The fact that there is this rich vein of pro-working class psychology was also highlighted last year at the 1996 Conference of 32 International Viewpoint book notes the Social Psychology Section of the British Psychology Society (BPS) where a special held. Researan by Enge and olary, vas example, into the working conditions of the working class (eg . in The Condition of the Working Class in Britain) included a ques tionnaire for French workers, entitled the Enquette Ouvrière. Although most of the 100 questions were not 'psychological,' Roiser and Willig show how this work sits alongside Marx and Engel's work on class consciousness and alienation. It is also work which was taken up and given an extra psychological dimension in the work of Kautsky and Bernstein and it was in Germany that the radical Frankfurt School European thinking
The Frankfurt School is best known for the work of Fromm, Marcuse, Weiss and Adorno and includes work on the causes of fascism both at the level of the state and at the psychological level in terms of the individual 'authoritarian' personality (Adorno et al 1951). The initial intent of the Frankfurt School was to explain the failures of German Social Democracy and this was done largely along Marxist lines and largely untainted by Stalinism. It is arguable in that portraying the effect of late capitalism as causing authoritarian personalities (that are slower to change than political views) Fromm (in the famous Fear of Freedom) drew overly pessimistic conclusions. Nonetheless the work on the authoritarian personality by Adorno et al in the US. became a highly influential work on the nature and causes of prejudice, albeit one which tended to reinforce notions of individuality by focusing on personality differences.
Radical Psychology reappeared strongly in Germany in the 1960s, centring in the Free University of Berlin and led by the influential Klaus Holzkamp (see Tolman 1994 and Chapter 7 in Psychology and Society). This movement, as part of student uprisings across Europe in the 1960s, made a huge contribution in renewing a Critical Psychology, largely through rejuvenating the application of Marxism to Psychology. It is striking how little of this work is covered in the curriculum of undergraduate Psychology degrees in Britain. More recently, the rise of post-modernist thought during the 1980s has allowed Critical Psychology to regain a foothold and to grow again after a barren period during the 1970s when many radical psychologists were forced out of Psychology departments in Britain and where the stranglehold of reductionism, in the form of cognitive psychology, became ever tighter. An important issue today is the extent to which the work of post-structuralist thinkers, like Foucault, can be used in a positive way in developing a truly radical Psychology (see Gane 1986, Shotter & Parker 1990). This is also an issue which is dealt with both directly and indirectly in Psychology and Society (for example the chapter by Kum-Kum Bhavnani and Angela Davis on strategies for women prisoners).
remarkable aspect of Psychology & Society is the variety of approaches that it contains. In the 19 chapters there are many more than 19 Psychological perspectives and more than 19 types of Marxism to match them! It is therefore not surprising that some of these versions of both Psychology and Marxism would not be recognised as such by some of those who define themselves as either Marxists or Psychologists. This is not a criticism of this work but is instead indicative of the many brave attempts to fuse Psychology and Marxism together that are found within it.
Take the chapter by Jerome Ulman. Behaviourism, as personified in the work of people such as Pavlov, Watson and Skinner, has been largely discredited within modern Psychology. For Marxists, the emphasis on the importance of natural selection as a driving force in the behaviour of animals and humans has often made behaviourist ideas (as with genetic reductionism) an area with apparently little basis for common ground This is particularly true to the extent that Marxists have correctly broken with the stale Psychology which was the official doctrine under Stalin and which was heavily behaviourist and have instead taken up humanistic ideas in Marxism as explored by writers such as Gramsci and Novack. Prozac for the proles
Ulman, for his part, prefers, as a "behaviourologist', to see selection (there is less mention of the 'natural') as part of a "special dialectical law of the movement of living matter, from that of a single cell to a social formation composed of millions of people". It is worth wondering how dialectical such a relationship might be if neither the cell nor the social formation are aware of the function of the other (which is still the case for brain function where location for function is still a mystery. Prozac works because of a chemical change, but what does this chemical change actually represent in human, social terms?). After, all dialectical logic does not imply a dual determinism of the wooden variety that is favoured by empiricists. Ulman celebrates how "selectionism" has removed the focus from the internal cognitive states (such as memory and processing) but it is worrying that in doing so the concept of subjectivity may have been lost altogether.
The positive aspects of Ulman's approach involve the abandoning of Cartesian dualisms such as between the physical
and mental and the Kantian interpretation claim which is critically discussed in the first chapter by Edward Reed (things in themselves can never be known, only their interpreted appearance. Hence the need for a cognitive system to do the interpreting). It is these problems which appear to bedevil the attempt by R.D. Hinselwood to show possible convergence between psychoanalysis and Marxism. The convergence is shown to centre firstly on the Marxist notion of alienation (of the producer from the product) and Freudian ideas of depersonalisation.
Additionally Hinselwood argues that the notion of surplus value (based on the circulation of workers productive activities in the form of commodities) is similar to notions of social groups involving aspects of personal identity that are also being 'circulated'. This second convergence relies on the supposed dualism between the social and individual that has plagued attempts at a radical social psychology (see Turner 1987) and also reinforces the internal-external dualism found in much Psychology. While Hinselwood shows some fascinating insights into the possible overlaps between Freudian and Marxist thought the chapter as a whole flags up the fact that the anti-psychiatry movement of the 1960s, led by R.D. Laing, is completely omitted. This is a movement still present today (including in Laing's Philadelphia Association) and which has, at times, made real attempts to bring together aspects of Marxist and psychoanalytic thought (albeit with an existentialist thrust to it).
