dialectics and political theory

[Louise Michel]

Well, I left for a while because I found the discussions sometimes so polarized and personal that participating was clouding my judgement rather than clarifying anything. Anyway after some reading and thought I'd like to comment on the vexing question of the dialectic.

If you take capitalism as your starting point you can make out a case for dialectics fairly easily. Capitalism is an economic system that contains two major classes, the capitalists and the workers. These two classes have opposed historical interests - the defense of, or abolition of, private property. Not only that. Capitalism is a system of crisis meaning that the two classes are perpetually thrown into conflict and, accepting the law of value, at some point the crisis will be so severe that either the workers win and we will create socialism/communism or we'll be plunged into something called 'barbarism.'

So you can argue that capitalism ('the totality'?) contains an irreconcilable contradiction that will result in the its own abolition. Thus the driving force behind historical development is the resolution of contradiction at a higher level (or maybe lower).

The first problem though is that this analysis can not be used to describe feudalism (for example). Feudalism contained two major classes with opposed economic and social interests but not opposed historical interests - the peasantry were a product of feudalism and they had no role to play in the development of a future society. The capitalists developed over a long period of time inside feudalism and only at a certain point did their interests and those of the aristocracy come into conflict. This doesn't seem to me to fit the dialectical model but perhaps someone can explain how it does.

The second problem comes when you try to apply the dialectic to nature. It's simply impossible to prove or test and it assumes that there's a process taking place that is outside of human control - ie we are not just victims of circumstance (which we are) but also part of a process we're powerless to affect or change.

The third problem is that the dialectic suggests it's possible to construct a theory that stands outside of historical development. Social change generally takes place through opposed classes battling it out - why do we need to transform this observation into a schema that explains everything that happens in the universe?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hi, Louise:


So you can argue that capitalism ('the totality'?) contains an irreconcilable contradiction that will result in the its own abolition. Thus the driving force behind historical development is the resolution of contradiction at a higher level (or maybe lower).

But, why is this a 'contradiction'?

You can describe and analyse capitalism with the vocabulary of Historical Materialism and ordinary language. You do not need the obscure terms Hegel bequeathed to us (upside down, or the 'right way up').

Indeed, as is easy to show, the importation of Hegelian terms into Marxism actually prevents us explaining anything, including change.

[Louise Michel]

But, why is this a 'contradiction'?

You can describe and analyse capitalism with the vocabulary of Historical Materialism and ordinary language. You do not need the obscure terms Hegel bequeathed to us (upside down, or the 'right way up').

Indeed, as is easy to show, the importation of Hegelian terms into Marxism actually prevents us explaining anything, including change.

I agree you don't have to call it a contradiction but it doesn't seem to me to do any harm to do so as long as you are not claiming to describe a 'law' of historical development. I don't see the terminology as a problem - it's the idea that there's a universal process that applies to everything that happens that's the problem.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Louise:


I agree you don't have to call it a contradiction but it doesn't seem to me to do any harm to do so as long as you are not claiming to describe a 'law' of historical development. I don't see the terminology as a problem - it's the idea that there's a universal process that applies to everything that happens that's the problem.

But it does considerable harm when dialecticians use this word to 'justify' all manner of sell-outs, about turns, substitutionist compromises, and anti-Marxist tactics, on the grounds that such contradictiory behaviour is in line with Marxist Dialectics.

Evidence here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2009_02.htm

[Use the 'Quick Links at the top to go to Section Seven, 'Case Studies'.]

This is quite apart that the use of this word actually prevents Marxists explaining change:

Quotes:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1401000&postcount=76

Argument:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1401001&postcount=77

Anyway, your last comment puzzles me; do you suppose that human beings are not part of nature? It strikes me that those who go the whole hog and believe this 'theory' applies to everything in the entire universe are the more consistent. Half hog dialecticians seem to me to believe that human beings are not part of nature.

[Louise Michel]

But it does considerable harm when dialecticians use this word to 'justify' all manner of sell-outs, about turns, substitutionist compromises, and anti-Marxist tactics, on the grounds that such contradictiory behaviour is in line with Marxist Dialectics.

This gives the words or terminology a magical quality. I don't suppose that when the second international justified supporting the German war effort the German workers went along with it because of some talk of the dialectical development of history. It may help Marxists to explain their sell-outs to each other but I don't think the workers are interested in dialectics at all.


Anyway, your last comment puzzles me; do you suppose that human beings are not part of nature? It strikes me that those who go the whole hog and believe this 'theory' applies to everything in the entire universe are the more consistent. Half hog dialecticians seem to me to believe that human beings are not part of nature.

I don't understand this question. Of course I don't think human beings are not part of nature.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Louise:


This gives the words or terminology a magical quality.

Not really; this vocabulary allowed the likes of Stalin, Mao and assorted Trotskyists to use readily accepted words to 'justify' to party cadres, not workers, the sort of contradictory things I mentioned earlier. This is no more 'magical' than the use of any other words is, except, in this case, these words are unique to Dialectical Marxism (and perhaps certain forms of Buddhism).


I don't suppose that when the second international justified supporting the German war effort the German workers went along with it because of some talk of the dialectical development of history. It may help Marxists to explain their sell-outs to each other but I don't think the workers are interested in dialectics at all.

I agree, but then that just shows how useless dialectics is.


Of course I don't think human beings are not part of nature.

If so, those who accept full-blooded, whole hog dialectical materialism, will want to know why the rest of the universe cannot display 'contradictory forces'. What is so unique about human beings?

[Louise Michel]

Not really; this vocabulary allowed the likes of Stalin, Mao and assorted Trotskyists to use readily accepted words to 'justify' to party cadres, not workers, the sort of contradictory things I mentioned earlier. This is no more 'magical' than the use of any other words is, except, in this case, these words are unique to Dialectical Marxism (and perhaps certain forms of Buddhism).

But what is important the word or the deed? The compromise with the KMT or the explanation of it? Why is the way it's explained more important than what actually happened. I don't know much about this but I believe the popular front action resulted in lot of revolutionaries being shot by the KMT.

[Muzk]

I don't think dialectics are useless since they made me a communist

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Muzk:


I don't think dialectics are useless since they made me a communist

Well, then you became one under false pretences.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Louise:


But what is important the word or the deed?

Of course, words are deeds.


The compromise with the KMT or the explanation of it? Why is the way it's explained more important than what actually happened. I don't know much about this but I believe the popular front action resulted in lot of revolutionaries being shot by the KMT.

I'm not sure what you are getting at.

[S.Artesian]

I should begin this post by stating this is my first time posting, and I should be a bit more circumspect that I probably will be, but hell, I've made it this far in my life, so...

So I'll say I found this site while reading the debate Rosa was having on the MHI site regarding dialectics vs. formal logic.

I should also so I'm no philosopher. I've read Marx, Feuerbach, Hegel, Russell, Wittgenstein. Mostly Marx, then Hegel...

OK I'm no philosopher. Neither was Marx, although unlike Marx, I never studied the subject formally.

My take on Rosa's debate is a little unusual, if not for others and/or Rosa, certainly for me. First-- I am more than sympathetic of Rosa's argument that there is no such thing as dialectical materialism, I am in complete agreement. Those who think there is a "dialectical materialism" to Marx's work are taking a giant step backward. Marx is not creating a new philosophy, a philsophy of the universe, a philosophy of science or nature or anything else. He is, in the beginning grappling with...he is grappling with what he or Engels call the "rational core" that he extracted from Hegel. And that core is the real content of human history.

What Marx finds in Hegel, in the Hegel's presentation of "spirit," "consciousness" making itself manifest in the world is an alienated expression for the real content of history. And what is the unalienated expression, what is that real content? For Marx, it is the social organization of labor. The materialism is history. The materialism is social.

But my take is, as I said, unusual, in that I think Marx clearly takes over words, methods, "tactics," from Hegel in his analyses of contradiction, necessity, immanence in capital's existence.

What is the "dialectical contradiction" Marx explores? Philosophy has proven itself incapable of answering that, and we must, to be consistent with Marx find the answer in history, in the social organization of labor. That contradiction is the relation of capital and wage-labor. Each exists only in the organization of the other.

Capital, to be capital, more organize labor in a specific form in order to access, appropriate surplus value. To do this, the means of production must be monopolized by the class of [emerging] capitalists-- but they are monopolized in a manner that makes them essentially useless when not yielding exchange-value and profit. For that to occur, labor itself must be organized as useless, as offering no mechanism for the laborer to subsist, save in the exchange of the ability to labor in return for the means of subsistence [or the medium for their purchase]. So while capital belongs to the capitalist as private property, the private property can only exist with a specific social organization of labor.

Capital can nowhere without dragging this, wage-labor, its complementary opposite with it.

Now for capital to aggrandize greater portions of the source of the surplus value, it must not only organize, aggrandize labor as wage-labor, it must simultaneously aggrandize and expel such labor from the production process. The more capital accumulates, the more it exchanges itself with wage-labor, the less, relatively, of itself it exchanges with wage-labor. And it is this contradiction, perhaps dialectical contradiction, that leads to the overproduction of capital and the decline in the rate of profit.

The more capitalist property expands, the less that property is capable of providing the return that is necessarily the end, and the beginning, the realization and the extinction of capital's circuits.

Now these processes of capital are historical, material, social processes. Marx wasn't making philosophical inquiries, no more than he weas making a "new" political economy. Capital is no work of political economy. It is the history of capitalism's internal metabolism, almost like a teasing-apart of the strands of DNA to find the patterns of replication. Economics is nothing but concentrated history. History is the social organization of labor.

Marx really is, or supposed to be, the end of philosophy and political economy. I think Marx makes this breakthrough most evident not so much in the Theses on Feuerbach, but in two later works, Class Struggles in France, 1848-1850, and, IMO, the 2nd greatest work of historical materialism ever produced, The 18th Brumaire... (Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution being number 10).

Anyway, for that all is worth.

S. Artesian

[S.Artesian]

Hey,

Sorry for all the typos in the previous reply. Someday I'll get it right.

sa

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S.Artesian, thanks for those comments, but:


My take on Rosa's debate is a little unusual, if not for others and/or Rosa, certainly for me. First-- I am more than sympathetic of Rosa's argument that there is no such thing as dialectical materialism,

I never made that argument, since there is indeed a theory called 'Dialectical Materialism'; how could anyone deny it! What I have argued here and elsewhere is that it makes not one ounce of sense.


He is, in the beginning grappling with...he is grappling with what he or Engels call the "rational core" that he extracted from Hegel. And that core is the real content of human history.

As I have shown here, it has no 'rational core':

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

What I think you refer to as the 'rational core' is, of course, Historical Materialism (with Hegel completely excised), a theory Marx derived from Aristotle, Kant and the Scottish Historical Materialists (Smith, Ferguson, Millar, Hume, Stewart), but not from Hegel.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1195129&postcount=57

I agree with much of the other things you say, however.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

And, by the way, welcome to RevLeft!

[S.Artesian]

Right, right, I forgot the importance of language-- of course there is such a "thing" as dialectical materialism, it just is not at all what Marx's work is all about. Dialectical materialism just isn't "Marxist," which it proves time and time again when it comes to making a concrete analysis of an actual class conflict.

And most importantly, ok, maybe not most importantly, but importantly, Marxism isn't about analyzing the laws of motion, unified field theories, higher mathematics, quantum physics-- any of that stuff.


Regarding Hegel, you may not think Hegel has a "rational core," and you might be right, but I think the issue is what Marx thought, what he was accomplishing through his critique of Hegel, and I think from reading Marx's early works, he is extracting a "grounding" not for philosophy but for concrete analysis of history. Clearly Hegel's influence, work, vocabulary, is important for Marx, but it is Marx's opposition to Hegel that defines the real measure of that influence.

I have never bought into the separation of the "early Marx and the late Marx" but really find his work to be-- uh oh, is this going to be Hegelian language?-- of the whole, that is to say connected, unified, in all its different chronological presentations by its social-ism.

Let me check this for typos...

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S.Artesian:


Regarding Hegel, you may not think Hegel has a "rational core," and you might be right, but I think the issue is what Marx thought, what he was accomplishing through his critique of Hegel, and I think from reading Marx's early works, he is extracting a "grounding" not for philosophy but for concrete analysis of history. Clearly Hegel's influence, work, vocabulary, is important for Marx, but it is Marx's opposition to Hegel that defines the real measure of that influence.

Well, as I have shown in several threads at this site, a very strong case can be made for aguing that Marx had abandoned Hegel when he wrote Das Kapital.

In addition to the links I added above, check out many of the posts in here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/why-people-so-t114914/index.html

And the last few pages in here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/nti-dialectics-made-t103349/index.html


I have never bought into the separation of the "early Marx and the late Marx" but really find his work to be-- uh oh, is this going to be Hegelian language?-- of the whole, that is to say connected, unified, in all its different chronological presentations by its social-ism.

Well, neither have I, but it is implausible to argue that Marx did not change his views as he matured.

His steady movement away from Hegel, is, however, quite clear.

[hefty_lefty]

Capitalism is an economic system that contains two major classes, the capitalists and the workers. These two classes have opposed historical interests - the defense of, or abolition of, private property.

I am a bit late for this discussion but I had to point one thing out.
At least in the western world, even the working class does not support (or defend) the abolotion of private property.
Their struggle, to create the luxuries that imbue their lives with a sense of accomplishment, being all for naught is mostly unacceptable.
Blind as they may be, a lifetime of hard work will make one stubborn.

This complicates things.

[S.Artesian]

Sure Marx changed, developed his views. That's not at stake. But there is no "rupture" between the "young Marx" usually identified with the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts and the "mature Marx" associated with Capital.

There certainly is no "epistemological rupture" because Marxism is not an epistemology.

The connections in the change, development, and continuity between young and mature are, IMO, quite evident in the Grundrisse.

But I'm interested in your view that Marx "moved away" from Hegel as he developed his work-- and by moved away, I take it you mean, abandoned any connection with dialectic. Is there anything explicit in Marx's work where comments on this? If I remember correctly, there is some correspondence between Marx and Engels where Marx talks of rereading Hegel's Science of Logic [a tough task, that. More than tough. Enough to bring tears to the eyes of the innocent]while either preparing to or in writing Capital, and how useful he found it to be. My memory is no longer a dead cinch lock, except when it comes to numbers, so I might have it wrong. I'll check the Marxist Internet Archives.

[S.Artesian]

I'm sure somebody has pointed it out before, but check the letter from Marx to Engels, 22 June 1867, available online at the Marxist Internet Archive.

[Louise Michel]

Rosa,


Of course, words are deeds.

Alright, but saying and doing in real life are quite distinct things. I don't dispute that dialectics has been used to justify all manner of betrayals. All I'm pointing out is that it's the act of betrayal that really matters not how it's justified.

If nobody had ever thought of dialectics Stalin would have used some other theory to explain socialism in one country and he would still have made a pact with Hitler.

[spiltteeth]

Rosa,



Alright, but saying and doing in real life are quite distinct things. I don't dispute that dialectics has been used to justify all manner of betrayals. All I'm pointing out is that it's the act of betrayal that really matters not how it's justified.

If nobody had ever thought of dialectics Stalin would have used some other theory to explain socialism in one country and he would still have made a pact with Hitler.

Well, I actually think it was directly because of Stalin's Marxist dialectics that so many ended up in the gulag. I mean, when no 'synthesis' manifests itself, what are you suppose to do with all the moderate reactionaries? Whatever doesn't change 'dialectically' must be officially denied. Then it becomes policy vs reality.

And of course Mao used dialectics to create a bizarre spirituality of yin and yang eastern-like mysticism.

[Louise Michel]

Well, I actually think it was directly because of Stalin's Marxist dialectics that so many ended up in the gulag. I mean, when no 'synthesis' manifests itself, what are you suppose to do with all the moderate reactionaries? Whatever doesn't change 'dialectically' must be officially denied. Then it becomes policy vs reality.

So are you saying that only dialectics could have been used to justify the gulag or that the belief in dialectics in made it inevitable that Stalin created the gulags or that a thing called dialectics caused the gulags?

[S.Artesian]

If nobody had ever thought of dialectics Stalin would have used some other theory to explain socialism in one country and he would still have made a pact with Hitler.


Absolutely correct, as an historical materialist analysis of the USSR, the ebbing and defeat of revolution on the international level, and the direction of capitalism makes clear.

We cannot "discount" dialectic as being mystical, idealist, and at the same time make it, the discounted, mystical idealist dialectic, the "agent" of history.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hefty Lefty, when we speak about 'private property' we are not talking about possessions but about ownership and control over the means of production.

--------------------------------

S. Artesian:


Sure Marx changed, developed his views. That's not at stake. But there is no "rupture" between the "young Marx" usually identified with the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts and the "mature Marx" associated with Capital.

There certainly is no "epistemological rupture" because Marxism is not an epistemology.

Well, I am no supporter of Althusser, so this is not what I am arguing.


The connections in the change, development, and continuity between young and mature are, IMO, quite evident in the Grundrisse.

He chose not to publish this work.


But I'm interested in your view that Marx "moved away" from Hegel as he developed his work-- and by moved away, I take it you mean, abandoned any connection with dialectic. Is there anything explicit in Marx's work where comments on this? If I remember correctly, there is some correspondence between Marx and Engels where Marx talks of rereading Hegel's Science of Logic [a tough task, that. More than tough. Enough to bring tears to the eyes of the innocent]while either preparing to or in writing Capital, and how useful he found it to be. My memory is no longer a dead cinch lock, except when it comes to numbers, so I might have it wrong. I'll check the Marxist Internet Archives.

Marx's published comments (in Das Kapital) indicate this. You can find all the details in the links I have been posting.

In that case, comments in unpublished sources (like letters) cannot countermand what he says in published works.

----------------------
Louise:


Alright, but saying and doing in real life are quite distinct things. I don't dispute that dialectics has been used to justify all manner of betrayals. All I'm pointing out is that it's the act of betrayal that really matters not how it's justified.

The act is surely worse, but the point is that no other theory/method invented by the human brain (except perhaps certain forms of Buddhism) lends itself so readily to opportunists, charlatans, class collaborators, class traitors, and substitutionists as dialectics.

But, that does not make dialectics a rubbish theory/method. Making no sense at all does that.


If nobody had ever thought of dialectics Stalin would have used some other theory to explain socialism in one country and he would still have made a pact with Hitler.

But, the communist cadres around the world had to be persuaded to accept such overnight 180 degree about-turns, and dialectics is unique in its capacity to justify anything you like and its opposite in the same breath.

The communist cadres did not accept any other theory; they already accepted dialectics, though.

So, for these two reasons Stalin could not have used any other theory.

And, sure enough, he didn't.

It's also useful to those who want to get you to disbelieve what your eyes tell you (since 'appearances', according to dialectics, contradict underlying 'reality'): hence if your eyes tell you that communism/Dialectical Marxism has been a long-term failure, dialectics will persuade you to believe the opposite. There are many comrades here who suffer from this affliction.

Christians use 'the devil', and original sin, in a similar way.

It's also useful for branding those who disagree with the line the 'leadership' come out with as 'Revisionists', or 'Renegades', etc. (who can then be either killed, imprisoned, or ignored -- as, in fact, many of the faithful do to me, here), since they can always be accused (as they often are, as, indeed, I am often accused) of not 'understanding' dialectics.

Since no one 'understands' this theory, that is an easy claim to make; but it does allow 'leaders' to claim to be the 'great teachers of the masses', who alone can explain its hidden message to us, thus further consolidating their rule. Indeed, as other ruling classes have often used some ideology or other to do the same.

A bit like the Catholic Church, in fact.

So, it's the non-existent deity's gift to our 'leaders'!

You will find scores of quotes from Marxists of every stripe (Stalinist, Maoist, Trotskyist, etc) to that effect in the Essay link I gave earlier.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S.Artesian:


Absolutely correct, as an historical materialist analysis of the USSR, the ebbing and defeat of revolution on the international level, and the direction of capitalism makes clear.

We cannot "discount" dialectic as being mystical, idealist, and at the same time make it, the discounted, mystical idealist dialectic, the "agent" of history.

1. See my reply above.

2. Remember, we are dealing with human beings, with ideas in their heads. And human beings need persuading. Dialectics is uniquely placed, in that regard, to allow 'leaders' to 'justify' (to cadres who already accept this theory, and no other) anything they like and its opposite in the same breath.

And that is exactly what we find they did do.

This is no accident.

[spiltteeth]

Believe it or not, dialectics was used to explain mental disorders. In any society whatever school of psychology holds "the Truth" wields an incredible amount of power over people. "Sluggish schizophrenia" was a category of schizophrenia diagnosed by psychiatrists in the Soviet Union, often applied to dissidents so that they could be forcibly hospitalized in mental institutions. It was a special form of the illness that supposedly affects only the person's social behavior, with no trace of other traits: "most frequently, ideas about a struggle for truth and justice are formed by personalities with a paranoid structure," according to the Moscow Serbsky Institute.
Since any sane person could clearly see that Marxism and Marxist dialectics were true, disagreeing with it could be seen as grounds for insanity!

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Spiltteeth, I am still researching this area of 'soviet' life. Do you know of any books or articles that detail the sorts of things you say here, and in other posts in this thread?

[Louise Michel]

Rosa,


But, the communist cadres around the world had to be persuaded to accept such overnight 180 degree about-turns, and dialectics is unique in its capacity to justify anything you like and its oppiste in the same breath.

The communist cadres did not accept any other theory; they already accepted dialectics, though.

So, for these two reasons Stalin could not have used any other theory.

And, sure enough, he didn't.

Are you really sure that had dialectics not been a part of official Marxism the history of the first half of 20th century would really have been much different?

To take a couple of your examples:

1920's & 30's Soviet Union. The Stalin quotes you use in your essay where he justifies the crushing of inner party democracy and the centralisation of the state, the partition of Poland and socialism in one country are obscurantist it's true. But within the Soviet Union opposition meant execution. If dialectics is really so potent in convincing Marxists why were such draconian measures necessary? Didn't the cadre of the Bolshevik Party largely capitulate in fear of their lives rather than being browbeaten by a theory?

As far as I know events in the Soviet Union were not well known internationally pre-WW2 and it's possible to justify the pact with Hitler as a desperate measure to delay war with Germany - many Stalinists do this without recourse to dialectics.

Trotsky and his analysis of the Soviet Union - true he relies on dialectics to explain why 1930's Russia was a workers state. But also important in his analysis is the Leninist view of the state. It requires pretty simple logic to say that in 1917 the workers state was created, there's been no counter revolution so it must still be a workers state. So dialectics is a component of the analysis, perhaps the key one, perhaps not.

The Soviet Union was created by the first working class revolution in human history, it really did shake the world so of course the words of its leaders had great weight in the international communist parties - this would have been so with or without dialectics.

I think I'm right in saying that the communist parties worldwide lost a lot of members during the 1950's following the Kruschev revelations and the invasion of Hungary. Were't the CP's still appealing to dialectics? I don't know but if they were it doesn't seem to have helped much.

I can't really comment on Mao.

[S.Artesian]

Hi Rosa,

I'm a little surprised by your response-- Marx chose not to publish the Grundrisse, Marx's correspondence is not a "valid" source of information about this topic-- regarding whether or not Marx believed he had separated his work completely from the "methodology" of Hegel, from the use of dialectics.

I think that is a very ahistorical argument. Marx also "chose" not to publish what are known as volumes 2 and 3 of Capital. Should we ignore those also? Should we ignore what Marx says about overproduction, fixed and circulating capital, ground rent, merchant's capital, the rate of profit in those volumes?

Should we also ignore what Marx writes in Theories of Surplus Value, because, after all, those are just notes and notebooks and Marx never "chose" to publish them? Published or not they are part of Marx's work, a record of the development of his analysis that was as often as not, not published for the public readership.

You are, in essence, basing your evaluation on a commercial, market relation-- publishing of some work rather than the actual work performed by Marx on this topic.

And as such, your argument slips from history, and into the world of idealism-- "Marx chose not to publish..., Marx chose to publish" as if this is an issue of voluntarism, of will, not of what could be published, what would be and could be made accessible to the reading public.

I think a similar idealism informs your view that "dialectical materialism" was, if not the source, at least the agency for Stalin's rise, and the ensuing "interruption" of the revolution within and outside the Soviet Union. Plenty of revolutionists with equally strong adherence to "dialectical materialism," foresaw and opposed the policies and rise of Stalinism, in its domestic and international arenas. Revolutionists proud to call themselves dialectical materialists predicted the results and fought against the policies of the 3rd International and the USSR in China, Germany, Spain, France, Vietnam, Bolivia, etc.

Secondly, this attribution of power to "lead astray," "confuse," "disorient the cadres," simply to dialectical materialism ignores the economic, material conditions existing in the USSR after the civil, and it ignores the tremendous material weight of the USSR as the sole area where explicit communists had taken power.

The vulgarization of Marx deployed by Stalin [and Mao] as ideology to obscure class analysis, would have had no impact without the existence of a revolution that had taken power the USSR. And because of that, should we then blame Trotsky's theory of "permanent revolution," identifying the proletariat as the revolutionary force for what happened? Of course not, we know the real material relations of classes drive history, not philosophies.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Louise:


Are you really sure that had dialectics not been a part of official Marxism the history of the first half of 20th century would really have been much different?

It's hard to say; but the point still stands that no other theory is so well-suited to 'justifying' overnight, 180 degree about turns than dialectics.


The Stalin quotes you use in your essay where he justifies the crushing of inner party democracy and the centralisation of the state, the partition of Poland and socialism in one country are obscurantist it's true. But within the Soviet Union opposition meant execution. If dialectics is really so potent in convincing Marxists why were such draconian measures necessary? Didn't the cadre of the Bolshevik Party largely capitulate in fear of their lives rather than being browbeaten by a theory?

Riling elites have always ruled by two means: violence (or the threat of it) and ideology. It's almost impossible to see how they could rule successfully without both.


As far as I know events in the Soviet Union were not well known internationally pre-WW2 and it's possible to justify the pact with Hitler as a desperate measure to delay war with Germany - many Stalinists do this without recourse to dialectics.

Indeed, but dialectics certainly was used, and not just here. The long and sorry political decline of Stalinism was greased by the use of this theory -- from the crushing of inner party democracy in the 1920s, to class collaboration of the 1930s, to the social fascist stage in the late 1920s and 1930s (which laid out a welcome mat for Hitler)..., and so on.

This theory came into its own in such circumstances. No wonder, then, that the Stalinists promoted it so intently and consistently, and imposed a centralised version of it on all cadres world-wide.


Trotsky and his analysis of the Soviet Union - true he relies on dialectics to explain why 1930's Russia was a workers state. But also important in his analysis is the Leninist view of the state. It requires pretty simple logic to say that in 1917 the workers state was created, there's been no counter revolution so it must still be a workers state. So dialectics is a component of the analysis, perhaps the key one, perhaps not.

It is certainly central to the Stalinist interpretation of their own sate, the Maoist criticism of it, and the hundreds of competing Trotskyist versions -- all of whom use this theory to condemn all the rest.

And it's not hard to see why. As I said, this theory can be used to 'justify' anything you like and its opposite, and in the same breath.

It's just one of the reasons our 'leaders' cling on to it like grim death, and become extremely abusive toward anyone who thinks to question it -- or as their 'prize fighters' here and elsewhere do.

You yourself have seen how emotive and irrational they can become.

The latest example can be seen here (last contribution):

http://marxisthumanistinitiative.org/2009/05/05/brief-comments-on-the-relationship-between-marxism-and-the-hegelian-dialectic/

Incidentally, have replied to this here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Jurriaans_Folly.htm


The Soviet Union was created by the first working class revolution in human history, it really did shake the world so of course the words of its leaders had great weight in the international communist parties - this would have been so with or without dialectics.

I half agree with this; but as the record shows, dialectics wasn't used, and it's not hard to see why.

You can why if you go back to Essay Nine Part Two and use the Quick Links to go to Section (6c), 'What About 1917'?

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2009_02.htm


I think I'm right in saying that the communist parties worldwide lost a lot of members during the 1950's following the Kruschev revelations and the invasion of Hungary. Were't the CP's still appealing to dialectics? I don't know but if they were it doesn't seem to have helped much.

It was the state dogma, pushed down the throats of school kids up until well into the 1980s.

I am however still researching this topic.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S.Artesian:


I'm a little surprised by your response-- Marx chose not to publish the Grundrisse, Marx's correspondence is not a "valid" source of information about this topic-- regarding whether or not Marx believed he had separated his work completely from the "methodology" of Hegel, from the use of dialectics.

I think that is a very ahistorical argument. Marx also "chose" not to publish what are known as volumes 2 and 3 of Capital. Should we ignore those also? Should we ignore what Marx says about overproduction, fixed and circulating capital, ground rent, merchant's capital, the rate of profit in those volumes?

Should we also ignore what Marx writes in Theories of Surplus Value, because, after all, those are just notes and notebooks and Marx never "chose" to publish them? Published or not they are part of Marx's work, a record of the development of his analysis that was as often as not, not published for the public readership.

You are, in essence, basing your evaluation on a commercial, market relation-- publishing of some work rather than the actual work performed by Marx on this topic.

It is standard practice to use published sources as our main guide to an author's views, and then to appeal to unpublished sources to fill in the details.

But, it isn't standard practice to use unpublished works to inform us about an author's beliefs where the unpublished sources disagree with the published sources.

So, in so far and to the extent that these unpublished sources do not disagree with Das Kapital, we should use them. Not otherwise.

But, when it comes to Marx, commentators simply forget these protocols.


You are, in essence, basing your evaluation on a commercial, market relation-- publishing of some work rather than the actual work performed by Marx on this topic.

Not so, as my comments above attest.


And as such, your argument slips from history, and into the world of idealism-- "Marx chose not to publish..., Marx chose to publish" as if this is an issue of voluntarism, of will, not of what could be published, what would be and could be made accessible to the reading public.

Are you under the impression that Marx was not, at least, a physical object? I am certainly not. In that case, I cannot see why you should allege that I have somehow capitulated to Idealism and something you call 'voluntarism'. Are you under the impression perhaps that Marx did these things under hypnosis or under duress? I certainly think he voluntarily published Das Kapital, and did not publish Grundrisse, when he certainly could have done. He wasted a whole year on Herr Vogt, remember?

Das Kapital is reasonably clear (that he had waved Hegel 'goodbye'), and so no unpublished work can be used to countermand that clear position.


I think a similar idealism informs your view that "dialectical materialism" was, if not the source, at least the agency for Stalin's rise, and the ensuing "interruption" of the revolution within and outside the Soviet Union. Plenty of revolutionists with equally strong adherence to "dialectical materialism," foresaw and opposed the policies and rise of Stalinism, in its domestic and international arenas. Revolutionists proud to call themselves dialectical materialists predicted the results and fought against the policies of the 3rd International and the USSR in China, Germany, Spain, France, Vietnam, Bolivia, etc.

Where have I argued this?

Please do not make up stuff about my beliefs.

In fact I largely accept Trotsky's explanation of the rise of Stalinism. I merely add that dialectics certainly smoothed his path.

Or, are you under the impression that the ideas in people's heads do not affect what they do, too? Or that ruling elites do not have or need an ideology that 'rationalises' their rule?

And sure, many of Stalin's opponents accepted this theory, and they all used it to 'prove' Stalinism was stain on Marxism (and still do), just as the Stalinists did likewise in return (and still do), and just as the Maoists did (and still do). All of them use this theory to 'prove' all the rest are wrong. You can find dozens of quotations at my site to that effect (in the Essay link in my reply to Louise)

And that is because, unlike almost any other theory other than perhaps Zen Buddhism, it can be used to 'justify' anything at all, and its opposite, in the same breath.

[And Zen Buddhism is able to do this too because of its fondness for 'contradictions', which it also sees everywhere.]


Secondly, this attribution of power to "lead astray," "confuse," "disorient the cadres," simply to dialectical materialism ignores the economic, material conditions existing in the USSR after the civil, and it ignores the tremendous material weight of the USSR as the sole area where explicit communists had taken power.

I agree that there were objective forces at work, but human beings are not automata, and ruling elites certainly use ideas to consolidate their control. No less so here.


The vulgarization of Marx deployed by Stalin [and Mao] as ideology to obscure class analysis, would have had no impact without the existence of a revolution that had taken power the USSR. And because of that, should we then blame Trotsky's theory of "permanent revolution," identifying the proletariat as the revolutionary force for what happened? Of course not, we know the real material relations of classes drive history, not philosophies.

Where do I do this?

And like you, I accept historical materialism, but you seem to think human beings do not use ideologies to justify what they do.

Dialectical Marxists certainly do.

[S.Artesian]

Rosa,

I did look at the section "What About 1917?" and it seems to me that your argument is that the Bolsheviks never used the theory of DM, because they never used the vocabulary popularly associated with dialectics-- negation, unity of opposites, etc. etc.

Well, that's certainly true. And you know what, neither did they agitate in the soviets about the dual nature of the commodity, the conflict between use-value and exchange-value, overproduction, the rate of profit, relative vs. absolute surplus value, expanded reproduction, and the conflict between means and and relations of production. Does this mean they junked Marx and Capital? Of course not.

The Russian working class was dealing with the living embodiment of all those elements of Marxism during its struggle for power. Those living embodiments were the war, the inflation and erosion of real wages, the backward state of agriculture coupled, linked to production for the world markets, the rapid, uneven, growth of industry under the whip of international investment, etc. etc.

On another note, I went back to my Charles H. Kerr edition of Capital, Vol 1. Marx's preface to the second edition, written 1873 states:

My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but it is its direct opposite...

The mystifying side of the Hegelian dialectic I criticized nearly thirty years ago, at a time when it was still in fashion. But just as I was working at the first volume of "Das Kapital," it was the good pleasure of the peevish, arrogant, mediocre, epigones [in Greek, in the original] who now talk large in cultured Germany, to treat Hegel in the same way as the brave Moses Mendelssohn in Lessing's time treated Spinoza, i.e as a "dead dog." I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker, and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of coquetted with modes of expression peculiar to him. The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel's hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.

In its mystified form, dialectic became the fashion in Germany, because it seemed to transfigure and to glorify the existing state of things. In its rational form it is a scandal and abomination to bourgeoisdom and its doctrinaire professors, because it includes in its comprehension and affirmative recognition of the existing state of things, at the same time also, the recognition of the negation of that states, of its inevitable breaking up; because it regards every historically developed social form as fluid movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature not less than its momentary existence; because it lets nothing impose uponit, and is in its essence critical and revolutionary.

The contradictions inherent in the movement of capitalist society impress upon themselves upon the practical bourgeois most strikingly in the changes of the periodic cycle, through which modern industry runs, and whose crowning point is the universal crisis. That crisis is once again approaching, although as yet in its preliminary stage; and by the universality of its theatre and intensity of its action it will drum dialectics even into the heads of the mushroom-upstarts of the new, holy Prusso-German empire.

I'm sure this has been pointed out before, and I'm sure you've responded [although I can't find a response that takes this part of Marx on point by point], but it certainly is evidence that Marx has not rejected dialectics as a valid method for analysis.

You, we, can state dialectical materialism is hogwash; was not and is not the intent, method, or product of Marx's analysis of capitalism. We can say Hegel mystifies dialectics. You can even argue that Capital would be better without the Marx's use of dialectics [I wouldn't argue that]. But I don't see how you can argue that Marx did not consider dialectics essential to his work. I don't see how anyone can say Marx did not base his historical materialism on his comprehension of the rational kernel in Hegel's dialectic.

[S.Artesian]

Rosa,

I understand your point about the protocol of published work, and for that reason I quoted extensively from Marx's preface to the 2nd edition of Vol. 1. However, that leaves the question of what to do with the volumes of work Marx left unpublished? What do we do in those areas where there are divergences, apparent disagreements, inconsistencies with the published work? Should we look at it chronologically and say, "Oh he wrote this later than that, therefore I'm going with the "this"? Or should we say-- not published, therefore perish?

And what about material in unpublished work that is never considered in the published work? Should we extrapolate from the published? And if we are going to extrapolate, should we not consider other unpublished work to gain insight into the development of the analysis?

I think insisting on "protocol" can be a formalism, preventing rather than enhancing insight into the historical development of an analysis.

Regarding ideology, I do not think you attribute the rise of Stalinism to the ideology of dialectical materialism. But you do claim that dialectics, that the Hegelian influence, lends itself to such an ideology of confusion, disorganization, disorientation, and can be used to justify oppressive actions. My point was to show that there is no causal and no necessary connection between dialectics, and the acceptance or rejection of "dialectical materialism" and accurate analysis and action in class struggle.

Is it fair to say that you think Hegel and acceptance of "dialectics" leads to confusion? That the acceptance of dialectics lends itself to, is easily put in the service of regressive, anti-revolutionary, not to mention inhumane, tactics, strategy, programs?

If your answer is yes, I would only point out 2 things: first that employment of dialectic as an ideology serving regressive interests does not invalidate dialectical analysis-- people for years have in a parallel manner "blamed" Marxism for the "inevitability" of Stalinism ; secondly such use does not invalidate Marx's description of his method as dialectical.

