A Little Bit of Marxist Theory: Gramsci on Common Sense vs. Good Sense

In my last post, I covered Lenin’s essay “What is to be done?” where he claims that workers must have Socialist theory introduced to them without because it would not be introduced to them organically from within. I claimed that this way of rendering things is elitist and problematic. Here, I will demonstrate why I think Gramsci’s theory of common sense vs. good sense is a better alternative.

Whereas Lenin privileges a group of bourgeois intellectuals with the ability to arrive at and introduce truth, Gramsci claims that every person is an intellectual:

"Each man … carries one some form of intellectual activity, that is, he is a “philosopher”, an artist, a man of taste, he participates in a particular conception of the world, has a conscious line of moral conduct, and therefore contributes to sustain a conception of the world or to modify it, that is, to bring into being new modes of thought."[1]

Every person is committed to a philosophy, and each person’s philosophy has some kind of logic to it, a logic that is not completely lost on them. The critical theorist’s challenge, then, is not to teach her truth to passive workers waiting to be taught by intellectuals, but the true challenge lies

in the critical elaboration of the intellectual activity that exists in everyone at a certain degree of development, modifying its relationship with the muscular-nervous effort towards a new equilibrium, and ensuring that the muscular-nervous effort, … which is perpetually innovating the physical and social world, becomes the foundation of a new and integral conception of the world.[2]

In other words, the critical theorist sublimates unquestioned common sense (or, “spontaneous philosophy”[3]) by preserving the good sense within it and transforming it into a more excellent mode of thought, “to make it a coherent unity and to raise it to the level reached by the most advanced thought in the world.”[4]

Gramsci further expresses that the process of leading a mass of people to this level of thought “is a ‘philosophical’ event far more important and original than the discovery by some philosophical ‘genius’ of a truth which remains the property of small groups of intellectuals.”[5] This is in contradistinction to Lenin’s theory of the bourgeois intelligentsia. This is not the introduction of advanced modes of thought to the working class from without, but the transformation of thought from within, using the established common sense as a starting point.

We are still talking about intellectuals like Gramsci (and, indeed, Lenin) leading laypeople from “their primitive philosophy of common sense” to “a higher conception of life.”[6] Gramsci still advocates for “the creation of an elite of intellectuals,” because a mass of people “does not become independent in its own right without … organising itself; and there is no organisation … without the theoretical aspect of the theory-practice nexus being distinguished concretely by the existence of a group of people ‘specialised’ in conceptual and philosophical elaboration of ideals.”[7]

This is not an imposition of thought from without. Here, there is a more organic and democratic understanding of the development of the higher conception of life. He describes it as “a dialectic between the intellectuals and the masses.”[8] It begins with the cultivation of the “good sense” already present within the spontaneous philosophy of the workers. “The [theoretical consciousness of the] active man-in-the-mass,” he says,

can indeed be historically in opposition to his activity. One might almost say that he has two theoretical consciousnesses (or one contradictory consciousness): one which is implicit in his activity and which in reality unites him with all his fellow-workers in the practical transformation of the real world; and one, superficial explicit or verbal, which he has inherited from the past and uncritically absorbed.[9]

There is already present within the consciousness of the worker the material necessary for cultivating a new and coherent alternative to common sense—that is, there is within common sense “good sense.” Good sense “is common sense’s ‘healthy nucleus.’”[10] Furthermore, the cultivation of good sense entails the “diffusion in a critical form of truths already discovered, their ‘socialization’ as it were.” [11]

Tilling this ground, furthermore, is not simply the business of intellectuals teaching the masses, but requires time, commitment, and, let’s be real, luck. He refers to it as “a ‘philosophical’ event.”[12] He says, “creating a group of independent intellectuals is not an easy thing; it requires a long process, with actions and reactions, coming together and drifting apart and the growth of very numerous and complex new formations.”[13]

The class struggle is, in fact, a struggle. It is a war of position, not a plow-through-it-quickly war of maneuver. Gramsci’s theory is not incongruous with reality, nor is it overly idealistic and presumptuous. He realizes that he is up against a system, a system which is pervasive in everyday life, its claws running deep into the lives of a mass of people. The answer to this system is not simply the pedagogy of an enlightened group of intellectuals, but the organic, dialectical struggle of outing the truth.


