Way back in 1888 no less an authority than Frederich Engels identified the critical problem facing the American socialist movement. America was, he argued, “that sectarian land,” a place where all the theoretical errors would have to be worked out perilously in practice. As a result, Engels yearned for a movement that combined the American fervor with the European theoretical clarity. 120 years later, perhaps Engels’ American problem may finally be resolved in the form of David Harvey’s latest work, The Enigma of Capital (Oxford University Press, 2010).
The Engima is a hybrid work that fits neatly into the growing literature about the Economic Crisis that ensued in 2008 while also claiming a place in the Marxist theoretical tradition. However, what the book most clearly offers is a call to create a new kind of socialism through a renovated Marxism adapted to the challenges created by 21st century capitalism.
It is important to note that what Harvey is proposing is part of a two-step process. His first book of 2010 was a companion guide to Marx’s Capital Volume 1 in which he encouraged a new generation of activists to make a critical reading of this old radical classic. Now, in Enigma, he offers a new vision of Marxism that every leftist in America would do well to examine.
Levels of Engagement
The most essential contribution Harvey offers in Enigma is mapping out what he calls the co-evolutionary processes of capitalist reproduction. Capital, he argues, carries with it a distinct set of technical and social requirements for re-investment as well as certain knowledge structures and cultural norms that allow it to perpetuate itself. This results in seven identifiable “activity spheres” which capital needs to engage with in order to reproduce itself.
The spheres include technology and organizational forms; social relations; institutional and administrative arrangements; production and labor processes; relations to nature; the reproduction of daily life and of the species; and mental conceptions of the world. “None of the spheres dominates,” he argues, “even as none of them are independent of the others.
At least two points are critical for socialists interested in creating a new kind of socialism for the 21st century. The first is the invitation to move beyond the stale economic reductionism that continues to pass for social analysis on much of the left. This is a hangover from 20th century attempts at socialism and often leads to poor strategic decisions and simplistic analytical assessments.
Harveywants something more than this. He challenges readers to think through these seven spheres by looking for the contradictions and crises that capitalism inevitably produces. Sometimes, a crisis in an individual sector can be isolated, but others may begin in one sector and produce ripple effects throughout the system.
Thus, a crisis that began in 2007 with home foreclosures in Florida grew into a general crisis of capitalism on the international scale. Similarly, the impending environmental crisis threatens to spread through every sphere creating blockages for capitalist reproduction in each. This is, however, more than just saying capitalism is the problem, a favored refrain of the lazy left. It is a call to think strategically about the system as a whole by analyzing its parts.
The second important point is that capitalism, though seemingly an all-powerful system is vulnerable in a multiplicity of ways. Each of the seven spheres must be managed properly by a diverse collection of functionaries, institutions and mental notions, all while also ensuring that the economic system grows by at least 3% a year. Quite a daunting task.
One critical part of this reproduction is maintaining links to state organizations. This is not an automatic relationship as it also requires an engagement with capital. Harvey refers specifically to the things like the “fiscal-military state,” the state-finance nexus” and the “state–corporate nexus.” More generally, he emphasizes the latent contradictions between the territorial and political interests of the state and the capitalist logic informed by the accumulation of private money-power and endless growth. Most often, these logics are reconciled, resulting in the enhancement of capitalism’s ability to operate through the above mentioned activity spheres. Occasionally, the relationship becomes contradictory and blocks the effective functioning of capital accumulation. Strategic opportunities may be offered in these periods.
Re-thinking Class
Which social force is able to move into motion if such opportunities appear? The American left might answer this question by referring back to the chief 20th century phantasm of the mythical industrial worker. Born in the early moments of capitalist development this fast disappearing worker still serves as a reference point for all sorts of theoretical and strategic thinking. Harvey seeks to move Marxist theory into the 21st century by proposing a multi-focal view of how class is constituted.
For Harvey, the focus on the industrial worker is not just an American phenomenon, but a perennial problem for the left. The army of rural laborers, domestic or service sector workers, construction and other laborers in the informal sector “cannot be treated as secondary actors.” He describes groups that have lately been called parts of the “precariat” as being both “fully conscious of their conditions” as well as “deeply alienated by their precarious existence.” As a result, he offers the city as the unit of analysis instead of the more traditional focus on the factory.
The combination of this expanded view of class and the broader social lens of the seven spheres, results in Harvey advocating a multi-focal strategy. He calls for “strategic political interventions within and across the spheres” which will “gradually move the social order on to a different developmental path.”
Such a monumental task requires the building of alliances across a wide array of sectors – Harvey identifies five including NGOs; anarchist, autonomist and grassroots organizations; traditional labor and left parties; social movements; and emancipation movements organized around identity questions. The goal is to create unity and tactical alliances in each of the different spheres among these groupings in order to develop a strong anti-capitalist movement.
Though Harvey does defend the notion that the state matters, that transforming the class nature of the state is a vital task for such a movement, the old notion of the tightly compacted Leninist revolutionary party at the head of the “advanced” sectors of the working class is entirely absent. And good riddance to such failed notions.
A New Kind of Socialism
What Harvey articulates is a new kind of socialism, a renovated version built to address the class realities of 21st century capitalism. This is an inspiring vision that offers already organized socialists a hopeful message that just as capitalism emerged through activity in multiple sectors, so too can a new anti-capitalism – what I would call a new democratic socialism – develop as a result of the activity of a diverse set of political actions. For those not organized, The Enigma of Capital may be a cautionary tale, reminding them that left to its own devices, without resistance from below, capitalism can “rationalize the irrational” with a deadly efficiency. Harvey is offering a map, but it is up to political activists to make the promise of a society that places human development at its center a reality.
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Billy Wharton is a writer, activist and the editor of the Socialist WebZine. His articles have appeared in the Washington Post, the NYC Indypendent, Spectrezine and the Monthly Review Zine. He can be reached at whartonbilly@gmail.com. Become a FAN on Facebook.
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