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Politics and Judgment: A Critique of Rational Choice Marxism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Stephen Eric Bronner
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Extract

This article is an attempt to confront the assumptions underpinning rational choice Marxism along with its implications for politics and social theory. That initially calls for setting the new tendency within the Marxian tradition in order to see whether its proponents can deal with the issues deriving from the collapse of the old teleological vision. In this way, the subsequent epistemological critique will be undertaken within a theoretical and practical context. From this critique, it will become apparent that rational choice builds on the utilitarian assumptions of what Marx termed “vulgar materialism” and simply ignores the role of philosophical idealism entirely.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , Spring 1990 , pp. 242 - 264
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1990

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References

For their comments, suggestions, and encouragement, I would like to thank Samuel Assefa, Judith Grant, Charles Noble, Diana Owen, Frances Fox Piven, Joel Rogers, Willi Semmler, and Linda Zerilli.

1. Carting, Alan, “Rational Choice Marxism,” New Left Review (November/December 1986): 26.Google Scholar

2. This narrowing becomes readily apparent in Levine, Andrew, Sober, Elliot, and Wright, Erik Olin, “Marxism and Methodological Individualism,” New Left Review 162 (03/04, 1987): 67–84.Google Scholar

3. A major philosopher of science put the matter blundy and succinctly: “There is no compromise between science and speculative philosophy” (Reichenbach, Hans, The Rise of Scientific Philosophy [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951], p. 73).Google Scholar In a similar vein, “the use of mathematical techniques can clarify relationships in an unambiguous way; without these techniques, only intuition can be a guide” (Roemer, John E., Analytical Foundations of Marxian Economic Theory [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981], p. 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar). See also Elster, Jon, Sour Grapes: Studies in the Subversion of Rationality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 15–26, 33–42, 125–40, 157–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. Note the discussion by Braunthal, Julius, History of the International 1864–1914, trans. Collins, Henry and Mitchell, Kenneth (New York: Praeger, 1967), pp. 265–71.Google Scholar

5. Untranslatable except through an artificial word like “sublation,” the Aufhebung of a stage involves its abolition, retention, and transcendence by the next. It is usually forgotten, however, that Hegel saw this “sublation” as interconnected with the teleological development of “Reason,” whose most essential purpose was the extension and fulfillment of freedom. Thus, for Hegel,” Reason presupposes freedom, the power to act in accordance with knowledge of the truth, the power to shape reality in line with its potentialities” (Marcuse, Herbert, Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory, 2nd ed. [Boston: Beacon Press, 1960], p. 9).Google Scholar

6. Originally written in 1845, and first published by Engels in 1888, the first of the eleven “Theses on Feuerbach” makes this clear. There Marx writes: “The chief defect of all existing materialism (including Feuerbach's) is that the object, actuality, sensuousness is conceived only in the form of the object or perception (Anschauung) but not as sensuous human activity, practice [Praxis], not subjectively. Hence in opposition to materialism the active side was developed by idealism — but only abstractly since idealism naturally does not know actual, sensuous activity as such” (Marx, Karl, Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society, ed. Easton, Loyd D. and Guddat, Kurt H. [Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1967], p. 400).Google Scholar

7. This pits Marxist materialism against traditional notions of ontology. See. Schmidt, Alfred, The Concept of Nature in Marx, trans. Fowkes, Ben (London: NLB, 1962), pp. 19ff. and 76ff.Google Scholar

8. This position, best argued by Gerald Cohen, is confronted once scarcity is seen as a construct of modernity. Identified with ongoing acquisition, in a society dominated by wealth rather than status derived from birth, scarcity becomes part of a disenchanted world. Part of the problem, of course, involves how the term is understood and whether it is reducible to game-theoretical formulation. Nevertheless, even taking the term in the instrumental sense while granting its historical construction, it is still not the primary category in all forms of modern social activity. See Cohen, Gerald, Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978);Google Scholar also, Xenos, Nicholas, Scarcity and Modernity (New York: Routledge, 1989).Google Scholar