Notes:
[1] Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, ed. and trans. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (New York: International Publishers, 1971), 9.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid., 323.
[4] Ibid., 324.
[5] Ibid., 325.
[6] Ibid., 332.
[7] Ibid., 334.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid., 333.
[10] Jan Rehmann, “The Relevance of Gramsci’s Theory of Hegemony for Social Justice Movements,” in Pedagogy of the Poor: Building the Movement to End Poverty (New York: Teachers College Press, 2011), 118.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Gramsci, 325.
[13] Ibid., 395–396.

A Little Bit of Marxist Theory: Lenin on How to Inspire a Revolution

In “What is to be done?” Lenin argues against the idea that revolution just happens, that resistance manifests itself spontaneously among the working class. Lenin saw this view espoused in the paper Rabochaya Mysl. An article in this paper claims that “The virility of the labor movement is due to the fact that the workers themselves are at last taking their fate into their own hands, and out of the hands of the leaders” (quoted on p.78). Lenin explains that those who espouse such views “imagine that the pure and simple labor movement can work out an independent ideology for itself, if only the workers ‘take their fate out of the hands of the leaders’” (p.81).

Lenin calls this “a profound mistake,” because it neglects the all-too-important aspect of ideology, the way that the masses are manipulated into embracing the status quo. “Consciousness was completely overwhelmed by spontaneity,” he claims (p.79).

Not only do the theorists Lenin criticizes neglect ideology, but they actually put down theorists like Lenin for “exaggerating the role of the importance of ideology” (p.81). They assume the revolutionary consciousness will organically develop amid the working class. As Karl Kautsky explained, they “believe that Marx asserted that economic development and the class struggle create not only the conditions for socialist production, but also, and directly, the consciousness of its necessity” (quoted on p.81). What is neglected, then, is the way ideology reinforces the status quo, and promotes complacency among the working class. Furthermore, the necessity of a counter-claim, of a subversive ideology, is neglected as well.

Lenin’s concerns, then, should easily be appreciated. We cannot downplay ideology in a resigned, “It will work itself out” mindset regarding revolution. We are up against a vast apparatus designed to pacify the masses. We cannot assume that revolutionary consciousness will just happen. (After all, in our own time the struggles of a good portion of the working class have led not to revolutionary consciousness but to Donald Trump!) What is needed is a Social-Democratic consciousness, and this does not organically arise from the workers, according to Lenin.

The workers are limited to “trade union consciousness,” which only leads to “fighting against the employers and for striving to compel the government to pass necessary labor legislation, etc.” (p.74). Trade union consciousness is that which is still compatible with the status quo. The theory of socialism, however, is a different matter—and it “grew out of the philosophic, historical and economic theories that were elaborated by the educated representatives of the propertied classes, the intellectuals” (p.74). Kautsky similarly states that “Modern social consciousness can arise only on the basis of profound scientific knowledge” (quoted on p.82).

So, according to Lenin and Kautsky, Social-Democratic consciousness was arrived at by intellectuals who followed the right path through reason, and they in turn introduce it to the proletariat, who can then be equipped to apply it. Thus, as both Lenin and Kautsky state, “socialist consciousness is something introduced into the proletarian class struggle from without (von Aussen Hineingetragenes), and not something that arose within it spontaneously” (quoted on p.82). Resistance is inspired by the philosophical and theoretical wisdom provided by those like Lenin and Kautsky.

This, however, is where Lenin, in my mind, takes a wrong turn. His is a highly romantic rendering of intellectuals, no doubt stemming from Enlightenment ideals similar to those of Immanuel Kant. In “What is Enlightenment?” Kant states that the masses are too fond of their tutelage to enlighten themselves, so that each has become “really incapable of making use of his reason, for no one has ever let him try it out.” Thus, “the public can only slowly attain enlightenment.” They need help from free intellectuals like Kant in order to be free. The Enlightenment intellectuals are like the philosophers from Plato’s cave analogy, leading the deceived cave dwellers (who cannot lead themselves) to the light of day.

