10. Radical Structuralism

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10. Radical Structuralism

Origins and IntellectualTradition

Toeradicalstructuralistparadigmisrootedinamaterialistviewof the natural and social world. l!is based upon an ontology which cmphasisesthehardandconcretenatureofthereaiitywhichexists outsidethemindsofmen.Thesocialworld,likethenaturalworld, isseenashavinganindependentexistence.Itsfacticityistakenfor granted; it is seen as being material rather than spiritual in nature. This 'realist' view of social reali ty is supplemented by an essen­ tially positivist epistemology which is geared to discoveri ng and understanding the patterns and regularities which characterise the socialworld.Littledistinctionisdrawnbetweentheassumptions, aims and methods of the natural and social sciences. The radical structuralist tends to see himseif as engaged in 'science', and in thisendeavoursharesmanypointsofsimilaritywiththeapproach of the functionalist. However, for the radical structuralist, 'sci­ ence' is made to serve íundamentally differentends.

Radicalstructuralismisaimed,firstandforemost,atprovidinga

critique of thestatus quo in social affairs. ltis a perspective which isconcemednotjusttounderstandthçworld,buttochangeit.The underlyingfocusofinteresttendstobeuponthestructureswithin society,andparticuiarlythewayinwhicbtheyinterrelate.Writers withintheparadigmtendtoviewsocietyascomposedofelements which stand in contradiction to eacn other. They are interested in lhe elfects of these contradictions, particularly with regard to the role which they play in creating economic and política! crises. Radicalstructuralismisaviewwhichfocusesupontheessentially conflictual nature of social affairs and the fundamental process of changewhichthisgenerates.Deep-seatedconflictisviewedasthe meansbywhichmanachievesemancipationfromthestructuresof thesocialworldinwhichhelives.ltisasociologyofradicalchange but, in contras!tothat of the radical hu manist paradigm, one which tends to place relatively little direct emphasis upon the role and natureofmanasanindividualhumanbeing.However,commonto bothistheunderlyingaimofman'sreleasefromthevariousforms

RadicalStructuralism327

of domination which are seen as characterising contemporary industrial society.

Theintellectuaifoundationsoftheradicalstructuralistparadigm werelaidinthesecondhalfofthenineteenth centuryin-theworkof Karl Marx. As a theoretical perspective it has had a chequered history, in that Mant's work has been subjected to a wide range of interpretations, vulgarisations and misunderstandings. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the term 'Marxism'. Wbilst from within it represents a heterogeneous and widely differentiated bodyofsocialtheory,fromoutsideitisoftenidentifiedasanarrow and polemical política! creed. Analytically, there are many varieties ofMarxism.Aswehaveseentheworkoftheyou·ngMarx

had a major impact upon certain developments within the radical humanist paradigm. ln this chapter we intend to trace the effect which bis !ater work has had upon the radical structuralist para­

digm. As we shall see, the contemporary structure of Marxist thought within this paradigm is extremely complex, calling for careful analysis in terms of the two dimensions which define our analytical scheme. In essence, the radical structuralist paradigm constitutes a body of social theory as complex, conceptually rich and widely differentiated as any of the other three paradigms considered in thiswork.

As we have noted i n our discussion of the radical humanist paradigm, in his early work Marx was principally involved in a reínterpretation of the Hegelian system ofphilosophy, inverting its central tenets to produce a radical critique of conlemporary Ger­ man Society. With the pubiication of The Germanldeology ín 1846, however, adistinct move away from his earlier preoccupation with and commitment to Hegelían idealism can be detected. ln particu­ lar, he sought to turn from the objective idealism which character­ ised hisi:arlier work to aposition re!lectinga more materialist view of the social world. it represented the beginning of a general movement away from philosophical concerns to those of política! economy, and an attempt to develop the outlines ofaradical social theory capable of meeting contemporary posítivism on its own ground. lt signified a redirection of his overall thought which was

1toreceiveafullerandmoreexplicittreatmentin!aterwo.-ksuchas the Grundrisse , and Capital, written in the !ate 1850s andearly

!860s. 1 These works were produced after more than a decade of aclive but unsuccessful political involvement which embracedlhe 'Year of Revolutions' of 1848. ln essence, they reflectMarx's

