Nature, Voluntary, Dialectic

As has been previously discussed, the Marxist concept of Capitalism as a natural condition, and that of Socialism as a voluntary one, leaves unexplained the status of the revolutionary process that constitutes the transition from one to the other. Now, Marcuse distinguishes the preconditions of Revolution, which are governed by a naturally destructive Dialectical Necessity, from the voluntary involvement of the proletariat in pushing the destruction to its conclusion, and replacing it with a Socialist system. More precisely, on his account, the moment of transition is constituted by a certain combination of material and intellectual conditions, but he is no more definite than that. Furthermore, he leaves unexplained the laws governing the moment of transition itself, i. e. he provides no principle that explains the transition from natural laws to liberation from them. Perhaps, as he suggests in places, it is the Dialectic itself that, at the moment of extreme negation of existing conditions, negates its own Necessity, resulting in the liberation from that Necessity. But, that analysis leaves unexplained how that negative moment gives way to positive voluntary action, as well as how such a general law applies to the experience of an individual worker. Hence, it remains as much a capricious speculative device as is Smith's Invisible Hand, and, hence, a flaw in a presumed "scientific" a Socialism.