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PARTISAN REVIEW
Eastman, Hook, Corey, Utley are examples-having been trying to
break into new ground. Their negative critique of Marxist theory
has been astute and, much of it, convincing. Nevertheless, in their
work so far-and this is perhaps not unnatural-there have been
two deficiencies. None of them has yet tried, in any but the
sketchiest way, to present a positive substitute for, or reformula–
tion of, Marxist theory. And, second, they have failed to separate,
with the clarity plainly required, the moral problem of desirable
political program from the descriptive problem of what actually
seems to be happening in the world.
It
is this latter problem which
alone concerns me here; and with respect to it, new ideas seem '
emerging at the present time neither from Marxist nor from hour·
geois thought, but, so far as they are present at all, from a quite
different source: from the anarchist tradition, and from the tradi–
tion-by no means unrelated to anarchism--of such writers as
Pareto whose historical origins are perhaps to be found in
Machiavelli.
I believe that we now have at our disposal enough evidence
to answer, at least roughly and with a fair probability, this ques·
tion of what is happening in the world, the question of the charac·
ter of the present period of major social transition and its probable
outcome. To give such an answer in detail cannot be the work of
single individuals; it requires a cooperative effort.
It
may, how·
ever, be possible to reach some measure of agreement about the
general direction in which the answer is to be sought.
2.
During the past several generations, most of the writers in
the fields of sociology, politics and economics who have abandoned
the exceedingly naive assumption that the capitalist organization
of society is eternal have accepted, implicitly or explicitly, a second
assumption that is often expressed as follows: capitalism and
socialism are "the only alternatives" for modem society; either
capitalism will continue or socialism will replace it. It should be
remarked that the two terms in this presumed alternative have an
unlike status. What "capitalism" means we are able to know from
experience, by generalizing the chief characteristics of post-Renais·
sance society, which we are all agreed in calling capitalist. What
"socialism" means, on the other hand, we know only from defini·