This is the ideological tendency Lenin displays in his essay. On the one hand, he has a consciousness which is sensitive to the interests and needs of the working class (after all, he is a communist); but on the other hand, he displays an elitist and privileged understanding of the theory of resistance. While we cannot depend on the working class organically developing its own revolutionary consciousness, we can no more depend on the reasoning of intellectuals being charitable and just.

Lenin demonstrated with his appointment of Stalin as General Secretary that intellectuals cannot be depended on for doing what is best for the masses. Lenin's philosophy too easily made way for the authoritarian regime of Stalin. And so the idol of the Intellectual Messiah totters.


Page numbers from: V. I. Lenin, “What is to be done?” in Essential Works of Lenin, ed. Henry M. Christman (New York: Bantam Books, 1966).

A Little Bit of Marxist Theory: Karl Marx on Alienation

The worker--"the free proprietor of his own labour-capacity"--meets the owner of money in the market. They enter into a relation with each other “as on the basis of equal rights, with this difference alone, that one is buyer, the other seller; both, therefore, equal in the eyes of the law.”[1] The worker does not have the means of production; the capitalist does. The capitalist needs a worker to produce his goods, and the worker needs the means of production necessary to exercise his own labour-capacity. This is a free, mutually beneficial relationship. Or so it seems.

In the actual exchange of goods (the consumption of the worker’s labour by the capitalist and the worker’s compensation), the capitalist is the primary beneficiary. The worker, who does not possess the means of production, is dependent for her livelihood on opportunities where she can use her time and ability to earn a living. Given the nature of the opportunities as the property of capitalists, the worker, when signing the contract, is agreeing to something which is in itself more beneficial to the capitalist than to herself.

At every step of the process, Marx says, “the use-value of the labour-power is advanced to the capitalist: the labourer allows the buyer to consume it before he receives payment of the price; he everywhere gives credit to the capitalist.”[2] Furthermore, “The consumption of labour-power is at one and the same time the production of commodities and of surplus value.”[3]

Having already fixed the price of labour-power in the contract, the worker does not experience the benefits of his surplus. The capitalist alone gets to decide what happens with the surplus. The capitalist accumulates all the additional capital which the worker’s labour produces. With this, he is empowered even further to invest in the means necessary to make capital-accumulation easier, ever-maximizing the surplus.

The capitalist can now, say, purchase a machine that can do what the worker does, but can produce more and at a rate no human ever could. The worker “therefore produces, along with the accumulation of capital produced by it, the means by which itself is made relatively superfluous … and it does this to an always increasing extent.”[4] Marx explains quite poignantly the great injustice of this arrangement:

All means for the development of production transform themselves into means of domination over, and exploitation of, the producers; they mutilate the labourer into a fragment of a man, [and] degrade him to the level of an appendage of a machine. … [Additionally], all methods for the production of surplus value are at the same time methods of accumulation; and every extension of accumulation becomes again a means for the development of those methods.[5]

The worker is reduced by the capitalist to a mere instrument, whose sole purpose as far as the capitalist is concerned is to make him money. As the worker is incorporated into his money-making system, the capitalist accumulates more capital, and so gains even greater power over the worker, even acquiring the ability of making the worker superfluous, widening the power-gap and wealth-gap between them. The worker thus contributes to his own demise.

This is “the alienation of the worker in his product” that Marx describes in his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844:

The worker is related to the product of his labour as to an alien object. For on the premise it is clear that the more the worker spends himself, the more powerful becomes the alien world of objects which he creates over and against himself, the poorer he himself—his inner world—becomes, the less belongs to him as his own.[6]

The fruits of the worker’s labor are enjoyed disproportionately by the capitalist. This disproportionate distribution system empowers the capitalist with the capital necessary to invest in ever-greater means of accumulation, and eventually to reduce the necessity of the worker. This is the alienation of the worker, in which the worker is perversely made to participate.

