mistakes of Marx

[spiltteeth]

I'm wondering if anyone has any critiques of the basics of Marxism.
For instance, Rosa has written against Marx's idea of dialectics.

[mikelepore]

It was Engels, not Marx, who introduced a list of generalizations that he called "dialectics" -- "the transformation of quantity into quality, and vice versa",
"the interpenetration of opposites", "the negation of the negation." Marx had earlier said "my dialectical method", etc., to emphasize that social systems are mortal, they come into being and vanish. Rosa indicated that she disagrees with Engels, not that she disagrees with Marx.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think Marx had a more ridged view capitalism - the system has turned out to be much more flexible. Marx couldn't really foresee future developments such as credit which changes the dynamics of the boom-bust cycle. He didn't predict modern imperialism or the development of Keynesian and state-capitalism (although he did talk about some early similar developments of his time).

But reading the communist manifesto is really amazing for all the thing he did predict - such as capitalism's drive towards globalization, the confusion of nationalization with socialism, and many other things way head of his time.

[spiltteeth]

That's true, I guess I meant 'Marxism'

[makesi]

I'm wondering if anyone has any critiques of the basics of Marxism.
For instance, Rosa has written against Marx's idea of dialectics.


Yo, maybe you should just register on the reactionary.com forum.

What the fuck? Critiques of Marx. They're not fucking hard to find.

I'll defend (and have) Marx to a T. What the fuck are you doing here, man?

Looking for purpose in life or what?

You talk and talk and talk and, I bet, in the flesh, you would be a lot more circumspect.

Take it how you take it, kid.

You take kindness for a weakness, so I won't treat you so kindly.

[Q]

Yo, maybe you should just register on the reactionary.com forum.

What the fuck? Critiques of Marx. They're not fucking hard to find.

I'll defend (and have) Marx to a T. What the fuck are you doing here, man?

Looking for purpose in life or what?

You talk and talk and talk and, I bet, in the flesh, you would be a lot more circumspect.

Take it how you take it, kid.

You take kindness for a weakness, so I won't treat you so kindly.
Makesi: that was totally uncalled for and completely off topic. Regard this as a verbal warning.

[spiltteeth]

Yea, I have no idea what the above means, but if you wanna talk to me just PM me so it doesn't distract from the thread.
Basically, the 'new communist hypothesis' that today's theorists use, Laclau, Zizek, Hardt, Negri, Badiou, etc etc disparage Marx, some call for a non-marxist communism, others like Zizek call for a 're-founding of Marx.'
Obviously some of Marx's predictions were off, underestimating property rights in 1st world countries for instance, and so that need to be considered. Also, as father of conflict theory, he's been challenged in the sociological field.
Like Rosa and some others, I do feel Marxist dialectics is ineffective to determine synthesis, and I like how Mao reformulated Marxism for the appropriate circumstances, as the Maoist's in Nepal are doing by not being dogmatically rigid and being open.
But as far as the communist manifesto, and other basics of Marx, I really can't see any BASIC flaws.
Like Marx, I'm questioning everything, and making sure my foundations are solid, but if anyone has critiques of basic Marxism, I'd appreciate it.

[mikelepore]

On another site I was saying recently that what I believe to be the two most important issues that have to be covered by any socialist educator -- what form of new management system is being proposed, and by what method should such a system be installed -- Marx hardly ever mentioned at all in his whole life. I still describe myself as a Marxist, but I would have to call this an area for criticism, if he almost never discussed what I consider to be the most important topics.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/deleonism-list/message/1666

[mikelepore]

But as far as the communist manifesto, and other basics of Marx, I really can't see any BASIC flaws.

I believe the following sentence in the Communist Manifesto is seriously flawed:

"In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things."

This sentence indicates that Marx never moved beyond Hegel's belief that human history moves in a track toward inevitable results, that all we have to do is topple the existing order and then the desired results will be achieved almost automatically. Ignoring the warnings from Bakunin and others, Marx gave no consideration of the possibility that undemocratic regimes pretending to be "socialist" could subject the workers to a new form of exploitation and class rule. Marx should have been able to foresee that some strategies proposed by some revolutionary organizations could lead to what we today call Stalinism, and should have included in his literature explicit warnings about such a danger. The only way I can interpret the sentence that I quoted above is that Marx (at least the 30-year-old Marx) assumed that nothing can go wrong, nothing can divert social change from reaching a genuinely classless and democratic outcome.