I did not say nor mean to imply that you regard the theory of permanent revolution as the "source" for Stalinism. I know you do not. I was using that as an example, taken to the exteme, of "overweighting" the role of theory, and/or adherence to a "philosophy."

But tell me... how do you manage to produce so much? Your output is mind boggling.

[Luís Henrique]

If nobody had ever thought of dialectics Stalin would have used some other theory to explain socialism in one country and he would still have made a pact with Hitler.

Evidently. There's no thing that the empty forms of any ideology cannot be used to justify.

Words are about the world but they are not the world.

Luís Henrique

[JimFar]

On another note, I went back to my Charles H. Kerr edition of Capital, Vol 1. Marx's preface to the second edition, written 1873 states:

My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but it is its direct opposite...

The mystifying side of the Hegelian dialectic I criticized nearly thirty years ago, at a time when it was still in fashion. But just as I was working at the first volume of "Das Kapital," it was the good pleasure of the peevish, arrogant, mediocre, epigones [in Greek, in the original] who now talk large in cultured Germany, to treat Hegel in the same way as the brave Moses Mendelssohn in Lessing's time treated Spinoza, i.e as a "dead dog." I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker, and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of coquetted with modes of expression peculiar to him. The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel's hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.

In its mystified form, dialectic became the fashion in Germany, because it seemed to transfigure and to glorify the existing state of things. In its rational form it is a scandal and abomination to bourgeoisdom and its doctrinaire professors, because it includes in its comprehension and affirmative recognition of the existing state of things, at the same time also, the recognition of the negation of that states, of its inevitable breaking up; because it regards every historically developed social form as fluid movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature not less than its momentary existence; because it lets nothing impose uponit, and is in its essence critical and revolutionary.

The contradictions inherent in the movement of capitalist society impress upon themselves upon the practical bourgeois most strikingly in the changes of the periodic cycle, through which modern industry runs, and whose crowning point is the universal crisis. That crisis is once again approaching, although as yet in its preliminary stage; and by the universality of its theatre and intensity of its action it will drum dialectics even into the heads of the mushroom-upstarts of the new, holy Prusso-German empire.

I'm sure this has been pointed out before, and I'm sure you've responded [although I can't find a response that takes this part of Marx on point by point], but it certainly is evidence that Marx has not rejected dialectics as a valid method for analysis.

You, we, can state dialectical materialism is hogwash; was not and is not the intent, method, or product of Marx's analysis of capitalism. We can say Hegel mystifies dialectics. You can even argue that Capital would be better without the Marx's use of dialectics [I wouldn't argue that]. But I don't see how you can argue that Marx did not consider dialectics essential to his work. I don't see how anyone can say Marx did not base his historical materialism on his comprehension of the rational kernel in Hegel's dialectic.


Rosa has discussed this any number of times in the past, both here, on her website, and in other forums as well. Back on August 7th for instance, in the discussion at:
http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&gmid=24353, Rosa wrote:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"You will note that Marx calls this the 'dialectic method', and 'his method', but it is also clear that it bears no relation to the sort of dialectics you have had forced down your throat, for in it there is not one ounce of Hegel -- no quantity turning into quality, no contradictions, no negation of the negation, no unities of opposites, no totality...

So, Marx's method has had Hegel totally extirpated. For Marx, putting Hegel on 'his feet' is to crush his head. Excising the mystical parts of Hegel thus means that there is nothing left of the sort of dialectics you have been conned into accepting. Once more there is no quantity turning into quality, no contradictions, no negation of the negation, no unities of opposites, no totality, no universal change...

And of the few terms Marx uses of Hegel's in Das Kapital, he tells us this:



"and even, here and there in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the mode of expression peculiar to him." So, the 'rational core' of the dialectic has not one atom of Hegel in it, and Marx merely 'coquetted' with a few bits of Hegelian jargon in Das Kapital.

That is hardly a ringing endorsement of this mystical theory.

Hence, Marx's 'dialectic' more closely resembles that of Kant and/or Aristotle.

PM:

Quote:

The accusations of "mysticism" against dialectical materialists is simple name-calling, as a result of a strawman in which you attribute Hegelian idealist jargon and mysticism to dialectical materialism. On the contrary, it is no more 'name-calling' than describing a boss as a 'capitalist', since it is fully accurate.

Not one of you can explain this 'theory' of yours in non-mystical terms, which means that it is a mystery to you lot too!

Of course, this is not the least bit surprising since this theory originated in Hermetic and Neo-Platonic mysticism:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/...n_Part_One.htm (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Summary_of_Essay_Fourteen_Part_One.htm)

Had Hegel done the decent thing and died of typhoid 40 years before he finally did, we would not be having this debate, which means of course that your acceptance of 'dialectics' is a quirk of history.

[spiltteeth]

I'd just like to point out that when many of the "contradictions" (read conflicts) were not "synthesized" as dialectics predicted, the state was forced to simply deny such conflicts existed : the segment of the population that conflicted with the government was labeled mentally ill, Nazi spy's, industrial saboteur's etc, because the ruling ideology of dialectics could not admit their authenticity in society under Stalin, which was convenient for Stalin, obviously.

[Louise Michel]

It's hard to say; but the point still stands that no other theory is so well-suited to 'justifying' overnight, 180 degree about turns than dialectics.

Perhaps, but this still does not explain why the 180 degree turns were so easily accepted. There is a question here beyond this or that theory. When the shift in Germany was made to social fascism do we know what sort of discussions were taking place inside the German CP? On the ground? In the branches? Were they talking about dialectics? I don't know but I doubt it.


Riling elites have always ruled by two means: violence (or the threat of it) and ideology. It's almost impossible to see how they could rule successfully without both.

Of course, but when the resort to violence is routine it suggests that the ideological control is not working - thus the role of dialectics here is minimal.


Indeed, but dialectics certainly was used, and not just here. The long and sorry political decline of Stalinism was greased by the use of this theory -- from the crushing of inner party democracy in the 1920s, to class collaboration of the 1930s, to the social fascist stage in the late 1920s and 1930s (which laid out a welcome mat for Hitler)..., and so on.

But with or without dialectics these events would have taken place. Or not?


It is certainly central to the Stalinist interpretation of their own sate, the Maoist criticism of it, and the hundreds of competing Trotskyist versions -- all of whom use this theory to condemn all the rest.

And it's not hard to see why. As I said, this theory can be used to 'justify' anything you like and its opposite, and in the same breath.


Trotsky's main contention in The Revolution Betrayed is that the class nature of the state has not changed since 1917. There has been no counter-revolution, no change in class power, thus it's still a workers state. This is clearly based on Lenin's theory of the state but he falls back on dialectics to justify this.


I half agree with this; but as the record shows, dialectics wasn't used, and it's not hard to see why.

You can why if you go back to Essay Nine Part Two and use the Quick Links to go to Section (6c), 'What About 1917'?

I've read this but I was referring to the Stalin period - he gained his authority as a representative of the first working class state rather than because of dialectics.

[S.Artesian]

Yes, I read what Rosa said, but those words are simply her words; they are not Marx's words. Marx's published words are that he is a pupil of that great thinker; that his dialectic is different but is nevertheless dialectic.

When Marx says he turned the dialectic right side up, I accept that he means it. Marx contends that he, Marx, appropriated dialectic from Hegel, turning it right side up, extracting its rational kernel. Those are his published words.

When Marx uses words like "negation," "transient nature," "momentary existence," he is taking those words from his analysis and interpretation of, and familiarity with, Hegel.

You can argue all you want that Marx was just being clever or humorous, or coquettish, but the words describing his relation of Hegel's dialectic are his words, not mine, not yours, not Rosa's. And his words in the section on the rate and mass of surplus-value in Vol 1--"Here, as in natural science, is shown the correctness of the law discovered by Hegel (in his "Logic") that merely quantitative differences beyond a certain point pass into qualitative changes" [something by the way, that I personally disagree with, both in natural science and in historical materialism-- the qualitative change is primary]. But those are Marx's words, his published words. I do not recall ever reading of Marx disowning, renouncing those words. Do you? Does anyone?

You may wish Hegel died early [probably one of the most ahistorical, idealist remarks I've ever encountered, but not for the first time in these sorts of discussions], but Marx obviously didn't wish that.

And if.. as Rosa contends that it is in Capital that Marx "waves good-bye to Hegel" what does that say about all the works leading up to that long good-bye, including the unpublished work? Does it contain traces, elements, of the horrible plague of "Hegelianism"? Do we have another case here with Marx of "from a scratch to gangrene"? Should we in fact discount Marx's foremost presentation of historical materialism The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte because it opens with a reference to Hegel?

You may think, as I do, that dialectical materialism is all hogwash, an attempt to so inflate Marxism, to so expand its boundaries so as to rob it of its focus, its specificity, its historical accuracy. We may agree that dialectical materialism at one and the same time attempts to recuperate Marxism into the "safe house" of professional academic discourse, while disavowing its immediate practicality in analyzing capitalism and the immanent revolutionary conditions developing within that capitalism. I have no disagreement with that-- after all, those are my words. But..............

while I'm sure Rosa has argued this all before, many times, if her arguments are that Marx extirpated all traces of Hegel, all connections to dialectic in his works, Marx's own words make it clear that that is not the case.

[S.Artesian]

There is one more thing-- right only one more thing,trust me-- I wish to add. Rosa and I seem to agree that historical materialism is where it's at-- with Marx, with class struggle, with the analysis of capitalism, and just plain old where's it at.

So... so I would really to read a concrete historical materialist analysis by an analytic Marxist, an anti-dialectical Marxist, of the current predicament, situation, condition of the capitalist economy, in either a local manifestation in say-- oh Bolivia, or China, or maybe Mexico, or Brazil; or in its international manifestation, like explaining the role that oil, the price of oil has played over the last 35, 30, 25, 12, 10, 7, 6, 3, 2, 1 years.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S.Artesian:


I did look at the section "What About 1917?" and it seems to me that your argument is that the Bolsheviks never used the theory of DM, because they never used the vocabulary popularly associated with dialectics-- negation, unity of opposites, etc. etc.

Well as I warn readers at the beginning of that Essay:


Anyone using these links must remember that they will be skipping past supporting argument and evidence set out in earlier sections:

Now, I devote much space earlier on (and in Essay Nine Part One) to show that it is not possible to use dialectical concepts. So, my main argument is that such concepts cannot be put into practice.

And, no surprise, the available evidence shows that they weren't.

So, my argument is not just about vocabulary.


Well, that's certainly true. And you know what, neither did they agitate in the soviets about the dual nature of the commodity, the conflict between use-value and exchange-value, overproduction, the rate of profit, relative vs. absolute surplus value, expanded reproduction, and the conflict between means and relations of production. Does this mean they junked Marx and Capital? Of course not.

I covered that objection in Essay Nine Part One; here is what I argued:


It could be argued here that the distinction between DM and HM drawn in this Essay is completely spurious; hence, the claims made at this site are hopelessly misguided.

[DM = Dialectical Materialism; HM = Historical Materialism; LOI = Law of Identity; NON = Negation of the Negation.]

However, as will be argued in Essay Fourteen Part Two, HM contains ideas that are non-sensical only when they are dressed up in DM-clothing. The eminent good sense made by HM -- even as perceived by workers when they encounter it (often in times of struggle) --, testifies to this fact.

But, few militants would ever attempt to agitate strikers with the conundrums found in DM. On a picket line the alleged contradictory nature of motion or the limitations of the LOI do not often crop up. Moreover, no Marxist of any intelligence would use slogans drawn exclusively from DM to communicate with workers. Consider, for example, the following: "The Law of Identity is true only within certain limits and the struggle against the occupation of Iraq!" Or "Change in quantity leads to change in quality (and vice versa) and the campaign to keep hospital HH open!" Or even, "Being is at the same time identical with but different from Nothing, the contradiction resolved by Becoming, and the fight against the Nazis!"

Slogans like these would only be employed by militants of uncommon stupidity and of legendary ineffectiveness. In contrast, active revolutionaries employ ideas drawn exclusively from HM (such as, the nature of the class war, the role of the state and the police, the fact that their wages do not represent all the value they produce, and so on) to communicate with workers. Socialist Worker, for instance, uses ordinary, material language, coupled with concepts drawn from HM, to agitate and propagandise; rarely does it employ DM-phraseology. The same is true of other revolutionary socialist papers.

Only deeply sectarian rags of exemplary unpopularity and impressive lack of impact use ideas lifted from DM to try to educate and agitate workers. Newsline (the daily paper of the old WRP) used to do this, but like the Dinosaurs it resembled, it is no more. [The NON, it seems, took appropriate revenge upon it.]

It could be objected that no one would actually use slogans drawn from certain areas of HM to agitate workers. But, since that does not mean HM is of no use, the same must be true of DM. For example, who shouts slogans about "Base and Superstructure", or "Relative Surplus Value" on paper sales. Who tries to agitate workers with facts about the role of the peasantry in the decline of feudalism? This means the distinction drawn in this Essay is bogus.

To be sure, while it is true that no one shouts slogans about the relation between "Base and Superstructure" on a paper sale, or prints strike leaflets reminding militants of the role of the peasantry in the decline of feudalism, they still use slogans drawn exclusively from HM --, or which connect with HM and as it relates to current events in the class war.

In contrast, none at all are used from DM.

To be sure, most revolutionary papers use some terminology drawn from DM (like "contradiction"), but this forms only a very minor part of their output. Anyway, as will be shown in Part Two of this Essay, the use of such words is merely a traditionalist affectation -- indeed, we have to say this since no sense can be given to this use (as we saw in earlier Essays)--, that is, as a sign of 'orthodoxy', or as an 'in-group'/'out-group' marker.

Like Marx in Kapital, such papers "coquette" with Hegelian jargon, but only here and there.

Hence, at least at the level of practice -- where the party interfaces with the working class and material reality --, DM is totally useless. [Indeed, we will see in Part Two that there is no evidence that DM was used by the Bolsheviks in October 1917, or for years after, which is not surprising, given the above comments.]

Consequently, tested in practice (or, rather, tested by being left out of practice), the status of DM is plain for all to see: at best it would be a hindrance; at worst, it would totally isolate revolutionaries and make them look ridiculous.

This shows that the distinction between DM and HM which has been drawn here is not spurious -- in communicating with workers, militants make this distinction all the time.

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

You:


On another note, I went back to my Charles H. Kerr edition of Capital, Vol 1. Marx's preface to the second edition, written 1873 states:


My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but it is its direct opposite...

The mystifying side of the Hegelian dialectic I criticized nearly thirty years ago, at a time when it was still in fashion. But just as I was working at the first volume of "Das Kapital," it was the good pleasure of the peevish, arrogant, mediocre, epigones [in Greek, in the original] who now talk large in cultured Germany, to treat Hegel in the same way as the brave Moses Mendelssohn in Lessing's time treated Spinoza, i.e as a "dead dog." I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker, and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of coquetted with modes of expression peculiar to him. The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel's hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.

In its mystified form, dialectic became the fashion in Germany, because it seemed to transfigure and to glorify the existing state of things. In its rational form it is a scandal and abomination to bourgeoisdom and its doctrinaire professors, because it includes in its comprehension and affirmative recognition of the existing state of things, at the same time also, the recognition of the negation of that states, of its inevitable breaking up; because it regards every historically developed social form as fluid movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature not less than its momentary existence; because it lets nothing impose upon it, and is in its essence critical and revolutionary.

The contradictions inherent in the movement of capitalist society impress upon themselves upon the practical bourgeois most strikingly in the changes of the periodic cycle, through which modern industry runs, and whose crowning point is the universal crisis. That crisis is once again approaching, although as yet in its preliminary stage; and by the universality of its theatre and intensity of its action it will drum dialectics even into the heads of the mushroom-upstarts of the new, holy Prusso-German empire.

I'm sure this has been pointed out before, and I'm sure you've responded [although I can't find a response that takes this part of Marx on point by point], but it certainly is evidence that Marx has not rejected dialectics as a valid method for analysis.

You, we, can state dialectical materialism is hogwash; was not and is not the intent, method, or product of Marx's analysis of capitalism. We can say Hegel mystifies dialectics. You can even argue that Capital would be better without the Marx's use of dialectics . But I don't see how you can argue that Marx did not consider dialectics essential to his work. I don't see how anyone can say Marx did not base his historical materialism on his comprehension of the rational kernel in Hegel's dialectic.

I have commented on this passage in at least a hundred posts (no exaggeration) at RevLeft.

What I will do, is repeat what I have said here several times (some of which points Jim has covered above) in answer to other comrades who have argued the same way as you:


Sure, but you quote selectively, for Marx also quoted a reviewer thus:


"After a quotation from the preface to my 'Criticism of Political Economy,' Berlin, 1859, pp. IV-VII, where I discuss the materialistic basis of my method, the writer goes on:*

'The one thing which is of moment to Marx, is to find the law of the phenomena with whose investigation he is concerned; and not only is that law of moment to him, which governs these phenomena, in so far as they have a definite form and mutual connexion within a given historical period. Of still greater moment to him is the law of their variation, of their development, i.e., of their transition from one form into another, from one series of connexions into a different one. This law once discovered, he investigates in detail the effects in which it manifests itself in social life. Consequently, Marx only troubles himself about one thing: to show, by rigid scientific investigation, the necessity of successive determinate orders of social conditions, and to establish, as impartially as possible, the facts that serve him for fundamental starting-points. For this it is quite enough, if he proves, at the same time, both the necessity of the present order of things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably pass over; and this all the same, whether men believe or do not believe it, whether they are conscious or unconscious of it. Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intelligence, but rather, on the contrary, determining that will, consciousness and intelligence. ... If in the history of civilisation the conscious element plays a part so subordinate, then it is self-evident that a critical inquiry whose subject-matter is civilisation, can, less than anything else, have for its basis any form of, or any result of, consciousness. That is to say, that not the idea, but the material phenomenon alone can serve as its starting-point. Such an inquiry will confine itself to the confrontation and the comparison of a fact, not with ideas, but with another fact. For this inquiry, the one thing of moment is, that both facts be investigated as accurately as possible, and that they actually form, each with respect to the other, different momenta of an evolution; but most important of all is the rigid analysis of the series of successions, of the sequences and concatenations in which the different stages of such an evolution present themselves. But it will be said, the general laws of economic life are one and the same, no matter whether they are applied to the present or the past. This Marx directly denies. According to him, such abstract laws do not exist. On the contrary, in his opinion every historical period has laws of its own.... As soon as society has outlived a given period of development, and is passing over from one given stage to another, it begins to be subject also to other laws. In a word, economic life offers us a phenomenon analogous to the history of evolution in other branches of biology. The old economists misunderstood the nature of economic laws when they likened them to the laws of physics and chemistry. A more thorough analysis of phenomena shows that social organisms differ among themselves as fundamentally as plants or animals. Nay, one and the same phenomenon falls under quite different laws in consequence of the different structure of those organisms as a whole, of the variations of their individual organs, of the different conditions in which those organs function, &c. Marx, e.g., denies that the law of population is the same at all times and in all places. He asserts, on the contrary, that every stage of development has its own law of population. ... With the varying degree of development of productive power, social conditions and the laws governing them vary too. Whilst Marx sets himself the task of following and explaining from this point of view the economic system established by the sway of capital, he is only formulating, in a strictly scientific manner, the aim that every accurate investigation into economic life must have. The scientific value of such an inquiry lies in the disclosing of the special laws that regulate the origin, existence, development, death of a given social organism and its replacement by another and higher one. And it is this value that, in point of fact, Marx's book has.'

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added.]

You will note that Marx calls this the 'dialectic method', and 'his method', but it is also clear that it bears no relation to the sort of dialectics you have had forced down your throat, for in it there is not one ounce of Hegel -- no quantity turning into quality, no contradictions, no negation of the negation, no unities of opposites, no totality...

So, Marx's method has had Hegel totally extirpated. For Marx, putting Hegel on 'his feet' is to crush his head.

And of the few terms Marx uses of Hegel's in Das Kapital, he tells us this:


"and even, here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the mode of expression peculiar to him."

So, the 'rational core' of the dialectic has not one atom of Hegel in it, and Marx merely 'coquetted' with a few bits of Hegelian jargon in [I]Das Kapital.

That is hardly a ringing endorsement of this mystical theory.

And it is little use you telling me he called Hegel a 'mighty thinker', since he pointedly put that in the past tense:


"I criticised the mystificatory side of the Hegelian dialectic nearly thirty years ago, at a time when is was still the fashion. But just when I was working on the first volume of Capital, the ill-humoured, arrogant and mediocre epigones who now talk large in educated German circles began to take pleasure in treating Hegel in the same way as the good Moses Mendelssohn treated Spinoza in Lessing's time, namely as a 'dead dog'. I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker" and even, here and there in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the mode of expression peculiar to him." [Ibid., pp.102-03. Bold emphasis added.]

Moreover, one can call a theorist a 'mighty thinker' and totally disagree with him or her. [For instance, I think Plato was a 'mighty thinker' but I disagree with 99% of what he said.]

The other points you make centre around these passages:


In its mystified form, dialectic became the fashion in Germany, because it seemed to transfigure and to glorify the existing state of things. In its rational form it is a scandal and abomination to bourgeoisdom and its doctrinaire professors, because it includes in its comprehension and affirmative recognition of the existing state of things, at the same time also, the recognition of the negation of that states, of its inevitable breaking up; because it regards every historically developed social form as fluid movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature not less than its momentary existence; because it lets nothing impose upon it, and is in its essence critical and revolutionary.

I have highlighted one sentence here, since, if we interpret Marx literally here, it implies that Marx thinks that 'the dialectic' is a person! In that case, we are forced to conclude Marx is here arguing figuratively, and that he is still 'coquetting' with Hegelian terms.

This interpretation is supported by the additional fact that 'the dialectic' is not an 'abomination' to the bourgeoisie, since they totally ignore it!

What about this, then:


The contradictions inherent in the movement of capitalist society impress upon themselves upon the practical bourgeois most strikingly in the changes of the periodic cycle, through which modern industry runs, and whose crowning point is the universal crisis. That crisis is once again approaching, although as yet in its preliminary stage; and by the universality of its theatre and intensity of its action it will drum dialectics even into the heads of the mushroom-upstarts of the new, holy Prusso-German empire.

Again, as Marx tells us, he is merely 'coquetting' with Hegelian terminology here (we'd use 'scare quotes' these days).

Now you say this:


I'm sure this has been pointed out before, and I'm sure you've responded [although I can't find a response that takes this part of Marx on point by point], but it certainly is evidence that Marx has not rejected dialectics as a valid method for analysis.

In view of the above, 'the dialectic', as Marx himself endorses it, in the long quotation I added above, has had Hegel totally extirpated. In that case, Marx's dialectic more closely resembles the dialectic found in Aristotle, and the method invented by the Scottish Historical Materialists (Smith, Ferguson, Millar, Stewart, Hume...).

On that see here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1195129&postcount=57


You, we, can state dialectical materialism is hogwash; was not and is not the intent, method, or product of Marx's analysis of capitalism. We can say Hegel mystifies dialectics. You can even argue that Capital would be better without the Marx's use of dialectics [I wouldn't argue that]. But I don't see how you can argue that Marx did not consider dialectics essential to his work. I don't see how anyone can say Marx did not base his historical materialism on his comprehension of the rational kernel in Hegel's dialectic.

As you can see from the above, I not only do argue this, it is quite easy to do so, since Marx himself tells us he did.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S.Artesian:


I understand your point about the protocol of published work, and for that reason I quoted extensively from Marx's preface to the 2nd edition of Vol. 1. However, that leaves the question of what to do with the volumes of work Marx left unpublished? What do we do in those areas where there are divergences, apparent disagreements, inconsistencies with the published work? Should we look at it chronologically and say, "Oh he wrote this later than that, therefore I'm going with the "this"? Or should we say-- not published, therefore perish?

Well, I think I have covered these in my last post.


And what about material in unpublished work that is never considered in the published work? Should we extrapolate from the published? And if we are going to extrapolate, should we not consider other unpublished work to gain insight into the development of the analysis?

No, recall what I said:


It is standard practice to use published sources as our main guide to an author's views, and then to appeal to unpublished sources to fill in the details.

But, it isn't standard practice to use unpublished works to inform us about an author's beliefs where the unpublished sources disagree with the published sources.

So, in so far and the extent that the unpublished works do not disagree with Das Kapital, we should use them. Not otherwise.

The relevant comment has been highlighted. If, on the other hand, an author hasn't commented on some topic or other in published works, then it would be crazy not to look at what he/she said in unpublished sources.


I think insisting on "protocol" can be a formalism, preventing rather than enhancing insight into the historical development of an analysis.

Well, I think this is called 'special pleading'.


Regarding ideology, I do not think you attribute the rise of Stalinism to the ideology of dialectical materialism. But you do claim that dialectics, that the Hegelian influence, lends itself to such an ideology of confusion, disorganization, disorientation, and can be used to justify oppressive actions. My point was to show that there is no causal and no necessary connection between dialectics, and the acceptance or rejection of "dialectical materialism" and accurate analysis and action in class struggle.

I do not think there is a 'necessary connection' anywhere except in a deductive argument, conceptual analysis or mathematical proof. So, the point you make is no defect in my account.

However, I think there are good reasons to accept what I have argued. I won't rehearse them again.


Is it fair to say that you think Hegel and acceptance of "dialectics" leads to confusion? That the acceptance of dialectics lends itself to, is easily put in the service of regressive, anti-revolutionary, not to mention inhumane, tactics, strategy, programs?

If your answer is yes, I would only point out 2 things: first that employment of dialectic as an ideology serving regressive interests does not invalidate dialectical analysis-- people for years have in a parallel manner "blamed" Marxism for the "inevitability" of Stalinism ; secondly such use does not invalidate Marx's description of his method as dialectical.

I think dialectics (traditionally understood) trades on confused thinking, and then exacerbates it.


first that employment of dialectic as an ideology serving regressive interests does not invalidate dialectical analysis--

I covered this in my reply to Louise!

Here it is again:


But, that does not make dialectics a rubbish theory/method. Making no sense at all does that.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1561509&postcount=24


secondly such use does not invalidate Marx's description of his method as dialectical

Again, I have covered this in my previous reply to you.


But tell me... how do you manage to produce so much? Your output is mind boggling.

I began studying this 'theory' when I was becoming interested in revolutionary socialism in the late 1970s, and to be honest, it put me off becoming a revolutionary Marxist until in 1981 I read Gerry Cohen's book 'Karl Marx's Theory of History. A Defence'. Now, even though I disagreed with much that Cohen said, his book convinced me that Historical Materialism did not need the confused ideas I found in Hegel and 'Materialist Dialectics'.

Here is how I put it in Essay One:


This work began life in July 1998 as an unpublished review of John Rees's book The Algebra of Revolution (henceforth, TAR), which then developed into a full-blown project aimed at completely undermining the influence of Dialectical Materialism [DM], and 'dialectics' in general, on Marxist Philosophy.

However, a brief outline of the relevant parts of the author's biography might help readers appreciate the motivation, length and tone of the Essays posted at this site.

I studied for a BA Honours in Philosophy at The University of XXXX in the late-1970s, then for a PhD in the early 1980s, and later for a Mathematics degree. After I became involved in revolutionary politics in the early 1980s, I decided to write at some point a thorough-going refutation of DM, having come to appreciate the pernicious influence this doctrine has had on revolutionary socialism over the last 130 years. The publication of John Rees's book in 1998 provided the final impetus I needed.

My political views had swung sharply to the left much earlier; this occurred as a result of the very minor part I played in the UK postal workers' strike of 1971 -- I had at that time been a postal worker since 1969. This put me in direct sympathy with the left of the Labour Party (as it then was). Several years later, at The University of XXXX, I was introduced to Marxist Humanism by one of my tutors. This teacher was a truly remarkable man who had the rare gift of being able to explain Marxism in simple, everyday language, expressing Historical Materialism [HM] in eminently comprehensible and ordinary terms -- free of the usual Hegelian jargon and Hermetic obscurities.

However, from the beginning I was put off Marxism by the philosophical and logical confusion I encountered when reading books and articles on DM, a theory I thought unworthy of acceptance by anyone who possessed a working brain and genuine materialist sympathies.

My antipathy toward the tradition from which DM has emerged was greatly increased by the training I received in Analytic Philosophy at The University of XXXX, at the hands of a group of first-rate Philosophers and Logicians (most of whom were prominent Wittgensteinians and/or Fregeans). All this ensured that I would never take DM seriously. And I haven't since.

The election of Margaret Thatcher and the increasingly bitter class struggle this heralded in the UK in the early 1980s drove my opinions further to the left. However, while studying for my PhD on Wittgenstein, I happened to read Gerry Cohen's book, Karl Marx's Theory Of History. From then on my opinion of Marxist Philosophy changed dramatically, for even though I did not agree with Cohen's account of HM, or his politics, I now saw that there was no need to accept the mystical doctrines found in DM if I wanted to be a revolutionary. Hence, a year or so after the defeat of the National Union of Miners in 1985, I joined Party YYYY, since they seemed to me to be the most sincerely revolutionary and least sectarian group in the UK. In addition, and to their credit, they did not appear to be lost in the sort of dialectical mist that engulfed other supposedly revolutionary groups. [Gerry Healy's now defunct WRP comes to mind here.]

Unfortunately, almost as soon as I joined this party, the leadership did an about-face and suddenly discovered a new-found liking for DM, and articles expounding Engels's confused philosophical ideas began to appear in their publications. Although I now think I understand why this happened, at the time this turn of events was thoroughly dismaying. I could not understand why Marxists I had come to respect for the clarity of their political, historical and economic analyses had suddenly grown fond of Dialectical Mysticism.

As things turned out, I was soon able to witness at first-hand the baleful effect that DM and DL [Dialectical Logic] has had on revolutionary politics -- in this case, on local party activists in XXXX. Several of the latter (in the run up to the defeat of the Poll Tax, and the under direction of the party leadership) began to behave in a most uncharacteristic and aggressive manner, especially toward less 'active' comrades. To be sure, any revolutionary group requires commitment from its members, but there are ways of motivating people that do not involve treating them merely as means to a particular end.

These activists now declared that (among other things) 'dialectical' thinking meant there were no fixed or rigid principles in revolutionary politics -- not even, one presumes, the belief that the emancipation of the working-class is the act of the working-class (although, somewhat inconsistently, not one of them drew that conclusion). Everything it seemed had now to be bent toward the 'concrete' practical exigencies of the class struggle. Abstract ideas were ruled-out of court -- except, of course, for that abstract idea. Only the concrete mattered, even if no one could say what that was without using yet more abstractions.

In practice, this novel turn to the 'concrete' meant that several long-standing members of the party were harangued until they either abandoned revolutionary activity altogether, or they adapted to the "new mood" (as the wider political milieu in the UK was then called by Party YYYY).

In the latter eventuality, it meant that they had to conform to a suicidally increased rate of activity geared around the fight against the Poll Tax, whether or not they or their families suffered as a consequence. At meetings, one by one, comrades were subjected to a series of grossly unfair public hectoring sessions (in a small way reminiscent of the sort of things that went on in the Chinese "Cultural Revolution" -- minus the physical violence). These were conducted with no little vehemence by several party 'attack dogs' (working as a sort of 'political tag team') until the 'victims' either buckled under the strain, or gave up and left the party.

'Dialectical' arguments of remarkable inconsistency were used to 'justify' every convoluted change of emphasis, and counter every objection (declaring them one and all "abstract"), no matter how reasonable these might otherwise have seemed. Comrades who were normally quite level-headed became almost monomaniacal in their zeal to search out and re-educate those who were not quite 100% with the program. [For some reason these comrades left me alone, probably because I was highly active at the time, and perhaps because I knew a little philosophy, and could defend myself.]

In the end, as is evident from the record, the Poll Tax was defeated by strategies other than those advocated by this particular party, and the "new mood" melted away nearly as fast as most of the older comrades did -- and, as fate would have it, about as quickly as many of the new members the party had managed to recruit at the time. I do not think that the local party in XXXX has recovered from this period of "applied dialectics" (from what I can tell it is about a half to a third of its former size, and thus nowhere nearly as effective), and I have no reason to believe that the national body has managed to avoid a similar fate.

So, I ahve been writing my Essays for the last eleven years.

Finally, this is how I put things on the opening page of my site:


(7) These Essays represent work in progress; hence they do not necessarily reflect my final views.

I am only publishing this material on the Internet because several comrades whose opinions I respect urged me to do so, even though the work you see before you is less than half complete. Many of my ideas are still in the formative stage and need considerable attention and time devoted to them to mature.

I estimate this project will take another ten years to complete before it is fit to publish either here in its final form or in hard copy.

All of these Essays will have radically changed by then.

This work will be updated regularly -- edited and re-edited constantly --, its arguments clarified and progressively strengthened as my research continues (and particularly as my 'understanding' of Hegel develops)....

Up to the beginning of October 2009, I have posted Essays and other material totalling in excess of 1.75 million words. This is approximately 85% of all the material I have to date.

Of course, far more will be added as my researches continue.

And I won't stop until one of two things happens: I die, or this 'theory' does.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Louise:


Perhaps, but this still does not explain why the 180 degree turns were so easily accepted. There is a question here beyond this or that theory. When the shift in Germany was made to social fascism do we know what sort of discussions were taking place inside the German CP? On the ground? In the branches? Were they talking about dialectics? I don't know but I doubt it.

Do you know any revolutionaries? By-and-large they are like sheep, who have been programmed in many cases not to think for themselves when it comes to dialectics. You only have to look at the b*llocks intelligent comrades here defend and accept (in say the Dialectical Materialism Group, or in threads here expressing their views) to see how they all say the same things when it comes to this theory, like 'I Speak Your Weight Machines'.

Now, it will take social psychologists to account fully for this phenomenon (I am not one, so I can only do the best I can), but integral to this will be the intellectual capitulation these dialectical clones all show toward this theory, and to 'tradition'.

Now, the hard-headed arguments on the ground in Germany that you refer to -- if dialectics wasn't discussed, then this theory is useless. On the other hand, if it was discussed then it was to blame for 'rationalising' these about turns, as I allege.

I can live with either conclusion.

However, the available evidence suggests the latter was probably the case.


But with or without dialectics these events would have taken place. Or not?

Probably, but the leadership would have found it much harder to swing the cadres around; even using this theory, they had a hard time doing so in many areas of the world.

On this, see:

King, F., and Matthews, G. (1990) (eds.), About Turn. The Communist Party And The Outbreak Of The Second World War: The Verbatim Record Of The Central Committee Meetings, 1939 (Lawrence & Wishart).

Leonhard, W. (1986), Betrayal. The Hitler-Stalin Pact Of 1939 (St. Martin's Press.).


I've read this but I was referring to the Stalin period - he gained his authority as a representative of the first working class state rather than because of dialectics.

Yes, I agree. What makes you think I don't?

However, on his way up, he used the Deborinites to crush philosophical opinion. I think you must have missed this comment:


In fact, shortly after the revolution, many younger comrades and Russian scientists began to argue at length that all of Philosophy (and not just dialectics) is part of ruling-class ideology (which is in fact a crude version of my own thesis!). It was not until the Deborinites won a factional battle in 1925/26 that this trend was defeated (and this was clearly engineered to help pave the way for the further destruction of the gains of October). More about this later.

[On this, see Bakhurst (1991), Joravsky (1961), Graham (1971), Wetter (1958).]

References in Essay Nine Part Two.

[S.Artesian]

Rosa,

Tried to reply 3 different times, and each time the site kicked out and erased the reply. This is downright irritating-- got an email address, or I can do it on my website.
best
SA

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S.Artesian:


So... so I would really to read a concrete historical materialist analysis by an analytic Marxist, an anti-dialectical Marxist, of the current predicament, situation, condition of the capitalist economy, in either a local manifestation in say-- oh Bolivia, or China, or maybe Mexico, or Brazil; or in its international manifestation, like explaining the role that oil, the price of oil has played over the last 35, 30, 25, 12, 10, 7, 6, 3, 2, 1 years.

Well, the Analytic Marxist 'movement' (I am not one, by the way) is now practically dead and buried, and anti-dialectical Marxists are few in number. I am probably the most prolific one on the planet (in fact there are few others who write anything), and I am certainly far too busy to do anything else but this.

So, I can't help you here.

However, when it comes to explaining the world, and even though they 'coquette' with Hegelian jargon here and there, the account you will find in the writings of Dialectical Marxists will not differ significantly from any that an anti-dialectical Marxist might write -- and that is because, when it comes to concrete issues, dialectics is totally useless. So, both tendencies will in the end use historical materialism, since it is an effective scientific theory.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S.Artesian -- I always write my posts in Word first, and then copy them to this board. That will prevent the disaster you mentioned from happening again.

I'll PM you my e-mail address.

[S.Artesian]

Rosa,

Thanks for your reply and patience.

