The Power of Ideology. - book reviews

The Power of Ideology

In these times of despondency, when the revolutionary horizon seems blocked in the West and in Eastern Europe there is talk of a restoration of capitalism, one feels the need for a reconsideration of the socialist project perceived at once in its historical perspective and its global context. Istvan Meszaros provides such a timely, fundamental reassessment in his major new work, The Power of Ideology. Meszaros, author of several books--on Sartre, on Philosophy, Ideology and Social Science--is probably best known for his Marx's Theory of Alienation. Yet this former assistant to Lukacs in Budapest now teaching philosophy in Sussex is also an unfortunately rare phenomenon, a man come from Eastern Europe not to curse what he had worshipped, but to remain true to himself and to his socialist principles.

The author begins by explaining that ideology is neither artificial nor ephemeral. If ideologies are defined as the "practical social consciousness of class society," then they will last as long as class societies and their inner antagonism enables us to divide them into those upholding the established order and others helping to overthrow it. This symmetry does not imply any equal treatment. The ruling ideology benefits from the backing of the state, the media, the academic establishment. Relying on the logic of the system, it can appear reasonable, moderate, preaching the consensus, the apparent common-sense. The ideologies of emancipation, on the other hand, need not go against the trend, they must also paint in the abstract the image of a fundamentally different society.

Having shown the biases, the book examines the distortions performed by the apologists of this system in this century, with necessary ventures into the past and a natural emphasis on the postwar period. The panegyrists are not satisfied with their advantages. Their job is to describe the established order as eternal, to deny the possibility of an alternative, and, if possible, conceal altogether the crucial conflict between capital and labor. The examples quoted throughout the book are eloquent. Here, for instance, is Auguste Comte, the pope of positivism: "As it is the inevitable lot of the majority of men to live on the more or less precarious fruits of daily labour, the great social problem is to ameliorate the condition of this majority, without destroying its classification and disturbing the general economy." F.W. Taylor is plainer still when he reveals that the revolutionary secret of scientific management is "that both sides take their eyes off the division of the surplus." (No wonder that he also says that "soldiering will cease because the object of soldiering will no longer exist" and thus exits the class struggle.) Though latter-day eulogists may be less crude, their message is not different. Meszaros explains the postwar success of Max Weber and shows the antics of his epigones--Daniel Bell and his highly ideological End of Ideology or Raymond Aron and his equally twisted Opium of the Intellectuals. He also points out how the U.S. capitalism of the earlier book of John Kenneth Galbraith is diluted a few volumes later into a "technostructure" (wittily dismissed as not a deus ex machina but rather a machina without deus).

However methodical and effective the attack, these are the expected targets. Meszaros moves beyond and takes to task all those who, saying "farewell to the working class," have given up the search not only for a historic agency but for radical change altogether. He is particularly scathing about the Frankfurt School, although Walter Benjamin is excepted from the attack and Marcuse is criticized reluctantly and with sympathy. No punches, on the other hand, are pulled as far as Horkheimer, Adorno, and Habermas are concerned. Indeed, when Habermas the "modern" brands Lyotard the "post-modern" as a neo-conservative, Meszaros ponders who is the pot and who the kettle (what are we to think of Habermas "with his sermons about the juste milieu ... and the structural unalterability of the 'extremely complex system' of 'modern industrial society'"?). The ultimate argument of the modern apologists is that, whatever may have been the case in the past, today the shape of society is determined by the development of science. Hence an important section of the book deals with the impact of the military-industrial complex, and proves the contrary, namely that the lines of scientific research are shaped by social pressures. It also reminds us that, unless the associated producers gain mastery on a global scale, the "cunning of Reason," to paraphrase the author, may assume the form of total unreason and "instead of realising freedom in history, put a radical end to history itself."

A key function of the ruling ideology is to drive people to "internalise" social constraints. The role of the ideology of emancipation, Marxism in this context, is to help in "the actualisation of certain potentialities." It cannot go beyond. The drama occurs when a theory that is valid for its epoch has not quite reached on the global scale all the elements of its fulfilment. Meszaros puts on the stage three Shakespearean figures of the European movement: Gramsci, Lenin, and Luxemburg. It is from the non-antagonistic confrontation between the last two that he draws the seemingly paradoxical conclusion that "Rosa Luxemburg was right in being wrong and Lenin was wrong in being right," meaning that Lenin's victory contained seeds of defeat and the defeat of Luxemburg seeds of victory. A chapter in the book refers to Rosa Luxemburg's tragedy and she stands here for classical Marxism because, whatever a stupid preface writer may have said about her being out of date, "in some important respects her time has not yet come."