Almost inevitably therefore, it is possible to accuse Parker and Spears of leaving out certain critical traditions within Psychology. Despite covering a vast terrain, it is nonetheless a shame that Laing's contribution is not featured and that room was not found for the work of Tajfel and Turner on explaining the basis for prejudice and stereotyping (see Blackwell's The Message of Social Psychology for some excellent coverage of these ideas. This may seem picky, and it has to be said that the book contains some excellent chapters on the contributions psychologists can make for social change(by Ben Bradley and Jane Selby) and on empowerment (by Mark Burton and Carolyn Kagan). There is even a chapter by Ian Parker on Trotsky'scontribution to a revolutionary psychology.
It is hard in some ways to critically assess a work that is so varied in its approach. Psychology and Society therefore represents a sounding board for those psychologists who are committed to socialist change and who are fighting the general reactionary tide in Psychology (as is in much of science). In that sense it is an exciting contribution that should be welcomed loudly by all Marxists and all Psychologists who care about the future of humanity. It is not surprising therefore, that Parker & Spears arranged for Ernest Mandel to write a concluding chapter for Psychology and Society, a contribution which was halted by his untimely death in July 1995. The book is dedicated to Ernest Mandel and it is a fitting testament to him.
Whither a Marxist Psychology? The book gives no overall answer to this question and I suspect that any such Psychology, bereft of its formal logic and bourgeois conceptions would be Psychology, maybe, but not as we now know it. Until that day and as a step to getting there, Steve Reicher concludes Psychology and Society by discussing the ways in which radical psychologists are already fighting back now both in developing theory and in the practical aspects of their work. The organisation 'Politics, Psychology and Resistance' is committed to fighting the oppressive uses of Psychology and aims to "promote the development and dissemination of emancipatory psychologies in opposition to oppressive practices of all
. These are aims that all Marxists should support. As Marx and Engels wrote in The Communist Manifesto, in overthrowing capitalism we aim to create "an association, in which the free development of each is the condition of the free development of all." References: Gane, M. (1986) Towards a Critique of Foucault. Routledge & Kegan-Hall. McGarty, C. & Haslam, S.A. (Eds.) (1996) The Message of Social Psychology. Blackwells. Parker, I. & Shotter, J. (1990) Deconstructing Social Psychology. Methuen. Tolman, C. (1995) Psychology, Society and Subjectivity. Routledge. Turner, J.C. et al (1987) Rediscovering the Social Group. Blackwells. Our reviewer, Rod Marshall, is a member of the editorial board of Socialist Outlook, and a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Buckinghamshire College of Higher Education, High Wycombe. This review is reprinted from Socialist Outlook, published monthly by British supporters of the Fourth International Politics, Psychology and Resistance can be contacted at: PPR, Psychology, Bolton Institute, Deane Road, Bolton, Car mania: A critical history of transport Winfried Wolf This is a critical and analytical survey of the history of mass transport since the industrial revolution. It charts the early rise of the European canal systems, which were subsequently replaced by railways in the early 19th century. These were in turn replaced by the private road network in the 20th century.
Wolf [a member of the German parliament for the SPD, and a long time Fourth International supporter] links the development of these networks to the flows of capital and investment which were involved in their creation. For example, he points out that similarly large amounts of money were first used to build the canal networks, then to bid the railway tracks, then re-deployed for the creation of the road networks.
Car mania makes a very critical analysis of the growth of private road transport and society's current obsession with the private motor vehicle. In Wolf's opinion, the emergence and development of the private motor car has led to a deterioration in transport services for the majority of the population.
For example, he cites the involvement of the automobile manufacturing companies in the systematic destruction of tram systems in North American and Europe in the 1950s as proof of the fact that the car society is in fact a society which provides reduced mobility for those without car. Even in the most developed nations of Europe and North reviews * America, car ownership is still limited to a (very large) minority, and not a majority of the general public. Source: reviewed by Richard Flint, Communications Secretary of the International Transport Workers Federation, in ITF News, December 1996 Car Mania is an extensively updated and rewritten version of Eisenbahn und Autobahn. The English edition was published in 1996 by Pluto Press, 345 Archway Rd, London N6 5AA, fax +44 (181) 348 9133. Paperback £13.99, hardback £40 The sans papiers: a woman draws the first lessons by Madjiguene Cisse This is a remarkable account of the new movement of undocumented asylum seekers and immigrants in France, by their major spokeswoman, who comes from Senegal. In August 1996, the Sans-Papiers internationally known when 300 undocumented African women, children and men were violently evicted by police from the St Bernard Church in Paris, where they had taken sanctuary for several months [see IV #281, October 1996].
Since then, the Sans-Papiers of St Bernard have organised several occupations, gone on hunger strikes and toured France in a caravan to mobilise support against deportations. They demand papers for all, an end to detention and deportation, the return of all deportees, and the repeal of all
Their movement has spread throughout France and beyond. Thousands of SansPapiers from 40 different nationalities have joined over 24 collectives across France Following their example, immigrants in Italy and Spain have also occupied churches.
Cisse describes who the Sans-Papiers are, and how they have organised and kept control of their movement, imposing their autonomy from voluntary sector organisations while bringing together wide-ranging support from anti-racist, women's and community groups, churches, trade unions and women's energy and initiative
This pamphlet also highlights how dependent the Sans-Papiers movement has been for its survival and direction on African women taking their autonomy from the men. "Every time the battle lost momentum", she
"women met and found initiatives to restart it." Cisse traces the autonomy of the Sans-Papiers women to its roots in the work African women do. on which the survival of families and communities depend, and which has been crucial to the liberation movements in their countries of origin.
She also spells out why people emigrate : the exploitative economic and political relationship France has imposed on the people in its ex-colonies with the help of African
Madjiguene Cisse's pamphlet is a tremendously exciting and uplifting introduction to the movement that has been rocking France, gathering support and giving leader-