1attempt to obtain 'self-clarification' on the operation of thehisto.-­

1ical process and the economic structure of the capitalist modeof

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production. in terms ôf ai\álysis, they place emphasis upon con­ ceptualisations derived from political economy; the idealist con­ cerns of his early work receive much less emphasis. Although there is considerable debate about the extent towhich the Hegelian influence wastostaywithMarxthroughouthislife,aclaimisoften made that his writings in the period after 1850 reflect a major epistemologi,,.'ai break when compared with his earlier work. ln terms of our analytical scheme, they involve a shift in perspective away from the radical humanist and towards the radicalstructural­

ist paradigm.

Gíven the wide range of interpretations which have been placed

upon Manes !aterwork, it is extremely difficult to provide any authoritative, clear-cut statement of his precise perspective. Our pian in the rest of this section, therefore, will be to provide an overview of Marx's central concems and then to proceed to dis­ cuss some of the widely different ínterpretations placed upon lhem.Aswesballsee,theseinterpretationshavedictatedinlarge measuretheprecisedevelopmentoftheradicalstructuralistpara­

mdigm.

Atlhemostbasiclevel,Marx'smodelofsociety,asexpressedin hislaterwork,consistsoftwoelements-lhe'superstructure'and the 'substructure'. The metaphor 'substructure' was used to refer totheeconomicbaseofsociety,inwhichproductionwasgiventhe central role. His analysis of this distinguished between (a) lhe 'mode of production' (capitalism, feudalism or communism); (b) lhe'meansofproduction'(technology,land,capital,labour);and

(e) lhe 'relations of production' (producersandnon-producers,owners and non-owners, the class system). Marxarguedthatwithineachmodeofproductiontherewereparticularassociationsbetween the 'means' and lhe 'relations' of production.Toeterm'superstructure' was used to denote other,non-economicfactorswilhinsociety,suchasthestate,religion,art,literature,etc.Thesewereseen,'unhelastinstance',asbeingdeterminedbythenatureofthesubstructure,thoughinlt!minfluencingittosomedegree.WithintheGrundrisseandCapitalthenotionof'contradiction'was given a central role in Marx's analysis of theoperationofsociety. As will become apparent !ater in the chapter,thísnotionhasbeeninterpretedinmanyways.2 Commontotheseinterpreta­tions is the idea that society contains within itelementswhichstandinantagonisticrelationshipsonetoanother,andwhichgen­erateconflictswhicheventuallyleadtothebreakdownofthemodeof production and its related social configurations.Marxwasprimarily interested in the contradictions which exist withinthe

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-substructureofsociety,andbeplacedconsiderableemphasisupon bis notion of 'surplus value' as lhe concept upon which the con­ tradiction between the means and reiations of production was based. 3 His interpreters have also stressed the contradictions which exist between the substructute ·and superstructure, and within the superstructure itself. Toe notion of contradiction is centra! to Marx's exp!anation of social change and the way in which one form of society replaces anolher lhrough crises pro­ ducedbythesecontradictions.Marxsawthesecriseswithinagiven modeofproductíonasgettingprogressivelyworseandeventually leadíngtothecataclysmiccrisiswhichwouldoverthrowthesoci­ ety as awhole.

As we have noted, tbe focus of Marx's anaiysis is upon lhe poiitical economy of capitalism. 'Structures', 'contradictions'and 'crises' lake over from the concepts of 'consciousness', 'aliena­ tion'and'critique'reflectedinbisearlierwork.Whi!stlhismarksa considerablechangeinorientationofanalysis,whichisconsonant with Marx's more materialist view of the social world, a certain continuity within the Hegelian tradition is also evident.4 Toe notionofcontradictionisultimatelyderivedfromthedialectic,and the concern for alienation also remains. ln Marx 's later work, however, it tends to be imbued wilh the terminology of política! economyandbecomesthe'fetishismofcommodities',forwithin thecapitalistsystemalienationisseenasintimatelylinkedwilhthe fact that man is treated as a commodíty or resource to be bought andsolduponthelabourmarket.Marx'soverallchangeinorienta­ tionwasaptlyexpressedbyl..assalle,oneofhiscontemporaries, whodescribedhimas'aHegeltumedeconomist,aRicardotumed socialist'. This description summarises succinctly the two developmentswhichcharacterisethethoughtofhislateryears,in which he moved away from a radical idealism towards a radical inrerpretation of 'bourgeois', 'positivist' economics. lt is this

move which laid the essential foundations of the radical structural­ ist paradigm.