Here's my hypothesis:

I say Marx makes use of a dialectic-- dialectic to him is inherent contradiction, that expands as the system to which it is inherent, capitalism, expands. This contradiction manifests itself as the contradiction between the means of production organized as private property, and labor organized as social labor, as wage-labor. Each, the means of production as capital, as the private property of the capitalist [and capitalists], and the labor of the workers organized as wage-labor exists only in the organization of the other.

I state that this contradiction is the basis for dual role, and conflicting existence of the commodity both as useful object and an article of value.

I state that the "largest," "grandest" manifestation of this inherent contradiction, this self-antagonistic, opposite identity, gets manifested in the conflict between the means and relations of production, where the accumulation of capital itself makes it impossible for private property in production to sustain either the social organization of labor, or the value that must be appropriated to maintain the reproduction of the system. I state that the contradiction makes the proletariat, by necessity, the only class capable of emancipating production from the constraints of value and for the creation and satisfaction of needs and uses.

OK, I'll tell you that using that dialectic, I have analyzed actual concrete struggles from Chile in 1973, Portugal in 1974, Poland 1981, the role of OPEC and oil prices in maintaining the primacy of US capitalism, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela-- and I don't think I've been wrong yet.

You can see some of this analysis on my website-- oops I can't provide the link, still too new. OK, google The Wolf Report: Nonconfidential analysis for the anti-investor. Take a look. See where you materially disagree. Let me know.

Thanks

[spiltteeth]

Rosa,
The best general book is probably Questions Of Madness Soviet political psychiatry by Medvedev A Zhores
followed by
Psychology in the Soviet Union: A Historical Outline by Arthur Petrovsky

Andrei Snezhnevsky, was the psychiatrist who created the concept of sluggish schizophrenia, he utilized dialectics to describe schizophrenia in terms of positive and negative (or deficit) symptoms. Positive symptoms refers to symptoms that most individuals do not normally experience- delusions,hallucinations etc, Negative symptoms the loss or absence of normal traits or abilities, blunted affect a lack of desire to form relationships (asociality), and lack of motivation (avolition). etc
Only problem is, despite the appearance of blunted affect, studies indicate that there is often a normal or even heightened level of emotionality in schizophrenia.
And of course yr probably familiar with Thomas Szasz who says schizophrenia does not actually exist but is merely a form of social construction, a method of social control.

You may want to check out Soviet Psychiatry by Wortis, the first chapter explains dialectical materialism in its relationship to soviet psychiatry.

Some good papers :
psychiatry as ideology in the USSR by Sidney Bloch and Shames Dialectics and the Theory of Individuality. Psychology and Social Theory No. 4; 1984.
Here's a link to Shames general position on the subject http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/sn-9-10-activity.html

However, there is still disagreement how much dialectical materialism really influenced soviet psychiatric theory despite all the Leninist and Marxist jargon used, I think due mainly to the vagueness of the terms. Still, its undeniable that research overwhelmingly concentrated on psychological theories that supported dialectical materialism, such as Pavlovian conditioning, while all other idea's received no funding and were generally ignored.

[S.Artesian]

Hi Rosa,
Taking your advice, I’m doing this on Word. Hopefully I remember to save it with some frequency.
Regarding Marx’s Preface to the 2nd edition of Vol 1: I’m sure I selectively quote; we all do. That’s what we’re doing when we quote—select those parts that we think are the essential elements of the text and just so happen to, oh happy coincidence, bolster our take on the issue.


I noticed for example, that in your longer essay where you deal with this preface to the 2nd edition, you did not include Marx’s statement that: “The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner.”


This doesn’t sound like coquetting to me. It sounds more like a full-tilt embrace with a bit of body groping.



It seems to me that you make too much of Marx’s use of the term “coquette,” taking it to indicate that Marx was engaging in a superficial, coy, flirtation. But with what was Marx coquetting? Was he flirting with Hegel? Was he being coy with dialectic? Absolutely not. Marx tells us what he’s coquetting with: “in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression [emphasis supplied] peculiar to him.” So is Marx coquetting with methodology? No. Is he flirting with the substance or structure of dialectic? Not according to what he writes. He is stating clearly that he flirted, borrowed, utilized modes of expression peculiar to Hegel—the tendency of Hegel to provide explanations layered upon layered with terms that could not be understood separate and apart from the—uh-oh, here comes trouble/Hegel—totality of the explanation.


Then because Marx stated he coquetted with those modes of expression when working on volume 1,-- when? 1857, maybe? I like 1857, start of a nice big panic-- you expand upon that to insist now/then in 1873 he is still playing the coquette when he writes of his, Marx’s own dialectic, “The contradictions inherent in the movement of capitalist society impress themselves upon the practical bourgeois most strikingly in the changes of the periodic cycle through which modern industry runs, and whose crowning point is the universal crisis…..” as if Marx was searching for an equivalent of “scare quotation marks.”


What’s coquettish about that statement by Marx? To me, nothing. It is the condensed, concentrated expression of the method and content of Marx’s analysis of capitalism. And he wasn’t wrong about the beginning of “that crisis” for the early 1870s mark the onset of what is known as the “long recession,” “the long deflation,” in capitalism which despite the expansion of capital, or rather because of the expansion of capital yielded overall price declines, wage declines until around 1898.

“The contradictions inherent in the movement of capitalist society…” what is that if not a representation, a material, social representation of what Marx means by dialectic?

Regarding the soviets and its debates, agitation etc.—certainly no revolutionist did or would organize around “negation of the negation,” “unity of opposites,” “appearance vs. essence”—[actually I’m not sure on that one. I’ll bet someone somewhere in either Petrograd or Moscow characterized the Provisional Government, especially when the Mensheviks joined as “appearing” revolutionary, but being in essence, anti-revolutionary]—after Marx, it is, or should be impossible to agitate or organize around such notions, as Marx has shattered the mystical shell surrounding those concepts and extracted the rational kernel, which is the actual social struggle of classes, the actual creation, overthrow, replacement of the social relations of production. Talking about unity of opposites, negation etc. is “irrational” in revolutionary circumstances when the actual negation exists in the organization of dual power; when the “manifestation of necessity” is the need for the exploited class to take power and overthrow the existing relations of production.

Thanks for the glimpse into your personal history, quite interesting. I'll provide you with mine sometime in the future.

best,
sa

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S.Artesian:


I say Marx makes use of a dialectic-- dialectic to him is inherent contradiction, that expands as the system to which it is inherent, capitalism, expands. This contradiction manifests itself as the contradiction between the means of production organized as private property, and labor organized as social labor, as wage-labor. Each, the means of production as capital, as the private property of the capitalist [and capitalists], and the labor of the workers organized as wage-labor exists only in the organization of the other.

Fortunately, we need not speculate, for Marx very kindly added a summary of 'his method' to the second edition of Das Kapital:


"After a quotation from the preface to my 'Criticism of Political Economy,' Berlin, 1859, pp. IV-VII, where I discuss the materialistic basis of my method, the writer goes on:*

'The one thing which is of moment to Marx, is to find the law of the phenomena with whose investigation he is concerned; and not only is that law of moment to him, which governs these phenomena, in so far as they have a definite form and mutual connexion within a given historical period. Of still greater moment to him is the law of their variation, of their development, i.e., of their transition from one form into another, from one series of connexions into a different one. This law once discovered, he investigates in detail the effects in which it manifests itself in social life. Consequently, Marx only troubles himself about one thing: to show, by rigid scientific investigation, the necessity of successive determinate orders of social conditions, and to establish, as impartially as possible, the facts that serve him for fundamental starting-points. For this it is quite enough, if he proves, at the same time, both the necessity of the present order of things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably pass over; and this all the same, whether men believe or do not believe it, whether they are conscious or unconscious of it. Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intelligence, but rather, on the contrary, determining that will, consciousness and intelligence. ... If in the history of civilisation the conscious element plays a part so subordinate, then it is self-evident that a critical inquiry whose subject-matter is civilisation, can, less than anything else, have for its basis any form of, or any result of, consciousness. That is to say, that not the idea, but the material phenomenon alone can serve as its starting-point. Such an inquiry will confine itself to the confrontation and the comparison of a fact, not with ideas, but with another fact. For this inquiry, the one thing of moment is, that both facts be investigated as accurately as possible, and that they actually form, each with respect to the other, different momenta of an evolution; but most important of all is the rigid analysis of the series of successions, of the sequences and concatenations in which the different stages of such an evolution present themselves. But it will be said, the general laws of economic life are one and the same, no matter whether they are applied to the present or the past. This Marx directly denies. According to him, such abstract laws do not exist. On the contrary, in his opinion every historical period has laws of its own.... As soon as society has outlived a given period of development, and is passing over from one given stage to another, it begins to be subject also to other laws. In a word, economic life offers us a phenomenon analogous to the history of evolution in other branches of biology. The old economists misunderstood the nature of economic laws when they likened them to the laws of physics and chemistry. A more thorough analysis of phenomena shows that social organisms differ among themselves as fundamentally as plants or animals. Nay, one and the same phenomenon falls under quite different laws in consequence of the different structure of those organisms as a whole, of the variations of their individual organs, of the different conditions in which those organs function, &c. Marx, e.g., denies that the law of population is the same at all times and in all places. He asserts, on the contrary, that every stage of development has its own law of population. ... With the varying degree of development of productive power, social conditions and the laws governing them vary too. Whilst Marx sets himself the task of following and explaining from this point of view the economic system established by the sway of capital, he is only formulating, in a strictly scientific manner, the aim that every accurate investigation into economic life must have. The scientific value of such an inquiry lies in the disclosing of the special laws that regulate the origin, existence, development, death of a given social organism and its replacement by another and higher one. And it is this value that, in point of fact, Marx's book has.'

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added.]

You will no doubt note that Marx calls this the 'dialectic method', and 'his method', but it is also clear that it bears no relation to the traditional view of dialectics, for in it there is not one atom of Hegel -- no 'quantity turning into quality', no 'contradictions', no 'negation of the negation', no 'unity of opposites', no 'totality', no 'universal flux'...

And of the use of Hegelian jargon found in the rest of Das Kapital, Marx tells us he merely 'coquetted' with it; hardly a ringing endorsement of Hegel's thought -- the non-serious use of Hegelian terminology.


I state that this contradiction is the basis for dual role, and conflicting existence of the commodity both as useful object and an article of value.

But, we have yet to be told why this is a 'contradiction'.

If it were, then we should find


the means of production organized as private property, and labor organized as social labor, as wage-labor

'struggling' with each other, and turning into each other, according to the dialectical classics. But, does the means of production struggle with labour? Do they turn into one another?

You can find dozens of quotations to that effect here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1401000&postcount=76

And an explanation of why this 'theory' would make change impossible, here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1401001&postcount=77


I state that the "largest," "grandest" manifestation of this inherent contradiction, this self-antagonistic, opposite identity, gets manifested in the conflict between the means and relations of production, where the accumulation of capital itself makes it impossible for private property in production to sustain either the social organization of labor, or the value that must be appropriated to maintain the reproduction of the system. I state that the contradiction makes the proletariat, by necessity, the only class capable of emancipating production from the constraints of value and for the creation and satisfaction of needs and uses.

Well, I have been reading this sort of stuff for longer than most RevLefters have been alive, and I just cannot see the alleged 'contradiction' here.

We do not, in fact, need obscure terminology like this to explain the class war, we already have the words in ordinary language and Historical Materialism in order to do this, and in a way that does not make change impossible.

As Marx himslf says:


The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life." [Marx and Engels (1970) German Ideology, p.118.]

You:


OK, I'll tell you that using that dialectic, I have analyzed actual concrete struggles from Chile in 1973, Portugal in 1974, Poland 1981, the role of OPEC and oil prices in maintaining the primacy of US capitalism, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela-- and I don't think I've been wrong yet.

You can see some of this analysis on my website-- oops I can't provide the link, still too new. OK, google The Wolf Report: Nonconfidential analysis for the anti-investor. Take a look. See where you materially disagree. Let me know.

Thanks for that; I'll check, but as I have already said, I have been reading this sort of material now for over 30 years, and have yet to see how the obscure jargon we have inherited from Hermetic mysticism helps explain anything at all. In fact, as is easy to show, it makes the explanation of change impossible.

Is this the correct site?

http://thewolfatthedoor.blogspot.com/2009/09/accumulationdecomposition-in-epoch-of.html

[Die Neue Zeit]

Because of the title of this thread, I'd like to chime in.

As a non-dialectician, I tend to think that even those who think dialectics is at best a tool are prone to using Hegelian jargon a tad too often to describe phenomenon beyond Hegelian dialectics.

[Rosa, you and Paul Cockshott have had an interesting discussion so far about logic, and since he wrote some recent stuff on Kautsky, I bring this next section to your attention.]

Lenin borrowed the majority of his Hegelian shit from Plekhanov, but such was politically irrelevant compared with the "dialectics" of Kautsky. There are "contradictions" between a non-revolutionary period and a revolutionary period, and each period required a different set of tactics. This was what Lenin reiterated in his polemic against the renegade Kautsky, though it was Kautsky the true founder of "Marxism" who stated this political point first: in The Road to Power.

Where's the unity of opposites here? Where's the negation of the negation? Where's the totality?

[Luxemburg had a similar but truly dialectic approach, but it led her to sectarianism in Polish-Lithuanian SDKPiL, and it led her nowhere in terms of organizing in the SPD.]

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S.Artesian:


I noticed for example, that in your longer essay where you deal with this preface to the 2nd edition, you did not include Marx’s statement that: “The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner.”

Look, I have commented on this passage more times than I care to mention in threads here -- in the links I added earlier.

Ok, here we go again, for the fiftieth time: Marx is right, this mystification is not what prevents Hegel from doing this, what does prevent him is this:


The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life." [Marx and Engels (1970), p.118.]

So, the distorted language of traditional philosophy prevents him.

How it does this, I have explained in extensive detail here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2012_01.htm


It seems to me that you make too much of Marx’s use of the term “coquette,” taking it to indicate that Marx was engaging in a superficial, coy, flirtation. But with what was Marx coquetting? Was he flirting with Hegel? Was he being coy with dialectic? Absolutely not. Marx tells us what he’s coquetting with: “in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression [emphasis supplied] peculiar to him.” So is Marx coquetting with methodology? No. Is he flirting with the substance or structure of dialectic? Not according to what he writes. He is stating clearly that he flirted, borrowed, utilized modes of expression peculiar to Hegel—the tendency of Hegel to provide explanations layered upon layered with terms that could not be understood separate and apart from the—uh-oh, here comes trouble/Hegel—totality of the explanation.

Well, why did he use this word?

The full passage, from the MIA and the Collected works, reads:


"...I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker" and even, here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the mode of expression peculiar to him." [Marx (1976), p.103. I have used the punctuation found in MECW here.]

The extra comma [highlighted] indicates that he was using the phrase "in the chapter on the theory of value" as an example, In other words, he 'coquetted' throughout the entire book.

Now, if you are using another's theory seriously, you do not 'coquette. And this is why:

Marx had already indicated he was waving 'goodbye' to Hegel in this summary of 'his method':


"After a quotation from the preface to my 'Criticism of Political Economy,' Berlin, 1859, pp. IV-VII, where I discuss the materialistic basis of my method, the writer goes on:*

'The one thing which is of moment to Marx, is to find the law of the phenomena with whose investigation he is concerned; and not only is that law of moment to him, which governs these phenomena, in so far as they have a definite form and mutual connexion within a given historical period. Of still greater moment to him is the law of their variation, of their development, i.e., of their transition from one form into another, from one series of connexions into a different one. This law once discovered, he investigates in detail the effects in which it manifests itself in social life. Consequently, Marx only troubles himself about one thing: to show, by rigid scientific investigation, the necessity of successive determinate orders of social conditions, and to establish, as impartially as possible, the facts that serve him for fundamental starting-points. For this it is quite enough, if he proves, at the same time, both the necessity of the present order of things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably pass over; and this all the same, whether men believe or do not believe it, whether they are conscious or unconscious of it. Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intelligence, but rather, on the contrary, determining that will, consciousness and intelligence. ... If in the history of civilisation the conscious element plays a part so subordinate, then it is self-evident that a critical inquiry whose subject-matter is civilisation, can, less than anything else, have for its basis any form of, or any result of, consciousness. That is to say, that not the idea, but the material phenomenon alone can serve as its starting-point. Such an inquiry will confine itself to the confrontation and the comparison of a fact, not with ideas, but with another fact. For this inquiry, the one thing of moment is, that both facts be investigated as accurately as possible, and that they actually form, each with respect to the other, different momenta of an evolution; but most important of all is the rigid analysis of the series of successions, of the sequences and concatenations in which the different stages of such an evolution present themselves. But it will be said, the general laws of economic life are one and the same, no matter whether they are applied to the present or the past. This Marx directly denies. According to him, such abstract laws do not exist. On the contrary, in his opinion every historical period has laws of its own.... As soon as society has outlived a given period of development, and is passing over from one given stage to another, it begins to be subject also to other laws. In a word, economic life offers us a phenomenon analogous to the history of evolution in other branches of biology. The old economists misunderstood the nature of economic laws when they likened them to the laws of physics and chemistry. A more thorough analysis of phenomena shows that social organisms differ among themselves as fundamentally as plants or animals. Nay, one and the same phenomenon falls under quite different laws in consequence of the different structure of those organisms as a whole, of the variations of their individual organs, of the different conditions in which those organs function, &c. Marx, e.g., denies that the law of population is the same at all times and in all places. He asserts, on the contrary, that every stage of development has its own law of population. ... With the varying degree of development of productive power, social conditions and the laws governing them vary too. Whilst Marx sets himself the task of following and explaining from this point of view the economic system established by the sway of capital, he is only formulating, in a strictly scientific manner, the aim that every accurate investigation into economic life must have. The scientific value of such an inquiry lies in the disclosing of the special laws that regulate the origin, existence, development, death of a given social organism and its replacement by another and higher one. And it is this value that, in point of fact, Marx's book has.'

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added.]

Once more, Marx's 'method' contains no trace of Hegel. So, no wonder he merely 'coquetted' with Hegelian jargon.


Then because Marx stated he coquetted with those modes of expression when working on volume 1,-- when? 1857, maybe? I like 1857, start of a nice big panic-- you expand upon that to insist now/then in 1873 he is still playing the coquette when he writes of his, Marx’s own dialectic, “The contradictions inherent in the movement of capitalist society impress themselves upon the practical bourgeois most strikingly in the changes of the periodic cycle through which modern industry runs, and whose crowning point is the universal crisis…..” as if Marx was searching for an equivalent of “scare quotation marks.”

But, since these are not 'contradictions' Marx is still 'coquetting' here.

You needn't keep speculating, since the long passage above puts an end to it all.

And yet you do:


What’s coquettish about that statement by Marx? To me, nothing. It is the condensed, concentrated expression of the method and content of Marx’s analysis of capitalism. And he wasn’t wrong about the beginning of “that crisis” for the early 1870s mark the onset of what is known as the “long recession,” “the long deflation,” in capitalism which despite the expansion of capital, or rather because of the expansion of capital yielded overall price declines, wage declines until around 1898.

“The contradictions inherent in the movement of capitalist society…” what is that if not a representation, a material, social representation of what Marx means by dialectic?

Again, these are not contradictions. What more can I tell you?

So, once more:

You needn't keep speculating, since the long passage above puts an end to it all.


Regarding the soviets and its debates, agitation etc.—certainly no revolutionist did or would organize around “negation of the negation,” “unity of opposites,” “appearance vs. essence”—[actually I’m not sure on that one. I’ll bet someone somewhere in either Petrograd or Moscow characterized the Provisional Government, especially when the Mensheviks joined as “appearing” revolutionary, but being in essence, anti-revolutionary]—after Marx, it is, or should be impossible to agitate or organize around such notions, as Marx has shattered the mystical shell surrounding those concepts and extracted the rational kernel, which is the actual social struggle of classes, the actual creation, overthrow, replacement of the social relations of production. Talking about unity of opposites, negation etc. is “irrational” in revolutionary circumstances when the actual negation exists in the organization of dual power; when the “manifestation of necessity” is the need for the exploited class to take power and overthrow the existing relations of production.

Well, as the record shows, the use of obscure jargon like this did not begin to appear until the revolution was beginning to go backward.

And the reason for that is this:


As it turns out, the reason why the majority of revolutionaries have not only unwittingly accepted the alien-class ideas encapsulated in 'Materialist Dialectics', but have clung to them like terminally-insecure limpets, is connected with the following considerations:

(1) Marx's own analysis of the nature and origin of religious alienation.

(2) Lenin's warning that revolutionaries may sometimes respond to defeat and disappointment by turning to Idealism and Mysticism.

(3) The personal biographies and class origin of all leading Marxists and/or dialecticians.

(4) The fact that this theory helps mask the long-term failure of DIM itself, and provides consolation for unrealised expectations and dashed hopes.

[DIM = Dialectical Marxism.]

[Other counter-claims recorded in the previous section will be tackled later on in this Essay.]


Item One: Concerning religion, Marx famously argued that:


"The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man -- state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

"Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

"The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo." [Marx (1975b), p.244. Bold emphasis alone added.]

Of course, no one is suggesting that DIM is a religion -- but it functions in ways that make it analogous to one. That serious allegation and the materialist background to it will now be explained.

Plainly, revolutionaries are human beings with ideas in their heads; moreover, and every single one of them has a class origin. The vast majority of those who have led our movement, or who have influenced its ideas, have not come from the working class. Even worker-revolutionaries, if they are full-time or 'professional revolutionaries', have thereby become de-classé, or even petty-bourgeois Marxists. And yet, as experience has shown, the accusation that all such comrades harbour ruling-class ideas for the same sorts of reasons that the religious hold onto their beliefs -- and that this is partly because of their class origin or current class position -- is regarded by dialecticians as so obviously wrong, it is treated with contempt, with the one making this allegation often counter-accused of "crude reductionism". Furthermore, as far as I am aware, no dialectician has subjected the origin of DM, and the reason for its acceptance by the vast majority of Marxists, to a class analysis.

This suggests that dialecticians see themselves as exempt from a Marxist analysis of the origin of their own ideas, and that they thus think they are somehow immune from the material constraints that affect the rest of humanity.

Nevertheless, it will be maintained here that the above comrades do indeed hold on to ruling-class ideas -- even if they are not aware of this fact -- and they do so for at least two reasons:

First: because of their petty-bourgeois or non-working class origins, and as a result of the superior education they generally receive in bourgeois society, the vast majority of Marxists have had "ruling ideas", or ruling-class forms-of-thought, forced down their throats almost from day one. [More on this below. See also Essay Two, and in Essay Three Parts One and Two.]

Second: because DIM is so unbelievably unsuccessful, revolutionaries have had to convince themselves that this is not so, that the opposite is indeed the case, or that this is only a temporary state of affairs --, otherwise they'd just give up. Because dialectics teaches that appearances are "contradicted" by underlying "essences", it fulfils a unique role in this regard since it is able to provide comrades with much needed consolation in the face of such long-term failure, telling them that everything is peachy, or that things will change for the better one day. This 'allows' DIMs to ignore such long-term failure, rationalising it as a mere "appearance" and hence false, or illusory. So, faced with any and all set-backs, revolutionaries almost invariably respond with a "Well that does not prove Marxism wrong!".

So, just like the religious, who can look at the evil in the world and still see it as an expression of the 'God of Love' who will make all things well in the future, dialecticians can look at the last 150 years and still see the 'Logic of History' moving their way, and that all will be well in the end, too. This means that the theory that prevents them from looking at reality objectively is also the theory that helps guarantee another generation of failure by masking it. [This theme is developed below, and in Essay Ten Part One (where the usual objections to this way of seeing things are neutralised).]

Despite this, it might still be wondered how this relates to anything that is even remotely applicable to the theories entertained by hard-headed revolutionary atheists. Surely, it could be argued, any attempt to retrace a commitment to Materialist Dialectics to its alleged origin in alienated fantasy is both a reductionist and an idealist explanation?

Fortunately, Lenin himself supplied a materialist answer to this apparent conundrum, and John Rees kindly outlined it for us when he depicted the period following the failed 1905 Russian revolution in the following terms:


"[T]he defeat of the 1905 revolution, like all such defeats, carried confusion and demoralisation into the ranks of the revolutionaries…. The forward rush of the revolution had helped unite the leadership…on strategic questions and so…intellectual differences could be left to private disagreement. But when defeat magnifies every tactical disagreement, forcing revolutionaries to derive fresh strategies from a re-examination of the fundamentals of Marxism, theoretical differences were bound to become important. As Tony Cliff explains:

"'With politics apparently failing to overcome the horrors of the Tsarist regime, escape into the realm of philosophical speculation became the fashion….'

"Philosophical fashion took a subjectivist, personal, and sometimes religious turn…. Bogdanov drew inspiration from the theories of physicist Ernst Mach and philosopher Richard Avenarius…. [Mach retreated] from Kant's ambiguous idealism to the pure idealism of Berkeley and Hume….

"It was indeed Mach and Bogdanov's 'ignorance of dialectics' that allowed them to 'slip into idealism.' Lenin was right to highlight the link between Bogdanov's adoption of idealism and his failure to react correctly to the downturn in the level of the struggle in Russia." [Rees (1998), pp.173-79, quoting Cliff (1975), p.290. Bold emphases added. (However, I can find no reference to "dialectics" in Cliff's book.)]

As Cliff goes on to argue:


"With politics apparently failing to overcome the horrors of the Tsarist regime, escape into the realm of philosophical speculation became the fashion. And in the absence of any contact with a real mass movement, everything had to be proved from scratch -- nothing in the traditions of the movement, none of its fundamentals, was immune from constant questioning.

"...In this discussion Bogdanov, Lunacharsky, Bazarov and others tried to combine marxism with the neo-Kantian theory of knowledge put forward by Ernst Mach, and Richard Avenarius. Lunacharsky went as far as to speak openly in favour of fideism. Lunacharsky used religious metaphors, speaking about 'God-seeking' and 'God-building'. Gorky was influenced by Bogdanov and Lunacharsky....

"Lenin's reaction was very sharp indeed. He wrote to Gorky, 'The Catholic priest corrupting young girls...is much less dangerous precisely to "democracy" than a priest without his robes, a priest without crude religion, an ideologically equipped and democratic priest preaching the creation and invention of a god.'" [Cliff (1975), pp.290-91. Bold emphasis added. Quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]

It is quite clear from this that the experience of defeat (and the lack of materialist input from a mass working-class movement) redirected the attention of certain revolutionaries toward Idealism and to searching for a mystical explanation for the serious set-backs Russian Marxists had witnessed after 1905. Plainly, that search provided these comrades with some form of consolation -- just as Marx alleged of religion pure and simple.

But, there is another outcome that Rees and others have clearly failed to notice: this major set-back turned Lenin toward Philosophy and dialectics, too. These were subjects which he had largely ignored up until then. While it is true that Bogdanov and the rest turned to Mach, Berkeley, Subjective Idealism, and other assorted irrationalisms, is equally clear that Lenin too reverted to Hegel and 'objective' Mysticism.2

Nevertheless, Lenin's warning shows that revolutionaries themselves are not immune to the pressures that lead human beings in general to seek consolation in order to counteract disappointment, demoralisation and alienation. As we have seen, Lenin was well aware that alien-class ideas (which 'satisfied' such needs) could enter the workers' movement from the "outside" at certain times.

Is it possible then that revolutionaries of the calibre of Engels, Lenin, Plekhanov and Trotsky were thus tempted to seek metaphysical consolation of some sort? Is it conceivable that they opened themselves up to the alien-class ideas that later found expression in 'Materialist Dialectics', and for these reasons?

As we have seen in other Essays posted at this site (especially Essay Three Parts One and Two, Twelve Part One, the rest of Essay Twelve, and Essay Fourteen Part One (summaries here and here)), and as Lenin himself admitted, dialectics is shot-through with ideas, concepts and modes-of-thought borrowed from traditional Philosophy (which ideas, concepts and modes-of-thought were in turn invented by theorists who undeniably had material interests in rationalising the status quo). Indeed, in many places it is hard to tell the difference between DM and open mysticism (as Essay Fourteen Part One will show (summary here)).

All this strongly suggests that the above accusations are not completely wide-of-the-mark. On the contrary, as we will see, they hit the bull's eye every time.

But, is there anything in the class origin and background of leading comrades that pre-disposed them toward such an unwitting adoption of this rarefied form of ruling-class ideology? Does defeat automatically lead to DM?

Does DM in fact stand for Demoralised Marxists?


The first of these questions can be answered quite easily by focussing on item Four above, and then on the periods in which revolutionaries invented, sought out, or returned in a big way to the classical concepts found in DM. Upon examination, a reasonably clear correlation can be seen between periods of downturn in the struggle and subsequent 're-discoveries' of Hegel and DM by avid dialecticians (with the opposite outcome tending to happen in more successful times).3

Most (if not all) of Engels's work on the foundations of DM was written in the post 1860s downturn -- after the massive struggles for the vote (up to the Reform Act of 1867) in the UK, following on the demise of the Chartist Movement and after the Paris Commune had been defeated in 1871.4

Similarly, Lenin's philosophical/dialectical writings were largely confined to the period after the defeat of the 1905 Revolution, and before the short-lived successes of 1917.

Trotsky's dialectical commentaries (including his Notebooks and his wrangles with Burnham) date largely from the 1930s, after the major reverses that took place in the post 1917-1923 period in Europe (and internationally in China), and later in Spain, and following upon his own isolation and political quarantine in the 1930s.5

Stalin himself only became obsessed with dialectics after the defeat of the Deborinites post-1929, and after the failure of the Chinese and German revolutions. Likewise, Mao himself discovered a fondness for this Hermetic creed after the crushing defeats of the 1920s.6

More recently, the obsessive devotion shown by certain OTs toward the minutiae of DM follows a similar pattern. Because OTs invariably adopt a catastrophist view of everything that happens (or is ever likely to happen) in capitalist society, they cannot fail to be disappointed all the time. Naturally, such levels of constant disillusionment require regular and massive doses of highly potent DM-opiates. To take one example: even an OT of the stature of Ted Grant only succeeded in 're-discovering' hardcore DM (alongside Alan Woods, which took form in RIRE) after his own party booted him out, which itself followed upon the catastrophic collapse of the Militant Tendency.7

[OT = Orthodox Trotskyist; NOT = Non-orthodox Trotskyist; RIRE = Reason In Revolt, i.e., Woods and Grant (1995).]

This regressive doctrine does not just afflict the minds of OTs, NOTs show similar, but less acute signs of dialectical-debilitation.

For example, the overt use of DM-concepts in the SWP-UK (a NOT-style party) only began in earnest after the downturn in the class struggle in the late 1970s, and more specifically right after the defeat of the National Union of Miners in 1985. In this respect, therefore, TAR itself represents perhaps the high-water mark of this latest retreat into consolation by leading figures in the SWP-UK. The fact that this newfound interest in DM has nothing to do with theoretical innovation (and everything to do with repetition, consolation and reassurance) can be seen from the additional fact that TAR adds nothing new to the debate (on DM), it merely repeats significant parts of it, albeit from a different perspective --, but for the gazillionth time.8

[TAR = The Algebra of Revolution, or Rees (1998).]

Given the overwhelming experience of defeat and set-back that has been faced by the international labour movement and the revolutionary tradition over the last 150 years, these correlations are quite striking (even if they are not the least bit surprising) -- for all that no one seems to have noticed them before!9

The numbers above refer to endnotes where I substantiate my allegations.

For example, Note 3 reads:


3. Indeed, Hegel's work itself can be seen as a response to the failure of the French Revolution, prompting his own retreat into "Dialectical Mysticism". There is an admirably clear account of the process of demoralisation among intellectuals that swept across Europe at the turn of the 18th century -- in TAR itself (pp.13-54)! Clearly, John Rees failed to notice the obvious connection between Hegel's own demoralisation and his search for consolation in the sort of Christian Mysticism that he was able to conjure out of "Nothing" (literally!), subsequently appropriated (and given a full 360 degree (not 180) flip) by dialecticians.

[TAR = The Algebra of Revolution, i.e., Rees (1998).]

However, episodes similar to this are to be found among subsequent generations of revolutionaries, which reveal the historical and ideological connection between German Mysticism and DIM itself -- that is, between the class-origin of the DM-classicists and their predilection for traditional philosophising.

Indeed, and as a matter of fact, these classicists were exclusively drawn from petty-bourgeois and/or intellectual circles. Of course, on its own that is no defect. But, the founders of Marxism did not live in air-tight containers, hermetically sealed-off from surrounding social and ideological influences; the latter clearly found a ready echo in their own theoretical work.

Hence, early communists (living in semi-feudal Germany, dominated by Idealism) found themselves in a society with no developed or assertive working class from which to learn. More importantly: workers themselves could not provide a materialist counter-weight to the Idealist inclinations of these early intellectual militants. This would mean that the theories developed by the very first DM-classicists would automatically bend far too much toward ideas that have always dominated traditional thought, toward ruling-class concepts current in Germany and Europe at the time. Workers in Germany and Russia were far too weak, disorganised, and certainly too few in number in the nineteenth century to mount a significant challenge to the confident ruling-classes of their day -- or impact on the concepts that early DM-theorists began to form.

Moreover, ever-present disappointment with the very class upon which the hopes of European and Russian radicals were pinned must have been a constant factor influencing revolutionary thought during this period. Repeatedly dashed hopes that a revolutionary workers' movement would emerge (in mid-to-late 19th century Europe) meant that the tendency to seek consolation in certain forms of Philosophy clearly became irresistible.

And this is not just mere speculation; we know that this is precisely what happened -- and is still taking place. These facts are clear from the biographies of European radicals (including those of Marx and Engels, and later those of Lenin and Trotsky -- and even later in the lives and thoughts of more recent dialecticians).

Their unshakable faith in workers, coupled with an ever-present trust in their revolutionary potential and a belief in the proximity of the revolution (which is clear for all to see in the Marx-Engels correspondence, and elsewhere), alongside the certainty that there would be a terminal crisis of Capitalism in the near future -- all these ideas had to face disconfirming material reality many times over, month in month out, and then for decades.

Naturally, such a wide disparity between theory and reality would require some sort of an explanation. If reality (in essence, as it is supposedly represented in theory) differed so markedly from appearances, then a theory that based itself precisely on that premise, which argued that the surface view of things is misleading and that underlying essences are not as they appear to be, they are in fact upside down (that is, in their Ideal form they are the opposite of how they materially seem to be), would naturally be attractive to anyone subject to such long-term disappointment and demoralisation. And this would be all the more so if, because of their education and socialisation (as part of the petty-bourgeois world), ruling-ideas had already been inserted into their heads, and which thus predisposed them to think this way about high theory and low appearances.

Nevertheless, an explanation of defeat is one thing, but the enormity of the events as they unfolded needed something a little stronger: an industrial strength palliative. Constantly dashed hopes would require something far more soothing and consoling, something absolutely reassuring; those subject to permanent disappointment would need a concentrated dose of 'Dialectical Methadone' provided by a doctrine that thrives on the alleged contradiction between appearances and reality.

In this way, to change the image, the gravitational pull of the Black Whole of Hegelian Idealism would become irresistible --, as Hegel himself foresaw:


"Every philosophy is essentially an idealism or at least has idealism for its principle, and the question then is only how far this principle is carried out." [Hegel (1999), pp.154-55; §316.]

How else are we to account for Engels's own late re-discovery of dialectics, after a brief initial youthful dalliance and subsequent rejection of it (alongside Marx) in the early years (the 1840s)? How else can we make sense of an analogous course taken by Lenin and Trotsky?

Admittedly, it is not easy for Marxists to accept this picture of the founders of our movement, in view of the almost god-like stature these comrades have assumed in their eyes. That, of course, is part of the problem; it prevents revolutionaries thinking for themselves (lest they be called "Revisionists"). Nevertheless, this accounts for Engels's life-long drift back into Hegelian Idealism; in his case, it accounts for the use of the latter as a "master key" to unlock all of material reality, even while he denied he was doing just that.

This also helps account for the fact that subsequent generations of revolutionaries have uncritically accepted a demonstrably, and lamentably weak theory (a theory whose weaknesses surely rival anything concocted by David Icke).

These theorists and activists have in truth displayed a level of gullibility that is hard to explain -- especially in view of the fact that elsewhere they think and behave like hard-headed materialists --, except we appeal to extra-logical factors, such as their class origin.

Since these comrades were, and still are, subject to the sorts of pressures that weigh upon ordinary human beings (in addition to those introduced by the aforementioned continually dashed hopes), the need to invert material reality to fit an Ideal image clearly was, and still is, irresistible. Decades of defeat and set-back, the almost total failure to win over even a significant minority of the toiling masses, splits, betrayals, sectarian in-fighting, bureaucratic inertia and implacable opposition from the class enemy -- to say nothing of the other alienating forces at work in capitalist society --, all these have taken (and are still taking) their toll on generations of the very best revolutionaries.