9. Scarcity can be defined in political terms as the continuing foundation of political on economic power. But, even in economic terms the concept retains a contingent, historical element which cannot simply be eliminated in order to justify a hypostatized abstraction. That is the real point behind the famous statement that “hunger is hunger, but the hunger gratified by cooked meat eaten with a knife and fork is a different hunger from that which bolts down raw meet with the aid of hand, nail, and tooth.” From this it only follows that there are “characteristics which all stages of production have in common, and which are established as general ones by the mind; but the so-called general preconditions of all production are nothing more than these abstract moment with which no real historical stage of production can be grasped” (Marx, Karl, The Grundrisse: Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy, trans. Nicolaus, Martin [New York: Vintage Books, 1973], pp. 88, 92).Google Scholar

10. See the excellent discussion by Wood, Ellen Meiskins, “Rational Choice Marxism: Is the Game Worth the Candle?” New Left Review 177 (09/10, 1989): 59ff.Google Scholar

11. See Pachter, Henry, “The Idea of Progress in Marxism” in Socialism in History: PoliticalEssays of Henry Pachter, ed. Bronner, Stephen Eric (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), pp. 65ff.Google Scholar

12. See Adorno, Theodor W. et al. The Positivist Dispute in German Sociology, trans. Adey, Glyn and Frisby, David (New York: Harper and Row, 1976).Google Scholar

13. For Althusser's own view of Marxism as a science, cf. Althusser, Louis, For Marx, trans. Brewster, Ben (New York, 1970), pp. 87ff; 153ff;Google Scholar also, Althusser, Louis and Balibar, Etienne, Reading Capital, trans. Brewster, Ben (London: Unwin, Ltd., 1970), pp. 11–81, 119–94.Google Scholar

14. According to the many proponents of rational choice, “normative” usually connotes nothing more than a conditional or provisional judgment dealing with the enactment of preexisting rules. This excludes the possibility of developing an ethical framework which would inform an inquiry and provide it with meaning and purposive aims. Though he does not draw the implications of this problem for a radical social theory, a fine discussion of the issue is presented by Luke, Timothy W., “Reason and Rationality in Rational Choice Theory,” Social Research 52, 1 (Spring 1985): 79–97.Google Scholar

15. See Przeworski, Adam, “Proletariat into a Class: The Process of Class Formation from Karl Kautsky's The Class Struggle to Recent Controversies,” Iblitics and Society 7, 4 (1977).Google Scholar

16. Even in his later period, for example, a major commentator on Marx like Karl Korsch could reject the claim that Cornte and the positivist school exerted any serious influence on the author of Capital. So too, in a somewhat less satisfactory vein, even an important critical theorist like Albrecht Wellmer is content to claim that Marx's theory of history expresses only a “latent positivism.” See Korsch, Karl, Karl Marx (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1938), pp. 17–23;Google ScholarWellmer, Albrecht, Critical Theory of Society, trans. Cumming, John (New York: Herder and Herder, 1974), pp. 67ff.Google Scholar

17. Cf. Kautsky, Karl, Ethik und materialistische Geschichtsauffassung (Stuttgart, 1906).Google Scholar

18. A quite well-known interpretation of Marx's theory of value—which is crucial to the tradition of “Western Marxism”— does not begin with either quantitative or instrumentalist assumptions. Unfortunately, however, it is common knowledge that this alternative tendency has never been directly confronted by the most important proponents of rational choice Marxism. Cf. Rubin, I. I., Essays on Marx's Theory of Value, trans. Samardzija, Milos and Perlman, Fredy (Detroit: Black and Red, 1972);Google ScholarRosdolsky, Roman, The Making of Marx's Capital, trans. Burgess, Pete (London: Pluto Press, 1971);Google ScholarMattick, Paul, Marxism: Last Refuge of the Bourgeoisie? ed. by Mattick, Paul Jr (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1983), pp. 10–133;Google ScholarColletti, Lucio, “Bernstein and the Marxism of the Second International,” in From Rousseau to Lenin: Studies in Ideology and Society, trans. Merrington, John and White, Judith (London: Monthly Review Press, 1972), pp. 45ff.Google Scholar