Aswehavenoted,subsequentdevelopmentswithinthecontext oflheradicalstructuralistparadigmhavebeenlargelybasedupon different interpretations placed upon Marx's !ater work. At least threedistinctlinesofdevelopmentcanbeidentified.Onefocuses uponEngels'interpretationof Marxandthesubsequentdevelop­ mentofa'scíentificsocialism'intheRussianmould.'!tisthisline ofdevelopmentwhichismostoftenequatedwith'Marxism'when evaluated from within a context outside the paradigm. A second line of development has focused upon an interpretation of lhe

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33() Sociologica/ Paradigms and Organisational Analysis

Grundrisse and. Capital as.reprcsenting lhe essence- of Marx's work; this has large!y arisen as a response to the developmentsin criticai theory discussed in our chapter on lhe radical humanist paradigm.Thethirdlineofdevelopmentcanbeunderstoodasthe resultofaconfrontationbetweenthevariouselementsofthework ofMarx and Weber. These three developments largely define lhe present structure of the radical structuralist paradigm, and it will beaswellifwereviewthemingeneraltermspriortomoredetailed discussion !aterin thechapter.

As we have seen, the direction of Marx's thought in his !ater years was towards a radical reinterpretation of political economy. Under the i nfluence of Engels, particularly after Marx's death, this general trend was much intensified, leading to an eventual picture of Marxism as reveali ng lhe essential 'laws of motion' underlying lhe capitalist system. Under Engels' influence, lhe work of Marx was increasingly seen as presenting a total science of man's politi­ cal, economic and social life, which contained within its system lhe laws of social evolution.• This interpretation, which sought to stress the li nks between lhe work of Darwin and Marx, was the onc which predominated under Engels' influence after Marx's dea!h. ln Engels' hands, the dialectic between subjective and objective worlds was left further and further behind as a materialist view of history and of society was forged. As Engels himself notes in a discussion of dialectical materialism,

dialectics reduced itself to the science of the general iaws of motion. both of the externai world and of human thought - two sorts of làws whichareidenticalinsubstance.butditferintheirexpressionãnsofar as the human mind can appiy them consciously. while in nature. and alsouptonowforthemostpartinhumanhistory.theselawsassert themselves unconsciously. in the form of externai necessity. in the midst of an end1ess series of seeming accidents . ..(Engeis in Marx and Engels, !951, pp.349-50)

It was predse!y this lype of rendering of the dialectic wilhin

·dialecticmaterialism' which impressed lhe socialists and 'social democrats' of lhe late nineteenth century.7 Wilhin its in!ellectual sway, they became the instru ments of historical necessity, hand­ maidens of fale who held in their palms the truly superior philosophy cum science. The Russian, Plekhanov, adopted this perspectiveonMarx'sworkandthereaftersetthegroundrolesfor lhe study. analysis and interpretation of Marxism underBolshev­ ism. ln many respects lhe tradition of Russian social theoryover

RadicalStructuralism331

lhelasthundredorsoyearshas,inlargemeasure,beenestablished by this Engels-Plekhanovdialogue.

The second line of development within the radical structuralist paradigm, somewhat paradoxically, originates from the work of Lenin. As we have seen, Marx's later work retained certain Hcgelianfeatures.ThisfactwasrecognisedbyLeninwho,shortly beforehisdeath,carnetotheconclusionlhatMarx,andespecially Capital, could not be understood without a knowledge of Hegel. As Conquest (1972) reports, since Hegel had been ignored for

1some füty years. Lenin conduded lhat no Marxist had yetunder­

lstoodMarx.

