workers’ councils—“the primary aim of Marxism” (see Garaudy undated: 187)—is “as topical as ever.” According to R. Tawney (1918: 103), freedom will not be complete unless it brings with it not only absence of repression, but also opportunities for self-organization; in short, unless it is attained by extending representative institutions to industry. To clarify my position, I have to raise the question whether a system of democratic firms operating in markets would actually generate a new mode of production.

As is well known, while capitalistic firms strive to maximize profit in the interests of capitalists, the self-managed firm theorized by Ward (1958) and Vanek (1970) is concerned with maximizing average worker income or, even more correctly, benefits for workers (in point of fact, for those majority partners who have authority to pass resolutions). Hence, if economic activity is made to pursue a different goal, the system also will change as a matter of course and will become a new mode of production. In the words of the well-known Italian philosopher Emanuele Severino (2012: 94), “within a logic (prevailing over the course of human history) that postulates the existence of goals and means, there can be little doubt (though the consequence is less dominant than the starting assumption) that whenever an action—in this case the capitalistic mode of operation—is made to deflect from its original goal to a different one, this same logic determines that the action itself will turn into something different in content, rhythm, intensity, relevance, and configuration.”

In Marxist terms, it is possible to argue that the reversed capital-labor relation specific to democratic firm control solves the conflict between the socialized nature of production and the private nature of appropriation thanks to the fact that both production and distribution, being governed by the choices of the members’ collective, become socialized activities. In a democratic firm system the workers’ collective is sovereign, in terms of its decision powers in matters of production including authority to regulate distribution in manners that will appear most appropriate from time to time (see Jossa 2012a).

The next question to be raised is why democratic firm management should be rated as a major stride forward in the evolution of humankind. The answer is, quite naturally, that the suppression of hired labor in a labor-managed firm system results in a gain in democracy since it puts an end to the coercion of workers by their employers. And coercion, Hayek wrote (1960: 21), is an evil which turns useful thinking individuals into lifeless tools for the attainment of another’s ends. Accordingly, anyone thinking, like Marx, that mankind will gradually gain more and more freedom (even though via the most tortuous of paths) can hardly doubt that democratic firm control will become a reality at some point in time.

Coming to the way the transition from capitalism to a system of democratic firms can be implemented in practice, one possible scenario, though not the most important one, is converting run-down capitalistic enterprises into cooperative firms. Several countries have a considerable track record of insolvent capitalistic businesses which were turned into cooperatives. In capitalistic systems, Vanek wrote (1977: 46), a corporate insolvency case may be an excellent opportunity for setting up a self-managed firm. This undeniable fact can be traced both to the higher productivity levels of cooperative firms and to the different responses of workers to periods of crisis. Whereas the workers of capitalistic firms, backed up by trade unions, do not accept any wage cuts, the partners of a cooperative are likely to renounce part of their earnings in an attempt to keep their firm going. In other words, whereas worker incomes in cooperative firms are flexible by definition, capitalistic businesses are often obliged to face bankruptcy because overly rigid payroll expenses prevent them from boosting bottomline results.

An alternative—and even more effective—way to establish the new order is to secure the passing of an act of Parliament designed to convert the shares of existing companies into bonds of equal value and to outlaw hired labor to the extent and in manners deemed appropriate. As a result of the enforcement of such an act, capitalists would be disempowered and capitalistic businesses would be changed into worker-controlled firms. As the precondition for such a move is, quite obviously, a parliamentary majority of representatives of the working class, such a scenario is probably no option in a country such as the United States, but might prove to be a viable solution in a considerable number of other countries. ¹⁰

Concluding this section, it is worth re-emphasizing the idea that provided socialism is equated with democratic firm control and imagined to be implemented in one of the manners mentioned above, the deterministic overtones in Marx’s materialistic conception of history are likely to appear acceptable. ¹¹

5. On the Contradiction between Capital and Labor

As is well known, in the present day, technological evolution tends to move in the opposite direction to Fordism. Does this validate the assumption that the higher educational levels and greater skills required by modern technology are hastening the transition to democratic firm management and thereby restoring momentum to labor management theory? As correctly argued by Laibman (2006: 315-16), in the evolution of production processes there is a stage at which efficiency and productivity gains become strictly dependent on autonomy, creativity, critical discernment, as well as on modes of behavior supported by sound criteria.

