DEWEY AS THE SCHOOLMASTER FOR
MARX’S RADICAL DEMOCRACY
Richard Brosio
Ball State University
This work is situated within the problematic based upon the conflicting imperatives of capitalism and democracy as they have shaped the school, state and other institutions. A conflictive model is more useful for analyzing educational issues within complex societies that are characterized by capitalist economies and de jure democratic political systems than a model based upon the compatibility of capitalism and democracy or one that assumes democracy is merely a window dressing for capitalist dominance. My use of this paradigm does not include a belief in the equal power of the two imperatives. A main thesis of this paper is that Dewey’s educational vision did not become public policy mainly because the democratic community which his educational ideas presupposed was not — and is not — a reality in the United States. Dewey’s commitment to democratic practices within the school could not successfully become education for democratic empowerment in the larger society for many reasons — chief among them was the power of capitalism and its allies. It is also argued herein that Dewey’s laudable pedagogy did not lead to democratic empowerment because he did not privilege social class as an organizing category and principle, relying instead upon the belief in the existence of social intelligence throughout the population. This fateful decision resulted in Dewey’s and his followers’ inability to hitch their democratic project to the most radical and potent social force of that historical period, viz., the organized working class. Because Dewey, his followers, and liberals in general were not convinced that genuine democracy had to be anticapitalist, nor were they persuaded of the necessary involvement of the proletariat-as-a-class in legal and extra-legal political activities, their contributions are limited to the amelioration of injustices caused by social-class stratification (as it is affected by racial and gender inequities). Dewey and Deweyans have not been able to move their project beyond capitalism with a human face. Dewey was not successful in envisioning a politics that was commensurate with his radical vision.
Dewey’s ideas on democracy in education are sound, as well as of great importance to educators who must deal with the problems and possibilities inherent in teaching and learning. I would argue that neither educational theorists nor practitioners have succeeded in getting much further than Dewey’s impressive analysis of how education for critical democratic empowerment should be conducted. Richard Bernstein praises Dewey and pragmatists because of the central place assigned to inquiry, as well as for their profound understanding of methods and norms needed for hypothesis testing and evaluation.1 Many of Dewey’s ideas are quite radical on paper; however, it was the strength of the Right as well as the weakness and/or inadequacy of his politics that played decisive roles in preventing their implementation. In spite of the liberal progressive protest against the dominant essentialist, conservative traditions and practices within the K-12 school in the United States, the old system remains in place — albeit in battered form. As G. Max Wingo has written,
It is true that…when occasion has demanded, essentialism has changed its tactics, but it has never changed its basic policies of purpose, organization, and educational design.2Those who work within the Deweyan tradition presently are hardly radical activists; in fact, they are, for the most part, educational theorists and classroom teachers. Neither of these groups as such are organically connected with any radical mass movement — although some education workers participate within progressive groups. The present emphases within the educational Left upon inquiry and inclusiveness are potentially helpful to a radical democratic project; however, certain questions remain: Inquiry into which set of problems, who shall articulate the problems to be solved, what are the positions of the newly included groups within the conflicting imperatives model in terms of their potential to push for genuine transformative politics, and lastly, will special interest politics become part of broader coalitions that have the potential to push democracy forward against the regime of capital?
Dewey’s ideas on democracy and education, as well as democracy in education are useful to progressive projects and outcomes that are pro bono publico; however, his failure to develop a commensurately effective politics ensured that these ideas would not become political weapons for organized agents. Joseph Featherstone compares how
John Stuart Mill outgrew the desolate calculations of Bentham’s Utilitarianism [to how] Dewey transcended the bleak managerial scientism of the Progressive outlook…[They] will be remembered for the way they carried liberal thought to the edge of something quite different from what it started out to be.3I concur; however, as we shall see, Dewey did not carry it far enough in order to enlist the necessary historical agents to carry his (in many ways) radical project forward. Dewey was correct to argue that
the cost of revolution must be charged…to those who have taken for their aims customs instead of…readjustment. The only ones who have a right to criticize ‘radicals’…are those who put as much effort into reconstruction as the rebels are putting into destruction.4However, in spite of this insight, he was unable or unwilling to make common cause with a radicalism that recognized — and frontally opposed — the dominant capitalism of his time.
