The Structural Crisis of Capital

by István Mészáros, John Bellamy Foster (Foreword)

In this collection of trenchant essays and interviews, István Mészáros, the world’s preeminent Marxist philosopher and winner of the 2008 Libertador Award for Critical Thought (the Bolivar Prize), lays bare the exploitative structure of modern capitalism. He argues with great power that the world’s economies are on a social and ecological precipice, and that unless we take decisive action to radically transform our societies we will find ourselves thrust headfirst into barbarism and environmental catastrophe.
Mészáros, however, is no pessimist. He believes that the multiple crises of world capitalism will encourage the working class to demand center stage in the construction of a new system of production and distribution designed to meet human needs rather than serve the relentless pursuit of profit—a struggle which is already underway in places such as Venezuela. As John Bellamy Foster says in the foreword to this indispensable book, “Today the structural crisis of capital provides the historical setting for a new revolutionary movement for social emancipation in which developments normally taking centuries would flit by like phantoms in decades or even years. But the force for such necessary, vital change, remains with the people themselves, and rests on humanity’s willingness to constitute itself as both subject and object of history, through the collective struggle to create a just and sustainable world. This, Mészáros insists, constitutes the unprecedented challenge and burden of our historical time.”

Genres: Economics, Politics

218 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

István Mészáros was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher. Described as "one of the foremost political philosophers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries" by Monthly Review, Mészáros wrote mainly about the possibility of a transition from capitalism to socialism.

Reviews

[Brad · Rating 4 out of 5]

The force of circumstance, tragically constraining and determining the character of a transitional effort as a holding operation, is one thing; the necessity of a radical transformation on a global scale is quite another. Today, the need for a comprehensive theory of transition appears...in the perspective of the socialist offensive, on the ground of its general historical actuality, in response to the growing structural crisis of capital, which threatens the very survival of humanity.

My basic uncertainty about Mészáros's prognosis is the extent to which 'historically viable alternatives' have or could transcend key limitations of past experiments in the Leninist model, and thus the historical lessons to draw from them.

It's undeniable that reliance on retreats via market reforms has posed fundamental risks by way of opportunities for capitalist encroachment and restoration. It's fair to argue that purely technocratic reforms were/will not in future cases be feasible solutions without also having substantive political consciousness of the workers behind it. It's also difficult to argue counter-factual "What ifs" of historical case studies.

Still:

1. History bears out the need to balance "staying power" with substantive democratic advances, and I don't believe there are absolute a priori prescriptions for this, however indispensable substantive democracy/substantive equality are. While he clearly does not identify as a Trotskyist, Mészáros is more sympathetic to "permanent revolution" and tends to downplay the consequence of situational limits to how far this can go (i.e., the need for a "holding operation" within geographical boundaries of some sort of delinked transitional 'bloc').

2. We shouldn't downplay the role of technical capacities in affording greater capabilities for iterative input. In other words, we can fault overly centralized or bureaucratic models, but shouldn't do so in a way that ignores the relative difference between old experiments' and potential future experiments' technological capabilities for real-time, democratic feedback in planning. That 'mere technical difference' reverberates in the totality---technology, with a social push, allows for improved politically substantive practices. I'm no techno-utopian or techno-determinist, but whether you're a humanist or not, it is a factor that demands attention (Balkan Cyberia: Cold War Computing, Bulgarian Modernization, and the Information Age behind the Iron Curtain, The Best Use of Economic Resources, Towards a New Socialism...) in the context of enabling & empowering political movements.

That said, I deeply appreciate (among other things):

1. Mészáros's principled centring of revolution's ultimate objectives.
2. His emphasis on a mass line (though he curiously never engaged with this concept explicitly) as the best assurance against counterrevolution-by-decapitation.
3. His skepticism toward "market socialism" insofar as ideas of retaining private markets in a provisional, contained sort of way risk that genie getting out of its bottle.
4. His turning of liberals' accusations of "idealism" back at them---pointing out the structural crisis that makes maintaining the current system the irrational, infeasible, unsustainable path.

As I said after reading Beyond Leviathan---the best I've seen of "Western Marxism".

[Balam Abello · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Structural Crisis of Capital by István Mészáros, 2010. This book compiles many essays from professor István Mészáros, a political philosopher. It is a fascinating, insightful and somewhat slow read which is most a apropos in today’s current economic times. Professor’s Mészáros’ thesis states that the system of capital has intrinsic systemic problems which may ultimately lead to its demise or at the very least, its reformation.
http://balamabello.com

[Beatriz · Rating 4 out of 5]

“As contradições tem de ser combatidas no lugar onde realmente são geradas.”