19. “Contradiction” is often actually redefined to favor a static and indeterminate notion akin to traditional sociological views of “conflict.” This can easily result in the following approach to the issue: “The economic notion of collective rationality implies that people, by individually rational actions, bring about an outcome that is good for all, or at least not bad for all. Failure of such collective rationality may occur in one of the three ways best described: by isolation, by perverse interaction structures, and by lack of information. Elsewhere I have referred to such failures as ‘social contradictions.’ The political notion of collective rationality implies that people by concerted action are able to overcome these contradictions” (Elster, , Sour Grapes, p. 29).Google Scholar

20. Despite the spirited defense of “functionalism” by Gerald Cohen, the analytic critique made by Roemer and Elster is compelling. According to the latter two thinkers, functionalism exhibits a tendency to impute the “necessity” of a given phenomenon to the reproduction of a system without exposing the “mechanism” which justifies such a claim. The belief that a capitalist “system must have crises, because crisis is necessary for capitalist demise” or that educational institutions “necessarily” act in the interests of the dominant class exemplify the problems with this type of thinking. It is in overcoming such tautologies that the new linkage between the general and the particular is seen as assuming such importance. See Gerald Cohen, Karl Marx's Theory of History; also see his “Forces and Relations of Production,” in Analytical Marxism, ed. Roemer, John (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 11–22.Google Scholar For the critique, see Roemer, , Analytical Foundations, pp. 8–9.Google Scholar See also Elster, Jon, “Further Thoughts on Marxism, Functionalism, and Game Theory,” in Analytical Marxism, pp. 202–20.Google Scholar

21. Here, the philosophical problem is often confused. John Roemer, for example, fully recognizes the need for a normative interest in class struggle in order to appreciate the explanatory insights of his labor theory of exploitation which seeks to present socialism as superior to capitalism. Nevertheless, if the quest is for a general theory, that normative interest must derive immanently from the central categories employed by the overriding framework. Roemer, , Analytical Foundations, pp. 146–61;Google Scholar for a critique, see Wood, , “Rational Choice Marxism,” pp. 75ff.Google Scholar

22. See Roemer, John, “New Directions in the Marxian Theory of Exploitation and Class,” in Analytical Marxism, pp. 103, 109ff.Google Scholar

23. See Lukacs, Georg, History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics, trans. Livingstone, Rodney (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1971), pp. 5ff.Google Scholar

24. See Cohen, G. A., “Reconsidering Historical Materialism,” Nomos 26 (1983).Google Scholar

25. The standpoint is, of course, not at all new. The attempt to reduce a coherent and integrated view of the totality into the sum of its component parts, with respect to the various disciplines of social scientific knowledge, was already criticized by in 1923 by Korsch, Karl, Marxism and Philosophy, trans. Halliday, Fred (London: Monthly Review Press, 1970), pp. 52–57.Google Scholar

26. Adam Przeworski, “Material Interests, Class Compromise, and the Transition to Socialism,” in Roemer, , Analytical Marxism, pp. 162–88.Google Scholar

27. See Cohen, Joshua and Rogers, Joel, On Democracy: Toward a Transformation of American Society (New York: Penguin Books, 1983), pp. 47–87.Google Scholar

28. Elster, Jon, Making Sense of Marx (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 5ff.Google Scholar

29. Carling, , “Rational Choice Marxism” p. 28.Google Scholar

30. See Elster, Jon, Introduction to The Multiple Self, ed. Elster, Jon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 31.Google Scholar

31. Foley, Duncan, “Review: Making Sense of Marx by Jon Elster,” Journal of Economic Literature 25 (06 1987): 749–50.Google Scholar

32. This is a problem with all post-Hegelian ontological formulations and, ironically, becomes particularly evident in that tradition of existential phenomenology from which rational choice Marxists obviously wish to distance themselves. See Adorno, Theodor W., The Jargon of Authenticity, trans. Tarnowski, Knut and Will, Frederic (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1973).Google Scholar