It could be argued that he believed a radicalized liberalism, which appealed to all social classes, could translate his intellectual project incrementally into public policy. The liberal progressive reform movement to which Dewey was a key contributor was committed to reforms that were steady and persistent advances, instead of abrupt revolutionary changes. This melioristic incrementalism was criticized by Clarence Karier who sought to indict Dewey for allegedly never having seriously challenged the main power sources in American society. Featherstone also claims that, although Dewey criticized American life…he acquiesced in too much of it…Dewey thought of himself as a Populist radical, but from the outside he too often looked like a social engineer preaching adjustment.”5 As Wingo has stated, American liberals have believed that the capitalist system could be transformed in order to serve human needs and aspirations; furthermore, this would proceed peacefully, but “Marx considered these…beliefs naive.”6 Dewey, in turn, considered Marxist theory to be inadequate for problem solving because it allegedly makes overly comprehensive claims with regard to understanding all the interconnections among social forces. Alfonso Damico claims that Dewey’s view of science precluded such optimism; therefore, he dismissed Marxism as a guide to practical action.7
Salvatore D’Urso has pointed out that, although Dewey was wary of the conceptual reification of social class, he still insisted that the experimental method could not be conducted effectively in a society that was plagued by social-class stratification. D’Urso argues that Dewey’s educational theory and suggested practices can provide a non-deterministic Marxism with the educational and schooling ingredients that it so obviously lacks. According to D’Urso,
while the Marxist critique of relations between schooling and capitalism asks us…to re-examine the overall objectives of education, it fails to address the nitty-gritty issues of everyday school practices and thus ignores the possible strategies of intervention at the grass-roots level.8Said another way, “John Dewey’s work may appropriately fulfill classical Marxism’s missing theory of education in view of their correlative philosophical foundations.”9 Dewey’s opposition to Marx is well-known; however, he had not read the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 nor the Critique of Political Economy (Grundrisse) published in 1859. Dewey’s portrayal of Marx as being a poor experimentalist may suffer from short-sightedness and lack of knowledge with regard to Marx’s oeuvre.10 Dewey should have realized that both he and Marx rested the validity of their claims to knowledge on outcomes resulting from translating ideas into action; furthermore, the work of the young Marx makes this fact clear. Amy Gutmann writes that the
aims of democratic education will not be fully realized until citizens have additional opportunities to exercise discretion in their daily work and to participate in democratic politics. This point is most often raised…by radical critics of American society.11Can Dewey’s work be seen as adequate in terms of providing an articulate critique of capitalist hegemony in a way that enables such worker and citizen empowerment? Both Dewey and Gutmann take the economy into consideration but do not see it as in any way determinative of the projects they favor. She and Dewey are strong in their assertion that better schools make a difference. Of course they do; however, this fact may not prove equal to the task of helping to make democracy prevail over capitalism. If Marx needs Dewey’s democratic educational theory and its pedagogical practices, it can be argued also that Dewey and Deweyans would be helped considerably by Marx’s central insight concerning the discontinuation of capitalist domination as the sine qua non of genuine democracy. Furthermore, it would have helped Dewey considerably had he realized that this can occur only as a result of mass action conducted by theoretically empowered citizen-workers. As we know, Dewey did not accept Marx’s position concerning the necessary agency of the working class.