This line of reasoning was not developed within Russian social

theory,butitwastakenupinthe!%OsbyagroupofMarxistswho stoodoutsideboththeHegeiianandtheEngeisiantradition.They tended to see L,enin as lhe Marxist theorist who carne closest to tappingtheessenceofMarx'swork.•Toeirinterpretationof Hegel

1is a critica! one, and in no sense can they be regarded asbelongingto the Left Hegdian brand of theorising discussed inconnection

wilhlheradicalhumanistparadigm.Rather·lheystandbetweenthe critical theory of radical humanism and lhe tradition of orthodox Russian Marxism. Marxist philosophers such as Della Volpe, Althusser and Colletti grew up in cultures dominated by neither Germanidealismnorsocioiogicalpositivismand,asweshallsee, were able to distance themselves from existing interpretations of Marx.

The third line of development focuses upon what may be described as 'radical Weberianism'. As is well known, Weber was,incertainaspectsofbiswork,engagedinadialoguewiththe

·ghostof Marx'., and certain of his key concepts have been used as a means of exploring lhe interface between Marx and Weber. As we have sought to show in earlier chapters, Max Weber's influence

hasbeenfeltinaliofthefourparadigms.Whetheronepointstobis discussionofscientificrationalitywhichpervadesmuchofradical humanism, or his development of the notion of verstehen in lhe interpretive paradigm, or bis work on bureaucracy which, though oftenrnisunderstood,dorninatesfunctionalistorganisationtheory, Weber cannot be ignored. Wilhin radical structuralism, certain strands of his work which are consistent with the orientation of a sociologyofradicalchangehavebeendeveloped byasmallgroup of European social sdentists. Inorder to distinguish their reading of Weber from those more typical of functionalism, for example, we wish to use the term •radical Weberianism'.

Weber's writings contain política! and sociological elements

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weldcd together, sometimes under greatstrainand tension, within'·· the context of one overall framework.9 For Weber, the central political question i n a unified Germany was the issue of leadership. How was thc newly created State to be govemed? He accepted unquestioningly the 'rightness' of its existence and sought its continuing growth through a concem for the form of development of industrial capitalism and its emergent bourgeoisie. Weber was a sociologist of economic order interested in the social conse­ quences of capitalism, wjth regard to which bis views were some­ what ambivalent. His orientation to capitalism demarcates him quite clear!y from the Marxists and the German romantic con­ servatives of his time. Toe former opposed the capitalist mode of production for its deleterious el'fects on the newly created working population; the latter, for its effects up<?n the established Junkers' aristocracy. Between these perspecttves Weber advocated a capitalism containing a strong, intellectually refined bourgeoisic wbich wouid remain troe to the superior Germanculture.

WhatisimportantforradicalWeberianism,however,isnotthat Weberwasprimarilyasociologistoforderandregulation,butthat hisambivalentattitudetocapitalism,andparticularlytolhepiace of bureaucracy within it, left open avenues for exploration which leadtoasociologyofradicalchange.Webersawbureaucracyasa rdlection of the process of rationalisation which paralleled the

development of capitalism; a process which invaded ali aspects or

sociallife,frompoliticstoreligion.Aswehaveseen,Marcusetook this notion of rationality and used it crilically as a comerstone in his treattnent of 'one-dimensional man'. Within radicalstructural­ ism theorists temi to be most interested in Weber's analysis of ooreaucracy as an instrument of social domination, most forcibly expressed in the notion of lhe 'iron cage of bureaucracy'. For Weber, bureaucracy posed a threal to hu man freedom, making it increasingly more difficult for men to exercise control over their everyday lives. Toe threat of. this 'iron cage' was seen as charac- 1erisi11gsocietiesof.bothacapitalistandasocialistnature.Under lhe !atter Weber emphasised that the strength of bureaucracy im:reasedbecauseinthecapitalistmodetherewasaticastanarca for lhe free play of market forces. Under bolh systems, however, lhe growth of bureaucracy and the mode of purposive rationality whichitreflectswasviewedasaforcedetrimentaltotheinterests of those subject to itscontrol.