The almost universally irrational response these Essays (and my ideas in general) have received is in fact further testimony to this fact.

DM has such comrades in its grip because, given their material and social circumstances, it represents the way they have been taught to see the world: as ultimately Ideal. In this way ruling ideas have been introduced into our movement; this is because, given their education, petty-bourgeois dialecticians see nothing wrong with a priori thesis-mongering. In fact, nothing else would count as 'genuine' Philosophy, since this has been a core feature of the tradition that had dominated Western thought for 2400 years. And it is literally impossible to shake them from their devotion to such thought-forms. [This is just a recent example of the phenomenon.]

Moreover, DM-theorists find they just cannot abandon the traditional idea that Marxism needs a Philosophy -- indeed, they defend this belief with no little vehemence, waxing indignant (if not abusive) with anyone who thinks to question it.

As noted in Essay Two, traditional thought finds is most avid fans, and stoutest defenders among those who claim to be committed radicals!

[This topic will be explored at greater length in Essay Three Part Six, and Essay Twelve (summary here), where the usual reasons dialecticians give as to why they need such a priori theses and why they still think Marxism needs a Philosophy (despite Marx's trenchant criticism) -- will be examined, and neutralised.]

Small wonder then that revolutionaries seek reassurance to the effect that the most fundamental laws of 'Being' are on the side of (or they are strongly pre-disposed toward) their cause. Such a commitment, once made, would be one to which comrades would desperately cling; few would want to cut the cord that bound them to their Dialectical Mother.

This is, of course, something that is predictable from Cognitive Dissonance theory. [On this, see the classical account in Festinger (1962), and Festinger et al (1956). There is a useful summary here.]

This syndrome was dramatised a few years ago in a 'true-to-life' film, Promised a Miracle (1988), the story of an evangelical couple who believed their diabetic son could be cured by faith alone. These two unfortunates continued to believe this even as he was dying, and they accounted for his apparently worsening condition by reasoning that the Devil was falsely creating certain symptoms to test their faith. Even after their son had died, they continued to believe he would come back to them on the fourth day (to mimic the return of Lazarus). The more their beliefs were shown to be mistaken by events, the more powerfully they believed the opposite.

In this case, their minds were controlled by one form of mysticism; DM-fans merely rely on a different brand of the same product.

In relation to the vehemently negative (if not arrogantly bigoted) attitude dialecticians almost invariably display toward contrary ideas, it is also worth consulting the work of Milton Rokeach on open and closed minds (which was itself partly based on Adorno's Authoritarian Personality -- i.e., Adorno (1994)); cf., Rokeach (1960).

Note 8 reads:


8. The UK-SWP 'Discovers' DM

The UK-SWP's 're-discovery' of DM is more recent, however. The line taken in Socialist Review in the early 1980s, for example, was that while there might be a dialectic operating in class society, there isn't one at work in nature.

As Ian Birchall put things:


"The trouble with…[the 'negation of the negation' and a 'dialectics of nature' -- RL] is that [they] oversimplif[y] and mystif[y]…. To derive the laws of dialectics from inanimate nature leads to denying the role of human agency in the historical process." [Birchall (1982), pp.27-28.]

Even Chris Harman did not think DM important enough to mention in print (as far as I am aware) until the late 1980s. For instance, in his reply to an article written by Alex Callinicos [Callinicos (1983b)], Harman largely restricted his use of the term "contradiction" to the following (adding other revisionary comments to Alex's take on Althusser):


"Contradiction then becomes contradiction inside capitalist society. The transformation of quantity into quality becomes the way in which bourgeois society itself throws up new elements it cannot control. The negation of the negation becomes the creation of a class by capitalist production which is driven to react back upon that production in a revolutionary way." [Harman (1983), pp.73-74.]

Harman was strangely silent about the 'dialectic' in nature in this article, as were Alex Callinicos and the late Peter Binns in the same debate. Harman pointedly restricted dialectics to human social development (which is an indefensible fall-back option, anyway, as I hope to show in a later Essay (until then, see here)). [Cf., Callinicos (1983b) and Binns (1982).]

This is quite inexplicable if we are now supposed to accept the current line that DM is central to Marxist Philosophy. Indeed, it is even more puzzling when it is recalled that Alex Callinicos had been severely critical of several core DM-theses in the book under discussion [i.e., Callinicos (1982)]. Comrades in the SWP-UK might not have noticed it, but WRP writers certainly picked up on this and laid into Callinicos's 'anti-Marxist heresies' with no little vehemence, as noted above. But, why didn't Peter Binns or Chris Harman spot these glaring dialectical infelicities in that work?

Furthermore, Tony Cliff's earlier work, as far as I am aware, does not mention DM, and his political biographies of Lenin and Trotsky are deafeningly silent on the issue.

In fact, as this thread confirms (specifically here), Cliff mentioned this execrable theory in print only 3 times in 60 years (and even then only in passing)!

[However, since writing the above, I have discovered a handful of references to dialectics (the 'materialist dialectics' version, applied to society, but not DM, applied to nature) in Cliff's classic book, Cliff (1988); on this see here. Even so, dialectical concepts are nowhere near as prominent in his work as they are in, say, Ted Grant's. (On the latter, see below.) However, I am assured by older members of the UK-SWP that Cliff used to lecture on DM in earlier decades -- but apparently he did not think it important enough to put these ideas into print. The point is that DM only became an overt mantra in SWP publications after 1984/5.]

The same goes for other SWP theorists. For example, Duncan Hallas does not mention this 'theory' at all in any of his writings. All this is rather odd if DM is as 'central' to SWP thought as some now maintain. Cf., Cliff (1975-79, 1982, 1988, 1989-93, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003); Hallas (1984).

[Correction: I have come across one mention of DM in Duncan's writings --, an article, oddly enough, on sectarianism! Anyway, he is merely quoting Trotsky, and does nothing with the term himself.]

The change in line was heralded by two short articles; one was written by Chris Harman and appeared in Socialist Review in 1988 [Cf., Harman (1988)], the other was authored by John Molyneux, and appeared in Socialist Worker (see below).

Since then, several other comrades have joined the stampede back to the ancient past: John Rees [Rees (1989, 1990, 1994, 1998, 2008)], John Molyneux [Molyneux (1987); see also his blog], Paul McGarr [McGarr (1990, 1994)], and Phil Gasper [Gasper (1998)] (although, now that the US wing (the ISO) of the IST has been expelled, Phil is no longer an SWP/IST-theorist!). Cf., also Paul Kellogg's review of a recent book on Engels, 'The Demon Marxist', and subsequent letters. See also my letter to the International Socialist Review, in response to an article by Brian Jones. [Jones (2008)]. Comrade Jones attempted to mount a weak and rather superficial defence of dialectics, to which I have replied here. [Readers need to be made aware of the fact that my response was based on a typed copy of comrade Jones's response to me posted at RevLeft by another comrade who made several typing errors. A more considered version of that reply has been published here.] A similar letter sent to Socialist Review by a supporter of this site was not published. It can be accessed here.

Even Alex Callinicos has softened his anti-DM stance of late. [Callinicos (1998) and (2006); on the latter, see here.] Before this, he had been openly critical of DM; see, for example, Callinicos (1976), pp.11-29; (1978), pp.135-84; (1982), pp.55, 112-19; (1983a), pp.54-56, 61-62; (1987), pp.52-53; (1989a), pp.2-5.

It is quite clear that the downturn in the movement since the 1970s has meant that the above comrades have felt a pressing need to enrol themselves on a sufficiently powerful Dialectical Methadone programme.

Mercifully, DM has yet to appear in Socialist Worker on a regular basis. As far as I am aware, it has only featured once in the paper in the last 20 years -- in an article written by John Molyneux (the reference for which I have unfortunately lost, although Petersen gives it as January 1984) -- subsequently reprinted in Molyneux (1987), pp.49-51. [Cf., Petersen (1994), p.158. Petersen also references a letter to Socialist Review written (by a comrade and old friend of mine, Paul Jakubovic), in response to Harman's article, pp.160-61.]

At one level, this is difficult to explain -- at another, the opposite is in fact the case. Given the fact that workers are 'supposed' to assent to DM readily when confronted with it, or they are said to use its concepts unwittingly/"unconsciously" all the time -- according to Trotsky --, this omission is highly puzzling, especially if DM is as central to revolutionary theory as SWP-theorists would now have us believe. Why then hasn't Socialist Worker assumed the Dialectical Mantle once worn so proudly by Newsline?

The answer to this is not difficult to work out. The editors of Socialist Worker are not idiots, unlike their counterparts at Newsline; they surely know that DM is a complete turn-off for workers. Even Socialist Review largely ignores this allegedly central tenet of Marxism -- probably for the same reason. [However, in November 2008, Socialist Review published an article on "Quantity and Quality" by John Rees (i.e., Rees (2008). More about that later.] But, if DM is to be brought to workers, how might this happen if their revolutionary press totally ignores it? It is not easy to see how DM could one day "seize the masses" if Socialist Worker omits all mention of it.

International Socialism now appears to be the only SWP publication 'radical' enough to expound DM-ideas. Admittedly, few workers read this otherwise excellent journal -- and that probably explains why the editors find they can (sometimes) retail dialectical theses there.

In addition, meetings at Marxism (the annual SWP theoretical conference) regularly discuss this 'theory'. [Some of this material can be found here. A report of the discussion of dialectics at Marxism 2007 can also be found here.]

This is less easy to explain -- except perhaps: this is probably a gesture toward orthodoxy. However, to be truthful, there are relatively few such meetings, and their content relates to little of the political content of other meetings (which, given the criticisms advanced here and in Part One, is not surprising). Nevertheless, the contrary view (i.e., anti-dialectics) is certainly not allowed adequate time to mount an effective case for the prosecution (or any at all).

[Added by a supporter of this site ('Nemesis'): At Marxism 1990, I was given two, three minute impromptu slots. It is only possible to make highly superficial points in such short intervals, ones which, because they challenge fundamental beliefs, are quite easy to dismiss. However, the level of argument in response to what I had said was lamentable; in fact it was difficult to believe that one comrade (Seth Harman) had listened to a word I had said, given the irrelevant comments he made. (Indeed, at the end after the meeting had finished, I put him on the spot by shouting across the auditorium: "Hey, Seth! Is that the best you can do?")

The main speaker (John Molyneux) even took it upon himself to interrupt me several times at the start of my first three minute spell, until I silenced him with a joke. In my opening remarks, I was in the middle of saying that my attack on DM was not an attack on HM, when he interjected loudly over the microphone that it was. I denied it. He re-asserted it. I denied it again. He re-asserted it once more. I then turned to the audience and said "There you go, comrades, a contradiction within the first thirty seconds!" The subsequent laughter drowned out any further response John thought to make.

However, the reception I received for my brief intervention (a loud and prolonged applause --, upon request, the audience even voted for me to be given an extra minute) suggested that there were many comrades in the SWP who held similar views to me. There is no way I'd experience such a reception these days.]

Of late (i.e., circa 2003-8), even International Socialism has dropped this hot topic (except for this article written by Chris Harman in his review of a recent book by Alex Callinicos, i.e., Harman (2007a), and possibly this one, too -- i.e., Harman (2007b)).

[Added March, 2009: See also Harman's comments about a recent article (by Carchedi) on Marx's mathematical manuscripts. Harman is clearly unaware of the serious flaws in Marx's analysis (as is Carchedi); on that, see here.]

This is probably because of the international situation brought on by a resurgence of US and UK Imperialism, and the massive anti-war response this has produced. It is hard to argue with newly radicalised youth that "Being is identical with but at the same time different from Nothing, the contradiction resolved in Becoming..." and hope to appear relevant.

And yet, one would have thought that this would have been an ideal opportunity to bring DM to the masses. In which case, it is even more difficult to explain why Socialist Worker is currently silent about DM. The masses are on the street, why isn't their paper informing them of John's universal masculinity, the friable fighting skills of Mamelukes, seeds which negate plants, and the logical tryst between 'Being' and 'Nothing' -- with 'Becoming' acting as a sort of metaphysical Cupid?

The question answers itself; DM is an irrelevance. [On that, see here.]

One should be able to predict that, as the recent wave of radicalisation declines, and as the fortunes of recently fragmented Respect, and the hastily-formed Left List, continue to fade, dialectics should rear its ugly head in SWP publications again. The above reappearance in International Socialism (and those recorded below) are an early conformation of this trend.

Hence, of late dialectics has re-surfaced in Socialist Worker! [The details can be found here.] Once more, this is probably a result of the fact that the UK-SWP has not made a significant political break-through, despite their prominent role in the UK Anti-war movement, and because the latter is in steep decline. Another example is a recent article on Engels by Simon Basketter. [Basketter (2008). I have already sent a letter into the paper about this -- we'll see if it's published. (No luck there, either. In fact, my e-mails have been blocked!)]

Idealism, too, (evidenced by this example of the 'triumph of the will') is once more on the rise, it seems!

[On that, see the discussion here, where usually saner and sober comrades are happy to eulogise the sort of stunt we normally associate with anarchists!]

I have omitted the many links there are in the original Essay, often, but not exclusively indicated by the use of the word "here".

More details, links and references here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2009_02.htm

[S.Artesian]

Hi Rosa,

Up early, I see.

Yes that's the correct site--

No the means of production and labor don't struggle with each other, because means of production and labor are not in and of themselves a social relation. The means of production organized as private property, with labor organized as wage-labor is a social relation.

Now capital and wage-labor struggle because of the social relation that defines both, proletariat and bougeoisie struggle based on the social relation that defines both.

Marx repeatedly makes this clear in Capital, all 3 volumes-- identifying time after time the specificity of the relationship, the historical development of the relationship, the necessity of this relationship so that industrial capital can exist as capital, as the expansion of value.

As the conflict between the means and relations of production, I don't know where or what you've read, but Capital, IMO,is about the tendencies inherent in capital for this conflict to erupt-- about the immanence of this conflict. For Marx it, the conflict manifests itself in several ways, overproduction, declining rates of profit etc.

It is in fact the conflict between means and relations of production that makes historical materialism, exactly that, historical materialism.

But anyway, you're repeating yourself, and I'm repeating myself, so look at the site, look through the archives, and see what you think.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S.Artesian:


No the means of production and labor don't struggle with each other, because means of production and labor are not in and of themselves a social relation. The means of production organized as private property, with labor organized as wage-labor is a social relation.

In fact, I alleged that, if this theory were correct (as it is outlined in the dialectical classics), then the means of production should 'struggle' with social labour.

If, as you now say, they don't, then they can't be part of a 'dialectical contradiction'.


Now capital and wage-labor struggle because of the social relation that defines both, proletariat and bougeoisie struggle based on the social relation that defines both.

Marx repeatedly makes this clear in Capital, all 3 volumes-- identifying time after time the specificity of the relationship, the historical development of the relationship, the necessity of this relationship so that industrial capital can exist as capital, as the expansion of value.

As the conflict between the means and relations of production, I don't know where or what you've read, but Capital, IMO,is about the tendencies inherent in capital for this conflict to erupt-- about the immanence of this conflict. For Marx it, the conflict manifests itself in several ways, overproduction, declining rates of profit etc.

And yet, like so many others with whom I have debated this over the last 25 years, you neglect to say why this is a contradiction.


But anyway, you're repeating yourself, and I'm repeating myself

But, you have not heard my ideas before (whereas I have heard your side so many times the ink is beginning to fade), and many are just bouncing off you without response, so I have to repeat them.

Moreover, most of my comments above are not a repetition, but a direct response to questions you have asked, or points you have raised.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Ok, I read this page:

http://thewolfatthedoor.blogspot.com/2009/09/accumulationdecomposition-in-epoch-of.html

And could not see a single dialectical concept anywhere in sight.

[S.Artesian]

Rosa,

Reading your reply through a second time, I really have to take some exception to the method of your argument. It appears to me that you have no trouble reviewing, rephrasing, refreshing your comments on a single passage written by Marx numerous times when you find in that passage an item that supports what you want to say, but here when I point out how Marx credited Hegel with the first comprehensive and conscious presentation of dialectics in response to your comment of "selective quoting" then you've commented more times than you care to and its time to move on.

"Look, I have commented on this passage more times than I care to mention in threads here -- in the links I added earlier."


Then you say that Marx was right, it's the distorted language of traditional philosophy that prevents Hegel from... from what? Making the first comprehensive and conscious presentation of dialectic. But Marx doesn't say that. He doesn't say any language prevented Hegel from making that presentation. He says Hegel did make exactly that presentation.

"Ok, here we go again, for the fiftieth time: Marx is right, this mystification is not what prevents Hegel from doing this, what does prevent him is this"

Then we go from parsing words to parsing... commas. Come on, this is too much. He said he coquetted here and there in the chapter on value with forms of expression peculiar to Hegel. He does not say what you say he says. He does not say what you would like him to say. He wrote what he wrote.

And so when Marx talks about the contradictions inherent in capital, he is 17 or 15 years later still coquetting? Just fooling around with the terms? Just trying to "scare" the bourgeoisie. Sure, that all sounds just like Marx-- fooling around with terms when describing capital's movement through its cycles.

I think it's a pity in response to my request to see a specific concrete analysis, you say yours or an anti-dialectical Marxist's will not be so different from that of a dialectical Marxist. I find that to be more than a pity, I find it to be troubling. It's a pity because I think the problem with most Marxists isn't their romance with dialectics, their use of that language, I think the problem is that their Marxism stinks; I think that their concrete analysis of the movement, direction, of capital, of class conflict is terrible.

I think, and I think we agree, they hide in that language and use it as token, a totem, of authority when in reality, and I do mean reality, they literally don't know not only what they're talking about, they don't know what Marx is talking about. And yet if your concrete analysis isn't all that much different from theirs............ well the conclusion one draws is painfully obvious.

I find it troubling that you could at one and the same time make such a strong case that the romance with dialectics, the use of the tortured vocabulary of DM-- and I am in total agreement, they torture the vocabulary-- seeps into Marxism with the defeat of revolutionary struggle, and still maintain that your anti-dialectical Marxism will produce a concrete analysis not qualitatively, substantially different from that produced by those who embody in their "philosophy," their language, their politics that defeat of revolutionary struggle.


But... but I sure like thrashing this out with you.

[S.Artesian]

And could not see a single dialectical concept anywhere in sight.[/QUOTE]

__________________

If I had a heart, I would be heartbroken. If I had feelings, they'd be hurt. Humor me, comrade. Read more than one page. Take your time. Read the earlier pages. Read the series called "Pimp My Assets" or the series on Venezuela or Brazil... and if you still don't see a single dialectical concept... please don't tell anyone?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S.Artesian:


Reading your reply through a second time, I really have to take some exception to the method of your argument. It appears to me that you have no trouble reviewing, rephrasing, refreshing your comments on a single passage written by Marx numerous times when you find in that passage an item that supports what you want to say, but here when I point out how Marx credited Hegel with the first comprehensive and conscious presentation of dialectics in response to your comment of "selective quoting" then you've commented more times than you care to and its time to move on.

Well, I am trying to challenge the 'orthodox' view of Marx and Hegel, and in order to do that, I have to re-interpret what he says to try to break you from it.

I begin with his summary of what he says is 'his method', a summary most comrades ignore or explain away -- as I think you do.

This summary puts paid to all your speculation about what Marx might have meant, or did mean. Hence, I refer back to it many times -- since you keep ignoring it.

The other passages I interpret in the light of that passage, since Marx (not me) pointedly calls it 'his method'.

What more can I tell you?


Then you say that Marx was right, it's the distorted language of traditional philosophy that prevents Hegel from... from what? Making the first comprehensive and conscious presentation of dialectic. But Marx doesn't say that. He doesn't say any language prevented Hegel from making that presentation. He says Hegel did make exactly that presentation.

I thought that was obvious, since I posted that in reply to a question you posed: it prevents him from being the first to present the 'dialectic' in a rational form.

Indeed Marx did not say this in Das Kapital, but his own summary of 'his method', the 'dialectic method', contains not one atom of Hegel, so Hegel cannot have been the first to present 'the dialectic' in a rational form. Indeed, Hegel didn't, since it is impossible to make sense of what Hegel said -- upside down, or the 'right way up'.

So, we look for other reasons why Marx might have said this, and his general comment on German Philosophy (from The German ideology) provides us with a clue: Hegel used distorted language to generate his 'theory'.

I explain this process here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2003_01.htm

I have summarised it here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Outline_of_errors_Hegel_committed_01.htm


Then we go from parsing words to parsing... commas. Come on, this is too much. He said he coquetted here and there in the chapter on value with forms of expression peculiar to Hegel. He does not say what you say he says. He does not say what you would like him to say. He wrote what he wrote.

And yet that comma changes the import of this passage. You can ignore it if you want, but I won't. Perhaps you think I put it in there?


And so when Marx talks about the contradictions inherent in capital, he is 17 or 15 years later still coquetting? Just fooling around with the terms? Just trying to "scare" the bourgeoisie. Sure, that all sounds just like Marx-- fooling around with terms when describing capital's movement through its cycles.

Well you keep helping yourself to the word 'contradiction', when it is far from clear what you mean by this word.

No wonder Marx 'coquetted' with it. And yes, he was still 'coquetting' 17 years later -- or do you think that Marx would do this in his most important book in the 1860s, and then resile from that in his dotage (with no evidence that he did)?


I think it's a pity in response to my request to see a specific concrete analysis, you say yours or an anti-dialectical Marxist's will not be so different from that of a dialectical Marxist. I find that to be more than a pity, I find it to be troubling. It's a pity because I think the problem with most Marxists isn't their romance with dialectics, their use of that language, I think the problem is that their Marxism stinks; I think that their concrete analysis of the movement, direction, of capital, of class conflict is terrible.

Well, your analysis did not seem to use any dialectics either, so why you point fingers at me is rather puzzling.


I think, and I think we agree, they hide in that language and use it as token, a totem, of authority when in reality, and I do mean reality, they literally don't know not only what they're talking about, they don't know what Marx is talking about. And yet if your concrete analysis isn't all that much different from theirs............ well the conclusion one draws is painfully obvious.

I am sorry, you have lost me here.


I find it troubling that you could at one and the same time make such a strong case that the romance with dialectics, the use of the tortured vocabulary of DM-- and I am in total agreement, they torture the vocabulary-- seeps into Marxism with the defeat of revolutionary struggle, and still maintain that your anti-dialectical Marxism will produce a concrete analysis not qualitatively, substantially different from that produced by those who embody in their "philosophy," their language, their politics that defeat of revolutionary struggle.

And yet, we have yet to see how this 'philosophy' helps in any way produce a 'concrete analysis' -- other than add a few obscure terms as a gesture toward 'orthodoxy' or 'tradition'.

The 'dialectical method' you eulogise does no real work. Drop it then.


But... but I sure like thrashing this out with you.

Maybe so, but that is because it is new to you. I have had these sorts of discussions literally hundreds of times over the last 25 years, and I now find them excrutiatingly boring. This is because they invariably take the same course -- in fact, as this discussion progressed, I could have predicted what you would say, since others have said more-or-less the same things here in the scores of threads where we have debated this over the last four years, and elsewhere where I have discussed this dreary and useless 'theory'.

So, I am not enjoying this at all.

[S.Artesian]

OK you're not enjoying this at all. By the way it's Marx "who is helping" himself to the world contradiction. You don't understand why wage-labor and capital are contradictory identities? That's because you want a definition that agrees with formal logic.

But for Marx's dialectic the contradiction is not of the type "black, white" "up, down" but rather the contradiction is in the social relationship as I said before where each exists only in the organization of the other; where one exists through selling its labor power as wage-labor, and the other exists through its expropriation.

Since you don't enjoy this, I'll drop. Bottom line here is that you've put out more than million words which say "Down with Hegel" that, by your own admission, make no substantive difference to the Marxism as practiced by those who claim to be connected to Hegel.

[Louise Michel]

Since you don't enjoy this, I'll drop.

Oh no! Too late, he's gone and I have at least one question for him. :(

Actually this thread was in my mind aimed at supporters of DM. But I suppose the question is just as relevant for Rosa.

DM suggests that there is a process of historical development that is working away inexorably behind the scenes. So once you have human civilization of any sort it must inevitably develop through certain modes of production to capitalism and open the door to socialism (providing the planet is not hit by an asteroid). So where does this mechanism come from? Or am I mistaken?

Also, regardless of whether Marx used the dialectic, (this textual argument is a bit too religious for my taste), he does seem to have looked back at history and found a mechanism whereby societies give birth to social classes that overthrow the existing order and usher in the next mode of production. That mechanism is driven by the 'fact' that every form of human organization seeks to maximise it's productive potential. When the social relations become a 'fetter' on the development of the means of production (meaning that the emerging new ruling class is being sat on by the existing rulers) revolution occurs and the new society is created.

So is there clockwork mechanism sitting behind human development (be it the negation of the negation or whatever) or is it conceivable that human development could have got stuck in slave society and advanced no further?

Rosa,


Do you know any revolutionaries? By-and-large they are like sheep, who have been programmed in many cases not to think for themselves when it comes to dialectics. You only have to look at the b*llocks intelligent comrades here defend and accept (in say the Dialectical Materialism Group, or in threads here expressing their views) to see how they all say the same things when it comes to this theory, like 'I Speak Your Weight Machines'.

Now, it will take social psychologists to account fully for this phenomenon (I am not one, so I can only do the best I can), but integral to this will be the intellectual capitulation these dialectical clones all show toward this theory, and to 'tradition'.

Insulting people is not a good way to influence them. I think a lot of people here are at pretty early stages in their learning process and the existence of two hardened camps rather than a group of people who really exchange and listen to each other retards the capacity to learn

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S.Artesian:


By the way it's Marx "who is helping" himself to the world contradiction. You don't understand why wage-labor and capital are contradictory identities? That's because you want a definition that agrees with formal logic.

1) Marx, on his own admission, was 'coquetting' with this word. Are you, therefore, 'coquetting' with it? If not, then you are helping yourself to it.

2) Where have I asked for a definition?


But for Marx's dialectic the contradiction is not of the type "black, white" "up, down" but rather the contradiction is in the social relationship as I said before where each exists only in the organization of the other; where one exists through selling its labor power as wage-labor, and the other exists through its expropriation.

Why is this a 'contradiction', as opposed to a tautology, or a conjunction, or a disjunction, or a preposition, or a...?

All you have done is glue the word "contradiction" to some other words, when there is no connection between this use of the word, and its use anywhere else.

Now, if this is a special sense of the word, fine. But, what is it? We have yet to be told.

In fact, we already know why this word is being used; it is because Hegel used it, and he used it as a result of his criticism of what he took to be the formal logic of his day. But, Hegel screwed up. He 'derived' his 'contradiction' from what he called the negative form of the so-called 'law' of identity', which he said was the same as the 'law of non-contradiction'. But it isn't, and no amount of tinkering can make them the same.

This is because, the 'law of identity' concerns the supposed relation of an object to itself, whereas the 'law of non-contradiction' concerns the truth-functional connection between a proposition and its negation. It's not about identity. It can only be linked with identity if propositions are confused with objects. But, no object is a proposition, nor vice versa.

Now, this is the only solid rationale Hegel gave for this 'derivation'; his other attempt to give a reason was simply an example of a priori dogma (about universal change -- an idea pinched from Heraclitus, who, on the basis of a badly executed 'thought experiment' about stepping into a river, 'derived' a thesis about the entire universe, true for all of space and time!).

In that case, there are no good reasons for this use of this word, and if that is so, the importation into Marxism of this word is entirely without rationale, and its continuous use is merely an affectation toward 'tradition'. The word does no work, and no one who uses it can tell us what work it does in fact do. Not even you can!

I have explained all this in detail here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2003_01.htm

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2008_03.htm

You can find a summary here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Outline_of_errors_Hegel_committed_01.htm

And this is not surprising, for the use of this word would in fact make change impossible:

Quotes:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1401000&postcount=76

Argument:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1401001&postcount=77

The defective 'logic' Hegel used to try to account for change, in fact makes change impossible!

No wonder you find it difficult to explain this word.


Since you don't enjoy this, I'll drop. Bottom line here is that you've put out more than million words which say "Down with Hegel" that, by your own admission, make no substantive difference to the Marxism as practiced by those who claim to be connected to Hegel.

That is not so; Dialectical Marxism is a long-term failure. This can partly be put down to the use of this ruling-class, and confused 'theory'.

And, for every word I have written against Hegel and this 'theory', there are literally thousands of, largely repetitive words, in their favour. So, I am rather parsimonious in comparison.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Louise:


DM suggests that there is a process of historical development that is working away inexorably behind the scenes. So once you have human civilization of any sort it must inevitably develop through certain modes of production to capitalism and open the door to socialism (providing the planet is not hit by an asteroid). So where does this mechanism come from? Or am I mistaken?

I think you are confusing Historical Materialism [HM] with Dialectical Materialism [DM]. The above is HM, not DM

The driving force here is the inter-connection between human beings, the social forms they throw up as a result and the means by which they attempt to keep themselves alive and reproduce the next generation.

There is thus no mystery in HM.

There is one if DM is thrown into the mix.


So is there clockwork mechanism sitting behind human development (be it the negation of the negation or whatever) or is it conceivable that human development could have got stuck in slave society and advanced no further?

This is where traditional, ruling-class thought shows its ugly face. As I have explained here before, in a slightly different context -- I wrote this in answer to the question: Why is DM a world-theory? I think you have seen it before:


There are two interconnected reasons, I think.

1) The founders of this quasi-religion weren't workers; they came from a class that educated their children in the classics and in philosophy. This tradition taught that behind appearances there is a hidden world, accessible to thought alone, which is more real than the material universe we see around us.

This way of seeing things was invented by ideologues of the ruling class, who viewed reality this way. They invented it because if you belong to, benefit from or help run a society which is based on gross inequality, oppression and exploitation, you can keep order in several ways.

The first and most obvious way is through violence. This will work for a time, but it is not only fraught with danger, it is costly and it stifles innovation (among other things).

Another way is to persuade the majority (or a significant section of "opinion formers" and administrators, at least) that the present order either works for their benefit, is ordained of the 'gods', or that it is 'natural' and cannot be fought, reformed or negotiated with.

Hence, a world-view is necessary for the ruling-class to carry on ruling in the same old way. While the content of this ruling ideology may have changed with each change in the mode of production, its form has remained largely the same for thousands of years: Ultimate Truth is ascertainable by thought alone, and it can therefore be imposed on reality dogmatically.

So, these non-worker founders of our movement, who had been educated to believe there was this hidden world that governed everything, looked for principles in that invisible world that told them that change was inevitable, and part of the cosmic order. Enter dialectics, courtesy of the dogmatic ideas of a ruling-class mystic called Hegel.

2) That allowed the founders of this quasi-religion to think of themselves as special, as prophets of the new order, which workers, alas, could not quite grasp because of their defective education and reliance on ordinary language and 'common sense'.

Fortunately, history had predisposed these prophets to ascertain the truth about reality for them, which meant they were their 'naturally-ordained' leaders. That in turn meant these 'leaders' were also teachers of the 'ignorant masses', who could thus legitimately substitute themselves for the unwashed majority -- in 'their own interests', you understand, since the masses were too caught up in 'commodity fetishism' to see the truth for themselves.

And that is why DM is a world-view.

It is also why dialecticians cling on to this theory like grim death (and become very emotional (and abusive!) when it is attacked by yours truly), since it provides them with a source of consolation that, despite outward appearances to the contrary, and because this hidden world tells them that dialectical Marxism will one day be a success, everything is in fact peachy, and nothing in the core theory needs changing -- in spite of the fact that that core theory says everything changes! Hence, it is ossified into a dogma, and imposed on reality. A rather nice unity of opposites for you to ponder.

So, this 'theory' insulates the militant mind from the facts.

In that case:

Dialectics is the sigh of the depressed dialectician, the heart of a heartless world. It is the opiate of the party. The abolition of dialectics as the illusory happiness of the party hack is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.

Unfortunately, these sad characters will need (materialist) workers to rescue them from themselves.

The 'below the surface' and the 'behind appearances' metaphors are dead give-aways.

As I note in Essay Twelve (the asterisks indicate ideas that I will be expanding on in later Essays -- I have also omitted the links, often indicated by the use of the word "here"):


The "below the surface" metaphor is misleading too. No one supposes that if we scratched away at the surface of material objects, their "essences" would become apparent, or that if we possessed senses vastly superior to those we now have, we would be able to see/sense abstractions, for example. Indeed, as Leibniz noted, even if we were to shrink down to the size of atoms, we would still not be able to see/sense 'thoughts', or the formal properties of bodies -- or the necessities metaphysicians tell us are 'really' there, forever mocking our senses.

In that case, what does this metaphor actually imply? After 2400 years, we are still not too clear.

However, in response, dialecticians sometimes point us toward this passage from Volume Three of Das Kapital:


"Vulgar economy actually does no more than interpret, systematise and defend in doctrinaire fashion the conceptions of the agents of bourgeois production who are entrapped in bourgeois production relations. It should not astonish us, then, that vulgar economy feels particularly at home in the estranged outward appearances of economic relations in which these prima facie absurd and perfect contradictions appear and that these relations seem the more self-evident the more their internal relationships are concealed from it, although they are understandable to the popular mind. But all science would be superfluous if the outward appearance and the essence of things directly coincided." [Marx (1981), p.956. Bold emphasis added.]

(1) First of all Marx is here arguing with "vulgar economists" who fail to examine the economy beyond its superficialities, neglecting the relations between the elements of production and exchange, etc. [Marx's criticism will not be challenged here (or anywhere else for that matter).] But in what way do these 'realities' lie 'under the surface', or behind "outward appearances"?

Well, whatever the answer to that one is, all that Marx in fact did in response was to re-orientate his analysis so that it included wider social and historical factors, those which were also available to theorists not ideologically-transfixed by atomistic theories of language, the economy, individuals and society. In other words, Marx proposed the use of a different grammar to depict the economy. This is nothing new; all major innovations in science do the same.* This is not, therefore, to go deeper, but to go social -- exactly the approach suggested here.

[On this, see the admissions Lee Smolin makes in Smolin (2006). To those who think this threatens 'objectivity', all I can say is, suspend judgement until later.*]

(2) Second, as a general description of science, this is far too vague. But, this is not to criticise Marx, for he was not intending to write a treatise on the nature of science here. It is all too easy therefore to read too much into this passage.

(3) Finally, even if we take it at its face value, it makes little sense (more on that presently); in that case it cannot help us in our quest to understand this metaphor --, except we read it in the way indicated in Point (1) above. If essence is given by grammar (as Wittgenstein argued), this will provide us with a way of comprehending this figure of speech, one that does not slide back into the usual Idealist quagmire.

Nevertheless, this metaphor is clearly connected to the ancient idea that nature "hides herself", a doctrine invented, as far as we know, by Heraclitus:

"Nature loves to conceal herself."


Although Kirk and Raven render this passage rather stiltedly thus:

"The real constitution is accustomed to hide itself." [Kirk and Raven (1999), p.192.]

This idea has dominated traditional thinking ever since. On this see Eamonn (1994) -- although, as Eamonn points out, materialistically-orientated scientists from the Seventeenth Century onward sought to overthrow this view of nature. By way of contrast, it is equally apparent that the tradition that derives from Hegelian Natürphilosophie resisted this modernising move. [More on that in Essay Fourteen (summary here), and in later Parts of this Essay.]

[On this, see also the detailed analysis in Daston and Galison (2007) of the change that took place only relatively recently in the meaning of the word "objective", which replaced the earlier phrase "true to nature".]

Hence, it is quite clear that the usual way of reading this metaphor is based on the view that there is a hidden (or, as we might now say, an a priori) structure to reality accessible to thought alone.

This is connected with the appearance/reality distinction, as Van Inwagen notes:

[QUOTE]"The best approach to understanding what is meant by 'metaphysics' is by way of the concepts of appearance and reality. It is a commonplace that the way things seem to be is often not the way they are, that the way things apparently are is often not the way they really are. The sun apparently moves across the sky -- but not really. The moon seems larger when it is near the horizon -- but its size never really changes. We might say that one is engaged in 'metaphysics' if one is attempting to get behind all appearances and to describe things as they really are." [Van Inwagen (1998), p.11. Bold emphasis added.]

This means that the aspiring metaphysician must use language and 'thought' to go where our material senses cannot take us. Naturally, this puts the entire endeavour in Idealist territory.

[But is it really Metaphysics that tells us that the Sun is not the same size as the Moon? If it were, then we would have no need of science. Of course, as Van Inwagen notes, the salient point is that it is the attempt to get behind "all appearances" that is metaphysical.]

But, materialists need not go along with any of this. Why that is so was discussed in detail in Essay Three Part Two; hence no more will be said about it here.

