Abstract
Twenty-five years after the collapse of pseudo-socialism in the Soviet Union, world “leaders” continue to promote anticommunist disinformation. Today one is smugly dismissed as out of touch if they are still “gullible” enough to fight for communism.
Opposing this relentless capital-centered offensive which perpetuates anticonsciousness and blocks progress, Malott and Ford have boldly put communism on the agenda. With courage, conviction, and serious analysis, they show how and why existing political-economic arrangements can and must be replaced by a human-centered society and economic system in which exploitation, alienated relations, and the division between mental and manual labor are things of the past.
The main thrust of Marx, Capital, and Education: Towards a Pedagogy of Becoming is the development of a Revolutionary Marxist Critical Pedagogy through the theorization of a pedagogy of becoming based on Hegelian–Marxist dialectics and Marxist political economy. Such a pedagogy explains and justifies in a conceptually rigorous and unabashed manner the need for communism as the alternative to a decaying capitalist society. Malott and Ford argue that critical pedagogy has become domesticated and diluted to the point that it has become ineffective, often reduced to a matter of how to teach and learn, or a method of dialogue, as opposed to a pedagogy capable of a much deeper and more vibrant orientation that connects history, development, education, political economy, and political action more effectively.
To this end, Malott and Ford spend a considerable amount of time in their radical 162-page book discussing the role, meaning, and significance of Hegelian dialectics, Marx’s approach to Hegelian dialectics, and how all phenomena can be understood through a scientific conception of change, motion, and development. Through the principle of the negation of the negation, Malott and Ford show how and why concrete progress comes not from the misty realms of heaven or from “good ideas” from this or that person, but rather from the very dynamics and contradictions inherent in the existing society.
The authors emphasize that all phenomena are contradictory and contain within themselves the new, the future, their own negation. In this view, everything is transient and becoming; nothing is permanent. The new always emerges from the old in a never-ending process of becoming. Just as feudalism emerged from slavery, and capitalism grew out of feudalism, so too must socialism and communism arise out of capitalism.
But Malott and Ford remind us at every turn that this does not mean that phenomena unfold deterministically. Overcoming the current flow of counterrevolution and renewing society requires activation of the human factor and critical social consciousness. Only the human factor can guide contradictions and developments in a manner favorable to the interests of the human species. The role of revolutionary critical pedagogy is to cultivate the subjective conditions for human-centered progress.
Continuing this thread, the authors emphasize that everything stems from the system of nature, that is, everything is firmly grounded in sensuous material life, not the universal spirit that Hegel reified. Real changes are rooted in the real world—in the real activities of real people. Here, the concept of labor is critical because it is only through labor that humans make themselves and their conditions. Life is work and society, nature, and humans are the product of human labor.
This is where political economy comes in: to remind us that who produces and controls the social product is critical to correctly understanding the nature and direction of society and change. In all class societies, those who control the wealth (a tiny ruling elite) differ from those who produce the wealth in society (the majority, workers). Here, unlike most educators, Malott and Ford take us through a serious discussion of the transition from feudal society (based on simple exchange relations) to capitalist society (based on more advanced exchange/money relations), and the role played by the capitalist production process in degrading workers, producing alienation, and giving rise to the need to negate capitalism through revolution. The key is to overcome the value relation and the form it takes under capitalism, the highest development of commodity production. The negation of capitalism requires the end of alienated labor, labor estranged from the production process and its own products. The proper relation between subject and object can be achieved only through this negation. The elimination of labor-power as a commodity is the precondition for a human-centered society.
In this vein, Malott and Ford argue that the capitalist has no right to be. The capitalist class is historically superfluous because it is not only incapable of solving any problems, but also exists on the basis of continually lowering living and working standards for all and destroying the natural environment. It is a parasitic and destructive class operating with “cynical recklessness” and “terrorist energy.” The antisocial drive of capitalists to maximize profit as fast as possible is the main cause of all-sided decay in the natural and social environment, and the objective reason why capitalism can and must be replaced by communism.
Malott and Ford firmly ground their analysis in a lengthy discussion of Marx’s law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall under capitalism. Through this analysis, the authors are able to expose the nature, significance, and direction of major developments in society, construct a sound argument for the negation of the present, and point the way forward. Capitalism, based on its own inner dynamics and operation, is historically limited and tends toward breakdown, crisis, and collapse; it cannot meet the needs of the people, as soaring inequality worldwide proves. A good grasp of the law of falling profitability moves us away from a narrow misplaced focus on individuals and their personalities and places analysis and action on a deeper objective footing.
Most of the book’s sub-themes are examined from the perspective of this law. This orientation leads Malott and Ford to clarify in chapter two that while we need to recognize neoliberalism as the latest iteration of capitalism, we must also move beyond a narrow focus on neoliberalism alone and target the logic of capital and capital itself. Opposing neoliberalism alone will take us only so far. Moreover, since neoliberalism has swept the world and intensified global class struggles, the authors encourage us to engage the concept of “global class war” to come to terms with contemporary developments at home and abroad.
In chapter three, the authors articulate the six elements of their Revolutionary Critical Pedagogy of Becoming: (1) rejection of anticommunism, (2) an orientation toward the totality of life, (3) an insistence on the connection to global struggles against exploitation and oppression, (4) the utilization of critical, rigorous concepts and formulations, (5) the location of their project within the communist horizon, and (6) the necessity of organization and the Party (p. 9). This bold approach represents the nullification of politically domesticated critical pedagogy.
Chapter four brings out the role of technology and machinery under capitalism in lowering the physical and mental capacities of humans. Historically, the shift from manufacture to machinery increased the division of labor and the gap between mental and manual labor. This machine-led degradation of labor also necessitates an ideology that maintains order. Enter formal schooling. Standardization and scripted curricula, the Common Core, and other capital-centered arrangements have grown rapidly over the years to keep critical thinking and action at bay. The authors argue that, “a Revolutionary Marxist Social Studies offers students the intellectual tools needed to uncover the mysticism of bourgeois ideology and discover the hidden process of value augmentation that leads to a tendency to work workers to death, offering a rigorous place of departure to better understand the current crisis of capital and to struggle for a communist alternative” (p. 115).
Using the recent example of police brutality and racism in Ferguson, Missouri, Malott and Ford contend in chapter five that the struggles of black people against slavery, racism, and police brutality must be seen as a form of opposition to the logic of capital and its incessant demand for more surplus value. Race and class are inseparable. Value augmentation under capitalism requires racism and social control. It is no accident that living and working conditions for minorities are always harsher under capitalism than they are for many white people. Here, Malott and Ford argue that the concept of national oppression can serve as a lens through which to view the status, condition, and future of black people in the U.S.
The focus of chapter six is “personified capital,” “the living embodiment of the logic of capital” (p. 138). A main goal is to show that the, “The coercive laws of competition dictate that the capitalist, if he wishes to remain so, must always align his production arrangements in accordance with those that are predominant at the time. If he fails to do so, he will be driven out of business. This is precisely why appeals to more humane or equitable business practices are ultimately futile, for equitability runs counter to the coercive laws of competition” (p. 141). This is another way of saying target the system, not individuals, personalities, regulations, and the like. It is this logic which, as noted earlier, allows us to conclude that the capitalist has no right to be and that it makes no sense to defend capitalism. Society will flourish only when capital is negated. A key question in this regard is what role does the Communist Party play in moving society forward?