[LeninBalls]

I believe he was wrong when he said that the conditions of capitalism will get worse and worse and eventually the workers will get fed up with it and rise up and overthrow the current capitalist state of affairs. Quite the opposite in the 1st world has happened...

[DenisDenis]

well unfortunately for us communists, isn't it because of Marx' ideas, and the spreading of his ideas, social-democrats imported some socialist ideas in 1st world capitalist countries?

So one could actually say, that if he hadn't said that, the revolution could happen sooner?

[robbo203]

I believe he was wrong when he said that the conditions of capitalism will get worse and worse and eventually the workers will get fed up with it and rise up and overthrow the current capitalist state of affairs. Quite the opposite in the 1st world has happened...

I dont think this is quite right. Critics of Marx have persistently misunderstrood his immiserisation thesis and have read into statements he made - such as his reference to the growth in "the mass of misery, oppression, degradation and exploitation" (Capital Vol 1, Harmondsworth Penguin 1976 p.929) - a claim about the decline in living standards in absolute terms that he allegedly anticipated. It is not. In fact, he explictly maintained that the "situation of the worker, be his payment high or low, must grow worse" (ibid, p799) which suggests that he was talking about was not really to do with how little, or how much, material wealth the individual worker possessed. In other words, his was actually a theory of increasing relative, rather than absolute, poverty. In an 9oncreasinglyt unequal society it is far from clear that Marx was incorrect in his assessment

The idea that Marx believed capitalism would relentlessly drive down the standard of living of workers to a level of absolute pauperism is associated with another idea - that he allegedly held this to be a necessary precondition for the workers to feel sufficiently motivated to overthrow capitalism. Again this is not so. In fact he considered it unlikely that workers in the most dire circumstances would be sufficiently focussed on, or capable of, effecting a revolution. In the Communist Manifesto, for example, it is suggested that, while the "Lumpenproletariat", that most downtrodden section of the working class, might indeed get caught up in the proletarian revolution "its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrique" (Karl Marx: Selected Writings David McLellan OUP 1977 , p.229).

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth:


For instance, Rosa has written against Marx's idea of dialectics.

Not so; as Mike half indicated, what I have criticised is Engels's, Plekhanov's, Lenin's, Trotsky's, Stalin's, Mao's,... version of this 'theory'.

I specifically leave Marx out!

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike:


This sentence indicates that Marx never moved beyond Hegel's belief that human history moves in a track toward inevitable results, that all we have to do is topple the existing order and then the desired results will be achieved almost automatically. Ignoring the warnings from Bakunin and others, Marx gave no consideration of the possibility that undemocratic regimes pretending to be "socialist" could subject the workers to a new form of exploitation and class rule. Marx should have been able to foresee that some strategies proposed by some revolutionary organizations could lead to what we today call Stalinism, and should have included in his literature explicit warnings about such a danger. The only way I can interpret the sentence that I quoted above is that Marx (at least the 30-year-old Marx) assumed that nothing can go wrong, nothing can divert social change from reaching a genuinely classless and democratic outcome.

Not so; in the Comminist Manifesto, he and Engels wrote:


"Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes."

Bold added.

So, there is no 'inevitability' about the course of history.

[Das war einmal]

I believe he was wrong when he said that the conditions of capitalism will get worse and worse and eventually the workers will get fed up with it and rise up and overthrow the current capitalist state of affairs. Quite the opposite in the 1st world has happened...


Thats because the situation for the average worker got seriously better after the 2nd WW in the west. Marx was right when he said the conditions of capitalism is getting worse and worse.