Clearly, too, this raises complex issues connected with the nature of scientific knowledge, which will be tackled elsewhere.*

So, the best that can be made of Marx's use of this metaphor (if we want to absolve him of mysticism and of indulging in Idealist Metaphysics) is to read it naturalistically. That is, if bourgeois economic science views the world superficially, and ideologically, then no wonder it misses essential features of the economy. And by "essential features" I mean those that are necessary to understand it aright -- using the concepts and "forms of representation" found in HM. Now, since the latter concepts are based on, and are consonant with, ordinary/material language, and arise out of a study of the development of our species (with its class divisions and relations of production, etc., etc.), and which connect with our materially-based "forms of life" (indeed, they have arisen out of them), and finally since "essence is expressed by grammar" (as Wittgenstein believed), this interpretation enables us to so rescue Marx.

Now, I am not suggesting that Marx would have put things this way, or even that he'd have agreed with it (but that is certainly possible), but it is the way I view these words and this metaphor, and for the reasons given.

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2012_01.htm

Louise:


Insulting people is not a good way to influence them. I think a lot of people here are at pretty early stages in their learning process and the existence of two hardened camps rather than a group of people who really exchange and listen to each other retards the capacity to learn

I am sorry, but the hardened dialecticians here, to whom I am referring, are like sheep. If the expression of that view puts people off my ideas, so be it.

[Louise Michel]

Rosa,

I think the second long quote above beginning ...


The "below the surface" metaphor is misleading too.

... is where the confusion lies so far as distinguishing between what you mean by HM and what many mean by DM although I would guess that some people who talk about DM probably don't view the world too differently than yourself.

Social development through various modes of production in both DM and HM is similar in that there's an inevitability about the process (I'm using the terms in the way I understand you to use them but of course I could be wrong!) and this similarity makes the two things difficult to distinguish to the untrained eye.

In HM social change is driven by a mixture of materially visible social relations and biological needs. In DM social change results from the clash of opposites or the negation of the negation etc. and these are abstract, metaphysical categories that cannot be seen or identified and are imposed on the real world by political leaders or writers.

In Marx there is a lot of talk about what lies behind appearances. For example in his discussion of a commodity (use value and exchange value) or capital as a social relation or alienation but he's referring to identifiable social relations that are generally not seen but are available to everybody - "let those who have eyes to see, see :cool:" - whereas DM is describing an essence or a relationship (contradiction) that can never be concretely identified.

Okay, makes sense to me so far though I'm not sure I accept the inevitability of human development. That however is a different subject.


I am sorry, but the hardened dialecticians here, to whom I am referring, are like sheep. If the expression of that view puts people off my ideas, so be it.

It's up to you but it means that the several hundred people who routinely view these threads and never comment often have to pick their way through an exchange of insults and this really does obscure the real issues. I'm not trying to imply it's just you that's at fault, or that you are primarily responsible, I don't know and don't care, but it's a rather sorry situation.

[S.Artesian]

Rosa,

You said you find the discussion excruciatingly boring. In your post to me offline, you stated we don't have anything say to each other. I've dropped the issue. I've no interest in pursuing dialogue, debate, discussion with somebody who thinks we have nothing to say with each other.

Should you, however, actually ever have anything to say about capital, and capitalism, should you ever produce, or attempt to produce a substantive inquiry into an actual historical development, should you ever quit talking about historical materialism and actually demonstrate historical materialism, I'd be happy to engage in a discussion regarding such substantive work.

Until that time, Rosa, I'm afraid your work becomes exactly what you criticize-- hermetic.

[Louise Michel]

S.Artesian - perhaps you could answer my question? You and Rosa can ignore each other. :cool:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S. Artesian:


Rosa,

You said you find the discussion excruciatingly boring. In your post to me offline, you stated we don't have anything say to each other. I've dropped the issue. I've no interest in pursuing dialogue, debate, discussion with somebody who thinks we have nothing to say with each other.

Should you, however, actually ever have anything to say about capital, and capitalism, should you ever produce, or attempt to produce a substantive inquiry into an actual historical development, should you ever quit talking about historical materialism and actually demonstrate historical materialism, I'd be happy to engage in a discussion regarding such substantive work.

No need for me to do so, Marx did a pretty good job for us.


Until that time, Rosa, I'm afraid your work becomes exactly what you criticize-- hermetic.

Well, I'd rather be hermetic in the everyday sense (i.e., closed off, and sealed) than in the sense that applies to dialectics -- i.e., appertaining to the sort of Hermetic Philosophy Hegel inflicted on humanity:

http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/en/magee.htm

However, you might be interested in the reply (I have just posted) to Leonard Kosloff, whose rather weak reply to me seemed to impress you:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/replies_to_two_critics.htm

I also respond to Richard Levins in that reply.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Louise, I will reply to you later; I have just spent the last 36 hours -- no exaggeration -- swatting assorted Dialectical Mystics around the globe, and I am a little knackered right now.

[Louise Michel]

Rosa

Get some rest. And try not to work at the same time or you may find yourself having to negate the negation and who knows what might happen next :lol:

[S.Artesian]

[QUOTE=Rosa Lichtenstein;1562472]S. Artesian:



No need for me to do so, Marx did a pretty good job for us.
__________________


Well, clearly we've reached the point where it's all about getting the last word, and I am more than willing, based on your statement above, to let that be the last word.

In my response to my suggestion that you actually demonstrate, apply historical materialism to the concrete world, you respond "No need for me to do so, Marx did a pretty good job for us."

So no need to analyze what's going on in China, India, Brazil, France, South Korea. No need to analyze and explain the role of OPEC and oil prices in capitalism over the last 35 years. Absolutely no need to trace, draw the connections between the current predicament of capital and overproduction and to demonstrate where the rate of profit has fallen. There's no need to do any of that, because Marx, who's been dead since slavery was abolished in Cuba already did it.

And if he didn't, then the very groups and people who's Marxism is so tainted with defeated, so shackled by allegiance to Hegel will do it, and Rosa's Marxism is not substantively different.

There you have it-- a million + words in essentially an academic exercise, with no practical import to Marxism and therefore to the class struggle.

Well Rosa, all I can say is that you have developed quite a liberal philosophy. And you know how Hegel described liberalism? As the philosophy of the abstract that capitulates to the world of the concrete.

Your last words-- "no need to.." Priceless.

Swatting dialectical materialists around the globe? With what? Hot air?

Louise, I will be more than happy to answer your questions offline. I really don't care to stay on this thread.

[Louise Michel]

Louise, I will be more than happy to answer your questions offline. I really don't care to stay on this thread.

I think it's of greater value if it's done in public. All I really need is an example or two of a dialectical contradiction or a practical example of the negation of the negation. This should not be too difficult to do, should it?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Louise:


... is where the confusion lies so far as distinguishing between what you mean by HM and what many mean by DM although I would guess that some people who talk about DM probably don't view the world too differently than yourself.

Long and bitter experience has taught me that they do.


Social development through various modes of production in both DM and HM is similar in that there's an inevitability about the process (I'm using the terms in the way I understand you to use them but of course I could be wrong!) and this similarity makes the two things difficult to distinguish to the untrained eye.

Well, there is no inevitability in HM; this is what Marx and Engels said in the Communist Manifesto:


"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."

But, I think it is possibe to show that DM implies inevitability.


In Marx there is a lot of talk about what lies behind appearances. For example in his discussion of a commodity (use value and exchange value) or capital as a social relation or alienation but he's referring to identifiable social relations that are generally not seen but are available to everybody - "let those who have eyes to see, see " - whereas DM is describing an essence or a relationship (contradiction) that can never be concretely identified.

I thought I explained this metaphor in my previous post.


It's up to you but it means that the several hundred people who routinely view these threads and never comment often have to pick their way through an exchange of insults and this really does obscure the real issues. I'm not trying to imply it's just you that's at fault, or that you are primarily responsible, I don't know and don't care, but it's a rather sorry situation.

Well, my experience is that my forthright approach endears me to as many as it alienates. Anyway, I am not interested in convincing shrinking violets.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S.Artesian:


Well, clearly we've reached the point where it's all about getting the last word, and I am more than willing, based on your statement above, to let that be the last word.

It's not a matter of the last word, but who is prepared to fight to the end for their ideas.


In my response to my suggestion that you actually demonstrate, apply historical materialism to the concrete world, you respond "No need for me to do so, Marx did a pretty good job for us."

So no need to analyze what's going on in China, India, Brazil, France, South Korea. No need to analyze and explain the role of OPEC and oil prices in capitalism over the last 35 years. Absolutely no need to trace, draw the connections between the current predicament of capital and overproduction and to demonstrate where the rate of profit has fallen. There's no need to do any of that, because Marx, who's been dead since slavery was abolished in Cuba already did it.

The former does not imply the latter.

However, since my political stance is 99.999% in agreement with the UK-SWP, I am happy to refer you to their work if you are having problems understanding the world. Their excellent analyses in fact save me the job of duplicating their HM-it for your benefit, freeing me up to attack the Hermetic ideas that have colonised far too many radical minds.


And if he didn't, then the very groups and people who's Marxism is so tainted with defeated, so shackled by allegiance to Hegel will do it, and Rosa's Marxism is not substantively different.

You can comfort yourself with that thought if it helps you through the day.

The result is, however, quite different. But, I think I have helped you enough as it is. You will have to work this one out for yourself.


There you have it-- a million + words in essentially an academic exercise, with no practical import to Marxism and therefore to the class struggle.

You clearly did not read this post of mine from earlier (the relevant comment is at the end, but the preamble sets it in context):


1) The founders of this quasi-religion [DM] weren't workers; they came from a class that educated their children in the classics and in philosophy. This tradition taught that behind appearances there is a hidden world, accessible to thought alone, which is more real than the material universe we see around us.

This way of seeing things was invented by ideologues of the ruling class, who viewed reality this way. They invented it because if you belong to, benefit from or help run a society which is based on gross inequality, oppression and exploitation, you can keep order in several ways.

The first and most obvious way is through violence. This will work for a time, but it is not only fraught with danger, it is costly and it stifles innovation (among other things).

Another way is to persuade the majority (or a significant section of "opinion formers" and administrators, at least) that the present order either works for their benefit, is ordained of the 'gods', or that it is 'natural' and cannot be fought, reformed or negotiated with.

Hence, a world-view is necessary for the ruling-class to carry on ruling in the same old way. While the content of this ruling ideology may have changed with each change in the mode of production, its form has remained largely the same for thousands of years: Ultimate Truth is ascertainable by thought alone, and it can therefore be imposed on reality dogmatically.

So, these non-worker founders of our movement, who had been educated to believe there was this hidden world that governed everything, looked for principles in that invisible world that told them that change was inevitable, and part of the cosmic order. Enter dialectics, courtesy of the dogmatic ideas of a ruling-class mystic called Hegel.

2) That allowed the founders of this quasi-religion to think of themselves as special, as prophets of the new order, which workers, alas, could not quite grasp because of their defective education and reliance on ordinary language and 'common sense'.

Fortunately, history had predisposed these prophets to ascertain the truth about reality for them, which meant they were their 'naturally-ordained' leaders. That in turn meant these 'leaders' were also teachers of the 'ignorant masses', who could thus legitimately substitute themselves for the unwashed majority -- in 'their own interests', you understand, since the masses were too caught up in 'commodity fetishism' to see the truth for themselves.

And that is why DM is a world-view.

It is also why dialecticians cling on to this theory like grim death (and become very emotional (and abusive!) when it is attacked by yours truly), since it provides them with a source of consolation that, despite outward appearances to the contrary, and because this hidden world tells them that dialectical Marxism will one day be a success, everything is in fact peachy, and nothing in the core theory needs changing -- in spite of the fact that that core theory says everything changes! Hence, it is ossified into a dogma, and imposed on reality. A rather nice unity of opposites for you to ponder.

So, this 'theory' insulates the militant mind from the facts.

In that case:

Dialectics is the sigh of the depressed dialectician, the heart of a heartless world. It is the opiate of the party. The abolition of dialectics as the illusory happiness of the party hack is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.

Unfortunately, these sad characters will need (materialist) workers to rescue them from themselves.

So, I freely admit that I am wasting my time when it comes to persuading Dialectical Mystics, since they hold on to this creed for non-rational reasons. As a materialist I know that argument can no more sway them than it can sway the religious.

But, whether it will have any impact on the class struggle, neither of us can say -- but I am no less happy to leave that to circumstances.


Well Rosa, all I can say is that you have developed quite a liberal philosophy. And you know how Hegel described liberalism? As the philosophy of the abstract that capitulates to the world of the concrete.

Maybe so, maybe not; but either way, I prefer to be as I am than sell my radical soul for a mess of Hermetic, ruling-class pottage (which does not even deliver what was promised!), as you have done.


Your last words-- "no need to.." Priceless.

Indeed, nearly as priceless as your class-compromised musings.


Swatting dialectical materialists around the globe? With what? Hot air?

If so, then you have shown a remarkable fondness up until recently for reading my 'hot air'. What that says about you I will leave for others to decide. I will merely note that you have ('coincidentally') taken this adverse turn only after I refused to flatter your ego any more. Up until a few hours ago, you were oozing false charm:


But... but I sure like thrashing this out with you.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1562180&postcount=55


I really don't care to stay on this thread.

And don't come back...

[Luís Henrique]

I think it's of greater value if it's done in public. All I really need is an example or two of a dialectical contradiction or a practical example of the negation of the negation. This should not be too difficult to do, should it?

An example of a dialectical contradiction.

The capitalist mode of production entails, in a systematic way, the development of productive forces, in such a way that the proportion of constant capital to variable capital always grows. However, since it is variable capital that, being employed in the buying of labour power, produces surplus value, the development of capitalism destroys its material base, ie, the production of value.

Luís Henrique

[S.Artesian]

Louise,

Marx states clearly in the preface to the 2nd edition that he uses dialectic, his dialectic is the opposite of Hegel's; his dialectic has extracted the rational kernel; the capital's cycles are the product of its inherent contradictions.

The question you are really asking is what does Marx consider to be the inherent contradictions of capital?

1. The primary, genetic, inherent, contradiction is the social relation of production established between wage-labor and capital. Each exists in the organization of the other. Capital represents the accumulated, dead labor, of the laborers, which stands in opposition to them in the very process of production. As capital develops it expands this relation with wage-labor, but it is not just any sort of expansion.

2. Further contradiction developed in Marx's dialectic of industrial capital: For capital to become capital, the means of production must confront the laborer in a specific condition -- that condition requires that means of production exist as private property; those means of production organized as private property have to be exchanged, have to be animated by labor organized as wage-labor. This is a social organization of labor, requiring the detachment, the dispossession of labor from the means of its own subsistence. So with labor organized as living wage labor creating exchange value, the capitalists, the owners of the private property expropriate the surplus value, expanding the means of production, their private property, which now stands in opposition to the "free" dispossessed laborers-- commanding their labor. Dead labor confronts living labor as its master.

3. Further contradiction of capital as developed in Marx's dialectic: As expropriated value, value organized as private property, the articles so produced can have no immediate, direct use for the owners. There is no value, no profit, realizable in immediate direct consumption by the owners of the objects they own. Consequently the value commanded by private property, by dead labor over living labor, has to establish itself, realize itself in the market of exchange with all other objects so produced, which gets us to...

4. The single-cell "organism" of contradiction in Marx's dialectic of industrial capitalism-- the commodity; the dual nature of the commodity. Use-value and exchange-value; both exist in the organization of the other under capitalism. Without establishing a use-value in the market, without satisfying the need of someone else, the commodity cannot realize the portion of surplus value contained therein. Without its exchange value, without being able to return a profit, the usefulness of the object is of no consequence. Production stops. The commodities are destroyed, warehoused, stock-piled, retired.

Right now, US railroads have approximately 25% of their freight car fleets in storage. Each of these cars is a useful article, but the use of these cars will not provide a profit, as the overall decline in the profitability of the economy means their is no need, no use for the usefulness of the cars.


About 14% of the world's commercial jet aviation fleet is also in storage in desert areas for similar reason.

Milk has been dumped in both Europe and the US due to overproduction. Has the useful nature of milk declined? Is there less poverty, less malnutrition suddenly? No, there's more poverty recently. But the use value is of no consequence as the production of milk cannot realize, cannot actually obtain a portion of the socially available surplus value in the markets needed to support the reproduction of milk as commodity capital.

Consider also, production of objects that can't find a use. It doesn't matter how much of the time spent in producing those articles is surplus labor time. None of it will be realized.

5. A further contradiction in the development of capitalism as analyzed in Marx's dialectic: the conflict between the means and relations of production. Capital to be capital means the realization of expanded value. To realize more value in the market, capital must not only command, aggrandize, exploit labor-power, it must command, aggrandize, exploit labor-power through its relative reduction in production. It must expel labor from the production process, relatively, at the same time as it demands greater access to "free" dispossessed labor.

Consequently the technical component, the "dead" labor of capital increases, and as it increases the overproduction of capital increases-- the very organization of the means of production as private property which so propels capital to hurry to the markets to realize surplus value; that drives capitalist production to employ ever greater more extensive more efficient means of production, (which are of course the accumulated value now brought back into production to yield more accumulated value) entails that the more capital exchanges itself with wage-labor, the relatively less it is exchanging of itself with wage-labor. Thus capital is "overproduced." The rate of profit declines, and its decline is precipitated by the very same relation that heralded capital's expansion. The means of production have outgrown their organization as private property, producing for exchange. To emancipate those means of production however requires the abolition of wage-labor. The class of wage-laborers in overthrowing the class relation that binds them to dead-labor initiates the process of overcoming its own organization as wage-laborers. I guess if you want to, you could call wage-labor the negation, and this overthrow of the totality of the social relation called capital, the negation of that negation. I don't, because I don't particularly like the phrase.

6. Throughout the body of Marx's work, extending beyond any of the remarks in any of the prefaces; in both publish and unpublished works, Marx refers to capital as "contradiction in motion." He is not kidding. In volume 2, he shows the simultaneous yet oppositional movements of capital reproduction inherent in the turnovers of fixed capital and circulating capital. In vol 3 he shows the origin and development of the decline in the rate of profit, and its impact on capitalist production as a whole.


Hope that helps.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH:


An example of a dialectical contradiction.

The capitalist mode of production entails, in a systematic way, the development of productive forces, in such a way that the proportion of constant capital to variable capital always grows. However, since it is variable capital that, being employed in the buying of labour power, produces surplus value, the development of capitalism destroys its material base, ie, the production of value.

Then, you must be using the word "contradiction" in a new, and as yet unexplained sense. No problem with that, but what is it?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S.Artesian:


Marx states clearly in the preface to the 2nd edition that he uses dialectic, his dialectic is the opposite of Hegel's; his dialectic has extracted the rational kernel; the capital's cycles are the product of its inherent contradictions.

Except, Marx has already told us he is merely 'coquetting' with this word.


The question you are really asking is what does Marx consider to be the inherent contradictions of capital?

1. The primary, genetic, inherent, contradiction is the social relation of production established between wage-labor and capital. Each exists in the organization of the other. Capital represents the accumulated, dead labor, of the laborers, which stands in opposition to them in the very process of production. As capital develops it expands this relation with wage-labor, but it is not just any sort of expansion.

2. Further contradiction developed in Marx's dialectic of industrial capital: For capital to become capital, the means of production must confront the laborer in a specific condition -- that condition requires that means of production exist as private property; those means of production organized as private property have to be exchanged, have to be animated by labor organized as wage-labor. This is a social organization of labor, requiring the detachment, the dispossession of labor from the means of its own subsistence. So with labor organized as living wage labor creating exchange value, the capitalists, the owners of the private property expropriate the surplus value, expanding the means of production, their private property, which now stands in opposition to the "free" dispossessed laborers-- commanding their labor. Dead labor confronts living labor as its master.

3. Further contradiction of capital as developed in Marx's dialectic: As expropriated value, value organized as private property, the articles so produced can have no immediate, direct use for the owners. There is no value, no profit, realizable in immediate direct consumption by the owners of the objects they own. Consequently the value commanded by private property, by dead labor over living labor, has to establish itself, realize itself in the market of exchange with all other objects so produced, which gets us to...

4. The single-cell "organism" of contradiction in Marx's dialectic of industrial capitalism-- the commodity; the dual nature of the commodity. Use-value and exchange-value; both exist in the organization of the other under capitalism. Without establishing a use-value in the market, without satisfying the need of someone else, the commodity cannot realize the portion of surplus value contained therein. Without its exchange value, without being able to return a profit, the usefulness of the object is of no consequence. Production stops. The commodities are destroyed, warehoused, stock-piled, retired.

Right now, US railroads have approximately 25% of their freight car fleets in storage. Each of these cars is a useful article, but the use of these cars will not provide a profit, as the overall decline in the profitability of the economy means their is no need, no use for the usefulness of the cars.


About 14% of the world's commercial jet aviation fleet is also in storage in desert areas for similar reason.

Milk has been dumped in both Europe and the US due to overproduction. Has the useful nature of milk declined? Is there less poverty, less malnutrition suddenly? No, there's more poverty recently. But the use value is of no consequence as the production of milk cannot realize, cannot actually obtain a portion of the socially available surplus value in the markets needed to support the reproduction of milk as commodity capital.

Consider also, production of objects that can't find a use. It doesn't matter how much of the time spent in producing those articles is surplus labor time. None of it will be realized.

But, and once more, why are the 'contradictions' -- you have merely glued this word to a Historical Materialist explanation.

The same with your other examples.

So, after all that effort, we still do not know what a 'dialectical contradiction' is.

And, since you keep avoiding the issue, it is plain that neither do you.

[S.Artesian]

We're supposed to ignore each other, Rosa. Didn't you read Louise's message? But..

But since you insist on being such a pest... Welcome back, Rosa L. our very own sultan of swat.

A million words, Rosa, but in the end, as in the beginning, you're a one trick pony. And the one trick? The distortion of Marx's words in his preface to the 2nd edition. As pointed out to you many times before, Marx never states he coquettes with dialectic. He states that when writing the chapter on the theory of value, he coquetted with forms of expression peculiar to Hegel.

In the rest of the preface he acknowledges that 1) he, Marx, utilizes dialectic 2)his dialectic stands in opposition to Hegel's, in that his, Marx's is rooted not in the mind but in the material conditions of existence 3) that Hegel is the first to make a comprehensive and conscious presentation of dialectics 4) that he, Marx, extracts the rational kernel from Hegel's dialectic 5) that dialectic actually includes negation 6)that capital has inherent contradictions 7)that those contradictions are the material force of dialectic as they will pound their meaning into the heads of the Prusso-Germans.

In the part of the preface that our sultan of squat finds to be so compelling of the argument that Marx has extirpated Hegel and dialectics from his work-- that part where Marx "reviews the reviewer," and approvingly, Marx is approving of the reviewer's presentation of the dialectic method-- not his, Marx's, dialectic method, "but the dialectic method."

In the preface to the first edition, Marx writes: Intrinsically, it is not a question of the higher or lower degree of development of social antagonisms that result from the natural laws of capitalist production. It is a question of the of these law themselves, of those tendencies working with necessity towards inevitable results." Antagonisms...laws...tendencies...necessities. These are components of the dialectic of history.

But all this... and more, has been pointed out numerous times to our sultan of squat, to the point of excruciating boredom, and still the distortion persists. The obvious conclusion to me is that our sultan is compelled to deny the meaning of what Marx has written in order to construct and maintain her arguments. I have no intention of wasting my time with someone who, IMO, denies the meaning of what Marx has written and presents the denial is the "rational kernel" of Marxism itself.

That being said, if Louise wants to know why Marx considers the contradictions I listed as the dialectic of capital, then the answer is based on the study of the full body, such as I've been able to get my hands and eyes on, of Marx's work. Specifically, the contradictions:

1. create each other
2. exist simultaneously with each other
3. exist in the organization of each other
4. exist in opposition to each other [the "dead labor" vs. living labor, capital vs wage-labor, bourgeoisie vs. proletariat part].
5. form a single identity, the identity being the contradiction, as Hegel put it "The truth is the whole." [the ever popular "unity of opposites" bit.
6. drive the "whole," the identity, in this case capital, to develop, expand, accumulate to reproduce itself on an ever-larger scale.
7. In so doing reproduce the contradictions on an ever larger scale
8. The contradictions expand. In this case the social relations of production become the limit, the constraint on the expansion required to reproduce the whole, the system [we're right at the old "quantity into quality" part].
9. This conflict in development leads, by necessity, to the inability of the system to maintain itself [the old "seeds of its own destruction" bit], and the struggle to emancipate the material conditions of human existence from the limits of the social relation bursts forth [negation, negation squared part, etc. etc].

[Louise Michel]

S.Artesian,

Thanks for the reply - sorry to keep you here ;)

As I said in my first post I think you can make out a case for 'contradictions' existing within capitalism and you have done so very clearly. However each of the relations you describe are concrete, particular relations peculiar to capitalism. Why should it be possible to describe social relations in feudal or slave societies using exactly the same categories? Contradiction, negation etc.

Usually when people talk about DM they are saying there's a method that can be used to analyse any social phenomena, that all social development be it the degeneration of the Soviet State, the Chinese revolution, the fall of the Roman Empire, or whatever is subject to the processes you describe in capitalism. All events big and small are driven by something called contradiction so that contradiction somehow permeates every social relation that's formed.

Doesn't this imply that there's an 'invisible hand' behind everything?

[S.Artesian]

Louise--

I do not subscribe to "dialectical materialism" and I certainly have not studied enough about the mechanisms of feudalism to provide a distinctive dialectical analysis of its "overthrow," "abolition," overcoming etc. by capitalism. And that goes double for the Roman empire.

However, very useful information, insight, and explanation regarding feudalism and the transition out of feudalism has been developed by Robert Brenner. I certainly think his work embodies historical materialism, and a bit of the old dialectic.

We can certainly look at the history of the co-existence, the interpenetration of slave labor and capitalist development using Marx's methods and tools; we can certainly look at the interconnection of, adaptation of, and adaptation to, the "quasi-feudal" relations of land and labor-- i.e. the hacienda system in Latin America, peasant production in China, by developing and advanced capitalism.

As for invisible hands--, the free-marketeers, the anarcho-monetarists of our asset-stripping, liquidationist bourgeoisie believe in them, which is enough reason for me to reject it out of hand, you should pardon the pun.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S.Artesian (following a well-trodden, Hermetic path: when you can't beat Rosa, launch personal attacks on her (just like Jurriaan) as a smokescreen):


A million words, Rosa, but in the end, as in the beginning, you're a one trick pony. And the one trick? The distortion of Marx's words in his preface to the 2nd edition. As pointed out to you many times before, Marx never states he coquettes with dialectic. He states that when writing the chapter on the theory of value, he coquetted with forms of expression peculiar to Hegel.

1.75m, in fact. Still, I am way behind Hegel, Marx and Lenin.


We're supposed to ignore each other, Rosa. Didn't you read Louise's message?

Seems you didn't either.


The distortion of Marx's words in his preface to the 2nd edition. As pointed out to you many times before, Marx never states he coquettes with dialectic.

Where have I said he does? Looks like you are yet another mystic who can't read. No wonder you have problems understanding Das Kapital, and Marx's total rejection of Hegel.

What I have done is quote his own words (not mine) that he 'coquetted' with Hegelian jargon in Das Kapital.

And we need not speculate about what Marx meant by 'the dialectic method', for Marx very helpfully added a summary of it to the second edition. I'm sure you haven't seen it before, or you'd not keep trying to con us. Here it is:


"After a quotation from the preface to my 'Criticism of Political Economy,' Berlin, 1859, pp. IV-VII, where I discuss the materialistic basis of my method, the writer goes on:

'The one thing which is of moment to Marx, is to find the law of the phenomena with whose investigation he is concerned; and not only is that law of moment to him, which governs these phenomena, in so far as they have a definite form and mutual connexion within a given historical period. Of still greater moment to him is the law of their variation, of their development, i.e., of their transition from one form into another, from one series of connexions into a different one. This law once discovered, he investigates in detail the effects in which it manifests itself in social life. Consequently, Marx only troubles himself about one thing: to show, by rigid scientific investigation, the necessity of successive determinate orders of social conditions, and to establish, as impartially as possible, the facts that serve him for fundamental starting-points. For this it is quite enough, if he proves, at the same time, both the necessity of the present order of things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably pass over; and this all the same, whether men believe or do not believe it, whether they are conscious or unconscious of it. Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intelligence, but rather, on the contrary, determining that will, consciousness and intelligence. ... If in the history of civilisation the conscious element plays a part so subordinate, then it is self-evident that a critical inquiry whose subject-matter is civilisation, can, less than anything else, have for its basis any form of, or any result of, consciousness. That is to say, that not the idea, but the material phenomenon alone can serve as its starting-point. Such an inquiry will confine itself to the confrontation and the comparison of a fact, not with ideas, but with another fact. For this inquiry, the one thing of moment is, that both facts be investigated as accurately as possible, and that they actually form, each with respect to the other, different momenta of an evolution; but most important of all is the rigid analysis of the series of successions, of the sequences and concatenations in which the different stages of such an evolution present themselves. But it will be said, the general laws of economic life are one and the same, no matter whether they are applied to the present or the past. This Marx directly denies. According to him, such abstract laws do not exist. On the contrary, in his opinion every historical period has laws of its own.... As soon as society has outlived a given period of development, and is passing over from one given stage to another, it begins to be subject also to other laws. In a word, economic life offers us a phenomenon analogous to the history of evolution in other branches of biology. The old economists misunderstood the nature of economic laws when they likened them to the laws of physics and chemistry. A more thorough analysis of phenomena shows that social organisms differ among themselves as fundamentally as plants or animals. Nay, one and the same phenomenon falls under quite different laws in consequence of the different structure of those organisms as a whole, of the variations of their individual organs, of the different conditions in which those organs function, &c. Marx, e.g., denies that the law of population is the same at all times and in all places. He asserts, on the contrary, that every stage of development has its own law of population. ... With the varying degree of development of productive power, social conditions and the laws governing them vary too. Whilst Marx sets himself the task of following and explaining from this point of view the economic system established by the sway of capital, he is only formulating, in a strictly scientific manner, the aim that every accurate investigation into economic life must have. The scientific value of such an inquiry lies in the disclosing of the special laws that regulate the origin, existence, development, death of a given social organism and its replacement by another and higher one. And it is this value that, in point of fact, Marx's book has.'

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold added.]

No Hegel anywhere in site. No 'contradictions', no 'unity of opposites', no 'negation of the negation', no 'quantity turning into quality', no 'Totality', no 'universal flux'...

So, pick a fight with Marx, not me.


In the rest of the preface he acknowledges that 1) he, Marx, utilizes dialectic 2)his dialectic stands in opposition to Hegel's, in that his, Marx's is rooted not in the mind but in the material conditions of existence 3) that Hegel is the first to make a comprehensive and conscious presentation of dialectics 4) that he, Marx, extracts the rational kernel from Hegel's dialectic 5) that dialectic actually includes negation 6)that capital has inherent contradictions 7)that those contradictions are the material force of dialectic as they will pound their meaning into the heads of the Prusso-Germans.

I have already covered 1), but as far as 2) is concerned, you can't get more opposite to Hegel's 'method' than extirpating it totally.

3) has already been covered in an earlier post -- you need to address the reasons I gave there rather than just repeat yourself, no matter how good that makes you feel.

4) The long quotation above shows that the 'rational kernel' is empty -- in fact, Marx owes more now to Aristotle and the Scottish Historical Materialists (Smith, Ferguson, Millar, Stewart, Hume, Robertson...), many of whom he refers to throughout Das Kapital (when Hegel gets no mention at all, save in the Preface etc., and even then Marx pointedly put his praise for this mystical bumbler in the past tense). So, to invert Hegel is to crush his head.

5) Sure, but Marx is still 'coquetting' here, as he (not me) has already told us.

6) Still 'coquetting', and since you can't tell us what a 'dialectical contradiction' is, you too must be 'coquetting' with this obscure term!

7) Alas for you, Marx is still 'coquetting'. And these still-to-be-explained 'contradictions' can't be a material force, since, as I have shown, their use would deny the possibility of any sort of change.


In the part of the preface that our sultan of squat finds to be so compelling of the argument that Marx has extirpated Hegel and dialectics from his work-- that part where Marx "reviews the reviewer," and approvingly, Marx is approving of the reviewer's presentation of the dialectic method-- not his, Marx's, dialectic method, "but the dialectic method."

I must say you are (slightly) good at name-calling, but not too good at logic, which is probably why you have fallen for all this mystical guff.

And sure, Marx is passing an opinion on this reviewer's summary, but he says it is 'his method' and that it is 'the dialectic method'. Now you can ignore that if you want, but then that is half the problem, isn't it? You have swallowed the traditional tale hook, line and sinker, to such an extent you ignore Marx's own words, and then attack me for making note of them!


In the preface to the first edition, Marx writes: Intrinsically, it is not a question of the higher or lower degree of development of social antagonisms that result from the natural laws of capitalist production. It is a question of the of these law themselves, of those tendencies working with necessity towards inevitable results." Antagonisms...laws...tendencies...necessities. These are components of the dialectic of history

Well, I am OK with 'antagonisms', but antagonisms aren't contradictions, unless you want to stipulatively re-define one or both of these terms. Of course, that is up to you, but then, what would you say to a supporter of the capitalist system if he/she re-defined capitalism as 'just, stable and fair'?

We both know what you'd say -- and the same should be said to you.

And, your attempt to explicate that summary here, while it is not how I'd put things, itself leaves Hegel out!

So, your summary has extirpated Hegel, too!


But all this... and more, has been pointed out numerous times to our sultan of squat, to the point of excruciating boredom, and still the distortion persists. The obvious conclusion to me is that our sultan is compelled to deny the meaning of what Marx has written in order to construct and maintain her arguments. I have no intention of wasting my time with someone who, IMO, denies the meaning of what Marx has written and presents the denial is the "rational kernel" of Marxism itself.

You like repeating the same abusive name, don't you?

And please, do not 'waste' your time on my account, I have heard this sort of stuff now for over 25 years; you mystics do not seem to be able to come up with new or even better arguments.


That being said, if Louise wants to know why Marx considers the contradictions I listed as the dialectic of capital, then the answer is based on the study of the full body, such as I've been able to get my hands and eyes on, of Marx's work. Specifically, the contradictions:

1. create each other
2. exist simultaneously with each other
3. exist in the organization of each other
4. exist in opposition to each other [the "dead labor" vs. living labor, capital vs wage-labor, bourgeoisie vs. proletariat part].
5. form a single identity, the identity being the contradiction, as Hegel put it "The truth is the whole." [the ever popular "unity of opposites" bit.
6. drive the "whole," the identity, in this case capital, to develop, expand, accumulate to reproduce itself on an ever-larger scale.
7. In so doing reproduce the contradictions on an ever larger scale
8. The contradictions expand. In this case the social relations of production become the limit, the constraint on the expansion required to reproduce the whole, the system [we're right at the old "quantity into quality" part].
9. This conflict in development leads, by necessity, to the inability of the system to maintain itself [the old "seeds of its own destruction" bit], and the struggle to emancipate the material conditions of human existence from the limits of the social relation bursts forth [negation, negation squared part, etc. etc].

Well, and to repeat, that does not explain why these are 'contradictions', as opposed to some other word we could use, like 'conjunction', or 'disjunction', or 'implication'.

But, we already know why you prefer this word; you have sold your radical soul to the mystical tradition deriving from Hegel and his use of this word -- which, as I have also shown, derives from a serious confusion in Hegel's 'Logic' between the negative form of the 'law of identity' and the 'law of non-contradiction', among other things.

This is the only reason you are using this word: you are a slave to tradition, a dialectical sheep.


as Hegel put it "The truth is the whole." [the ever popular "unity of opposites" bit.

How do you know that the truth is the whole?

Indeed, if truth were the whole, since you do not have 'the whole', any statement to that effect cannot be true!

And it cannot be partially true either, since any statement to that effect would itself only be true if you possessed 'the whole', which, unless you are a minor deity of some sort, you don't, and never will.

In this you merely underline the fact that you really haven't given this Hegelian guff much thought, or any at all, but are still quite happy to regurgitate it as if it were gospel truth.

[Louise Michel]

I do not subscribe to "dialectical materialism" and I certainly have not studied enough about the mechanisms of feudalism to provide a distinctive dialectical analysis of its "overthrow," "abolition," overcoming etc. by capitalism. And that goes double for the Roman empire.

However, very useful information, insight, and explanation regarding feudalism and the transition out of feudalism has been developed by Robert Brenner. I certainly think his work embodies historical materialism, and a bit of the old dialectic.

I'm a bit confused by this. When you say you don't subscribe to dialectical materialism what is it about DM that you reject and how do you then define your view? Also you say that Brenner's work embodies HM and 'a bit of the old dialectic' - does this mean you separate HM and the dialectic? If so how do you do it?