The future, as Meszaros sees it, is not too bright. In addition to betrayals, our setbacks had objective causes. The shameful renunciation of international solidarity, the failure of revolution in Western Europe, the isolation of the Bolsheviks and its dire consequences are all ultimately due to the fact that "capital could still find vast outlets for displacing its contradictions on the basis of its global ascendancy." The tasks ahead are tough because the movement must mobilize social forces whose immediate demands often clash with the long-term objectives of the movement. Even successful, a revolution is but a beginning, because the abolition of capitalism does not bring to an end the reign of capital, because to overcome the social division of labor will take time in the best of cases. (To resort to the market, which must be tyrannical to be efficient, is in this respect no solution.) The one encouraging trend is that the global development of capitalism puts international solidarity back on the agenda. Another reason for action is the author's contagious conviction that the alternative road of alleged reform of the system from within its institutions is, from Bernstein to Eurocommunism, if not a betrayal, then a blind alley.

These are only some of the threads in this very rich volume. What makes the reading fascinating is the ease with which the author moves from the abstract to the very concrete, from the global to the local, from past to present and vice versa. Marxism is not Greek to Meszaros. It is his natural idiom. (This incidentally is why he has no awesome respect and points out the gaps and shortcuts in Marx's theory.) Add to it a familiarity with philosophy, a grasp of relevant literature in several languages, a good knowledge of the adversary's output and, last but not least, a passionate political commitment--you come up with quite an attractive combination.

Beyond criticism then? Obviously not, and I do not mean the attacks of capitalist stooges who will dismiss the book as utopian or old-fashioned. (They may be wiser still and ignore it, because Meszaros does not show that the Emperor is naked; he reveals what hides beneath the academic gowns.) I mean a genuine debate around the central proposition of this book, namely that Marxism remains for our period the "framework for radical criticism aimed at a fundamental restructuring of society in its entirety." And I want to contribute two themes to this debate, raising issues where my appetite was whetted but not quite satisfied. Firstly, considering the success of the capitalist establishment in dividing the movement internationally, in fragmenting the working class nationally, considering also what the author calls "the changing colours of the collars" of the workers, what strategies can now contribute to the reunification of the movement around the changed and changing working class and the formation of a bloc capable of long-term hegemonic action? My second theme involves a series of questions: How much was Stalinism the product of Russia's backwardness? How much did it, in turn, weaken revolutionary potentialities in Western Europe? What strategies can now revive a socialist movement in Eastern Europe? I am putting these questions to the author knowing that his book is part of a monumental structure, that other volumes will deal notably with the state but also with "post-revolutionary" societies.

But The Power of Ideology is a magnum opus on its own, a splendid gift for left-wing students who will find in it a mine of information, a good dose of antidote and, above all a spirit in which to face the hostile environment. (That is, when the book comes out in paperback; at the present price they must consult it in libraries). Yet it is also a book for activists and this raises the problem of difficulty and style. Meszaros, as may be seen from the first page, can write with wit and verve. He is devastating in polemics and brilliant in exposition. Yet it is also true that there are passages in the book where the reader must make an intellectual effort to follow the intricate thought.

Somebody wrote somewhere that the fact that Hegel was difficult and profound does not mean that all difficult texts are deep. Meszaros is not one of those authors whose complicated writing conceals a dearth of ideas. His problem, from the beginning, was quite different. He obviously has a great gift for abstract thinking. He has to express himself in a language, English, and address an Anglo-Saxon public on the whole unaccustomed to it. Rather than vulgarize his thought, he decided to forge his tools and a style of his own. Successfully. Do make the effort, it is highly rewarding. Here is a book showing that Marxism is alive and creative, one of those not very frequent works laying the foundations on which we can then build our strategies and tactics. And coming at the right time when we badly need to go back to essentials.

Istvan Meszaros. New York: New York University Press, 1989. 640 pp. $50.00.

COPYRIGHT 1990 Monthly Review Foundation, Inc.
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