The need to raise the educational levels of the working class was spelled out by Lenin in clear letters. In Lefebvre 1968 (1968: 120), we read that around 1920, shortly after he had come to power, Lenin strongly recommended a real and proper cultural revolution designed to enable the working class to administer a huge country, manage industry, master technological resources and markets, and assimilate—as well as instantly put behind—capitalistic rationality. Today, this view is concordantly endorsed by all those who advocate a transition to socialism. In a well-reasoned 1999 approach, Hodgson contended that self-management was actually making headway, though at a very slow pace. Advancements in knowledge and education, he argued, make people aware of their rights, and this will help them fine-tune and implement autonomous firm management modes and, inevitably, reduce the role of hired work in society (see Hodgson 1999).

Consequently, I agree with Zamagni (2006: 60) that as soon as we realize the strategic role of human and social capital, we will also have a correct appreciation of the overriding importance of democratic governance modes even on a strictly economic plan. Indeed, the greater a worker’s educational level and qualifications, the less will she adapt to her subordinate position and the more eagerly will she strive to acquire the skills and expertise required to run a firm first-hand.

Several authors (see, for instance, Ben Ner 1987, 1988: 295-96; Bowles and Gintis 1996: 82) hold that the living standard of the working class is a major determinant of the benefits granted to labor-managed firms and the difficulties they are likely to come up against. At the same pace that wages and salaries increase, workers are likely to become less averse to risk, recognize the opportunities associated with self-managing firms, and endeavor to acquire and hone the requisite entrepreneurial skills. Very often, workers in self-managed firms have the feeling that their incomes are at risk and that they may fail to provide decent standards of living to their families, but this fear tends to recede in proportion to increases in income. ¹² By the same token, thanks to advancements in communication and knowledge economics, workers are likely to interiorize the conceptual dimensions of their jobs, to join with others in carrying on business independently of capitalists, and develop ever more socialized collective working modes.

It is interesting to mention that even in the years immediately after the October Revolution, when Lenin was averse to the idea of allowing workers to run their firms on their own, he never as much as suggested that the reason for postponing employee management was the fact that workers lacked entrepreneurial skills. Neither do Marxist historians or, generally, modern Marxists. An example in point is the Althusserian Saul Karsz (1974: 188), who argues that no technical requirements whatsoever impose the need that the users of means of production should be propertyless individuals without power to make decisions concerning the use of labor power. This state of things, he adds, is observed in most, though not all, modes of production and principally connotes the development of productive forces within the capitalistic mode of production; under capitalism the subjection of workers to the control of technicians and engineers reflects social needs associated with the specific configuration of the prevailing mode of production and a tendency to super-determine the technical requirements of the productive forces.

Whereas this suggests the preliminary conclusion that labor management will be implemented as a matter of course at the same pace that manual labor loses influence and workers hone their educational and professional qualifications (see, for example, Mandel 1973: 349), it is worth specifying that a firm belief in the ultimate advent of democracy at some point in time should not be categorized as a deterministic conception. Adler wrote (1904: 198) that it was not inconsistent to speak of a necessary historical course and, at the same time, to assume an ideal purpose behind it. As long as we speak of evolution as governed by necessity, he explained, we are arguing from a purely scientific point of view, but the moment we assume an ideal goal behind it, we are plunged into the stream of the will and of historical action, which so far had been viewed objectively. ¹³

Our confidence in the ultimate success of worker control stems from the belief that the prerequisites for individuals to realize their humanity to the full are freedom, scope for acting on their own free will, and the possibility to pursue self-conceived goals, rather than serving as lifeless tools for the attainment of other people’s aims. A well-known saying by Marx (1867: 284) says that “what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is that the architect builds the cell in his mind before he constructs it in wax.” This means that the distinctive characteristic of the human work process is the fact that the result “already existed, i.e. was ideally present, in the imagination of the laborer at its commencement” (ibid.) and that the working mode of a hired laborer passively obeying third-party commands can barely be described as genuinely human. Provided it is true that history is the record of the stepwise acquisition of ever tighter control over the circumstances, it is according to reason that this control should be vested in workers and that these workers should be free to pursue the aims they have in view.

The claim that worker management of firms is a necessary development must be supported by evidence that ever more people are conceiving an interest in changing the prevailing mode of production. As this is not the place to expatiate on the vast and endless debate on social classes, suffice it to mention that critics of the transition claim that the wage-earning proletariat has failed to gain in influence. As for Italy, a well-known survey by Sylos Labini showed that between 1881 and 1971 the workforce increased by about 1 million units in numerical terms, but dropped from 52.2 to 47.8 percent as a share of the total population (see Sylos Labini 1978: tables 1.1 and 1.2, pp. 156-57).