[Monkey Riding Dragon]

Critique of 'classical' Marxism, you say? The main thing I would criticize that isn't usually criticized, and which I don't believe has yet been singled out specifically, is this idea of the "negation of the negation". This, to me, seems to have proven the root of quite a lot of deterministic thinking in the history of the communist movement. I would contend that communism is a living science. I am, as such, not to be mistaken for one of the 'humanist Marxists' around these forums. I agree with the core principles of Marxist dialectical materialism in a non-revisionist sense. I likewise concur with the core Marxist principles of revolution, the two radical ruptures, and so on.

Beyond that (my criticism of the "negation of the negation"), of course I would point out what a lot of other people have already pointed out: Marx's failure to predict the imperialist stage of capitalism with all its historical implications.

[red cat]

Marx expected the most capitalist countries to have revolutions first. This was wrong, but Marx couldn't deduce it because he hadn't seen the full development of imperialism.

[NecroCommie]

Bah! What is this blasphemy?! Ofcourse Marx did not have any mistakes! Want proof you heretics? Well bite this!: Marx wrote all the correct analysis about capitalism. Marx also wrote that he was right. Ha! There you go, irrefutable proof you evo... revisionists!

Besides, I believe that Marx was right, so double points for me! I promise you are all going to live in eternal capitalism once you die! :mad: It's because Marx loves you.

[spiltteeth]

Critique of 'classical' Marxism, you say? The main thing I would criticize that isn't usually criticized, and which I don't believe has yet been singled out specifically, is this idea of the "negation of the negation". This, to me, seems to have proven the root of quite a lot of deterministic thinking in the history of the communist movement. I would contend that communism is a living science. I am, as such, not to be mistaken for one of the 'humanist Marxists' around these forums. I agree with the core principles of Marxist dialectical materialism in a non-revisionist sense. I likewise concur with the core Marxist principles of revolution, the two radical ruptures, and so on.

Beyond that (my criticism of the "negation of the negation"), of course I would point out what a lot of other people have already pointed out: Marx's failure to predict the imperialist stage of capitalism with all its historical implications.

Thanks, as you may know, Mao rejected the 'negation of negation'

[red cat]

Thanks, as you may know, Mao rejected the 'negation of negation'

I doubt how much of a rejection it was. "Negation of negation" was regarded as repeated complementation by Hegel. But Marxism clearly describes the negating factor(synthesis) being the product of the conflicting thesis and anti-thesis, and belonging to a higher developmental stage then anything in the past. The synthesis itself is replaced by a more developed synthesis next, in the same manner. In other words, a given system constitutes the negation of its past stage, and the affirmation with reference to the next stage, exactly what Mao deduces.

[spiltteeth]

That's interesting. Here's the quote from Mao :


Engels talked about the three categories, but as for me I don't believe in two of those categories. (The unity of opposites is the most basic law, the transformation of quality and quantity into one another is the unity of the opposites quality and quantity, and the negation of the negation does not exist at all.) /.../ There is no such thing as the negation of the negation. Affirmation, negation, affirmation, negation in the development of things, every link in the chain of events is both affirmation and negation. Slave-holding society negated primitive society, but with reference to feudal society it constituted, in turn, the affirmation. Feudal society constituted the negation in relation to slave-holding society but it was in turn the affirmation with reference to capitalist society. Capitalist society was the negation in relation to feudal society, but it is, in turn, the affirmation in relation to socialist society.

This lead Mao to dismiss "dialectical synthesis," every synthesis is for him ultimately enforced reconciliation - at best a momentary pause in the ongoing struggle, which occurs not when the opposites are united, but when one side simply wins over the other, he says :


What is synthesis? You have all witnessed how the two opposites, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, were synthesized on the mainland. The synthesis took place like this: their armies came, and we devoured them, we ate them bite by bite. /.../ One thing eating another, big fish eating little fish, this is synthesis. It has never been put like this in books. I have never put it this way in my books either. For his part, Yang Hsien-chen believes that two combine into one, and that synthesis is the indissoluble tie between two opposites. What indissoluble ties are there in this world? Things may be tied, but in the end they must be severed. There is nothing which cannot be severed.

I would LOVE to start a thread on Maoist dialectics, because I really don't understand alot of it.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth:


I would LOVE to start a thread on Maoist dialectics, because I really don't understand alot of it.