Dewey’s inadequate political theory can be stated as follows: After praising his celebration of agency, articulation of intelligent problem solving, championing of democracy — and even his denunciation of capitalism’s consequences, especially class stratification — there is no one to forward his democratic project effectively. The necessary political theory that would have allowed Dewey to wrestle effectively with the problems and possibilities of his historical time is strangely absent. Who was to move his democratic imperative forward? Which persons and/or groups were to confront the capitalist hegemony which Dewey already recognized? The recent use of the term pro-democracy by pro-capitalist reactionaries is a good example of how democracy has been misrepresented. With regard to scientists who Dewey admired, all too many sold (and sell) their services to capitalism and neo-imperialism. The complete act of thought12 that Dewey favored becomes distorted outside of the proper context. Although many K-12 educators are practicing democrats in their classrooms — including their use of the so-called method of intelligence — it is difficult to imagine school teachers as the main propellant of the democratic imperative. Contemporary admirers of George Counts may disagree with my position. However, D’Urso’s insight into Dewey’s inadequate political theory strengthens my point:
Dewey’s confusion on the agencies available to the method of intelligence is especially visible in Liberalism and Social Action [1935] and Freedom and Culture [1939], where he particularly sought to frame a liberal response to the Marxist method of social change through class struggle…Despite its intention…[the former book] failed to show how social intelligence might be embodied [that is, given concrete form in terms of collective agency] in means of social change.13D’Urso argues that one looks in vain for agencies through which Dewey’s “ ‘freest possible play of intelligence’ is intended to exert its educative influence”14
In spite of Dewey’s gradual sensitivity to the value of pluralism, local democracy and conversation, his worries about allegedly uninformed persons bastardizing the forms and processes of democracy into mobocracy are central to his thought.15 Damico has argued that Dewey failed to balance satisfactorily his wish to promote an activist political project with his conviction that political activity is not like scientific activity — especially in its comparative potentials to manage social affairs. It seems that Dewey did not understand well the problems unique to political activities. In Damico’s view, Dewey’s
standards of rational conduct make him suspicious of parties and political movements for these often depend for their success on loyalties created by uncritical faith in the group’s program or its general principles. But it is difficult to imagine how any political group could motivate its members by insisting on its own limitations and the merits of the opposition.16Dewey’s style is to turn away from antagonisms among people and groups in order to find common ground upon which to begin problem solving. Party labels — including the word socialism — were thought to be injurious to Dewey’s version of common interest upon common ground. Dewey did not understand well why opposing groups are contentious because of the structure of society itself. Too often, Dewey-as-a-liberal tends to portray conflicts as caused by pathological characteristics such as corruption. The existence of deeply felt differences over socioeconomic, racial, gender and religious memberships are not always grasped adequately by Dewey; therefore, his politics do not deal effectively with serious disagreements. Damico asserts that pragmatism’s problematization all too often delays or obscures the recognition of political problems. For example, pragmatists (and many progressives) seriously underestimated the strengths of the dominant capitalist order, along with the power of the profit motive that came to dominate American society. Featherstone reminds us that because Progressivism lacked an adequate politics, it became “merely the ideology of liberal professionals and reformers.”17 He continues sympathetically that Dewey’s efforts can be characterized as “never quite settling on one means, never discovering a single source of social salvation, [therefore, he became] an increasingly lonely philosophe of a wispy revolution that never came.”18
Dewey’s criticism of the Marxist conviction that it is necessary to intensify class conflict in order to achieve the undoing of capitalism was not replaced by an effective alternative. Although Dewey understood some of the reasons why actors become revolutionaries, it is in a rather abstract way. He continued to insist that the use of the method of intelligence would make fighting unnecessary. However, it could be argued that what causes violent strife in the first place is the failure to bring conflict into the context of reasonableness, dialogue and compromise. Furthermore, Dewey’s myopia on this issue has another dimension. Damico specifically criticizes Dewey’s failure to “consider seriously Marx’s contention that different classes want different things…because the economic structure is such that their interests are antithetical.”19 Dewey’s understanding of the species’ struggle against a recalcitrant physical nature did not include the historical reality of human division within that struggle. D’Urso makes the following point with regard to the difference between the resolution of problems in physical and social contexts: “The clash of opposed views in natural science is open to resolution because ‘the fundamental interests of scientists as scientists are the same’….It is precisely this basic community of interest which class society, by definition, does not sustain as a necessary condition for the resolution of…conflicts.”20 Although scientists have argued among themselves far more than D’Urso suggests, his point is still valid when scientific discourse is compared to arguments about politics, society and education.