I recall a quote used by Rosa where Marx talks of the need to analyse each mode of production according to different laws. I think this is right. The categories applicable to one mode of production may not be useful in another. The relationship between the capitalist and the worker is quite unique in Marxism, it doesn't occur anywhere else, it does actually look like a Hegelian contradiction (says me who's never read a single page of Hegel, but what the hell) but the relationship between peasant and aristocrat simply bears no resemblance - the struggle between peasant and aristocrat produces nothing but death and destruction and definitely not a new society. The same could be said of slave and slave-holder. These relations are antagonistic for sure but they are hardly dialectical.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Louise:


it does actually look like a Hegelian contradiction (says me who's never read a single page of Hegel, but what the hell)

Well, not really, since nothing 'looks like' a Hegelian "contradiction" since it is not possible to make sense of this obscure term.

And I don't think you got this from me:


I recall a quote used by Rosa where Marx talks of the need to analyse each mode of production according to different laws.

[Louise Michel]

Well, not really, since nothing 'looks like' a Hegelian "contradiction" since it is not possible to make sense of this obscure term.

And I don't think you got this from me:

Maybe I am misremembering the quote but whatever, I am basically supporting your argument but you can't see it - perhaps you are every bit as dogmatic and arrogant as those you attack. There's more than one way to skin a cat. Or maybe there's not.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Louise:


perhaps you are every bit as dogmatic and arrogant as those you attack.

That was uncalled for!

This is quite apart from the fact that I do not see how this:


it does actually look like a Hegelian contradiction (says me who's never read a single page of Hegel, but what the hell)

is:


basically supporting your argument

And I do not think this can be put down to dogmatism or arrogance, do you?

[Louise Michel]

And I do not think this can be put down to dogmatism or arrogance, do you?

Yes I do, it can be put down to arrogance and dogmatism (to be clear). I think a lot before I post and your dismissive attitude is infuriating. You've read a lot but I also know some stuff too and I know how to talk to people and find out what they are thinking. That's what I'm doing and I'd prefer to be treated with at least minimal respect.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Louise:


Yes I do, it can be put down to arrogance and dogmatism (to be clear).

Well then, you won't mind explaining to me how this:


it does actually look like a Hegelian contradiction (says me who's never read a single page of Hegel, but what the hell)

is:


basically supporting your argument

Will you?


I think a lot before I post and your dismissive attitude is infuriating. You've read a lot but I also know some stuff too and I know how to talk to people and find out what they are thinking. That's what I'm doing and I'd prefer to be treated with at least minimal respect.

It might help, then, if you avoided saying that a certain statement 'supports' me when it does the exact opposite.

And where have I been dissmissive toward you?

I have almost invaribably gone out of my way to help you and answer all your questions, even when I have been flat out exhausted.

[Louise Michel]

It might help, then, if you avoided saying that a certain statement 'supports' me when it does the exact opposite.


Saying that something looks like a Hegelian contradiction does not actually contradict (!) your argument. It just says something appears this way, which I think it does, and perhaps accounts for why so many people accept the dialectic. I then go on to point out that many other social relations or events don't meet the criteria of the Hegelian contradiction. Since dialecticians seem to think they've found an explanation for all times and all events I think this fits your argument.


And where have I been dissmissive toward you?

Well, here and now, where your perception is that I don't agree.


I have almost invaribably gone out of my way to help you and answer all your questions, even when I have been flat out exhausted.

Yes, you have, and I do appreciate that, but would you have done the same for someone who was unschooled but antagonistic?

When people gravitate towards Marxism they are invariably told that Marx and Engels produced one theoretical approach that includes dialectics as a given. Mostly Lenin is lumped into this and dialectics is invariably a part. So this is where most people come from. They are not stupid sheep, they are intelligent sincere people trained in a particular way and if you want to dissuade them you have to get behind their thoughts and not just attack and antagonise and dismiss and alienate them.

I don't doubt your sincerity or knowledge but I do doubt your ability to persuade - you lack respect and patience.

[S.Artesian]

Time to parse the parser, folks, so pull up a chair, pour yourself a cold one [or a warm one-- depending which side of the Atlantic you're on] and get comfy. This is going to be fun.... for some of us.
_______

Rosa L. lip-synching her way through her cover version of Otis Redding's "Mr. Pitiful" says:

"S.Artesian (following a well-trodden, Hermetic path: when you can't beat Rosa, launch personal attacks on her (just like Jurriaan) as a smokescreen):"

Come, come Rosa. Sultan of swat? One trick pony? "Sultan of squat" are personal attacks? Abuse? Where have your been your whole life? Where were you raised? In a test tube and fed rock candy?

Where I come from those terms don't even qualify as light teasing, they wouldn't even register on the old slam-o-meter. You want abuse, personal attack? It can be arranged, but sultan of swat doesn't even make a blip on the radar screen of invective.



If I called you an empty-headed lout, a phony, a poseur-- those are legitimate terms of insult, but even those are not terms of abuse, because if I used them I would show, based on your own words, that the insults are warranted, justified.

Now if I used them and didn't show that they are warranted, that would be abuse. I have no doubt that we'll, if we keep at this, get to that second level, but the abuse level? Nah...
_______________

Rosa then says in reference to may assertion that she engages in the distortion of Marx's words in his preface to the 2nd edition.:

SA: As pointed out to you many times before, Marx never states he coquettes with dialectic.

RL: Where have I said he does? Looks like you are yet another mystic who can't read. No wonder you have problems understanding Das Kapital, and Marx's total rejection of Hegel.

What I have done is quote his own words (not mine) that he 'coquetted' with Hegelian jargon in Das Kapital.
___

Here's where you engage in the distortion, Rosa, in an earlier posting:

SA: Marx states clearly in the preface to the 2nd edition that he uses dialectic, his dialectic is the opposite of Hegel's; his dialectic has extracted the rational kernel; the capital's cycles are the product of its inherent contradictions.

RL: Except, Marx has already told us he is merely 'coquetting' with this word.

You Rosa say that he MARX has told us he is merely coquetting with-- according to you-- 'this' word. And what is 'this' word. Your response is to the assertion directly above regarding the... here comes this word... dialectic.

Now you say you never said that. You say you said he was coquetting with Hegelian jargon. No, that's not what Marx said either. And it's not what you said. You said he coquetted with this word dialectic.

And this is the problem when discussing anything with you. You say one thing, and when challenged, you respond by saying you never said that, the challenger can't read, he's a mystic, hermetic, he wears mismatched socks, and is abusive. That makes you-- how to put this so as not to abusive-- disingenuous? A dissembler? How about good old fashioned dishonest? I like the latter.
____________

Rosa says, in response to Marx's explicit adherence to dialectic as written in the preface: "I have already covered 1), but as far as 2) is concerned, you can't get more opposite to Hegel's 'method' than extirpating it totally."

Now who's coquetting with language, Rosa? Marx qualifies and describes how his dialectic is opposed to Hegel's dialectic. Now the OED has [my edition at least] 5 definitions for "extirpate." 1. root out, eradicate, get rid of 2) do away with 3) kill all members of a race; make extinct 4) destroy totally 5) pull out by the roots.

Short version: annihilate. Marx doesn't say anywhere in any of his writings that I've read, and I've read a lot, that he has eradicated, rooted out, done away with, made extinct, destroyed totally, or pulled out by the roots Hegel's dialectic.

He, Marx, does say his dialectic is directly opposite Hegel's-- not in method-- but in the fact that Hegel's is grounded in consciousness and Marx's is grounded in the material conditions of life. I have no doubt that you wish Marx had said annihilate, root out, eradicate-- but he didn't. He qualified the limits to his opposition to Hegel and Hegel's dialectic.

But wait... there's more..
____________

Poor Rosa, suffering slings and arrows while swatting away at the ghosts of Hegels present says, after I explain why the elements of the contradictions in capital Marx analyzes are in fact dialectical contradictions... :

RL: "Well, and to repeat, that does not explain why these are 'contradictions', as opposed to some other word we could use, like 'conjunction', or 'disjunction', or 'implication'"

And the answer to that one is-- because Marx doesn't use disjunction, implication, disconnect, out of whack, asynchronous, etc. in his analysis of capital. He uses the word contradiction. Check it out. In that very same preface to the 2nd edition, Marx refers to the “contradictions inherent in the movement of capitalist society.” Too coquettish for you? OK, let’s try the German Ideology :
[5. The Contradiction Between the Productive Forces and the Form of Intercourse as the Basis for Social Revolution]
This contradiction between the productive forces and the form of intercourse, which, as we saw, has occurred several times in past history, without, however, endangering the basis, necessarily on each occasion burst out in a revolution, taking on at the same time various subsidiary forms, such as all-embracing collisions, collisions of various classes, contradiction of consciousness, battle of ideas, etc., political conflict, etc. From a narrow point of view one may isolate one of these subsidiary forms and consider it as the basis of these revolutions; and this is all the more easy as the individuals who started the revolutions had illusions about their own activity according to their degree of culture and the stage of historical development.
Thus all collisions in history have their origin, according to our view, in the contradiction between the productive forces and the form of intercourse. Incidentally, to lead to collisions in a country, this contradiction need not necessarily have reached its extreme limit in this particular country. The competition with industrially more advanced countries, brought about by the expansion of international intercourse, is sufficient to produce a similar contradiction in countries with a backward industry (e.g. the latent proletariat in Germany brought into view by view by the competition of English industry).


Too “young Marx” for you? OK, how about Capital, Vol 3 Part 3 The Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall: Chapter 15, Exposition of the Internal Contradictions of the Law.



And there is the answer as to why I use the term contradiction—because Marx used it. Because it is the thing Rosa most discounts, most disregards, and that is historically accurate.
______________
Some more:


You know what I bet? I bet Rosa say’s we should disregard this because Marx did not choose to publish Volume 3. And I think this claim of hers needs to be regarded seriously, but seriously as an index to the poverty of her knowledge of Marx’s work.
For all that Rosa has written, I have yet to read anything that actually explores Marx’s work; anything that explores the circuits of capital; the patterns of capitalist development; the extension and intensification of capital; the growth of finance and the credit system. I admit I haven’t read a large part of her 1.75 million words, so if I’m wrong, I hope somebody directs me to that work of hers that actually explores something concrete in Marx’s analysis; something that actually deals with capital and is not a ploy at the philosophical recuperation of Marxism into language games, into a philosophy of language.



I don’t think our pitiful, [self] abused Rosa knows very much at all about Marx, about Marx’s investigations into the actual contradictions of capital, and so she has staked out this territory, a territory she has covered with inaccuracy.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Louise:


Saying that something looks like a Hegelian contradiction does not actually contradict (!) your argument. It just says something appears this way, which I think it does, and perhaps accounts for why so many people accept the dialectic. I then go on to point out that many other social relations or events don't meet the criteria of the Hegelian contradiction. Since dialecticians seem to think they've found an explanation for all times and all events I think this fits your argument.

But, my argument is, as I pointed out, that nothing even 'looks like' a Hegelian contradiction, not even Hegel's examples! So, it's no help to have someone say something does.


Yes, you have, and I do appreciate that, but would you have done the same for someone who was unschooled but antagonistic?

Why should I be pleasant to someone who is antagonistic? I am not a Christian.


So this is where most people come from. They are not stupid sheep, they are intelligent sincere people trained in a particular way and if you want to dissuade them you have to get behind their thoughts and not just attack and antagonise and dismiss and alienate them.

As I have said already, experience has taught me that my approach works with those who are prepared not to think like sheep. If I upset the sheep-like ones, I can live with that. It's not your approach, but it is mine. And I'm not going to change, even if that alienates you.


but I do doubt your ability to persuade - you lack respect and patience.

I have abundant patience with anyone who isn't antagonistic, and show respect where it is given,

Anyone else gets both barrels.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Larry The Lamb:


Rosa L. lip-synching her way through her cover version of Otis Redding's "Mr. Pitiful" says:


S.Artesian (following a well-trodden, Hermetic path: when you can't beat Rosa, launch personal attacks on her (just like Jurriaan) as a smokescreen):

Come, come Rosa. Sultan of swat? One trick pony? "Sultan of squat" are personal attacks? Abuse? Where have your been your whole life? Where were you raised? In a test tube and fed rock candy?

Where I come from those terms don't even qualify as light teasing, they wouldn't even register on the old slam-o-meter. You want abuse, personal attack? It can be arranged, but sultan of swat doesn't even make a blip on the radar screen of invective.

Indeed, that is why I said:


I must say you are (slightly) good at name-calling, but not too good at logic, which is probably why you have fallen for all this mystical guff.

When it comes to abuse, you are decidedly third-rate. At least we agree on that.


If I called you an empty-headed lout, a phoney, a poseur-- those are legitimate terms of insult, but even those are not terms of abuse, because if I used them I would show, based on your own words, that the insults are warranted, justified.

This would put you in the second rate category, to which I'd reply: 'Is that the best you can do'. Others here, and elsewhere have said much worse.


Now if I used them and didn't show that they are warranted, that would be abuse. I have no doubt that we'll, if we keep at this, get to that second level, but the abuse level? Nah...

These count as abuse here, even if warranted. Blame the moderators, who regularly clip my wings. Now, I'm all for out and out abuse, since I can give as good as I get, often worse. Your weak, second-rate attempt above suggests I'd hardly have to break into a sweat in reply.


Rosa then says in reference to may assertion that she engages in the distortion of Marx's words in his preface to the 2nd edition.:

Who, exactly are you addressing; the massed ranks of your supporters?


SA: As pointed out to you many times before, Marx never states he coquettes with dialectic.

RL: Where have I said he does? Looks like you are yet another mystic who can't read. No wonder you have problems understanding Das Kapital, and Marx's total rejection of Hegel.

What I have done is quote his own words (not mine) that he 'coquetted' with Hegelian jargon in Das Kapital.
___

Here's where you engage in the distortion, Rosa, in an earlier posting:

SA: Marx states clearly in the preface to the 2nd edition that he uses dialectic, his dialectic is the opposite of Hegel's; his dialectic has extracted the rational kernel; the capital's cycles are the product of its inherent contradictions.

RL: Except, Marx has already told us he is merely 'coquetting' with this word.

You Rosa say that he MARX has told us he is merely coquetting with-- according to you-- 'this' word. And what is 'this' word. Your response is to the assertion directly above regarding the... here comes this word... dialectic.

Ah, your superfine, but Hermetically-compromised eyes failed to note the word I was referring to here; I have highlighted it in bold to help you out.


Now you say you never said that.

And, I'll say it again if it triggers another indignant huff:


Where have I said he does? Looks like you are yet another mystic who can't read. No wonder you have problems understanding Das Kapital, and Marx's total rejection of Hegel.

What I have done is quote his own words (not mine) that he 'coquetted' with Hegelian jargon in Das Kapital.

Happy now?


You say you said he was coquetting with Hegelian jargon. No, that's not what Marx said either. And it's not what you said. You said he coquetted with this word dialectic.

As I said, you can't read. How many more times do you need to have this pointed out? ...Er, lots I suppose, if you can't read.


And this is the problem when discussing anything with you. You say one thing, and when challenged, you respond by saying you never said that, the challenger can't read, he's a mystic, hermetic, he wears mismatched socks, and is abusive. That makes you-- how to put this so as not to abusive-- disingenuous? A dissembler? How about good old fashioned dishonest? I like the latter.

Except, the real problem is that you'd make Blind Pugh look like he had 20/20 vision compared to you -- but, then again, I might have to post that again, or have it read to you, since you probably read that as "I like eating daffodils".

And, I have never claimed not to be abusive -- indeed, in one of my replies to Jurriaan which I think you read, I even said this (which, as a matter of fact, predicted quite accurately how you have turned out) -- referring to a page at my site:


How Not To Argue 101 (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/RevLeft.htm)

This page contains links to forums on the web where I have 'debated' this creed with other comrades.

For anyone interested, check out the desperate 'debating' tactics used by Dialectical Mystics in their attempt to respond to my ideas.

You will no doubt notice that the vast majority all say the same sorts of things, and most of them pepper their remarks with scatological and abusive language. They all like to make things up, too, about me and my beliefs.

25 years (!!) of this stuff from Dialectical Mystics has meant I now take an aggressive stance with them every time -- I soon learnt back in the 1980s that being pleasant with them (my initial tactic) did not alter their abusive tone, their propensity to fabricate, nor reduce the amount of scatological language they used.

So, these days, I generally go for the jugular from the get-go.

Apparently, they expect me to take their abuse lying down, and regularly complain about my "bullying" tactics.

So, these mystics can dish it out, but they cannot take it.

Given the damage their theory has done to Marxism, and the abuse they all dole out, they are lucky this is all I can do to them.

Do you need any help reading that?


Rosa says, in response to Marx's explicit adherence to dialectic as written in the preface: "I have already covered 1), but as far as 2) is concerned, you can't get more opposite to Hegel's 'method' than extirpating it totally."

Now who's coquetting with language, Rosa? Marx qualifies and describes how his dialectic is opposed to Hegel's dialectic. Now the OED has [my edition at least] 5 definitions for "extirpate." 1. root out, eradicate, get rid of 2) do away with 3) kill all members of a race; make extinct 4) destroy totally 5) pull out by the roots.

Short version: annihilate. Marx doesn't say anywhere in any of his writings that I've read, and I've read a lot, that he has eradicated, rooted out, done away with, made extinct, destroyed totally, or pulled out by the roots Hegel's dialectic.

He, Marx, does say his dialectic is directly opposite Hegel's-- not in method-- but in the fact that Hegel's is grounded in consciousness and Marx's is grounded in the material conditions of life. I have no doubt that you wish Marx had said annihilate, root out, eradicate-- but he didn't. He qualified the limits to his opposition to Hegel and Hegel's dialectic.

Once more, we needn't speculate about whether Marx "annihilated" Hegel from Das Kapital (not my word, but let's go with it; I prefer "extirpated" without an alleged synonym substituted for it), since Marx put an end to all speculation (that is, for those who can read, so that leaves SA out, I'm afraid), when he added a comment from a reviewer, who, according to Marx, had summarised 'the dialectic method':


"After a quotation from the preface to my 'Criticism of Political Economy,' Berlin, 1859, pp. IV-VII, where I discuss the materialistic basis of my method, the writer goes on:

'The one thing which is of moment to Marx, is to find the law of the phenomena with whose investigation he is concerned; and not only is that law of moment to him, which governs these phenomena, in so far as they have a definite form and mutual connexion within a given historical period. Of still greater moment to him is the law of their variation, of their development, i.e., of their transition from one form into another, from one series of connexions into a different one. This law once discovered, he investigates in detail the effects in which it manifests itself in social life. Consequently, Marx only troubles himself about one thing: to show, by rigid scientific investigation, the necessity of successive determinate orders of social conditions, and to establish, as impartially as possible, the facts that serve him for fundamental starting-points. For this it is quite enough, if he proves, at the same time, both the necessity of the present order of things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably pass over; and this all the same, whether men believe or do not believe it, whether they are conscious or unconscious of it. Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intelligence, but rather, on the contrary, determining that will, consciousness and intelligence. ... If in the history of civilisation the conscious element plays a part so subordinate, then it is self-evident that a critical inquiry whose subject-matter is civilisation, can, less than anything else, have for its basis any form of, or any result of, consciousness. That is to say, that not the idea, but the material phenomenon alone can serve as its starting-point. Such an inquiry will confine itself to the confrontation and the comparison of a fact, not with ideas, but with another fact. For this inquiry, the one thing of moment is, that both facts be investigated as accurately as possible, and that they actually form, each with respect to the other, different momenta of an evolution; but most important of all is the rigid analysis of the series of successions, of the sequences and concatenations in which the different stages of such an evolution present themselves. But it will be said, the general laws of economic life are one and the same, no matter whether they are applied to the present or the past. This Marx directly denies. According to him, such abstract laws do not exist. On the contrary, in his opinion every historical period has laws of its own.... As soon as society has outlived a given period of development, and is passing over from one given stage to another, it begins to be subject also to other laws. In a word, economic life offers us a phenomenon analogous to the history of evolution in other branches of biology. The old economists misunderstood the nature of economic laws when they likened them to the laws of physics and chemistry. A more thorough analysis of phenomena shows that social organisms differ among themselves as fundamentally as plants or animals. Nay, one and the same phenomenon falls under quite different laws in consequence of the different structure of those organisms as a whole, of the variations of their individual organs, of the different conditions in which those organs function, &c. Marx, e.g., denies that the law of population is the same at all times and in all places. He asserts, on the contrary, that every stage of development has its own law of population. ... With the varying degree of development of productive power, social conditions and the laws governing them vary too. Whilst Marx sets himself the task of following and explaining from this point of view the economic system established by the sway of capital, he is only formulating, in a strictly scientific manner, the aim that every accurate investigation into economic life must have. The scientific value of such an inquiry lies in the disclosing of the special laws that regulate the origin, existence, development, death of a given social organism and its replacement by another and higher one. And it is this value that, in point of fact, Marx's book has.'

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold added.]

As I noted earlier:


No Hegel anywhere in site. No 'contradictions', no 'unity of opposites', no 'negation of the negation', no 'quantity turning into quality', no 'Totality', no 'universal flux'...

So, pick a fight with Marx, not me.

In short, Hegel had been extirpated from Das Kapital.


He, Marx, does say his dialectic is directly opposite Hegel's-- not in method-- but in the fact that Hegel's is grounded in consciousness and Marx's is grounded in the material conditions of life. I have no doubt that you wish Marx had said annihilate, root out, eradicate-- but he didn't. He qualified the limits to his opposition to Hegel and Hegel's dialectic.

Well, according to you mystics, the opposite of A is non-A; so the opposite of Hegel's method is non-Hegel's method, as I pointed out.

Perhaps you don't understand dialectics?


But wait... there's more..

Yes, we were afraid of that...


Poor Rosa, suffering slings and arrows while swatting away at the ghosts of Hegels present says, after I explain why the elements of the contradictions in capital Marx analyzes are in fact dialectical contradictions... :

RL: "Well, and to repeat, that does not explain why these are 'contradictions', as opposed to some other word we could use, like 'conjunction', or 'disjunction', or 'implication'"

And the answer to that one is-- because Marx doesn't use disjunction, implication, disconnect, out of whack, asynchronous, etc. in his analysis of capital. He uses the word contradiction. Check it out. In that very same preface to the 2nd edition, Marx refers to the “contradictions inherent in the movement of capitalist society.” Too coquettish for you? OK, let’s try the German Ideology :

[5. The Contradiction Between the Productive Forces and the Form of Intercourse as the Basis for Social Revolution]

This contradiction between the productive forces and the form of intercourse, which, as we saw, has occurred several times in past history, without, however, endangering the basis, necessarily on each occasion burst out in a revolution, taking on at the same time various subsidiary forms, such as all-embracing collisions, collisions of various classes, contradiction of consciousness, battle of ideas, etc., political conflict, etc. From a narrow point of view one may isolate one of these subsidiary forms and consider it as the basis of these revolutions; and this is all the more easy as the individuals who started the revolutions had illusions about their own activity according to their degree of culture and the stage of historical development.

Thus all collisions in history have their origin, according to our view, in the contradiction between the productive forces and the form of intercourse. Incidentally, to lead to collisions in a country, this contradiction need not necessarily have reached its extreme limit in this particular country. The competition with industrially more advanced countries, brought about by the expansion of international intercourse, is sufficient to produce a similar contradiction in countries with a backward industry (e.g. the latent proletariat in Germany brought into view by view by the competition of English industry).

Now, here is where your lack of corrective eye treatment is letting you down, for I have nowhere said that Marx did not use Hegelian terms before he wrote Das Kapital, and had I been around then, I would have asked him, too, what these obscure 'dialectical contradictions' are, and in the same terms. So, quoting writings from his pre-'coquetting' days is, alas, no help to you at all. You are still in a hole.

So, I'd have asked Marx this (had I been around in his pre-'coquetting' phase):


Well, and to repeat, that does not explain why these are 'contradictions', as opposed to some other word we could use, like 'conjunction', or 'disjunction', or 'implication'.

And I would have added:


But, we already know why you prefer this word; you have sold your radical soul to the mystical tradition deriving from Hegel and his use of this word -- which, as I have also shown, derives from a serious confusion in Hegel's 'Logic' between the negative form of the 'law of identity' and the 'law of non-contradiction', among other things.

This is the only reason you are using this word: you are a slave to tradition, a dialectical sheep.

Except, I would have toned it down considerably, since, unlike you, Marx is worthy of respect.


Too “young Marx” for you? OK, how about Capital, Vol 3 Part 3 The Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall: Chapter 15, Exposition of the Internal Contradictions of the Law.

And there is the answer as to why I use the term contradiction—because Marx used it. Because it is the thing Rosa most discounts, most disregards, and that is historically accurate.

1) Marx did not publish Volume Three.

2) Had he done so, and had he used the word 'contradiction' in there, then that would have represented an extension to his 'coquetting' phase.


I use the term contradiction—because Marx used it. Because it is the thing Rosa most discounts, most disregards, and that is historically accurate

As I said, you are a sheep, and a short-sighted sheep, too, since you seem not to be able to see the word 'coquette' in the second edition of Das Kapital -- a slave to tradition, angered now because you have been exposed by a mere woman as a semi-blind, empty-headed slave to tradition, who is happy simply to copy the few words he can see without giving them much thought, or any at all.


You know what I bet? I bet Rosa say’s we should disregard this because Marx did not choose to publish Volume 3.

Well spotted.


And I think this claim of hers needs to be regarded seriously, but seriously as an index to the poverty of her knowledge of Marx’s work.

But you are the one who can't read Das Kapital, and suddenly I'm the villain!



For all that Rosa has written, I have yet to read anything that actually explores Marx’s work; anything that explores the circuits of capital; the patterns of capitalist development; the extension and intensification of capital; the growth of finance and the credit system.

And if you read Marx (er, or have him read slowly to you), you will see that he neglected to write about the chemical composition of rocks on Mars, or the evolution of the Angiosperms -- since that was not his aim.

In like manner, my sole aim is to kill off this Hermetic virus (http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/en/magee.htm), nothing more, nothing less. So, this latest attempt of yours to distract attention from your plight, and on to my alleged failings, is to no avail. You are still in that Hermetic Hole.

Now, if you want help rectifying your sheep-like understanding of Historical Materialism, I can post a reading list -- er, except, you will need to get your eyes fixed first.


I admit I haven’t read a large part of her 1.75 million words, so if I’m wrong, I hope somebody directs me to that work of hers that actually explores something concrete in Marx’s analysis; something that actually deals with capital and is not a ploy at the philosophical recuperation of Marxism into language games, into a philosophy of language.

Stay away -- I'd hate to think I was in any way responsible for disabusing you of your woolly-headed ignorance, even if only to serve as a warning to others of the deleterious effects of 'dialectics' on the human brain.

-----------------------------------

So, the search goes on for someone, anyone, who can tell us what the hell a 'dialectical contradiction' is.

Larry here is no help at all.

[S.Artesian]

Right, right, now it's not Hegelian jargon, it's not dialectic-- it's contradiction. Exactly as expected, when challenged, poor pitiful Rosa,channeling Shaggy, sings "It Wasn't Me" "That's not what I said, I said something else."

And right, right, Marx didn't publish Volume 3, and ergo the internal contradictions of the law don't exist, or don't exist as contradictions-- maybe antagonisms? That's acceptable-- but no that's not being coy, disingenuous, or another A+ example of Rosa's sophistry.

Wait a minute... Marx did publish Vol 1, and right here in the section of Rate and Mass of Surplus Value, p. 337-338 Marx says "Here, as in natural science, is shown the correctness of the law discovered by Hegel (in his "Logic"), that merely quantitative difference beyond a certain point pass into qualitative changes." Hmmh... how did that get in there? Marx says he coquetted here and there in the chapter on the theory of value with certain forms of expression peculiar to Hegel. This isn't that chapter, this isn't a form of expression peculiar to Hegel. It's an explicit acknowledgment of the correctness of a law discovered in Hegel's Logic.

Who left that in here? What a minute next page, hold on, I think I see a transformation of a thing into its opposite coming up... got to get rid of that too. Marx says... "It is now no longer the labourer that employs the means of production, but the means of production that employ the labourer." Ok that's got to go too. Get the scissors....

Wait a minute, same page, what's going on here? Marx writes "An example will show, in conclusion, how this sophistication, peculiar to and characteristic of capitalist production, this complete inversion of the relation between dead and living labour, between value and the force that creates value, mirrors itself in the consciousness of capitalists." Inversion, what's that? A euphemism, maybe for some of those funky Hegelian words? You think??

You know what, it sounds to me that Marx is using language that coquettes with NOT being Hegelian when he knows the Hegelian terms are precise and accurate, and Marx does this to make this volume more accessible the reader. Sounds like the direct opposite, a direct contradiction to what pitiful Rosa claims, doesn't it? That's because it is-- and Marx tells us so:

Preface to the first edition:

"Every beginning is difficult, holds in all sciences. To understand the first chapter, especially the section that contains the analysis of commodities will therefore present the greatest difficulty. That which concerns more especially the analysis of the substance of value and and the magnitude of value, I have as much as it was possible popularized. The value form.... is very elementary and simple. Nevertheless the human mind has for more than 2000 years sought in vain to get to the bottom of it....

With the exception of the value-form, therefore, this volume cannot stand accused on the score of difficulty. I pre-suppose, of course, a reader, who is willing to learn something new and therefore to think for himself."

So Marx tells us-- this volume is not going to be too difficult, but the beginning is going to be difficult because its the beginning of new science; for 2000 years the human mind hasn't been able to penetrate the value form; that time ends here and now, so make the effort. OK, hasn't been done before in 2000 years, penetrate the value-form, value-form, value---- hey, isn't that the part where Marx says he coquetted with forms of expression peculiar to Hegel? Bulls-eye, catnip! Strip my gears and call me shiftless. He used Hegelian terms to penetrate something that hadn't been explained in 2000 years. Imagine that.

And the rest of the volume-- Marx will not make too difficult, and the way he will do that not making too difficult? Marx will find expressions equivalent in meaning to, and derived from the same method as those "forms of expression peculiar to Hegel" that, regarding value, are difficult, but were necessary to accomplish the task of penetrating the 2000 year old veil.

Marx, of course, hadn't met Rosa, for then he might have changed his pre-supposition.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Larry (from here (http://www.marxmail.org/msg68050.html)):


Well, I've been having fun over at:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/dialectics-and-political-t118934/index5.html

My approach is a little difference, because it isn't philosophy that's at stake here, it's historical accuracy as she claims Marx "extirpated" Hegel and dialectics in Vol 1 of Capital.

I started out actually trying to be nice, figuring she might actually know something, something to break through the over-aggrandizing that goes on [sometimes] with proclamations of "dialectical materialism."

But in the end, I think she knows actually very little about Marx, the development, method, and content of his work. I mean I think she probably hasn't even read much Marx. I don't know that to be a fact, can't prove it, but just the circular nature of the discussions, the hair-splitting, the inaccuracies, the parsing even of commas in Marx's preface to the 2nd edition of Volume 1, makes me think she just hasn't expended much time or effort on the work itself.

Probably has a great background in philosophy of language, and vice-versa...
as if that's a plus.

First:


My approach is a little difference, because it isn't philosophy that's at stake here, it's historical accuracy as she claims Marx "extirpated" Hegel and dialectics in Vol 1 of Capital.

In fact, your 'approach' is to ignore what Marx actually said.


I started out actually trying to be nice, figuring she might actually know something, something to break through the over-aggrandizing that goes on [sometimes] with proclamations of "dialectical materialism."

So did I, but you began name-calling when your ego was bruised.


But in the end, I think she knows actually very little about Marx, the development, method, and content of his work. I mean I think she probably hasn't even read much Marx. I don't know that to be a fact, can't prove it, but just the circular nature of the discussions, the hair-splitting, the inaccuracies, the parsing even of commas in Marx's preface to the 2nd edition of Volume 1, makes me think she just hasn't expended much time or effort on the work itself.

And yet, for all the 'reading' you have done, you still ignore what he said. And you seem to think I inserted that comma into the MECW edition!


Probably has a great background in philosophy of language, and vice-versa...
as if that's a plus

And your lack of facility with logic stands out a mile, too.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Larry, who once said this:


I have no intention of wasting my time with someone who, IMO, denies the meaning of what Marx has written and presents the denial is the "rational kernel" of Marxism itself.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1563049&postcount=76

In other words: we can't believe anything he says.


Right, right, now it's not Hegelian jargon, it's not dialectic-- it's contradiction. Exactly as expected, when challenged, poor pitiful Rosa, channeling Shaggy, sings "It Wasn't Me" "That's not what I said, I said something else."

In short, you screwed up.


And right, right, Marx didn't publish Volume 3, and ergo the internal contradictions of the law don't exist, or don't exist as contradictions-- maybe antagonisms? That's acceptable-- but no that's not being coy, disingenuous, or another A+ example of Rosa's sophistry.

And yet, for all your bluster, you still can't explain why these are 'contradictions'. Nor can you cope with Marx's own words when he said he was merely 'coquetting' with these obscure Hegelian terms.



Wait a minute... Marx did publish Vol 1, and right here in the section of Rate and Mass of Surplus Value, p. 337-338 Marx says "Here, as in natural science, is shown the correctness of the law discovered by Hegel (in his "Logic"), that merely quantitative difference beyond a certain point pass into qualitative changes." Hmmh... how did that get in there? Marx says he coquetted here and there in the chapter on the theory of value with certain forms of expression peculiar to Hegel. This isn't that chapter, this isn't a form of expression peculiar to Hegel. It's an explicit acknowledgment of the correctness of a law discovered in Hegel's Logic.

Again, as Marx himself said, he was merely 'coquetting' with such jargon, and no wonder, this 'law' does not work:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2007.htm

And what Marx actually said, as the MECW has it, is this:


I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker, and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

That extra comma that you keep ignoring indicates that Marx was merely using 'the chapter on the theory of value' as an example. Or, do you think that Marx would 'coquette' in this, perhaps the most important section of volume one, and then not do so elsewhere? That he'd use this jargon non-seriously there, and seriously elsewhere?

But, since we already know that 'his method', the 'dialectic method' has had Hegel completely extirpated, no wonder he merely 'coquetted' with these obscure terms in the rest of Das Kapital, terms that, even now, after you have been asked several times, you still can't explain to us.

Larry, now frantically ransacking Das Kapital to find something, anything, uniquely Hegelian:


Who left that in here? What a minute next page, hold on, I think I see a transformation of a thing into its opposite coming up... got to get rid of that too. Marx says... "It is now no longer the labourer that employs the means of production, but the means of production that employ the labourer." Ok that's got to go too. Get the scissors....

Transformation into opposites is, of course, an Aristotelian idea. Indeed, it probably goes back to Empedocles.


Wait a minute, same page, what's going on here? Marx writes "An example will show, in conclusion, how this sophistication, peculiar to and characteristic of capitalist production, this complete inversion of the relation between dead and living labour, between value and the force that creates value, mirrors itself in the consciousness of capitalists." Inversion, what's that? A euphemism, maybe for some of those funky Hegelian words? You think??

I suppose you think Hegel was the only person in human history up to that point who had used the word 'inversion'?


You know what, it sounds to me that Marx is using language that coquettes with NOT being Hegelian when he knows the Hegelian terms are precise and accurate, and Marx does this to make this volume more accessible the reader. Sounds like the direct opposite, a direct contradiction to what pitiful Rosa claims, doesn't it? That's because it is-- and Marx tells us so:

Preface to the first edition:

"Every beginning is difficult, holds in all sciences. To understand the first chapter, especially the section that contains the analysis of commodities will therefore present the greatest difficulty. That which concerns more especially the analysis of the substance of value and the magnitude of value, I have as much as it was possible popularized. The value form.... is very elementary and simple. Nevertheless the human mind has for more than 2000 years sought in vain to get to the bottom of it....

With the exception of the value-form, therefore, this volume cannot stand accused on the score of difficulty. I pre-suppose, of course, a reader, who is willing to learn something new and therefore to think for himself."

And where exactly is the Hegelian guff in there?


it sounds to me that Marx is using language that coquettes with NOT being Hegelian when he knows the Hegelian terms are precise and accurate

You really are getting flustered now; even your English is beginning to fall apart. What the hell does that mean?

And, if this were the case:


Hegelian terms are precise and accurate

one would have thought you'd be able to tell us what a 'dialectical contradiction' is -- up to now, all we have had from you, the 'expert', is a mixture of bluster and deadly silence.

In that case, this sentence of yours has now turned into its opposite:


when he knows the Hegelian terms aren't precise or accurate

Back to Larry:


So Marx tells us-- this volume is not going to be too difficult, but the beginning is going to be difficult because its the beginning of new science; for 2000 years the human mind hasn't been able to penetrate the value form; that time ends here and now, so make the effort. OK, hasn't been done before in 2000 years, penetrate the value-form, value-form, value---- hey, isn't that the part where Marx says he coquetted with forms of expression peculiar to Hegel? Bulls-eye, catnip! Strip my gears and call me shiftless. He used Hegelian terms to penetrate something that hadn't been explained in 2000 years. Imagine that.

Ok: 'Shiftless'.

Happy?


And the rest of the volume-- Marx will not make too difficult, and the way he will do that not making too difficult? Marx will find expressions equivalent in meaning to, and derived from the same method as those "forms of expression peculiar to Hegel" that, regarding value, are difficult, but were necessary to accomplish the task of penetrating the 2000 year old veil.