You're in good company, since neither did Mao!

On that, see here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=986357&postcount=2

http://z11.invisionfree.com/Kasama_Threads/index.php?showtopic=460

[spiltteeth]

Thanks, I'll check out the links. I know it's easy to dismiss Maoism as a pointless philosophical regression using the vague notion of "contradiction" meaning "struggle of opposite tendencies" ect.
Although I do think Mao was right in rejecting the "dialectical synthesis" as the "reconciliation" of the opposites, as a higher unity which encompasses their struggle; but his reasons for doing so and the conclusions he reaches are, to me, mystifying.

[TC]

Yo, maybe you should just register on the reactionary.com forum.

What the fuck? Critiques of Marx. They're not fucking hard to find.

I'll defend (and have) Marx to a T. What the fuck are you doing here, man?

Looking for purpose in life or what?

You talk and talk and talk and, I bet, in the flesh, you would be a lot more circumspect.

Take it how you take it, kid.

You take kindness for a weakness, so I won't treat you so kindly.

Consider this a verbal warning for abusing another forum member

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth:


but his reasons for doing so and the conclusions he reaches are, to me, mystifying.

Well, like so many other Dialectical Marxists, he is merely regurgitating tradition (i.e., he simply copied this idea off others, who copied it off Hegel, who gave no clear reasons for this, either), without giving it much thought.

[chegitz guevara]

It was Engels, not Marx, who introduced a list of generalizations that he called "dialectics" -- "the transformation of quantity into quality, and vice versa",
"the interpenetration of opposites", "the negation of the negation." Marx had earlier said "my dialectical method", etc., to emphasize that social systems are mortal, they come into being and vanish. Rosa indicated that she disagrees with Engels, not that she disagrees with Marx.

Yeah, except Marx never disagreed with Engels on this (Marx edited Anti-Duhring and even contributed to the book--which is where Engels "created" dialectics), and if you've read Hegel and you've read Capital, then you can see massive influence of the former in the later.

[mikelepore]

Not so; in the Comminist Manifesto, he and Engels wrote:




"Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes."
Bold added.

So, there is no 'inevitability' about the course of history.

Marx didn't think that revolution is inevitable, but that, if it's given that the workers do enact a revolution, he believed that it's inevitable that the workers would then be emancipated. He didn't foresee the possibility of a new kind of repressive regime that tells the workers to shut up and obey orders, all the while calling itself Marxist, like the Russian travesty.

In this sense I'm unlike Marx: I consider the establishment of a socialist system something like making a mechanical clock -- there are many ways for it to go wrong and not function, and its a worthwhile goal because some advance reasoning can identify precisely how it needs to be designed to make it function.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Mike, try to understand the Russian situation: it was in the midst of civil war, and the seizure of power was a "gamble" of sorts on the European revolution.

[mikelepore]

Yeah, except Marx never disagreed with Engels on this (Marx edited Anti-Duhring and even contributed to the book--which is where Engels "created" dialectics), and if you've read Hegel and you've read Capital, then you can see massive influence of the former in the later.

I could never understand most of _Anti-Duhring_ myself, but you make a good point about there's no evidence of Marx disagreeing with it. I hope that Rosa will comment about that.

In my younger days I was influenced mostly by _The Dialectics of Nature_, which is a book that compiles Engels' raw notebook scribbles about mechanical work, heat, electricity, etc., and the assertion that see here the same natural laws that operate in human history and thought. That was the same year that Marx died. I used to think there was the greatest wisdom in there, but then I began to see there a lot of invalid argument by analogy, as well as inapplicability to any practical problem-solving.

[mikelepore]

Mike, try to understand the Russian situation: it was in the midst of civil war, and the seizure of power was a "gamble" of sorts on the European revolution.

Seventy years later, the Kremlin still had excuses for not allowing the workers to democratically manage the factories.

[mel]

Consider this a verbal warning for abusing another forum member

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1560882&postcount=6

You're a little late.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike:


Marx didn't think that revolution is inevitable, but that, if it's given that the workers do enact a revolution, he believed that it's inevitable that the workers would then be emancipated. He didn't foresee the possibility of a new kind of repressive regime that tells the workers to shut up and obey orders, all the while calling itself Marxist, like the Russian travesty.