D’Urso reminds us of Carl Becker’s (Modern Democracy, 1941) insight into how democratic procedures have worked best historically when the issues to be decided did not involve interests for which persons would rather fight than compromise, or surrender. Majority decisions are accepted by minorities when nothing of great importance is being decided, for example, when the rules of the game and/or the structure itself are not up for grabs. When minorities can easily and regularly become new majorities, then democratic discussion based upon the method of intelligence is more likely to flourish; however, class-stratified societies have not been characterized by these admirable conditions. D’Urso is correct to argue that the determination of the means for solving problems depends not only on their relationship with favored ends, but with the realities of power. The use of reason and deliberation for conflict resolution depend in large part upon the prior existence of the necessary conditions for potential success. It follows logically that,
where there are marked inequalities in the distribution of power the full exercise of the method of intelligence depends solely on the goodwill of those in superior positions. Hence a preliminary condition of deliberation may frequently be the organization and exercise of force to effect a redistribution of social power.21Dewey said that he learned to treasure patience; however, patience can sometimes contribute to defeat. Perhaps, he and other middle-class reformers have enjoyed positions and conditions that permit the luxury of being patient. Obviously, many Americans during Dewey’s life, as well as presently, did/do not enjoy such luxury.
Dewey is one of the premier advocates of democracy and education for democratic empowerment; however, his theoretical position as well as his politics failed to deal adequately with capitalism and its power. His contributions to democratic theory and practice fare better within schools than on extramural contested terrains. Dewey’s project is situated squarely within the conflicting imperatives of capitalism and democracy, but the greater power of capitalism has neutralized, if not stopped, Dewey’s hope for democracy and education for democratic empowerment.22 Although many conservatives have damned Dewey — even if they have not read his work — there was no sounding the alarm against “Deweyism” as there was against the threat to capitalism attributed to Marx, his followers and/or radical socialists. This is not surprising. One of the main reasons for the perceived lack of threat to capitalism by Dewey, liberals and middle-class progressives can be found in the absence of a collectively organized and theoretically empowered agency with which to move their project forward. Dewey’s concept of democracy necessitated a critical mass of democrats in order to make it a reality; however, the schools and other socializing agencies were not adequate to the task of developing critical citizens who were committed to participatory democracy. This failure was due, in part, to the (albeit imperfect) reproductive power of capitalism and its agents to encourage the formation of character types that were useful to a society driven by the profit motive and a political system that was neither completely democratic juridically nor in de facto terms. Dewey did not have a mass revolutionary movement or party to assist him in breaking free from the dilemma consisting of which comes first: democrats or democracy. It was Marx’s and Gramsci’s belief that one becomes a radical democrat by participating in class struggle.
Dewey was aware that his educational theory could be translated into the appropriate pedagogy only in a certain kind of school; furthermore, he came to understand that this kind of institution could only be maintained within a host society that was a democratic community.23 Dewey realized that corporate power and its misuse stood at the top of the list of forces that militated against the development of the democratic community he favored. He knew that capitalist power had contributed importantly to the failure to democratize the scientific method and the widespread ownership of the machinery of production. But, did he understand well enough that unless a participatory democracy can be developed — one that is characterized by democratic power being paramount in macroeconomic decision making — the success of education for genuine autonomy and empowerment is unlikely. Radical (to the root) inquiry is also unlikely to flourish in schools that are part of a society dominated by those who seek to prevent widespread radical inquiry into the legitimacy and/or efficacy of institutions and processes in the host society.