Well, once more, we needn't speculate, since Marx himself (not me) very helpfully added a review of 'his method'. Larry here seems not to have seen it before, so here it is again:


"After a quotation from the preface to my 'Criticism of Political Economy,' Berlin, 1859, pp. IV-VII, where I discuss the materialistic basis of my method, the writer goes on:*

'The one thing which is of moment to Marx, is to find the law of the phenomena with whose investigation he is concerned; and not only is that law of moment to him, which governs these phenomena, in so far as they have a definite form and mutual connexion within a given historical period. Of still greater moment to him is the law of their variation, of their development, i.e., of their transition from one form into another, from one series of connexions into a different one. This law once discovered, he investigates in detail the effects in which it manifests itself in social life. Consequently, Marx only troubles himself about one thing: to show, by rigid scientific investigation, the necessity of successive determinate orders of social conditions, and to establish, as impartially as possible, the facts that serve him for fundamental starting-points. For this it is quite enough, if he proves, at the same time, both the necessity of the present order of things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably pass over; and this all the same, whether men believe or do not believe it, whether they are conscious or unconscious of it. Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intelligence, but rather, on the contrary, determining that will, consciousness and intelligence. ... If in the history of civilisation the conscious element plays a part so subordinate, then it is self-evident that a critical inquiry whose subject-matter is civilisation, can, less than anything else, have for its basis any form of, or any result of, consciousness. That is to say, that not the idea, but the material phenomenon alone can serve as its starting-point. Such an inquiry will confine itself to the confrontation and the comparison of a fact, not with ideas, but with another fact. For this inquiry, the one thing of moment is, that both facts be investigated as accurately as possible, and that they actually form, each with respect to the other, different momenta of an evolution; but most important of all is the rigid analysis of the series of successions, of the sequences and concatenations in which the different stages of such an evolution present themselves. But it will be said, the general laws of economic life are one and the same, no matter whether they are applied to the present or the past. This Marx directly denies. According to him, such abstract laws do not exist. On the contrary, in his opinion every historical period has laws of its own.... As soon as society has outlived a given period of development, and is passing over from one given stage to another, it begins to be subject also to other laws. In a word, economic life offers us a phenomenon analogous to the history of evolution in other branches of biology. The old economists misunderstood the nature of economic laws when they likened them to the laws of physics and chemistry. A more thorough analysis of phenomena shows that social organisms differ among themselves as fundamentally as plants or animals. Nay, one and the same phenomenon falls under quite different laws in consequence of the different structure of those organisms as a whole, of the variations of their individual organs, of the different conditions in which those organs function, &c. Marx, e.g., denies that the law of population is the same at all times and in all places. He asserts, on the contrary, that every stage of development has its own law of population. ... With the varying degree of development of productive power, social conditions and the laws governing them vary too. Whilst Marx sets himself the task of following and explaining from this point of view the economic system established by the sway of capital, he is only formulating, in a strictly scientific manner, the aim that every accurate investigation into economic life must have. The scientific value of such an inquiry lies in the disclosing of the special laws that regulate the origin, existence, development, death of a given social organism and its replacement by another and higher one. And it is this value that, in point of fact, Marx's book has.'

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added.]

You will note that Marx calls this the 'dialectic method', and 'his method', but it is also clear that it bears no relation to the sort of dialectics you have had forced down your throat, for in it there is not one ounce of Hegel -- no 'quantity turning into quality', no 'contradictions', no 'negation of the negation', no unity of opposites', no 'totality'...

Once more, Marx's method has had Hegel totally extirpated. For Marx, putting Hegel on 'his feet' is to crush his head.

And, of the few terms Marx uses of Hegel's in Das Kapital, he tells us this:


"and even, here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the mode of expression peculiar to him."

But, Blind Pugh here will no doubt continue to ignore this.


Marx, of course, hadn't met Rosa, for then he might have changed his pre-supposition.

Well, he did encounter a review of 'his method', in which there is no trace of Hegel, so, alas for you mystics, he'd have agreed with me.

[S.Artesian]

You're simply a fraud Rosa, repeating the same-old, same-old like some automaton with limited memory, but unlimited playback capabilities.

Which brings me to a thought-- perhaps you are not actually a human being-- but some bot program, like a particularly pedantic and dull reworking of "Dungeons and Dragons"-- designed to spew a certain number of set answers based on key recognized words in an input, repeating an endless loop of stupidities.

That sounds about right, no?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Larry:


You're simply a fraud Rosa, repeating the same-old, same-old like some automaton with limited memory, but unlimited playback capabilities

Translated from Larry-speak, this reads: "I can't answer your points, so I will just name-call some more."


Which brings me to a thought-- perhaps you are not actually a human being-- but some bot program, like a particularly pedantic and dull reworking of "Dungeons and Dragons"-- designed to spew a certain number of set answers based on key recognized words in an input, repeating an endless loop of stupidities.

Ah, I see you have been reading 'Socialist Steve's' page -- the guy who is not only a 9/11 conspiracy freak, but who thinks that if you use the Marxist term 'alien-class', you must be committed to a belief in shape-shifting aliens!

Oddly enough, you seem to deserve each other.


That sounds about right, no?

Whatever you say, dear. Now drink this nice medicine, while those nice orderlies fit that nice tight fitting cardigan on you, and take you off in that nice ambulance...

[S.Artesian]

What a wit you are Rosa. I know, I know, I'm exaggerating,-- ok, at least you're a half-wit.

Since you have succeeded in driving everybody else away from the discussion-- and I will join them after this, I leave for future participants, my response to Rosa's compulsively repeated claims that I can't answer her question as to what or why a dialectic contradiction is.

In an earlier response to Louise, in reference specifically as to why the contradictions in capital Marx explored were dialectic contradictions, I wrote:

"That being said, if Louise wants to know why Marx considers the contradictions I listed as the dialectic of capital, then the answer is based on the study of the full body, such as I've been able to get my hands and eyes on, of Marx's work. Specifically, the contradictions:

1. create each other
2. exist simultaneously with each other
3. exist in the organization of each other
4. exist in opposition to each other [the "dead labor" vs. living labor, capital vs wage-labor, bourgeoisie vs. proletariat part].
5. form a single identity, the identity being the contradiction, as Hegel put it "The truth is the whole." [the ever popular "unity of opposites" bit.
6. drive the "whole," the identity, in this case capital, to develop, expand, accumulate to reproduce itself on an ever-larger scale.
7. In so doing reproduce the contradictions on an ever larger scale
8. The contradictions expand. In this case the social relations of production become the limit, the constraint on the expansion required to reproduce the whole, the system [we're right at the old "quantity into quality" part].
9. This conflict in development leads, by necessity, to the inability of the system to maintain itself [the old "seeds of its own destruction" bit], and the struggle to emancipate the material conditions of human existence from the limits of the social relation bursts forth [negation, negation squared part, etc. etc]."
_______________
I certainly don't think anyone with a syndrome as severe as poor Rosa's can accept any of the 9 points as satisfactory, for the nature of the syndrome is that nothing can be accepted, tolerated, that threatens the manifestation of the disorder, but those are the answers to the questions poor Rosa maintains can never be answered. Tic, tic, tic.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Larry (comrades will remember this character, who told the world he would waste no more time on little old me):


What a wit you are Rosa. I know, I know, I'm exaggerating,-- ok, at least you're a half-wit.

Maybe so, maybe not, but even if I am, I'd rather be a half-wit than witless like you.


Since you have succeeded in driving everybody else away from the discussion-- and I will join them after this, I leave for future participants, my response to Rosa's compulsively repeated claims that I can't answer her question as to what or why a dialectic contradiction is.

Yes, there were literally hundreds weren't there?

But, you shouldn't give me all the glory -- I think we can share the plaudits for driving these multidues away.


"That being said, if Louise wants to know why Marx considers the contradictions I listed as the dialectic of capital, then the answer is based on the study of the full body, such as I've been able to get my hands and eyes on, of Marx's work. Specifically, the contradictions:

1. create each other
2. exist simultaneously with each other
3. exist in the organization of each other
4. exist in opposition to each other [the "dead labor" vs. living labor, capital vs wage-labor, bourgeoisie vs. proletariat part].
5. form a single identity, the identity being the contradiction, as Hegel put it "The truth is the whole." [the ever popular "unity of opposites" bit.
6. drive the "whole," the identity, in this case capital, to develop, expand, accumulate to reproduce itself on an ever-larger scale.
7. In so doing reproduce the contradictions on an ever larger scale
8. The contradictions expand. In this case the social relations of production become the limit, the constraint on the expansion required to reproduce the whole, the system [we're right at the old "quantity into quality" part].
9. This conflict in development leads, by necessity, to the inability of the system to maintain itself [the old "seeds of its own destruction" bit], and the struggle to emancipate the material conditions of human existence from the limits of the social relation bursts forth [negation, negation squared part, etc. etc]."

Yes, I not only saw this, I replied to it:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1563239&postcount=79

So, we still do not know what a 'dialectical contradiction' is, and it's plain that neither does Larry the Lamb here.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Larry the Lamb has tried to reply to me here (http://www.marxmail.org/msg68137.html):


Besides the sheer repetitiveness of Rosa's answers, her distortions of what Marx wrote, her rigid schemes that serve her arguments by ignoring the totality of Marx's work-- correspondence not permitted, only those parts of unpublished works that agree, reinforce Rosa's distortion of published works allowed, her insistence when presented with the elements of the contradictions of capital that Marx analyzed as contradiction, as the dialectic of capital, that Marx was only coquetting with the words dialectic and contradiction, AND that no one can explain what a dialectical contradiction is -- besides all that, it is her contention that:

1) dialectic, contradiction, etc. are ruling class ideologies designed to obscure the...what? The actual content of the class domination? Perhaps, but if it is an ideology designed to do just that, then the appearance of the class domination, how the bourgeoisie presents, administers, and is in turn compelled by its capitalism, its relation to its property, must be opposed to that actual content, and since both must be grounded in the material conditions, the social organization of labor, we are right back to Marx's dialectic of history, Hegel's tension, antagonism, contradiction whatever you want to call between appearance and essence, actual and potential, and on and on we go.

2. And there's more.... that this insidious ideology has in fact led Marxism to defeat over the last 100-150 years. The fact that Lenin, for better or worse, took up the study of Hegel and apparently found it helpful in a profound apprehension of the real dynamics of the only successful, self-conscious, proletarian revolution in history, is not of course evidence to the contrary. The actual material of the defeat of the revolution, profoundly non-ideological, existing in tactics, strategy, actual material organization of the proletariat-- that doesn't matter either because you see the failures in tactics, strategy, material organization are all the result of infection with Hegelian herpes [and I'm sure Rosa will adopt that faux description of dialectic as one of her "characterizations" of dialectic].

3. And there's more: She has nothing to say about capitalism, about capital. Not a word about any of the issues Marx analyzes in Vol 1; not a word about the subjects undertaken, but certainly not exhausted in Vol 2 and Vol 3; not a shred of examination about how and why capital functions as it does anywhere, and anytime, past or present. Nothing. No demonstration of how her assertion of Marx's extirpation of Hegel in Vol 1, not to mention Vols. 2,3 is actually carried out in his concrete analysis of wage-labor and capital. And in fact although she denies it, she is in fact doing nothing but repeating Althusser's argument of an epistemological rupture in Marx by claiming as she does-- that prior to Capital, Marx was influenced, tainted, by Hegel, but not in Vol 1, and not after... except when "coquetting." Of course, Marx practices safe coquetting, otherwise he'd get herpes. And... this transformation happens, apparently, all at once, because Rosa engages in no historical examination of Marx's work itself -- she shows no transition, no development of anti-Hegelianism [how could she? first none exists, secondly if it did exist, if it did develop -- why that itself might be evidence of dialectic, especially of the gradual changes accumulated to the point where Marx achieved a breakthrough -- then we'd have the old quantity into quality thing, and good-bye Rosa].

4. And there's more In fact all of Rosa's efforts serve either to a) satisfy her need for self-aggrandizement-- she knows the truth, she grasps the reality b) duel with the ghost of Hegel, utilizing her popgun of positivism to recuperate actual history, the examination of the dialectic of the relations of production and the means of production, into speculative consciousness; into language philosophy.

It is not a discussion we engage with Rosie the derivator, it is a tic...

Ok, lets deconstruct this latest outburst of emotion and irrationality (can't you just see Larry here, bashing furiously away at his key-board, intent on putting thus uppity woman in her place?):


Besides the sheer repetitiveness of Rosa's answers, her distortions of what Marx wrote, her rigid schemes that serve her arguments by ignoring the totality of Marx's work -- correspondence not permitted, only those parts of unpublished works that agree, reinforce Rosa's distortion of published works allowed, her insistence when presented with the elements of the contradictions of capital that Marx analyzed as contradiction, as the dialectic of capital, that Marx was only coquetting with the words dialectic and contradiction, AND that no one can explain what a dialectical contradiction is -- besides all that, it is her contention that:

Repetitive? Indeed so, since Larry seems not to be able to read what Marx plainly said.


her rigid schemes that serve her arguments by ignoring the totality of Marx's work

Not my 'rigid scheme' in fact, but standard practice interpreting the work of any author, as Larry has had it explained to him several times.

If he needs me to walk him through it again, he only has to beg.


reinforce Rosa's distortion of published works allowed, her insistence when presented with the elements of the contradictions of capital that Marx analyzed as contradiction, as the dialectic of capital, that Marx was only coquetting with the words dialectic and contradiction, AND that no one can explain what a dialectical contradiction is

Oh dear, the emotion in here!

I did say that dialecticians become emotive and irrational in defence of this mystical theory, as do the openly religious, too, and for the same reasons, but here we see it again.

And yet, Larry has to ignore what Marx actually said to make this emotive outburst seem to bite, just as he has to turn a blind eye to Marx's declaration that he was only 'coquetting' with Hegelian terms (like 'contradiction' ) in Das Kapital.

And all this in order to hide the fact that neither he nor anyone else is able to tell us what a 'dialectical contradiction' is!

Psychologists call this 'denial', I hear.


1) dialectic, contradiction, etc. are ruling class ideologies designed to obscure the...what? The actual content of the class domination? Perhaps, but if it is an ideology designed to do just that, then the appearance of the class domination, how the bourgeoisie presents, administers, and is in turn compelled by its capitalism, its relation to its property, must be opposed to that actual content, and since both must be grounded in the material conditions, the social organization of labor, we are right back to
Marx's dialectic of history, Hegel's tension, antagonism, contradiction whatever you want to call between appearance and essence, actual and potential, and on and on we go.

Well, "contradiction" is a word not an ideology.

But, what can Larry be thinking here? Has sloppy Hegelian logic nuked his brain, as some rather unsympathetic souls might think (but not me, I hasten to add -- I am far too indulgent)?

I trust not.

Of course, Larry's speculations about (but masquerading as a summary of) my explanation of the (ruling-class) origin and function of the Hegelian terms upon which Larry dotes, are just that, speculation, since he hasn't read my account. But we already know he prefers to invent where he cannot prevail with argument and evidence.

Well, at least he's a consistent dissembler, so we always know where we stand with Larry.


and on and on we go

Yes, you do, and we deserve an apology, too.


2. And there's more.... that this insidious ideology has in fact led Marxism to defeat over the last 100-150 years. The fact that Lenin, for better or worse, took up the study of Hegel and apparently found it helpful in a profound apprehension of the real dynamics of the only successful, self-conscious, proletarian revolution in history, is not of course evidence to the contrary. The actual material of the defeat of the revolution, profoundly non-ideological, existing in tactics, strategy, actual material organization of the proletariat-- that doesn't matter either because you see the failures in tactics, strategy, material organization are all the result of infection with Hegelian herpes [and I'm sure Rosa will adopt that faux description of dialectic as one of her "characterizations"
of dialectic].

As I noted on page One of my site (and I repeat it many times on other pages):


It is important to emphasise from the outset that I am not blaming the long-term failure of Dialectical Marxism solely on the acceptance of the Hermetic ideas dialecticians inherited from Hegel.

It is worth repeating this since I still encounter comments on Internet discussion boards, and still receive e-mails from those who claim to have read the above words, who still think I am blaming all our woes on dialectics. I am not.

However, no matter how many times I repeat this caveat, the message will not sink in (and this is after several years of continually making this very point!).

It seems that this is one part of the universe over which the Heraclitean Flux has no power!

What is being claimed, however, is that adherence to this 'theory' is one of the subjective reasons why Dialectical Marxism has become a bye-word for failure.

There are other, objective reasons why the class enemy still runs this planet, but since revolutions require revolutionaries with ideas in their heads, this 'theory' must take some of the blame.

So, it is alleged here that dialectics has been an important contributory factor.

It certainly helps explain why revolutionary groups are in general vanishingly small, neurotically sectarian, studiously unreasonable, consistently conservative, theoretically deferential to 'tradition', and almost invariably lean toward some form of substitutionism.

Naturally, this has had a direct bearing on our lack of impact on the working-class over the last seventy years or so -- and probably for much longer -- and thus on the continuing success of Capitalism.

The following 'Unity of Opposites' is difficult to explain otherwise:

The larger the proletariat, the smaller the impact that Dialectical Marxism has on it.

Sadly, this will continue while comrades cling on to this regressive doctrine.

And yet, the revolution failed; can we then (even partially) blame that on 'the dialectic'? If not, how can we attribute its alleged success to the 'dialectic'? Larry is silent on this.

Moreover, what evidence there is, supports my view that 'the dialectic' is useless, since it shows that Lenin and the Bolsheviks did not use 'the dialectic' to agitate and organise workers in 1917. Here is what I have posted before on this:


When confronted with the above unwelcome facts, DM-fans sometimes respond with a "Well if dialectics is so dire, how come the Bolsheviks were able to win power in 1917?"

[Non-Leninist DM-fans, of course, do not have even this to point to as a 'success'!]

Oddly enough, as a Leninist myself, I find this 'objection' remarkably easy to answer: the Bolsheviks were successful because they could not and did not use dialectics (either in its DM- or in its 'Materialist Dialectics'-form). To be sure, this claim is controversial, but only because no one has thought to question the role of dialectics before.

[DM = Dialectical Materialism; HM = Historical Materialism.]

In fact, the material counterweight provided by working class soviets prevented the Bolsheviks from employing this useless theory. Had they tried to propagandise/organise Russian workers with slogans such as: "Being is identical with but at the same time different from Nothing...", "The whole is greater than the sum of the parts...", or "Matter without motion is unthinkable" (and the like), they'd have been regarded as complete lunatics, and rightly so.

On the other hand, they could and did use ideas drawn from HM to help organise the soviets. [All this was covered in detail Part One (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2009_01.htm) of this Essay.]

And it is no use arguing that dialectical concepts were used 'implicitly' (or that they 'informed' the tactics that Lenin and his party adopted, somehow operating 'behind the scenes'). As we will see below, since dialectical concepts can be employed to justify anything and everything (being inherently and proudly contradictory), had they been employed, they could only have been used subjectively since there is no objective way to tell these incompatible applications apart.

Anyone who takes exception to the above will need to show precisely how Lenin and the Bolsheviks explicitly used dialectical-concepts --, as opposed to their actual employment of HM-concepts (the latter based on a concrete class analysis of events in 1917, and on years of experience relating to the working class). They will thus need to produce documented evidence of the Bolshevik's use of dialectical ideas/theses, and then show how they could possibly have been of any practical benefit to workers in revolutionary struggle --, or even how they could have helped the Bolsheviks comprehend what was going on and know how to intervene successfully.

Now, I have carefully trawled through the available minutes and decrees of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party (from August 1917 to February 1918), and have so far failed to find a single DM-thesis, let alone one drawn from 'Materialist Dialectics', put to any use, or even referred to abstractly! [Bone (1974).] To be sure, it is always possible I have missed a minor entry, but even if I have, this Hermetic creed hardly forms a prominent part of the day-to-day discussions of active revolutionaries.

Added later: I have now gone though the available documents line by line twice -- still no sign of this Hermetic virus!

In fact, it is conspicuous by its absence.

Hence, the evidence suggests that active revolutionaries made no use of this 'theory'.

Moreover, I have now checked the Theses, Resolutions and Manifestos of the First Four Congresses of The Third International [Holt and Holland (1983)], and the only sign of dialectics is a couple of dozen occurrences of the word "contradiction" in relation to capitalism (etc.) in over 400 pages. No other examples of dialectical jargon appear in the entire volume, and even then this word is not used to explain anything, nor does it seem to do any work. Furthermore, most of the uses of this word were made by Zinoviev; as far as I can tell, Lenin does not use the term anywhere in this book.

Moreover, in Trotsky's The Third International After Lenin [Trotsky (1974)], dialectics is mentioned only fourteen times in nearly 300 pages, and then only in passing. The theory does no work there either.

And it is even less use someone requiring of me to produce proof that Lenin and the Bolsheviks did not use dialectical ideas, since there is no written evidence that he/they did, as the above indicates. Hence, the contrary case goes by default. Of course, all this is quite independent of the proof offered in these Essays that not one single dialectical concept is in fact useable, nor is the alleged 'method'; after all, as we saw earlier in this Essay, even Lenin got into a serious muddle when he tried to play around with such ideas (in 1908), let alone when he attempted to apply them.

As we will soon find out, when dialectical ideas are in fact deployed, they can be made to justify anything whatsoever (no matter how contradictory that "anything whatsoever" might otherwise appear to be; in fact the more contradictory it is, the more 'dialectical' it seems to be!) -- and it can be, and has been used to rationalise any course of action, and its opposite, including those that are both counter-revolutionary and anti-Marxist.

In fact, shortly after the revolution, many younger comrades and Russian scientists began to argue at length that all of Philosophy (and not just dialectics) is part of ruling-class ideology (which is in fact a crude version of my own thesis!). It was not until the Deborinites won a factional battle in 1925/26 that this trend was defeated (and this was clearly engineered to help pave the way for the further destruction of the gains of October). More about this later.

[On this, see Bakhurst (1991), Joravsky (1961), Graham (1971), Wetter (1958).]

So, 1917 cannot be chalked-up as a success for this strain of Hermetic Mysticism.

However, we will see that the disintegration of the results of 1917 can partly be put down to dialectics.

And, even better, I have the evidence to prove it.

Bakhurst, D. (1991), Consciousness And Revolution In Soviet Philosophy. From The Bolsheviks To Evald Ilyenkov (Cambridge University Press).

Bone, A. (1974), The Bolsheviks And The October Revolution. Central Committee Minutes Of The Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (Bolshevik) August 1917-February 1918 (Pluto Press).

Graham, L. (1971), Science And Philosophy In The Soviet Union (Allen Lane).

Holt, A., and Holland, B. (1983), Theses, Resolutions and Manifestos of the First Four Congresses of The Third International (Ink Links).

Joravsky, D. (1961), Soviet Marxism And Natural Science 1917-1932 (Routledge).

Wetter, G. (1958), Dialectical Materialism (Routledge).

Trotsky, L. (1974), The Third International After Lenin (New Park).

The above has been taken from my Essay Nine Part Two: The Damage Inflicted On Marxsim By 'Materialist Dialectics'.

You can find the evidence and argument that this mystical theory helped destroy the gains of October 1917 in that essay, i.e., here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2009_02.htm

The rest of Larry's comments I will answer in my next post.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Larry:


The actual material of the defeat of the revolution, profoundly non-ideological, existing in tactics, strategy, actual material organization of the proletariat -- that doesn't matter either because you see the failures in tactics, strategy, material organization are all the result of infection with Hegelian herpes [and I'm sure Rosa will adopt that faux description of dialectic as one of her "characterizations" of dialectic].

As the above post of mine shows, this comment of Larry's is so wide of the mark, it's in the next star system. But, we already know he likes to dissemble.


3. And there's more: She has nothing to say about capitalism, about capital. Not a word about any of the issues Marx analyzes in Vol 1; not a word about the subjects undertaken, but certainly not exhausted in Vol 2 and Vol 3; not a shred of examination about how and why capital functions as it does anywhere, and anytime, past or present. Nothing. No demonstration of how her assertion of Marx's extirpation of Hegel in Vol 1, not to mention Vols. 2,3 is actually carried out in his concrete analysis of wage-labor and capital. And in fact although she denies it, she is in fact doing nothing but repeating Althusser's argument of an epistemological rupture in Marx by
claiming as she does-- that prior to Capital, Marx was influenced, tainted, by Hegel, but not in Vol 1, and not after... except when "coquetting." Of course, Marx practices safe coquetting, otherwise he'd get herpes. And... this transformation happens, apparently, all at once, because Rosa engages in no historical examination of Marx's work itself -- she shows no transition, no development of anti-Hegelianism [how could she? first none exists, secondly if it did exist, if it did develop -- why that itself might be evidence of dialectic, especially of the gradual changes accumulated to the point where Marx achieved a breakthrough -- then we'd have the old quantity into quality thing, and good-bye Rosa].

As Larry has had it pointed out to him (and several times), I have no need to comment on Das Kapital, or politics in general, since there are plenty of comrades around (and in the party to which I once belonged, and whose politics I still agree with) who do his admirably well. He has had this pointed out to him before, too!

But there is absolutely no one doing what I am doing at my site -- nor has there ever been anyone who has done this. Larry may disagree with my arguments (what few he has cast his irascible eye upon), but he can't deny that my work is unique.

So, this is my contribution to improving the scientific status of Marxism: ridding it of the mystical ideas that have colonised the brains of the vast majority of comrades.

And I needn't engage in speculation about this either:


And... this transformation happens, apparently, all at once, because Rosa engages in no historical examination of Marx's work itself -- she shows no transition, no development of anti-Hegelianism [how could she? first none exists, secondly if it did exist, if it did develop -- why that itself might be evidence of dialectic, especially of the gradual changes accumulated to the point where Marx achieved a breakthrough -- then we'd have the old quantity into quality thing, and good-bye Rosa].

We can leave that to future, and far less blinkered generations of non-dialectical Marxists to fill in the details; this will not affect the fact that Marx himself indicated that he had extirpated Hegel from his version of 'the dialectic', as that long quotation (from a reviewer) that Marx added to the second edition of his masterpiece shows.

But, how can 'quantity turn into quality' here? Where is the addition nor subtraction of matter and/or energy?

I don't think Larry here has read his Engels with much care either!

Anyway, that 'law' does not work, as I have shown here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2007.htm


4. And there's more In fact all of Rosa's efforts serve either to a) satisfy her need for self-aggrandizement-- she knows the truth, she grasps the reality b) duel with the ghost of Hegel, utilizing her popgun of positivism to recuperate actual history, the examination of the dialectic of the relations of production and the means of production, into speculative consciousness; into language philosophy.

Ouch, and all because I bruised Larry's ego!

Moreover, as I noted in Essay One:


The most common reactions to my work (from comrades who have 'debated' this with me on the internet, or elsewhere) are the following:

...

(6) A casting of the usual slurs e.g., "anti-Marxist", "positivist", "sophist", "logic-chopper", "naïve realist", "revisionist", "eclectic", "relativist", "post modernist", "bourgeois stooge", "pedant", "absolutist", "elitist", "empiricist", and so on.

Naturally, when such comrades are described as "mystics" in return, they complain about "name-calling". Once more, they are allowed to dish it out (but not very well), but they cannot take it.

So, Larry's false accusation was predictable before he even thought it!

And yet there is nothing 'positivist' about my work (and Larry does not even try to substantiate this accusation), and I defy anyone to show otherwise.

What about this, though?


satisfy her need for self-aggrandizement-- she knows the truth, she grasps the reality

Indeed, one can almost see Larry saying this of Marx in the 1860s:


satisfy his need for self-aggrandizement-- he knows the truth, he grasps the reality

But, where have I said I have the truth? I have presented my case; it is up to others to decide what to make of it.


utilizing her popgun of positivism to recuperate actual history, the examination of the dialectic of the relations of production and the means of production, into speculative consciousness; into language philosophy

It is not a discussion we engage with Rosie the derivator, it is a tic...

Eh?:confused:

I think Larry's emotional state means that his fingers can't quite type fast enough to let the bile out in a coherent form, and in its place has emerged meaningless verbiage.

[I]Anyone fluent in Larry-speak: please translate this for us!

[S.Artesian]

Since nobody else is paying attention to this, and I have a little time before I have to head up to the Bronx and enjoy the return of October baseball to the home of October baseball, I'll provide Rosa the attention she craves and answer her queries.

1. Rosa has indeed pointed out many times that she has no need to comment on Capital. I have also pointed out, many times, in Marx's works where he utilizes dialectic. I have pointed out many times what the Marx's analysis of capitalism is, and indeed why those contradictions are in fact dialectical. Rosa has, many times, rejected all of that. I reject, as many times as necessary, Rosa's claim that she need not comment on Capital, the actual work where supposedly Hegel is annihilated. It is my contention that to be a Marxist one has to comment, analyze, explicate, apply the categories, sections, areas of Capital both because it is a history of Marx's own development, and it is the compressed history of capital's metabolism.

Rosa says "no comment, I need not say anything-- the real content of which is "I have nothing to say." Indeed.

2. Rosa can find no trace of the development of Marx's annihilation of Hegel in any of his other works. At least she hasn't referred to any. That is probably because she hasn't read his other works-- but that would be just speculation on my part. So... so this annihilation happens all at once? And Marx who detailed in notebooks the development of his analysis of capital, his critiques of political economists, etc. etc. doesn't comment anywhere in any publication on this annihilation once and for all of the 'great mystifier'? Again, Rosa has no need to do that... because for Rosa, Marx's work doesn't exist in history, with history. Rosa claims she's a historical materialist. On what basis does she claim that? Where has she demonstrated the least bit of comprehension of materialist analysis of history-- of the relations of production, the means of production? Nowhere. Nowhere, no comment. These are her great tools, her sharpened blades of analysis.

3. Oh yes, I've read Engels and I've quite enjoyed it. But I don't buy his dialectics of nature-- I don't buy his derivations from Hegel. Marx's extraction roots the dialectic in the material, the means of reproducing human, social, life. Marx's work is a social-ism.

4. I have no problem with name-calling. It doesn't bother me that Rosa refers to me as a mystic, irrational, even a sheep. You have to consider the source for one thing. For another, who cares? Nobody. For another, big deal, her terms don't even make the needle budge on the old slam-o-meter. I've been called worse things by better people.

Slurs are when somebody says something material-- oh like you're an ultra-left in objective alliance with imperialism, or objectively you're a counterrevolutionary for not supporting socialism in one country, or if you don't think China is leading the way in the struggle against US hegemony, you're supporting the US. That stuff bothers me. That stuff gets responses that do pin the old needle on slam-o-meter in the red zone.

5. Tic- what that means Rosa? It means you're not a Marxist, not a materialist historical or otherwise-- you're a twitch, a spasm-- a repetition compulsion. There's medication for that. You should avail yourself of the NHS and get some before Gordon does what Thatcher couldn't and destroy that too.


Restoring Order to the Universe, One World Series Victory At A Time-- The New York Yankees!

[Anaximander]

pfffffffft

go phillies

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Larry:


I'll provide Rosa the attention she craves and answer her queries.

But, you said you'd waste no more time on me. How can I trust another thing you say?


1. Rosa has indeed pointed out many times that she has no need to comment on Capital. I have also pointed out, many times, in Marx's works where he utilizes dialectic. I have pointed out many times what the Marx's analysis of capitalism is, and indeed why those contradictions are in fact dialectical. Rosa has, many times, rejected all of that. I reject, as many times as necessary, Rosa's claim that she need not comment on Capital, the actual work where supposedly Hegel is annihilated.

Except, in those passages where you say he uses the dialectic, if he employs Hegelian jargon, then as we already know, he was merely 'coquetting' with it, since he also told us (indirectly) that Hegel had been extirpated from Das Kapital.

In that case, this 'dialectic' more closely resembles that of Aristotle and the Scottish Historical Materialists:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1195129&postcount=57


It is my contention that to be a Marxist one has to comment, analyze, explicate, apply the categories, sections, areas of Capital both because it is a history of Marx's own development, and it is the compressed history of capital's metabolism.

When it comes to pitting your 'contention' against Marx's own words, guess who wins?


2. Rosa can find no trace of the development of Marx's annihilation of Hegel in any of his other works. At least she hasn't referred to any. That is probably because she hasn't read his other works-- but that would be just speculation on my part. So... so this annihilation happens all at once? And Marx who detailed in notebooks the development of his analysis of capital, his critiques of political economists, etc. etc. doesn't comment anywhere in any publication on this annihilation once and for all of the 'great mystifier'? Again, Rosa has no need to do that... because for Rosa, Marx's work doesn't exist in history, with history. Rosa claims she's a historical materialist. On what basis does she claim that? Where has she demonstrated the least bit of comprehension of materialist analysis of history-- of the relations of production, the means of production? Nowhere. Nowhere, no comment. These are her great tools, her sharpened blades of analysis.

In fact I have been reading and studying Marx since the mid-1970s. But, if you want to live in a fool's heaven, and imagine otherwise, that's your problem.

And, when I have killed-off the 'theory' that has colonised your brain, I will return to HM, and then answer the above.

If you can't wait until then, I should care...


3. Oh yes, I've read Engels and I've quite enjoyed it. But I don't buy his dialectics of nature-- I don't buy his derivations from Hegel. Marx's extraction roots the dialectic in the material, the means of reproducing human, social, life. Marx's work is a social-ism.

Well, you seem not to understand his first 'law'.


4. I have no problem with name-calling. It doesn't bother me that Rosa refers to me as a mystic, irrational, even a sheep. You have to consider the source for one thing. For another, who cares? Nobody. For another, big deal, her terms don't even make the needle budge on the old slam-o-meter. I've been called worse things by better people.

I'm sure you have!

But, can you give us the details so we can all learn from them?


Slurs are when somebody says something material-- oh like you're an ultra-left in objective alliance with imperialism, or objectively you're a counterrevolutionary for not supporting socialism in one country, or if you don't think China is leading the way in the struggle against US hegemony, you're supporting the US. That stuff bothers me. That stuff gets responses that do pin the old needle on slam-o-meter in the red zone.

Ok: you have sold your radical soul to a mess of ruling-class pottage, and in so far as you try to defend it, you are a class-traitor.


5. Tic- what that means Rosa? It means you're not a Marxist, not a materialist historical or otherwise-- .

Except, you are the one who ignores what he says -- and suddenly I'm the villain!


you're a twitch, a spasm-- a repetition compulsion. There's medication for that. You should avail yourself of the NHS and get some before Gordon does what Thatcher couldn't and destroy that too

But, I thought I was a computer program a few days ago, according to you!

You need to make your mind up.

And yet, we still do not know what a 'dialectical contradiction' is -- and neither does Larry here.

[S.Artesian]

Class-traitor? Getting in touch with your inner Beria now, Rosa, are you? That's good. I'm glad to give this opportunity to come out of your faux-philosophical closet and show yourself.

Sounds to me, Rosa, like you're getting quite emotional here, even rabid, as rabid as a chihuahua might get. Have a glass of water, try and compose yourself.

Or.. try gargling with razor blades. That should do the trick.

[Hit The North]

S.Artesian,

The above post is not very constructive and you should refrain from personal abuse of this type, irrespective of how you view the provocation.

The function of this forum is not to trade insults but to share knowledge through debate.

If neither you nor Rosa have any other constructive points to make, then please leave this thread alone.

[S.Artesian]

Not a problem Bob. Sorry if I violated your protocol. But does calling someone a "class-traitor," does that violate protocol?

Thanks in advance.

[Hit The North]

At least Rosa's undoubted slander against you has the merit of having some political content and is not entirely personal: she accuses all of us of being class traitors!

But you're correct, I should also extend my warning to Rosa (not that it ever does any good :()

[Luís Henrique]

At least Rosa's undoubted slander against you has the merit of having some political content and is not entirely personal: she accuses all of us of being class traitors!

But you're correct, I should also extend my warning to Rosa (not that it ever does any good :()
May I suggest that you close any threads as soon as they degenerate into a shouting contest between Dr. Lichtenstein and whomever else?

Luís Henrique

[Hit The North]

Luis,

Nice idea but it would run the risk of becoming an underhand tactic of closing down debate against Rosa.

Besides it could possibly result in the closing down of over 70% of the traffic on this forum :(.

[S.Artesian]

Far be it from me to suggest closing down any debate ever, or banning participants.

I take exception, however, to your statement that Rosa's "undoubted slander" "has some political content" and "is not entirely personal."

The point of slander is that there is exactly NO political content to the slander, and that it is entirely personal. The point of such slander, "class traitor," "class enemy" when it is slander, is to mark the person being slandered as a target worthy only of physical attack.

That's why I tend to make my remarks in return blunt and to the point. All that's left after slander is physical attack and self-defense. And I'm pretty good at handling the former by using the latter.

Anybody using such slander as Rosa ought to be aware that the target just might buy one of the woof tickets she's selling, and respond appropriately.