33. See Przeworski, Adam, “Marxism and Rational Choice,” Politics and Society 14, 4 (1985): 381ff and 401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34. Recognizing the need for a theory of ideology formation, Roemer unfortunately misses this point as well as the role of “mediation” in the constitution of subjectivity. What remains is a formal and indeterminate abstraction which, while relying on causality, is content to claim that “culture chooses a person's preferences for him. But culture can be understood as ideology, and if there are rational foundations for ideology (as I mentioned earlier) then the process of endogenous preference formation can be seen as a rational choice. The social formation of the individual can be explained while at the same time requiring that society be understood as the consequence of many individuals' action” (Roemer, John, “Rational Choice' Marxism: Some Issues of Method and Substance,” in Analytical Marxism, p. 199).Google Scholar Interestingly enough, for all the attention usually paid by Elster and Przeworski to Sartre, on this most crucial matter his redefinition of the entire problem in the biographies of first Genet and then Flaubert goes totally unnoticed. On the methodological issue, see Sartre, Jean-Paul, Search for a Method, trans. Barnes, Hazel E. (New York: Knopf, 1963), pp. 35–166.Google Scholar

35. Here, it is useful to consider that Roemer seeks to resolve the problem with the theorem (rather than the postulate) that “individuals act as members of a class rather than as individuals” (Roemer, , Analytic Foundations, p. 7).Google Scholar

36. The social formulation of preferences can then diverge from the individual preferences on which it putatively rests. If that is the case, however, it might well follow that certain preferences enter the process and so contravene the dictates of formal rationality—which might actually prove useful in defining the role of ideology and politics. See Arrow, Kenneth, Social Choice and Individual Values, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Wiley and Sons, 1963).Google Scholar

37. Note the argument by Warren, Mark, “Marx and Methodological Individualism,” Philosophy and Social Science 18 (1988): 447–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38. Macpherson, C. B., The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962).Google Scholar

39. The result is that “precommitment” discussed by Elster, Jon, Ulysses and the Sirens: Studies in nationality and Irrationality (London: Cambridge University Press, 1979): 37ff.Google Scholar

40. Cohen, and Rogers, , On Democracy, pp. 145ff.Google Scholar

41. Interestingly enough, it has generally not been Marxists, but rather left liberal exponents of rational choice who have sought to transcend egotistic desires and construct an ethic on the basis of “meta-preferences” or “primary” wants such as the commitment to community, family, ideals, etc. Unfortunately, however, the ahistorical standpoint remains along with the subsequent inability to determine qualitative differences between differing ideologies from within the new models. See Sen, Amartya and Williams, Bernard, eds., Utilitarianism and Beyond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42. So long as a concept remains purely formal, an equivalence between individuated elements occurs that necessarily subverts qualitative differences of normative and historical content. That is what undercuts the attempt to supplant the reliance on self-interest with a type of utilitarian thermometer which “may go down as a result of an increase in other people's consumption (as in envy) or it may go up (as in altruism)” (Elster, , Ulysses and the Sirens, p. 141Google Scholar).

43. Ibid., p. 146.

44. Przeworski, , “Marxism and Rational Choice,” p. 386.Google Scholar

45. The complex relation is subsequently destroyed between the “objective” reality of sociopolitical life and the “subjective” motivations that were moments in its constitution. What is true for the revolutionary bourgeoisie holds equally for the partisans of Stalinism or any other mass movement. In fact, here, the words of a controversial historian of Germany in the 1920's —influenced by Marxian political economy as well as rational choice—are quite telling: “the dominant economic classes were aligned with the Nazi party, but that coalition was not their first choice; they entered into it because other solutions over which they would have had more direct control did not work. We leave aside the question of how the Nazi party became as strong as it did: those who voted for or joined it did so primarily for reasons other than those which led to its successful assumption of power” (Abraham, David, The Collapse of the Weimar Republic: Political Economy and Crisis, 2nd ed. [New York: Holmes and Meier, 1986] p. 276).Google Scholar

46. “The power of an ideology (in the Marxist sense of the term, not in the trivial meaning assigned to it by pragmatism) is measured by the degree to which it raises men above themselves, gives them a sense of purpose, drives them to sacrifice themselves for what they conceive to be the greater good” (Lichtheim, George, “From Lenin to Mao Tse-Tung,” in Collected Essays [New York: Viking Press, 1973], p. 262).Google Scholar