Venezuela and Revolutionary Moralism
“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 birth
marks of the old society from whose womb it emerges… 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.” – Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme
Oh, Hugo. The latest news from Venezuela borders on comical, if it
didn’t sound like it was dredged up from the playbook of a failed team
from last century. President Chavez is pushing a moral crusade to
instill the principles of Che Guevara’s “New Socialist Man” on the
Venezuelan population. Chavez wants to heavily limit whiskey imports,
raise taxes on tobacco products, and encourage people to not “douse
foods with too much hot sauce, exercise regularly, eat low-cholesterol
foods, respect speed limits,” or have too much cosmetic surgery.
None of these are inherently bad principles on their own, but
leftist paternalism is an old tradition and as bad as its right-wing
cousin, especially when it carries the weight of the government behind
it.
Marxists and radicals of all stripes have always had to contend with
the consciousness created by capitalism as they struggle for a humanist
future. Unfortunately there are two souls of this struggle: austere
rejection of worldly pleasures and a libertine embrace of that
pleasure. The former conjures up images of barracks socialism – Chinese
and Russian Stalinists demanding that their socialist citizenry abandon
the false values of capitalist society, and enforcing harsh penalties
if they refuse. Capitalist mores would be educated out of the
population; I fear Hugo has imbibed this from his love of the Cuban
Stalinists Che and Castro.
I would argue that there is another way, understood by Marx himself,
out of this conundrum without paternalism or self-denial. Any
revolutionary movement or post-revolutionary society would be made up
of people who had been socialized within capitalism. Thus, the struggle
within them would always be against who they had been and where they
had lived their entire lives, something Marx understood could not be
legislated out of them. The birth pangs of the new order would contain
defects from the old world, and there is no way around that. The new
order would be a collective association of producers, with no masters
or slaves, allowing people and society to develop fully for the first
time.
Thus, instead of moralizing, those of us who wish real change should
celebrate openness and those who embrace pleasure for the sake of
self-fulfillment. The French Situationists, writing in the 1960s about
the Paris Commune, described it as the biggest festival of the
nineteenth century, where the workers of Paris understood they had
become masters of their own fates. Old ways of thinking crumbled as
people questioned the old order, old boundaries, old limitations placed
on them by society and that they had internalized. Any restructuring of
culture and mores requires introspection by a bulk of the population; I
would advise Mr. Chavez that he should question the old moral order:
religion, sexual values, inhibitions about alcohol and drugs, machismo,
and challenge those who want to see a socialist future to inhibit
themselves less, not more – but to use those lessened inhibitions
towards self-fulfillment and change, not empty consumerism.
Emma Goldman once said (apocryphally): “If I can’t dance, I don’t
want your revolution.” Mr. Chavez has taken admirable steps towards a
welfare state – there has been no revolution yet – reducing
unemployment from 18% to 8%, extending medical care to all, and a range
of social programs for the poor. Yet, if he wants a revolution, he
should take care to make sure that there is joy, life, and happiness in
the revolutionaries, not self-denial. Then we will all be dancing with
them.