Can we make our own history?

Abstract

Can we still make our own history? Continuing our series of POLEMICS, Jean-Pierre Durand considers the continuing relevance of Marx's concept of the dialectic for explanations of contemporary social and economic changes. In particular, he argues that while Marx's dialectic is crucial for explanations of social contradictions and crises today, it is not an adequate guide to social and political action.

THE LEADING WORK OF MARX has a sub-title: A Critique of Political Economy. I believe that Marx was one of the best thinkers of capitalism. Capitalism is not dead, even though it has changed greatly in a century and a half. I shall therefore show, in the second part of this paper, how much the discoveries of Marx can still be of use to us and how they remain essential for a scientific approach towards contemporary capitalism. On the other hand Marx, supported by Lenin and others of his spiritual offspring, has led the revolution he advocated and the societies in which capitalism is developing… towards capitalism itself. I shall not dwell here on the specificities of those peasant, or simply rural, societies, nor in fact on the history of real socialism, but merely on the question of Marx as militant: in other words can one be both a militant and a scholar and, in particular, both a good militant and a good scholar?