At this point, we may ask ourselves if the class that is pressing most forcefully for the transition from capitalism to a system of democratic firms is actually the proletariat. As argued by Petruccioli (1972: 51), in an effort to identify the true revolutionary agent—the social group potentially most committed to revolutionary action—Marxists have alternatively adopted the viewpoints of two different, though complementary, ideologies; laborism versus proletarianism. As a result, he remarks, at times they have restricted this group to proletarians only and, at times, they have included other classes by extending its limits in accordance with the proletarization formula. All the same, to my thinking it seems clear that the basic distinction is between individuals who welcome change and those tending to oppose it, i.e. between hired and self-employed workers. And as statistics show that the former group (blue collar and lower-level clerical workers) has been steadily increasing, ¹⁴ there is good ground for endorsing Petruccioli’s conclusion (see supra: 47-48), that the most noticeable change in the social composition of the population (in Italy) has been a drop in self-employment levels and a rising trend in the number of hired workers and, consequently, for assuming that the transition would be supported by the majority of the population.

In the opinion of Stiglitz (2012: 13), a comparable trend is observed in the United States, “where the middle class became ‘eviscerated’ as the ‘good’ middle-class jobs—requiring a moderate level of skills, like autoworkers’ jobs—seemed to be disappearing, relative to those at the bottom, requiring few skills, and those at the top, requiring greater skill levels.”

Let us add that the capital-labor conflict, the mismatch between ever-changing productive forces and production relations, is escalating in consequence of two antithetical trends: whereas workers, i.e. productive forces, are steadily developing entrepreneurial skills, production relations have remained unaltered and business firms continue to be run by capital. And this is an additional factor in support of the claim that sooner or later workers will resolve to become their own masters.

At any rate, it is evident that many obstacles stand in the way of the establishment of a system of cooperative firms and that it is far from easy to anticipate when such a revolution will come about. Although Marx and Hegel held that the times were ripe and that revolution was at hand, it is a fact that “Engels waited for the fulfilment of his gloomy prophecy” for years, and that “for years he waited in vain” (see Henderson 1977: 21). And now that the revolutions in Eastern Europe have failed—we may add—there is no way of predicting if the transition will be a short- or long-term process.

In the light of these reflections it is possible to attempt a critique of Lenin’s claim that the class consciousness that workers develop from within is solely economic and trade-unionist in nature, and that true class consciousness can come to workers only from without. At meetings and conferences attended by workers, he argued, debates are usually focused on economic issues and seldom if ever on subjects such as the conditions of life of individual social classes, the history of the revolutionary movement, or the economic trend under way in the country overall. In Lenin’s view, it was this unsatisfactory state of affairs that prevented the proletariat from taking the lead of the movement, raising general issues associated with democracy, and working towards a change of the existing mode of production. Unlike Lenin, I hold that provided the establishment of a new production mode is made to coincide with the transfer of firm control to workers, class consciousness is likely to develop spontaneously from within the working class. With regard to the economic benefits associated with self-management, there are good grounds for assuming that the workers may resolve to start a revolution. In addition to this, if workers should succeed in bringing home the message that firm control by profit-seeking capitalists is an obstacle to the growth of democracy and the general good, they might even win over the middle class to their cause.

6. Is the Transition a Certainty or a Conjecture?

Our transition scenarios are compatible with Marx’s approach for at least two reasons. On the one hand, they postulate an escalating worker-capitalist conflict; on the other, they take it for granted that access to education will enable workers to educate themselves, take their lives into their own hands, and, consequently, experience the contradictions of capitalism as ever more unbearable. Both these assumptions are in full agreement with Marx’s claim that the prerequisite for a successful transition process is a scientific vision of socialism with specific focus on the laws of motion and inherent contradictions of capitalism. For my part, I think it reasonable to assume that workers should be palpably aware of the fact that the capitalist-worker opposition lies in the nature of capitalism.

Marx’s argument that the collapse of a production mode is caused by its inherent contradictions runs counter to the typical worldview of the bourgeoisie, which conceives of the organisational forms of the present as obeying natural and, hence, eternal laws. According to J. R. Burke (1981: 95), in Marx’s writings there is considerable evidence that specific elements of the revolutionary process prepare the working class for its task of self-managing society and exercising social control over means of production, and that the revolutionary process itself is triggered by certain tendencies perceived in capitalistic societies.

In this respect, Balibar writes that in Marx’s work there is “a progressive line of evolution of modes of production” which “classifies all societies in terms of an intrinsic criterion, socialization, i.e. the capacity of individuals collectively to control their own conditions of existence” (Balibar 1993: 131). And there is little doubt that democratic firm control affords higher levels of socialization than capitalism.