I invite anybody who thinks I am a class traitor to say it directly to my face.

[Jean-Luc Lebris]

S.Artesian,

When Marx uses the word 'contradiction' in Capitol, in what sense do you think he is using it? Do you think it is in the same way as Hegel's 'dialectical contradiction'?

Further, when Marx endorses the reviewer's summary as, his 'dialectical method', what do you make of the absence of any Hegelian dialectics? Don't you think, Marx being a seemingly considered individual and this being his 'masterpiece', that had he embraced Hegel's dialectic in his analysis/method he would've made a notation of it absence after the summary?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Larry:


Class-traitor? Getting in touch with your inner Beria now, Rosa, are you? That's good. I'm glad to give this opportunity to come out of your faux-philosophical closet and show yourself.

Sounds to me, Rosa, like you're getting quite emotional here, even rabid, as rabid as a chihuahua might get. Have a glass of water, try and compose yourself.

Or.. try gargling with razor blades. That should do the trick.

No emotion, just stone cold accurate.

Beria would have had you eliminated (that's how dialecticians deal with those who reject their 'theory', when they're in power).

Us genuine materialists have no need to eliminate anyone; indeed, we need you mystics around as a warning to the unwary.

And still, we have no idea what a 'dialectical contradiction' is, and neither have you.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Larry:

#108 Today, 18:38
S.Artesian
PTC Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: NYC
Posts: 31




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Far be it from me to suggest closing down any debate ever, or banning participants.

I take exception, however, to your statement that Rosa's "undoubted slander" "has some political content" and "is not entirely personal."

The point of slander is that there is exactly NO political content to the slander, and that it is entirely personal. The point of such slander, "class traitor," "class enemy" when it is slander, is to mark the person being slandered as a target worthy only of physical attack.

That's why I tend to make my remarks in return blunt and to the point. All that's left after slander is physical attack and self-defense. And I'm pretty good at handling the former by using the latter.

Anybody using such slander as Rosa ought to be aware that the target just might buy one of the woof tickets she's selling, and respond appropriately.

I invite anybody who thinks I am a class traitor to say it directly to my face.

Er, which one?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Cardinal Henrique:


May I suggest that you close any threads as soon as they degenerate into a shouting contest between Dr. Lichtenstein and whomever else?

And where were you when dialecticians begin shouting at me? Or, when BTB was happy to post lies here about me?

At church again?

[S.Artesian]

I've stated at the very onset of this discussion what Marx's transformation, extraction, righting of Hegel is; Marx quite clearly states he regrounds the dialectic in the material determinants of existence-- that is in the real content of history which is the social organization of labor. Marx certainly sees a dialectic in that social organization which I have also examined in the earlier posts to Louise.

There are two questions here: dialectic-- Is there any validity to the method, the logic of dialectic of Hegel who according to Marx presented dialectic in a complete and conscious manner?

The second question is: did Marx accept such a validity to dialectic, did he employ dialectic analysis in his examination of history, of the social organization of labor, of the conflict between means and relations of production.

Now the answers to these two questions are closely linked-- we might even say each contains the other.

As for the first question-- there's no point to arguing that in philosophic terms, in the ahistorical terms of formal logic. The question and the answer is in the real development of history. Make your evaluation of that history, you get your answer which is why I think demonstating historical materialism, demonstrating the superiority of one's historical analysis of a concrete element of capital, in the development of capital, in the current reproduction of capital, an stripped of dialectic as opposed to that materialism trapped in dialectic, which according to some, isn't materialism at all, is so critical.

If you cannot do that, then you really miss the point of what Marx has accomplished-- which is provide critical exposure of the inherent dynamics of capitalism that originate in the separation of the means of production from the producers, and the organization, the dispossession of "free labor," into wage-labor.

I think Marx has demonstrated his "fidelity" to dialectic throughout Capital, regardless of the language used, because the historical analysis he provides contains, exhibits, manifests the meaning of dialectic and contradiction, once extracted from Hegel. He demonstrates this in all 3 volumes, and his Theories of Surplus Value, he demonstrates this in The 18th Brumaire; he certainly demonstrates this in his correspondence; he demonstrates in the Grundrisse; he demonstrates this in his youth, his middle age, his later works, his last years.

I would point you to Vol 3. of Capital, the analysis of the Trinitarian Formula. Read that and tell me that Marx has rejected dialectic-- has annihilated Hegel. Marx compresses his method into a single sentence in this part of volume 3, his dialectic, when he writes:

"But all science would be superfluous, if the appearance, the form, and the nature of things were wholly identical."

That comrades is a vote of confidence in dialectic.

Writing of the political economists' direct identification of labor with wages of labor or price of labor [and of course this identification again collapses the elemental form, the appearance "labor" with the actual historical, social organization of the labor, which is wage-labor], Marx says:

"But here the vulgar economist is all the more satisfied, because it brings him to deep understanding of the bourgeois, that he pays for labor with money, and because the fact that this formula contradicts the conception of value relieves him from the obligation to understand value."

The fact that the bourgeois economist cannot apprehend the social organization of labor at the root of value, is no error of consciousness-- it is the product of relations of production, of private property.

The fact that Marx can and does apprehend the nature [origin, or essence, as the origin is historical essence for Marx's analysis] of value because it is not identical with its form [or appearance, for form is historical appearance for Marx] is also no fluke, no accident of consciousness-- it is consciousness driven forward by the development of the means of production themselves; it is consciousness driven forward by the conflict between the means and relations of production Marx writes of so clearly in The German Ideology; a conflict he and Engels experienced directly in the failed revolutions of 1848.

As for that overcited review in the preface... what is Marx actually saying? He's saying one reviewer actually understood that Marx was analyzing historically specific, inherent, determining laws of capitalist production. And what does the reviewer say? The reviewer says:

"Of still greater moment to him is the law of their [the social "phenomena" of capitalism] variation, their development, i.e. of their transition from one form into another, from one series of connections into another."

The reviewer is explaining Marx's dialectic without using the word dialectic, [probably because he doesn't yet know how to coquette]. But as we used to say back in the day-- "There It Is."

Certainly Marx's dialectic is different from Hegel's, and Marx explains how and where, and that is not at all the explanation that Rosa would like to be with her changing coquetted words etc.etc.

The reviewer says:

"But it will be said, the general laws of economic life are one and the same, no matter whether they are applied to past or present. This Marx directly denies. According to him such abstract laws do not exist. On the contrary, in his opinion every historical period has laws of its own.. As soon as sciety has outlived a given period of development and is passing over from one given stage to another, it begins to be subject to other laws...."

Laws, development, outliving, historical periods? What does anybody think this is but dialectic refounded, regrounded in the material of history, the social organization of labor?

That's why Marx quotes the reviewer; that's why he follows it with his careful, qualified discussion of Hegel and dialectic. He doesn't coquette with that analysis, he says he coquetted with forms peculiar to Hegel in the chapter on the theory of value in the first volume. Value? Value! remember that? Remember that in vol 3 Marx again returns to the analysis of value and the inability of the vulgar economist to apprehend the nature of value but only its appearance?


This, all of this, is why history, actually grappling, apprehending the contents of Capital not through word-games, not through parsing commas in prefaces, but by application of that to the task of teasing apart the manifold appearances from the essence, the form from the content in the living history of capitalism is so essential.

And if you have nothing to say about that because others say it quite nice for you, then you literally have nothing to say about Marx.

[Luís Henrique]

Nice idea but it would run the risk of becoming an underhand tactic of closing down debate against Rosa.
But what debate?

Start closing threads that degenerate, and perhaps people will stop degenerating threads.

Luís Henrique

[Jean-Luc Lebris]

I don't disagree with you on many of your points, what I cannot wrap my head around is this; If, as you say, Marx has 'regrounded' the Dialectic Method into "the dialectic in the material determinants of existence-- that is in the real content of history which is the social organization of labor." Then what is left of the Hegelian dialectic? Certainly none of the Hegelian apriori laws and philosophy are left. I think it can be shown that the don't make a lick of sense anyways. At best there seems to be a set of specific, and historical, shared terminology between Marx and Hegel. Beyond the terms being employed as semi-effective 'metaphors', what use are they to Marx's, now, redefined materialist conception of the dialectic method? IE - Historical Materialism.

[S.Artesian]

A.Would you say a system where two differing, and opposing elements, capital and wage-labor exist in, and only in the organization of each other is dialectic?

B.Would you say a system that is driven forward, manifesting this contradiction at its heart, so that each development is an expansion of the contradiction, is dialectic?

C.Would you say a system, where the very thing, item, conflict, etc. that drives it to its greatest expansion, its triumph, is at one and the same time the same thing, item, conflict, law, determinant that determines its contraction, its failure, is dialectic.

D.Would you say that a system where one class can only emancipate itself by

1. overthrowing the opposite-identity class
2. emancipating all others from the domination of those social relations of production
3. creating the conditions for its own abolition as a class

is a dialectic?

For A, B, C, D contain the unity of opposites, the contradiction between appearance and essence, the "becoming," the self-limit to the potential by the actual, the negation and the negation of the negation.

In short, comrade, to make sense of Hegel, you have to know your Marx. Whenever anybody asks me if he or she should read Hegel-- I tell him or her-- not until you've read the 3 volumes of Capital, the Grundrisse, the 18th Brumaire, The German Ideology, and Marx's Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right.

[Jean-Luc Lebris]

"For A, B, C, D contain the unity of opposites, the contradiction between appearance and essence, the "becoming," the self-limit to the potential by the actual, the negation and the negation of the negation."

So are you saying that Marx is applying these mystical Hegelian laws to his dialectic method? I thought we had established that Marx's dialectic method, is substantially, if not directly the opposite of the Hegelian dialectic method. If Marx hasn't jettisoned the apriori laws Hegel pontificated about, then what has eliminated? what is the 'rational kernal'? If your argument, that it is applied, that sounds pretty thin.

It seem fairly obvious that Marx is using the word 'contradiction' not in the Hegelian sense, but imported as more of a substitute for the word 'conflict'. One can read and understand Marx fine, with enough patience and education, without knowing a single ounce of Hegelian mumbo-jumbo whatsoever. When one reads Hegel, and attempts to derive a social or universal theory from it, one cannot makes heads or tails of it, because it doesn't make any type of 'formal' sense. And can be proven so.

Why would Marx strip it, or 'reground' it, if it did? At best (unfortunately) he is using familiar and imported terminology from the time period and a little bit of what influenced him in his youth is seeping through.

Having read Hegel and subscribing to it, I suppose one might go through the world, life or society, seeing dialectical contradictions everywhere. Similarly a painter might walk around town seeing alizarin crimson, all over the place. Just as if you were a christian, having read the bible, you may see the spirit of god as you walk down Broadway.

[S.Artesian]

But you didn't answer the question-- would you call those things I listed "dialectic"?

[Jean-Luc Lebris]

But you didn't answer the question-- would you call those things I listed "dialectic"?

If you mean by "dialectic", that ABCD are conclusions derived from application of Marx's Dialectic Method (ie Historical Materialism), then I guess if you wanted you could call them 'dialectic'. If you are talking about the following Hegelian 'laws';

"For A, B, C, D contain the unity of opposites, the contradiction between appearance and essence, the "becoming," the self-limit to the potential by the actual, the negation and the negation of the negation."

Then I would say no. At least the above do not conform to Marx's regrounded-rational-kernel-direct-opposite version of the dialectic method.

[Jean-Luc Lebris]

That is unless you have some other copy of Capital I don't have and/or you have a huge mountain of evidence to prove Hegel's concepts, besides the rather weak examples, bzd logic and poor refutations provided by leading dialeticians.

[S.Artesian]

And more to the point, comrade, do those things describe capitalism accurately? Do ABCD in their presentation outline the determinants of capitalism?

I do not know how you can claim:

"At best (unfortunately) he is using familiar and imported terminology from the time period and a little bit of what influenced him in his youth is seeping through."

When Marx discusses his ongoing connection and appreciation of Hegel throughout his correspondence with Engels and others.. There's the letter of Kugelmann about Lange June 27, 1870, where he writes:

"Lange is naive enough to say that I 'move with rare freedom' in empirical matter. He hasn't the least idea that this 'free movement in matter' is not but a paraphrase for the method od dealing with matter-- that is, the dialectical method.

In 1866 he wrote to Engels:

"I am also studying Comte now, as a sideline, because the English and French make such a fuss about the fellow. What takes their fancy is the encyclopedic touch, the synthesis. But this is miserable compared to Hegel. (Although Comte, as a professional mathematicsn [sic] and physicist was superior to him, i.e superior in matters of detail, even here Hegel is infinitely greater as a whole.) And this Positivist rot appeared in 1832."

And in 1868 to Engels:

...I also discovered that Duhring is a great philosopher. For he has written a Natural Dialectic against Hegel's "unnatural" one. Hence these tears. The gentlemen in Germany (all except theological reactionaries) think Hegel's dialectic is a "dead horse." Feuerbach ha much to answer for in this respect.

Marx maintains a continuous "dialogue" with Hegel through his correspondence with Engels. He says to Engels that it is Dietzgen's bad luck that it is precisely Hegel he has not studied. Does that sound like someone junking Hegel, tossing him into a garbage can, finding the study of Hegel worse than worthless but in fact a betrayal of class?

Can anyone think this is all just "fooling around," "coquetting," "youthful exuberance seeping in? Is that the rational, comprehensive explanation that makes sense of the remarkable number of exceptions to such a faux-rational, faux comprehensive explanation?

Or is it not more rational, more comprehensive to investigate fully Marx's use of Hegel, Marx's application of dialectic? I mean where are the exceptions to that type of rational explanation. Where are the letters to Engels consigning Hegel to the dustbin? Where are the letters analyzing Hegel's mysticism, his mumbo-jumbo, his irrationality?

Has anybody found a single letter of Marx's saying anything like that?

You think Marx can be understood perfectly well without reading Hegel? That may be so, and if it is so, it is a credit to Marx's study of Hegel, his ability to make the "obscure" notions like those in my A, B, C, D come alive as part of history, as the living social relation of production. Yes perhaps you or anybody can understand Marx or Capital without understanding Hegel, but Marx would never have been able to write Capital without understanding Hegel, without that rational dialogue , critique, and extraction that become the material of Marx's dialectic.

[S.Artesian]

You guess, comrade? You guess that's a dialectic? Don't you know if it is or isn't, if it takes over, recovers from Hegel, certain critical elements?

Here's an idea, why don't you explain the elements of historical materialism to us? Why don't you explain the laws of capitalist development, of production, accumulation, of value; of the rate of profit to fall-- why don't you explain the trinitarian formula and show not only how these things do not make use of any of Hegel's components, but how Marx's findings are directly counter to the components-- like the existence of opposites in the organization of each other; like the existence of contradiction (and I have explained what a dialectical contradiction is, several times, in numbered format as a matter of fact to Louise).

Show us how Marx's analysis in Capital, does away with those things. All I've seen from a party who will remain nameless is distortion of Marx's writings in a preface. I haven't seen her take any part of Capital, and show how Marx's analysis of surplus value, the commodity, accumulation, the rate of profit, merchant's capital, overproduction actually demolishes Hegel.

If you like, I can lend you my 3 Volume edition of Capital,-- hell my whole library of Marx just so you'll know we're reading the same Marx.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S. Artesian:


"Lange is naive enough to say that I 'move with rare freedom' in empirical matter. He hasn't the least idea that this 'free movement in matter' is not but a paraphrase for the method of dealing with matter-- that is, the dialectical method

And, we already know that the 'dialectic method' contains no Hegel at all, since Marx told us -- in a published work.


In 1866 he wrote to Engels:

"I am also studying Comte now, as a sideline, because the English and French make such a fuss about the fellow. What takes their fancy is the encyclopedic touch, the synthesis. But this is miserable compared to Hegel. (Although Comte, as a professional mathematicsn [sic] and physicist was superior to him, i.e superior in matters of detail, even here Hegel is infinitely greater as a whole.) And this Positivist rot appeared in 1832."

As I noted earlier, one can call Hegel 'greater' than X, Y. or Z, but still disagree with him 100%. I think Plato is one of the greatest philosophers in history, but disagree with 99.99% of the things he says.


And in 1868 to Engels:

...I also discovered that Dühring is a great philosopher. For he has written a Natural Dialectic against Hegel's "unnatural" one. Hence these tears. The gentlemen in Germany (all except theological reactionaries) think Hegel's dialectic is a "dead horse." Feuerbach has much to answer for in this respect.

Marx does not here deny Hegel is a 'dead dog'.


Marx maintains a continuous "dialogue" with Hegel through his correspondence with Engels. He says to Engels that it is Dietzgen's bad luck that it is precisely Hegel he has not studied. Does that sound like someone junking Hegel, tossing him into a garbage can, finding the study of Hegel worse than worthless but in fact a betrayal of class?

Well we need not speculate here since Marx very helpfully added a reviewer's comments to the second edition of Das Kapital -- his most important work (and published, unlike these letters you keep quoting) -- which he tells us is a summary of 'the dialectic method', in which there is no trace of Hegel.

And it is a betrayal of the working class to recommend the writings of ruling-class mystics (like Hegel), just as it would be if you were to try to push the Bible on workers.


Can anyone think this is all just "fooling around," "coquetting," "youthful exuberance seeping in? Is that the rational, comprehensive explanation that makes sense of the remarkable number of exceptions to such a faux-rational, faux comprehensive explanation?

Once more, we cam look to Marx here for guidance.

And what does he tell us?

Oh yes: he was indeed 'coquetting' with Hegelian jargon. And this was in a published source, too.


Or is it not more rational, more comprehensive to investigate fully Marx's use of Hegel, Marx's application of dialectic? I mean where are the exceptions to that type of rational explanation. Where are the letters to Engels consigning Hegel to the dustbin? Where are the letters analyzing Hegel's mysticism, his mumbo-jumbo, his irrationality?

Has anybody found a single letter of Marx's saying anything like that?

He didn't need to write to Engels telling him this, since he made it clear in Das Kapital. What more do you need?


You think Marx can be understood perfectly well without reading Hegel? That may be so, and if it is so, it is a credit to Marx's study of Hegel, his ability to make the "obscure" notions like those in my A, B, C, D come alive as part of history, as the living social relation of production. Yes perhaps you or anybody can understand Marx or Capital without understanding Hegel, but Marx would never have been able to write Capital without understanding Hegel, without that rational dialogue , critique, and extraction that become the material of Marx's dialectic.

Marx certainly thought so, or he would not have added that summary to the second edition of Das Kapital, which contained not one atom of Hegel.


Here's an idea, why don't you explain the elements of historical materialism to us? Why don't you explain the laws of capitalist development, of production, accumulation, of value; of the rate of profit to fall-- why don't you explain the trinitarian formula and show not only how these things do not make use of any of Hegel's components, but how Marx's findings are directly counter to the components-- like the existence of opposites in the organization of each other;

No need to; very able Marxist economists have done this for us.

You'll be asking me to re-invent the wheel next.


like the existence of contradiction (and I have explained what a dialectical contradiction is, several times, in numbered format as a matter of fact to Louise).

And I responded to that 'explanation' and showed it failed miserably -- here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1563239&postcount=79

You have been told this once already:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1564201&postcount=96


Show us how Marx's analysis in Capital, does away with those things. All I've seen from a party who will remain nameless is distortion of Marx's writings in a preface. I haven't seen her take any part of Capital, and show how Marx's analysis of surplus value, the commodity, accumulation, the rate of profit, merchant's capital, overproduction actually demolishes Hegel.

The honourable mystic is referred to my response above.


If you like, I can lend you my 3 Volume edition of Capital,-- hell my whole library of Marx just so you'll know we're reading the same Marx.

I actually possess all 50 volumes of the MECW, plus a couple of thousand books on Marx and Marxism. So, thanks, but no thanks.

[S.Artesian]

Your narcissism really interferes with your apprehension of reality, Rosa. I wasn't addressing you in that post, but rather Jean-Luc.

You bring nothing to the table Rosa except the same old same old sophistry and distortion.

You want to respond-- respond to the challenge-- explain historical materialism to us; give us the elements; show where Marx's critical concepts do not only NOT extract dialectic from Hegel, but actually refute Hegel.

But as Bonnie said to Clyde in one of the ten great US movies, Bonnie and Clyde,

"Your advertising is just dandy. No one would ever guess you aint got a thing to sell."

[S.Artesian]

Oh yes, and by the way, Rosa's post is exactly what I mean when I describe her as a tic--a spasm, a twitch, a repetition compulsion. She jerks herself into the same old contortions every time,

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S.Artesian


Your narcissism really interferes with your apprehension of reality, Rosa. I wasn't addressing you in that post, but rather Jean-Luc.

I know, but whoever you were addressing, you need putting right (or, rather, left).


You bring nothing to the table Rosa except the same old same old sophistry and distortion.

Maybe so, maybe not, but whatever I do or do not bring 'to the table', it exposes your class treachery.


You want to respond-- respond to the challenge-- explain historical materialism to us; give us the elements

No need to, Marx explained HM to us well enough.


show where Marx's critical concepts do not only NOT extract dialectic from Hegel, but actually refute Hegel.

I don't think Marx did refute Hegel, but I have:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2003_01.htm

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2008_03.htm

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Outline_of_errors_Hegel_committed_01.htm

What Marx did, according to his own words (not mine), was to extirpate Hegel from HM.


But as Bonnie said to Clyde in one of the ten great US movies, Bonnie and Clyde,

"Your advertising is just dandy. No one would ever guess you aint got a thing to sell."

Maybe so, maybe not, but at least I am not trying to sell class-compromised, mystical ideas, like you.

And ones, even now, you can't explain, but which you have merely accepted on faith alone.


Oh yes, and by the way, Rosa's post is exactly what I mean when I describe her as a tic--a spasm, a twitch, a repetition compulsion. She jerks herself into the same old contortions every time,

Just like you have to keep repeating this, you mean?

[Luís Henrique]

Cardinal Henrique
The proper form is Luís, Cardinal Henrique.

I make a point of the comma.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Maybe so, maybe not, but whatever I do or do not bring 'to the table', it exposes your class treachery.

You have already been warned not to do this.

Bob?


No need to, Marx explained HM to us well enough.

However, he also explained to us, "well enough", that his method doesn't have "an atom" of Hegel, and this does not hinder you from repeating your "explanation" of how Marx's method doesn't have an atom of Hegel.

Do you think we are intelligent enough to understand Marx's explanation of "HM" without your enlightened help, when we can't understand how his method doesn't contain an atom of Hegel?

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

So are you saying that Marx is applying these mystical Hegelian laws to his dialectic method?
What Marx says is that his method is the opposite of Hegel's method, because Hegel starts with the Spirit, while he, Marx, starts with material reality. This would seem to mean (and that is the most common interpretation) that Hegel's form, emptied from its idealist content, would be appropriate to a materialist approach of reality.

This, of course, has a problem: since Hegel was not only an idealist, but a precise kind of idealist, he could make no distinction between material reality and the Spirit (more than that there is between essence and apparence). In fact to Hegel material reality is nothing more than a manifestation of the Spirit, and consequently is a form of discourse. Thence all real is rational, and material reality is logic.

But to a materialist those considerations do not apply. Material reality being not the discourse of the Being, but entirely independent from Mind, either with or without capital letters, it does not need conform to any abstract logic. Thence the "orthodox" Engelsian interpretation of Marx's method is problematic, as "Dialectics of Nature" probably shows better than any criticism of it can.

So, if Marx was "putting Hegel's dialectics on its feet", he would necessarily be making a different operation, too - separating methodology from ontology. This seems to me the distinctive opposition between Marx and Hegel.

Now if to Hegel his "mystic laws" were manifest in the real world as emanations of the rationality of the Spirit, this doesn't mean that those "laws" weren't essentially methodologic, because for Hegel methodology and ontology cannot be clearly delimited from each other. But if those laws are essentially methodologic, then they may perhaps apply, not to the "Spirit" in XVIII century-esque capital letters, but to the ordinary functioning of mind - as logic, not ontologic, "laws". That should be the point of contention, in my opinion.

If so, what it needs to be discussed is whether human reasoning moves from the consideration of one aspect of the "state of affairs" to its "opposite", and then to the dissolution of this "opposition" into some kind of "unity" that makes the "opposition" meaningless, thus allowing a "superation" of the antinomy (to make a practical example, in a war between Russia and Germany, do people weigh the merits of Russian motives/pretexts for going into war, then their German "opposites", to then understand that both are manifestations of a single underlining fact - nationalism?)

Luís Henrique

[Hit The North]

You have already been warned not to do this.

Bob?


Luis, it just happens to be Rosa's opinion that anyone who accepts the materialist dialectic of Marx is a class traitor. Of course this means that 90+% of all Marxists, including the founders, are class traitors in her view. This really only makes sense when we realise that Rosa is a spokesperson for a bourgeois point of view and that, as Marx points out in Das Kapital, the dialectic "is a scandal and abomination to bourgeoisdom and its doctrinaire professors". Rosa's obsession merely proves that this is as true today as it was in 1873.

However, I'm not sure that it is in my power to issue warning points against her sincere opinion, no matter how eccentric and idiotic it may be.

In my opinion she is no revolutionary and behaves in this forum like a typical troll. There may be a case for raising a thread in the CC for her banning on this basis. But I think we both realise that this would be doomed to failure due to the support she receives from the anarchists there.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

His Hot-Air-Ness:


The proper form is Luís, Cardinal Henrique.

I make a point of the comma.

Yes, you'd be the expert on this, wouldn't you?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

His-Bleeding-Obviousness:


However, he also explained to us, "well enough", that his method doesn't have "an atom" of Hegel, and this does not hinder you from repeating your "explanation" of how Marx's method doesn't have an atom of Hegel.

But only to those those with more holes in their memory than a rusty sieve


Do you think we are intelligent enough to understand Marx's explanation of "HM" without your enlightened help, when we can't understand how his method doesn't contain an atom of Hegel?

I am less sure of this every day -- and you are only accelerating the process.

[S.Artesian]

Rosa,

Second time you made that slander. You must feel safe behind your computer.

Hey, I have an idea, send me your address-- you know where you live in the UK, because I get there on business a couple of times a year.

I would love to make time for you to expose my class treachery face to face. Know what I mean there, Ms. Stalin?

We could have a drink, I'll buy. I'll even mix it for you. You get to keep the glass. Promise.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Luis-The-Traditionalist:


What Marx says is that his method is the opposite of Hegel's method, because Hegel starts with the Spirit, while he, Marx, starts with material reality. This would seem to mean (and that is the most common interpretation) that Hegel's form, emptied from its idealist content, would be appropriate to a materialist approach of reality.

This, of course, has a problem: since Hegel was not only an idealist, but a precise kind of idealist, he could make no distinction between material reality and the Spirit (more than that there is between essence and apparence). In fact to Hegel material reality is nothing more than a manifestation of the Spirit, and consequently is a form of discourse. Thence all real is rational, and material reality is logic.

But to a materialist those considerations do not apply. Material reality being not the discourse of the Being, but entirely independent from Mind, either with or without capital letters, it does not need conform to any abstract logic. Thence the "orthodox" Engelsian interpretation of Marx's method is problematic, as "Dialectics of Nature" probably shows better than any criticism of it can.

So, if Marx was "putting Hegel's dialectics on its feet", he would necessarily be making a different operation, too - separating methodology from ontology. This seems to me the distinctive opposition between Marx and Hegel.

Now if to Hegel his "mystic laws" were manifest in the real world as emanations of the rationality of the Spirit, this doesn't mean that those "laws" weren't essentially methodologic, because for Hegel methodology and ontology cannot be clearly delimited from each other. But if those laws are essentially methodologic, then they may perhaps apply, not to the "Spirit" in XVIII century-esque capital letters, but to the ordinary functioning of mind - as logic, not ontologic, "laws". That should be the point of contention, in my opinion.

If so, what it needs to be discussed is whether human reasoning moves from the consideration of one aspect of the "state of affairs" to its "opposite", and then to the dissolution of this "opposition" into some kind of "unity" that makes the "opposition" meaningless, thus allowing a "superation" of the antinomy (to make a practical example, in a war between Russia and Germany, do people weigh the merits of Russian motives/pretexts for going into war, then their German "opposites", to then understand that both are manifestations of a single underlining fact - nationalism?).

This is the traditional tale, but we need not speculate about what Marx 'really' meant when he wrote Das Kapital, since he very helpfully added a summary of the 'dialectic method', from which every trace of Hegel had been removed -- quoted earlier in this thread.

So, according to this summary, the 'opposite' of Hegel's method is no Hegel at all.

If you need to have this explained to you again, you only have to say "Pretty please!"

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S.Artesian:


Rosa,

Second time you made that slander. You must feel safe behind your computer.

Hey, I have an idea, send me your address-- you know where you live in the UK, because I get there on business a couple of times a year.

I would love to make time for you to expose my class treachery face to face. Know what I mean there, Ms. Stalin?

We could have a drink, I'll buy. I'll even mix it for you. You get to keep the glass. Promise.

Ah, the usual dialecticians' veiled threat of violence, I see.

You can be our very own Beria after the revolution.

[S.Artesian]

Well, Bob, if Rosa is a troll, and a bourgeois one at that, and yet you can't ban her, then exactly what is the point of being a moderator? What is the point of having a moderator?

If I called Rosa a two-bit scum sucking gob of spit who smells like a rancid piece of rat fat, if I did that which I never would because while Rosa pretends to be just such a two-bit scum sucking gob of spit and acts as if she were indeed covered with rancid rat fat, I know that deep down inside is a wonderful warm human being just dying to make contact with the rest of us, would I be subject to banning, expulsion, etc.?

To call her a scum sucking gob of spit,therefore, would be a failure to see the totality of Rosa, the contradiction between her appearance and her essence, and not grasp the potential for the negation of her apparent scum sucking through the development of that contradiction.

So perhaps we need to show Rosa more love.

On the other hand, a phrase Marx employed so coquettedly, perhaps you are what you eat, so perhaps Rosa really is a scum sucking gob of spit who defends her empty-headedness by accusing others of class treachery.

You make the call.

As for me, if you can't or won't take appropriate action against a bourgeois troll who slanders others as "class traitors" then I can only say what Hudson said in Aliens:

"How do I get out of this chicken-shit outfit?"

How do I remove my profile, end my association in any form with the "Revleft-- we welcome bourgeois trolls website"?

Anyone with that information, please contact me.

[Luís Henrique]

His Hot-Air-Ness:

Yes, you'd be the expert on this, wouldn't you?
I try, I try...

Luís Henrique

[S.Artesian]

What threat, Rosa? I want to take you out for a drink? Paranoid, Rosa? I mean just because you are paranoid, doesn't mean the world isn't out to get you, of course.

But really, I think it would be fun to have a drink with you, watch you kick back, unwind, loosen up, let your hair down etc.

I am sincerely sincere, Rosa. Trust me.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


Luis, it just happens to be Rosa's opinion that anyone who accepts the materialist dialectic of Marx is a class traitor. Of course this means that 90+% of all Marxists, including the founders, are class traitors in her view. This really only makes sense when we realise that Rosa is a spokesperson for a bourgeois point of view and that, as Marx points out in Das Kapital, the dialectic "is a scandal and abomination to bourgeoisdom and its doctrinaire professors". Rosa's obsession merely proves that this is as true today as it was in 1873.

So, you have done a survey of all Marxists, living and dead, to obtain this 'statistic' have you?

And, may I remind you that the comrades here with whom I am debating are trying to sell the ideas of a quintessentially bourgeois philosopher and mystic to us -- I am not.

Lest you say I am trying to do the same with Wittgenstein, I'm not. I have nowhere mentioned his ideas in this thread, and my argument here does not depend on anything he said. But, even if it were, his method, advocated by Marx, reveals the non-sense in the metaphysical guff one finds in Hegel, and all other traditional philosophers:


The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life. -- The German Ideology -- Bold added.
BTB:


In my opinion she is no revolutionary and behaves in this forum like a typical troll. There may be a case for raising a thread in the CC for her banning on this basis. But I think we both realise that this would be doomed to failure due to the support she receives from the anarchists there.

Most of the anarchists here hate me, so I do not know where you got that idea from.

And, if one has to be a gullible and sheep-like dialectician to be a revolutionary, then I am no revolutionary.

But, since Marx and I both reject the 'dialectic' in the form you lot have had rammed down your throats, then, according to you, he was no revolutionary either!

And, since you disagree with theorists like Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin, Trotsky, Cliff, Harman..., on the nature of the 'dialectic', you are already 90% of the way in my direction.

[Luís Henrique]

His-Bleeding-Obviousness:

But only to those those with more holes in their memory than a rusty sieve

I am less sure of this every day -- and you are only accelerating the process.
If a Wittgensteinean shouts the truth out loud in a place populated by deaf Marxists, is s/he still shouting? Is it still the truth?

Luís Henrique

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S.Artesian:


Well, Bob, if Rosa is a troll, and a bourgeois one at that, and yet you can't ban her, then exactly what is the point of being a moderator? What is the point of having a moderator?

Because not only can BTB not prove this, it is not possible to prove a falsehood.

Other than with out-right Nazis, the only way to have someone banned here is to win a vote in the CC, and he knows he can't do that in this case (and for the above reasons).

You dialecticians, I know, prefer the gulag to the vote.


If I called Rosa a two-bit scum sucking gob of spit who smells like a rancid piece of rat fat, if I did that which I never would because while Rosa pretends to be just such a two-bit scum sucking gob of spit and acts as if she were indeed covered with rancid rat fat, I know that deep down inside is a wonderful warm human being just dying to make contact with the rest of us, would I be subject to banning, expulsion, etc.?

To call her a scum sucking gob of spit, therefore, would be a failure to see the totality of Rosa, the contradiction between her appearance and her essence, and not grasp the potential for the negation of her apparent scum sucking through the development of that contradiction.

So perhaps we need to show Rosa more love

You can call me what you like -- what you can't do is defeat me in argument, as we have seen repeatedly in this thread.

That is why you are now trying to distract attention from that fact.


On the other hand, a phrase Marx employed so coquettedly, perhaps you are what you eat, so perhaps Rosa really is a scum sucking gob of spit who defends her empty-headedness by accusing others of class treachery.

You make the call.

As for me, if you can't or won't take appropriate action against a bourgeois troll who slanders others as "class traitors" then I can only say what Hudson said in Aliens:

"How do I get out of this chicken-shit outfit?"

How do I remove my profile, end my association in any form with the "Revleft-- we welcome bourgeois trolls website"?

Anyone with that information, please contact me.

Ah, but if we have put up with you, plainly we'll put up with practically anyone.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Luis-the-Loud:


If a Wittgensteinean shouts the truth out loud in a place populated by deaf Marxists, is s/he still shouting? Is it still the truth?

Eh?


I try, I try...

Yes, you are very trying.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

S.Artesian:


What threat, Rosa? I want to take you out for a drink? Paranoid, Rosa? I mean just because you are paranoid, doesn't mean the world isn't out to get you, of course.

But really, I think it would be fun to have a drink with you, watch you kick back, unwind, loosen up, let your hair down etc.

I am sincerely sincere, Rosa. Trust me.

I only drink with non-class-traitors.

[Luís Henrique]

Luis-The-Traditionalist:

This is the traditional tale, but we need not speculate about what Marx 'really' meant when he wrote Das Kapital, since he very helpfully added a summary of the 'dialectic method', from which every trace of Hegel had been removed -- quoted earlier in this thread.

So, according to this summary, the 'opposite' of Hegel's method is no Hegel at all.

If you need to have this explained to you again, you only have to say "Pretty please!"

We have many times debunked such interpretation, which depends on the misreading of a comma.

And Commanism isn't a very interesting political position...

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Luis-the-Loud:

Eh?

Oh, sorry. I should have reckoned this one would be above your comprehension skills.


Yes, you are very trying.We are, my dear, we are.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

I only drink with non-class-traitors.
I should have guessed. Drinking alone is a sure sign of alcoholism.

Luís Henrique

[S.Artesian]

You know what I find amazing? Rosa is doing this all by herself. With almost no visible support.

I mean Jean-Luc shows up, writes one post, responds to another in which he says "I guess you could call that [meaning Marx's method and analysis of capital] dialectic, and then when challenged to show us where in Marx's masterpiece, the critical categories, explorations, annihilate Hegel, he falls silent.

Rosa then takes up again the tattered banner of bourgeois twitdom, and says, of course,-- no need to do that, Marx has done it.

So where are the legions of supporters rallying to the cause?

Does anybody know how I can get out of this chicken-shit outfit?

Come on Bob, lend a hand here, and help me out, literally.

[Hit The North]

Does anybody know how I can get out of this chicken-shit outfit?



You can request that an administrator delete your account.


Come on Bob, lend a hand here, and help me out, literally.

It would be better if you helped yourself and stopped taking this so seriously.

So what if some isolated, marginalised crank calls you a "class traitor"? Why don't you just ignore her like I now do?

FFS, I'm not paid to do this and the incessant whining from you kids is making me neglect the job I am paid for.

So...

Thread closed.