And where did he say this?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Chegitz:


Yeah, except Marx never disagreed with Engels on this (Marx edited Anti-Duhring and even contributed to the book--which is where Engels "created" dialectics), and if you've read Hegel and you've read Capital, then you can see massive influence of the former in the later.

Not so, Marx waved 'goodbye' to Hegel in his entirelty in Das Kapital, as I have shown here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/scrapping-dialectics-would-t79634/index4.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1158574&postcount=73

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1158816&postcount=75

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1161443&postcount=114

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1163222&postcount=124

And, as I am again showing here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/dialectics-and-political-t118934/index.html

Moreover, the evidence that Marx agreed with Engels on the 'Dialectics in Nature' is very slender indeed. There is just as much, if not more, that suggests otherwise.

On that see here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2009_01.htm

[mel]

Is this really the thread to be hashing out this dialectics issue? I don't see a substantive criticism of Marxist fundamentals coming out of this, which was the original purpose of the thread.

[ZeroNowhere]

I could never understand most of _Anti-Duhring_ myself, but you make a good point about there's no evidence of Marx disagreeing with it. I hope that Rosa will comment about that.Well, firstly, he didn't edit it. He did contribute to it, but only on the subject of political economy, IIRC (certainly not 'dialectics', though). While he didn't necessarily state any disagreement with it (though on the other hand, he also didn't criticize Engels' review of his 'Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy', though to be fair he may have, since according to Engels' daughter, I believe, a few of his letters were burned after he died), he did seem fairly agnostic on the matter at least, for example, when given a manuscript of DoN, his first act was to show it to a natural scientist and report back with their opinion (which was quite favourable towards the science, not so much towards the dialectics). On the other hand, the first edition of Anti-Duhring was not quite as clear about its Hegelianism as the latter ones, and Marx only generally called it a positive development and such, presumably as he detested Duhring's views, without actually going into whether or not he agreed with all within it. They had, after all, also not released their critique of the Gotha program because they thought that it would do more harm than good. So yeah, he didn't actually state that Engels' diamat was correct, meaning that the only way to find things out here is to look at Marx's works, which don't contain Engels' grand weltanschauung. Terrell Carver covered this kind of thing in 'Marx and Engels'

[mikelepore]

And where did he say this?

I can't remember whether I read it in one of Marx's arguments with Bakunin or one of his arguments with Proudhon. Whichever it was, the other guy tried to persuade Marx that there is a danger that the workers could have a revolution but then it could end up with the state officials being a new ruling circle, and Marx was unconvinced.

Also, this is my interpretation of the meaning of the statement that I copied above out of the Communist Manifesto.

If I were Marx, and knowing what I know now, I would have stuffed my subsequent books with numerous observations borrowed from Rousseau, Locke, Mill and Jefferson, covering the measures needed keep government responsive to the will of the majority, while preserving the rights of dissident minorities.

Because Marx said too little about certain things that he should have said much about, the Russian people were unprepared. When Lenin banned the country's political organizations and newspapers except for the puppet ones, introduced the secret police, etc., the Russian people didn't realize that socialism was thereby aborted and a new kind class rule invented. The people hadn't been educated by socialist oratory and literature about the fact that democracy is a definitive characteristic of socialism. The lack of attention to the subject by Marx and Engels is partly to blame for that.

[mikelepore]

for example, when given a manuscript of DoN, his first act was to show it to a natural scientist and report back with their opinion

If I read you right, that Marx showed around Engels' 'Dialectics of Nature', I believe that Marx was dead before Engels wrote it.

[ZeroNowhere]

Yes, but he started work on it before he started Anti-Duhring, and had sent Marx a brief summary of the ideas he was going to be working on. Marx himself didn't seem to think himself knowledgeable enough to comment. Though yes, 'manuscript' was incorrect.

For reference:
'Have just received your letter which has pleased me greatly. But I do not want to hazard an opinion before I’ve had time to think the matter over and to consult the ‘‘authorities’’'.