Robert Westbrook writes about the historical fact that all too many Americans have failed to participate in radical inquiry regarding key civic issues. Dewey moved from insisting in School and Society (1899) that workers (and managers) must be able to have the kind of education that enables them to see within their daily work all there is of human significance, to an insistence in Democracy and Education (1916) that workers must also have control over their work if they were to experience self-realization. This privileging of workers’ direct participation in the control of their work is obviously a mortal blow to the bossism that is central to the regime of capital. But as Westbrook points out,
[w]hat remained absent in the treatment of industrial work in Democracy and Education and thereby limited its radicalism was anything resembling a political strategy for the redistribution of power Dewey proposed. He remained wedded to moral exhortation as the sole means to ends that required democratic politics. He advanced impeccable arguments…yet relied too heavily on the force of such arguments to overcome the appeal of tangible, if morally shortsighted benefits employers derived from exploitation…thus…he had yet to envision a politics commensurate with…[his] radical vision.24
Like Antonio Gramsci, Marx thought that schooling and education are capable of improving students’ cognitive abilities as well as the potential to view the world differently. As Daniel Liston has written,
[h]istorically, Marx viewed public education not as an insignificant factor in the struggle for socialism…[In fact, he] believed that an ignorant population was more easily mystified and mislead than an educated one….Suffice it to say that within the Marxist framework, educational arrangements, while certainly no antidote for the degradation resulting from capitalism, can contribute to its transformation.”25Marx condemned child labor, which was widespread during his lifetime, for all the obvious reasons — the most important of which for him was that this particular work was uneducative. Wingo has written,
Marx believed that education should…develop the power inherent in the human organism so that man [woman] could become human…He believed, however, that this could not be accomplished as long as capitalism endures…[because it is based on] exploitation of one man by another26Sidney Hook praised Marx for his great insight concerning the idea that human beings cannot change the world without changing themselves, “and that social struggles, under certain conditions, are the best school for acquiring an education in social realities”27
The Marxist commitment to authentic freedom is not relegated to just one educational program or schooling situation. However, as Liston has argued, this commitment precludes certain options and calls attention to particular concerns. The characteristics that are central to the Marxist notion of freedom can be stated as follows: (1) self-determination is dependent upon persons being able to identify their needs, wishes and talents; (2) they must understand how and when their agency can alter the physical and social worlds; and (3) there must exist a realization that genuine self-determination can best occur within a system of cooperative social relations.28
Marx never worked out a theory of education to the complex degree accomplished by Dewey. As Wingo has written,
Dewey believed that the school could be a means for social progress and the gradual improvement of society…[But Marx was convinced] that in any period before the coming of socialism [that is, bona fide democracy in his mind], the school could only be the tool of the dominant class.29This was Gramsci’s conviction as well, with a somewhat different emphasis. The conflicting imperatives model (which includes a Janus-faced school within it) permits the possibility and reality of human agency; however, this should not lead automatically to an optimistic view for the friends of genuine democracy. This is the case because as Marx has said: People make their own histories but not under conditions of their own choosing. The conflict occurs on terrain established most importantly by the power of capitalism during the modern and postmodern periods. By way of conclusion, one could argue as follows,
Dewey never directly confronted the larger capitalist macrocosm in his extra-educational analysis in the same way that Marx [and Gramsci] did. Marx was not an important philosopher of education because he was unconvinced by arguments which favored education…as a primary vehicle for confronting the system. Marxist socialist philosophy posits the existence of the societally, politically, historically formed economy as most basic, and the prize to keep our eyes upon…Marx’s central insights concerning what is wrong with capitalist societies is fundamentally correct, but that in the absence [so far] of real contemporary potential to alter the macrosystem profoundly in a structural way, it makes sense for persons in the educational community to refine, and further develop, the central educational insights of Dewey.30Now that the Cold War is over and the former Soviet Union is no longer public enemy number one of the capitalist and somewhat democratic West, it may be a propitious time to reassess Marx’s work independently of his alleged contribution to the Soviet system. Marx as a radical democrat analyzed well the reasons why capitalism can never be compatible with genuine democracy; furthermore, he insisted that class-conscious, organized worker-citizens must collectively make the promise of democracy real by overcoming the economic bossism that characterized the regime of capital. If the events of the twenty-first century are favorable to the democratic (anti-capitalist) imperative, then, as D’Urso has said, Dewey’s educational theory and suggested practices can provide a revitalized democratic Marxism with the educational and schooling ingredients it has lacked. This is preferable to an intramural refinement of Dewey’s educational ideas within societies that are dominated by a capitalism seeking the extension of its regime to include each person and every place in the world.
