The Contradictions of Real Socialism : The Conductor and the Conducted [Hardcover]

What was “real socialism”—the term which originated intwentieth-century socialist societies for the purpose of distinguishingthem from abstract, theoretical socialism? In this volume, Michael A.Lebowitz considers the nature, tendencies, and contradictions of thosesocieties. Beginning with the constant presence of shortages within“real socialism,” Lebowitz searches for the inner relations whichgenerate these patterns. He finds these, in particular, in what he calls“vanguard relations of production,” a relation which takes the apparentform of a social contract where workers obtain benefits not availableto their counterparts in capitalism but lack the power to decide withinthe workplace and society.

While these societies were able to claim major achievements in areasfrom health care to education to popular culture, the separation ofthinking and doing prevented workers from developing their capacities asfully developed human beings. The relationship within “real socialism”between the vanguard as conductor and a conducted working class,however, did not only lead to the deformation of workers and thoseelements necessary for the building of socialism; it also created theconditions in which enterprise managers emerged as an incipientcapitalist class, which was an immediate source of the crises of “realsocialism.” As he argued inThe Socialist Alternative: Real Human Development,Lebowitz stresses the necessity to go beyond the hierarchy inherent inthe relation of conductor and conducted (and beyond the “vanguardMarxism” which supports this) to create the conditions in which peoplecan transform themselves through their conscious cooperation andpractice—i.e., a society of free and associated producers.