398
HERBERT MARCUSE
appears in forms and modes very different from those germane to
previous phases of the revolutionary socialist movement.
My main effort since has been to explicate this difference in the
new radical potential, and to understand it in terms of the structural
changes under monopoly
capitali~.
Today, I would summarize the
situation in the USA roughly "as
~ol1ows.
.
At the attained stage of the development, the socialist revolu–
tion appears imperative: the alternative is a protracted period of
barbarism. In its scope and its goals, the revolution would
be
larger
and more radical than the preceding ones. The potential for it exists
- therefore the preventive counterrevolution on a global scale. The
counterrevolution, not the revolution, is on the agenda.
And yet, the forces making .for the collapse of the established
social system are there, and . w.e 'can identify them if we recognize
that the traditional pattern of revolution is no longer valid. This was
a revolution based on the industrial 'proletariat and aiming at the
"seizure of power" on 'a national ' scale, ':directed by centralized mass
parties. The new pattern ·derives from·· changes in the structure of
capitalism within the framework ·of .capitalism. They appear in the
extension of the direct rule .of' '{:apital over formerly (relatively)
in–
dependent strata of the population .(mainly among the middle classes) ,
in the altered composition of the working class (now including an
increasing proportion of' white-collar workers) and in the vital role
of the intelligentsia in the reproduction of (and in the fight against)
the capitalist system. Behind the facade of the "consumer society,"
the base of exploitation is greatly enlarged.
Revolution at a high standard of living? The consumer society
may well become the 'grave digger of capitalism. Marx thought that
capitalism had fulfilled its "historical destiny" when it has satisfied
the basic needs of the people, ·and· when "surplus labor beyond the
necessities has itself become a universal need, generated by the
in–
dividual needs themselves.. . ,"
."2
This implies radically new impulses
of revolution. Capitalism constantly creates needs (must create needs)
which it cannot satisfy .within its own framework -
transcending
needs.
It
is only at the most advanced stage of capitalism, and on
2. Grundrisse der Kritik deT politischen Oekonomie
(Berlin: Dietz, 1953),
p. 231. See Martin Nicholaus''S 'comments on -thiii passage in
New Left Review 48
(1968) .