Thus, in the context of radical structuralism, radicalWeberian­

ism focuses upon bureaucracy, authority and power as the points

ofconcentrationfortheoreticalanalysisasameansofunderstand-

RadicalStructuralism333

ing important aspects of social life under capitalism. Rarely' how- --.. e -

ever, does it produce politically radical altematives; as may he said of other schools of thought, it seeks to interpret critically rather than to change. Nevertheless, Weber did joust with the Marxian heritage and fought the battle-on its ground, at least on occasion, and it is the product of this sort of confrontation which forms the kernel of contemporary 'radical Weberianism'. In essence, it seeks to emphasise the role of factors which do not receive extensive treatment within 'Marxism', and which portray man's domination and enslavement by the social structures in which he lives. This radical Weberianism comprises the third strand i n the intellectual development of the radical structuralist paradigm.

The Structure of theParadigm

Toeradicalstructuralistparadigmisthusacomplexbodyofsocial theorywhich istheresultofthefusionofapluralityofphilosophi­ cal,political andsociologicaltraditions.Anybroadcategorisation of its constituent schools of thought must do violence to this fact but, bearing this in mind, one can recognise the thrce very broad approaches discussed above. We describe them as (a) Russian social theory; (b) contemporary Mediterranean Marxism; and (e) conflict theory. Each of these occupies a distinctive position within the paradigm, as illustrated in Figure 3.3.

Russian Social Theory stands within theEngelsiantradition,having been introduced into pre-revolutionarythought byPlekhanov. It !aterdeveloped into the historicalmaterialismof Bukharin, and influenced, to a degree, Kropotkin'sversionc:Lanarchistic communism. A!though these approachesarepoüti­cally divergent, they share a common setofmeta-theoreticalassumptions which are unquestionably positivisticandnaturalis­tic.Toeyarelocatedinthemostobjectivistregionoftheparadigm.

Contemporary M editerranean Marxism stands in the tradition of Marx'smature works, particularly Capital,and Lenin'sreading ofit.Thissetthetoneforanapproachwhichisofcoreimportance at the present time. We recognise within it Altlnrsser's sociology and Co/letti's sociology which, whilst having dose parallels with eachotherintermsoftheirrejectionofbothHegélianisedMarxjsm and orthodox Russian Marxism, again differ politically. To this extent they occupy different positions on the regulation-radical change dimension of our analylicalscheme.

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"ConJ]icL.th.eory.is,..th.es.ociological. expr,ession{)fradi.caJ Weberianismandinvolv.:slheutilisationofseveralMarxiancon­ cepts.WedistinguishbetweenRex'sconj]icttheoryandDahren­ dorf s co,iflict theory, although, here again, striking sinúlarities appcar, given a sufficiently broad perspective.

We will discuss each of these schools of thought in tum.

Russian Social Theory

We use this term in order to emphasise certain commonalities which exist between apparently distinct schools of thought in Russian inte!lectual history.• 0 We seek to point to connections between the socio-philosophical approaches of the so-called 'orthodox Marxism' of Bukharin and the 'anarchistic communism' developed by Kropotkin. These bodies of thought have something in common in terms of their intellectual backgrounds and origins, despite the undisguised hostility between them. The orthodox Marxism propounded by Bukharin was virulently opposed to anarchism in ali its forms, just as tlae followers of Kropotkin stood out against the political elitism and administrative centralisation then nascent in Bolshevism. Indeed, anarchistic communists went so far as to explode a bomb in a Bolshevik Party Committee meeting, killing twelve senior members and i njuring Bukharin in the process. Such violent contempt, however, belies a sinúlarity in meta-theoretical terms between the perspectives of these men. Both Kropotkin and Bukharin were fanúliar with the natural sci­ ences, both used 'scientific' conceptualisations as the comerstone of their systems i n a thoroughly positivistic way, and both were committed to the revolutionary overthrow of the Tsarist govem­ ment in particular and capitalism ingeneral.

Although easy to overemphasise, their mutual 'objectivism'

derived from Plekhanov and, dependent upon the 'naturalistic' assumptions of the scientitic method, has remained, in some degree, typical of contemporary Russian social lheory, which has much i n common wi th fu nctionalist social systems theory sofar as the subjective-objective dimension of our analytical scheme is concerned. lndeed, Gouldner (l970) has made much of the current Soviet interest in functionalism, with which there are the ties of a common positivist epistemology, 11 and there has also been inter­ est in the reverse direction. Nisbet ( 1976), for example, has sought to portray Kropotkin as an ecologist before his time.