In an analysis of the transition, van Parijs and van der Veen (1986: 159) argued that “Marx did not offer any arguments in support of his claim that the growth of the productive forces (as distinct from their use) is fettered by capitalism and that—in line with historical—materialism—the substitution of socialism for capitalism is necessitated by this fettering.” In other words, these authors maintained that Marx offered no proof of the transition to socialism as a necessary development. As a matter of fact, this criticism can be refuted by emphasizing that the idea of the transition as an unavoidable necessity is a corollary of Marx’s claim that capitalism will ultimately collapse in consequence of the inevitable escalation of its distinctive contradictions. ¹⁵

In point of fact, according to some authors the view of a steadily escalating capital-labor conflict is contradicted by the awareness that the determination of workers to rebel against capitalistic exploitation tends to ebb away in direct proportion to the increases in income that workers can realistically be assumed to secure even in capitalistic economies; but from my perspective, is hardly to be doubted that the more workers educate themselves and acquire the ability to take their lives into their own hands, the more will they experience the capital-labor opposition as an unbearable condition.

In the words of van Parijs and van der Veen, “what is politically feasible depends largely on what has been shown to make economic and ethical sense” (1986: 156); and it is reasonable to assume that what makes economic and ethical sense will sooner or later come true. ¹⁶

“Causation in Marx and Engels”—Sowell puts it (1985: 34)—“is a matter of interaction, rather than a one-way mechanism.” And this, he argues, determines that there is neither pure determinism nor pure change, but a stream of events which reflect both “accidental” factors and underlying forces whose necessary relationships shape the general tendency of these events as a whole.

My reflections lead to the following conclusion: inasmuch as it is true that ideas are one of the factors which spur on historical development, nothing can stop democratic firm control from asserting itself at some point in time since it is the offshoot of ideas such as democracy and progress. The timeframe within which this will happen is, admittedly, hard to predict because battles of ideas are of uncertain outcome. In this connection, Gramsci argued that the part that intellectuals might play in advancing socialism can hardly be overrated.

Hence, whereas it is true that the sway of capital over labor is sure to be dismantled at some point in time, I subscribe to Napoleoni’s argument that capitalism will neither collapse mechanically nor escalate to a level where it must change into something different (see Napoleoni 1970: lxx). The well-known Italian journalist Eugenio Scalfari put the matter in this way (see Scalfari 2008): “Many people have been pinning their hopes of liberation on communism. But now it is time to take off the bandages from their eyes and the plugs from their ears. The reification of individuals, the master-servant confrontation, the refusal to acknowledge the rights of others have been salient traits of our species for millennia and will continue to be so in future.” But while the truth of this can hardly be denied, there are reasons to believe that as soon as workers resolve to run firms by themselves and develop the requisite abilities, the master-servant confrontation will become a thing of the past.

7. Conclusion

Rosselli was right when he argued (1930: 372) that the theories that postulate the inevitable fall of rates of profit were not only objectionable, but had been proven wrong by history. In my opinion, however, since it is in the nature of things that workers wish to become their own masters and will consequently fight for the abolition of hired labor, this does not rule out the prospect that capitalism will be supplanted by socialism at some point in time. At the same pace that history progresses towards the attainment of ever greater freedom, hired workers will become ever more strongly averse to what Mazzini termed “the slavery of wages” and will make themselves independent. Why should we take it for granted that the cars that workers manufacture for the account of erstwhile Fiat must necessarily be the property of the Agnelli family? Centuries ago, Locke argued that those who produce goods become the owners of such goods. Inasmuch as it is true that the prerequisite for the transition from capitalism to socialism is acceptance of production risks on the part of workers, there are good grounds for believing that the time will come when this prospect shall materialize.

What conclusion can be drawn concerning the characterization of Marxism as a deterministic approach? As far as I can see, this opinion can be safely denied since the only deterministic aspect I have been able to detect in Marx’s approach to history is the assumption that socialism is bound to arise. As super-structural elements are important in a short-term perspective, there can be little doubt that the dynamic of historical development may move down, instead of up, the ladder towards full freedom.

The deterministic overtones in Marx are comparable to those we detect in every thinker, for instance Croce or Acton, who assigns a given direction to history. Is this determinism? Although Croce held history to be the chronicle of man’s progress towards freedom and Acton predicted that universal suffrage would sooner or later become a reality in all nations across the world, the views of history of these authors can hardly be categorized as deterministic.

A unilinear view of history is not necessarily at odds with the acknowledgment that human will does play a role in determining its course. Far from being the determinants of history, relations of production are the background against which the other driving force of progress, that is to say humankind, acts itself out.