In Marxist theory, the predicted withering away of the state is not at odds with the need for centralized planning. The state is here defined in a specialized way as an instrument of coercion on behalf of a certain class made up of what Lenin called “armed bodies of men” (police, armed forces, prison guards, court officers) committed to the defense of a particular form of property. That is what is expected to “wither away” after the period of proletarian dictatorship, not bodies devoted to the organization of society on a technical basis. On the contrary, what Engels means by the state withering away, as he spells out in the sentence preceding the one where the phrase occurs, is precisely that, in the absence of class antagonism, “the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production.”
There’s a lot I like here and I believe you’re fundamentally right. But I also think we need an honest accounting of why segments of the left turned so hard toward the anti-statist vision. It’s impossible to overestimate how disastrous the Vietnam War was to faith in the government on the left. Plus LBJ’s Great Society was deliberately designed to corrode certain cultures and communities out of a bias that they were backwards. I dunno know what to do with that except to say if we’re invoking Hegel we statists on the left need to come up with a synthesis that incorporates the better insights of the romantic anti-statist leftism. (I should say I don’t hate Lyndon Johnson. I’m tempted to say in good Hegelian fashion that he’s both the best and worst American president since FDR.)
I agree! In trying to by sharp and clear, I was probably harsher on the New Left here than I am in reality. I do think it's hard to overstate, or even comprehend in retrospect, how much the "high modernist" style of American elite governance and social science felt nefarious, how much it was associated with the cold, value-less exercise of imperial power. And by global comparison the American New Left wasn't even especially anti-statist or technophobic.
In Marxist theory, the predicted withering away of the state is not at odds with the need for centralized planning. The state is here defined in a specialized way as an instrument of coercion on behalf of a certain class made up of what Lenin called “armed bodies of men” (police, armed forces, prison guards, court officers) committed to the defense of a particular form of property. That is what is expected to “wither away” after the period of proletarian dictatorship, not bodies devoted to the organization of society on a technical basis. On the contrary, what Engels means by the state withering away, as he spells out in the sentence preceding the one where the phrase occurs, is precisely that, in the absence of class antagonism, “the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production.”
There’s a lot I like here and I believe you’re fundamentally right. But I also think we need an honest accounting of why segments of the left turned so hard toward the anti-statist vision. It’s impossible to overestimate how disastrous the Vietnam War was to faith in the government on the left. Plus LBJ’s Great Society was deliberately designed to corrode certain cultures and communities out of a bias that they were backwards. I dunno know what to do with that except to say if we’re invoking Hegel we statists on the left need to come up with a synthesis that incorporates the better insights of the romantic anti-statist leftism. (I should say I don’t hate Lyndon Johnson. I’m tempted to say in good Hegelian fashion that he’s both the best and worst American president since FDR.)
I agree! In trying to by sharp and clear, I was probably harsher on the New Left here than I am in reality. I do think it's hard to overstate, or even comprehend in retrospect, how much the "high modernist" style of American elite governance and social science felt nefarious, how much it was associated with the cold, value-less exercise of imperial power. And by global comparison the American New Left wasn't even especially anti-statist or technophobic.