As the worker becomes more and more superfluous, there develops a large number of people who are out of work, and thus a substantial stock of available workers—an industrial reserve army. This puts pressure on the employed workers not to strike, as they would risk being fired and easily replaced by recourse to the industrial reserve army. The worker is thus pressured to submit to the demands of the capitalist.[7]

The theologian Karl Barth called this system “oppressive” and a “social injustice” that makes “industrial peace … radically impossible” to attain.[8] Indeed, it is clear this freedom is no freedom. The buyer and the seller are not equal.

He, who before was the money owner, now strides, in front as capitalist; the possessor of labour-power follows as his labourer. The one with an air of importance, smirking, intent on business; the other, timid and holding back, like one who is bringing his own hide to market and has nothing to expect but—a hiding.[9]

 

Notes:
[1] Karl Marx, Capital, Volume One: A Critique of Political Economy, ed. Friedrich Engels, trans. Samuel Moore and Edwards Aveling (Mineola: Dover Publications), 186.
[2] Ibid., 193.
[3] Ibid., 195.
[4] Ibid., 692.
[5] Ibid., 708.
[6] Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 3, trans. Jack Cohen (New York: International Publishers, 1975), 272.
[7] Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, 697–698.
[8] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, Vol. III, The Doctrine of Creation, Part 4, eds. G. W. Bromily and T. F. Torrance, trans. A. T. Mackay, T.H. L. Parker, H. Knight, H. A. Kennedy, and J. Marks (New York: T&T Clark, 1961; repr. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2010), 542.
[9] Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, 196.

Debt-Free Living: A Christian Vocation

You know what one factor contributed the most to not only our recent financial crisis, but to the Great Depression as well? Debt. Debt is slavery. It inevitably leads to crisis.

Proverbs tells us, "the rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender" (22:7). This is what happens when the people at the top of the pyramid exploit the people at the bottom. They don't raise wages, but they have no problem having people borrow money from them. They have no problem putting people into debt-slavery. Both major financial crises in the last 100 years have resulted from this phenomenon.

What do we do? Stay out of debt. Get out of debt. Have you ever thought, "I wonder how much money I would have if I didn't have any debt"? The abundance is there. We just have to be good stewards of it.

Say what you want about Dave Ramsey, but he refuses to let people treat their debt as an ontological given, just a part of life that has to be accepted. He wakes people up to the reality that they can get out of debt; they don't have to be in slavery. He might be helping the economy more than any one politician because he lives to assist people in freeing themselves from debt.

But to do it, we have to get rid of our commodity fetishism. We have to stop spending money we don't have, especially on things we don't need. Karl Marx said, "Money is the alienated essence of man's labour and life, and this alien essence dominates him as he worships it." Except, in the case of the bottom 90%, this money worship has become credit worship.

You can get out of debt. You can. Debt is not an ontological given! I paid off thousands of dollars on my car before I was a Senior in college, and now I don't have a car payment. My wife and I are killing off her last bit of student loan debt in the next two months. I am not just bragging, I am making a point: you can get out of debt!

If you are out of debt (or when you get out of debt), help others get out. If you really want to help the economy, get out of debt and help others get out of debt. We need to break down our autonomous, prideful, keep-it-to-yourself money management. We need to start being honest with our friends and churches about where we're at, and we need to start helping our friends when we can. If you don't have money troubles and your friend does, help your friend out--selflessly; as Jesus said, "You received without paying; give without pay" (Matt. 10:8) and, again, "give without expecting to get anything back" (Lk. 6:35). Or, as we are told in Deuteronomy 15, if anyone is poor among you, "do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need" (vv.7-8). A few verses earlier, we are told,

"there need not be any poor people among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, if only you fully obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today. For the Lord your God will bless you as he has promised, and you will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. You will rule over many nations but none will rule over you." (vv.4-6; emphasis mine)

The abundance is there. Use it wisely; don't feed the system, don't go into slavery.

(See also, my blog on "Eucharist Money Management," here)