For a response
to this essay, see Margonis.
This paper is dedicated to Salvatore D’Urso who retired in 1993 from paid labor as a teacher, scholar and editor at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia.
1. Richard J. Bernstein, Praxis and Action: Contemporary Philosophies of Human Activity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971), 314–5.
2. G. Max Wingo, Philosophies of Education: An Introduction (Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath and Company, 1974), 342.
3. Joseph Featherstone, “Reconsideration: John Dewey,” The New Republic 167, no. 2 (July 8, 1972): 32.
4. John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct (New York: Random House, 1930), 167–8.
5. Featherstone, “Reconsideration: John Dewey,” 29.
6. Wingo, Philosophies of Education, 303.
7. Alfonso J. Damico, Individuality and Community: The Social and Political Thought of John Dewey (Gainesville, Fla.: University Presses of Florida, 1978), 53.
8. Salvatore D’Urso, “Can Dewey Be Marx’s Educational-Philosophical Representative?” Educational Philosophy and Theory 12 (October 1980): 23.
9. Ibid., 31.
10. Richard A. Brosio, “One Marx, and the Centrality of the Historical Actor(s),” Educational Theory 35, no. 1 (Winter 1985): 75.
11. Amy Gutmann, Democratic Education (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987), 282.
12. Wingo, Philosophies of Education, 186–7.
13. Salvatore D’Urso, “An Evaluation of Dewey’s ‘Social Intelligence,’” Educational Theory 28, no. 2 (Spring 1978): 122.
14. Ibid., 124.
15. Clarence J. Karier, “Liberal Ideology and the Quest for Orderly Change,” in Roots of Crisis: American Education in the Twentieth Century, ed. Clarence J. Karier, Paul C. Violas, and Joel Spring (Chicago: Rand McNally & Company, 1973), 106–7.
16. Damico, Individuality and Community, 64.
17. Featherstone, “Reconsideration: John Dewey,” 32.
18. Ibid.
19. Damico, Individuality and Community, 61.
20. D’Urso, “An Evaluation of Dewey’s ‘Social Intelligence,’” 129.
21. Ibid.
22. See, Richard A. Brosio, “Capital’s Domination of the Quotidian: The Unbalanced Teeter-totter,” Discourse 12, no. 1 (October 1991): 85–99, for an analysis of capitalism’s greater strength.
23. Richard A. Brosio, The Relationship of Dewey’s Pedagogy to His Concept of Community, University of Michigan Social Foundations of Education Monograph Series, no. 4 (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Malloy Lithoprinting, Inc., 1972), 147.
24. Robert B. Westbrook, John Dewey and American Democracy (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1991), 179.
25. Daniel P. Liston, Capitalist Schools (New York and London: Routledge, 1988), 146.
26. Wingo, Philosophies of Education, 301.
27. Sidney Hook, From Hegel to Marx (Ann Arbor, Mich.: The University of Michigan Press, 1950), 289.
28. Liston, Capitalist Schools, 157.
29. Wingo, Philosophies of Education, 303.
30. Richard A. Brosio, “Teaching and Learning for Democratic Empowerment: A Critical Evaluation,” Educational Theory 40, no. 1 (Winter 1990): 80.