Justin: "That's a contradiction in terms, a Marxist conception of rights. At least Marx would have thought so."
Charles: "I think you mean you think Marx would have thought so. How about some support for your claim ?"
What about those passages in the Poverty of Philosophy where he heaps scorn on Proudhon for erecting bourgeois property rights into a basis for socialism (so too in the letter to Annenkov on the same subject). So too in Capital where he talks of the realm of rights as a mere reflex of exchange on the market, where the realm of production is one of subjugation.
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CB: I agree on bourgeois rights. But then in Critique of the Gotha Programme , he points out that the first phase of communist society must be in part based on the old bourgeois society, including thereby some "rights".
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1870/gotha/ch01.htm
"What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society -- after the deductions have been made -- exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amoun! t ! of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.
Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labor, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form.
Hence, equal right here is still in principle -- bourgeois right, although principle and practice are no longer at loggerheads, while the exchange of equivalents in commodity exchange exists only on the average and not in the individual case.
In spite of this advance, this equal right is still constantly stigmatized by a bourgeois limitation. The right of the producers is proportional to the labor they supply; the equality consists in the fact that measurement is made with an equal standard, labor.
But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only -- for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers and not! hi! ng more is seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal.
But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby. "
What about in _The Manifesto of the Communist Party_ where the program includes free education for all children in public schools ? Doesn't that sound like a right ? Also, "Equal obligation of all to work" implies a right to work.
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Jim H.: Marx envisages that, given sufficient development of the productive forces (should our green friends ever permit it) 'only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!' (critique of the Gotha Programme, .3, p18 in my ed.)
Marx's support for freedom of speech, along with a great many other bourgeois freedoms, including free trade, is historically restricted to the bourgeois epoch, and its immediate precursor.
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CB: Agree. But given all the problems with the first efforts at the "immediate precursor", we shouldn't gloss over it. Marx's conception of rights is important in building socialism as the transition to communism with elements of capitalism ,such as rights. Obligations corresponding to rights would be something new in socialism , not found in capitalism.
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(Pashukanis made a good case that the same safeguards should be extended to defendants rights under the early stages of socialism, when want was still a factor, but Stalin had him killed for it.) No Marxist I know considers that freedom of speech would be an issue under communism - not because it would be restricted, but because it wouldn't.
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CB: Yes, with communism. But in socialism, outlawing Nazi speech is the higher principle of freedom of speech, since the only result of the success of Nazis persuasion would be abolition of freedom of speech. Thus, Marxists in the actual socialist countries and Marxist, like me, in other countries support those limitations on freedom of speech. So, now you know a Marxist who advocates those specific limitations on speech in socialism. Angela Davis is another Marxist who supports outlawing the KKK and Nazis. So, now you know two Marxists with that position.
- -- James Heartfield The 'Death of the Subject' Explained is available at GBP11.00, plus GBP1.00 p&p from Publications, audacity.org, 8 College Close, Hackney, London, E9 6ER. Make cheques payable to 'Audacity Ltd'